Secrets of Paris (42 page)

Kelly wished she had made it to the window. She would rather be dead on the pavement than walking through the building in handcuffs. And then the worst thing of all happened: Patrice and Lydie arrived. Patrice moved toward them like a locomotive, all iron and steam. Hands on her hips, black hair framing her face like a corona.

“Put me in the car, don’t let them see me,” Kelly begged the policeman.

“What’s going on here?” Patrice asked, not allowing the policeman to pass.

Lydie came straight to Kelly, put her arm around Kelly’s shoulders. “Everything will be fine. We’ll get you out of this.”

“Leave me,” Kelly sobbed. “Please leave me.”

Lydie’s pale eyes looked so troubled, Kelly knew she understood Kelly’s shame. Still, Lydie wouldn’t let go. Patrice spoke to the officer in French, her voice rising and rising. Kelly began to be afraid Patrice would be arrested. She heard Patrice saying “President Mitterand,” “President Bush,” “Minister of Culture.”

“Cool it,” Lydie said to Patrice in a stern voice.

“They’re saying the embassy turned her in.” Patrice spoke English now. “We can’t just let them
take
her.”

Kelly began to hope; she felt it growing inside her, hope that Patrice and Lydie would somehow win, prevent the police from taking her away. But then the officer shoved Patrice out of the way, pushed Kelly into the car. When Kelly turned, to try to catch one last glance of her two Americans, the policeman yanked her around. He made her face straight ahead.

“Y
OU’VE DONE WHAT
you could,” Michael said to Lydie. “You have to let her go.” They stood in the living room, empty now except for their suitcases and the few cartons the movers would pack after lunch.

“ ‘She came to Paris and learned to let go,’ ” Lydie said. “How’s that for an epitaph?”

“No one’s dying,” Michael said.

“That is true,” Lydie said. “It’s also true that there’s a difference between letting go of my father and letting go of Kelly. I’m not giving up.”

“I know,” Michael said. “But she’s going back to the Philippines
for now, and there’s nothing you can do about that.” He felt proud of Lydie’s determination to bring Kelly Merida to the United States. She was getting ready to go to the airport with Patrice, to see Kelly off. He watched her, standing in the middle of the bare room, changing her clothes. She stripped off her dusty jeans and T-shirt, slipped into her black linen suit. Standing still, she faced him. Michael took her hand, led her onto the balcony.

“Our Paris year,” Lydie said, gazing downriver. The Seine was blue today, glistening, reflecting a perfect October sky. Yesterday she told him that she had called Julia to tell her they were coming home—together. It had bothered Michael, that Lydie had waited so long to tell her; he had wondered whether she doubted their reunion would hold. But she had needed to put distance between herself and Julia, to keep her own vision strong.

“Can you believe we’re getting ready to leave?” Michael asked.

“Can you believe I came to France and made best friends with another American and a Filipino?”

Michael smiled, slid his arm across Lydie’s shoulders. The black fabric had absorbed the sun, felt warm against his bare arm. It was true, he thought: Lydie had had one foot in America when she arrived in Paris. Perhaps that was why her important friends were also foreigners. He, on the other hand, had had an entirely French experience. He had left his mark on the Louvre, found a French lover. Anne. People at the Louvre were saying that Anne had gone to Vichy, to take the waters at Madame de Sévigné’s favorite spa.

“I should go,” Lydie said, checking her watch. “Patrice is picking me up in five minutes.”

“
Bon courage
,” Michael said. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Lydie said. She smiled, brushing the hair out of his eyes. Then she walked away.

It was nice of Lydie and Patrice to come to the airport, Kelly thought, waiting to board the plane to Manila. Lydie sat on her right, the police guard sat on her left. Patrice stood in front of everyone. Kelly had told her family that she was leaving but not when, because she did not want them to see her in handcuffs. Kelly felt ashamed to wear handcuffs in public, and she felt grateful to Lydie for covering them with her coat.

“I have your address in Cavite,” Lydie said. “I wish you had a phone.”

“There is no phone,” Kelly said, smiling a little because no one in the province had a phone.

“I’ll do what I have to in New York, and I’ll write to you as soon as I hear something.”

“And I’ll keep track from this end,” Patrice said. What could Patrice do in Paris? Kelly wondered, but she smiled at Patrice, knowing that Patrice felt very bad for her. Patrice spoke harshly to the policeman; he shook his head. Kelly wished Patrice would quit asking him to take off the handcuffs.

“M.V. is reliable,” Kelly said. “M.V.” was her code for “Marie-Vic,” who would replace Kelly as Patrice’s maid. She didn’t want the policeman to get wind of the fact that Patrice employed illegal aliens.

“Are you okay?” Lydie asked, squeezing Kelly’s hand.

Kelly nodded: a lie. She was not okay. She wanted only to get away from Lydie and Patrice. But she couldn’t let them see her true feelings. She had many things she wished to forget: their
kindnesses, the nights she had spent in jail. The first one was the worst; she had lain awake all night, waiting for one of the Americans to get her out. Around midnight she had realized that was not going to happen, and she had accepted her fate.

