The Watcher in the Shadows (3 page)

The Sauvelles listened in silence to Lazarus’s sad account. Obviously distressed by his memories and the two decades of solitude, he nonetheless tried to play down the matter by shifting the conversation to Hannah’s mouth-watering tart. But the sorrow in his eyes did not go unnoticed by Irene.

It wasn’t hard for her to imagine why Lazarus Jann had escaped into a place of his own making. Deprived of what he most loved, he had taken refuge in a fantasy world, creating hundreds of creatures with which to fill the deep loneliness surrounding him.

As she listened to the toymaker’s words, Irene realised she would no longer be able to view Cravenmoore as the magnificent product of a boundless imagination, the ultimate expression of the genius that had created it. Having learned to recognise the emptiness of her own loss, she knew this place to be little more than the dark reflection of the solitude that had overwhelmed Lazarus during the past twenty years. Every piece of that marvellous world was a silent tear.

By the time they had finished dinner, Simone Sauvelle was quite clear about her obligations and responsibilities. Her duties would be rather like those of a housekeeper, a job that had little to do with her original profession as a teacher. Nevertheless, she was prepared to do her best in order to guarantee a good future for her children. Simone would supervise Hannah’s chores and those of the occasional servants; she would be in charge of all administrative work and the maintenance of Lazarus Jann’s property; deal with suppliers and shopkeepers; take care of the post; and guarantee that nothing and nobody would intrude on the toymaker’s withdrawal from the outside world. Her job also included buying books for Lazarus’s library. Her employer had made it clear that her past work as a teacher had been one of the reasons he’d chosen her over other candidates with far greater experience in housekeeping. Lazarus insisted that this was one of her most important responsibilities.

In exchange for her work, Simone and her children would be allowed to live at Seaview and she would receive a more than reasonable salary. Lazarus would take care of Irene and Dorian’s school expenses for the following year, at the end of the summer. He also promised to cover the costs of university degrees for both children if they showed the ability and the interest. For their part, Irene and Dorian could help their mother with whatever tasks she assigned them in the mansion, as long as they respected the golden rule: never to exceed the boundaries the owner had laid down for them.

To Simone, considering all the misery of the previous months, Lazarus’s offer seemed like a blessing from heaven. Blue Bay was an idyllic place to start a new life with her children. The job was very desirable and Lazarus was evidently a kind and generous employer. Sooner or later, luck had to come their way. Fate had sent them to this remote location, and for the first time in a long while Simone was prepared to accept what it was offering her. In fact, if her instincts were correct, and they usually were, she perceived a genuine warmth flowing towards her and her family. It wasn’t difficult to imagine that their company and their presence at Cravenmoore could help soothe the immense solitude in which its owner seemed to live.

Dinner ended with a cup of coffee and Lazarus’s promise to a stunned Dorian that, if he wished, one day he would initiate him into the mysteries of the construction of automata. The boy’s eyes lit up, and for a brief moment Simone and Lazarus’s gaze met. Simone recognised in his look a trace of loneliness, a shadow she knew only too well. The toymaker half-closed his eyes and stood up quietly, indicating that the evening was at an end.

He led them towards the front door, stopping every now and then to tell them about some of the amazing objects they saw along the way. Dorian and Irene listened glassy-eyed to his explanations. Shortly before they came to the entrance hall, Lazarus halted in front of what looked like a complex construction made of mirrors and lenses. Without saying a word, he put his arm into a gap between two mirrors. Slowly, the reflection of his hand grew smaller until it vanished. Lazarus smiled.

‘You mustn’t believe everything you see. The image of reality we perceive with our eyes is only an illusion, an optical effect,’ he said. ‘Light is a great liar. Here, give me your hand.’

Dorian did as he was told and let the toymaker guide his hand through the passage between the mirrors. The image faded before his very eyes. Dorian turned to Lazarus and gave him a puzzled look.

‘Do you know anything about the laws of optics?’ the man asked him.

Dorian shook his head.

‘Magic is only an extension of physics. Are you good at maths?’

‘Not bad, except when it comes to trigonometry . . .’

Lazarus smiled.

‘We’ll start there then. Fantasy is derived from numbers. That’s the trick.’

The boy nodded, although he wasn’t quite sure what Lazarus was talking about. Finally, Lazarus showed them the way to the door. It was then that, almost by chance, Dorian thought he witnessed something impossible. As they walked past one of the flickering lamps, their bodies cast shadows against the wall. All of them but one: Lazarus’s body left no trace of a shadow, as if his presence were only a mirage.

When Dorian turned round, Lazarus was observing him intently. The boy swallowed hard. The toymaker nipped his cheek in a friendly manner.

‘Don’t believe everything you see . . .’

Dorian followed his mother and sister out of the house.

‘Thanks for everything. Goodnight,’ said Simone.

‘It’s been a pleasure, and I’m not just saying that to be polite,’ said Lazarus. He gave them a warm smile and raised a hand in farewell.

The Sauvelles entered the forest shortly before midnight, on their way back to Seaview.

Dorian was quiet, still entranced by memories of Lazarus Jann’s house of marvels. Irene also seemed to be in some other world, lost in her thoughts. Simone sighed with relief and thanked God for their good luck.

Just before Cravenmoore’s outline disappeared behind them, Simone turned to take a last look. The only light came from a window on the second floor of the west wing. A figure stood, unmoving, behind the curtains. At that precise moment, the light went out and the window was plunged into darkness.

Back in her room, Irene took off the dress her mother had lent her and folded it carefully over the chair. She could hear Simone and Dorian talking in the next room. She turned off the light and lay down on the bed. Blue shadows danced across the ceiling and the murmur of waves breaking against the cliffs caressed the silence; Irene closed her eyes and tried in vain to fall asleep.

