But Annette could not attend the funeral. She had received strict orders to remain in bed, for fear she might miscarry.
A week after the burial, however, Annette insisted that she had to pay her respects to her beloved grandmother. She felt stronger and said she would not lose her baby if she went to visit Ahna’s grave. Alain had the morning off. “Please, come with us,” she asked Noora.
“Of course,” Noora said, wishing Annette would wait perhaps another week or two, when she felt stronger, or better yet, after her baby was born, but Annette was determined.
“I was fourteen years old when my mother died,” Annette said, sitting at the edge of her bed, dressed in a lovely spring maternity dress. “Grand-mère would not allow me to go to the funeral. She told me it was only her remains, not her. In my heart, I knew she was right, but I still feel bad she never told me where my mother was buried.”
The three of them got in the car. Noora climbed into the back seat, as Alain helped buckle his wife in. She dug in her purse and pulled out a white, embroidered handkerchief. “That was my mother’s mouchoir, by the way,” Annette said to Noora while wiping her tears with it. “Alain, please, we must put yellow roses on Grand-mère’s grave, je t’en prie.”
“Bien sûr, ma chérie,” he said, rubbing his wife’s cheek gently with the back of his hand. “In the Jewish religion, we don’t put flowers,” Alain explained to Noora. “But Annette and I still prefer flowers to placing stones on a grave.”
It was thanks to flowers Alain placed on my uncle’s grave that I met him that day, Noora thought with a sigh.
“Grand-mère loved yellow roses. She used to say they had a special significance. For every yellow rose that bloomed, it was nature’s message that someone made it back home. Home to the light.”
On their way to the cemetery, Noora tried to listen to Annette. But she had other matters on her mind. The man she may have drowned who cried out in Arabic for her help. If she had kept her hair very short and bleached blonde, he might not have recognized her. “You fooled them all … Even your father …” His words rang in her ears. Had he known where she was all along?
“That’s why it would be best, if you don’t mind, to go back to Grand-mère’s apartment …” Annette’s words brought Noora back from her thoughts.
Ahna’s apartment? I can’t go back to Paris! But how could she refuse? Annette would know there had to be a serious reason … She would want to know …
“Alain will meet you there this Thursday,” Annette continued. “I’m sorry I am putting you through all of this,” she said, turning to Noora from the front seat.
Noora! Focus on what Annette is telling you! “Please, it’s fine …” Noora said, leaning over and patting her friend on the shoulder while Alain pulled into a parking space in front of a flower shop. But Noora knew she had to leave, be on the run again. She could put Annette and her family in danger if she stayed with them while a dangerous man was still on the loose. “I’ll do whatever is needed,” Noora found herself saying.
When Alain went to the florist, Annette said she wanted Noora to donate all of Ahna’s things to charity, except for the sweaters Ahna had knitted for her mother, Giselle, and the piano.
“Grand-mère worked in a bakery at night so she could purchase that piano for my mother. She gave it to her on her fourteenth birthday. You should have heard my mother play. Like a dream …” she said. “But me, I was rebellious. By the time I was fourteen, I wanted to run off with my boyfriend! I was selfish when I was younger. If I’d known what I know now …” she said, her eyes welling. “I … can’t repair the mistakes. I’d like to believe, after the worries I gave Grand-mère, that I made her proud. I know she was happy to see me married. To a Jewish man, too! The last time she came to see me, you know, she told me she was ready to leave … now that she knew I was in good hands.”
*
Noora returned to Paris early Sunday morning, knowing that the concierge, Madame Bucheron, would be at church. She unlocked the door to Ahna’s apartment.
In the vestibule, she put down her suitcase and turned the lock securely. She could still hear the flip-flop of Ahna’s house slippers, could feel Ahna coming forward to give her a welcoming hug and a kiss on each cheek. She could have sworn something was still baking in the oven, because the apartment still smelled of her fresh-baked kuchen. Tears began to flow.
