A Week in Paris (12 page)

‘Yes, for Serge music is everything,’ she sighed. ‘I can’t imagine him allowing anything or anyone to come between him and his playing.’ Gene had met Serge at a concert at the Conservatoire. They’d all had tea together afterwards. The two men had little in common and conversation did not flow. Serge had been in one of his moods and had scowled throughout, and Gene confessed to her afterwards that he had found him intense and very prickly, but he’d been impressed, too, by Serge’s ambition.

‘Kitty.’ And now he drew her to him. ‘I’ve never met anyone like you before. Someone I want to share my life with. Kitty, I love you so much. Will you marry me? Do you think you could put up with being a doctor’s wife?’

‘Oh, Gene, I can’t imagine anything I’d like more.’ She craved his love, felt she couldn’t live without it. ‘Yes – the answer’s yes.’

‘My darling.’ And for the first time his lips sought hers in a kiss that was passionate but tender. They stood together for a long time in the shelter of the doorway. The sleet was still coming down hard, and a vicious wind blew, but Kitty could not remember feeling warmer or more cared for in her life.

1961

Wednesday afternoon

Fay found the church of Sainte-Cécile almost by accident, and followed the narrow alley down one side of it to see where it went. When it opened out into Place des Moineaux she stopped, uncertain. The only building that could be the convent – a wide-fronted mansion attached at one end to the church – was shabby and desolate, with patches of plaster missing from the walls. Some of the shutters were hanging loose or missing altogether. The paved garden in front, where a gnarled old cherry tree was coming into leaf, had recently been swept, but appeared otherwise unloved. Only weeds grew in the cracked pots lined up against the wall. The whole place gave the appearance of being shut up and abandoned. However, the wrought-iron gate was unlocked, so with a little hope but not much expectation, she approached the front door, pressed the bell and waited.

For a long time nothing happened, and as she watched the sparrows flying about the square Fay struggled with the dark thought that perhaps this whole search was in vain. Her only real clue that she’d been in Paris as a child was the name of the convent on the tatty old label she’d found in the rucksack. With a sense of desperation she pushed the bell again, harder, and this time heard it sound inside. Yet still the mansion stood silent before her.

Just as she was turning to go, she heard footsteps within, then a man’s voice calling, ‘
Attendez, attendez
,’ and the rattle of bolts being drawn. Finally the door juddered open to reveal a priest with a neat, lean figure and thinning, colourless hair. He had a narrow, sweet-natured face and wore a pair of wire spectacles that had dug a ridge above his hawkish nose. If he was surprised to see a pretty foreign girl on his doorstep he didn’t betray it.

‘
Bonjour, mademoiselle
,’ he said, with a polite dip of his head.

‘
Bonjour,’
she replied. ‘
Je m’appelle Fay Knox. Ici le couvent
? Is this the convent?’

‘Oui, mademoiselle
,’ he told her, ‘but it has been closed for over a year now. I am the curé at the church here. How may I help you?’ His English was heavily accented, but clear.

‘I – I don’t know exactly. It’s hard to explain. Is there perhaps a Mère Marie here?’

‘Not any longer, unfortunately.’ She must have looked as desolate as she felt, for he then said, ‘Come in – please, come in. I have left the kettle boiling on the stove. Perhaps you would like some coffee?’

She followed him through a dowdy hall with a flag-stoned floor and in an instant, it happened. She knew for sure that she’d been here before. She could make out the pounding of heavy boots on the stairs, harsh voices shouting. She spun round, but there was only the curé and everything was quiet again. She blinked at him, bemused.

‘Are you well, mademoiselle?’ The priest was looking at her curiously.

‘Yes – I mean no,’ she whispered. ‘Perhaps I need to sit down. I’ve walked rather a long way.’ This place was significant, she sensed it. It had once been a place of safety, but then something had happened, something that teased the edges of her memory.

The man showed her into a dusty kitchen at the back of the building, where the open window looked out on to a courtyard and a kettle murmured over a gas flame. He pulled her out a wooden chair from the table and glanced at her with concern as he filled a glass at the sink. She drank the water slowly and watched him make coffee in a jug.

