When she said this, the chaotic swirl of the OSE offices stood still. Vera no longer noticed the multitude of people shuffling in and out, desk drawers opening and closing, the dusty weak light filtering in through the windows, the phones trilling incessantly, the teenagers in ill-fitting suits milling about, presumably DPs who were too old to be classified as children anymore but too young to begin new lives as adults.
Vera saw only Madeleine’s gray-blue eyes leaping at the thought that all was not lost. Her hands trembled when she reached into her purse and pulled out the photograph. “This is Lucie.”
Lucie looked directly into the camera. The photo had been taken that last summer in Sanary. She perched on the curved trunk of the car, her little bare feet balanced on the license plate, wearing a white cotton frock with sleeves that fluttered out like butterflies. For a brief instant, Vera felt embarrassed by the photograph. It revealed their wealth, showing how privileged Lucie was here, with Mourka draped over her lap, sitting on top of an expensive car, basking in the sun.
“Just before I left, I gave her a necklace, with a small golden heart on it.”
Madeleine lit another cigarette, offering it to Vera, then asked if Lucie had any distinguishing marks, anything that couldn’t be erased. “You see, we’re finding that, after so many years, many of the children don’t recognize their parents, especially if they were quite young when the war started. The parents are also unsure, but of course they’re desperate to get their children back, so sometimes mistakes are made. Mistakes that are very hard to reverse.” She leaned against the desk. “It’s been five years. Imagine how Lucie might have changed. Imagine what she looks like now.”
“She has a birthmark on the third finger of her right hand. It’s a pink blotch traveling up the knuckle, as if she slammed a door on it.”
Pale sunlight hit Madeleine’s face and illuminated the tiny translucent hairs downing her cheeks. “Well, that’s something.”
“Yes,” Vera said faintly.
Madeleine sat back down and slid a piece of paper and a pencil over to Vera. “I’m going to read you a list of all the known convents in the area of Oradour, in and around Limoges. There’s a slight chance Agnes might have taken her to one of these. But even then, it’s quite unlikely, I’m afraid . . .” She paused and gave Vera a long steady look. “Are you ready?”
The pencil felt slick in her hand. She tried to swallow but couldn’t, her chest so tight she thought it might explode.
“Yes, we’re ready,” Sasha said.
* * *
• • •
The air was fresh and cutting, filtering into the green Citroën with its rusted fender and front tire on the verge of going flat. Gussie got them the car from his old literature professor at the Sorbonne, who had coincidentally read one of Vera’s novels and admired it.
Sasha accelerated, the outskirts of Paris receding in the rearview mirror, the sky interspersed with pink-bellied clouds, the edges tinged with gold. It would take almost five hours to drive to Limoges, in the southwest of France, near Oradour, where the majority of the convents were.
Vera spread the map over her lap. Her blouse rippled in the wind. She looked up and turned to him, her cheek pressed into the leather headrest.
Lush green fields flitted past, filled with wildflowers. She wondered if Sasha only saw the war in those rolling hills and low stone walls he would have crouched behind. She placed her hand on the back of his neck.
The road stretched before them. Peaceful, green, empty.
“We don’t even have a place to stay in Limoges.” But she was relaxed because finally she felt on the right path, finding a hotel the least of her worries.
“We’ll find a room.”
“I know,” she said softly, running her fingers through his hair. “I had a dream about Max last night. Well, it started with him. He told me to take Lucie away. We bundled her into the car and I drove. Max stayed behind in Sanary. The ocean waves along the road were so high, towering above us, these dark blue watery columns cresting higher and higher, and I knew once they crashed down, Lucie would drown, but there was no choice but to keep going—” She broke off, and gazed out the window.
Rows of lavender rolled by.
“Did you make it?” Sasha asked.
“The dream ended then.” Vera tapped her ring against the car window.
