Where the Light Falls

by Allison Pataki

  Jean-Luc nodded, vaguely recalling the lessons of his boyhood. “Well, Gavreau, I have to admit: I’m impressed.”

  “I’m not completely useless, after all. But come now, St. Clair. It’s one o’clock in the afternoon.” Gavreau, rather than showing signs of leaving his employee’s desk, now perched himself on its edge. “Have you eaten anything all day?”

  “No, actually, I haven’t,” Jean-Luc answered, realizing for the first time how hungry he was.

  “I’ll buy you lunch. It’s the least I can do for the…what are they calling you now? Oh yes, ‘the most promising young lawyer in Paris.’ ”

  —

  The day was a pleasant one, with golden sunlight bathing the square in a gentle warmth. They walked west along the river to the Saint-Jacques neighborhood and chose a table on the terrace of the Café du Progrés for lunch.

  Gavreau ordered two thin stews, a loaf of bread with something advertised as liver pâté, and a carafe of watered-down wine. “So have you heard from the poor bastard?”

  “Which bastard are we talking about?” Jean-Luc asked.

  “The captain. Valière, or de Valière, whatever his name is.”

  “Not since he left for the coast. But I saw him off just a few weeks ago.”

  Gavreau leaned back as the waiter delivered the basket of bread, its crust a dark, flaky brown. “How’d he feel about everything? True, exile is not death, but it is still exile.”

  Jean-Luc thought about the question. “I’m not certain. He was very distracted whenever we spoke. Perhaps a bit nervous. This war…” Jean-Luc paused, glanced over his shoulder, and decided against continuing on. Not that he even knew how to express his own troubled thoughts on this Revolution and what had become of it.

  “What’s he got to be nervous about? He gets to keep his head.” Gavreau tucked his linen napkin into his collar the way Marie arranged Mathieu’s bib and scooped himself a generous portion of the pâté. “And from everything I’ve heard about his family, I’m sure his relations have a hoard of treasure hidden away somewhere.”

  “Not nervous for himself. Nervous because his brother and his fiancée have gone missing.”

  Gavreau raised his eyebrows, holding his knife to hover above his pâté. “Are they dead?”

  “I don’t know,” Jean-Luc said, lost in thought. He picked up a knife and sliced himself a thin piece of bread. “Her uncle is the general. Murat. The one who brought the charges against André.”

  “Well now, perhaps he’s in more trouble than I thought.”

  Jean-Luc nodded.

  Gavreau, having gobbled up his half of the pâté, served himself more. “Now the young man’s fate rests in hands that are not your own, my friend. So you should stop your worrying. I’ve never known a man to talk himself into trouble and court misery the way you do.”

  Jean-Luc thought about this, realizing that, for once, he agreed with his superior.

  “He’s alive,” Jean-Luc reasoned. “That counts for something. And I’d take my chances among the Italians or Austrians over the—” Jean-Luc stopped short and surveyed his surroundings once more. Convinced no one within earshot was eavesdropping, he continued, “I’d sooner face war with those people than stand before that godforsaken tribunal. After facing down Murat, Lazare, and the wrath of the Committee, I think Valière might welcome the sight of a foreign land.”

  Gavreau wiped his lips with the back of his palm. “Have you soured on our Revolution?”

  Jean-Luc leaned his head to the side, looking out over the crowded square. He sighed. “Perhaps it’s simply human nature on which I have soured.”

  “People are like the apples you find in a harvest bushel.” Gavreau shrugged. “Some are right and good, and some are rotten.”

  Jean-Luc narrowed his eyes, surprised by his colleague’s rare display of wisdom.

  “And some are like me,” Gavreau continued. “You just eat around the rotten parts.”

  “Or leave you for the worms.” Jean-Luc flashed his boss a grin.

  “Say, you ever hear from the big shot lawyer?”

  “Guillaume Lazare?” Jean-Luc asked, his heart beginning to race.

  Gavreau nodded.

  “Not since André’s trial.” Jean-Luc pushed his stew away, his appetite suddenly gone. “I wrote him a note following it, trying to be cordial. But he never replied.”

