“But,” said René, his eyes on his laptop screen, “according to the ministry database, his brother Roland holds office in D’Orsay, the same one Pascal did before becoming the youngest député in the Assemblée Nationale.”
She was too tired to worry about it anymore tonight. The next moment, her eyes drooped closed.
René draped Chloé’s wool baby blanket over her shoulders. Kissed her forehead. But she was oblivious.
Tuesday Morning
SINCE THE DAY Fran?oise slammed the door on him twenty years ago, Roland Leseur had spoken to her only once: at the UNESCO reception celebrating one of her ambassador husband’s postings fifteen years ago. Yet he thought of her every day.
He’d kept up with her movements all this time: from embassy to embassy, the return from Venezuela, her husband’s funeral, the family townhouse on the Champ de Mars, her new grandchild, the fact that she shopped at the markets on rue Cler every Tuesday.
Today, like clockwork, she emerged from the family-owned fromagerie, La Fermette, with her straw basket. Her step was that of the young woman he remembered.
From the corner of rue Saint-Dominique he watched her exchange a bonjour with the fruit seller, then stop at the florist’s and emerge with a bouquet of violet-blue delphiniums. He remembered how the color matched her eyes.
How often had he stood in line outside that cheese shop? Debated, trembling, whether to approach her. To smell whether she still wore the same parfum, l’Heure Bleue by Guerlain.
All the women he’d tried to forget her with paled beside Fran?oise.
He’d heard nothing yet from his lawyer, who was examining the article for defamation and libel. It was only a matter of time, he knew, before the story came out. He’d do anything to keep it quiet, but how long could that last? Sooner or later, the past would resurface. Fran?oise needed to be warned. No declarations of love or attempts at happily ever after—he simply had to protect her.
As he watched, she turned back on rue Cler. Forgotten a purchase? But a moment later she turned right and was swallowed up by the throngs on rue de Grenelle. He hurried, cursing himself for not finding the courage to grab the opportunity. At broad, tree-lined Avenue Bosquet, where the Tour Eiffel’s iron latticework poked above the zinc-roofed buildings, he missed the traffic light and got caught behind a bus in the crosswalk. By the time it had passed, her khaki trench coat and trailing scarf had disappeared in the crowd.
Determined now, he ran through the bus’s diesel fumes, dodged taxis and made it to the other side with horns blaring around him. He knew where she was going—home—but she usually went down rue Saint-Dominique. He pumped his legs, but there was no sign of her on the pavement. Where could she have gone?
He poked his head into the café, the cobbler. Not a trace.
Passing narrow rue du Gros Caillou, a sleepy passage of low buildings that had once been workshops and housing for construction workers building the Tour Eiffel, Roland heard laughter.
“Merci, Madame,” said a smiling woman on the doorstep of a framing atelier. It was Fran?oise, holding a square wrapped in brown paper.
The next moment she’d taken off down the street.
Roland ran after her, and finally got the courage to call, “Fran?oise, Fran?oise!”
She turned at the crook of the street, where it bent left like an elbow. Her smile was edged with confusion. Her face was older—yes, his too. But apart from the few wrinkles and the fact that her thick hair that pulled back from her face was now a lustrous winter white, the twenty years didn’t show. Premature white hair aged most women, but on Fran?oise it highlighted her sculpted cheekbones and unlined face.
“Roland?” She dropped her basket, scattering cheese and delphiniums in the cobblestoned gutter. Her mouth quivered.
“Désolé, I didn’t mean to surprise you, but …” He tore his eyes away from her face. Picked up her things. Wiped them off on his trousers.
“Didn’t we agree never …?”
“You’re in danger, Fran?oise.”
She leaned down and their fingers brushed over a tomato. Hers were warm.
“Danger? Melodrama doesn’t become you, Roland. You know about Gerard’s death, I’m sure.”
A long, painful illness. She had nursed her husband herself, while still taking care of their daughter, who had been deaf since childhood.
“My life’s on an even course now,” Fran?oise said. “Not that you’ve asked. My daughter’s receiving treatment in London and now my oldest daughter’s child—”
“I want to protect you.” Roland took her hands. “And them.”
“Protect? From what?” Her shoulders stiffened. “What in God’s name, Roland, have you let out of the bag?”
More like tried to keep in the bag. “Pascal, us … I had to warn you.”
“This is all a ruse,” she said. “What you really want to know is whether Gerard knew of our affair. Whether your brother betrayed you to his best friend.”
He’d always wondered. “Alors, when you refused to see me, what else could I think, Fran?oise?”
“Na?ve, you always were na?ve, Roland.” She sighed. Pulled her hands from his and brushed back her hair. The sun slanted down on them, casting a shadow from a lantern like a black print on the limestone. The deserted street echoed with her ringing phone. She looked at the display. “I’m late. But yes, your saint of a brother told my husband about us. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut, especially when he’d been drinking.” She noticed the look on his face and sighed. “You still idolize Pascal after all these years, don’t you, Roland?”
“I still think of you every day after all these years,” he blurted out. “I loved you, still love you, Fran?oise.”
Fran?oise turned away. Shook her head as if to shake his words away, then combed her fingers through her hair. Like she always used to do after making love. He remembered the arch of her back, how velvet soft and warm her skin felt. The familiar gesture made him ache inside.