The Missing Italian Girl (32 page)

She turned the key and opened the door.

“Oh, Madame Clarie, it’s you.” Rose must have heard Clarie’s clumsy hesitations in the hallway.

“Oh, yes, I had trouble finding my key.”

“You should have rung.”

“I didn’t want to disturb you.” Clarie hoped Rose would not ask about the pretend conversation with the concierge. Entering the parlor, she stopped to study her son absorbed in pulling his little wooden horse on its wheeled platform.

That’s when her resolve began to crumble. She imagined the man’s hand hovering over Jean-Luc’s head.

“Did our Madame Peyroud have any complaints about me or Jean-Luc?” Rose asked as she followed Clarie into the parlor. Their grumpy concierge had become a companionable source of amusement between Clarie and her housekeeper, and Rose worked hard to stay on her good side.

“No, nothing like that. Has Jean-Luc had his lunch?” Clarie asked, changing the subject. She hated lying, evading. Without even waiting for an answer, she went to her bedroom, threw her purse on the bed, and began yanking off her gloves.

“I was just about to feed him. Then I was planning to take him shopping with me before his nap.”

“No!” Clarie closed her eyes and took a breath. “Sorry, I think I have a headache.” She didn’t turn, because she was afraid Rose would see her fear. “Why don’t you do the shopping, and I’ll feed Jean-Luc.” She wasn’t making any sense.

“If you are feeling up to it.” Clarie heard the doubt in Rose’s voice.

“Oh, yes,” Clarie said, recovered enough to face her housekeeper. “I’ve been thinking too much about school, the new courses for next year.” Another lie. “Watching our Luca make a mush of his lunch will be the perfect cure.”

“Very well. I’ll go right now.”

Clarie gave out a sigh of relief, as she watched her short, portly housekeeper take off her apron and waddle into the kitchen to hang it up.

A few minutes later, Clarie announced to her son that they were going to have lunch.

“Not hungry. Horsey hungry,” he said, pointing to the wooden toy.

There was no reason for this slight resistance to throw Clarie off balance, but it did. “Come, Luca,” she said reaching for him. He pushed her away. “Horsey hungry!”

For a moment, she didn’t know what to do, then she almost laughed at herself. “Well, let’s feed horsey,” she said, getting down on the floor beside her son. “Ham or an apple?”

“Apple.”

With the pretend apple delivered from her hand to Luca’s and into the horse’s mouth, Clarie was able to urge her child into the kitchen by promising eggy bread. “Your favorite,” she said as she gave him a kiss. He circled his finger in the air and made an umm sound with closed lips to demonstrate his agreement.

She put him in his high chair, sliced some of the morning’s baguette, cracked and beat an egg, dipped the bread in it, and lit the stove. She melted a pat of butter in a pan and fried the bread, all the time carrying on a one-sided conversation with her son. “Maman should cook more often, it’s fun.” “Maman loves eggy bread too, maybe I’ll make some for myself.” “Oh, Luca, this is going to be so good.” She didn’t like the tinny brightness in her voice, but she had to keep talking, to entertain Jean-Luc and to lift her own spirits. When she was done frying the bread, she slathered it with her son’s favorite strawberry confiture, cut it into little pieces, and warned Jean-Luc that his lunch was still hot.

He played with the pieces of fried bread for a moment, before putting one in his mouth and making another umm sound. Once he was thoroughly engaged in smearing and eating, Clarie could stop talking and start thinking. It wasn’t
what
she was going to tell Bernard or
when
, but rather
if
. So many ifs. If she and Jean-Luc weren’t in danger, why upset him? That was the best possibility. She picked up another egg. And if she had put them in peril, it was her fault. She felt fear, but more, she felt shame. Shame that she had gotten herself into such a mess despite everything that Bernard had tried to tell her, shame that she may have put her son in danger, shame that Bernard had been humiliated by the police because of her. And, if she told Bernard, what could he do? Insist she stay at home? The egg collapsed in her hand as she made a fist. There had to be another way.

“Maman, messy!” Jean-Luc pounded on the table and pointed at her.

“Oh, look what Maman did! That’s not the way you crack an egg,” she said. Clarie stared at her slimy hand. “I don’t think I’m hungry anyway!” she exclaimed, as if that were a fine thing, instead of the result of her turmoil. She ran her hand under the faucet and cleaned up the table before pulling up a chair to watch her son’s chubby face being painted with sweet red jam.

