The Saffron Gate (27 page)

^{I knocked on the door, and it was opened by an elderly lady in a neatly pressed brown housedress with a white lace collar.}

^{'I'm sorry,' she said, immediately. 'The rooms haven't been properly cleaned yet. If you would care to come back in a few days, I can show—'}

^{'No,' I said, interrupting her and taking a deep breath. 'Actually, I'm a friend of Dr Duverger's.'}

^{'He doesn't live here any more,' she said, starting to close the door, but I put my hand on it, pushing against it.}

^{'I know,' I said panic filling me even more than it had at the hospital. 'I know,' I repeated, 'but . . .' I stared at her face. 'But he asked that I come and see if he left a black leather case behind.' I didn't know where that sentence came from, but I wanted — needed — to go to Etienne's rooms. I needed, for myself, to see that he was gone.}

^{'A leather case?'}

^{'Yes. Black. With a brass clasp. He's quite fond of it; he asked me . . . as I've told you, to come by and look for it here.' As I spoke, I pushed harder on the door, and then stepped into the hall. There was the faint smell of boiled beef. Etienne did indeed possess such a case; I had seen it lying in the back seat of his car when he drove me to the clinic. At least that was the truth.}

^{'Well, it wouldn't surprise me if the doctor forgot something. He certainly left in a hurry.'}

^{'I'll only take a moment, if you'll point out his rooms,' I said, staring into the woman's eyes.}

^{'I suppose it won't hurt.' She turned and pulled out the drawer of a cabinet in the hall, handing me a key. 'Upstairs, first door on the left. There are two connecting rooms.'}

^{'Thank you,' I said, and went up the stairs. 'Oh,' I said, turning to look back at the woman. 'Did Dr Duverger remember to leave you his forwarding address, so that any mail might be sent on?' I struggled to keep my voice deceptively casual, but I heard the beat of my heart in my ears.}

^{'No. Although he only got one or two letters the whole time he was here. Foreign, there were.'}

^{I nodded, but just as I put my foot on the next step she added, 'He got one just days before he left, too.' I looked back at her. She nodded. 'The same foreign stamps.'}

^{Without answering I climbed to the top of the stairs. I had to stop there, out of view of the woman, and lean heavily against the first door, trying to breathe. Finally I straightened and unlocked the door.}

^{The shade of the wide window in the first room was drawn, and the room had a musty, stuffy air. The room was simply furnished with a tufted couch and small table with two straight-backed chairs, as well as a sturdy desk with a swivelling wooden chair. There were a few papers in a pile on the desk. I shut the door and crossed the room, giving the tassel of the shade a quick tug. Pale light flooded the room, and dust motes scattered through the dull rays. I struggled to raise the sash, managing to lift it enough for cool air to rush in, riffling the papers on the desk and bringing in a fresh scent.}

^{Through the open door into the next room I saw a neatly made bed with a candlewick bedspread.}

^{I sat in the chair in front of the desk, my fingers shaking as I scrabbled through the papers. But they were only printed pages of a study on throat ailments. I opened the drawer on the right of the desk. It was empty but for a pair of spectacles. I picked them up and ran my fingers over the thin frame. I pictured Etienne sitting here, one finger absently tapping the bridge of his spectacles as he read.}

^{'Etienne,' I whispered into the empty room. 'Where are you? What's happened to you?'}

^{I set the spectacles on the desk and slowly pulled out the other drawers. They were empty apart from the usual desk items: a few paperclips, a half-empty bottle of ink, some pencils with chewed ends.}

^{I looked under the desk; there was a trash container. It held a crumpled paper and a small pill bottle. I smoothed out the paper, but it was only the wrapper from a packet of mints. The pill bottle was for a drug with the long and unpronounceable name of oxazolidinedione, and was prescribed for Etienne. I knew the bottles that held the pills for his headaches — a simple painkiller, he had said — and the ones to help him sleep. There was another he sometimes took, before he left my house in the morning.
To help keep me alert through the long day ahead,
he had said, in an offhand way. But this was one I hadn't before seen.}

^{I put the spectacles and empty pill bottle into my handbag. I needed something — anything — of Etienne to hold on to. Then I leaned back in the chair, closing my eyes in sudden exhaustion and despair.}

^{I wanted to go home, but first I knew I had to go into the next room. Here a sliver of cool wind blew with a tiny, persistent whistle through a crack in the sash of the window. The room contained only the bed, a dresser and a wardrobe. Again I pulled out each of the dresser drawers. There was nothing. Like the drawers, the wardrobe was empty, but as I turned to leave, I noticed a book on its floor. It was the one on famous American watercolourists I had given to Etienne for Christmas. He had, more than once, said he knew he was lacking in knowledge about the other side of life, the one opposite science, and wished to know more.}

