Sarah's Key (33 page)

When he finally spoke his voice sounded odd, almost smothered.

“What do you mean by tragic events?”

“Well, the Vél’ d’Hiv’ roundup,” I stammered. “Jewish families, rounded up in Paris, in July ’42 . . .”

“Go on,” he said.

“And the camps. . . . The families sent to Auschwitz from Drancy . . .”

William Rainsferd spread his palms wide, shook his head.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t see what this has to do with my mother.”

Zoë and I exchanged uneasy glances.

A long minute dragged by. I felt acutely uncomfortable.

“You mentioned the death of an uncle?” he said at last.

“Yes . . . Michel. Your mother’s little brother. In the rue de Saintonge.”

Silence.

“Michel?” He seemed puzzled. “My mother never had a brother called Michel. And I’ve never heard of the rue de Saintonge. You know, I don’t think we’re talking about the same person.”

“But your mother’s name was Sarah, right?” I mumbled, confused.

He nodded.

“Yes, that’s right. Sarah Dufaure.”

“Yes, Sarah Dufaure, that’s her,” I said eagerly. “Or rather, Sarah Starzynski.”

I expected his eyes to light up.

“Excuse me?” he said, eyebrows slanting downward. “Sarah what?”

“Starzynski. Your mother’s maiden name.”

William Rainsferd stared at me, lifting his chin.

“My mother’s maiden name was Dufaure.”

A warning bell went off in my head. Something was wrong. He did not know.

There was still time to leave, time to take off before I shattered the peace in this man’s life to pieces.

I pasted a blithe smile on my face, murmured something about a mistake, and scraped my chair back a couple of inches, gently urging Zoë to leave her dessert. I wouldn’t be wasting his time any longer, I was most sorry. I rose from my seat. He did as well.

“I think you’ve got the wrong Sarah,” he said, smiling. “It doesn’t matter, enjoy your stay in Lucca. It was nice meeting you, anyway.”

Before I could utter a word, Zoë put her hand into my bag and handed him something.

William Rainsferd looked down at the photograph of the little girl with the yellow star.

“Is this your mother?” Zoë asked with a small voice.

It seemed that everything had gone quiet around us. No noise came from the busy path. Even the birds seemed to have stopped chirping. There was only the heat. And silence.

“Jesus,” he said.

And then he sat down again, heavily.

T

HE PHOTOGRAPH LAY FLAT between us on the table. William Rainsferd looked from it to me, again and again. He read the caption on the back several times, with an incredulous, startled expression.

“This looks exactly like my mother as a child,” he said, finally. “That I can’t deny.”

Zoë and I remained silent.

“I don’t understand. This can’t be. This is not possible.”

He rubbed his hands together nervously. I noticed he wore a silver wedding band. He had long, slim fingers.

“The star . . .” He kept shaking his head. “That star on her chest . . .”

Was it possible this man did not know the truth about his mother’s past? Her religion? Was it possible that Sarah had not ever told the Rainsferds?

As I watched his puzzled face, his anxiety, I felt I knew. No, she had not told them. She had not revealed her childhood, her origins, her religion. She had made a clean break with her terrible past.

I wanted to be far away. Far from this town, this country, this man’s incomprehension. How could I have been so blind? How could I have not seen this coming? Not once had I ever thought that Sarah could have kept all this secret. Her suffering had been too great. That was why she had never written to the Dufaures. That was why she had never told her son about who she really was. In America, she had wanted to start a new life.

And here I was, a stranger, revealing the stark truth to this man, a clumsy bearer of ill tidings.

William Rainsferd pushed the photograph back toward me, his mouth taut.

“What have you come here for?” he whispered.

My throat felt dry.

“To tell me my mother was called something else? That she was involved in a tragedy? Is this why you are here?”

I could sense my legs trembling under the table. This was not what I had imagined. I had imagined pain, sorrow, but not this. Not his anger.

“I thought you knew,” I ventured. “I came because my family remembers what she went through, back in ’42. That’s why I’m here.”

He shook his head again, raked agitated fingers through his hair. His dark glasses clattered to the table.

“No,” he breathed. “No. No, no. This is crazy. My mother was French. She was called Dufaure. She was born in Orléans. She lost her parents during the war. She had no brothers. She had no family. She never lived in Paris, in that rue de Saintonge. This little Jewish girl cannot be her. You’ve got this all wrong.”

“Please,” I said, gently, “let me explain, let me tell you the whole story—”

He pushed his palms up to me, as if he meant to shove me away.

“I don’t want to know. Keep the ‘whole story’ to yourself.”

I felt the familiar ache tug at my insides, plucking at my womb with a deft gnaw.

“Please,” I said, feebly. “Please listen to me.”

William Rainsferd was on his feet, a quick, supple gesture for such a big man. He looked down at me, his face dark.

“I’m going to be very clear. I don’t want to see you again. I don’t want to talk about this again. Please don’t call me.”

And he was gone.

Zoë and I stared after him. All this, for nothing. This whole trip, all these efforts, for this. For this dead end. I could not believe Sarah’s story could end here, so quickly. It could not just dry out.

We sat in silence for a long moment. Then, shivering despite the heat, I paid the bill. Zoë did not say a word. She seemed stunned.

