The Last Time I Saw Paris

by Lynn Sheene

  Abigail. A burst of warmth flowed up Claire’s body. Grey’s silence had been discretion for his sister’s sake. The conversation flowed around her as she soaked up the information. A wartime indiscretion wasn’t unheard of. But in that sort of family, it just might take a protective older brother across the channel to help.

  He hadn’t been untrue. The glow in her chest turned into an ache.

  After dinner, Claire followed Yvette up the grand staircase to a small room, simple and spare. A bed and nightstand were tucked next to a compact marble hearth set with logs.

  Yvette kneeled and coaxed the fire to life. “I apologize for the simple quarters. Thomas stays mostly in Paris now. Except for his rooms, we closed up this floor last winter. Heating . . .” She shrugged.

  “I understand. Your home is magnificent. Thank you for letting me stay.”

  Yvette moved to leave then stopped. “It is Thomas who lets us stay. We couldn’t pay; we would’ve lost this place. Thomas bought it. He couldn’t bear to let it go.” Yvette faced Claire. “He did mention un femme américaine. Not by name and without details. But when he spoke of her, he could not help but smile. He said her eyes were blue, like the ocean. Made to be drowned in. I know you are more than a friend.” She reached for Claire, laid a warm hand on her arm. “Please, I must know. Where is he?”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t say.”

  Yvette’s expression hardened. “Thomas is a good man. Whatever he is doing, it is because it is the right thing to do for us. For France. Tell me, do you do the right thing for Thomas? Will you?”

  Claire held her gaze and forced herself to nod. But inside she felt her chest begin to throb.

  Yvette exited the room. Claire leaned against the door, listening as the woman descended the stairs. After a moment, the faint light shining under her door faded to black and the only sounds were the creaks of the ancient house settling in for the night. She took the lit candle from her bedside and crept outside.

  The hallway was black. Claire could see no more than the faint area surrounding the flickering flame. She remembered doors evenly spaced along the wall; hers was closest to the stairs. She felt her way along. A few steps later, her hand connected with the cold metal of a doorknob. The hinges squeaked as she peered in with the candle brandished high in front of her. Dust. A near-empty room. The furniture sold or burned for warmth. The next three doors opened more easily, but the contents were the same.

  She found Grey’s study behind the fourth door. Heavy velvet curtains thrown open, a full moon lit the room. It was a man’s library. A leather chair waited behind a heavy wooden desk. Stacks of books lined the shelves that extended well above Claire’s head. She walked over to his desk. On top, a silverframed photo of woman. Blond, pretty in a perky way. She had Grey’s steel-colored eyes but her sunny smile promised fun. She was hugging a soldier in uniform. Mary Jane, Claire presumed.

  Claire searched through the contents of each drawer then slid her fingertips underneath the wooden frames. On the shelf there was a stack of thumbed-over volumes of the Journal of Garden History. She picked up a thick book, its pages stuffed with neatly written notes. She read the title, Architecture de Jardins. Nothing more than the normal everyday sort of clutter a cultured landscape architect might have in his library.

  Claire padded to an oversized table near the window. Large sheets of vellum paper half the size of the tabletop were stacked on the hardwood surface. Ink pens stuck out from the top of a silver cup. Straight and arced rulers were shoved against the back corner. The bright moonlight illuminated garden layouts that had been painstakingly hand drawn with black ink. Large swoops and swirls, long straight lines, Claire imagined the gardens dreamed on these pages were beautiful but she couldn’t make any sense of them. She needed her dreams to be flesh and blood, leaf and stone.

  She walked through the door separating his study from his bedroom. His wardrobe was sparse with worn work clothes and a few conservative wool suits. Muddy work boots slumped on the wardrobe floor.

  A large four-poster bed. She pictured him in it, with her in his arms. It would feel so luxurious after their stolen moments on the farm, soft sheets pulled up over them. She sat on the bed, ran her hand over the blankets.

  “Tell me your secrets, Grey,” she whispered and willed her mind to clear. Facing the room, she dropped to her knees, candle in hand. The small flame next to her face, she searched an inch at a time across the bedroom to the study.

