JEAN-LUC
The worst thing about prison is the helplessness. He could put up with the terrible food, the cold nights, even the constant threat of violence. But the helplessness, that kills him. Sam is growing up without him, and Charlotte is having to manage in America all on her own. She writes to him almost every day, so he knows how she’s had to sell the house, how she’s had to move to a smaller apartment, nearer town, where she’s found a job translating. Her grief pours out of the pages she writes. Sometimes he has to fold them up, to return to them later, when he’s feeling stronger. But today he’s not feeling strong.
“You have a visitor!” the guard shouts, tapping on the bars of his cell with a baton.
Oh God! He really doesn’t feel like seeing Sarah Laffitte again.
He follows the guard along the corridor, through the double security doors into the waiting room. The guard points with his baton toward a dark-haired man with a long beard sitting at a visitor’s table, gripping the edges as though he’s holding on, afraid to fall off. It comes to him with a jolt. It’s him! It must be him. David Laffitte.
Blood pulsing in his veins, he approaches the table. Tentatively he holds out his handcuffed wrists, expecting some modified version of a handshake, but Laffitte doesn’t even stand up, and his hands don’t leave the table.
“Monsieur Beauchamp.” He stares at Jean-Luc from under thick dark eyebrows.
Sitting down, Jean-Luc inclines his head, acknowledging his name. He waits for Laffitte to say something, but the man just continues to stare, his eyes boring into him.
“I don’t know what you want from me.” Jean-Luc rubs his temples with his chained hands, trying to ease the headache pounding against his forehead.
“What we want from you?” Laffitte’s eyes drill deeper. “The last nine years of our son’s life.”
Jean-Luc stretches his neck and closes his eyes. His headache is getting worse.
“Do you know what it does to a parent?” Laffitte’s tone is harsh, his voice rising. “Not knowing whether your child is dead or alive. We didn’t know whether to grieve or carry on the search.”
“Listen. If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have a son. You’ve got him back now. Why don’t you go home and take care of him? You have your revenge.”
“Revenge! You think this is about revenge?” Laffitte’s words burst out, louder than before.
“Well, what is it about then? What do you want from me?” Jean-Luc matches him in volume.
The guard appears. His baton hits the table with a thud. “I’ve told you before. Keep it quiet!” He puts the baton under Jean-Luc’s chin, pushing it upward at a painful angle.
Suddenly Laffitte collapses onto the table, shuddering and shaking as though he’s having a fit.
“What’s wrong with him?” The guard lifts Laffitte’s head. His face is gray, drops of sweat glistening. Naked fear shines out from his eyes.
“I think… I think you scared him.”
“Me? I was just telling you to keep the noise down.”
Laffitte sits quietly, as though numbed. Jean-Luc puts his chained hands on the table, reaching out toward him. Laffitte stares at him with wild eyes, then he grips Jean-Luc’s wrists, his chest heaving with the effort of breathing.
The guard walks away, tutting loudly.
For a while they sit in silence, and Jean-Luc waits for Laffitte to calm himself.
“I’m sorry,” Laffitte finally says. “It just… it brought it all back.”
“It’s okay. It’s over now.”
He looks up at Jean-Luc with dark eyes. “Is it? Is it over? It will never be over.”
Jean-Luc knows what he means. He tries to change the subject. “How is your wife?”
“She… she was very upset after she came to see you.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset her.”
“She wanted to find out more about Samuel, but instead she came away feeling unworthy in some way.”
“I didn’t intend to make her feel like that. She wanted me to give her details about Sam, but I couldn’t remember everything she asked, like when he first walked, when he first slept through the night. These things aren’t the things I remember.”
“I see.” Laffitte rubs his eyes again, as if he’s tired of it all. “What are the things you remember then?”
Jean-Luc thinks for a minute, Sam’s earnest face vivid in his mind. “His smile. The funny things he said. The way he stuck out his chin in determination or defiance. His long thin arms wrapped around me. The gentle strength he had when he hugged me. The sweet smell of his sweat. His way of looking at me with wide eyes when I’d read him a story—”
Laffitte’s hand lands hard on the table. “That’s enough.” He shifts in his chair. “Why didn’t you have children of your own?”
Jean-Luc frowns. “We wanted to.” He pauses for a minute, wondering whether to go on. “But… well, it was difficult. Charlotte couldn’t. They said it might be due to the deprivation she suffered during the occupation—at that sensitive age.”
“Oh.” Laffitte is embarrassed now, his gray cheeks regaining some color.
“The doctors said there was nothing they could do.” The words roll off his tongue now, feeling like a release. “They said that with a proper diet and healthy lifestyle things should return to normal, but it just didn’t happen.” He looks at Laffitte and is surprised to see traces of Sam in his dark, intelligent eyes, and in the way he rubs them when confronted with a problem. “Can I ask you, if you don’t mind… I know you don’t have any other children either.”
Laffitte stares down at the table, shaking his head. When he finally looks up, his eyes are watery and unfocused, as though he’s lost in a memory.
“I’m sorry.” Jean-Luc doesn’t know where to take the conversation now. They’ve hit dangerous territory, and he scrambles around, trying to find a way out.
But then Laffitte blinks and starts talking, his eyes focused now on some distant point. “It was hard when we got back. The physical labor, the starvation, the brutality—it had all taken its toll on both of us. We’d changed; our bodies no longer felt like our own. We weren’t the young couple we’d been. I think we both felt…” He looks straight at Jean-Luc with wide eyes, as though surprised at how much he’s said already. “It took a long time to feel human again, like ourselves. And all the time we were still looking for Samuel. I wanted to try to have another child, but Sarah’s heart wasn’t in it. She used to cry… She just wanted her baby back.”
“Well, he’s not a baby anymore, is he? If only… if only you’d looked for us after the war. Everything would have been different.” He sighs.
“Ten minutes!” the guard shouts.
“Tell me how he is now,” Jean-Luc says. “Please. Your wife told me he was suffering from a skin rash… Is it better?”
Laffitte’s eyes glaze over as if he’s lost in thought. Then he replies, “No, it’s not.” He raises his eyes to meet Jean-Luc’s. “Fine. You want to know? I’ll tell you.” He pulls on his beard, leaning forward. “The poor boy has been terribly disturbed. He refuses to speak French, he cries most nights, and he has developed a rash that is eating him up. Last week, he finally ran away. He was found up in Le Havre, trying to board a boat to America.”
“No! Oh God, no!” Jean-Luc falls back in his chair, holding his chained hands up against his forehead. What have they done to Sam? Pain shoots through his stomach, like knives cutting him up from the inside. He can hardly breathe.
The guard approaches. “Five minutes.”
“Sarah,” Laffitte murmurs. “It’s hard for her to see her child like this. It’s hard for me too, but I make myself think of the long term, see the whole picture. But all Sarah sees is her little boy suffering.” He shakes his head. “It’s killing her.”