At the Edge of Summer

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.

“So what do I do?” I asked.

“What we’ve been doing all these years,” she said. She ran a finger down the clay boy’s cheek. “Wait.”

I sat in the Gare du Nord with my head in my hands. I’d stood over Bauer with the knife in my hands. If that milk cart hadn’t come by when it did, I would have killed him. I would have. But he scrambled up and away, and I was left with the battered suitcase and blood on my hands.

I brought it into the train station. I cleaned up as best I could in the lavatory and dropped the knife through the tracks. And then, not knowing what else to do, I sat on a bench in the departure court, sitting on my shaking hands.

Bauer was bleeding and bruised. He was without his camera and suitcase. Did that mean he wouldn’t finish his mission? I knew him too well. He’d lay low until he could get another camera. He was probably at Lili’s, licking his wounds. Wondering what had given him away on the streets of Paris.

I sat all day, watching trains come and go, watching people pass, not quite knowing what to do. I walked from the departure court into the station, pacing the edge of the tracks. Would he come here? Would he try to leave Paris? I leaned against the wall, tired and watchful, and bought strong black coffee. With all of the refugees crowded in the station, one more itinerant didn’t matter.

Gare du Nord was crowded and buzzing. Suitcases and trunks were piled higgledy-piggledy on the platforms, overflowing from the baggage rooms. People clustered, holding tight to cloth bags and parcels and the odd treasure saved when they fled. Clutching wedding tickings, Bibles, or gilt-framed paintings, they complained to each other in county patois. Most were refugees who had come into Paris years ago; only now were they looking to leave.