by Sarah Jio
“You look amazing,” she says, kissing each of my cheeks.
“So do you.” She’s wearing a long, red silk dress, short sleeved, with a yellow sash around the waist—a look only Inès could pull off.
“Would you like a drink? Perrier? Wine?”
“Wine,” I say quickly.
She returns with a glass of white wine, and I take a big sip of it, then another, as guests mill about eying our work. I see my paintings across the room, clustered together with a sign that shares my name and photo.
Inès leans in to me. “You wouldn’t believe how many people have been inquiring about your paintings.”
I nod, noticing Margot chatting with a particularly handsome man in a suit. I smile to myself. For the first time in a very long while, she’s gotten a babysitter for Élian.
“I have no doubt all of them will be sold by the end of the night,” Inès continues.
I should be happy, thrilled, but I can barely muster a smile.
She frowns. “Is something wrong?”
I shake my head, then take another big gulp from my wineglass. “No, no, everything’s fine. Great.”
She’s unconvinced. “You don’t seem like yourself.”
“Well, I have all this makeup on,” I say.
“No, it’s not that.” She looks at me quizzically.
“I got my memory back,” I say through tears.
“That’s great!” Inès says.
I shrug. “Not really.”
She looks at me, confused, as I wipe away a fresh tear. “Inès, three years ago, I was an artist, living a happy life in San Diego. I had a husband and a daughter. I had a thriving art career.”
“What happened?”
“My baby died,” I say, trying my best to compose myself. “I don’t think there’s any amount of art therapy that can help a person get over that.”
Inès reaches for my hand, stunned. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers. She’s the person who always seems to have the solution for everything, and I can tell the wheels in her mind are turning. “You know what?” she says a moment later. “You should talk to my mother.”
“Your mother?”
She nods. “She’s not in the best health, sadly, but she’s as sharp as a tack, and the strongest person I know. She might be able to give you some interesting perspective on grief.”
I shake my head. “How so?”
“Trust me,” she says. “Just talk to her.”
“Okay,” I say, reaching for another glass of wine.
* * *
—
AN HOUR AND a half later, I’ve lost track of my wine consumption, and I feel light and numb all over. Several Bistro Jeanty regulars came, including Monsieur Ballard, which made me smile. Before he left, he said, “No more formalities between friends. My name is Nicolas. Please just call me Nic.”
You could say that it’s a perfect night, I guess. But as much as I worry about the possibility of seeing Victor, for some reason his absence hurts now. Surely, after everything, he’ll at least show up, look me in the eye, offer an apology, even if I can’t accept it. I sigh. How can I ever accept it?
At nine-thirty, I decide to call it a night. Margot has already left to have a drink with handsome-suit guy. Good for her. But for me? It’s time I go home.
“I’m sorry he didn’t come,” Inès says, kneeling down to retrieve a plastic cup from the floor.
“It’s okay,” I say with a sniff. “It’s for the best.”
And then the door hinges creak and a blast of cold air pummels in: Victor. He’s standing just ahead, smiling nervously.
“Oh no, is it over?” he asks, rubbing his forehead. “Did I…miss it?” He’s out of breath, his face awash with worry. He peers at his watch, then runs a hand through his thick wavy hair.
My heart surges with emotion.
“The restaurant was a nightmare tonight,” he explains. “One of our ovens broke, and Julien is out with the flu.” He pauses, taking a cautious step toward me. “Wow, you look…beyond stunning.”
Inès disappears to the back room as he continues to speak, but I don’t hear his words. I merely watch as his lips move. For a moment, I don’t feel any anger or sadness.
He looks at the west wall of the gallery and touches my arm, and the audio comes into focus again. “Those must be yours?”
I nod, my eyes fixed on Victor.
“You’ve always been such a gifted artist.” He smiles at me, his eyes misty. He knows I know.
“It was you,” I say. “It was always you.”
He approaches slowly, wiping away a tear. “Yes, my love.”
I swallow hard.
“After…everything, and then the divorce,” he says, “I couldn’t bear it. I wanted so desperately to reach you, to break through your walls. I moved to Paris, bought the restaurant—all so we could try again. Start over. But you wouldn’t, or couldn’t.” He rubs his forehead. “It killed me. And then you had your accident. I was beside myself. I came to the hospital each day, pretending to be a concerned stranger. I thought I’d lost you.” His voice falters. “But then you pulled through. And I know it sounds crazy, but I couldn’t help but wonder if your amnesia was an opportunity, in a sense. A chance for us to start fresh. When you came into Jeanty that morning, it was like I’d been given the most miraculous gift. You were…you again.”
I look away, wiping a tear from my cheek.
“I just thought,” Victor continues, tears spilling from his eyelids, “I just thought that if I could have one more shot, one more chance to get through to you, to court you all over again, that maybe, just maybe, you’d see that…we were and are and will always be…written in the stars.” He touches my cheek lightly. “Caroline, can you blame me for wanting to take that chance?”
I shake my head, my heart teeming with conflicting emotions. “But why couldn’t you have told me the truth?” I take a step back. “You kept me in the dark for your own benefit.”
