The story came tumbling out in bits and pieces. What I’d overheard, what I still didn’t know, even what Luc had hurled at me in our last fight. Mr. Bauer listened gravely, shaking his head and exclaiming in all of the right spots.
When I finished, he handed me a spare handkerchief. “Luc would not help you, this is clear.” He nodded. “He is not so much a man.”
Luc wasn’t, was he? More a boy, as I thought of him. Stealing treats from the kitchen. Hiking through the woods, singing American jazz songs. Drawing when he thought no one was looking.
“Ah, but we are arriving in Paris.” He stood to take his hat down. “Come with me. We will find you somewhere to stay for the night.”
—
He had an aunt in the city, he told me. “She is a generous woman. She will have a bed for you for the night.”
In the dark outside of the Gare du Nord, I took a step backwards onto the pavement. “You do not live in Paris?” As little as I knew him, he was the only familiar thing in this city of cobbles and streetlamps and fog. “But I thought…”
He smiled and his teeth gleamed white in the dim. “I live at the university. There are no accommodations for young ladies there.”
“Luc’s university?”
He nodded.
Luc. Suddenly I wasn’t as angry with him as I’d been on the train ride. I’d always imagined that he’d be the one to first show me Paris. “Maybe I should go back to Mille Mots. For tonight, at least.”
He let me go to the window and inquire. He looked contrite when I came back to tell him that there were no more trains to Railleuse that day.
“A hotel?” I had seen a picture in a magazine once, of a hotel lobby, tiled and glittering with chandeliers and electric light. “Perhaps, sir, if I could only borrow some money…” I was instantly embarrassed by my request, but he seemed to consider this. With his smart suit and the motorbike he leaned against, surely he had the funds.
He touched his pocket, but then inclined his head regretfully. “I wish, fräulein, that I could help you more.”
“You’ve helped me already, Mr. Bauer. I shouldn’t have asked for more.” His earnest gaze flustered me. “Already I am in your debt.”
Something in his eyes lit. “My debt?”
“Of course all I have to offer in return are a few sketches and some questionable French.” I tried for a joke, but it felt stifled. “Sir, if there is a way I could repay you, I will.”
“I think you are too kind to me.” He paused, suddenly thoughtful. “I mentioned Lili. My aunt. She lives nearby. Yes, that would be best, I think.” Again solicitous, he smiled. “She has plenty of rooms and welcomes visitors. It would only be for tonight, yes?”
I nodded. I had no idea.
“Fräulein, I do not wish to leave you friendless on the streets of Paris.” He offered his arm. “They can be a very dangerous place.”
I hesitated. I took it.
Mr. Bauer left his motorbike at the station and secured a taxi. His aunt didn’t live far, he was right. In the time it took me to decide that, yes, I would return to Mille Mots on the earliest train, the taxi slowed in front of a nondescript building.
I waited in the dark taxi, ignoring the stares of the driver, while Mr. Bauer went to a door and spoke with a woman in an ice blue dress. She must have been on her way out for the evening, as she hustled us in and made us wait while she straightened her earrings in the hall mirror. She was a lovely woman, with a rhinestone comb in her hair and masses of chiffon flowers along the dipping neckline of her dress. Mr. Bauer introduced her as “Tante Lili” and kissed her on the cheek.
The front hall showed a house shabby but with a faded elegance. A chandelier in need of a dusting, a mirrored hat stand with a man’s derby, and a somewhat bald velveteen sofa. A man in ill-fitting livery came through a swinging door balancing a tray with little glasses full of golden liquid. I’d never been offered an aperitif and certainly not in the front hall. I shook my head no, but Tante Lili took one from the tray and pressed it into my hands. I took a sip. Whatever it was, it was bitter and made my tongue feel warm. Mr. Bauer drank two in quick succession.
As Tante Lili pinched her cheeks, she spoke rapidly to her nephew in French. I wondered why they didn’t speak German. It was all so strange and I was beginning to get a headache. I took another sip. Beneath the bitterness I tasted sweet oranges.
Finally Tante Lili broke off talking with a wave of her hand. She bustled away through the swinging door the manservant had used.
Mr. Bauer looked suddenly uncertain. “Would you please like to sit?”
“Here?” Was there to be no supper? No drawing room?
“If you would like.” He pulled off his cap. In the gesture he looked younger. “We could talk. We do not know each other well.”
I set my glass on the hat stand. “If you please, I would like to be shown to my room, Mr. Bauer. It has been a tiring day.”
He set his cap down next to my glass. “I had hoped for more time to become friends.”
Tante Lili returned then with a bottle to refill the glasses. I glanced up the dark staircase.
She smiled and called me a dear waif, or so he said. “She does not speak English, but she said you can stay. She asked if you would like to see the bedroom.”
“Please.” I tightened my grip on the valise. “I would like that very much.”
Tante Lili laughed at this and then pinched my cheek.
I stepped backwards, but Mr. Bauer caught my arm and said, “She will show you to your room.”
She rolled her eyes at him and he followed up the stairs with my valise. We passed shadowed portraits on the stairway, portraits of couples, of dancers. Not as fine a quality as Monsieur Crépet’s, I could tell that much, but when I paused to look, Mr. Bauer put a hand on my shoulder and steered me up. Tante Lili giggled, high like a girl.
The room was plain, with a narrow bed and none-too-clean blanket. A washstand and a stool with a pillow were the only other furnishings. Mr. Bauer put my valise on the bed as Tante Lili bustled out to fill the water pitcher. I was exhausted.
“You must rest, please. Tomorrow we will begin the search for your mother.”
Though I felt more alone in this place than I ever had at Mille Mots, I forced a smile. “Sir, I thank you.”