  She found the box an hour later. It was under loose bricks in the floor of the fireplace, beneath a coating of cinders. She blew ashes from the top and cracked open the lid as she settled back on the wood floor.

  Sitting on top was a thin paper with three columns. Holding it close to the flame, Claire saw it was names of officers, ranks, the date they got to Paris, where they worked, and where they stayed. Most were in hotels, some had street addresses. Her eyes skimmed the page to the bottom. Von Richter—Sturmbannführer—SD—13.02.43—84, avenue Foch/Paris Ritz.

  Her stomach churned as she realized the near misses she must have had with von Richter in the Ritz. Rolling the paper into a tube, Claire held it over the candle until it caught, tossed it in the fireplace and watched it burn.

  The rest were snapshots. Claire riffled through, examining each in the candlelight. A worn photo of Laurent and Grey in graduation robes. They had serious, reserved mouths, but their young faces beamed. A later photo of Grey with a grin, his arm slung over a woman’s shoulder, her face turned away from the camera. Claire felt a stab of jealousy, then recognized Odette’s profile. Jacques, Odette and a dark-haired boy sat on a fountain’s low limestone wall.

  These were photos taken before the war. Too dangerous to expose but too precious for Grey to lose. She sat back and held the photos to her chest. These were a part of who Grey really was. The same as this house and the couple sleeping below.

  She dropped the photos back in the container and, box gripped in her hands, sat heavily in his desk chair. What if Grey was gone forever? Her eyes were drawn out the window. The dark outlines in the landscape showed up against the moonlit sky like paper cutouts. Her gaze followed a line of hedges to a small open garden room with vine-covered stone walls. The glint of light marble revealed a statue of a woman against one wall. In the corner, an apple tree filled the sky.

  Claire froze.

  The garden from the photo. She would know it anywhere. Box in hand, Claire hurried down the stairs and slipped out of the house. She traced her way through the hedge maze until it opened up to a tall stone wall. She stepped through the opening.

  Her eyes flicked around her. The statue. The tree. The roses that rambled up the hedge, pink and white. The stone bench, sitting in the shadow of an ivy-covered wall. She sank into the bench, taking in the garden with each breath. She had dreamed of this garden since that evening at Laurent’s gallery show in New York. It led her to Laurent; it led her to Paris. She shut her eyes.

  The garden delivered her to Grey.

  The garden slept around her, like an enchanted maiden from a fairy tale. Grey’s garden. His mind, his heart, was in every stone, every branch. Her voice, strong and clear, startled her in the night air. “I love him.”

  The flush of warmth was replaced by a fierce stab in her heart. The first time she’d said it and understood what it meant. But Grey was gone.

  Her body began to shake and she slid off the bench. She clawed at the grass with her hands, sinking her fingers deep into the dirt until she’d dug a hole. Pain cramping her chest, she nestled the box into the earth and covered it with dirt. Leaning against the bench, she watched the garden wake as the moon arced over the horizon and the stars faded to an indigo sky.

  The house was quiet as she climbed the stairs to her simple room. She stared at the bed, still made, and wondered at the alertness she felt. She looked into the small mirror over the dresser. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes overly bright.

  She found a slip of paper and a pen in the desk. I will do t
he right thing for Thomas. She signed it, La femme américaine.

  Turning onto rue du Colisée later that morning, Claire’s eyes lit on the blue awning of the flower shop. In the distance, the windows were dark, as though they didn’t reflect the morning sun. Her pace quickened as she crossed the street.

  The window panes were broken. The door hung off its hinges and leaned drunkenly against the frame. Claire gripped the knob, the metal felt cool in her hand. The blood pounded so loud in her ears she felt but couldn’t hear the glass crunch beneath her shoes. She nudged the door aside and entered.

  The sun lit the front half of the shop; the back lay in shadows. Trampled flowers and dented tin buckets were strewn everywhere. Claire’s breath caught as she saw a dark shape on the floor behind the counter. She forced herself forward.

  The shape she found was a heavy clay urn broken on its side, on top of a pile of broken roses. Relief made her lightheaded. Then she saw a large dark pool underneath the blossoms. Her gaze followed dark brown flecks splattered up the grey wall. About chest height, she saw them. Two small circles in the wall. She pushed herself off the floor, her fingers reached out and pressed into the broken plaster.