He looks as if I’ve just punched him in the face. “I was there all along,” he says. “After the accident, I made sure you were okay.” He looks deeply into my eyes. “My love, please, try to understand that I did this all for us.”
I shake my head. “And what if I never regained my memory? That happens sometimes. Then what? Were you ever going to tell me about our daughter? Or would you keep her memory hidden from me because it was in our best interest?” I burst into tears, thrusting myself to the door and out to the street.
“Caroline!” he exclaims, following me outside.
I turn around. “You’ll be happy to know that I just inherited my father’s entire estate. But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
He shakes his head. “What are you talking about?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “Just tell me who the flowers were for.”
“The flowers?”
“The flowers you bought the day we returned from Provence. Inès saw you with them.”
“Caroline, they were for you!” He sighs. “That night you stormed out of the restaurant, I was going to…” He pauses when his voice cracks. “I was going to tell you everything and then ask you if you’d be willing to start over with me.”
I look at him for a long moment. “Victor, even if that’s the case, even if you are telling the truth, how can I get over the fact that our daughter died right before your very eyes?” Tears stream down my face. “Couldn’t you have done something? Anything? Couldn’t you have…saved her, Vic?” He pulls me to him, and I yield to his embrace, my makeup-tinged tears soiling the lapel of his navy jacket. I weep, clutching his chest.
“My love, don’t you know that I carry the weight of that every day? I feel it right here”—he points to his heart—“when I wake up in the morning and when I go to sleep at night. There is no escape from that pain.
” He takes a deep breath. “And, my darling, I did try to save her. I tried with all my might. I’ve turned the scene over and over again in my mind, maybe a million times. I’ve talked to experts and therapists, the police detectives who were at the scene. And while I may never be able to forgive myself, I know now that there was nothing I could have done to prevent what happened.”
I step back and take a deep breath, looking up into his eyes. He reaches his hands out to me, but I don’t take them. I can’t.
“Caroline,” he pleads. “Let me love you.”
“Oh, Vic,” I say, my voice cracking, tears stinging the corners of my eyes. “I wish I could. I wish it so badly. But I just…can’t.”
We each failed our daughter; this is the price we had to pay. I take a step back, drape my coat over my shoulders, and walk ahead into the night, alone. Victor doesn’t follow me. And with each step, I feel the familiar thorny vine growing around my heart. No more red lipstick. No more walks to Montmartre, or silly paintings and sketches.
All these weeks, I’d merely been dreaming. And now I’m awake—wide awake.
CHAPTER 24
AUGUST 25, 1944
Paris, France
Reinhardt wakes with an aching head. The insolent sun pierces brightly through his bedroom window, only making it worse. “Madame Huet,” he shouts. “Come close my drapes at once!” When she doesn’t appear at his door, he calls out again. “Madame Huet! I said get in here!” He holds his head in his hands and stumbles to the window, closing the curtains himself. “Damn housekeeper,” he says. He ought to kill her like he did the rest of the women who’d lived here. Worthless, the lot of them.
He falls back into bed as last night’s events come into focus like a bad dream, and he remembers that Madame Huet has left. Last night, he came home to find the apartment door gaping open. Madame Huet’s room was empty and the suitcase under her bed gone, along with Céline. The only trace of her, in fact, was the bloodied sheets. “Whore!” Reinhardt had shouted, kicking the wall beside the bed.
He’d taken a heavy swig of vodka and wandered down to the street screaming Céline’s name, like the angry owner of a dog who’d run away and, when found, would be severely punished. He roughed up a few passersby for information, but it was no use. Céline, it seemed, had vanished.
The streets of Paris felt different somehow. Germany was losing the war, and with it, its grip on the city. But he would still take what was rightly his. And when he saw that Bistro Jeanty was closed for the night, he laughed to himself. With a swift kick of his boot, the door hung flopping on one hinge, and he stumbled inside like a wild boar, knocking over tables and shattering polished wineglasses on his way to the bar, where he grabbed a bottle of scotch.
She wasn’t supposed to leave. Not like that, without his permission, and bleeding all over the bed, too. He shook his head. She probably killed his child, the bitch. She wasn’t strong enough to carry it. Weak. But that was his fault, after all. He should never have impregnated a Jew. All wrong. He needed a strong German woman. She’d have delivered a healthy child. She’d have given him an heir.
And yet, in some twisted way, Reinhardt loved Céline. He loved the way she smelled and tasted. He loved the pitch of her nose, the shape of her body in the moonlight, especially the deep curve that extended from the side of her waist to her hip. He also loved her spirit, even though it drove him crazy that she didn’t fear him the way the other ones did. Yes, she cried out when he took his belt to her, but pain is different than fear, and Céline did not fear him. He could coax other women into submission, but not Céline, not even after all this time. And for that, she gave him a thrill unlike any other woman he’d had in Paris. She was his favorite. And now she is gone.
It’s half past ten in the morning, and Reinhardt is alone in the apartment. He walks to the living room and finds on the table a telegram from one of his superiors that he didn’t notice last night. The envelope is torn; Madame Huet probably read it before she left. Her departure shook him as much as did Céline’s. He would have wagered money on the housekeeper’s loyalty. But, it seems, she is having the last laugh.
