Agnes was afraid to breathe, to do anything to disturb the quiet of the room. Some ways off Petit laughed loudly and, although the nurse shushed him, the spell was broken.
“Who are Citoyen and Madame?” asked Agnes. “Their real names.”
“Have you ever had a secret, Inspector, a real life-and-death secret? I have had these secrets, secrets between two people, and the release does not necessarily come with death. Le Citoyen and Madame separately gave me a chance at life. He gave me France and she introduced me to my love. I will never forget this or stop serving them.”
Agnes waited silently for a few minutes. Arsov was asleep. The nurse approached and nodded. He was old and needed his rest. They would go.
Twenty
Agnes jolted awake at the sound of footsteps. She was seated in the dark shadows of the chateau’s library. Most of the candles had long since guttered and the fires were banked for the night.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said, embarrassed when she saw the figure in front of her. “I wanted a book to read,” she added inconsequently.
Marie-Chantal held her finger to her lips and motioned toward Mimi, who was nestled deep into the seat of a wing-backed chair. “She was put to bed hours ago and when I checked she’d gotten up again. She is incorrigible.” She studied the sleeping figure. “It’s almost a shame to wake her, though.”
A shadow flickered across the fireplace and Estanguet emerged from the dark. He lifted his hand from the candle he was shielding and the glow extended across Mimi. “I can carry her for you,” he said. Sleepily, Agnes decided that he could re-take his title of Good Samaritan.
While he gathered the girl, Marie-Chantal looked at Agnes doubtfully. “If you were looking for a book there are better ones, to read I mean, in the blue sitting room. That’s where we keep the ordinary books.”
Agnes stretched and stood, wishing them goodnight. She had come here for a book. She must have fallen asleep the moment she sat in the deeply cushioned chair. Running her flashlight beam down the shelves she wondered if she should take one now. It wasn’t clear how the volumes were organized. By language? Or subject? There was a section in Latin, another in Greek. She knew that she was too tired to read, yet now she wasn’t sure she could fall asleep again. The sense of peace she had felt at Arsov’s had vanished during the cold return to the chateau, and she was further unsettled by Petit’s prattling happiness, his boundless joy at the newness of fatherhood.
She walked the length of the library, delaying the inevitable return to her room and the numbing loneliness that visited her most nights. She’d read about spouses committing suicide after their partners died and had thought that was only for the old and the weak. But this—this despair was rooted so firmly she finally understood how the mind closed options until there was only one. The numbness was as painful as the aching of her heart.
Her light flashed across a bronze bust and the craggy features reminded her of Arsov. She studied the man’s deep-set eyes and wondered why Arsov’s story hadn’t filled her with the sense of longing and despair that Petit’s mindless jabbering had. As she walked toward the doors she wondered if it was because even in Arsov’s happiness there was a shadow of despair. Just as his despair was filled with the joy of living. She was sure he would have said it was his Russian soul, but there was something more. Some balance that she hadn’t yet grasped. Perhaps the tragedy he had known during the war had colored his happiness as her own tragedy would certainly color her future. Was it about acknowledging the worst that could happen? Was that enough? Arsov and Madame had lived through the worst that a human could endure and woke the next day and the next. Was that all it took?
Inside her bedroom she closed the door and leaned against it. Unbidden, a sob erupted. She wept for herself and for George until she was wrung dry of any feeling. She felt the hours pass, half-awake and half-asleep. Somewhere in the distance a clock chimed and she counted the bells. It was late, or early, depending on one’s perspective. Wiping her eyes, she looked around and relit a candle. She had difficulty focusing: Had she heard a noise or was she dreaming? What had she dreamt? A tapping sound? She couldn’t remember, and that made her think she had heard something.