Out of the tail of his eye, Linden notices a person approaching swiftly from his left. The elevator door slides open with a beep; he steps forward, meaning to get in, but the blurred contour of the individual drawing near him comes into focus and he turns his head. A tall, dark-haired man stands next to him, so close, he can breathe his familiar odor. He needs a couple of seconds to understand who is stretching his arms out to him. Light-headed with happiness, Linden pulls Sacha close, his disbelieving fingers reaching up to caress strands of the long black hair. Sacha’s arms intertwine behind his back, clasping him tight. The past week has been a jumble of raw emotions fueled by the rising, wild river, seven strange days that have tampered with Linden’s acuity. He tries to find the right words. All he can murmur is “My love. My sweet love.” Sacha quivers, as if he is cold. Surprised, Linden detects long shudders coursing through his body. Why is Sacha so silent? He hasn’t uttered a word. Glancing over his shoulder, Linden sees the dingy wall of the hospital entrance, posters tacked onto boards, lusterless linoleum. A woman sitting in a plastic chair seems fast asleep; a nurse pushing a patient in a wheelchair lumbers by. Is Sacha crying? Bewildered, Linden tries to take one step back so that he can look at him, but Sacha won’t let him, cradling him desperately, hanging on to him with all his might, as if the thing he wants the most in the world right now is to protect Linden from whatever lies ahead, buying him a little more time, building him an infinitesimal dam of ignorance, because he knows Linden will remember this moment, this Friday, for the rest of his life.
Linden gently pulls away, bracing himself for what he will read in the beloved eyes. He doesn’t want Sacha to say the words; he doesn’t want him to pronounce them. He puts his palm on Sacha’s cheek and notices with wonder how unsteady his hand is. Sacha speaks at last. They called and called. They understood there was a problem with Linden’s phone, or that he had forgotten it. There was no way they could reach him. It had happened in the middle of the afternoon. It had been peaceful. Paul was holding Lauren’s fingers. It took place just like that, with her in the room, and no one else. Lauren came stumbling out, all the color drained from her face, incapable of talking.
Linden thinks of his mother, witnessing that last breath, that last heave of the chest. How painful that must have been for her. How heartbroken she must be. The tears come now, spurting from Linden’s tired eyes. His father is gone. He remembers the last time he saw him, just yesterday, when he bent down to kiss him good-bye. Linden feels numb, unable to move, to react. He wants to sit down; he wants to be able to wait here, to rest, to say nothing, to gather up his strength, just for a while. He knows he can’t. Upstairs, they are waiting for him. How are they? How are they taking it? Sacha says Tilia is impressive. She is the one holding them together. Tilia? Linden is surprised. He thought she would have collapsed. No, she hasn’t. She certainly hasn’t. She is up there comforting Lauren, who is desperate, as well as Mistral, who has broken down. She is dealing with all the procedures. She has spoken to the doctor, to the nurses. She is calm and compassionate.
Linden rides up in the elevator, Sacha’s hand tight in his. The door to room number 17 is closed. He knows his father’s body is behind that door. He knows he will have to lay eyes on it at some point. He will have to see his father in death, just like he will have to watch his father’s coffin lowered into the ground in the small green cemetery at Léon des Vignes. It is an ordeal that awaits him and that he will not shy away from. He follows Sacha to the waiting room a little farther down. There is his sister, her arms wrapped around his mother and his niece. Colin sits in front of them, his head in his palms. They see him; they cry out his name and the tears come again. There is an intense, confusing moment of sorrow where sentences seem chaotic, interrupted by sobs.
It is later, when they have been able to speak more straightforwardly, when they have comforted one another somewhat, that Linden pulls the box out of his pocket. He tells them that this is what Paul wanted him to bring back from Vénozan. There are papers inside, but he hasn’t had time to read them all yet. He is going to do that right now, right here. He takes the first page and starts to read. He reads slowly, taking his time, pausing to draw breath. Sometimes he glances up at Lauren, at Tilia, for courage, for support.
When Linden comes to the last page, he hands it over to his sister. Tilia’s voice fills the small room, at first unsteady and hesitant, then taking on power, and it is almost—almost—as if Paul were there, standing at the threshold, his hands in his pockets, his blue eyes shining out to them.
* * *
I heard its footsteps come closer to where I stood. Every time it took one step, the leaves and the grass rustled to warn me. It thought it was making no noise, but I heard it perfectly. I heard it almost too loud. Every single part of me was straining to listen. Now I sniffed its stink, sweaty and boozy, like those drunken field hands I sometimes saw hanging around the farm before my father ousted them.
I leaned against the tree, my eyes closed. I was so still, I was like a branch. The monster came awfully close, but it passed on by, lurching, mumbling under its breath.
The rain began to fall, thick and steady and strong. No storm, no thunder, just the rain gushing down. I heard the monster run away, swearing. I thought of Suzanne getting wet and I began to cry again. The tree sheltered me like a huge umbrella.
I fed all my terror into the tree. It took my fear and made me part of it. The tree held me. It locked me into itself. Never had I felt such protection. Never had anyone or anything safeguarded me this way. It was as if I had become the bark, as if I had slipped into the cracks and fissures, past the moss, past the lichen, past the insects crawling up and down the trunk.
And there, in the heart of the linden, I knew no monster, no horror, would ever find me.
Acknowledgments
Thank you, Nicolas Jolly, Laure du Pavillon, Catherine Rambaud, and my precious first readers.
Thank you to photographers Charlotte Jolly de Rosnay, David Atlan, Alexi Lubomirski, and Mélanie Rey.
Thank you to Laurence Le Falher, for her New York knowledge.
Thank you, Laetitia Lachmann.
Here are the five books that helped me write this one:
Paris Under Water, Jeffrey H. Jackson (Palgrave Macmillan)
Paris coule-t-il?, Magali Reghezza-Zitt (Fayard)
The Secret Life of Trees, Colin Tudge (Penguin)
The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben (Greystone Books)
On Photography, Susan Sontag (Penguin)
Contact:
www.tatianaderosnay.com
Also by Tatiana de Rosnay
Sarah’s Key
A Secret Kept
The House I Loved
The Other Story
A Paris Affair
Manderley Forever: A Biography of Daphne du Maurier
About the Author
TATIANA DE ROSNAY is the author of more than ten novels, including the New York Times bestselling Sarah’s Key, an international sensation and major motion picture. Tatiana lives with her husband and two children in Paris. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Acknowledgments
Also by Tatiana de Rosnay
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters,
organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE RAIN WATCHER. Copyright © 2018 by Éditions Héloïse d’Ormesson. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Cover photograph of Eiffel Tower © Ilona Ignatova/Shutterstock.com
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-20001-3 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-20002-0 (ebook)
eISBN 9781250200020
Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at [email protected].
First Edition: October 2018
The Rain Watcher Page 24