The Paris Key

by Juliet Blackwell

  All those years Genevieve thought she had failed at making her mom happy. But . . . maybe there was no making Angela happy. At least, nothing a little girl could have done.

  Chapter Fifty-six

  On the pretense of doing more work in Philippe’s house, Genevieve returned to the basement and descended through the trapdoor to the catacombs. She made her way into the secret chamber, holding close her newfound knowledge about her mother and her suspicions about what had happened while she was in Paris.

  She cast the flashlight beam around the little room, taking in the mural and the pile of clothes and the book from her uncle’s collection.

  Killian said he tried not to touch things when he crept around abandoned houses: His role was to photograph things just as they were. But Genevieve was not bound by such rules. Especially in this case.

  She looked through the pile of clothes and spied the edge of an envelope sticking out from under a plaid shirt. She pulled it out.

  There was a single name on the front: Xabi.

  Genevieve perched on the side of the cot, taking a moment to turn the envelope over in shaking hands before ripping it open.

  In the envelope was money—U.S. dollars and old French francs—and a note.

  Dear Xabi,

  You are right: I have to return to my husband, to my son. To America. My place is there, with them.

  I want you to know that you gave me grace, and light, and warmth. Our love has brought me new breath, new life. I don’t think I will ever understand how I could feel such things with you; and I know I will never forget them. Just as I will never forget you.

  We will live together, forever, in my memories.

  Your Angel

  Genevieve folded the note and put it back in the envelope. Turned out her flashlight. Allowed the inky blackness to flow over and around her, the silence complete and total. In the absence of sensation, her mind came up with images: a young Angela, flushed with excitement, gilded with candlelight; her handsome lover leaning toward her, sharing a glass of wine.

  A sudden sound at the door made her start. She jumped up and snapped on her light.

  Killian.

  “You scared me to death!” Genevieve said, hand over her pounding heart.

  “Sorry about that. You gave me a bit of a fright as well, I gotta say.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Philippe let me in on his way out. I found the trapdoor in the cave open, so I assumed you were down here. But then it was so dark I figured I was wrong. Hey . . . are you all right?”

  Genevieve had stumbled back into the cramped chamber. The weight of the place was crashing in on her. Everything it might mean. Everything it did mean. She knew it in her soul.

  “I’m just . . . I’m putting a few things together. About my mother. And . . . my father.”

  “Down here?”

  “It’s a little complicated.”

  The handsome terrorist, hiding from the authorities. Her wounded mother bringing him supplies. The tears she would have shed. The betrayal she must have felt.

  “You said you think she was unhappy when she came to Paris?” said Killian. “That she might have been thinking of leaving your father?”

  His voice was very gentle, filling the space, pushing the ghosts away. Genevieve had not realized until just that moment how alone she had felt and how comforting it was to have him there, his presence at her side.

  She nodded. “But there’s more. Remember the newspaper we found down here? About the bombing? An American tourist was hurt.”

  “I don’t understand. You think . . . was that your mother?”

  She nodded.

  “But what does this have to do with this room?”

  “I think the man named in the paper, Xabier Etxepare, and my mother were lovers. Maybe she was trying to stop the bombing, something like that.” It was too much to think that her mother, Angela Martin, could have actually been party to the crime, wasn’t it? Impossible. She, who had gone to rallies at San Quentin to protest the death of a stranger; who thought it was wrong to kill, no matter what.

  It took a moment for Genevieve to realize that Killian hadn’t replied. She looked up to see his gaze, troubled, lingering on her.

  “You’re saying your mother was involved with a terrorist?”

  “No, of course not. I think . . . maybe there’s another explanation.”

  He was looking around the room now. Putting things together.

  “So you’re thinking they hid down here, afterward?”

  “Maybe. He must have, anyway. Like I said, she was hurt in the explosion.”

  “Was she charged?”

  “What? Of course not. She wasn’t involved in the bombing; she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. In fact . . . maybe she went there that day because she was trying to stop it.”

  A long pause. “Then who was helping him down here? Philippe?”

  “No. He wasn’t even in Paris at that time. My mother—Angela—was helping them pack up the house . . .”

  “So your mother let him in? Helped him?”

  “Why are you saying it like that? You didn’t know her. She was the gentlest—”

  “You told me yourself you have only a child’s memories of her. Even terrorists can make caring parents, I imagine.”

  A dark veil of shame and anger and pain settled over her. Genevieve wanted to turn off all the lights, to remain here in the dark of the anonymous chamber, alone. After a long moment, Killian let out a long breath that seemed to reverberate off the stone walls.

  “I’m sorry, Genevieve. It’s just . . . I’m Irish. The whole terrorism thing is a bit fraught for us. I had friends on both sides, and I know there are several sides to every story, but I’ve had enough of that crap to last more than a lifetime.”

  Genevieve remained perched on the side of the iron bed. She found herself wondering: Was this what happened? Had her mother—sweet, depressed, anguished Angela Martin—actually taken up with a terrorist while in Paris and had a relationship with him? A relationship that had produced a child?

