Doctor's Wife (27 page)

    “Yes, darling.”

    And so, with the taxi man waiting, Ivo pulled from
his pocket a slip of paper which he said was a translation of a
Yugoslav classic and, to everyone’s embarrassment, read out a
maudlin verse about lovers embarking on the long journey of life.
And then there were more embraces and promises to write and Ivo and
Peg got back into the taxi and the taxi pulled away from the curb,
Peg’s hand waving farewell through the open window. They were alone
now, the two of them, leaving Paris at last, she going to wait in
the great hall of the
aérogare
while he hurried off to a
window to purchase tickets for the bus.

    Behind her, in the departure hall, clerks consulted
schedules, punched computer keys, and filled out tickets. A long
line of travelers moved in two queues toward the windows of the
bureau de change
. A tour group identified by identical
yellow flight bags picked over souvenirs in the gift shops and
lined up at the news stall to flick through the pages of glossy
magazines. Two small boys, inventing ways to kill the boredom of
waiting, swooped past Mrs. Redden, arms outstretched, imitating the
flight of aircraft. She thought of Danny when he was their age, and
turned away, unable to look at them. And then saw Tom coming toward
her, his duffel bag over one shoulder, her suitcase in his left
hand.

    “All set,” he said. “Let’s get the next bus
out.”

    “Let me carry my suitcase.”

    “No, it’s fine.”

    •

    At the TWA counter at de Gaulle airport the clerk
inspected her ticket, then asked to see her passport. He returned
the passport, tore part of her ticket off, asked how many pieces of
baggage she wished to check and whether she wanted a seat in the
smoking or non-smoking section. Tom then put her suitcase on the
weighing scale. The clerk put a baggage-check ticket on it and
lifted it onto a conveyor belt. She watched her suitcase move along
the belt and disappear through some rubber matting which opened,
like a mouth, to admit it. “Boarding at nine-fifteen, Gate 9,” the
clerk said. “Thank you, Mrs. Redden. Have a pleasant flight.”

    They had already checked Tom’s duffel bag at the
charter airline counter. Now, to leave France and fly away to a new
life, they must first be shut in. Their passports were examined by
a French police official, their hand luggage and their persons were
searched for weapons, and they entered a limbo of lounges, bars,
news stalls, and duty-free shops to wait for their separate planes.
They sat on a red plastic sofa, his hand in hers. “So it’s
happening,” he said. “Are you nervous?”

    “No.”

    “Your hand feels cold.”

    “I’m all right.”

    He took a card from his pocket. “Now, in case
there’s any delay in my flight, here’s what you do. You’ll land in
New York at the TWA terminal. Just go to the TWA lounge and ask
them to check on the arrival time of my flight. Wait in the lounge
until I show up. Here, it’s all on this card, the charter firm
name, flight number, and phone number to call. Put it in your
purse.”

    On the electronic board facing them, a sudden
clicking sound signaled a change. Her flight information did not
alter, but his now registered a gate number and the notation that
the flight was leaving on time. At eight-twenty his flight was
called. He smiled at her, and they stood up together, walking
toward the glass doors where a stewardess waited to check the
boarding passes. “At least, my flight being first means it’s pretty
sure I’ll be waiting for you when you get in,” he said.

    “That’s true.”

    “You’ve got your visa and your passport. There’ll be
no problems, right?”

    She nodded.

    “Still,” he said. “Isn’t it lousy to be separated,
even for a few hours?”

    They joined the queue of passengers going through
the gate. When it came his turn to show his boarding pass to the
stewardess, Mrs. Redden put her arms around his neck. “I love you,”
she said. “Imagine if we’d never met. I love you.”

    He kissed her. “See you in New York. Listen, why
don’t you go over to the bar now and have a drink and a sandwich?
You won’t be eating dinner much before midnight, our time.”

    “Yes, all right.” But she held him and kissed him
again, holding him until all the other passengers had gone through
and the stewardess, waiting, said sympathetically, “Excuse me. Time
to go.”