  “He’s probably upset that your client escaped his grasp. Not something he’s accustomed to, from the sound of it.”

  —

  After the afternoon meal Jean-Luc crossed the Seine to the Left Bank. His steps fell lightly on the stone bridge as he watched the gentle afternoon light glint off the river’s surface, shimmering streaks that ebbed and dissipated along with the shifting current.

  It was still light out when he turned onto his street. He walked slowly, feeling, for the first time in a while, a sense of ease. He would be home before his boy went to bed. He would be home in time to have supper with Marie and hear about her day.

  Through the opened window of the ground floor he spotted Madame Grocque sweeping the front room of her tavern. “Citizeness Grocque.” Jean-Luc tipped his hat to the thick-shouldered woman. She didn’t reply but rather looked with her beady eyes toward a carriage parked on the nearby corner.

  Dread shot through Jean-Luc, a cold blast of ice melting the warm glow he’d felt just a moment earlier. As if awaiting his arrival, the carriage door opened and out stepped the narrow figure of Guillaume Lazare.

  “Citizen St. Clair.” The man’s yellow hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail, his skin blanched an unnatural chalky color. Only his lips were red, an artificial painted red, and they now curled into an unconvincing smile.

  “Citizen Lazare.” Jean-Luc paused where he stood. He threw a quick glance up in the direction of their garret, and he instantly regretted it. The old man’s eyes followed.

  “You look surprised to see me, citizen.”

  “A little, yes,” Jean-Luc replied.

  “Have I caught you at a bad time?”

  “No, no, it’s just…how can I help you?”

  “Oh, I don’t need your help, citizen.” Lazare braided his long, spindly fingers together in front of his waist. “I’ve simply come to congratulate you on your recent victory.”

  Jean-Luc forced a smile, but he was certain that the old man could sense the tension in the gesture. “Thank you, Citizen Lazare. That’s kind of you.”

  “I’ve always said I appreciate a challenge.” The old man narrowed his eyes, studying Jean-Luc as if the young man were some dense bit of text in which the meaning was not immediately clear. After several moments, Lazare sighed. “Well, I should let you go. I am sure your wife is anxious to have you back, now that the business of that unfortunate trial is over.”

  “Indeed.” Jean-Luc stepped up to the doorway, feeling as if he could not be done with this interview quickly enough. “Thank you again for your well wishes.” He accepted Lazare’s outstretched hand—as flimsy as paper in his grip, the old man’s skin cold.

  “Please give my best to your family.” With that, Lazare threw one more glance upward toward the apartment before turning back to the carriage. The footman opened the door but Lazare paused, gazing back to Jean-Luc. “Oh, and by the way, I thought it was interesting that she was visiting. I had never realized that you were so friendly with Captain Valière. Perhaps it was naïve of me to think that you were simply serving as his counsel. I suppose we all have our secrets, hmm?” Lazare paused, his eyes gliding up toward the garret window, which Marie must have opened, for now the sound of Mathieu’s distant laughter rained down over the street. Lazare turned back toward Jean-Luc.

  “I took you for an honest man, St. Clair. Imagine my disappointment if it turns out that I have been deceived.”

  “Citizen.” Jean-Luc, visibly shaken by that last remark, fumbled to offer some reply. “I assure you, I have no idea to what you’re referring.”

  “Peace! All is well, m
y friend. I am but a man of the law; the personal affairs of others are no concern of mine.” With that, Lazare put on his cap and climbed into the coach. The driver’s whip cracked and the carriage lurched forward. Lazare called out from his retreating window. “Though, of course, I cannot speak for her uncle, General Murat. Evening to you and your family, citizen!”

  Jean-Luc entered his apartment, his heart racing. Instantly, he knew. Knew exactly to whom Lazare had been referring.

  “What are you doing here?” Jean-Luc asked, staring into the beautiful face of a young blond woman who he guessed must be Sophie Vincennes.

  “Jean-Luc St. Clair.” Marie stepped forward, putting her hands on her hips. “Is that any way to speak to a guest?”

