The Paris Key (25 page)

“I'm so sorry.”

“It's complicated,” said Luc.

A rapid-fire discussion ensued among the family members; tempers flared. Finally Luc excused himself, claiming he needed a cigarette, and left.

Luc's departure left Genevieve flipping through her dictionary with renewed fervor.

“The young people, they don't understand how it was,” Daniel said. “Luc never lived in Algérie; he does not know what it is to be forced out of home.”

Genevieve nodded, thinking that if the Algerian War had anything in common with the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, she wasn't surprised there would be a generation gap. And even with Vietnam . . . Americans had been fighting on foreign soil. What would it be like to be forced from one's home?

“I'm afraid I still don't understand. Why do you say that Philippe was a traitor?”

“He did not support his country during this time. He was part of a group of intellectuals—they wrote articles, voiced opposition to the war, even sent money for the other side,” said Marie-Claude. “You have heard of Jean-Paul Sartre?”

Sartre
again
. Genevieve was going to have to catch up on her philosophical reading just to keep up with conversation.

“He writes a lot about this,” Marie-Claude continued. “He did not support his country.”

“It is not because he writes about this that he does not support his country,” said Daniel, smiling, clearly trying to smooth things over. The peacekeeper. “But . . . he sees things differently.”

“My family lost their winery; we had to leave our home,” said Marie-Claude. “I find this hard to forgive.”

“There are two sides to every story,” said Daniel.

“I meant to ask,” said Genevieve after an awkward pause in the conversation. “Did you happen to know my mother, Angela, when she was visiting my uncle, a long time ago?”

“We were away when she arrived,” said Daniel. “No one stays in Paris in August!”

“But we met her briefly, after she was hurt,” said Marie-Claude.

“What happened, do you know? How was she hurt?”

The couple looked at her with curiosity; only then did Genevieve realize how strange it must sound, that Angela's own daughter did not know how her mother had been injured.

“She only told me that something had happened here, in Paris,” Genevieve continued. “I never learned the details.”

Now Marie-Claude and Daniel exchanged a significant look. When Marie-Claude spoke, it was in French. Genevieve thought she said:

“There was an accident, and soon after, she went back home. But it is so long ago. It does not matter now.”

T
he day was gray but the rain held off; a dozen people milled about rue Saint-Paul, carrying shopping bags, peeking into storefronts. Genevieve glanced up to the second story of the building across the street: The lights were on in Killian's apartment.

She hesitated for a moment, but then again . . . the Irishman had repeatedly offered his help. And, as Mary had pointed out, what were the chances some good-looking guy would show up, quite literally on her doorstep, the day she arrived in Paris? It seemed almost like fate.

Not that she was interested in anything of a romantic nature. Not at all.

Genevieve thought back on her awkward phone call with Jason. She had been consciously trying to avoid thinking about it, but the truth was . . . the small, scary truth was that maybe what had happened between the two of them wasn't Jason's fault. He was a decent, hardworking man, and in the big scheme of things, they were a very fortunate couple. And he wanted to please her—how many times had he demanded, “Just tell me what I can do to make you happy, Genie. Just
tell
me, and I'll do it.”

True, he had said it in an exasperated tone, but still.

Maybe there was some deep part of her that was lacking. Jason had certainly insinuated as much: that she was locked down, closed up—more affectionate toward her ancient locksets than toward him.

Perhaps . . . perhaps having her mother die so early had damaged her irreparably. Or maybe she was more like her silent, brooding father than she had ever wanted to admit.

Probably what she really needed to do was get some therapy—not Catharine's dream interpretations, but something solid. She would do that, Genevieve decided, just as soon as things settled down a little more. Already she was settling into a routine in her new home, so within a month or two she would figure out how to get certified to work, and find a professional to talk to. (Surely there were Parisian counselors who spoke English!) In the meantime, her therapeutic plan was to walk the streets, linger in parks, write in her journal, and meander through the Louvre “slow looking,” as Philippe had taught her.

In any case, Genevieve thought as she approached Killian's apartment building, since she didn't trust (or even like) men at the moment, this Irishman would remain a harmless friend. An innocent flirtation at most.

Stroking the key that hung at her neck, Genevieve screwed up her courage and rang the bell at the front door. Killian buzzed her in without a word. She climbed the steps to the second floor to find his door left wide-open. She approached it cautiously, finally sticking her head in.

“Hello?” she ventured.

“J'arrive,”
he said from the direction of the bedroom.

As before, she was struck by his photographs. Old mansions ravaged by time, abandoned, debris-strewn hallways. The most poignant and unnerving images depicted rooms that looked as if their inhabitants had just left, with pillows thrown carelessly on the bed and bath towels still hanging from a railing over a tub. One image showed a table with six place settings, dusty but intact, with vegetation peeking through open windows.

They looked . . . haunted. Like Philippe's basement.

Some buildings seemed to carry a certain
something
in the air. Could it be the spirit of their former owners? She and Jason once went to a formal dinner party at a historic Bernard Maybeck–designed house that had miraculously escaped the Oakland fire. Genevieve kept losing track of the conversation, as wrapped up as she was in the sensations of other lives having been lived in that same space, their wants and dreams and desires leaving a residue just as real as dust in the grain of the wood, the cracks and crevices. She wouldn't have been surprised had some apparition floated by in a flapper dress.

Jason made fun of her afterward, when Genevieve asked him if he'd felt the same; she hadn't confided in him again about such thoughts.