    “I love you,” she said a last time, and watched as
he showed his boarding pass and went past the stewardess down the
corridor. At the end of the corridor he turned and waved to her. A
uniformed attendant came up and the stewardess handed him the
boarding passes. “
Quarante-huit
,” the stewardess said.
“
Quarante-huit
,” the attendant agreed.

    Tears, uncontrollable, started in her eyes. She
waved to him. He waved a last time, then turned away. But she waved
and kept on waving until he was out of sight.

    Chapter 20

    • The priest came along the side aisle of the
Cathedral of Notre-Dame shortly after 11 a.m. and went up the steps
of the Chapelle d’Accueil. He went to the table which was placed in
the center of the chapel and switched on the reading lamp. He
glanced at the confessional on his right, and at the empty altar in
the rear, then took off his shabby plastic raincoat and put it away
in a small cupboard. In his baggy trousers and worn gray cotton
jacket, spectacles askew on his nose, he seemed a comic figure,
God’s comedian, preparing some strange theatrical skit. He sat at
the table, opened the large ledger, and wrote something in it,
using a fine-nibbed pen which he dipped in a bottle of Quink.

    He was still writing when he became aware that a
woman had come up the chapel steps and was waiting to speak to him.
He looked at her, peering over his spectacles, as she tucked in her
auburn hair, which escaped in soft untidy tendrils from under a
blue hat. The sun hat was pulled forward to conceal the fact that
her eyes were swollen by recent weeping. He noticed such things. He
recognized the woman.

    “Good morning,
Madame
,” he said, raising
his large white hand as in benediction, gesturing, splay-fingered,
to the seat opposite him. She sat facing him across the lamp’s pool
of light.

    “Do you remember me, Father?” Her voice was so low
he could hardly hear it.

    “Excuse me,” he said. “My ear is a little deaf.”

    “Do you remember me?”

    “Yes,
Madame
. You were the lady who said
she must make a difficult decision.”

    “Yes, that’s right.”

    “And have you made it?”

    “Yes.” Her voice broke as she spoke, and the priest,
understanding, leaned a little forward into the pool of light,
putting his hand up, his broad stubby fingers covering his eyes as
though he were in the confessional, listening to, but not looking
at, the penitent. “Would you like to talk about it?”

    “I don’t know,” she said. “I was supposed to go to
America. But I didn’t because ...”

    She did not finish, but he was accustomed to these
things. He knew to wait.

    “I couldn’t,” she said at last.

    “You were going to live in America?”

    “Yes. With someone. I even used the ticket. That’s
why I came to see you. I have to get some money. I must pay back
that ticket I wasted.”

    “I don’t understand,” the priest said. “You didn’t
go, but you used the ticket?”

    “I let the airlines people take the ticket. I went
to the airport.” Suddenly she laughed, but the priest did not look
up. He knew it was laughter which disguised tears. “I even sent my
suitcase on to New York. Every stitch of clothes I have.”

    “Why did you do that,
Madame
?”

    “Because I didn’t want the other person to know I
wasn’t going. If he’d known, he wouldn’t have gone himself. But I
don’t want to bother you with that. I came about the money. You
see, there’s some money which is due to me. I’d like to have it
sent to me in care of you. Could you help me?”

    The priest nodded, his fingers still spread to
conceal his eyes. “I think so, yes. Someone will send money here.
And I will keep it until you come for it. Is that what you
want?”

    “No. I’m going to London. The person who’s to send
the money is my brother. He may ask you where I am, but I don’t
want him to know. He may tell you I’m ill, mentally ill. But I’m
not. So you mustn’t give him my address. I mean, this address I’ll
send you from London.”

    “You don’t have a London address yet. Is that
it?”

    “Yes. As soon as I find a place to stay, I’ll let
you know.”

    “Tell me,” the priest said, “last week we talked
about Camus. Do you remember?”

    “Yes, Father.”