Chapter 47
VERA
July 1945, Southwestern France
They had been driving for three days, each night returning to the hotel in Limoges, each morning setting out again. They visited two to four convents a day, depending on how much distance they had to travel and the nature of the roads. They arrived after lauds, or before the midday prayer. Later in the afternoon, they tried to get there before vespers.
Each convent had its own distinct character. Some were sequestered, set back from the road, surrounded by copses of trees, the halls flooded with solemn shadows, places so quiet Vera couldn’t imagine even one child living here. At the abbey of St. Martin, the nuns averted their eyes, deferring to the Mother Superior, who explained that they had sheltered only four children during the war, two boys and two girls, who were older, all Czech.
“How old?” Vera asked, feeling the blue shadows thicken around her.
“The youngest, Klara, was eleven when she arrived.”
Even so, Vera held out the photograph of Lucie, and the Mother Superior snatched it from her hand and, with a sniff, shook her head.
At Bourbourg Abbey, the nuns were younger and more cheerful. They wore light blue tunics with white habits, and Vera felt as though multiple Virgin Marys surrounded her. They spoke in soft, consoling tones, their creamy skin smelling of talcum powder.
Sasha stood respectfully a few feet away, near the door.
“We have a school for girls here. Some are orphans. What is your daughter’s name?” the young nun asked while the Mother Superior smiled encouragingly.
When Vera showed them Lucie’s picture, they all nodded, but Vera could tell they didn’t recognize Lucie and her chest ached. She tried to take measured breaths, but it was impossible. She reached out for Sasha, but instead found her hand tangled in a nun’s blue robe. She bestowed Vera with a forgiving nod.
“It’s an old picture,” Vera explained. “She might not even look like this anymore.”
Mother Superior gave her a tired little nod. “Let’s take a look.”
* * *
• • •
On the way to the dining hall, passing through the cool dim corridors, the Mother Superior said that all the girls in the school were French, and about half had lost their parents in the war. “The other half are regular pupils, with families to go home to when the term ends. We have forty pupils attending at the moment. There’s one who might fit your description. She came to us in the middle of the night. A Resistance fighter brought her to our doorstep. It was pouring rain, a few days before the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. I still remember her blue lips, and she was wearing a thin wool coat, soaked all the way through. She didn’t even know her name, or wouldn’t tell us. Many of the children had been trained to forget their real names, so we named her Juliette. Juliette Martin. I suppose the choice of ‘Juliette’ was a little ostentatious, but she looked so sweet and delicate, we wanted to give her a pretty name. She was four years old.”
“Four,” Vera repeated, trying to suppress the tremor in her voice.
“Yes,” the Mother Superior said, before opening the door to the dining hall.
* * *
• • •
The girls sat in rows, wearing navy pinafores over white shirts with Peter Pan collars, their hair braided down their backs. “She is ten years old now. Do you see her, over there, at the far end of the table?”
“Yes,” Vera whispered. A sharp fear funneled into her throat. She glanced over at Sasha, who looked anxiousl
y across the room.
Mother Superior went to retrieve her, leading the girl over by the hand.
It wasn’t Lucie. Vera saw this immediately. The girl had an odd loping gait, and her skin was darker, echoing Vera’s olive complexion, as opposed to Lucie’s marble white.
The girl glanced up, chewing on her bottom lip. Vera took in her amber eyes and russet-brown hair that, despite the braid, was unruly, and for a moment, although she knew this wasn’t her daughter, the girl’s imploring gaze urged her to say yes.
Vera could have a daughter again, and the girl could have a mother.
The girl turned away, hiding her face in the folds of the Mother Superior’s robe.
Vera shook her head. “I’m sorry.”
The Mother Superior nodded, holding the girl close. “The Holy Spirit guides us. We will pray for you.”
Vera suddenly grew aware of the other nuns surrounding her, and she felt soothed by the closeness of their warm bodies and the soft fall of their voices. A sense of mutual agreement rippled among them, and they began to recite a piece of scripture:
Whatever is has already been,
and what will be has been before;
and God will call the past to account.
