Until I Die

FOUR



BEING NEW YEAR’S DAY, THE GARE DE LYON TRAIN station was practically abandoned. Kamikaze pigeons soared in eccentric looping flight patterns under the massive glass-and-steel ceiling. Our small group of six stood dwarfed in the colossal space, watching Charlotte and Charles board the ultramodern high-speed TGV train that would take them from Paris to Nice in just under six hours. Ambrose loaded a small mountain of suitcases onto the luggage compartment of their carriage as the twins leaned in for hugs from Jules, Vincent, and me and more formal cheek-kisses from Gaspard and Jean-Baptiste.

As a digitized woman’s voice announced the train’s imminent departure, Charles broke away from Ambrose’s crushing bear hug and climbed onto the train without looking back. Charlotte brushed away tears as she turned. “You’ll return before long,” stated Jean-Baptiste, a rare trace of emotion tingeing his voice. She nodded mutely, looking like she was struggling not to burst into full-fledged sobbing.

“Email … and phone!” I reminded her. “We’ll keep in touch—I promise!” I threw her a kiss with both hands as she stepped onto the train and disappeared behind the darkened windows. Vincent draped his arm supportively around my shoulders. I turned so that the twins wouldn’t see me cry.

Charlotte was the only girl I had gotten close to since we moved to Paris almost a year ago. It was my fault: I hadn’t actively been looking for friends. For half of that time I had been a hermit. Then along came Vincent, and it was like he brought a prepackaged group of friends with him. It hadn’t escaped my attention that I preferred to spend time with the undead rather than the living. I tried not to think about what that said about me.

The sound of the conductor’s whistle pierced the frigid air. The train shuddered once and then pulled away. Our mismatched group waved at the darkened windows before wordlessly ambling back toward the station entrance. Everyone seemed lost in thought as Vincent’s phone started to ring. He checked the display and answered, “Bonjour, Geneviève.” After listening for a moment, he stopped in his tracks, his face ashen. “Oh, no. No.”

Hearing his mournful tone, everyone froze and watched him, waiting. “Just stay there. We’ll be right over.” He switched the phone off and said, “Geneviève’s husband died this morning. He went to bed last night and never woke up.”

The group inhaled as one and stood there, stunned. “Oh, my poor Geneviève,” said Gaspard finally, breaking the silence.

“Has she notified—” Jean-Baptiste began.

“The doctor already certified Philippe as dead, and his body was picked up by the coroner. She would have called earlier, but was afraid that if Charlotte knew, she wouldn’t have gotten on the train.”

Jean-Baptiste nodded.

Although Geneviève lived halfway across town and wasn’t often at La Maison, she and Charlotte had been friends for decades. Charlotte had once told me that it was hard hanging out with guys all the time. Before I had arrived, Geneviève was the only girlfriend she had, and Charlotte would run off to her house every time she and Charles had a brother-sister spat.

“She hoped that a couple of us could come over to help with the funeral plans. Kate, do you want to come with me?” Vincent asked. I nodded.

“I’ll come,” Jules and Ambrose said as one.

“Ambrose, I had hoped to have your services moving Violette and Arthur into their rooms,” Gaspard said. “But of course …” He held up a quivering finger, as if he was unsure of the fairness of his request.

Ambrose hesitated, torn, and then relented. “No, you’re right, Gaspard. I’ll follow you back to the house. Give Geneviève my love, and tell her I’ll stop by later,” he said to us, and then, shifting his motorcycle helmet to his other hand, clapped Vincent on the shoulder and strode out, with Gaspard and Jean-Baptiste following close behind.

Jules, Vincent, and I hopped into one of the taxis parked outside the station and within fifteen minutes were at Geneviève’s house on a tiny street in the Mouzaia neighborhood of Belleville.

As we climbed out of the car, I looked around in amazement. Although we were still within the Paris city limits, the streets were lined with little two-story brick houses complete with tiny front yards—instead of the typical multi-floor Paris apartment blocks. We walked through a white picket fence and across a tree-shaded yard to the front porch, where Geneviève waited, leaning on the door frame as if she couldn’t stand without its support.

As Jules and Vincent approached, she fell into their arms. “He died in his sleep. I was reading when he went, and didn’t even notice,” she confessed in a dazed voice. Her pale blue eyes were shiny with tears and fatigue.

“It’s going to be okay,” Vincent soothed, handing Geneviève over to Jules. We followed them down the hall and into a bright, spacious living room. Jules seated her on a white couch as carefully as if she were made of spun glass and then settled in next to her. She cuddled up to him and dabbed at her swollen eyes with a tissue as Vincent and I sat on the floor at their feet.

“What needs doing?” Vincent asked softly.

“Legally? Nothing. Philippe and I have been preparing for this for a while. The house and money is mine—you took care of that paperwork for me a while ago,” she said, nodding tearfully to Vincent.

“A law degree does come in handy when you have to register property and a bank account in a dead woman’s name.” He smiled grimly.

“Philippe had already decided on his own funeral arrangements. No church service, no announcement, just a small ceremony among our own at Père Lachaise.”

Only the most famous cemetery in Paris, I thought with awe, remembering a tour my mother and I had gone on that included the graves of Victor Hugo, Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, and Jim Morrison, among others. Philippe—or more likely Geneviève—must have some powerful contacts to have secured a gravesite for him there.

“I would love a cup of tea,” Geneviève said to no one in particular.

“I’ll get it!” I popped to my feet, grateful to be given a task. “Just point me to the kitchen.”

Once there, I lit the gas burner under a kettle and rummaged through the cupboards until I found a teapot, some cups, and a box of tea bags. Framed photos hung on the kitchen wall, and I wandered from one to the next as I waited for the water to boil.

The first was an old black-and-white photo of Geneviève in a wedding dress, being carried in the arms of a tuxedoed man through the front gate of this house. Geneviève’s dress and crimped hairstyle dated the picture from around World War II. They were both laughing in the photo, and looked like any other blissful couple on their wedding day.

The next picture showed the same man outside a garage, wearing a light-colored jumpsuit with grease stains on it. He leaned over a car and gave a thumbs-up, holding a wrench in one hand. His face didn’t look any different than in the wedding photo—still 1940s or ’50s, I was guessing.

I moved to the next photo, which must have been taken in the 1960s—I could tell from Geneviève’s Jackie O hairdo. She looked exactly the same, but her husband was graying and his face was that of a man in his forties. Still … they could pass for a middle-aged man and his much younger wife.

But not in the following images. The color photographs made their difference in age increasingly obvious. I leaned in to see an inscription written across the bottom of the most recent portrait: “60 years on the millennium. My love for you will last forever. Philippe.” In the photo the man was sitting in a club chair with one of those metal walkers standing beside it. Geneviève was perched on the arm, leaning over and kissing his cheek as he grinned directly into the camera lens. He looked ancient. She looked twenty. And they looked as in love as they had on their wedding day.

I jumped as the kettle began whistling on the stove behind me. I had forgotten where I was as I became gradually sucked into their history—a history full of love and happiness, certainly, but one that had ended as a tragedy worthy of Homer.

When I returned to the living room, carrying the tray with teapot and cups, Jules was pacing around on his cell phone, spreading the news to their friends. Geneviève sat on the couch with her head on Vincent’s shoulder, staring off into space.

My boyfriend’s eyes were dark as he watched me cross the room and set the tray on a coffee table in front of them. An expression of pain flashed across his face, and I knew we were thinking the same thing. The story of Geneviève and her human husband could one day be ours.