She wants to believe this is only because they are near the airport, that when she gets to Rue du Bonne it will be as it always was. She remembers the words of Claude Barrington—So much has changed—and worries that her expectations are at best only frail hopes. Is it even realistic to believe that in the short span of ten days two people can fall in love again?
Almost a full day has passed since she left home and she has slept only two hours on the plane, yet she is not tired. Once she is in her room at the Hotel Vendome, she throws open the windows and looks down on the street. It is April, a month when the weather is fickle, cold one moment, warm the next. The morning air is cool, and a stiff breeze convinces her to change into something warmer.
After a hot shower she dresses in black slacks, boots and a leather jacket. She winds a red scarf around her neck, a scarf she has worn many times before.
It came from the tiny shop on Rue Bouchard. Although the scarf has remained in the bottom drawer of her dresser for nearly three years, the feel of it around her throat still causes a sting of guilt.
If Annie or Ophelia were to touch the scarf, they would most certainly feel the prickle of the memory it carries. Max already knows it. She remembers the day Julien gave it to her.
~ ~ ~
It was early December, but the wind was sharp and the temperature had plummeted to minus 14. Max shivered and snuggled closer to Julien as they walked.
When they passed the expensive Les Femme Bouchard Shop, the scarf was wrapped around the neck of the mannequin that stood in the window. They stopped to admire it.
“Red.” Julien smiled. “A color of passion.”
He playfully pulled her into the shop and asked the clerk to take the scarf from the window for Max to try on. She swirled it around her throat, and he beamed.
“Beautiful, so beautiful,” he said. “You must have it!”
Max peeked at the price tag and shook her head. The scarf was 48 euros, marked down from 99. That was as much as she spent on food for three days, maybe four.
“I don’t think so,” she said, then removed the scarf and set it back on the counter.
Julien gave a grimace of disappointment. “Right, red is not for you,” he said offhandedly. “Perhaps blue or yellow.” He held the scarf alongside her face then gave a disapproving headshake and sent the clerk off to search for something more to his liking.
For nearly an hour they remained in the shop, trying on scarves of every design and color. One by one he wrapped them around her neck, then with an air of disappointment gave another shake of his head. As he removed each scarf he placed it in the growing pile on the counter. First he called for all the solids, then stripes and plaids and in the end there was even one with embroidered forget-me-nots.
When they finally left the counter was piled high with scarves of every color, yet they had purchased nothing.
As they walked along Rue du Bac, Julien leaned down and whispered in her ear.
“Red is the color of a lover’s passion.” He reached into the inside pocket of his coat, pulled out the red scarf and handed it to her. “And to you I give my passion!” He laughed.
Max gasped. She knew he had not bought the scarf; he had simply taken it. Now he was giving it to her. It was wrong, terribly wrong, and yet delightfully romantic.
“You took this without paying? Are you crazy? You could have been caught and arrested!”
“Ah, but I wasn’t,” he replied. He yanked the price tag from the scarf then wound it around her neck. When she tried to protest, he covered her mouth with his.
In the days that followed, Max tried to forget the scarf was stolen. Sometimes she even thought about returning it to the store but, right or wrong, Julien had meant it as an expression of his love. He had no money, so he’d gotten her the scarf the only way he knew how.
For weeks on end she economized. She bought day-old bread, went without new charcoals and walked instead of taking the metro. By the middle of January she’d saved up 48 euros and went back to the store.
A different clerk was behind the counter.
“I’m looking for the sales clerk with auburn hair,” she said. “She’s my height, maybe a snip taller. You know her?”
The clerk shook her head and gave a puzzled shrug. “I only started last week.”
“Oh.” Max sighed. “You have any idea where she went?”
The clerk again shook her head. “She left before I came.”
Max gave another sigh, her disappointment obvious. “She waited on us last time and I was hoping—”
“I can help you,” the clerk volunteered.
“It seems there’s been a mistake,” Max explained; then she said the last time they were in the store they somehow walked out with the red scarf. There was no mention of Julien’s name.
“My friend intended to pay for it but forgot.” She handed the clerk 48 euros.
“I need the tag,” the girl said. “I can’t ring up a sale unless I enter what the item is.”
“It was a red scarf,” Max replied. “Sort of like the blue one in the window.”
“That one is 79 euros. It’s not the same.” The clerk’s voice was impatient, testy almost.
“I don’t have the tag,” Max said. “Can’t you just ring up red scarf 48 euros?”
“That’s not how we do things! I have to scan the code!”
“You can’t ring up 48 euros and say there was no tag?”
“Not unless I’m looking to get fired.”
Max stuffed the money in her jacket pocket and left the store.
Two days later she walked across the bridge up the long hill to Sacre Coeur and dropped the 48 euros into the poor box.
Even that did little to assuage her conscience. For months she worried that the girl with auburn hair had been fired because of the stolen scarf.
