The Paris Hours

by Alex George

  That evening, she waited for Olivier’s snores to fall into their familiar rhythm, and then crept out of their bed. Her trunk was packed away in a cupboard at the far end of the corridor from their bedroom. As quietly as she could, she pulled it out, praying that she would not wake her husband or daughter. She opened the latches and reached beneath the sheets and blankets that had kept her secret hidden for so long.

  She pulled the notebook out of its hiding place and stared at it. She opened the covers and leaned into the musty pages, sniffing deeply. The smell of old paper immediately transported her back to the strange, cluttered apartment on Boulevard Haussmann.

  Fingers clumsy with guilt, Camille finally opened the notebook. The handwriting was more familiar than her own. She knew the anxious topography of each letter, every sinewy loop and jagged dash. Words tilted forward on the page, as if eager to discover how each sentence would end.

  The corridor was lit by a single, dimly glowing lightbulb. She sat down and began to read. Every sentence was a small resurrection, quietly conjuring up those conversations that took place at all hours of the day and night. As she turned the first page, a single tear fell onto the stiff paper, washing the words beneath it into gentle oblivion, lost forever to her sorrow.

  * * *

  Each evening Camille waited for Olivier to fall asleep and then escaped back to the past. She never allowed herself to read more than a few pages every night. She wanted to stretch out the pleasure of reading his words for as long as she could. She could never escape a small twist of guilt every time she opened the notebook. She imagined Marcel Proust staring down at her from the heavens, a disappointed frown on that affable, moon-shaped face, and her heart quietly folded in on itself. Still, she never regretted rescuing the notebook from the flames in the kitchen grate. All she wanted was a little piece of her old friend and employer, just for herself. His words became a refuge: when her sorrow became too much to bear, she retreated to the warmth of old memories.

  And then one night, she read:

  Camille told me an interesting story this evening.

  And there it was on the page in front of her: her secret. The one he had begged her to tell him. The one he had promised he would never breathe a word of to another living soul.

  Two neat paragraphs, with not a single detail left out.

  She let out a low, choking gasp of horror.

  He was a thief, a pirate. He plundered other people’s lives for his own ends. I would never betray a confidence. Not from you.

  Camille had believed him.

  First came disbelief, then sorrow, then anger.

  Then terror.

  * * *

  It was bad enough to see her darkest secret written in the pages of a private notebook. But if Marcel Proust had included it in his novel, then it would live on for the whole world to see. People would read it and wonder. Someone might call for an investigation. Camille could already hear the heavy knock on the door.

  There were three volumes of À la recherche du temps perdu that had still not been published when Marcel Proust died. His brother had taken the remaining manuscripts from Rue Hamelin and was overseeing their publication. Camille had been living in close proximity to all that paper for years, but she had never thought much about the words on the pages that spread so chaotically across her employer’s bed. Now she cursed herself for not paying more attention. She had no choice but to wait. When each new volume was published she tore through the pages, searching for the treacherous words that would condemn her. But there was nothing.

  Only those two paragraphs remained.

  Camille knew that she should destroy the last remaining evidence, but she could not bring herself to part with the notebook. It contained too many fond memories. Besides, nobody knew that it even existed.

  Her secret was safe.

  37

  Penance or Remembrance?

  IT HAS TAKEN SOUREN YEARS to perfect the finale to his puppet show.

  The hardest part is creating fire while both of his hands are inside the puppets. An extra strip of material, invisible to the audience and soaked in kerosene, hangs down the back of the boy’s tunic. Souren just has to bring the puppet in alignment with the candle that sits hidden beneath the stage. When the material touches the flame, the conflagration is immediate.

  Through a long process of trial and error, he has learned precisely how long he can keep the burning puppet on his hand. The glove he wears gives him precious extra seconds. When he can bear the heat no longer, he drops the puppet into the bucket of water at his feet. By then the tunic has been charred to cinders.

