“It’s so terrible,” I said, my voice breaking.
He gave me a sympathetic nod. “It is. Did you witness the accident?”
“No, I didn’t. I was on the other side of the balcony.”
He was trained to know when people were telling the truth. Would he know that I was lying?
“And so how is it you know what happened?”
“On the steps . . . it’s a long way down . . . there were people who saw it and were talking about it . . . Is it true what they said? A woman fell to her death?”
Was he looking at me strangely? Had he guessed? Did he think I had been involved? Had I somehow implicated myself? But I hadn’t been involved. There was no way I could be found guilty. It was not me. I had not touched Charlotte. I had nothing to do with her accident.
“So then, you didn’t actually see anything?”
“No, nothing but the crowd surging toward that side of the terrace.”
“Thank you then.”
I turned.
“One more thing.”
My heartbeat quickened.
“Yes?”
“May I have your name?” He had taken out a pad and a pencil.
“My name?”
“We need to keep a record of the eyewitnesses.”
“But I didn’t actually see anything,” I insisted.
“A record of people on the platform.” His pencil was poised; he was waiting.
“Of course. My name is Eloise Bedford,” I said, giving him the name of the same girl I’d gone to school with whom I’d used in another lie the day I’d applied to the école des Beaux-Arts.
Closing his notebook, he moved on.
I tried to keep my pace calm and not hurry as I kept walking. Fire, fall. Fire, fall. I wanted to run. I could barely breathe. My clothes were drenched in sweat. I was shivering. And still I had to keep going at an even gait. Fire, fall. Fire, fall.
Chapter 28
It was the accident, not my grandmother, I thought of during the carriage ride from rue des Saints-Pères to Dr. Blanche’s clinic in Passy. I could think of nothing else. I kept seeing Charlotte falling. Kept remembering the policeman questioning me. Kept wondering how Julien was.
I had not heard from him that night. Or the next day. Of course I hadn’t. He would have been in shock. Then plunged into mourning. Any strength he had he would need to devote to helping Charlotte’s father cope. As the cab traversed the city, I wished I were on my way to him. How was he faring? How was he enduring the solemn ceremony of his fiancée’s funeral? I’d thought about attending, to be with him, to offer support, but he had not come to me, and under these circumstances I did not think I should go to him unasked.
This was the fourth death that had touched my life in so very few months. My father, my grandmother’s uncle the doctor, our cousin Jacob Richter, and now Charlotte. Too many deaths. Too close together.
As I alighted from the carriage, I noticed Dr. Blanche was coming down the street, and we reached the front door at the same moment. Greeting me warmly, he said, “Your grandmother is doing so well, Mademoiselle. I think you’ll be delighted.”
As we walked down the hallways toward her room, he explained some of the treatment she’d been getting and how responsive she was. “She’s even started flirting with the male patients, which is a very good sign.” He smiled.
When I entered Grand-mère’s room, her face did indeed light up. No longer confined to her bed, she was sitting at the table set for tea, presumably for my visit. I was delighted and relieved to see she appeared rested and much better groomed. Her hair was clean and up in a twist, and she had on rouge and lipstick and was dressed in a salmon silk morning dress I’d brought from home the last time I visited. The change in her since then was astonishing. This was my grandmother again, not a deranged stranger. Tears filled her eyes as she looked at me.
Had I ever been as happy to see anyone?
I took her hands and leaned down. She kissed me. I wasn’t sure if it was her tears or mine that wet my cheeks.
“Your perfume smells wonderful, Sandrine. I don’t have any perfume here. Can you bring me some? And my tortoiseshell combs.”
“Of course.”
“Sit down, mon ange. They have made a tea for us.”
She poured with a hand that trembled only a bit, and I relaxed seeing how much herself she was.
“Dr. Blanche said that I might be able to go home in another two weeks or so.”
“Not soon enough,” I said.
“Is the apartment all right? Is everything running smoothly?”
“Of course,” I lied. I wasn’t ready to tell her I’d moved back into the house for fear I’d set her off. It was too good to have her back, sane and calm. “I’ve even been keeping the salon afloat.”
She smiled.
“All your beaus miss you and wish you well.” From the bag I’d brought, I pulled out a box of chocolates from Debauve and Gallais, the oldest chocolatier in Paris, which was just a few doors down from La Lune. “Monsieur St. Simone sent you these.”
“How very thoughtful.” She took the beautiful cream-colored box with its gold-and-navy insignia and gazed at it like a fine jewel. The ribbon was ornate, navy satin embroidered with gold fleurs-de-lis, and she traced the decoration with her forefinger, for the moment lost in thought.
“Dr. Blanche said that I might be able to go home in another two weeks or so.” She repeated what she’d said before but whispered it this time, and I wondered how many times a day she soothed herself with that single thought.
“Would you like a chocolate?” I asked.
“Perhaps later.” She placed the box on the table, picked up her teacup, and took a sip. She turned back to me, watching me carefully, as if searching for something in my eyes. She frowned. Shook her head. “I am worried for you.”
“No need, I’m fine.”
“But you are lying to me. You moved into the house.” Her voice quivered.
“How did you know?”
“Alice came to visit me yesterday.”
Of course her maid would have come to visit—she was devoted to my grandmother.
“I miss you less there. I even miss Papa less when I am there.” All that was true. It was also true that I felt more welcomed there than anywhere I’d ever lived.
“But you can’t live in that house. You’re in danger there.”
“No, no, I’m not. There’s nothing wrong with your beautiful house. The pipes and the plumbing are all fine.”
She shook her head impatiently. “That’s not what I mean, and you know it. Don’t try to fool me. Something has changed, hasn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know exactly. But I can see it in your eyes. Something terrible has transpired since the last time you were here. What is it, Sandrine, what is it?” She had become highly agitated.
What to tell her? Some version of the truth? “I was at la Tour Eiffel yesterday and saw an accident.”
“You saw the opera singer fall?”
I nodded.
“I know her fiancé,” my grandmother said. “He has been doing work for me, and when I read about the accident in the newspaper, I was so upset for him. It’s very tragic. They had a photograph of her . . . so young and lovely. And you were there? It must have been horrible. But what were you doing there?”
“I hadn’t been to see the tower. All this time in Paris and I hadn’t yet gone up.” Too late, I remembered that was the wrong lie.
“No, not so,” Grand-mère said. “We visited the tower your first week. We had a lovely luncheon there. Surely you have not forgotten that. Why are you lying to me about this, too?”
I didn’t know what else to say. “Yes, you’re right, we did.”