~ ~ ~
Pushing aside the memory Max leaves the hotel, walks to the corner and crosses over to Saint Germain Boulevard. She knows the way; she has walked it a thousand times before. She is headed for the tiny street called Rue du Bonne. It is a cluster of only six buildings, an alleyway given a street name. There are several cobblestones set crookedly into the sidewalk that rounds the corner. One stone pokes up and the other is wedged beneath it so the walkway is uneven. A number of times she turned her ankle in this very spot, but what was once a nuisance is now a welcome sign of familiarity. She moves past the first building and, before she reaches number four, senses the change. When she looks up, she gasps. The wooden door is gone, replaced by an entrance made of glass and polished brass.
Alongside this monstrosity there is a keypad. A security device to keep strangers out. A sinking feeling settles in her heart. Max wants to pound on the door and explain that she is not a stranger. She spent almost a year of her life in this building, carrying groceries up the three flights of stairs, preparing meals on the faulty cook stove, washing dishes in water that most days was barely lukewarm.
I am not a stranger, her heart says. I am not a stranger.
Max cups her hands to her eyes and peers through the glass. She hopes to see a familiar face, a friend or one-time neighbor. Three years ago she knew almost all of the residents. It’s possible that one or two of them have moved away but surely not everyone.
Beside the keypad there is a list of residents. Less names than before and not one she recognizes. Only the names and the keypad code are listed, no apartment numbers. Julien Marceau is not on the list.
Max stands there for several minutes, waiting, but for what she can’t say. In time a young man exits the building and turns down the street. Before the door clicks shut her arm shoots out and snags it.
Once inside she discovers there is now an elevator, a tiny thing that at best holds two or three people. It is beside the staircase in a spot where Alfonse, the building manager, once had an apartment. His name is also not on the list of tenants. She passes the elevator by and climbs the stairs. It is a habit hard to break.
On the t
hird floor a wall now covers the spot where a door once led to Apartment D; E is also missing. Three years ago there were five apartments plus a shared bathroom on this floor. Now there are only three. She raps on the door to apartment C where Julien once lived.
A dog barks. A baby cries. “Un moment, s’il vous plaît,” a voice calls out.
Moments later a woman opens the door. She is bouncing the baby on her shoulder.
“Oui?” she says.
“I hope I haven’t disturbed you,” Max replies. Following the woman’s lead she speaks French, but hers is clumsy and has the sound of an American. The woman smiles and shuffles the baby from one shoulder to the other.
“No problem,” she says. This time she answers in English.
Max explains that she used to live in this apartment and was looking to find some of her old neighbors.
“So you were here before the fire?”
“Fire?”
“Two-and-half, maybe three years ago. It did so much damage they had to refurbish the whole building.”
“So that’s why some of the apartments are gone.”
The woman nods again and asks if she would like to see what they’ve done.
“Very much,” Max replies and follows the woman inside.
She wants to feel the homecoming of being in this place again, but nothing is as it was. The walls are now smooth and the floor a light oak color. The old stove with two small burners and a faulty pilot light is gone. In its place there is a sleek stainless steel kitchen with a full-size refrigerator and dishwasher.
“Oh wow,” Max says. “This is beautiful.” Although she seems pleased, the truth is she misses the unreliable old stove and the tiny refrigerator that was squeezed in under the counter.
When the baby stops whimpering, the woman extends a hand and introduces herself as Marie. She offers coffee and Max accepts.
Everything has changed but still she is glad to be here, even if it is only for a few minutes. She has yet to ask about Julien or Madame DuBois, the widow who lived at the end of the hall.
As they sit at the small table and sip coffee, Marie explains that the fire was due to a fault in the building’s electrical system. It snaked its way up the walls and in the dead of night sent the residents running into the street. By the time the fire department arrived, there was little worth saving.
“Was anyone injured?” Max asks.
“Oui. An elderly gentleman from floor five. I believe he died,” Marie says.
Julien is certainly not elderly and his apartment was here on three, but still Max asks, “Do you know his name?”
“Non,” Marie answers. “The fire was long before we came here.”
When Max leaves the building she is heavy of heart.
It is unlikely Julien was the person injured, yet there is still a question. It seems there’s never an answer, just a constantly-growing stack of questions.
Max
I never thought this would be easy, but I didn’t think it would be as hard as it is. I guess I expected to see some familiar faces and have the feeling of returning home. Instead I’m a stranger.
Not one of the people I knew is still in the building. I looked at the directory of names and thought, How can that be? How can a whole community of people just vanish? A community, that’s what the people who lived there were. Everyone knew everyone, and if you needed something you just knocked on your neighbor’s door and borrowed it. We weren’t all best friends, but we were a community.
I remember how the Widow DuBois was always hugging people. It didn’t matter if you were in a hurry or carrying an armload of groceries, she’d wrap both arms around you and squeeze as hard as she could. She’d hang on for a few seconds then let go and laugh like that was the happiest moment of her day.
Julien used to say she was a nuisance, but the truth is I kind of liked it. She made everybody feel loved. Well, everybody other than Julien; he didn’t feel loved, just annoyed.
Today if she ran out and squashed me up against her bosom, I swear I’d hug her right back and I’d kiss that sweet old face. Sometimes you don’t realize how good a thing is until you don’t have it anymore.