  “Papa!” Mathieu ran toward his father, tripping over his own feet so that he tumbled before reaching Jean-Luc. The lawyer leaned over and scooped up his son and walked toward the two women.

  “I apologize; I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just that I’m stunned to see you. You must be Sophie?”

  The woman nodded.

  “What are you doing here?” Jean-Luc repeated his earlier question.

  “What has come over you?” Marie walked around the table where she had been depositing plates of dinner food and approached her husband. “Where are your manners?”

  But Jean-Luc kept his focus fixed firmly on their guest. Sophie lifted her gaze, her tight facial expression showing fear, but also hope. “I had nowhere else to go. André told me you were one of the few who could be trusted.”

  “Papa! Mademoiselle Sophie is going to draw me a flying balloon!” Mathieu pounded his fists excitedly on his father’s shoulders. “Mademoiselle Sophie, please draw a flying balloon!”

  “Not now, Mathieu.” Marie took her son from Jean-Luc and placed him on the floor before his toys. “First Mademoiselle Sophie is going to have dinner with Mama and Papa.” And then, turning her dark eyes on her husband with a look that told him he had better agree, she asked: “Isn’t that right, Jean-Luc?”

  He sighed, nodding. “Yes, of course.”

  Dinner was a strained affair. Marie did her best to engage Sophie on lighthearted topics, such as Mathieu’s refusal to eat certain foods and Madame Grocque’s ongoing feud with each dog in the neighborhood. But Sophie’s laughs, though polite, were forced. Jean-Luc said very little.

  “Have you heard from André?” he asked as they cleared the table following the meal.

  Sophie shook her head. “He’s had no idea where I was for months.”

  “Where were you exactly?” Jean-Luc asked, as Marie listened in, stacking a pile of dirty dishes for scrubbing.

  “At first,” Sophie spoke quietly, evidently fearful that someone might hear her, even here, “Remy found me a place in an old château about three days’ ride south of the city, outside Le Mans. The family had departed in the first wave of emigrants and I suppose those who chose to remain were…arrested…so the château was empty save for an old caretaker and his blind wife. The couple took me in, allowing me to pay for a bedroom. They didn’t ask any questions.”

  An old château near Le Mans—had it been one of the properties he had inventoried? Jean-Luc wondered. He didn’t recall a château outside Le Mans. His memory didn’t hold the faces of any ghosts related with that place.

  “And what became of you, once you were settled at the abandoned château?” Marie’s question pulled Jean-Luc back to the room, to the dinner table.

  “Remy deposited me there, then returned to his garrison outside Versailles. He would visit every few weeks, bringing any extra rations or resources scrounged from his already starving camp. And then one day…” Sophie’s voice trailed off, and her eyes stared past her two eager listeners, through the garret wall and beyond.

  “Yes?”

  “He found me there. Or, at least, came close to finding me.” At this point in her story, Sophie’s voice broke and she cupped her face in her hands. Marie and Jean-Luc exchanged a glance, allowing her this pause in the narrative.

  Eventually she resumed. “Remy helped me flee. That was the worst night of my life,” Sophie whispered, her blue eyes turning to Mathieu as if unwilling to let him hear. “I rode through the woods all night on that horse. I didn’t stop once. Just shortly after daybreak, I came out on a lane. That was about the time the horse lay down; his legs just buckled beneath us. He wouldn’t get up, poor creature. If I’d had a pistol, I would have shot him dead, put him out of his misery.”

  Marie paused her scrubbing, allowing the wet dishrag to trickle a slow stream of suds onto the wooden floor as she listened, her face creased in sympathy.

  “Do you know…what happened to Remy?” Jean-Luc asked.

  Sophie simply shook her head, her whole body sagging in on itself as her light eyes filled with moisture. “No,” she said, suppressing a shudder of tears. “I haven’t seen him since that night.”

  Marie crossed herself while Jean-Luc sighed. Knowing what he did of Murat, he had to assume the worst. After a long silence, he looked back toward Sophie. “So how did you move without a horse?”

  “I knew I had to get off the road. I had no idea how close my uncle and his men were at that point. But since I had no money, I couldn’t stay at an inn. Besides, I didn’t wish for word to spread about a strange, disheveled-looking woman traveling alone, so I spent the entire day making my way slowly through the woods on foot, just hugging the side of the road.