  Thanks to daily repetition and practice—he never ends his performances any other way—Souren always executes his final stunt with flawless precision. Everything is timed to the second. The fire that consumes Hector so ferociously is contained and controlled.

  All these years later, there is no danger, no risk.

  * * *

  Souren watches the flames as they engulf his fist. Thin tendrils of black smoke spiral upward. He stares at the burning puppet. For whom does he kill his brother, over and over again? Is this daily ritual an act of penance, or remembrance? The flames that consume Hector day after day cauterize his own wounds, numb his pain, and keep that constellation of sorrow and longing trapped within him for a little longer.

  The puppet burns, and he can still hear the cries of the villagers, still taste the acrid smoke at the back of his throat, still feel Yervant’s hand on his shoulder. He does not want to forget. His memories are all that he has left.

  But this afternoon he also hears Younis: I’d die for my brothers in a heartbeat.

  The words lurk, quiet assassins.

  Souren did not die for Hector. Millions of heartbeats later, he is still here. Penance or remembrance? Perhaps it doesn’t matter now. He watches the burning puppet.

  What kind of a brother is he, to have stood by while Hector burned to death? What kind of a man?

  His day crowds in. The old Armenians, staring at him in fear. The painting in the bookshop window. His puppets, speaking words that nobody understands.

  Missed connections at every step.

  He cannot breathe.

  His hand is growing hot. The fire has destroyed the tunic, and now Hector’s wooden head is burning. Souren should have already dropped the puppet into the bucket of water at his feet, but he cannot move. His forefinger—the finger inside the burning puppet’s head—is growing hotter. The heat is spreading over his palm and across the back of his hand. All at once there is astonishing pain: his glove has caught fire. His hand is a blazing sheath of searing, impossible heat. No: this is more than just heat. Souren’s skin is burning. The flames are eating into his flesh. The pain screams down his arm and through the rest of his body, but still Souren does not move. The fire bites deeper and deeper into his hand, through to the muscles that lie beneath his charred skin. A thought edges past the agony: this, he thinks, is penance.

  Finally, the instinct for self-preservation overrides his paralysis. Souren’s hand, at last, is moving, plunging into the bucket that waits at his feet. What is left of the puppet melts away in a cloud of falling ash. The fire is immediately extinguished—a quiet hiss, and then silence. The remains of the glove dissolve in the water and then float to the surface, a fragmented, blackened cloud.

  Outside, the crowd is dispersing. Soon enough the afternoon’s show will fade from the audience’s memory and become no more than a tiny fleck in the tapestry of their lives.

  Souren thinks of his brother, tries to imagine the agony in his hand across his entire body, and finds that he cannot. Many times over the years he has wondered how much Hector suffered before he died. Now he understands that he will never, ever know. He plunges his hand back into the water, and this offers a small measure of relief from the pain, but only for a moment. Every decimated nerve and tendon is a pulsating sun. He breathes through gritted teeth as he moves his hand in and out of the water, trying to contain the
agony. Souren stares down at his hand. His fingers are blackened sentinels, ravaged by the flames.

  * * *

  He does not know how long he stays hidden inside the puppet theater. Time passes, its edges dissolved by the scrim of his pain. Air becomes the enemy. Out of the water, his charred flesh screams.

  Clumsily, he tears the costume off the nearest puppet and wraps it tightly around his hand. The fabric acts as a makeshift skin. He grabs another puppet and applies a second layer, then a third. The material stings like murder, but anything is better than having his wounds exposed to the flaying air. With his one good hand he puts the puppets back into their suitcase. He does not bother with Hector’s charred remains. With difficulty he dismantles the booth, unscrewing the poles and folding the fabric as best he can. Then a new problem presents itself. He cannot carry both suitcases. After a moment’s thought he picks up the case containing the tent and takes it to the hut at the entrance to the gardens, where he hides it next to the bucket. It will be safe enough there until tomorrow.

  He will not abandon the puppets.

