The Missing Italian Girl (38 page)

“But Maura is innocent, just a girl.” Surely he realized that.

“Stop lying,” he said as he poked the blade through her corset. “You know they killed Barbereau. They like to destroy.”

Clarie desperately looked around for someone, anyone to stop him. The gray path, the too-blue sky, the jade leaves on the shrubs were closing in on her. She tasted the metal of fear. She heard their feet crunching on the stones. And music. Someone singing “The Fiancés of the North.”

Was that the last human voice she’d hear? Was that now or then? That night when Bernard sat across from her, so proud, so happy. Bernard. She’d never see him again. Or Jean-Luc. Her baby! The music was getting louder. Closing in. He heard it too. He was trying to push her into the bushes. Her baby. Jean-Luc. A motherless child. Motherless. No! No! “No!” She thrust her foot sideways and sent him reeling. His knife tore into her as he fell. “Help!” she cried. “Help!”

She saw half his face as he thrashed about. The eyeless half. And his hand wildly groping for the knife.

She felt burning, ripping from the back of her breast to her chest. She stepped back and held her hands against her wound. Bumped into someone.

“I told you he was following that teacher.” Maura’s voice. The music had stopped.

“All right. We got her. It’s Madame Martin.”

Clarie turned to see a rough-looking man with a stubbly beard and crooked nose holding on to her. Suddenly Maura appeared in front of her, and all of Clarie’s bottled-up emotions burst out in a cry. “You!” Clarie broke away and grasped the girl by her shoulders. “You have to go back to your mother. Now! Do you hear?”

Stronger hands pulled her back and she saw the imprint of blood, two red cat’s paws, on Maura’s shirt. She examined her hands, streaking with red. She glanced to where Michel Arnoux had fallen. He had stopped struggling. A uniformed man held him down. Another stood above him. She smelled cigar smoke.

She heard a second man’s voice behind her. “Now that you’ve stopped giving orders, we’re going to sit you down.”

Someone gently helped her to the ground. Another man crouched down and told her to let him have a look. His bowler was tipped to one side, revealing a full head of ginger-red hair, which matched his bushy eyebrows and mustache. Clenching a cigar in his mouth, he set to work, pulling her hands away and peeling back the shreds of her blouse and corset. He took out his handkerchief and told her to hold it tight against her side. “I guess it was a good thing that Adam gave Eve his ribs,” he said. “That and your corset. It will sting for a while. But you’ll be all right.” He was matter-offact, which comforted Clarie, and jocular, which annoyed her.

“I’m Jobert, incidentally,” he added.

“My son,” she said through gritted teeth. She felt like a slice had been taken out of her.

“We’ll find him and bring him. You sit for a while.” The man stood up. “Get that bastard out of here and send for two cabs,” he ordered. Two uniformed men began dragging the strangely silent Michel Arnoux away.

“You all right?” Maura bent over to peer at Clarie. There were other faces. A small crowd had gathered.

“How did everyone get here?” Clarie asked, pressing hard against the burning cut.

“Your friend,” the voice boomed from above, “ran up, got a policeman and then led us around like a god-damned pied piper until we found you.”

“And you?” Clarie tried to will the fuzziness out of her head as she looked up at Jobert.

“Me? When your husband came to talk to me this morning, he told me that Arnoux might be coming to the Parc. Didn’t say anything about
you
bein’ here. Fortunately, you had a friend keeping an eye on you. You’re a very lucky woman.”

Or a foolish, brave girl, Clarie thought, remembering Bernard’s words of many years before. No, she stared at her shaking fingers, red with her own blood. She was confused. The foolish, brave girl is Maura.

“Torcelli will stay with you until we find your son and send you home in a cab. In the meantime,” he reached and grabbed Maura, “we’ll be taking this one with us. She needs to answer some questions about Barbereau.”

Maura tried to yank herself away, but Jobert was too strong.

“No,” Clarie protested. “Don’t take her. Let me up. Don’t—” She struggled to get up. Again, the rough-looking man helped her with gentle hands.

“She’s a good girl.” The old musician stepped forward and pleaded. “Don’t take her to prison.”

Maura kept trying to wrench her arm away and didn’t stop until Clarie stood face to face with her. “We will help you,” Clarie said. After she told Bernard that Maura had likely saved her life, he’d have to help.

Before responding to Clarie, Maura turned to the musician. “Nico, don’t worry. They’ll help. I’ll see you soon.” Clarie saw Maura’s strength and determination, even a new kindness. She was a girl so worth saving.

When she looked at Clarie, her green eyes were neither hostile nor skeptical. “When you see my mother,” she said before Jobert dragged her away, “tell her I’ll be home soon.”

Epilogue

Sunday, 6 February 1898

C
LARIE READ TO
J
EAN
-L
UC UNTIL
his eyelids drooped in peaceful surrender. Her boy had had a busy Sunday morning, visiting his idol, the six-year-old Robert Franchet, and walking home through the cold, gray drizzle that was Paris in February. Clarie waited to make sure he was asleep before pressing the blankets around his shoulders and neck. Rubbing her hands together for warmth, she went into the parlor where Bernard had just built a fire.