  “That evening I came upon a farm. It seemed like a remote enough place and I could tell it was inhabited, so I made my way into the barn. I was so hungry by then. But even more than that, I was tired. I had ridden all night and walked all the following day. I don’t know that I’ve ever felt so weary. I found an empty stall in the back and I lay down there and fell into a deep sleep. That was where I spent the second night.”

  Jean-Luc looked at Sophie, amazed. She may have been well bred—genteel even—but she had a strength that he had not expected.

  “I awoke the next morning to the confused whispers of an old man. The farmer. He had a pitchfork held aloft, but I sensed from his face that he was not a wicked person. I clasped my hands together, praying for mercy, and he lowered it immediately. He brought me into the farmhouse, where I met his wife and daughter, who gently insisted that I eat breakfast.”

  “Thank God they were friendly.” Marie sighed.

  “Friendly doesn’t begin to describe them,” Sophie said, her voice with a choking quality even as she forced herself to continue. “Saintly, in fact. That’s where I’ve been, ever since that day I first wrote André. Or, wrote you, I should say.”

  “He received your letter the day of the trial,” Jean-Luc said, nodding. He remembered vividly how shaken André had appeared in court. He had presumed it to be the man’s nerves over facing the tribunal and possibly the guillotine, and did not realize until later he was reacting to the contents of Sophie’s letter.

  “They weren’t suspicious of you?” Marie asked. “These farmers?”

  Sophie shook her head. “They asked where I had come from. I told them I was from Paris, and they didn’t ask more after that. They said that everyone from Paris had a sad story these days, and that they had no need to hear a sad story. They took me in as if I were their own blood. I worked, too, of course, offering whatever assistance I could. Helped in the kitchen and with the children, and sometimes in the kitchen garden. I was so grateful just to be safe, and fed.”

  “Until now. What happened?” Jean-Luc asked.

  “Until just a week ago,” Sophie answered. “They must have been more nervous than they had let on, because just last week, they sat me down and asked me to leave.”

  “What reason did they give?” Marie ran her fingers distractedly through her brown hair, pulling it away from her face.

  “I mentioned their eldest daughter. A sweet girl,” Sophie said, a sad smile pulling on her lips. “She had a suitor, a young man from a nearby village who wanted to marry her. But he could not while t
here was a stranger living in their house. I think they were afraid that I might be noticed and bring suspicion on the whole family.” Sophie paused. “With the new decrees passed, anyone who so much as suspected them could denounce the entire family for harboring ‘traitors,’ and we know what would happen then.” Sophie looked as if she would be sick. For a moment Jean-Luc feared she might be, and he leaned forward as if to support her. But the shadow slowly passed and she composed herself. “I couldn’t blame them, and I told them as much.”

  All three of them sat in silence after Sophie had finished, with only the sound of Mathieu’s voice infiltrating their somber circle as he played with his few toys.

  Eventually, Sophie looked up. “I had no money. No food. I had nowhere else to go. My parents are dead. Remy is missing. I knew André had been in Paris. Other than him, I have no one.”

  “But…” Jean-Luc stammered, “how did you get past the barriers?”

  Sophie laughed, a mirthless laugh. “It’s easy enough getting into the city. It’s getting back out that’s the hard part.”

  Later that night, after Mathieu had fallen asleep and Sophie had been provided with blankets and a small pillow for sleeping, Jean-Luc and Marie retreated with their sleeping toddler into the bedroom. It hadn’t been quite the celebratory evening of family reconciliation he had been hoping for.

  They undressed in silence, putting Mathieu on his tiny pallet in the corner before getting into their own nightclothes. For the first time in a long while, Marie was awake as Jean-Luc climbed into bed. She curled up in a ball and faced him, her face just inches from his on the lumpy pillow. “Is there no other way? Nothing we can do?”

  “It’s not safe,” Jean-Luc whispered, sighing. He had told Marie that he did not think they could offer a place to Sophie in their home. That she would have to go elsewhere.