  Bullet holes.

  Claire pounded up the stairs and pushed through the broken bedroom door. Clothes and papers were scattered across the floor. The dresser facedown, the back cracked open. Mirror shards glinted crazily throughout the room.

  Claire sagged against the wall, her eyes on Marta’s suitcase open upside down on the floor. A small pink sock with ruffled edge stretched from under the broken latch.

  “Claire. Come with me now.” Dupré stood in the doorway. His expression grim, he jerked his head toward the stairs and disappeared.

  Claire pushed off the wall and stumbled after him down the stairs. At the back door, he peered each way then slipped out. She followed, her mind numb.

  At the end of the alley, he saw her expression and reached for her arm. “For God’s sake, Claire, be strong now.”

  They walked into the street as a strolling couple. Claire concentrated on keeping on her feet, only vaguely aware of where they were going. Another alley and then a dark squat building backed up to a passage, the heavy door covered in locks.

  Dupré fiddled with a massive key and, one by one, the locks snapped open. He motioned her inside and closed the door behind them. “My warehouse.”

  The building was littered with crates, lit by a string of bulbs dangling from the low ceiling. Dupré slid through the space between a crate and the wall. On the other side, a small storeroom. Short empty crates were pulled up to a table. Three forms huddled together.

  Georges saw Claire first, his face red and wet from tears. At his yelp, Marta turned. Her face was white, her lips pale. Anna was clutched to her, head buried in Marta’s dress.

  Dupré spoke first. “Yesterday afternoon, I sent Georges to the warehouse to retrieve boxes. He was barely gone when I heard shouting. Shots. I ran into the street. The police were in Madame Palain’s shop.” His mouth worked to spit out the words. “That flic bâtard who’d been hanging around held the pistol in his hand. Madame was—”

  “He must have seen us, somehow. But we weren’t there,” Marta whispered.

  “Pape didn’t know I took Marta and Anna to see our warehouse. It’s not far. Madame said it was alright. But I wasn’t there. I couldn’t stop them,” Georges said.

  Claire put her hand on Georges’ shoulder as Madame would have done. “If you were there, my Georges, you couldn’t have helped. They would have hurt you too.” She squeezed the girls against her. “Thank you, Georges. You saved Marta and Anna.” She turned to Dupré. “What about Madame Palain?”

  He shook his head.

  “Did they take her?”

  “Non.”

  “Can I see her?”

  He gritted his teeth, his face wrinkled in pain. “She is gone.”

  Her eyes held Dupré. He had been right, what he told her long ago. Her friend had paid the price for her trust. Pain stabbed deep in her chest. “I am so sorry,” Claire said, but the words felt meaningless.

  He turned toward Georges. “We will do what we can. You must take the girls and leave.”

  A fire raged inside Claire, burning hot and leaving ice in its wake. Her mind raced, clear and sharp; her eyes recorded every detail. Georges’ breath. Anna’s sobs. The pulse in Dupré’s neck. “Stay here. We will leave after dark. I am going back to the shop.”

  “They are watching the street.” Dupré caught her arm as she opened the door; his eyes sought hers. “I went in as soon as they left. She was holding on to life to speak. She said one thing. She said to tell you La Vie en Fleurs must go on.”

  In his eyes, Claire saw only pain, no recrimination. “How can I—”

  “Madame’s flower shop must survive.”

  Claire could not meet his gaze as she pulled her arm free and slipped out the door.

  A block away, Claire found the man watching the shop. He leaned against a doorway three buildings down. She backtracked up an alley and slipped into the back door. He had seen her go in the front door an hour before. He would see her leave that way.

  Claire raced upstairs, grabbed Marta’s case and threw in all the girls’ clothes she could find. Moving to the window, she peered out at the man below. He glanced up and she slid out of view. Cursing, she turned to the clothes piled on the closet floor and tossed a few in a bag.

  At the rumble of a diesel engine, Claire rushed to the window. A heavy delivery truck rolled up the street. As it passed below in front of the shop, the man disappeared from view. Claire pushed open the window, reached out and grabbed the brick in the windowsill. She dropped to her knees against the wall as the truck moved forward, jewelry roll and bills clenched in her hand.