Of course when you’re looking back, you only remember the good parts. You forget things like having to wait for the bathroom because somebody was soaking in the tub or wearing two pairs of woolen socks because the floor was icy cold all winter. When I saw Marie’s stainless steel kitchen I thought, What a shame, the old cook stove is gone. How crazy is that? You know sentimentality is getting the best of you when you start feeling blue over a beat-up old stove that refused to work more often than not.
Marie didn’t have any complaints about her kitchen, so I guess the building being redone is a good thing.
But for me it’s still sad.
One Day Turns to Two
After she leaves the building Max walks north for several blocks and then turns onto Saint Germain Boulevard. It’s a broad street with cafés, bistros and shops on both sides. A street where people come to stroll, shop in markets, linger by the flower stalls or rummage through the long tables of used books. Even though there is a chill in the air, they still sit in the outdoor cafés to sip coffee or linger over a glass of wine.
Max walks slowly and searches the faces that pass by. She hopes to find a familiar one, someone who can say what happened the night of the fire. Someone who knows where Julien is now living.
When she glances down at her watch it is almost seven and yet still daylight. Summer is coming; already the days are growing longer. Back in Wyattsville it is only one o’clock in the afternoon, and yet the weariness of this long day is weighing on her.
She has not eaten since early this morning on the plane, a dry roll with slices of ham and cheese. The smell of food is enticing. She can almost taste the chunks of crusty bread and bubbling onion soup topped with melted Gruyere. At the Café Mabillon, she turns in.
Like the others, she sits at an outdoor table. She is thinking she will have coffee, and yet when the waiter comes she orders a glass of wine.
“Saint Emilion,” she says. It is less expensive than the other choices but comes with fond memories.
As Max sips the dark red wine her thoughts slide back to the night of the fire. She can picture people frantically scampering down the narrow staircase. Peter clutching his violin case and Madame DuBois holding tight to the handrail.
She knew all of the residents, but it now seems impossible to separate those who lived on the fifth floor from those who lived on two and four. The third floor she is certain of: Madame DuBois in apartment E, Marianne across the hall in B, Peter a music student from the Netherlands in A, and in D the young waiter who worked in the Café Rouge.
Someone died. Someone—but who? Marie said it was a man from the fifth floor but the fire occurred in 2011, the same year she returned to America. She left Paris in early September, so it had to be after that. Later that month? In the icy cold of winter? Maybe Marie has the year wrong; maybe it was 2012. Maybe this, maybe that. The questions pile one on top of another until they form a staggering mound.
As the chill of evening settles around her, Max sits at the table and ponders her next move. It is not enough to know there was a fire; she needs to know the outcome. It is too late now, but tomorrow she will visit Library Sainte-Genevieve and search for a newspaper account of what happened.
When the weariness of this day pushes against her eyelids, Max returns to the hotel and falls into bed. The window is open, and sounds of the street lull her to sleep.
~ ~ ~
It is not yet daylight when Max wakes. She feels the crisp air coming from the window and snuggles under the comforter for a few minutes longer. She would like to close her eyes and return to the sweetness of her dream, but it is too late. Her thoughts are already reminding her of what is ahead this day.
First a shower. She twists the faucet handle and waits for the water to grow warm. It has been over three years since she sat in the Sainte Genevieve
Library and studied under a yellow lamp at the long wooden table. She is anxious to return. To once again be inspired by the arched windows and ironwork of the upper reading room, to feel the decades of scholars who came before her and the untold numbers who will come after. For any architect the design of the building is something to be admired; for Max it is even more. It is the place that opened her mind to creativity. To again climb the marble staircase will be like returning home.
She dresses in layers: a silk shirt, a wool sweater, a leather jacket that will come off when the afternoon sun grows warm and the red scarf.
When she leaves the hotel she stops for coffee and a croissant at the boulangerie then hurries down Rue Valette and crosses over in front of the Pantheon.
Entering the library, she moves past the seemingly endless rows of stacks on the lower level and heads for the center vestibule and the stairway that leads to the upper reading room.
Once she is settled Max spends the entire morning going through the microfiche files of newspapers for September and October of 2011. Page by page she flips through Le Petite Parisian, Le Figaro, L’Express, and Le Monde. There is nothing. Not one word of a fire, an injury or a death in the building. In fact there is no mention of the building at all.
She then expands her search; December of 2011 through the end of 2012.
When this yields nothing she tries Julien’s name. Julien Marceau, she types in, with the range of years 2011-2015. There are two responses. The first is a French resistance fighter who passed away leaving behind two daughters and nine grandchildren. The article tells of his heroic underground effort and ultimate capture by the Nazis. The second find is a doctor who has improved the process of artificial joint replacement. Neither of them are the person she is looking for.
In the five hours Max has spent at the library, the sun has all but disappeared. The sky is dark gray with clouds so low they crowd the chimney tops. She pulls the scarf higher around her neck and steps out into the street.
What the Heart Remembers Page 5