I got up, weariness hindering every move. What now? Where to go? Back to Paris? Back to Charla’s?

I trudged on, my feet as heavy as lead. I could hear Zoë’s voice calling out to me, but I did not want to turn around. I wanted to get back to the hotel, fast. To think. To get going. To call my sister. And Edouard. And Gaspard.

Zoë’s voice was loud now, anxious. What did she want? Why was she whining? I noticed passersby staring at me. I swiveled around to my daughter, exasperated, telling her to hurry up.

She rushed to my side, grabbed my hand. Her face was pale.

“Mom. . . ,” she whispered, her voice strained thin.

“What? What is it?” I snapped.

She pointed at my legs. She started to whimper, like a puppy.

I glanced down. My white skirt was soaked with blood. I looked back to my seat, imprinted with a crimson half moon. Thick red rivulets trickled down my thighs.

“Are you hurt, Mom?” choked Zoë.

I clutched my stomach.

“The baby,” I said, aghast.

Zoë stared at me.

“The baby?” she screamed, her fingers biting into my arm. “Mom, what baby? What are you talking about?”

Her pointed face loomed away from me. My legs buckled. I landed chin first on the hot, dry path.

Then silence. And darkness.

I

OPENED MY EYES to Zoë’s face, a few inches from mine. I could smell the unmistakable scent of a hospital around me. A small, green room. An IV in my forearm. A woman wearing a white blouse scribbling something on a chart.

“Mom . . . ,” whispered Zoë, squeezing my hand. “Mom, everything is OK. Don’t worry.”

The young woman came to my side, smiled and patted Zoë’s head.

“You will be all right, Signora,” she said, in surprisingly good English. “You lost blood, a lot, but you are fine now.”

My voice came out like a groan.

“And the baby?”

“The baby is fine. We did a scan. There was problem with placenta. You need to rest now. No getting up for a while.”

She left the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

“You scared the shit out of me,” said Zoë. “And I can say ‘shit’ today. I don’t think you’ll scold me.”

I pulled her close, hugging her as hard as I could despite the IV.

“Mom, why didn’t you tell me about the baby?”

“I was going to, sweetie.”

She looked up at me.

“Is the baby why you and Papa are having problems?”

“Yes.”

“You want the baby and Papa doesn’t, right?”

“Something like that.”

She stroked my hand gently.

“Papa is on his way.”

“Oh, God,” I said.

Bertrand here. Bertrand in the aftermath of all this.

“I phoned him,” said Zoë. “He’ll be here in a couple of hours.”

Tears welled up in my eyes, slowly trickled down my cheeks.

“Mom, don’t cry,” pleaded Zoë, frantically wiping my face with her hands. “It’s OK, everything is OK now.”

I smiled wearily, nodding my head to reassure her. But my world felt hollow, empty. I kept thinking of William Rainsferd walking away.
“I don’t want to see you again. I don’t want to talk about this again. Please don’t call me.”
His shoulders, rounded, stooped. The tightness of his mouth.

The days, weeks, months to come stretched ahead, bleak and gray. Never had I felt so despondent, so lost. The core of me had been nibbled away. What was left for me? A baby my soon to be ex-husband did not want and that I’d have to raise on my own. A daughter who would shortly become a teenager, and who might no longer remain the marvelous little girl she was now. What was there to look forward to, all of a sudden?

Bertrand arrived, calm, efficient, tender. I put myself in his hands, listened to him talking to the doctor, watching him reassure Zoë with an occasional, warm glance. He took care of all the details. I was to stay here till the bleeding stopped completely. Then I was to fly back to Paris and take it easy until fall, till my fifth month. Bertrand did not mention Sarah once. He did not ask a single question. I retreated into a comfortable silence. I did not want to talk about Sarah.

I began to feel like a little old lady, shipped here and there, like Mamé was shipped here and there, within the familiar boundaries of her “home,” receiving the same placid smiles, the same stale benevolence. It was easy, letting someone else control your life. I had nothing much to fight for, anyway. Except this child.

The child that Bertrand did not once mention either.

W

HEN WE LANDED IN Paris a few weeks later, it felt like an entire year had gone by. I still felt tired and sad. I thought of William Rainsferd every day. Several times, I reached out for the phone, or pen and paper, meaning to talk to him, to write, to explain, to say something, to say sorry, but I never dared.

I let the days slip by, the summer move into fall. I lay on my bed and read, wrote my articles on my laptop, spoke to Joshua, Bamber, Alessandra, to my family and friends on the telephone. I worked from my bedroom. It had all seemed complicated at first, but it had worked out. My friends Isabelle, Holly, and Susannah took turns coming and making me lunch. Once a week, one of my sisters-in-law would go to the nearby Inno or Franprix for groceries with Zoë. Plump, sensual Cécile would make fluffy crêpes oozing with butter, and aesthetic, angular Laure would create exotic low-calorie salads that were surprisingly savory. My mother-in-law came less often but sent her cleaning lady, the dynamic and odorous Madame Leclère, who vacuumed with such terrifying energy it gave me contractions. My parents came to stay for a week in their favorite little hotel on the rue Delambre, ecstatic at the idea of becoming grandparents again.