I crossed the Seine, high and green. On the bridge, a woman sang “Auprès de Ma Blonde” and listlessly tapped a tambourine. I gave her the two coins I had left.

The peace conference had begun only weeks ago. Paris had rushed to sweep the dust under the rug before the presidents and prime ministers and ambassadors arrived. I had gone out the day the American president, Wilson, and his wife came. Parisians thronged the streets, waving, shouting, singing. The city put on a cheerful smile for the arriving delegates, with parades and buntings, flags and flowers, but now that the great men were all tucked into their meetings at the Quai d’Orsay, the petals fell and the festoons had begun to droop.

Of their own accord, my feet traced the path to the Café du Champion, my old haunt. Gaspard had long since sold the shop, and the windows of the building were shuttered. On an impulse, I crossed the street and rapped at the door.

After a minute it creaked open. The doughy woman inside startled at me and hastily crossed herself. “Yes?”

“There was a café here once…”

“Yes, but I’ve bought the space now.” She leaned a broom against the open door. “It will be a rag shop.”

“A rag shop? No, no. You see, it was a café.”

“And they’ve closed. The owner has moved away.”

“The owner promised to leave a bottle of cognac behind the counter. The good stuff.”

“There is nothing there. I would’ve noticed a bottle of cognac.”

“Please, it’s behind the bar, in a hollow post. I watched Gaspard hide it.”

“I’m sorry, but it is no longer a café.”

“We were going to toast the end of the war. Gaspard, my father, and I.” I tried to peer over her shoulder. “Another day conquered.”

“You’ve missed the end, monsieur.” She stepped back and reached for the door. “Bonne journée.”

“Wait!” I wedged a shoulder in the door. Her eyes widened. “He hid it for me. We were going to toast to victory. Please let me go look for it. I know exactly where it is.”

But she wasn’t listening. She held the broom across her body, a trembling quarterstaff.

I let go of the door. “Bonne journée.”

I stumbled away. I didn’t belong out here, on the streets of the city, among the decent citizens. I needed to get back to the apartment, to my sanctuary, and lock myself away. I hurried past all of the open stares and whispered comments, losing myself in the maze of narrow streets. The literature of Paris was full of monsters. Hugo’s Quasimodo. Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera. I read all of the stories; I just never thought I would be numbered among them.

When I stopped to take a breath, I was on the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs. My feet had made a decision for me. Across the street there was a building set back, fronted by a courtyard and high black fence. I recognized it. I had stepped through that gate only yesterday.

Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs was quiet and I crossed it, ice crunching beneath my feet. The fence surrounding the house was set into stone ledges. Bare rosebushes spilled over the top of the fence. One of the two gates, iron and almost twice as tall as me, was ajar. Beyond, down a narrow corridor, I could see the airy little courtyard, a crooked tree holding up the center. The scent of tobacco lingered in the air, as though someone had put out a cigarette seconds ago. I leaned against the fence until the cold metal pressed against my cheek. I couldn’t see anyone.

“Monsieur?” a voice asked, quite close.

It was a woman, older, dressed neatly in a deep blue coat and hat. She stood behind me on the street. Over an arm she carried a shopping basket filled with paper-wrapped parcels and little brown pears. “Can I help you?” She straightened a pair of spectacles but didn’t look away. “Are you here to see Madame Ladd?”

I took a step back, and caught my foot on a stone. “No.”

“Are you sure? I can walk you in, if you’d like.” She nodded down at her basket. “Or if you’d just like to come in and warm up? I have fresh coffee, real coffee.”

“My apologies.” I straightened my collar, tucked my face down towards it. “This was a mistake.”

She touched my arm. “Monsieur, I don’t believe you are one to make mistakes.”

I pulled away. “Then you do not know me, Madame.”

And I hurried away.

I couldn’t keep still all the next morning, watching the door, wondering if he’d walk back through. For years I thought I’d never see him again, and now, I hopefully counted seconds.

“You can’t keep your mind on anything today.” Pascalle, one of the other artists, reached across me for the tin of white enamel. “I’ve never seen you so restless.”

“There’s just a lot to do,” I said.

“Then why have you been spending so much time on that one drawing?”

Beneath my fingertips, Luc’s face took shape again and again. I drew, smudged, erased, and tried again. Trying to convince myself that I’d made a mistake, that the man who’d been in here, broken and tense, wasn’t the same boy who sang jazz songs as he hiked through the Fairy Woods. Even when Mrs. Ladd showed me the letter, the handwriting familiar, the Luc René Rieulle Crépet written as plain as anything, I was still sure I had it wrong. My Luc, the Luc who sent me pictures, who told me fairy tales, who sketched in the woods when he thought no one was looking, he wasn’t here, he couldn’t be here.

All of these years, as I tried to ignore the news articles about each fresh battle, to ignore the too-long casualty lists, to ignore the stories the men on leave told in whispers, I had to think that Luc was somewhere else. Walking the grounds of Mille Mots on his mother’s arm. Eating mushroom soup with his father in the rose garden. Leaning beneath the old chestnut tree with sketchbook in hand and a smile on his face. I had to tell myself he was there, safe and whole. Because, oh God, I couldn’t picture him anywhere else.

Pascalle leaned over my shoulder. “He was a looker, wasn’t he?”

Unexpected tears filled my eyes.

“Clare?”

“It’s all a mistake.”

“Oh, no.” She hauled me to my feet. “Out with you.” Holding tight to my arm, she steered me out of the studio, down the stairs, and into the courtyard.

It was icy cold out there. Pascalle made sure the door was closed tight and pulled me across the yard near the fence.

“Okay, go,” she directed.

I swallowed back the tears. I’d had so many years to practice. “No, I’m fine.”

“You are not. And the one thing you can’t do in there is cry. Not in front of those soldiers. You know that.” She pulled a blue package of Gauloises from the pocket of her smock.

I glanced around, but the brown branches of wild rose twined around the fence and kept us from view. I took an offered cigarette. “No, really, I’m fine. I wasn’t going to cry.”

“What did you mean, it was all a mistake?” She tucked a strand of her bobbed hair behind her ear and lit one for herself. “You said that in there.”

“I…” I exhaled. “The soldier in the picture. I know him.”

She leaned forward. “Really? The looker?”

“That’s the mistake. It can’t be him, must not be him.”

Smoke curled around Pascalle’s face. “But you have proof, no?”