‘I am using one of the rooms here as an office because of builders,’ he explained. ‘Too much noise at my house.’ When she sipped the tiny cup of black coffee that he placed on the table in front of her she found it stronger and sweeter than she was used to, but after a moment she felt better.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what happened just then, I’m so sorry.’

‘There is nothing to apologize for. But how can I help you, mademoiselle?’

She took a breath and said, ‘I think this place has something to do with my mother, and I need to find out what.’ She went on to explain haltingly about her own experiences in Paris, how she had flashes of memory that she’d been there before, but that according to her mother’s account she hadn’t. She told him about Kitty’s depression and the secret that she was brooding over, about her mother’s continuing grief for her father, and finally about the little rucksack that Kitty had kept hidden away and the label Fay had found inside it. And now that she’d unburdened herself, Fay felt lighter. It was a terrific relief. She’d been scared that it would sound like nonsense, but instead, the telling of it made it seem more real. At one level it still made little sense, and yet now she had put all the elements together in some sort of narrative it sounded plausible. Fay fumbled in her handbag, brought out the label and handed it to the curé. He smoothed it out on the table and studied the writing, first one side, then the other.

‘Fay Knox,’ he said. ‘The K is silent, then?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘Well, Mademoiselle Knox, yours is a strange story, but I am not sure how I can help you. I have only been priest here for ten years, and in that time I do not remember any Englishwoman named Kitty. There were only two nuns left here after Mère Marie-François died over a year ago. Not so many young girls today feel called to this life. One of them is also now at peace, and the other is sadly wandering in her mind. She lives in another convent in the city where they have a hospice.’

‘Do you think it would be worth me going to see her anyway?’ Fay said doubtfully. The certainty she’d felt just now was melting away again. But then she glanced at a crucifix hanging above the door and remembered what she’d felt in the hall just now, that this place was somehow significant, and her resolve strengthened.

‘It could, but I don’t think it would be much use,’ the priest said. ‘I wish you could have met Marie-François. She was Mother Superior here for many years. Certainly through the Occupation. I wonder if there is anybody else who might remember . . . Wait! No.’ He seemed to be talking to himself rather than to Fay. But then suddenly he became quite animated. ‘Well, maybe I’ve thought of something, after all,’ he said, putting down his coffee. ‘There was a woman who came to visit the Reverend Mother once, quite close to the end. She was at her funeral, too.’ He pushed back his chair. ‘Perhaps you would wait a moment, mademoiselle. I’m sure she left her telephone number.’

He departed the room and she heard a door open and close and then there was silence for what felt like a long time. Eventually she got up and walked out of the kitchen and peered into some of the other rooms. They appeared neglected and forlorn, any furniture covered in dust sheets. It felt peaceful this time, but again she was haunted by a sense of the familiar. She entered the dining room with its bare, dusty tables by one door and when she exited by another there was a shallow step down into the hall that she negotiated instinctively, as though she had known it was there.

By the front door was a narrow arched niche in the wall, about twelve inches high and four deep, in which lay a set of keys. Somehow she knew there had been a statuette there once. She could see it clearly in her mind: it was of a woman in a deep-blue robe, her hair covered in a white coif, standing with her hands folded in prayer. Fay remembered the smooth cold glaze under her own fingers. She looked about the hall, but there was no sign of it, nor of any ornament or picture, come to that. How sad it was that the place had closed. She was wondering what would become of it, when she heard the priest returning and quickly made her way back to the kitchen.

The priest greeted her with a smile. ‘My papers are in a mess. I couldn’t find it at first. The woman’s name is Madame Nathalie Ramond.’ He held out a scrap of paper which Fay took, seeing he’d written on it a telephone number. ‘As I told you, she came to visit Mère Marie-François in her last illness. She was an old friend come back after being abroad. She asked to be kept informed of the Reverend Mother’s progress. It may be that she will be able to help you, I don’t know.’

‘Thank you,’ Fay said, slipping the paper into her handbag. She didn’t know why, but she sensed there was something the man was not telling her. But then a priest must be full of other people’s secrets.

