42

THERE WAS A TAP at the door and Lisette flung it open. Robert stepped inside, then Marguerite. She looked around at everyone, perplexed.

“Mes amis, you were just at the wake,” she said.

“The wake is over,” said Lisette.

“Bon anniversaire,” said the guests, but not in unison, as their host would have preferred.

Lisette invited them into the living room, and her husband poured champagne while she and Valerie served hors d’oeuvres. The guests sipped and nibbled, their voices soft, their words intent, as if resuming a conversation that had just been interrupted.

“There could be a bombing campaign,” said the gendarme.

The other men nodded, listening.

“May I have your attention?” asked Lisette.

The room, already quiet, grew silent.

“We don’t drink champagne in the funeral home. The wake is over and Marguerite is celebrating sixty-five years of life. A toast!”

“Bon anniversaire!” Everyone raised their glasses. Moments later, they resumed their conversation.

“War would be justified,” someone remarked.

“Before we do that,” said another, “let us honour the dead.”

“Us?” asked a third voice.

“Yes, us,” came the answer. “The attentat was meant for all of us.”

Lisette and Valerie went into the kitchen, took the brie aux abricots out of the oven and brought it into the living room.

“You must try this, everyone,” said Lisette.

“The poor Sarazin kids,” the women murmured to each other. “They took it so hard.”

Jacques Leduc dug into the cheese he’d sold that morning. “Bien fait,” he said to Lisette. He grinned at her, then helped himself to more.

Valerie was thinking about Andre.

Lisette sat down beside her, took a chunk of bread, scooped up some of the melted brie and handed it to her. “You must taste it,” she said.

Valerie took the morsel.”C’est délicieux,” she answered.

“Flying will not be fun anymore,” someone said.

“If you ask me, it’s a plot,” came the reply.

“You people — you are so absorbed in politics, I’ll end up eating it all myself,” said Lisette.

“It’s delicious, ma chère,” said Marguerite.

Lisette’s husband poured the rest of the champagne. The window was open, and the sounds of the street and the town below were drifting in on the breeze.

“That damn bell is still tolling,” said Lisette.

***

They sat down to a light dinner — charcuterie, salade, pâtés, fromages, a selection of wines. There were candles on the table, two beautiful tapers. In the lengthening shadows, the room seemed to grow smaller, a tree-hollow full of skittish creatures, their fearful gazes turned on the night.

Lisette’s husband turned to Valerie. “You are from New York,” he said.

She felt like an immigrant with a tubercular cough, about to be deported. “I was born there,” she told him.

“Your family is safe?” he asked.

Valerie wasn’t sure what to say. “I’ve heard from my husband,” she said. “He’s trying to locate our son.”

Everyone grew silent. Valerie felt as if they were watching her, a foreigner who both fascinated and stunned them. No saint-pierrais ever got this close to the breath of fire crackling in the world. She could sense how tantalized they were by a new-yorkaise, yet at the same time afraid, as if she would crumble into poisonous ash and infect them, too.

“Such a shock,” said Pierre.

“No one’s ever heard of these kamikazes,” said Robert.

“Ah, and you were sure it was an accident,” said Marguerite.

“But so was I,” said Lisette. “Who on earth would think…?”

Valerie got up and began to clear the table. Lisette helped her.

The gendarme sat, his hands folded over his kepi, looking sombre, saying nothing. He’s in uniform, Valerie thought. On the job. Maybe it would be improper for him to venture an opinion. His steady gaze unnerved her, as if he knew more than he was saying.

“Now you mustn’t eat and run,” Pierre chided him.

The officer glanced at his watch.

Lisette found a candle for the tarte. Everyone wished Marguerite a happy birthday as she cut the first slice.

“C’est parfait,” she said. “My tartes are never as lovely.”

“You have made the crust with how much butter?” asked the baker.

With secret ingredients, thought Valerie. A pinch of memory. A kilo of dread. She promised to write out the recipe.

“It calls for a toast, this tarte,” said Lisette.

“Mais oui,” said Marguerite. “Valerie has made the day sweet.”

With great solemnity, they drank to her.

After dessert, the men left the room to watch TV. Valerie gave her gift to Marguerite, who lifted the box and smiled. “You can’t fool me,” she said. “I know what it is.”

“Rocks,” said Valerie. “Seashells.”

“You bought it where?”

Valerie hesitated. “L’Usine de la Paix. I think.”

“That store has been closed for months,” said Marguerite.

“Maybe some other.”

“I know all the pottery shops in town. That one went out of business.”

Marguerite was so vehement that Valerie thought she’d offended her.

“I picked up their business card at the fromagerie,” she said.

“There is no one at that address,” Marguerite insisted. “I tell you, I drove by only yesterday. The store’s boarded up.”

“Never mind where I bought it.”

“I’m so sorry, ma chère,” said Marguerite. “I’m getting carried away.”

She unwrapped the gift, and from the tissue paper, she removed the blue-black vessel with its shimmering glaze, its rings tapering into a neck as graceful as a swan’s.

“Alive,” said Marguerite. “C’est extraordinaire.”

“Mon Dieu, it glows in the dark,” said Lisette.

Marguerite turned the pot around, gazing at it with a practiced eye. “This potter is a genius,” she said.

I am sure it was Gerard’s, the most beautiful object in his room. It shone with incandescent fire. Ora’s dead, he told me.

At that moment, Valerie saw a shadow. Silent as a cat, the gendarme moved through the hallway to the stairs, his kepi on his head, his back straight. He seemed in a hurry, anxious to disappear.