“Véronique said you would be here.”
Maman was a smudge of color in the gray of wartime Paris. She wore pale green. She was the fresh of a meadow. I swallowed down the sudden lump in my throat. “Maman.”
She looked suddenly uncertain standing there on the pavement. “You didn’t tell me you were in Paris. If Véronique hadn’t sent me a telegram last night…” She eyed me up and down, at my civilian clothes, and took a step forward. “You’re not fine, are you? She said you…”
I took a deep breath and unwound the scarf from my face.
At my raw skin, exposed, she flinched.
Inside, so did I.
“Oh.” She turned her head away.
“This is why I didn’t tell you.” Choking back a ragged breath, I wrapped the scarf around again. “I knew it would upset you.” I tied it in a knot, right under my chin.
“Oh no, mon poisson.” She straightened. “I didn’t mean…I’m not upset.”
I didn’t know whether I appreciated the lie or not. I kept the scarf tight across my face; she didn’t ask me to take it off.
“I was attacked,” I said.
She swallowed deeply.
“It was Bastille Day and we had prisoners, German prisoners, that we were guarding.” The rain against the doorway, the narrowing eyes, the blade across my cheek and through my shoulder. “They fought their way out. It was fierce, it was messy, and there wasn’t anything we could do.”
Her face flickered through emotion like a moving picture. Sorrow, fear, anger, finally settling into pity. “At least you are alive, my Luc.”
That dark cellar, that cry lost in the wind. “Not everyone was so lucky.” I closed my eyes.
She reached out and touched my arm.
That touch dissolved me. Standing there on that doorstep, months of tears and memories and regret threatened. I pressed a hand to my mouth.
“Luc.” Her hand tightened on my good arm. “It’s over. It’s past. I’m here to bring you home.”
“To Mille Mots?” I asked, as if there was any other home.
“I have Yvette airing out your bedspread and mattress. We can take tea in the rose garden, the way we always did. Marthe, she’s using the last of the sugar to make you chouquettes. You’ll like that, won’t you?”
I didn’t answer.
“The refugee families staying with me, you’ll hardly notice they are there. They stay in the east wing. The west—your bedroom, the old schoolroom, Claude’s studio, I’ve left that just the way it was. Your tennis racket is restrung, your bookshelf is dusted. You’ll see, it’s as if no time has passed.” She clasped my hand.
It was like when I’d come home from boarding school or from my weeks of study in Paris. Maman never noticed how the years had changed me. She didn’t acknowledge it now. “I’ll never swing a tennis racket again.”
“Don’t say that.” She squeezed my hand. “You might. We’ll try.” I tried to ignore the shining in her eyes. “With you home again, it will be as though nothing has changed.”
No one could go back and erase the past months. No one could undo the deaths I’d seen or the pain I felt or the regret I’d carry with me the rest of my days.
Her fingers brushed the inside of my wrist, where the ribbon was tied. A good Crépet. I pulled from her grasp.
“I love you, but I’m no longer your little Luc.” I leaned forward and kissed her forehead. She smelled, as always, like La Rose Jacqueminot. “I need to find out who I am now.”
It was cold for November as I hurried along Hutcheson Street, so cold the heels of my boots slid on the cobbles. Already it was getting dark, but that was Scotland for you. Never giving you enough day to do what you needed to do, at least in the winter anyway.
As I sped around the corner onto Trongate, the ice proved too much and I went down. My good pair of stockings ruined. And a tear along the side seam of my blue skirt to boot. It was one of two I’d bought new since arriving in Glasgow, the sorts of solid, serviceable affairs that Scottish women seemed to wear. Within the Mackintosh Building, I could wear my loose striped skirts, my red vests, my bright head scarves, the way I did in Africa. Among the art students, style was a matter of personal taste. But I kept my serviceable skirts and my green coat for venturing out into the city.
I stood and brushed dust and shards of ice from my skirt. It really was silly, all this rushing. In the end I’d return to an empty flat and a supper by myself. Likely toast and lukewarm tea again. The flat was always cold, but wrapped in layers of shawls, I’d trace pictures in the frost on my window. Nanny Proud always told me that a cold window could freeze away tears. All of these years, and I still believed her.
But it was in vain, all the rushing. Robert Miller’s was shut tight. I leaned against the shop window, shielded my eyes, and peered in, but it was already dark inside. Surely I wasn’t that late. Mockingly, the clock on the Tron church tolled out the hour. I was.
“Zut!” I hammered my fists against the window. “Not again!” Of course, the window didn’t answer, and so I turned and slumped against it.
“Please, miss, you’ve been injured,” someone said softly. I looked up to see a roughly dressed man with a walking stick politely averting his gaze from my legs. A spot of blood had soaked through the bottom of my skirt, darkening the hem.
Turning from the man, I flicked up the hem far enough to see a scrape on my calf. “Oh for goodness’ sake! Torn and spotted?” I pulled a folded handkerchief from my sleeve and pressed it against the wound.
“Do you need assistance?”
The poor man couldn’t even look directly at my leg without turning red. Little help he’d be. “I’m quite well, thank you.” I glared at the darkened window. “I would be better, however, if the shop stayed open long enough for me to buy cadmium yellow. One cannot paint France without it.”
He looked up at that. “You paint?”
“I’m a student, you see, at the art school.” I tucked the edges of the handkerchief in the hole left in my stocking and drew myself up.
“If you don’t mind me saying, you look too young for such study.”