“I am sorry, dear Ahna,” she murmured. “I will miss you so much.” Every time she loved someone, that person was taken away.
She walked to the cozy little living room. I must be strong, she thought, pulling a tissue from the box on top of the piano. She sat on Ahna’s chair, reflecting on the night she came to this apartment and poured her heart out to Annette’s grand-mère, who had welcomed her with open arms. Noora remembered Um Faheema and Dweezoul, and even Saloush … and then she thought of Nageeb. “How I miss you all,” she cried.
She turned to the phone next to the chair. She stared at it for a moment, picked it up, and turned the volume up to its highest, then set it back down. If she could just call her mother … If I could just tell her I’m alive.
She heard a sound.
Oh my God, someone is in the apartment?! Didn’t she lock the door? She knew she did not hook up the chain. She jumped from her chair, her heart racing. What if … that man … She wanted to make her way to the kitchen and get a knife or a hammer from the little pantry behind the door. Too late, she couldn’t make it that far. She hid behind the living room door. She heard footsteps approaching down the hallway. From the crack between the hinges, she saw a shadow. A woman? “Madame la concierge!”
“Oh mon Dieu, vous m’avez effrayée, mademoiselle!” the concierge said, turning and facing Noora.
“I frightened you? I live here, Madame!” Noora replied in French. Just because she managed the building did not give her the right to sneak into one’s apartment, Noora thought angrily. But thank God it was not that man …
“I came to make sure everything is all right.”
You came here to snoop, Noora wanted to say.
The concierge handed Noora a stack of newspapers.
Noora chided herself for not locking the door with the chain. The concierge had a passkey, she realized, and she could still unlock the deadbolt.
As she turned to leave, Madame Bucheron said, “Are you going back to England now that la Madame Ahna is gone?”
“England? Why would I want to go to England?”
“That’s where you are from, non?”
“Non, Madame,” Noora said walking the concierge to the front door. The woman waited for Noora to volunteer more information, but she remained quiet.
“I have people interested right now in the apartment. When will you vacate?”
Noora could not believe how cold the woman was. She had known Ahna for many years—decades! Ahna had lived there since the late fifties, and Annette’s mother, Giselle, had gone to school with the current concierge. Why was she so cold, and even contemptuous? Ahna used to bring her fresh-baked cakes and cookies. Noora thought Mme. Bucheron probably threw away everything that Ahna gave her.
“Thank you for bringing me the mail,” Noora said, standing at the door.
“I cancelled it.”
“You … cancelled? What did you cancel?”
“The newspaper. No sense in having all those newspapers accumulate at the front door. After all, she won’t be reading them anymore,” the concierge said with a suggestion of a smirk.
“I would suggest you do nothing until we advise you. Ahna’s family will be here in a few days. You may address your questions to them. Excusez-moi. I would appreciate a little privacy. Bonsoir, Madame,” Noora concluded sharply and closed the door behind the woman.
“Ah ben ça alors,” she heard the woman mumbling behind the door. “Who does she think she is? Rien qu’une employée. Petite servante de rien dutout!” the concierge said loudly.
Staring at the closed door, Noora felt sad. She turned a
nd walked wearily to Ahna’s chair and sank into it. Nothing but an employee? Little for-nothing servant? Is that what they think of me?
She thought of Ian Cohen. What did he think of her?
Well, she wasn’t going to sit around moping. She went to the kitchen to make herself a pot of hot chocolate. Ahna would have liked that. What did it matter what small-minded people like the concierge thought?
Noora put the stack of newspapers on the kitchen table. She would need at least that much paper to pack the china and some of the glasses that Annette wanted to keep. Perhaps she could call Ahna’s friend, the baker, who might bring her some boxes, Noora thought, pouring milk in a pan and lighting the stove. Waiting for the milk to boil, she picked up the top paper and leafed absent-mindedly through the printed sheets.
On the second page, a small headline caught her attention. She gasped and brought the paper closer as she read the bottom column with the heading:
BODY OF A MAN FOUND IN THE SEINE.