  Killian was staring at her, awaiting her response. Leaning up against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. Not taking pictures now, Genevieve thought. Finally, something to stop that incessant clicking.

  “We’re talking about my mother,” she said, voice sounding hollow yet echoing off the walls. “Not some radical extremist. She couldn’t have been involved in anything like that. She was from a little town in Mississippi,” she concluded, as though Angela’s origin meant she must be an innocent in all of this.

  “By way of California,” Killian said. “The area you’re from in California is known for some pretty radical politics, Berkeley and all that. Especially back in the day.”

  “Yes, but . . .” Genevieve thought of the faraway looks her mother would get when gazing out the kitchen window. Still, the idea of her mother taking part in something like this felt as unreal as Genevieve’s own adolescent fantasies of returning from Paris a trained superhero.

  But then again . . . would Genevieve ever have guessed that her biological father was anyone other than the silent, stoic Jim Martin?

  Had Jim always been so somber? Or was it partly the result of the knowledge that his wife had had an affair in Paris, had become pregnant, and that his daughter was flesh of another man?

  Pasquale had been saying as much, hadn’t she?

  Suddenly everything was falling into place. The strange, almost formal relationship between her parents—Angela and Jim, because Jim would always be her father no matter what. The argument between Dave and Angela, a disagreement so profound that it would lead to more than fourteen years of estrangement between beloved siblings. Her mother’s secretive ways.

  Had they all known about this?

  Jim must have known. He must have. And
Nick certainly hadn’t seemed bowled over by her query, so he must have had an inkling, at least. Still, she was willing to bet neither man knew anything about Genevieve’s biological father’s involvement in a national incident.

  Genevieve had wanted to know what Angela was like, not as a mother, but as a woman. And now she had found out.

  “Be careful what you wish for.”

  Killian broke into her reverie. “Listen, Genevieve, I didn’t mean to say—”

  “That’s fine,” Genevieve cut him off. “Please, would you mind leaving me alone now?”

  “Genevieve—”

  “Please don’t say anything more. You don’t know me, you didn’t know my mother, and you have no right to be here. The catacombs are interdits.”

  “I—”

  “Go. Please.”

  • • •

  Genevieve remained in the tiny room for . . . how long was it? She lost track of time down in the dark. Breathing the musty, stale air. Imagining her mother coming to visit him here. At what point had her mother decided to return to the States? And how had she kept such a secret from Genevieve her whole life?

  How could she?

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  Genevieve walked.

  Raindrops fell, hours passed. Still, she didn’t stop.

  Finally she looked up to find herself at the foot of Montmartre. The rain was coming down now in earnest, in the way of Parisian rain: soaking, easily as plentiful as the feeble spray from the shower in Pasquale and Dave’s place. Her hair fell across her face in wet locks. She was grateful for the storm; the streets were empty of tourists and even the heartiest of street performers, and her tears were camouflaged by the raindrops.

  “I love you, a bushel and a peck . . .”

  She couldn’t get that damned song out of her head. Over and over, her mother’s voice, haunting her. Genevieve let out an angry sob.

  Was everything a lie? Just as Jason’s affair had made Genevieve doubt all that had gone before in their relationship, finding this out about Angela made Genevieve second-guess everything she had known and thought about her mother. The absolute devotion Angela had apparently felt for her husband and children. The hundreds of cupcakes baked and lasagnas made; the warm, soft hugs; the scent she carried, of cinnamon and citrus and vanilla. The sensation of utter safety and unconditional love Genevieve had felt when the carpool let her out by the side of the road and she would head down the long dirt driveway and spot her mother weeding the carrot patch.

  Angela would smile, let the hoe fall, and open her arms wide, so Genevieve could run and fling herself into her soft embrace.

  All of it. Now she thought about the times when that faraway look came into her mother’s eyes. Those mornings she couldn’t get out of bed, when Jim would rouse Genevieve and tell her Angela had one of her sick headaches, that she would need to get her own breakfast. Even the protests at the prison: Were they due to deeply held moral beliefs, or simply the result of Angela thinking of her criminally inclined Parisian lover?

  Genevieve’s father. Her father.

  No. Her dad was Jim Martin: steady, quiet Jim. She had railed against his stoicism, his lack of emotion, but now . . . Nick was right. She knew her brother was right: a real father is the man who raises a child, stands by her, cares for her, bakes nearly inedible, lopsided birthday cakes with bright blue frosting after her mother dies.

  This was even truer if Jim knew about the circumstances of Genevieve’s conception. He had to know. Surely. Genevieve had tried to piece the dates together, but she didn’t have all the details. She supposed Angela could have been pregnant before she left for Paris, or that she could have told her husband that, anyway. A few weeks here or there; did men even notice such things when holding their newborn babies?

  But surely Angela had told him the truth, had confessed to her affair. Surely she had enough regard for her husband, the father of her son, to tell him the truth. To allow him to decide for himself.

  “A bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck . . .”