“Genevieve?” said Killian from the doorway of his bedroom.

She jumped, dropping several photos on the table.

“Sorry if I scared you,” he said.

“Guilty conscience,” she said with a rueful smile.

“I thought you were someone else, but it's lovely to see you. How is everything?”

“Good, thank you. Keeping busy. I was wondering, since you offered, whether I might impose upon you for a couple of things.”

“Of course. What can I help you with?”

“Ordering Internet service. And also, since my French is so bad, do you think you could call two clients who had unfinished business with Dave and schedule appointments with them for me next week? I'm sure I can make myself understood when I see them in person, but I get intimidated over the phone. I think I need body language.”

He laughed. Then he got on the phone and placed an order with a company to begin Internet service at Dave and Pasquale's apartment. They were supposed to send a box and instructions, but since it was a new service, he also set a date for the installation.

Then Killian placed phone calls to Madame Corrine Gerard and Monsieur Jean-Paul Angelini, Dave's two other outstanding clients, chatting and laughing with them on the phone. He set up two appointments for the following week.

“Thank you so much for your help,” Genevieve said.

“No problem at all. Although . . . I was half hoping you were here to invite me to look through Philippe's house.”

“I will, I promise, next time I go. He said he would be back next week, and we'll set a day then. I'll let you know.”

“All right, then. He's quite a guy, isn't he? How
old
do you suppose he is?”

“I was trying to figure that out. If liberation was in 1944 . . . that was seventy years ago.”

“Right. And he was already fighting, so even if he was very young at the time . . .”

“In his nineties, I'm guessing.”

“Amazing. He seems to have his head, though—I'll give him that.”

“Yes. He really is quite a character.”

She considered asking Killian about what the neighbors had said about Philippe, but then Killian knew Philippe even less than she did. And the last thing she wanted to do was to become a gossip, spreading stories about a little old man who had been extremely kind to her. The village was like a small town, after all. She remembered her mother telling her about the wildly efficient gossip network in the small Mississippi town where she was raised:
“The tyranny of the tongue,”
she'd called it.

“This is really nice of you,” she said. “I'm sorry to bother you on your day off.”

“Not at all. Happy to help.”

“
Everyone
seems happy to help. In fact, besides the rude waiters, everyone has been so nice here, I'm a little shocked. I thought Parisians were supposed to be cold and standoffish.”

“That hasn't been my experience. Not at all, in fact. It's sort of like a small town, especially neighborhoods like this one. France is still old-fashioned that way, a bit like Ireland. Maybe that's why I like it so much. The countryside is even more so—the people are cautious at first, but once they realize you're trying to speak their language and you're not a jerk, they welcome you with open arms.”

“I've never been outside of Paris.”

“What, never?”

“It's only my second time to France; my first, I was fourteen. I came to stay with my aunt and uncle after my mother died, but Dave and Pasquale were working and even though they offered to send me to the country with relatives, I wanted to stay with them.”

“We should take a trip. I know you lads are used to long car trips—gas is more expensive here, but it's still worth it. Or there's the train, of course, but with a car you can get off on the rural roads, little narrow highways threading through tiny villages. Within a couple of hours outside of Paris you can be in Bourgogne, or go the other way toward the Loire Valley. I like the Dordogne, myself. The Southwest is really lovely, truly
craic
.”

“Crack?”

“It's great, fabulous.”

“Ah. Where I'm from that's the name of a street drug.”

“Of course, I should have known that from the movies.” He smiled, his eyes crinkling as he did so. Their gaze met and held for a long moment.

“Bonjour?”
came a voice from the door. It was a woman, pretty and chic in that oh-so-Parisian way. Ice-blue linen sheath dress, heels in which Genevieve would have pitched face-first into the cobblestones before managing her first ten steps. Tiny little leather purse in metallic silver.

“Bonjour, Liliane, ça va?”
said Killian, hurrying over to her. Genevieve watched as they did the usual double-kiss greeting. “Liliane, this is a new neighbor of mine, Genevieve Martin. Genevieve, this is Liliane Monnier.”

The women exchanged
bonjours
and kissed cheeks. When Genevieve leaned in she was surrounded by a very subtle cloud of perfume and powder.

“You are American?” Liliane asked.

“
Oui.
Sorry.”

“Why do you apologize?” the woman demanded. She hadn't yet cracked a smile.

“I . . . uh, it was a joke. Sorry. I mean, sorry for being sorry earlier. I was just . . .” Liliane continued to stare at her as though confused and displeased. Genevieve could feel her cheeks flaming. What was
wrong
with her? It wasn't as though she was in competition for Killian, for heaven's sake. Of course he had a girlfriend. He was charming, kind, good-looking, gainfully employed. He was what Mary would have called a Unicorn, that mythical creature so many women—and in the San Francisco Bay Area a good percentage of the men—were looking for.

And Liliane was a perfect Parisian girlfriend.

“Genevieve's just moved here. Quite a change from California, as you can imagine,” Killian said, coming to Genevieve's rescue. “Genevieve, we were just stepping out to get a bite to eat. Won't you join us?”

Liliane's perfect eyebrows raised, just a smidgeon.

“No, no thank you,” said Genevieve. “I'm headed out to meet a friend myself. Thanks again for all your help, Killian.
Bon appétit, et à bientôt.
”

Genevieve did her best at waving a breezy wave, and left.