  Glass crunched under her feet as Claire walked to the door. A corner of the garden photo stuck out among the mirror shards. Claire stared at it a long moment before she dusted off the glass and picked it up. The picture was scratched and torn nearly in two. She slipped it in her jacket pocket and stepped over the flattened blush rose in its shattered crystal vase.

  For Grey. For the girls. She would find Albrecht von Richter.

  Three shadows slipped through the darkened city. They crossed the Seine at pont Alexander III. Claire carried Anna; Marta gripped her suitcase as they moved south through back streets and alleys.

  In the 14th arrondissement, at 12, rue Brézin, Claire motioned the girls inside a large apartment building. Up four floors in a cage elevator to number 42. A low knock and moments later the door opened a crack.

  “It is Claire Badeau,” Claire said, her voice low. “I’m sorry, but . . .”

  The door swung open; wide eyes stared from the darkness. “Come in, quickly.”

  Two tired but frightened faces greeted them as they entered. Martin Oberon locked the door behind them, while Adele tied her robe and flicked on a small light.

  Claire tried a smile but failed. “Monsieur, Madame Oberon, I am so sorry to come to you like this, but—”

  Adele took one look at the girls. “Mesdemoiselles, give me your coats. Put down your bag. You look so tired, sit here on the sofa.”

  Marta nodded gratefully and Anna offered a tentative smile as they complied.

  “Have you any toast?” Anna said.

  “Anna,” Marta scolded.

  “I do have toast. You rest while we get you some.” Adele looked meaningfully at Martin and Claire, who followed her into the kitchen.

  Claire gestured to the girls in the next room. “I ask you a favor that is too great to ask, but I don’t have a choice. They are Jewish and on the run. I am trying to get them out of France to a safe place.”

  “Their parents?” Adele said.

  Claire shook her head in response. She glanced around at the simple kitchen, spare yet welcoming. “You can tell me to leave right now and we will go. I won’t think any less of you. But I thought you might . . .”

  A look between
Martin and Adele. A conversation in a glance.

  “Of course,” Adele said. “They can stay with us, until . . .”

  Martin nodded. “Until.”

  Claire let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She felt nothing, she couldn’t, but somewhere inside a piece of her pulled back from the abyss. “I will give you what I can.” She reached for her purse.

  “Non,” Martin said.

  Claire pulled out all the money and ration cards in her wallet and handed them to Adele. “Girls need things.”

  Adele nodded and slipped the money in a robe pocket.

  “Thank you,” Claire said. “I will find a way to get them out. I will do what I can to help you until then.”

  “They will be cared for here.” Martin grasped Adele’s hand in his.

  Claire hugged each girl tight on her way to the door, trying to show in her arms and her eyes what she couldn’t say.

  “Don’t promise.” Marta squeezed Claire tight. “Just come back.”

  The street was dark and silent as Claire stepped out of the building. Gulping in the cool air, she turned north. Toward the Ritz.

  Chapter 11

  THE NAZI’S MISTRESS

  Place Vendôme. November 1, 1943.

  A chill settled over the city as the shrouded sun dropped behind the horizon. A cold breeze that smelled of rain whipped fallen leaves across the open square in the Place Vendôme. Claire pulled her coat tight and glanced up at the mottled sky as the wind ripped at yesterday’s issue of Le Temps, open on her lap.

  She sat on the curb at the Place’s north entrance on rue de la Paix, her gaze on the Ritz’s front doors at the northwestern corner of the square. She made a show of stretching her legs and pressing the fluttering pages flat as the soldiers guarding the hotel’s entry watched impassively.

  After Claire left the Oberons’ last night, she’d slipped through the darkened streets until curfew was lifted then checked into a small hotel in Saint-Germain. The place lacked charm, but it was cheap and also lacked an inquisitive front-desk staff. She paid for two nights then crawled up the stairs to her room. Rolling up in her coat on the rickety bed, Claire stared at a crack in the wall’s plaster until the street outside came alive. Giving up on sleep, she splashed water on her face and stared into the clouded mirror over the sink.