  Souren closes the smaller suitcase. The pain in his hand is getting worse. He knows he must see a doctor, but there is a more immediate way to numb the agony. He stumbles out of the park toward Rue de Vaugirard. The first bar he sees is a quiet place with a handful of occupied tables. The evening rush has not yet begun. He sits down and places his suitcase on the chair next to him. Along with the puppets, inside there is a cloth bag full of coins. The audience has been generous today. He puts the bag on the table in front of him.

  A waiter approaches. Souren keeps his damaged hand by his side, out of sight. He pushes the bag across the table.

  “Brandy,” he whispers.

  * * *

  The waiter brings glass after glass of cognac, and then reaches into the cloth bag to remove the correct number of coins before returning to the zinc. The two men do not exchange another word.

  Souren is a quiet drunk. He keeps his ruined hand hidden. He broods as he nurses each fresh glass. His pickled introspection does not bother the tables of convivial patrons who fill up the tables all around him. Over the next few hours he drinks himself into a silent stupor.

  The brandy has numbed some of the pain in Souren’s hand, but also it unshackles him, robbing him of any instinct for self-preservation. And so, helplessly, he returns to Anatolia, to the memories that lacerate him more ruthlessly than his ravaged hand ever will. He remembers his father, before he was dragged away to fight—hauled from his bed at the point of a bayonet in the middle of the night. He remembers his mother taking off her dirt-stained dress and pulling it over his head, urging him to flee. And he remembers his brother’s silent scream, his terrified face half-hidden behind a wall of fire.

  Souren’s guilt eviscerates him. A bilious well of loathing erupts from somewhere deep within him, and a bitter hiss escapes his lips. Souren Balakian, master of puppets! Entertainer of the well-fed burghers of Paris! His fairy tales mean nothing to the audiences who idly interrupt their afternoon strolls to enjoy a little distraction. The children shout and applaud, but then they return to their comfortable lives, and the warnings of the puppets go unheeded.

  The French know nothing, he realizes. Suddenly he hates them all, every last one of them. Souren looks up from his glass and surveys the drinkers around him. What unimaginable luck to be born here, and not one of them recognizes his good fortune! He remembers the stench of the corpses piled high along the banks of the Euphrates, and envy riots in his gut. When a Frenchman dies, he is dressed in his best suit and buried in a fine coffin, with a polished tombstone to mark the spot. Souren does not know where or when or how either of his parents died. There is no marker for them, or for Hector, except for the ones buried deep within him.

  Souren cannot stay another minute surrounded by these affable men as they nurse their drinks and lean in toward each other, deep in contented conversation. He needs to escape. He is suddenly consumed by a need to talk to Younis, who understands what it is to be a stranger in this place. But it is late; the shop is closed for the evening. Younis will be at home, patiently corralling his brothers and sisters and taking care of his father. Souren imagines his friend standing in a kitchen somewhere in Belleville, scolding and cajoling and making order. Younis may be hundreds of miles from Tunis, but he is warm in the heart of his family, and that is sovereign territory all of its own.

  He needs someone to tend to his hand, to ease the pain, but there is nobody to turn to. He wonders if he could ask Arielle’s mother for help, but then he remembers that she is going out to listen to some jazz tonight. He closes his eyes, and then he thinks: Thérèse.

  Perhaps her body would be a welcome distraction from his burns.

  Souren makes a decision. He puts the bag of coins, lighter now, back into the suitcase. He stands up and weaves unsteadily between the tables, back out onto the street.

  38

  Arielle

  WHAT DOES HE HAVE TO LOSE?

  Guillaume Blanc sits in the pew at the back of the church, waiting for an answer to the priest’s question. None comes. What’s the worst that could happen? The game is up. He is leaving for La Rochelle. There is nothing left for him here.

  He makes a decision. He will go and see his daughter.

  Just a few words to take with him, that’s all he wants.

  That, and a name.

