Sarah's Key

by Tatiana de Rosnay

  He stopped, his chin still pressed down onto his chest. I tried to imagine what it must have been for him, to carry that secret for so long.

  "And Mame?" I asked, determined to push Edouard on, to drag the entire story out.

  He shook his head slowly.

  "Mame was not there that afternoon. My father did not want her to find out what had happened. He felt overcome with guilt, he felt it was his fault, even if, of course, it wasn't. He couldn't bear the idea of her knowing. And perhaps judging him. He told me I was old enough to keep a secret. She must never know, he said. He seemed so desperate, so sad. So I agreed to keep the secret."

  "And she still doesn't know?" I whispered.

  He sighed again, deeply.

  "I'm not sure, Julia. She knew about the roundup. We all knew about the roundup, it had happened right in front of us. When she came back that evening, my father and I were so strange, peculiar, that she sensed something had taken place. That night, and many nights after, I kept seeing the dead boy. I had nightmares. They lasted till well into my twenties. I was relieved to move out of that apartment. I think maybe my mother knew. I think maybe she knew what my father went through, how he must have felt. Maybe he ended up telling her, because it was too much for him to bear. But she never talked to me about it."

  "And Bertrand? And your daughters? And Colette?"

  "They know nothing."

  "Why not?" I asked.

  He put his hand on my wrist. It was frozen, its cold touch seeping through my skin like ice.

  "Because I promised my father, on his deathbed, that I would not tell my children or my wife. He carried his guilt within him for the rest of his life. He could not share it. He could not speak to anyone about it. And I respected that. Do you understand?"

  I nodded.

  "Of course."

  I paused.

  "Edouard, what happened to Sarah?"

  He shook his head.

  "Between 1942 and the moment on his deathbed, my father never uttered her name. Sarah became a secret. A secret I never stopped thinking about. I don't think my father ever realized how much I thought of her. How his silence regarding her made me suffer. I longed to know how she was, where she was, what had happened to her. But every time I tried to question him, he would silence me. I could not believe that he no longer cared, that he had turned the page, that she no longer meant anything to him. It seemed like he had wanted to bury it all in the past."

  "Did you resent him for that?"

  He nodded.

  "Yes, I did. I resented him. My admiration for him was tarnished, forever. But I could not tell him. I never did."

  We sat in silence for a little moment. The nurses were probably beginning to wonder why Monsieur Tezac and his daughter-in-law were sitting in that car for so long.

  "Edouard, don't you want to know what happened to Sarah Starzynski?"

  He smiled for the first time.

  "But I wouldn't know where to begin," he said.

  I smiled, too.

  "But that's my job. I can help you."

  His face seemed less haggard, less ashen. His eyes were suddenly bright, full of a new light.

  "Julia, there's one last thing. When my father died nearly thirty years ago, I was told by his attorney that a number of confidential papers were being held in the safe."

  "Did you read them?" I asked, my pulse quickening.

  He looked down.

  "I glanced through them, briefly, just after my father's death."

  "And?" I said, breathlessly.

  "Just papers about the boutique, stuff concerning paintings, furniture, silverware."

  "That's all?"

  He smiled at my blatant disappointment.

  "I believe so."

  "What do you mean?" I asked, baffled.

  "I never had another look. I went through the pile very fast, I remember being furious there was nothing there about Sarah. I resented my father all the more."

  I bit my lip.

  "So you're saying you're not sure there is nothing there."

  "Yes. And I've never checked since."

  "Why not?"

  He pressed his lips together.

  "Because I didn't want to be certain there was nothing there."

  "And feel even worse about your father."

  "Yes," he admitted.

  "So you don't know what's in there for sure. You haven't known for thirty years."

  "No," he said.

  Our eyes met. It only took a couple of seconds.

  He started the car. He drove like a bat of hell to where I assumed his bank was. I had never seen Edouard drive so fast. Drivers brandished furious fists. Pedestrians scooted aside with terror. We did not say a word as we hurtled along, but our silence was a warm, excited one. We were sharing this. We were sharing something for the first time. We kept looking at each other, and smiling.