The body of a man with no proof of identity was found floating in the river outside Paris …
The description fit her attacker—dark hair, dark skin, white shirt … possibly a suicide, the article said.
Noora looked up. Oh my God. Behind her, on the stove, the milk boiled over the edges of the pot.
That night, Noora tossed in bed, unable to sleep. She checked the clock on the nightstand—3:10 AM. She had left all the apartment lights on; the electric bill would be sky-high. She rose out of bed and put a sturdy chair against the locked and chained front door. She left the television on—“for company,” as Ahna used to say. Ahna liked to watch the news. Noora chose a channel where old movies played.
But her mind was on that man—Moustafa. Again and again, she reminded herself that the description in the newspaper fit her attacker, who had been found the morning after the struggle in the river. Unfortunately, too many people committed suicide by jumping off bridges into the Seine. How could she be sure it was the same man? How could she be sure she would ever be free of him?
She had to stop worrying and start packing. She might as well put her insomnia to good use, she thought. She should start making a list of what Annette wanted, and what would go to charity … Annette had called the women from the Hadassah, the Jewish women’s organization where Ahna Morgenbesser had been a lifetime member. They were going to come in two days to take the boxes to charitable organizations.
Could it really be that man … Moustafa … that man who stalked her since Alexandria? Since London! But he drowned! Didn’t he? Stop torturing yourself, she thought, making her way to Ahna’s room.
She remembered that Ahna had asked her to bring something else in the hospital, the night before she died … What was it? A journal?
Looking in the armoire, inside a bottom drawer and beneath folded undergarments, Noora found a leatherbound book. As she carefully pulled it out, it fell open. It was a manuscript, handwritten in German. Holding the book with great care, she sat at the edge of Ahna’s bed and stared at the weighty volume. The smell of old leather, mixed with a light fragrance of Je Reviens perfume, brushed her brain, evoking the memory of her college days in London and the familiar smells of her classroom—her professor, Dr. Pennington—and Noora’s own forgotten ambitions to become a writer.
On the back of the cover, Ahna had written “1955.” On the first page, a paragraph was written in German, in a different handwriting.
“To my beautiful wife,” she read. Above the signature, in the same handwriting, the words were written in French: “De la part de ton mari, AIIM. Ma femme, mon amour, pour toujours.”
It was legibly signed by Adolph Isaac Israel Morgenbesser. Noora looked up. “Aiim,” she murmured to herself. Ahna used to refer to her deceased husband as Aiim.
Carefully, she leafed through the thin, musty pages. The first two pages seemed to be an introduction. Then an empty page; Noora turned it. On the back of the third page was a child’s drawing of a woman—a simple circle filled with two large eyes colored in blue, two black dots for a nose, and a wide red smile. A little poem was written below the drawing.
Ma jolie maman aux cheveux blonds. Elle est belle comme une chanson.
The little rhyming words were signed,
Giselle, ton enfant.
Beneath the signature, in bold letters, Noora read:
Pour ma maman que j’aime tellement.
She wondered if Annette knew about this journal.
“No,” Annette told Noora when she called the next morning. She had no idea her grandmother had left a journal. “It must be a little calpain … a booklet. Grand-mère was more interested in baking—I never saw her write.”
“It is a little more than 500 pages,” Noora said.
“Whaat?”
CHAPTER 61
“Annou”
Annie Noora Giselle Demiel arrived in the world on a warm and breezy July morning—two days before Noora’s birthday. It was a relatively easy birth, considering that Annette’s pregnancy had been difficult. Noora received permission from Annette’s gynecologist and nurses to assist in the delivery.
Noora knew how to coach Annette, because she had assisted midwives at the Bedouin village, as well as her grandmother, Sultana, on a few childbirths when she was a teenager.
When Noora returned to the hospital two days after Annette gave birth, and with a cluster of pink balloons for Annette and her newborn, she was surprised to find a huge chocolate éclair in Annette’s hospital room and balloons that said “Bon Anniversaire!”
