The Story Sisters

by Alice Hoffman

  “So he would have died today even if I hadn’t left the door open?”

  “You know as well as I do, he was the sort of man who checked his door. He had a case of paranoia, really. I can’t imagine he’d go to bed without doing so, and if he did, well, at least he’s out of his misery.”

  Claire winced. “Is everything so easy for you to explain?”

  “No. I can’t explain why I took this crow. I hate birds. Come on. You don’t even have to thank me for the lift home.”

  He pointed out his car, which was parked nearby. It was a Saab that was rusted and in need of washing. Philippe took care of some things, but not others. They both got up and walked toward it. Claire felt unsettled over the fact that he seemed to think he knew her, when he didn’t know the first thing about her. “Thank you,” she grumbled, without much gratitude, just to prove him wrong since he clearly thought her an ungrateful, spoiled brat.

  “You’re welcome.” He spoke in English to be polite, even though being polite wasn’t especially easy for him. He was very blunt and matter-of-fact. That was his nature. It was probably why he didn’t mind Claire’s bad manners. When they were children, she had once called him a nincompoop at his grandmother’s shop, and he’d spent weeks trying to figure out what she’d meant. He still wasn’t exactly sure. She was usually so standoffish, he was surprised she let him drive her home.

  “Don’t bother to get out of the car,” she said when he pulled over.

  “I didn’t intend to,” he told her.

  “Why? Because your grandmother didn’t tell you to?”

  “Because one of my assigned patients is dying and I have to go check on him.”

  “Oh,” Claire said, embarrassed. “Well.”

  “Don’t feel bad. We’re all dying, but my patient is probably going to do it this afternoon or maybe tomorrow. I may be late to my uncle’s funeral.”

  Claire herself was there early. She asked if she could see Monsieur Cohen one last time before the service. He looked calm, peaceful, far from the world’s misery, as Philippe had said. She brought the heart scarab with her, which she tucked beneath his jacket.

  The cemetery was small and old with lilacs growing along a stone wall. There wasn’t much space, and mourners were forced to edge over graves in order to get to the service, which was held at the grave site. As Monsieur Cohen hadn’t left his apartment for more than ten years, he would have been surprised to see how many people attended his funeral and how many tears were shed. Even Monsieur Abetan, who had never met Monsieur Cohen in person, came to pay his respects. Claire’s grandmother fainted before the service had begun; it was such a sad day, and there was such a crowd, but there were doctors enough around and she was soon revived with smelling salts and a glass of cold water. Claire went to Natalia and knelt before her. She wanted to tell her she had been responsible for Monsieur Cohen’s death, that she had left the door open, but all she said was “I’m so sorry, Ama.” Natalia stroked her head. “He was a pleasure for me at the end of our lives. I could never have regrets. And you were like a daughter to him,” she said. “Whatever he taught you will stay with you forever.”

  Natalia sat next to Madame Cohen during the service. One of the grandsons held a black umbrella over the old women’s heads. A rabbi said the mourning prayers. Claire was in the last row, wearing the black dress Jeanne had given her when she first started working at the shop. It was wool and scratchy. Philippe came to sit beside her halfway through the service.

  “Did your patient die?” Claire whispered.

  A woman in the row directly in front of them turned and glared.

  “Turn around,” Philippe suggested to the woman. “There’s a funeral going on.” When the woman turned away, Philippe exchanged a look with Claire. There was a glint in his eyes she hadn’t noticed before. “Still alive, but on his way. No longer conscious. At this point, he didn’t know if I was there or not. And I had to leave to be here with you.”

  “Let me guess,” Claire ventured. “Your grandmother told you to.”

  Philippe looked at her and didn’t answer. Claire glanced away, unsettled. Now it seemed that she was the one who knew nothing of him.

  THERE WAS A dinner afterward at Madame Cohen’s home. Women from the neighborhood brought their best dishes and soon the table overflowed with food. Claire recognized many of the recipes, the pot-au-feu, the Love Is Blind Stew, the beef with prunes, the crème caramel with pistachio, the meat pies. She had made them all and tried none. She tasted several at the dinner and thought them delicious.