^{For some reason, seeing this book left behind — abandoned — filled me with overwhelming grief, and I sank to my knees, staring at it. I picked it up, running my hand over its cover. A small edge of paper, a bookmark, I assumed, emerged from the top, only a few pages in. I opened the book at the folded piece of paper, so thin that I could see writing through it.}

^{Still on my knees, I pushed the book from my lap on to the floor and unfolded the paper; it was etched with creases, as if it had been crumpled and then flattened again.}

^{The spidery writing, from a fine nib, was in French, and the delicacy of the script indicated a woman's hand.}

^{My eyes darted to the signature — the single name — at the bottom.}

^{I held the paper in both hands. As on the stairs, blood pounded in my ears. Staring at the letter, I was aware of my breathing, shallow, as if coming from my throat only. There was dampness under my arms and down my back, the wool of my dress sticking to my flesh in spite of the coolness of the room.}

^{3 November,1929}

^Marrakesh

^{My dearest Etienne,}

^{I write to you yet again. Although you haven't replied to my former letters, I once more, with even more desperation, beseech you to not abandon us. I have never given up the hope that after all this time — it is now more than seven years since you have been home — you would find it in your heart — oh, your kind and loving heart — to forgive me.}

^{I shall not give up, my dear brother. Please, Etienne.}

^{Come home, to me, and to Marrakesh.}

^Manon

^{The onion-skin paper in my hand trembled violently.}

^Manon.

^{Come home, she had said, to Marrakesh.}

^{I looked down at the letter again.
My dear brother,
she had written.
It is now more than seven years.
Manon was his sister . . . but when I'd asked about his family, he had said there was only Guillaume, hadn't he?
There is nothing and no one,
he'd said,
in Marrakesh.}

^{Too many secrets. There was too much I didn't understand. Was this what he'd meant when he'd told the hospital, he was going home because of family circumstances? Had he left me without a word — abandoned me, like the book — because of his sister?}

^{'Did you find the case?' a voice asked, and I turned my head to see a pair of sturdy laced shoes. I looked up.}

^{The woman in the brown dress was staring down at me.}

^{Clutching the letter, I managed to get to my feet. 'No,' I said, and pushed past her.}

^{As I limped heavily down the stairs, holding the railing to steady myself, she called after me, 'Who did you say you were?'}

^{I didn't answer, leaving the front door open behind me.}

^{I don't understand, even now, my desperation to reach home. I fled as if hounds were at my heels. I only knew I wanted to be within the safety of my own walls, where I would take out the letter, and read it, over and over, trying to make some sense of it all.}

^{The letter was the only link I had to Etienne.}

^{Etienne. More and more, I felt as though I had never truly known him.}

^FIFTEEN

^{L
osing someone is never what one expects.}

^{When my mother died I had mourned, a quiet, sad sorrow that was steady but understandable. While I missed her presence, I knew I would carry on as before, tending to the house and looking after my father. It was an inevitable death, and I knew, instinctively, that the sadness would lessen over time, would stretch and fade.}

^{When my father died I had felt something else, a frenzy of guilt and despair, of endlessly reliving the moments when I argued that I would drive, when I looked away from the road for that instant too long, when I turned the wheel a few inches too many. It was the grief of regret, of not having a chance to hear his forgiveness, to say goodbye. It was followed by sheer loneliness because of the tragic unexpectedness of his absence.}

^{But now . . . what I felt when I returned to Juniper Road late that afternoon was shockingly raw in its power. It came over me in waves, a rolling weight that made me weak. My legs wouldn't support me, and I had had to hire a taxi to bring me home.}

^{I was filled with a roaring confusion. I lay on my bed, staring at the lengthening shadows.}

^{I knew Etienne loved me. He wanted to be with me, and with our child. I played and replayed so many of our moments together, trying to see something, something I may have missed. I clearly could see, in my mind, the way he looked at me, the way he spoke to me, how he had laughed at something I'd said. How he had touched me. I thought of the last time I'd seen him, and the way he had put his hand on my waist and had spoken of me singing to our child.}

^{No. I sat up in the near darkness. He would never treat me so poorly. He would never leave me in such a way. Something had happened to him, something out of his control. It had to do with a secret, or maybe more than one.}

^{Nothing he had done, or hadn't done, was unforgivable. I would forgive him anything. He needed to know that.}

^{When I rose the next morning I was stiff and cold, and my head was heavy, as though I couldn't quite awaken from a disturbing nightmare.}

^{I was anxious, restless, as I had been when my father died. All day I wandered through my small rooms, possessing a strange and twitching energy, knowing I had to do something, but unable to figure out exactly what path to take.}