  * * *

  Guillaume has never felt so tired in his life. Wearily he gets to his feet and shuffles toward the door of the church.

  Outside, the evening is cruelly perfect.

  Paris looks too beautiful for words. The cobblestones of Montmartre glow golden in the fading sunlight. The shadows of the buildings grow long across the streets. Children swarm up and down the sidewalks, laughing and shouting. Guillaume imagines his daughter skipping along the streets with her friends, and the last ten years rush up in ambush. Half her childhood, already gone. Helplessly he begins to mourn the millions of moments that he has missed, and the millions more still to come. He wilts beneath the weight of his regret.

  Finally Guillaume reaches Rue Nicolet, but rather than assuming his usual post on the opposite side of the street, he walks up to the front door of Suzanne’s apartment building. He inspects the list of names alongside the column of polished brass buzzers. There it is: Mauriac. He does not dare press the button, fearful that he will not be allowed in if he announces himself. Instead he waits. Finally he hears the latch click, and a young couple steps out onto the street. Guillaume slips inside before the door closes. He crosses the hallway and slowly climbs the staircase. Suzanne’s apartment is at the far end of the corridor. He stands outside the door, listening, but all he can hear is his heart clattering against his rib cage, as loud as the klaxon on a fire truck.

  He knocks.

  At first he hears nothing. Then, the soft fall of footsteps approaching. The door opens, and standing in the doorway is the girl. She smiles at Guillaume.

  “Hello,” she says.

  Guillaume looks down at her. After all these years of watching his daughter from afar, it’s all he can do not to stare at her, drink her in. He wants to examine every bit of her. He is catching up for lost time, and it’s a race he already knows he will never win. “Hello,” he says. “What’s your name?”

  “Arielle,” says the girl.

  Arielle!

  “What happened to your face?” she asks.

  “My face? Oh.” Guillaume has forgotten about his broken nose. “I fell down some stairs.” He beams at her. “It’s nothing.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Guillaume.” The girl has Suzanne’s gray eyes. He clears his throat. “I’m a friend of your mother’s. Is she home?”

  “No,” says Arielle.

  A momentary pang.

  “You’re here all on your own?”

  “Oh no. Well, yes. I’m going downstairs in a moment to eat dinner with Madame Leloup. She’s the concierge. Sometimes she looks a
fter me when maman goes out.” Arielle looks at him, weighing him up. “I don’t really want to go,” she confides in a low voice.

  “Why not?” asks Guillaume.

  “Because she’s a terrible cook,” whispers Arielle.

  Guillaume puts his hand up to his mouth in pretend horror. “I promise I won’t tell anyone,” he whispers back. He looks down at his daughter, and worries that his heart will stop beating for good, drawn to exquisite stillness by overwhelming love for this little girl. He wants to know everything about her. “What’s your favorite thing to eat?” he asks.

  Arielle bites her lip as she considers her answer. “I had some chocolate cake this afternoon, and it was delicious,” she tells him. “So probably that.”

  “I love chocolate cake, too,” says Guillaume.

  She beams at him. “We went to see a puppet show this afternoon. My friend Souren was doing it. He’s very good at puppets.”

  “Ah, puppets, what fun!” exclaims Guillaume.

  “Only a little boy died in the last play and that made me cry and that was why I was allowed to eat the chocolate cake.” Arielle pauses. “I don’t usually get to eat chocolate cake,” she adds sadly.

  Guillaume peers over her head. “When will your mother—” he begins, and then the words freeze on his lips.

  He stares into the apartment, unable to formulate another thought.

  In a frame on the hallway wall are his sketches of stone angels.

  Guillaume can scarcely breathe. All this time, he thinks, stunned. She’s been looking at my drawings all this time.

  “Monsieur?” says Arielle. “Are you all right?”

  Guillaume tries his best to refocus his attention on the girl. He does his best to remain composed while his brain is feverishly recalibrating everything it has ever known.