It was hard to believe that from that night on she would never have to see their old Paris apartment again, nor would she have to return to the dance hall to relieve those soldiers of a few coins. She knew that the shadows of the big city couldn’t reach her here. She got up and went over to the window.

The lighthouse rose up against the dark night. Irene focused on the small island enveloped in a luminous mist. A sudden light seemed to shine, like the blink of a faraway mirror. Seconds later, the light shone again, then went out. Irene frowned, then noticed that her mother was standing on the porch below. Wrapped in a thick jumper, Simone was quietly gazing out to sea. Irene didn’t have to see her face to know that she was crying. They would both take a long time to fall asleep. On their first night at Seaview, after that first step towards what seemed to be a new and happy life, Armand Sauvelle’s absence was more painful than ever.

Of all the dawns in her life, none would ever seem as radiant to Irene as that of 22 June 1937. The ocean glistened beneath a sky so clear she could scarcely have imagined it during the years she’d lived in the city. From her window, she could clearly see the lighthouse as well as the small rocks that stood out in the centre of the bay like the crest of some underwater dragon. The neat row of houses along the seafront, beyond the Englishman’s Beach, quivered through the heat haze rising from the docks. If she half-closed her eyes, it seemed like a paradise conjured by Claude Monet, her father’s favourite artist.

Irene opened the window and let the salty sea air fill the room. A flock of seagulls nesting on the cliffs turned to observe her with curiosity. Her new neighbours. Not far away, Irene noticed that Dorian had already set himself up in his favourite spot among the rocks. He was probably busy cataloguing his daydreams, his flights of fancy, or whatever it was that engrossed him during his solitary wanderings.

She was trying to make up her mind what to wear when she heard an unfamiliar voice, speaking fast and cheerfully, downstairs. She listened carefully for a couple of seconds and could hear the calm, composed voice of her mother attempting to respond, or rather trying to slip a word or two into the few gaps left by the other person.

As she got dressed, Irene tried to imagine what the owner of the voice would look like. Ever since she was small, that had been one of her favourite things – listening to a voice with her eyes closed and trying to imagine the person it belonged to: deciding on their height, weight, face . . .

This time she imagined a young woman, not very tall, nervous and fidgety, with dark hair, probably dark eyes too. With that portrait in mind Irene set off down the stairs to satisfy both her hunger with a good breakfast and, more importantly, her curiosity.

As soon as she went into the sitting room, she realised her first, and only, mistake: the girl’s hair was straw-coloured. As for the rest, she’d been spot on. That is how Irene first met the quirky and chatty young Hannah; not by sight, but by sound.

Simone Sauvelle did her best to repay Hannah for the meal she had prepared for them the night before with a delicious breakfast. The young girl devoured her food even faster than she spoke. The torrent of anecdotes, gossip and stories about the town and its inhabitants, which she reeled off at lightning speed, meant that after only a few minutes of her company, Simone and Irene felt as if they’d known Hannah all their lives.

Between bites of toast, Hannah summarised her biography in a few quick instalments. She would be sixteen in November; her parents owned a house in the village; her father was a fisherman and her mother a baker; her cousin Ismael, who’d lost both his parents years ago, also lived with them and helped her father on his boat. She no longer went to school because that old witch Jeanne Brau, the headmistress of the local school, had decided she was thick, or at least not very bright. Ismael, however, was teaching her to read and every week she was getting better at her times tables. Her favourite colour was yellow and she liked collecting shells along the Englishman’s Beach. Her favourite pastime was listening to romance serials on the radio and going to the summer dances held in the main square, when travelling bands came to the village. She didn’t use perfume, but she loved lipstick . . .

Listening to Hannah was entertaining and exhausting in equal measure. After wolfing down her own breakfast, and Irene’s leftovers, she stopped talking for a few seconds. The silence that filled the room felt unreal. It didn’t last long, of course.

‘Shall we go for a walk so I can show you the village?’ she asked, suddenly excited at the prospect of acting as a tourist guide.

Irene and her mother exchanged glances.

‘I’d love that,’ said Irene after a short pause.

Hannah smiled from ear to ear.

‘Don’t worry, Madame Sauvelle. I’ll bring her back in one piece.’

Irene and her new friend shot out through the front door and set off towards the Englishman’s Beach, while the house slowly recovered its sense of calm. Simone took her cup of coffee out onto the porch to enjoy the peaceful morning. Dorian waved at her from the cliffs.

Simone waved back at him. Curious boy. Always alone. He didn’t seem to be interested in making friends, or perhaps he didn’t know how to. Always lost in his own world and his notebooks, and whatever else filled his mind . . . As she finished her coffee, Simone took one last look at Hannah and her daughter walking off towards the village. Hannah was still chatting away. It takes all sorts, she thought.

Learning about the mysteries and subtleties of life in a small coastal village took up most of the Sauvelles’ time that first month in Blue Bay. The initial phase – a period characterised by culture shock and confusion – lasted a good week. During that time they discovered that, apart from the metric system, all the customs, rules and peculiarities of Blue Bay were completely different to their Paris equivalents. Firstly, there was the question of timekeeping. In Paris it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that for every thousand inhabitants there were another thousand watches – tyrannical inventions that organised life with military precision. Yet in Blue Bay there seemed to be no other timepiece than the sun. And no other cars but Doctor Giraud’s, the vehicle belonging to the police and Lazarus’s car. And no other . . . the list seemed endless. Deep down, though, the differences didn’t lie in the number of things, but in the way of life.

Paris was a city of strangers, a place where you could live for years without knowing the name of the person who lived across the landing. In Blue Bay you couldn’t sneeze or scratch the tip of your nose without the event being widely commented on by the whole community. This was a village where even a cold was news and where news was passed on quicker than a cold. There was no local paper, nor was there any need for one.