“Tell me why you are here,” Arsov said.
“About the burglary.” Agnes jolted out of a near doze.
“You are as bad as the young man. We have discussed this and for the Vallottons it is nothing. You tell me what they are missing and I say it is like losing the coins from your pocket.”
“I think Monsieur Vallotton is worried.”
“He will always worry, that one. What of the marquise?” Arsov flicked a piece of tobacco from his lip.
“I didn’t speak with her this evening. She spends most of her time alone, in her rooms.”
Arsov sucked on his cigarette, exhaling deliberately. “Officer Petit, you are restless, and this disturbs me. Have Nurse Brighton resume our tour. There is much else to see.”
Petit nearly objected, but the nurse emerged from the shadows and took him by the elbow, urging him into the next room. Agnes stood as if to follow but Arsov motioned her to a closer chair.
“You are looking for something—something beyond your murderer. You are at the end of your capacity.”
She straightened, but he waved her down. “You remind me of my American friends. You think I speak of your capacity as an officer of the law. Of your work. I do not think of that, I think of you as a person. You came tonight here to escape.”
To object was meaningless. The old man could see.
“Few have confronted their limits, but you have. I recognize this. You are unsure. Was it the worst life will give you or is there something more? I have known the same feeling. First, when my mother and sisters died. Then when my brothers died in the battle for Stalingrad. What I saw there made me flee the armies, barely human at the time in my filth and hunger and fatigue. Later I heard the stories of cannibalism and I could not cast judgment, even though it may have been my brother or friend who was eaten. We were at the end of salvation, pushed beyond human capacity.”
Agnes took another drink of her wine. Arsov smoked and stared toward the black reflection in the windows overlooking the lake.
“I do not know your troubles, but I do know it is possible to survive this low point in your life. I know because I did. Because I still am. Surviving.”
“I lost my husband,” she said without thinking. “He killed himself.” She had never volunteered this information before; had avoided it, leaving the news to official channels or gossip.
Arsov peered at her. “And you were witness.” It was not a question. “Like her,” he said softly. “You will need to be strong like her.”
“Who?”
“I tell you why I open this wine tonight. This fine bottle. It was not for you who have no taste for it, it was for the past. This storm has put my mind in the past. The distant past.” He looped the oxygen tube onto his head before shoving the entire apparatus off the side of his chair.
“France was very different from Russia. For one thing it was warmer. I was young and, despite what I had suffered, I was still a na?ve peasant. I had the buoyancy of youth. I didn’t think or plan. I didn’t think that no one would trust me. Why would you trust someone you do not know when neighbors, even family, were turning one another in? I had never lived in a place where I knew absolutely no one. It shook me. I should have been even more worried, however, like your Officer Petit, youth is stupid and I was in a mood that could be called euphoric. That is what kept me alive. Compared to Russia the air felt free from death. Compared to Russia, the land was green and easy and I was happy to be there.”
Agnes could picture the Mediterranean landscape of France. There were similarities to Switzerland: the hills verdant slopes leading to mountainous crags and isolated villages. She leaned back on the soft cushion and let his voice float through her.
“I made my way north, through Vichy toward occupied France, with no plan, only a need for action. I slept out of doors, stealing small bits of food from gardens and eating nuts from the forest. I needed to destroy the Germans. I needed revenge for the way my mother and sisters had died. I saw people on the road and we exchanged stiff greetings from a careful distance. I didn’t know how to say: I want to help you rid yourselves of the Germans, are you loyal to France or do you support the invaders? This is not a question easily broached. I have told you that evil does not rest on a man’s face when he walks a country lane on a Sunday afternoon.”