If only Emilie were here. If only she had someone to talk to. Emilie would try to alleviate her fears, and then insist on forming a protective phalanx around her. The notion of Emilie, five-year-old Robert, and Emilie’s quite rotund mother acting as a shield, brought the first genuine smile to Clarie’s lips in hours. But the Franchets were in Normandy. And Papa, Clarie’s father, who would understand why she tried to help the Laurenzanos, was in Arles, even farther away. “Oh, dear!” She had promised Bernard she’d be inviting his mother to come to Paris. “I’m going to write your grandmother today,” she announced to Jean-Luc, covering up the dismay at almost forgetting. “When she comes, won’t that be fun?”

He nodded as he stuffed the last piece of bread into his mouth. Of course, it wouldn’t at all be fun. And Adèle Martin was certainly not a woman you could talk to about getting mixed up with “improper” people, like the lower-class Laurenzanos or the flamboyant Séverine. At least, once her mother-in-law arrived, Clarie and Jean-Luc would be safer, the three of them going everywhere, absolutely everywhere, together.

Clarie dampened a towel to wipe off Jean-Luc’s face. A pious woman would go to a priest to ask his advice about what she must tell her husband and when. But Clarie was not a pious woman and did not have a confessor. She needed to talk to someone who understood what it was like to be her, overwhelmed by obligations and emotions that pulled in different ways. Someone wiser and more experienced. Of course! Clarie picked her son up and kissed each damp cheek before setting him on the floor. It had all begun at school. Tomorrow, despite the risk that Mme Roubinovitch might think less of her, Clarie would go seek out her principal.

17

“W
HAT A BEAUTIFUL MORNING
,” C
LARIE
declared after Bernard had left for work. “I think we should all go to the Square Montholon before it gets too hot.”

“All of us?” Rose was bustling about, clearing the breakfast dishes.

“Yes, I need to stop at school to talk to Mme Roubinovitch.” That was one reason for choosing the park that was farther away. Clarie sucked in a breath. The other was that they’d be distancing themselves from the Square d’Anvers, where she had met that terrible man. “I don’t think you’ve been there with Jean-Luc since school ended, and we could all use a nice walk.”

Flustered, Rose wiped her hands on her apron. “You are sure? I still have—”

“Oh, let’s leave them,” Clarie said as she picked up the remaining dishes and put them in the sink. “Madame Martin will be here soon, and you know, once she arrives, we will have to keep everything in perfect order. Now is our time to be spontaneous, to be on vacation.” Clarie hoped the false cheer in her voice did not alert Rose to the troubles churning in her mind. “We haven’t had a walk together for a long time,” she added to stave off another protest.

“Well,” a smile worked its way across Rose’s worn face, “I haven’t been there for weeks.”

Within minutes, they had dressed Jean-Luc and carried him down the stairs. Because he insisted on walking as soon as they reached the courtyard, progress was agonizingly slow. Clarie was only able to persuade him to “take a ride in her arms” at the busiest intersections. “Let’s settle you two at the park first, then I’ll run up to the school,” Clarie shouted over the noise of traffic to Rose, purposely choosing the route that did not go by the gilded gates of the Paris Gas Company’s administration building. She did not want to take a chance of running into the tall, scarred clerk. If indeed he was a clerk.

Upon reaching the Square Montholon, Clarie suggested they take the path around the inside of the park to see if there were any prospective little friends to play with. The three of them promenaded slowly, she and Rose on either side of Jean-Luc, holding his hands. At midmorning, the Square was almost entirely populated by mothers, nannies and children. Clarie scoured every bench, tree and bush for anyone who was out of place. Satisfied that it was safe, she set Jean-Luc down in the sandbox to play with two boys, close to Rose and two nannies. After giving him and Rose a quick kiss on each cheek, she dashed to the stone steps leading to the block above the Square. At the top of the stairs, she paused to survey the park from above. She caught sight of her son’s dark curls, as his hands dug into the sand, and of Rose, faithfully looking on. It was agonizing to leave him, but she had to be sensible. That terrible man had not gotten a very good look at her son. After Clarie repinned her hair, pressing back all the strands that had fallen from her bun, she strode up the block and around the corner to the Lycée. Mme Sauvaget, the school’s plump, amiable bookkeeper, answered the bell.