A voice came on the loudspeaker, and in the blur of French, Kelly caught the word “Manila.”

“They’re calling your flight,” Lydie said. She looked pale, so worried. “Be brave about this. You’ll be in America in no time. I won’t stop trying.”

“Thank you,” Kelly said, knowing that Lydie would stop trying, even if Lydie didn’t know it yet. Once Kelly was out of sight, Lydie could begin to forget her. The guard took away Lydie’s coat, exposing the handcuffs to all the other travelers. Two other Filipinos wore handcuffs. So, Kelly thought: the French police had a good week.

“Have a safe trip,” Lydie said, throwing her arms around Kelly, pressing her face so hard into Kelly’s neck that Kelly felt Lydie’s tears trickle into her collar.

“Don’t cry, Lydie,” Kelly said. “You did all you could, and I will always be grateful.”

Lydie stepped away, and there was Patrice, her face grave. Oh, this was the moment Kelly had dreaded, her last words with Patrice. Memories already filled Kelly’s head. Learning the computer with Patrice, ironing Patrice’s clothes, the smell of Didier’s cigar, and, most special: the long talks she and Patrice had had about life in the States. Patrice took Kelly’s hands. The expression in her blue eyes was soft. “My friend,” Patrice said.

“I will never forget you,” Kelly said.

“Let’s make a promise,” Patrice said, “to celebrate next Fourth of July in New York with Lydie.”

Kelly found herself unable to speak, even when the guard began to pull her along. Patrice stared into her eyes and held on to Kelly’s tethered hands until the last minute before letting go.

“Shit,” Patrice said, watching the plane taxi on the runway.

“Is she going to make it?” Lydie asked, gulping. She had been crying since Kelly disappeared through the door.

“Yes,” Patrice said, sounding stubborn.

It would be so easy, Lydie knew, once the rawness of Kelly’s arrest and deportation began to heal, once the strength of Kelly’s single-minded drive began to fade, to let her become a memory. But she would refuse to let that happen. The refusal would be an act of will, of faith.

They watched the plane move forward, gathering speed. Lydie caught glimpses of the white tails of scared rabbits flashing through the tall grass. Then the plane lifted off, zooming into the clouds. She closed her eyes, imagined what Kelly was seeing out the window: the patchwork fields outside Paris, brown squares of earth next to green squares, tiny forests, farmhouses and châteaux. Michael and I take off just days from now, Lydie thought, opening her eyes, looking at Patrice.

“It’s a good idea,” Lydie said. “You and Kelly coming to New York next summer. That leaves us until July to make her legal. Nine months.”

“My mother actually has a good friend in Congress. Who knows? Maybe I can convince her to pull strings,” Patrice said, shrugging. Then her blue eyes filled with tears. “She was so brave. I really thought she’d get that visa.”

“So did I,” Lydie said. The plane to Manila was just a speck in the sky. When it disappeared, she and Patrice walked away from the window.

“This is good-bye,” Patrice said.

“I
know
we’ll see her again,” Lydie said.

“No, I mean us,” Patrice said. “We’ll see each other a few more
times, of course. And I’ll come see you off when you go, but Michael will be here then, and Didier. This is our good-bye.”

Lydie, who had been thinking the same thing, took Patrice’s hand as they walked through the airport. “We’ll stay in close touch,” she said.

“Yes,” Patrice agreed. “We’ll write letters. Our phone bills will be terrible. You’ll take vacations in France.”

“And you’ll come to America for Christmas,” Lydie said.

Travelers hurried past them, laden down with luggage and blue-and-yellow plastic bags from the duty-free shops. Patrice and Lydie strolled along, like two friends wandering through the roses in the Bagatelle.

“Finally I understand what you were saying, weeks ago,” Patrice said, “about always calculating the time difference between Paris and New York. I’ll be doing it myself now. Subtracting six hours to figure the time in New York, adding seven for the time in Manila.”

“And you know Kelly and I will be thinking of you, on Paris time,” Lydie said. “We’ve been on it ourselves. Once you’ve lived in a time zone, well …”

“You set your clock by it,” Patrice said.

“When it’s dinnertime in New York, it’s midnight in Paris,” Lydie said.

They walked in silence for a while, out of the airport, into the short-term parking lot.

“What do you say you take us for a spin?” Patrice said, throwing Lydie the keys to Didier’s big silver Citroën.

“Great idea,” Lydie said. She walked around to the driver’s side and unlocked the door.

“We’ll drive around till teatime and then sit outside in the Jardin du Palais Royal,” Patrice said. “It’s warm enough out, don’t you think?”

“It is,” Lydie said, remembering that that was where she and Patrice had first met. They would sit in the shadow of Richelieu’s palace, gazing into the blue, October sky, and they would drink a toast: a farewell, but also a celebration. Lydie would raise her glass to Paris, to visions of forgiveness, to Michael, to Patrice, to Didier, to her father, to her mother, to the Seine, to the Salle des Quatre Saisons, to Madame de Sévigné, to the “Marseillaise” and the “Star-Spangled Banner,” to St. Patrick, to Kelly in the Philippines and Kelly in America.