  But by the time we found a place to park on the avenue Bosquet and rushed to the bank, it was closed for lunch hour, another typically French custom that aggravated me, particularly today. I was so disappointed I could have cried.

  Edouard kissed me on both cheeks, pushed me gently away.

  "You go, Julia. I'll come back at two, when it opens. I'll call if there is something there."

  I walked down the avenue and caught the 92 bus, which would take me straight to the office, over the Seine.

  As the bus drove away, I turned around and saw Edouard waiting in front of the bank, a solitary, stiff figure in his dark-green coat.

  I wondered how he would feel if there was nothing in the safe about Sarah, just masses of papers about old master paintings and porcelain.

  And my heart went out to him.

  A

  RE YOU SURE ABOUT this, Miss Jarmond?" my doctor asked. She looked up at me from over her half-moon glasses.

  "No," I replied truthfully. "But for the moment, I need to make those appointments."

  She ran her eyes over my medical file.

  "I'm happy to make the appointments for you, but I'm not certain you are entirely comfortable with what you have decided."

  My thoughts ran back to last evening. Bertrand had been exceptionally tender, attentive. All night long, he had held me in his arms, told me again and again he loved me, he needed me, but that he couldn't face the prospect of having a child so late in life. He felt that growing older would bring us closer, that we would be able to travel often, while Zoe was becoming more independent. He had envisaged our fifties like a second honeymoon.

  I had listened to him, tears running down my face in the dark. The irony of it all. He was saying everything, down to the very word, that I had always dreamed of hearing him say. It was all there, the gentleness, the commitment, the generosity. But the hitch was that I was carrying a baby he did not want. My last chance of being a mother. I kept thinking of what Charla had said: "This is your child, too."

  For years, I had longed to give Bertrand another child. To prove myself. To be that perfect wife the Tezacs approved of, thought highly of. But now I realized I wanted this child for myself. My baby. My last child. I longed for its weight in my arms. I longed for the milky, sweet smell of its skin. My baby. Yes, Bertrand was the father, but this was my child. My flesh. My blood. I longed for the birth, for the sensation of the baby's head pressing down through me, for that unmistakable, pure, painful sensation of bringing a child into the world, albeit with pain, with tears. I wanted those tears, I wanted that pain. I did not want the pain of emptiness, the tears of a barren, scarred womb.

  I left the doctor's office and headed toward Saint-Germain, where I was meeting Herve and Christophe for a drink at the Cafe de Flore. I hadn't planned to reveal anything, but they took one look at my face and gasped with concern. So out it came. As usual, they had opposite opinions. Herve believed I should abort, my marriage being the most important matter. Christophe insisted that the baby was the crucial point. There was no way I could not have that child. I would regret it for the rest of my lif
e.

  They became so heated that they forgot my presence and started to quarrel. I couldn't stand it. I stopped them by banging on the table with my clenched fist, making the glasses rattle. They looked at me with surprise. That wasn't my style. I excused myself, said I was too tired to go on discussing the matter, and left. They gawked at me, dismayed. Never mind, I thought, I'd make it up another time. They were my oldest friends. They'd understand.

  I walked home through the Luxembourg Garden. No news from Edouard since yesterday. Did that mean he had been through his father's safe and found nothing concerning Sarah? I could imagine the resentment, all the bitterness resurfacing. The disappointment, too. I felt guilty, as if this was my fault. Rubbing salt on his old wound.

  I walked slowly through the winding, flowery paths, avoiding joggers, strollers, elderly people, gardeners, tourists, lovers, tai-chi addicts, petanque players, teenagers, readers, sunbathers. The usual Luxembourg throng. And so many babies. And of course, every single baby I saw made me think about the tiny being I carried within me.

  Earlier on that day, before the doctor's appointment, I had talked to Isabelle. She had been particularly supportive, as usual. The choice was mine, she had pointed out, no matter how many shrinks or friends I could talk to, no matter whose side I was looking at, whose opinion I was examining. It was my choice, bottom line, and that was precisely what made it all the more painful.