Chapter 48
VERA
July 1945, Southwestern France
After they left Bourbourg Abbey, they drove back to the hotel in silence. Her disappointment was palpable; she could almost taste its metallic bitterness. Frowning at the passing greenery, she felt her body tense and coil up, as if the surrounding vineyards, the sky and the clouds, were conspiring against her, keeping Lucie away.
Thank God, when they returned to the hotel, a cable from Gussie awaited them at the front desk. He had managed to locate one of the survivors of the Oradour massacre, Jacques Durand, who was willing to talk. He agreed to meet them tomorrow at noon in Limoges, at Café Chez Marie.
* * *
• • •
Jacques Durand sat stoically at the table, a cane propped up between his legs, his hands resting over its curved top. He had a neat graying mustache and wore a houndstooth cap, the brim casting a shadow over his deep-set eyes. When they shook hands, he squinted at them, managing a brief smile. A basket of stale rolls stood on the table, along with a carafe of water.
Vera poured some water into their glasses.
For a moment, no one said anything.
Jacques coughed into his sleeve.
“Thank you for meeting with us,” Vera began.
“Yes, thank you,” Sasha added in English, leaning over the lip of the table.
Vera lightly touched his shoulder, indicating that the rest of the conversation would follow in French. It was a little signal that had naturally developed between them, as most people spoke no English, and Vera hoped her impeccable French would help people, like Jacques, view her as one of them, as opposed to another refugee with her hand out.
Jacques nodded and pressed his palms into his cane, as if it were an anchor. “You want to know about the girl Agnes was taking care of on the farm, during the war?”
“Yes,” Vera nodded. “Lucie.”
His pursed his lips. “Lucie. I remember her. She used to play the piano a little bit. She liked to look at my tools.” His eyes watered. “I am a piano tuner. I have been tuning pianos my whole life.” He began to explain that he knew Agnes when she was young. They were in love, but he was too old for her, and their families, both farming families, harbored a mutual hate for each other that spanned a century, over a land dispute. “In retaliation, Agnes’s family sent her away to become a governess in St. Petersburg.”
Vera touched the top of his blue-veiny hand. “She was my governess.”
The man drew a labored breath. “When Agnes returned to Oradour in 1940, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Still the same elegant girl. Just a little older.” He smiled. “I thought she’d never come home. But with her sisters, you know, she didn’t have a good relation.” He adjusted his cap.
The awning of the café flapped in the wind.
He crossed his arms over his chest and gave them both a mischievous grin. “And luckily, the Fauchuex family had a piano. An old Schilling Victorian that needed tuning. Already I had been coming there twice a year to tune it, but when Agnes returned, I said it needed tuning more often than that.”
He carefully started to deposit some tobacco leaves into cigarette paper. “That’s when I noticed Lucie. She was always hanging around the piano, hoping to play a few chords.”
Vera interjected, “Lucie played piano with her father. Every night, after dinner.”
Jacques tightly rolled the cigarette, licking the end to make sure it stuck. “Agnes vaguely referred to Lucie as a distant cousin who had come to live with them, but we knew there was no distant cousin. We know everything in these parts.” He shifted positions in the rickety chair. “Lucie stayed with Agnes up until about 1942, and then she took the child away right before a German regiment came into town.”
“And?” Vera said, sitting very still. “Where did she take her?”
“I don’t know. When Agnes returned, she said nothing.” He smiled faintly.
“Oh,” Vera gasped, clutching Sasha’s forearm, her mouth incredibly dry.
“Vera,” Sasha said, holding her hand tightly. “What did he say?”
“Agnes took Lucie away in 1942, and moved her somewhere else. He doesn’t know where, though.”