“Is Madame Roubinovitch in?” Clarie was still a little out of breath. At that moment, everything seemed to depend upon the principal’s presence.

“Yes, Madame Martin, in her office.”

“Good, I need to speak to her for a moment.”

“Of course,” Mme Sauvaget said as she stepped aside.

Thanking her, Clarie wove her way through the familiar labyrinth of the centuries-old mansion. Without the shouts and whispers of the girls who were the school’s lifeblood, the building was eerily quiet. Upon reaching the office on the second floor, Clarie paused to gather herself, then knocked and listened for an invitation to come in.

“Ah, Madame Martin, how good to see you.” Mme Roubinovitch rose from her chair. “But what a surprise. You haven’t gone away?”

“No,” Clarie said, standing just inside the door. “We’re spending most of the summer in Paris.”

“Ah. As must I.” The principal gestured to the piles of papers on the huge desk, which would have dwarfed a lesser woman. “I must prove to the Ministry of Education that we are functioning efficiently.”

Clarie nodded, unsure of how to proceed.

“Please come, sit.”

Clarie sidled past the long table used for student seminars and teacher meetings, and took the chair in front of Mme Roubinovitch’s desk. She maneuvered to more clearly see her superior beyond the books and papers. The sun was shining directly into the room, but Mme Roubinovitch gave no concession to its wilting heat. The part in her hair was as straight as ever and the bun on top of her head as controlled; the collar on her starched white blouse rose stiffly half-way up her neck.

“I’ve come to you about one of our family at the school, a charwoman.”

Mme Roubinovitch removed her gold-rimmed glasses and put them on the desk. “Yes?”

Surely she would have heard about Francesca’s troubles, Clarie thought, her pulse beginning to race. Her superior was not making things easier.

“Francesca Laurenzano.”

“Ah, yes. The murdered daughter.”

“And Angela’s presumed connection with a violent anarchist; and now Maura, the younger daughter, is missing.”

“Terrible events, but, my dear, what do they have to do with you? Are you saying that we should not continue to employ Francesca?”

“Oh, no!” This cry came out before Clarie could stop herself, and quite in spite of her pledge to keep her emotions in check.

“I see.”

“What do you see?” Clarie asked.

“Madame Sauvaget mentioned that Francesca had left you a message. I hoped, then, that you had not gotten involved.” Mme Roubinovitch’s wide, almost Slavic face could be kind or, more often, stern. Even before really beginning to say what she had come to say, Clarie felt the force of her principal’s judgment.

Her mind split into warring factions. Should she cut her losses, by lying and saying she had only come merely to express her concern? Should she object, and point out the hypocrisy of teaching about virtue and charity if one did not plan to employ them? Or should she admit that she had come for advice?

Clarie straightened up and looked right into her superior’s dark, penetrating eyes. “Yes, I have become involved, and this has caused some difficulties. I came to you for advice and counsel.” There, she had said it. She had taken the step that would forever confirm her concern for Francesca and her daughter.

Mme Roubinovitch relaxed back into her chair and slowly shook her head. “Clarie Martin, what am I going to do with you? That heart of yours. So open. How did it happen?”

With a calm and order that surprised her, Clarie narrated the history of her relationship with the Laurenzanos, her surmises about the crimes that had touched their lives, and her meetings with Séverine. She admitted that she had proceeded against the advice of her husband and, now, a small part of her feared that she was in danger.

When she was finished, Mme Roubinovitch leaned forward. “You haven’t told your husband about your encounter with this man?”

Clarie shook her head.

“But, my dear, why not?”

Clarie stared down at her lap and twisted her plain gold wedding ring around her finger. “I suppose,” she whispered, “I feel ashamed.” Her cheeks were burning.

A moment of silence followed. Mme Roubinovitch was not one to speak without consideration. Finally, she said “I cannot get involved in your marital problems.”

“There are no problems,” Clarie interjected. Not yet.

“I was going to say,” Mme Roubinovitch continued, with the impatience of one unaccustomed to being interrupted, “that you need to ask why you allowed yourself to get involved in these ‘adventures.’”

Stung by Mme Roubinovitch’s tone, Clarie bit down lightly on her lower lip. For one humiliating moment, she felt almost as if she were twelve years old again, being chastened by her confessor for disobeying the nuns at her school. Clarie shook off that memory. She was no longer a girl. She was a grown woman. She did what she thought was right.