  There was one thing I did know: Zoe had to be kept out of this, at all costs. She would be on vacation in a couple of days, ready to spend part of the summer with Charla's children, Cooper and Alex, on Long Island, then with my parents, in Nahant. In a way, I was relieved. This meant the abortion would take place while she was away. If abortion was what I had finally agreed to.

  When I got home, there was a large beige envelope on my desk. Zoe, on the phone with a friend, shouted from her room that the concierge had just brought it up.

  No address, only my initials scrawled in blue ink. I opened it, pulled out a faded red file.

  The name "Sarah" leaped out at me.

  I knew instantly what the file was. Thank you, Edouard, I said to myself fervently, thank you, thank you, thank you.

  I

  NSIDE THE FILE WERE a dozen letters, dating from September 1942 to April 1952. Thin blue paper. Neat round handwriting. I read them carefully. They were all from a certain Jules Dufaure, who lived near Orleans. Each brief letter was about Sarah. Her progress. Her schooling. Her health. Polite, short sentences. "Sarah is doing well. She is learning Latin this year. She had chicken pox last spring." "Sarah went to Brittany this summer with my grandsons and visited the Mont-Saint-Michel."

  I assumed Jules Dufaure was the elderly gentleman who had hidden Sarah after her escape from Beaune-la-Rolande, and who had taken her back to Paris, the day of the horrible discovery in the cupboard. But why was Jules Dufaure writing to Andre Tezac about Sarah? And in such detail? I couldn't understand. Had Andre asked him to?

  Then I found the explanation. A bank statement. Every month Andre Tezac had his bank send money to the Dufaures, for Sarah. A generous sum, I noticed. This had gone on for ten years.

  For ten years, Edouard's father had tried to help Sarah, in his own way. I could not help thinking of Edouard's immense relief when he had discovered all this locked away in the safe. I imagined him reading these very letters, and making this discovery. Here was his father's redemption at long last.

  I noticed that the letters from Jules Dufaure were not sent to the rue de Saintonge, but to Andre's old shop on the rue de Turenne. I wondered why. Probably because of Mame, I supposed. Andre had not wanted her to know. And he had also not wanted Sarah to know that he was giving her this money on a regular basis. Jules Dufaure's neat script read: "As you have requested, your donations have not been revealed to Sarah."

  At the back of the file, I came upon a wide manila envelope. I pulled out a couple of photographs. The familiar slanted eyes. The pale hair. How she had changed since that school portrait of June '42. There was a palpable sadness about her. The joy had gone out of her face. She was no longer a child. A tall, slim young woman of eighteen or so. The same sad eyes, despite the smile. A couple of young men of her age were with her on a beach. I turned the photo over. Jules's neat handwriting read: "1950, Trouville. Sarah, with Gaspard and Nicolas Dufaure."

  I thought of all she had gone through. The Vel' d'Hiv'. Beaune-la-Rolande. Her parents. Her brother. Too much to bear for a child.

  I was so wrapped up in Sarah Starzynski I didn't feel Zoe's hand brush my shoulder.

  "Mom, who's that girl?"

  I hastily covered the photos with the envelope, muttering something about a tight deadline.

  "Well, who is it?" she asked.

  "Nobody you know, honey," I said, hurriedly, pretending to tidy my desk.

  She sighed, then said in a clipped, grown-up voice, "You're weird at the moment, Mom. You think I don't know, you think I don't see. But I see everything."

  She turned and walked away. I felt guilt wash over me. I rose, caught her up in her bedroom.

  "You're right, Zoe, I'm weird at the moment. I'm sorry. You don't deserve this."

  I sat down on her bed, unable to face her wise, calm eyes.

  "Mom, why don't you just talk to me? Just tell me what's wrong."

  I felt a headache coming on. One of those powerful ones.

  "You think I won't understand, because I'm only eleven, right?"

  I nodded.

  She shrugged.

  "You don't trust me, do you?"