Her heart lifted and expanded with the possibility of Lucie’s nearness, that she could still be living and breathing somewhere, maybe even a car ride away, and various scenarios flashed through her mind: an orphanage, a DP camp, an elderly couple who agreed to hide her in their cellar. “Oh, thank God,” she cried, leaping up from the table, not wanting to waste one more minute sitting here, when they could be on the road again, racing to the next convent.
But then she grew aware of Jacques across the table; he regarded her with a pained expression, his face hollow and creased. He bent over his cane and coughed into the crook of his arm before regaining his composure.
A stray dog trotted into the middle of the square before a man pulling a pushcart whistled for it.
They all watched the dog. A hot shame filled Vera for displaying such intense relief when this man had probably lost his entire family that day, and here she was, radiating joy.
The dog paused, debating whether or not to obey its master.
Jacques cleared his throat. “I left early that morning, to tune a piano in Saint-Denis. A Steinway and Sons. From the nineteenth century. The keys always stuck. When I left, I forgot to say goodbye to my wife.” He looked down at his hands.
When Sasha offered him a handkerchief, he waved it away.
“Here,” Sasha said, half rising from his chair. “Please, take a glass of water.”
Jacques sipped from the glass slowly, his face wet and flushed.
Vera watched him with a secret fear, knowing that only a small amount of restraint prevented her from having these lapses, when the uncertainty grew unbearable. She had orchestrated such scenes privately, in the house on Adelaide Drive, before Max came home in the evenings. She recalled the feeling of the wooden floorboards against her cheek after she had pounded them with her fists until her knuckles bled, and afterward tore off her blouse because sweat drenched the front of it. And then, in her slip, shivering, she cleaned up the mess, cursing herself in the aftermath. By the time Max came home, she had taken a long nap, and folded away all that rage for another day.
“In just a few hours, they were taken from me,” Jacques said, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “Charlotte was engaged to be married.” He gestured to the tiered fountain in the middle of the square, the water steadily sputtering.
* * *
• • •
Afterward, they watched Jacques amble along the square’s perimeter
with his cane. He waved to a few old men sitting on green benches who were tossing crumbs to pigeons.
Vera looked at Sasha, her eyes damp. “Thank God she didn’t burn in that church.”
“She was lucky,” Sasha said softly. “It all comes down to that.”
They looked out at the square to watch Jacques again, but he had disappeared behind the soaring stone church.
Chapter 49
LUCIE
Late July 1945, Southwestern France
At the end of July, Camille’s parents, Jean-Paul and Marie, returned to the convent to fetch Camille and Lucie. They would take the girls to their summerhouse on the Basque coast, in Saint-Palais, for the summer holiday.
“It’s a good place to recover and forget, for all of us,” Jean-Paul said to Sister Ismerie in the shadowy vestibule of the convent as they waited for Lucie and Camille to finish packing their things.
The convent was quieter than usual, as all the other girls had already gone home. Before Lucie left, Sister Helene knelt down and took her by the shoulders, her eyes watering slightly when she told her to be good, and to listen to the Bonheurs. Her mouth trembled when she said, “It is the best thing for you.” Lucie nodded, a knot gathering in her throat. And then, unexpectedly, Sister Helene hugged her, pressing Lucie’s cheek against her chest, as though she didn’t want to let her go. She whispered into Lucie’s hair. “Look after yourself. Everything will be all right.”
Lucie nodded, taking in Sister Helene’s powdery rose scent. Pulling away from her, she knew she had always wanted to leave the convent, had always waited for this crucial day, but now she felt afraid. Afraid to leave the last tie to her parents, and afraid the Bonheurs would not like her, and that it might be different with Camille outside of the life they had shared here. Would Camille have other, better friends, from before the war? Would they sleep in the same room? She didn’t want to be a nuisance to the Bonheurs, and she worried that she would be, as Sister Ismerie was always saying that she was such a nuisance, and prayed to God to guide her and show her how to love this child, as though Lucie were a great spiritual obstacle.
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