  Natalia was staying with Madame Cohen for the night. Everyone insisted Philippe take Claire home. He stood there and shrugged, as if it made no difference to him. “Go on,” Claire’s ama said. “I don’t want you walking home alone.” Madame Cohen handed them their coats and pushed them out the door.

  “How’s the crow?” Claire asked as they took the stairs to the street.

  “A pain in the ass. He wakes me up at four A.M.”

  Philippe had double-parked in a taxi stand. He was always late and always in a rush. As they approached, one of the drivers accosted him and started to yell. Because of Philippe’s lousy parking the driver had lost several fares. They both told each other to go to hell, then Philippe gave the driver a few euros to placate him.

  “Some people are idiots,” Philippe said reasonably.

  “Yes,” Claire remarked. “I know.”

  “Or nincompoops, whatever that is. I presume it means idiot.”

  “More or less,” Claire agreed.

  It was late and a light rain was falling. Cars were racing by. Philippe opened the door for her because it was rusted. There was a trick to it that involved kicking the door in the right place, just below the handle. The rain was green and quiet and cold. Claire was wearing the lapis necklace. When she bent forward to get into the Saab, she thought she heard the bell chime. Clearly it was nothing. Just to make sure, she took a step back and looked at Madame Cohen’s youngest grandson, the one who had been such a problem as a boy, who’d broken windows and made flyswatters and buried dogs and sat with dying men and tried to please his grandmother whenever possible.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “Absolutely,” she answered.

  SOMETIMES MADAME COHEN couldn’t recall what had happened the day before, but she remembered the past as if it had happened only moments ago. The color of the dresses she and her sisters used to wear, the dappled peels on the apples set out on her grandmother’s table, the recipe for Honesty Cake—three perfect eggs, white flour, cherries, lemon rind, and anise—the scent of the forest in Russia, her first glimpse of Paris, such a stunning sight that even now she sometimes saw it exactly as it had been on that day. Natalia frequently stopped by the shop, even though Madame Cohen was often asleep in her chair in the back room. Madame Cohen’s daughters-in-law worked in the shop now; it had become their pet project. Claire spent her days in the deuxième Monsieur Cohen’s workshop. The jewelry store featured her amulets and talismans exclusively. Lucie and Jeanne joked that perhaps Claire should be called the troisième Monsieur Cohen. They were in awe of what she was capable of. Without question, she was the best of the three jewelers. Recently, her work had been exhibited in a gallery on the Rue de Rivoli, with a huge gala to celebrate the opening. Madame Cohen and Madame Rosen had been there and it was all they could talk about for weeks, that and the fact that Philippe was there when his grandmother hadn’t even told him about the event, let alone insist that he come.

  Madame Rosen had sewn her granddaughter a dress for the occasion, an astonishing creation of pale gray silk and yellow tulle. Claire had framed it afterward and hung it on the wall of the workshop. Under glass, the gown glowed like a firefly. Afterward she had made the firefly charm for Mimi. The two had continued to write on a regular basis. Claire could always tell when one of her letters had been delivered. Mimi used pink stationery and she addressed her letters to Gigi Story, my aunt.

  THE NEIGHBORHOOD WOM
EN no longer worried about Claire. They turned their attentions elsewhere, to Natalia, who was grieving, and to Monsieur Abetan, who they decided must have a wife. Claire was too busy to worry about, plus she was in love. The first time she had slept with Philippe was after their first serious argument. They enjoyed provoking each other, and liked to slyly tease each other, but this was something else entirely. They’d taken Monsieur Cohen’s crow to the Bois de Boulogne to set it free. “A crow should be a crow,” Philippe had said. “If he dies, then at least he’ll have lived a crow’s life.”