  "Of course I trust you. But there are things I can't tell you because they are too sad, too difficult. I don't want you to be hurt by these things, the way they hurt me."

  She touched my cheek gently, her eyes glistening.

  "I don't want to be hurt. You're right, don't tell me. I won't sleep if I know. But promise me you'll be all right soon."

  I took her in my arms, held her tight. My beautiful, brave girl. My beautiful daughter. I was lucky to have her. So lucky. Despite the headache's onslaught, my thoughts lurched back to the baby. Zoe's sister or brother. She knew nothing. Nothing of what I was going through. Biting my lip, I fought back tears. After a while, she slowly pushed me away and looked up at me.

  "Tell me who that girl is. That girl in the black-and-white photos. The ones you were trying to hide from me."

  "All right," I said. "But it's a secret, OK? Don't tell anyone. Promise?"

  She nodded.

  "Promise. Cross my heart and all that."

  "Remember I told you I found out who lived in the rue de Saintonge apartment before Mame moved in?"

  She nodded again.

  "You said a Polish family. A girl my age."

  "Her name is Sarah Starzynski. Those were photos of her."

  Zoe narrowed her eyes at me.

  "But why is it a secret? I don't get it."

  "It's a family secret. Something sad happened. Your grandfather doesn't want to talk about it. And your father doesn't know anything about her."

  "Did something sad happen to Sarah?" she said carefully.

  "Yes," I replied quietly. "Something very sad."

  "Are you going to try and find her?" she asked, sobered by my tone.

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  "I want to tell her that our family is not what she thinks. I want to explain what happened. I don't think she knows what your great grandfather did to help her. For ten years."

  "How did he help her?"

  "He sent her money, every month. But he asked that she not be told."

  Zoe was silent for a moment.

  "How are you going to find her?"

  I sighed.

  "I don't know, honey. I just hope I do. After 1952, there is no trace of her at all in this file. No more letters, no more photos. No address."

  Zoe sat on my knees, pressing her slim back against me. I took a whiff of her thick, shiny hair, the familiar sugary Zoe-like smell that always reminded me of
when she was a toddler, and smoothed a couple of unruly strands down with my palm.

  I thought of Sarah Starzynski, who had been Zoe's age when horror came into her life.

  I closed my eyes. But I could still see the moment when the policemen tore the children from the mothers at Beaune-la-Rolande. I could not get the image out of my mind.

  I held Zoe close, so close she gasped.

  O

  DD, THE WAY DATES go. Ironic, almost. Tuesday, July 16, 2002. The Vel' d'Hiv' commemoration. And precisely the date of the abortion. It was to take place in some clinic I had never been to, somewhere in the seventeenth arrondissement, near Mame's nursing home. I had asked for another date, feeling July 16 was overloaded with meaning, but it had not been possible.

  Zoe, fresh out of school, was leaving for Long Island via New York with her godmother, Alison, one of my old friends from Boston, who often flew between Manhattan and Paris. I was to join my daughter and Charla's family on the twenty-seventh. Bertrand did not take his vacation till August. We usually spent a couple of weeks in Burgundy, in the old Tezac house. I had never fully enjoyed my summers there. My parents-in-law were anything but relaxed. Meals had to be eaten on time, conversations kept mild, and children were seen and not heard. I wondered why Bertrand always insisted that we spent time there instead of going on a vacation, just the three of us. Luckily, Zoe got on well with Laure and Cecile's boys, and Bertrand played endless tennis matches with his brothers-in-law. And I felt left out, as usual. Laure and Cecile kept their distance, year after year. They invited their divorced girlfriends and spent hours by the pool tanning studiously. The thing was to have brown breasts. Even after fifteen years I still could not get used to it. I never bared mine. And I felt I was laughed at behind my back for being the prude americaine. So I spent most of my days walking in the forest with Zoe, going on exhausting bike rides till I felt I knew the area by heart, and showing off my impeccable butterfly stroke while the other ladies languidly smoked and tanned in their minimal Eres swimwear that never went in the pool.