    “You said, when we talked, that you felt a desire to
kill yourself. Do you still feel that way?”

    “No.”

    “Are you quite sure?”

    “Oh yes,” she said and laughed again, that laughter
which was like weeping.

    “Can you tell me why you changed?”

    “I don’t know, Father. Last night I stayed in an
awful cheap hotel. And it was the night I’d decided not to go to
America. So, you see . . . Anyway, when I went to the window of the
room, I no longer felt I wanted to jump. Not at all. So that’s
over.” She opened her purse, found a tissue, and blew her nose.

    The priest joined his large white hands together, as
though in prayer. “You said your brother believes you may be ill.
Why does he believe that?”

    “Because he’s a doctor and because there’s some
history of mental illness in our family. But I’m all right. I am,
Father. I won’t ask you to help me unless you believe it.”

    The priest looked at her left hand. “You are
married?”

    “Yes.”

    “Have you left your husband?”

    “Yes, I have.”

    The priest separated his hands, turning them palms
down on the ledger. “I see. And now you are going to start a new
life?”

    “Yes.”

    “I remember the last time we talked,” the priest
said. “You said then that you are not religious.”

    “Yes.”

    The priest looked beyond the pool of light, out into
the darkness of the nave. “You do not believe in God?”

    “I did once. But I don’t now.”

    “Why not,
Madame
?”

    “Because it doesn’t make sense. You can’t go on
believing, once you think the idea of God is ridiculous.”

    The priest smiled, showing the gap between his
teeth. “I can,” he said. “And I do.”

    She looked at him through swollen eyelids. “That’s a
funny thing for a priest to say.”

    “I know,” the priest said. “It doesn’t make sense.
But believing in God is like being in love. You don’t have to have
reasons, or proofs, or justifications. You are in love,
voilà
tout
. You know it.”

    The woman began to weep.

    “I’m sorry,” the priest said. “You want me to help
you about this money. I will be glad to do what you say. Just give
me the instructions.”

    “And you won’t tell anyone the address. No matter
what?”

    “No matter what,” the priest said.

    He felt for and opened a drawer under the tabletop
and took out a sheet of cheap, graph-lined paper. “Write your name
so that I will know if a letter comes for you.” He dipped his pen
in the bottle of Quink and handed it to her. She wrote her name,
then added a second name to the sheet. “That’s my brother,” she
said. “He’s the one who will be sending the money. I’ll write you
my new address as soon as I get setded. And thank you, Father.
You’re very kind.”

    She pushed the sheet of paper across the table. The
priest looked at it. “Very well, Mrs. Redden. Now, if I were you, I
would get some rest.”

    “I’ll be all right. Thank you again.”

    “God bless you, then,” the priest said.

    She went down the steps, going from the small
lighted area of the chapel into the shadows of the huge nave,
where, day after day, tourists moved like restless, mindless birds
up and down the aisles. The priest sat again and opened the
right-hand drawer of his table. He pulled out a fat shabby
cardboard folder, secured by a large paper clip. He placed the slip
of paper with her name in a small rectangular envelope and inserted
it under the edge of the clip. He took up his pen and, as an
aide-mémoire, wrote across the envelope,

                
Irlandaise
—
argent
faire suivre

    He paused and looked over his spectacles. Then
added,

                
Tentative de
suicide?

    
Part 3

    Chapter 21

    • After two days in Paris, Dr. Deane decided he
might as well go home. He was a doctor, not a detective, and he had
found out what he could. From now on, it seemed likely that his
investigations would be reduced to following after every tall young
woman he saw in the street, in hopes that if she turned around she
would reveal herself to be his sister. Besides, his tachycardia was
worse, and last night, in his hotel room, his mind had begun to
prey again on the most gloomy possibilities. So he phoned Peg
Conway to say he was leaving and to thank her for her help, then
wired Belfast to give his flight-arrival time. He had hoped that
Anne, his older daughter, might drive out to the airport to pick
him up. But when he landed in Belfast, the person who met him was
Agnes.