  The crow took off and didn’t look back, but Claire worried that it wouldn’t be able to fend for itself after being babied for so many years in an overheated apartment. All at once, she’d found she was crying, which was completely unlike her. When Philippe asked why, she told him it was because he was an idiot. They’d screamed at each other and called each other names. People in the Bois edged away from them, convinced they were lunatics. Then Philippe kissed her and everything else dropped away. She had never been kissed before and when she told him that, he laughed. “So it turns out you have been waiting for me since we were children.”

  “Unlikely,” Claire had said haughtily, but he kissed her again and she wanted him to and that was that.

  Philippe liked to fight, but he also liked to make up. Claire appreciated that. She appreciated everything about him, even his flaws, which were many. He was even more of a workaholic than she’d first suspected, gone on weekends, not returning from the hospital until late in the evening with no excuses. He was a restless sleeper and a picky eater. He still broke dishes when he washed them like the clumsy, curious boy he’d once been. He argued with his coworkers and gave away too much money and cursed the government no matter who was in office. He let her know that he would never have time to take a vacation. None of these flaws were fatal, not even the fact that he gave his patients his home number so that the phone was always ringing in the middle of the night. That was when Claire knew she was in love with him. She didn’t need the bells she wore to tell her that. She was sleeping at his place and without thinking had grabbed for the phone when it rang. A woman was crying. Her father was dying and she didn’t know what to do for him. Philippe got out of bed. He was on the phone for nearly half an hour.

  “What did you tell her?” Claire asked when at last he hung up.

  Philippe was so tall he took up more than his half of the bed. He had beautiful long hands and dark hair. He was a very deep sleeper.

  “I told her it was an honor to be with someone when they died. I said she should be grateful for her last moments with him. That she should say her good-byes.”

  “That took half an hour?” Claire asked.

  “That takes a lifetime.”

  “I did something terrible,” Claire said suddenly.

  More and more often, she found herself wishing she could talk to her sister, the one person who might understand how easy it was to make a terrible mistake when all you thought you were doing was going for a drive on a beautiful blue day, taking the steps two at a time, leaving a door open, stepping on the gas too hard. When you had no intention of harming anyone, not even yourself.

  “My uncle? I told you he was going to have a stroke with or without the burglary. Plus I’m convinced you’re as paranoid as he was. Claire, you locked the door.”

  “Not that. Something else. Something unforgivable.”

  “Is this about telling your sister Meg to get in the car? That was an accident. If every doctor gave up his practice due to some accident he was responsible for, there’d be no doctors. We’d all be dead.”

  “No. Something worse. Something that ruined someone’s life.”

  “Well, you rescued mine, so that cancels out whatever came before. I’ve been told I’d be an idiot without you.”

  “By who?” Claire grinned. “Your grandmother?”

  “By you!”

  She never told him what she’d done. The only one who knew was Elv.

  Elv, who’d turned to look back at her, who’d disappeared into the briars, who’d been taken by an unbreakable spell until nightfall.

  BEFORE LONG CLAIRE and Philippe moved in together, to the top floor of Madame Cohen’s house. Their grandmothers did them the service of not saying they had told them so. It was a big apartment and they were slowly painting each room white. The woodwork was gold leaf, very old, chipped at the edges, but beautiful. They decided to keep it as it was. The bedroom overlooked a small garden, nothing as grand as the cobblestone courtyard of Claire’s grandmother’s building, but still lovely.

  When Claire left Monsieur Cohen’s workroom at noon, she stopped by the shop to retrieve Madame Cohen and they went home together for lunch. Natalia often joined them. She was recovering from the loss of Samuel Cohen. She seemed more fragile. Her knees were bothering her, and Claire had to help her up the stairs to the apartment. Eighteen years had passed since the anniversary party at the Plaza Hotel, but Natalia still dreamed of that day. She dreamed of Annie and of Meg and of the Story sisters when they were young, wearing the blue dresses she had made for them. Just the night before, she had fallen asleep on the couch in the parlor and in her dream she went to her own party. Everyone was there: her husband, Martin, and Samuel Cohen, and her nieces Elise and Mary Fox. In the kitchen, the staff was hard at work icing petits fours in hues of pink and green and blue. There was the smell of sugar and vanilla. Waves of heat wafted from the huge restaurant stove and made her flush. “Make me something I’ll never forget,” she told the head chef. “Make sure I remember everything before it gets lost.”