Reinhardt holds the telegram in his trembling hands—just six brief words, but they tell him everything he needs to know: “The Allies are on their way.”
He looks out the window, surveying the street below. His peers are piling into vehicles right and left; he recognizes one of them with whom he’d had dinner just two days ago. A teenage boy stands in the middle of the square waving a French flag. Reinhardt instinctively considers running for his rifle in the hall closet and planting a bullet in the idiot’s skull, but it would draw attention. He knows he must go before it’s too late, though it is already too late.
There isn’t time to pack a bag or bring any of his accumulated treasures from Paris—the priceless paintings, the clothes, the gilded mirrors he pilfered from the apartments he brutally raided. A shame to leave it all behind for thieves to loot. If Madame Huet had any sense, she’d have taken the silver, and maybe she did. There isn’t time to check.
He dresses quickly in plain clothes so as not to be detected, then tucks a revolver under his belt before heading to the safe. Inside are piles of assorted watches, jewelry, and gold coins he’s accumulated during his tenure in Paris. He stuffs as much as he can into his bag, then gives the apartment a final look. This isn’t how he imagined things ending, in defeat. But he’ll make a new life in Berlin, just as grand as the one he’s had here. Yes, just as grand.
He begins walking to the door but pauses when he hears the muffled cry of a…child. Strange, he thinks; there aren’t any children living in this building. He takes a few steps down the hallway, and the cries become louder; in fact, the sound seems to be coming from…Céline’s room.
He pushes through the doorway, recoiling when he sees the bloody sheets. His stomach turns. And there it is again—the sound. A child, a little girl, crying out in desperation. “Mama,” she cries. “Mama, please let me out!”
He smiles as he kneels down to the floorboards and listens to the muffled cries that emanate from just beneath. He’d almost forgotten that Céline had a daughter. He’d seen her in the flower shop, of course, and then his officers had captured her with that Jewish father of hers, or…had they?
Rage surges in him like a stoked fire. She’d hidden her daughter in here somehow. All this time. How had she deceived him like this?
“Please,” the girl sobs. “Mama, please.”
Her crying displeases him, and he wants to make it stop. He pats his hands along the floorboards, pressing on them until one gives a little. A hidden floor. He’s heard about things like this, people hiding Jews in cellars and false rooms, where they live in darkness like rats. He shakes his head. He’ll get this rodent; he’ll put a bullet through her head.
It won’t be a difficult task, not for Reinhardt. He’s killed children before, women too. So many women. Some right here in this very apartment. Killing this one will feel especially good—his final duty for the Fatherland before he flees.
What a delight it will be when she squeals in terror. His fingers are too thick to wedge into the groove of the flooring, so he retrieves a crowbar from his bedroom, its edges flecked with dried blood.
“Mama!” the girl cries out again, as Reinhardt sets his revolver on the floor, at the ready.
“Shut up, you little bitch!” he shouts, digging the edge of the crowbar into the floor as he stumbles and loses his balance.
“Shit,” he says, picking himself up, even more determined to exterminate what lies below.
The bedroom window has been left propped open, and he pauses when he hears commotion on the street below, prompting him to have a look.
To his horror, an armored tank barrels past, followed by another, and another, with American soldiers marching beside them. He knows he must leave. This cat and mouse game with a silly schoo
lgirl might be one he would enjoy winning in other times, but not now.
Reinhardt retrieves the revolver, then runs to the living room, where he stands on the balcony that overlooks the street below. He knows that if he runs, he’ll be a sitting duck—shot in the back and flayed like a…His heart beats faster. And if he stays…He pauses, hearing the sound of heavy footsteps outside the apartment.
He imagines his homeland, the life that had been promised to him—the one he’s never had. He’s sacrificed everything for Germany, and Germany has failed him. Or has he failed Germany? A tear falls from his eye as he grips the revolver tightly. He pushes the gun’s barrel deep into his mouth. Today, the only recipient of his bullet would be him. And in his final act for the Fatherland, Reinhardt pulls the trigger.
CHAPTER 25
CAROLINE
Days pass, then weeks. Victor doesn’t call, not that I expect him to. I’ve said my goodbye, and I meant it. There is no use pretending anymore, for either of us. Surely he sees the value in that, of each of us getting on with our lives without causing each other further pain.
I avoid Bistro Jeanty, opting for another nearby café for my meals. It’s not nearly as good, and the coffee is bitter, but I…won’t go back.
Margot has found childcare for Élian and has returned to the restaurant. I told her that she can stay in the apartment as long as she wants as long as she doesn’t mention Victor; she agreed.
I bought some new furniture, booked a trip to Italy in November. Margot says I should pick up yoga, and I promise her I’ll give it a try.
While my memory first started coming back in a slow trickle, it now feels like a raging faucet that I can’t shut off. Just this morning, I remembered the password to open my laptop screen: “Peony.”
After breakfast, I type in the word, and like magic, I have access to the inner sanctum of my laptop, which turns out to be quite boring. No emails of significance, no racy online dating profile, no Pinterest board. But then a Word document in the upper right corner of the desktop catches my eye. It’s titled “Letter to Victor.” I click on it.