  She started running up the steps of Montmartre. Shallow puddles splashed underfoot. The funicular was out of service since only an idiot would be out sightseeing in weather like this. So the only sound was the steady hiss of the rain, the squelch of her soles on the stone steps.

  One flight of stairs; two. Genevieve gulped in air, couldn’t get enough. Her thighs burned; the air started to sting in her lungs. Her temples began to throb. She welcomed the pain. When she couldn’t run anymore she kept climbing, stubbornly; she wouldn’t stop. Ignoring the nausea engulfing her, gasping for breath, then crying.

  Her mother’s singing voice kept repeating in her head. “A bushel and a peck though you make my heart a wreck . . .”

  Genevieve let out the sobs in earnest as she mounted the steps. No one could hear. She was as alone at that moment as she had ever been in her life: the streets and sidewalks empty of tourists and locals, artists and street performers. No cars, no funicular. The Sacré-Coeur up in front of her, crowning the hill, gleaming like a white beacon in the storm.

  One more flight. The final one, to the doors of the basilica.

  She made a deal with herself: She would allow herself to wail and moan all the way there, screaming out her rage and pain and abandonment. And that would be the end of it. The end.

  Her mother had lied to her. Her father and brother, too, probably. And, she supposed, Dave and Pasquale. Lie upon lie. Just like Notre-Dame, built stone by stone over a temple to Jupiter. Or Philippe’s house, constructed and reconstructed according to the whims of fashion, each era meant to hide the last. Her whole life was built on prevarication and mendacity. No wonder she could never open up to truly share her heart with her husband; no wonder he had turned to another. She had no one, and nothing.

  Even her damned, hard-to-spell, impossible-to-pronounce name was rooted in this; she knew that now. Her mother’s “vacation” in Paris.

  Finally the basilica doors loomed up in front of her. Bronze with a verdigris patina; lion’s heads holding huge brass rings.

  Nauseated, she couldn’t breathe deeply enough, gulping in the wet air.

  She turned to look out at the city laid out before her.

  “I love you, a bushel and a peck . . .”

  Genevieve sank onto the top step, every ounce of energy gone. She was probably still crying, but she couldn’t even manage the sobs anymore. Just sniffling, face wet. Gulping for air.

  After a moment, she felt a hand on her shoulder.

  “Est-ce que je peux vous aider?”

  Genevieve looked up to see a gray-haired, black-robed priest. He was asking if he could help her. Heedless of the rain that streamed down his face, he kept speaking in French that she couldn’t completely understand, and didn’t try to. His presence was enough.

  “Ça va, mademoiselle?” Are you okay? he asked.

  She nodded.

  “Do you need a doctor, or spiritual help?”

  She shook her head.

  He sat down next to her, as if he were her only friend, looking out over the city. Even the gray veil of rain couldn’t erase the panoramic view of the Eiffel Tower, the opera house, and Notre-Dame.

  They sat side by side for several minutes in silence.

  Finally, in French Genevieve didn’t even realize she knew, she asked the priest: “Do you believe in ghosts, Father?”

  He took a moment, as though considering her query. Then he tapped his heart and said: “Oui, dans le coeur.”

  Yes, in the heart.

  Genevieve had been carrying her mother’s ghost with her. She had wanted to know the woman Angela was, and now she knew the truth: Her mother had been a woman capable of deep passion. She had loved, and loved deeply. She had also been unhappy and deeply flawed; disloyal, and torn between two worlds. And yet all of it—the distant looks and the van
illa-scented hugs, the crippling depression and the silly songs—contributed to the person she had been. She had made her own choices. That was how her story ended, as Catharine would say: as a wife and mother who had an affair in Paris, who had paid a heavy price, and who had returned to the little farm in Petaluma to do her best.

  It had never been Genevieve’s job to make her mother happy. Only Angela could do that.

  And with that, Genevieve let go of her mother’s ghost.

  She fancied she could see it, like a figure from a Chagall painting, floating down the steps of Montmartre, taking a turn around the opera house, drifting toward the Seine, and finally disappearing amid the medieval spires of Notre-Dame, where, Genevieve supposed, it would commune with the gargoyles for some time to come.

  Chapter Fifty-eight

  Genevieve’s new clothes fit into one of her uncle’s heavy old suitcases. She chose a favorite lock and decided to keep the set of Victorian keys. She had packed up Dave’s notes and the special locks and keys for his book and was leaving the packages with Sylviane, who had promised to send them to her.

  With Catharine’s permission, of course. “I am sorry you are not staying, my little cousin. But I think perhaps the dreams will lead you back one day. I hope so,” she had said.

  “You want me to just leave things locked up?”

  “Yes, please take anything you want, and I will have one of the neighbors assess the rest to see if they can sell any of it. It will work itself out.”

  “Okay, good. I’m . . . I’m sorry about all this.”

  “Me, too. Very sorry. You know, the bureaucracy in France is difficult, but I’m sure we could figure out a way around it. Surely you could get certified—”

  “It doesn’t matter anymore,” Genevieve had interrupted. “I’m going anyway.”