  When Claire made lunch for Madame Cohen and her grandmother, she used tomatoes whenever possible. She followed the recipe for her mother’s gazpacho, she re-created the cream of tomato soup she and Pete had made for Annie when she was so ill, she fixed green tomatoes on toast with olives, so simple and pleasurable, and of course, Madame Cohen’s favorite, risotto with yellow tomatoes and thyme. Claire grew her own tomatoes in earthenware containers set on the tiny balcony of their apartment, ordering heirloom seeds from catalogs. In the height of summer, she tossed a net over the plants to keep the birds from pecking at them. When Philippe came home on summer nights, he’d find Claire on the patio and he’d come to sit beside her, stretching his long legs out beside hers. He had no idea that tomatoes could be green and pink and yellow and gold. He preferred to eat them whole, like apples.

  THE FOLLOWING SPRING, the flowers on the chestnut tree were in such abundance that tourists came to take photographs. It was the season the family had always dreaded, but this year was different. When spring arrived, Natalia and Claire welcomed it. They washed the windows in Natalia’s apartment, ordered heirloom tomato seeds, went walking by the river in the glassy afternoons. This year upon her return from visiting Mimi and Elv, Natalia was sewing Claire’s wedding dress. She had gotten special magnifying glasses in order to see the stitches. She had arthritis in her hands, but she had worked all winter and now she was getting close to completion. She would need to persevere in order to finish by the coming summer. Her fingers bled from the delicacy of the stitches, and she had to soak her hands in warm olive oil, but she felt certain this would be the last dress she would ever attempt, so she put everything into it. She had been in love twice and all that she’d felt went into the dress, with stitches set so close together it was nearly impossible to see them with the naked eye. In Natalia’s opinion, that was the way love was, invisible, there whether or not you wanted to see it or admit to it.

  On the day the package arrived, Claire was in a hurry to get home. She’d forgotten her umbrella and the rains had begun. She avoided puddles as best she could, leaping across gutters. She had on a raincoat over black jeans and a sweater, but was soon drenched to the skin. She always wore the lapis necklace with the ancient bell, which she half believed had brought Philippe to her. Well, maybe it had and maybe it hadn’t, but she wasn’t taking any chances. When she got home, she quickly shrugged off her rai
ncoat, then toweled her sopping hair dry. She slipped off her boots and pulled off her jeans. To her surprise, Madame Cohen and her grandmother were in her kitchen, a pot of tea on the table between them. They glanced up at Claire when she walked in.

  “Now what?” Claire only had on underwear and a black sweater. She was pale and long-legged and serious. Love had made her more approachable. People often came up to her on the street and asked for directions or begged a few euros to tide them over until their luck changed.

  “Is someone dead?”

  “Not at all,” her ama assured her.

  Though her amulets were more in demand than ever, the only jewelry Claire wore, other than the love talisman, was her engagement ring. Madame Cohen had given Philippe her own ring to present to Claire, the one her grandmother had brought from Russia. Everyone in the family was talking about this. It was something of a scandal. Madame Cohen hadn’t offered it to anyone else, and there had been plenty of engagements throughout the years. She’d been waiting for the right person, and that person was Claire. She’d known it when she caught the first demon on the flypaper. She’d known when Claire had cried in the kitchen during her job interview. Madame Cohen had arranged this marriage when she sent Philippe to bury the dog. In a world of sorrow, love was an act of will. All you needed were the right ingredients. Not even her own daughters knew the circumstances of how she’d lost her sisters, that’s how long ago it had been. She knew that sometimes when you were supposed to feel lucky, all you felt was despair. You were guilty just because you had managed to live. For reasons you couldn’t understand, that made no sense whatsoever, you were the one left unscathed.

  The package that had arrived by post that day had been addressed in Mimi’s girlish handwriting. The postmark was North Point Harbor.

  “Open it,” Madame Cohen urged.