“My mistake was always trusting the world.” I leaned down over him, knife in hand. “Yours was underestimating it.”
That night I dreamt of redemption.
Luc had found it, it seemed, in his mask, in my arms. He’d gone to fetch me breakfast that morning and, while he was gone, I read his note, worried, and then left. But later I dreamt that he forgave me, that we talked, that he told me we’d cross the world and back hand in hand. I dreamt that we walked to Mille Mots and he kissed me under the poplar. I wondered if things could work.
I went to his apartment, to apologize. But Luc, he wasn’t there.
At his building, the suspicious fish-eyed woman frowned, but let me into his apartment when I mentioned that I was with the Red Cross. “Apologies. When you came the other afternoon, I didn’t realize you were a nurse.”
I didn’t correct her. “There are many people looking after his recovery.”
She turned the key with a grunt.
Nothing had changed from the last time I’d been there. The parrots rattled the cage beneath their cover. The sweater I’d left was still folded on the bed. A flash of relief that he hadn’t just avoided me was quickly replaced by the realization that he’d been gone all day and night. “When did you last see him, Madame Girard?”
“The morning after you brought that mask.” She jiggled the door handle. “I was leaving to take my ungrateful sister a parcel of fish. He left at the same time.”
Something had happened, before he left or before he returned. Something that kept him from his apartment. I paced the room, but nothing was out of place. “Did he say where he was going?”
She shrugged. “Why would he tell me, mademoiselle?”
That night, he’d been nervous and reluctant to talk about what had happened during the war. I’d been worried about all those tomorrows, but Luc, he still worried about yesterday.
“Madame, please. When Monsieur Crépet left, how did he look?”
“He said something about a fresh start. I’ve never seen it before,” she said, “but for the first time, he was smiling.”
I turned from her so she wouldn’t see the sweep of fear on my face. The smile meant he didn’t abandon me or our night together. He must have left with the intention of coming back to me. Whatever kept him from the apartment these past twenty-four hours, it wasn’t himself.
I went to the birdcage and pulled off the cover. The larger parrot cocked his head. “Summer,” he said, then in English, “Fuck it.”
I pushed grapes through the bars and pieces of crumbled cheese. “Would you feed the birds until I return?”
She gaped at the parrots. “These brutes?”
“And call the policier.”
She straightened.
“I am going to find Luc.”
—
This time, I didn’t knock on the front door of Mille Mots.
I walked around to the back, to the kitchen, where I knew the Crépets were staying. But I didn’t go in. In the kitchen yard, with my hand on the door, I spotted them down by the river.
Monsieur, I’d recognize anywhere. He perched on a stool in front of an easel. His beard, shot through with new gray, bristled over the front of his smock. When he was melancholy, it was nothing but blues and purples. I couldn’t tell what he was painting today, but saw oranges and yellows and bright melon greens.
But he wasn’t alone by the riverside. Madame, her battered picnicking table covered over with a canvas cloth, sat. Her smock spattered, her face content, Madame was sculpting. The clay was the rich red found all over in Picardy. Her arms streaked in it, she was reborn.
Both looked so utterly content, I hated to intrude. Indeed they scarcely noticed me walk up. Not until I came right up to the table and cleared my throat did Madame start and Monsieur set down his palette.
“Bonjour,” I said, then: “Has he been here?”
Madame blinked and Monsieur tugged on his beard. He left a smear of viridian. “He?” he asked, but she sat up straighter. I knew then that she’d been the one to change her mind. She had been behind his reappearance in the studio.
“Luc. He…” I inhaled. “I can’t find him.”
“You two, you have a habit of losing one another.” He laughed and wiped his hands on his smock.
“Claude, hush,” she said. I’d never heard Madame speak with anything less than adoration to her husband. She set down her knife. “Clare, he came to the studio?”
“Yes. Didn’t he write to you?”
“He doesn’t.”
“He came and I made him a mask.” I pressed my fingers together. “I thought he was happy.”
“Ma chère.” Monsieur stood from his stool and brought it to me. “He’s gone far since that summer you knew him. So have you.” I let him take my arm and lead me to the stool. “All that you’ve given him, but what he needs most of all is time.”
“But if he’s in danger…”
“Do you not think Luc is used to danger?”
Madame’s breath caught and she put a hand to the wet clay in front of her. I saw then that she sculpted a young boy.