“Bon Anniversaire, nos voeux les plus sincères!” Everyone sang the French birthday song. A champagne cork popped, and gifts were brought in by Alain. Even some of the nurses stopped to celebrate Noora’s birthday—July 22.
Four years and four months since the tragedy of her personal life, and today they were celebrating her day. Noora swallowed hard and tried to hold back her tears.
What would her father do if he knew she were still alive? She could no longer control her emotions, and she burst into tears. “I’m just … I’m not used to people fussing over me,” she apologized.
“It’s your birthday,” Alain said, offering her a glass of champagne.
Taking the clear plastic cup, Noora watched the bubbles rise. For a brief moment, she was transported to the disco in London. She shook her head. “No! I …” She was about to say that she did not drink, but Alain interrupted, putting an arm around Noora and giving her a kiss on the temple. “Annette and I are grateful. Deeply grateful.”
Noora blushed.
On a sunny morning, not far from one of the beautiful seashores of the Riviera, a gleaming white limousine waited at the curb. Wheeled out of the hospital and holding her baby, Annette looked up at her husband.
“We’re going home,” he said. He could not have looked prouder. He turned and looked to the sidewalk.
Annette followed her husband’s gaze and gasped at the sight.
“Surely my princesses must be brought home in style,” Alain said, with a wink at Noora. A uniformed limo driver opened the door.
Alain and Annette snuggled up together with their tiny baby in the back of the plush, soft limo seats, while Noora sat opposite, snapping pictures of the new parents.
I wish Ahna were here, Noora thought, holding back a tear.
“Grand-mère is with us, you know,” Annette said to Noora. “I can feel her presence.”
“How did you know I was thinking of her?”
“Because she’s psychic, remember?” Alain said. They all laughed. He reached over the baby’s car seat and kissed his wife on the lips. Annette responded, keeping her lips on her husband’s, their baby curled up, sleeping between her proud parents.
Noora snapped a last picture. “Perfect,” she said, looking down at her camera, realizing she used the last exposure. When she looked up, Alain and Annette were still locked in their kiss. Noora turned to the window, then back down to her camera. “I think I should buy more film,” she murmure
d, embarrassed. The little family should be alone, she thought. This was their own private time.
The baby fussed.
“Oh, oh, petite Annou, Comme elle est mignonne, she is so cute …” Annette cooed. “I just fed you, my little angel.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to hire a nanny?” Alain asked.
“Yes, my darling, I am certain, and I don’t want a stranger taking care of our baby. Noora and I will be fine.”
“We can’t impose on Noora.”
“It’s not an imposition,” Noora was quick to say. “Bien au contraire,” she added.
God keeps closing doors, but somehow, he opens a window, Noora thought, staring out the window. With every crushing sense of loss Noora had experienced, she somehow found resignation. When she lost Nageeb, she found Um Faheema, Dweezoul, and her other Bedouin friends. When she lost Uncle Khayat, she found Annette. When she lost Ian Cohen, Ahna Morgenbesser opened her home and her heart. When Ahna left this world, Annou arrived, bringing light and hope. And now, Annette and Docteur Alain … But she could put them in danger as well, if that stalker was still out there, and if he did not drown … If he did drown, and it was reported in the newspaper, then she was responsible. She would have been the cause … The cause for… Murder? No! Please, God, forgive me. It was self-defense! But in the eyes of the law… She would still be considered a …
“Noora. I only want Noora with me … She knows all about newborns,” she heard Annette tell her husband. “I trust her. She is the best friend I ever had.”
The days and nights fell into a rapid rhythm. When Annette slept, Noora took care of the baby. After the first week at home, Annette began to grow weak and needed sleep more than ever. Noora said it might be postpartum depression and suggested they talk to Alain about it. Annette refused. “Non, he will drop everything and run home,” she said. “It will not be fair to his patients.” But Annette had daily fits of depression. A new round of crying started every afternoon.
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