‘Answers often bring new questions,’ he said mysteriously as he showed her out. ‘However, I wish you God’s blessing, my child. As for your poor mother, I will pray for her.’

‘Thank you so much,’ she said, touched at his sincerity. His eyes through the thick spectacles were kind and concerned, but when she glanced back as she went through the gate, the door was already closed, and the building assumed the same abandoned appearance as before.

Fay made her way to the nearest Métro to go and meet Adam, but first she had to find a phone box to ring this Mme Ramond. At the top of the steps down to the station though, she encountered a hungry-looking North African man selling newspapers with headlines in angry black print. He tried to press one upon her, speaking French in an accent she didn’t understand, and there was something desperate about his manner that intimidated her, so she shook her head and ducked past him down the stairs. In the station she bought tokens for the telephone, then when a booth became free dialled the number on the slip of paper the priest had given her. Finally a woman’s voice answered.

‘
Hello, je voudrais parler avec Madame Ramond
.’ Fay had to repeat it before she was understood.

‘
C’est bien moi
.’

Fay introduced herself and said what she’d rehearsed on the way from the convent, that the priest had suggested she speak to Mme Ramond about an important matter. She’d decided deliberately to keep it vague. The station was noisy and, anyway, it would be easier to explain everything properly face to face.

There was a short silence, then Mme Ramond said, ‘
Vous êtes qui?
’

‘Fay Knox,’ Fay said, more clearly.

‘Fay Knox. You are Fay Knox?’ the woman asked, moving from French to English.

‘Yes. I am just staying in Paris for a few days. I’m sorry if it’s short notice.’

‘Short notice? No, no,’ the woman said. ‘That is not the problem. It is . . .’ Fay couldn’t hear for a moment as a group of loud youths was passing. She adjusted her position, pressing the receiver closer to her ear, just in time to catch something about ‘the surprise of hearing from you.’

‘I’m sorry if this is a surprise,’ Fay said, while wondering what she meant, but the woman was continuing.

‘Do you know Place des Vosges in the fourth arrondissement? My apartment is close by. Tell me when you are free to come.’

‘Would sometime tomorrow afternoon suit you?’ There was to be a rehearsal in the morning.

‘Yes. Can you come soon after lunch, at half-past two perhaps?’

Fay managed to scribble down the address then thanked her and replaced the receiver. She was pushing pencil and paper back into her handbag when she was distracted by a commotion. On the steps going up to the street a gendarme was tussling with the newspaperseller, whose papers spilled from his shoulder bag across the steps. She watched in horror and disbelief as the policeman struck the man on the side of his head with his baton, then wrestled him into an armlock. He proceeded to haul his dazed victim back up the steps and out of sight. Fay glanced about, sure that someone somewhere would react and protest, but the passing crowds, though briefly halted by this altercation, merely continued about their business as though nothing had occurred. All around, the papers lay forgotten, trampled underfoot. It seemed that she was the only one even remotely bothered.

When she set off through the ticket barrier to go and meet Adam, Fay found that she was trembling.

Père André Blanc relocked the door of the convent, a troubled look on his face. He’d been moved by the girl’s story. What a lovely child she was, he thought. There was something pure about her, but wistful, too. Those eyes had seemed to search his soul. Fay Knox. For some reason the name written on the label she’d showed him stirred something in him. Where had he come across it before? He couldn’t think for the life of him.

It was still bothering him as he returned to the small room he’d made his study. Then the matter of the homily he was writing once more occupied his mind. It was about forgiveness – the most difficult subject of all, he sometimes thought. Only last week he’d buried a man who’d died full of hatred to his last breath for the soldiers who’d killed his family. That hatred had eaten him up inside until there was nothing left. No one had come to his funeral.

At Place de la Concorde Fay found Adam sitting on a bench in the Tuileries Gardens reading
Le Monde
. When he saw her, he folded the newspaper and tucked it under his arm, then came to greet her.

‘Is there something the matter?’ he asked, seeing her agitation.