“Done,” she announced in a whisper. She glanced at the papers waiting on her desk and decided she could take an hour from her work to enjoy the fire and her husband’s company. He was already settled in his chair, reading
Le Temps
.

She picked up
La Fronde
,
her
newspaper, from their reading table. “So,” she asked Bernard, “how do you think Edgar is doing with his alone-Sundays?”

“Not exactly alone. There is his mother-in-law, the nanny, the maid, as well as little Robert.”

“And us,” Clarie added, laughing. “You two had a lot to talk about today.”

Bernard shook his head and frowned. “We’re not at all sure how it is going to turn out. Zola’s trial starts tomorrow. What if they find him guilty and try to put him in jail?”

“They won’t.”

“The army, the courts, and most of the Chamber of Deputies claim that what he wrote about their railroading Dreyfus was libelous. They don’t want Dreyfus’s guilt to be questioned.”

“Are you really worried?”

“About Zola? No, not really.” Bernard was a great admirer of France’s most famous writer, whom he had met during his first big case. “He’ll be all right. I don’t think they’d dare imprison him, or, at least, not for very long. World opinion would be totally against them. But….”

“I know,” she reached over and laid her hand over his, “the riots and the scurrilous articles in the newspapers about Israelites.” There had even been a fight in the Chamber of Deputies.

“And—”

“Most of the men at the Labor Exchange consider this a battle between two different factions of the bourgeoisie,” she said, putting into words what troubled him the most. “They will come around eventually, when they realize what the Army did to an innocent man. And then you’ll be able to be more open about your commitment to the cause.”

He kissed her hand and screwed his mouth into a wry smile. “Well, at least your colleagues seem to be on the right side of things.”

“You’ve been reading Séverine!” Clarie teased. Her columns in the new all-woman’s newspaper campaigned against anti-Semitism almost every day and were avowedly pro-Dreyfus.

“I meant at the school,” Bernard said, still unwilling to give the journalist her due. “Mme Roubinovitch protecting her Israelite students and teachers. And Emilie, of course.”

Clarie lowered her head to hide a grin. She had overheard Edgar and Bernard talking about Emilie’s new venture. Edgar Franchet was alone on Sunday because Emilie was at
La Fronde,
writing a column on education and taking part in the fencing exercises that the publisher, Marguerite Durand, had set up in one of the rooms in the newspaper’s building.
In principle,
Bernard and Edgar believed, or thought they
should
believe, in her right to take Sunday off, consort with female journalists, and even learn swordplay. But,
in practice
, both of them seemed a little uncomfortable with her decision and its consequences: a weekly assignment for Edgar to stay with a six-year-old and a loquacious mother-in-law.

“You could work for the paper too, you know,” Bernard said, reacting a bit defensively to her obvious amusement.

“No,” she shook her head. “I only have Rose to help, and with Maura, it fills my days.”

“Is Maura still doing well? I forgot to ask.”

Clarie basked in the warmth and genuine concern in his voice. He was so busy at the Exchange and with the meetings dedicated to reopening the Dreyfus case that he seldom saw Maura when she came for lessons. But he knew that Rose and Clarie considered her almost part of the family. And Jean-Luc adored her.

“She still wants to work at the Bon Marché.”

“As soon as she’s ready. The salary, the security would be a great help to her mother.”

“And?”

Just as she could fill in his sentiments about his colleagues at the Exchange, she knew what he could leave unsaid about her and Maura. “And she’s still young. Strong. Willful. And all I can do is help,” Clarie conceded.

If Bernard hadn’t turned back to
Le Temps
, after nodding his agreement, she might have gotten up to kiss him.
He
had been the best help of all, rescuing Maura from the criminal courts. With a contented sigh, honoring the peacefulness of their Sunday afternoon, she turned to her favorite part of
La Fronde
, Séverine’s column.

She hadn’t read much of the newspaper before she heard a loud knock.
Maura?
The girl still hadn’t gotten into the habit of ringing the bell. “I’ll get it,” Clarie said, and hurried to the door.

It was Maura, shivering in her heavy shawls, and crying.

“Maura, my goodness. What’s wrong?”

She only managed to sniffle and gasp, before another sob erupted from her lips.

“Your mother? Is your mother all right?”

“Nico.”

“Yes?”

“Nico’s dead. He died yesterday. They just told me. They brought me his concertina.”

Clarie took Maura in her arms and hugged her tight, feeling Maura’s damp curls graze her cheeks and smelling the wet wool of her shawls. “Come, come,” she soothed. “Let’s get you warm.”

Bernard was already standing when they walked into the parlor.

“Nico’s dead,” Clarie explained.

“I’m sorry,” he said to Maura. “Let me take those wet things.”

Maura stood passively as Bernard lifted the outer garments from her shoulders. Then Clarie gently led her toward the fire. “Here, warm your hands.”

Maura extended her hands over the flames. Her lips trembled. “I should have been there. I should have made him come live with us.”

Clarie kept her arm around Maura’s waist. They both knew that Nico’s moving in with Maura and her mother was impossible. Maura had dreamed of making enough money to move to two rooms. But there hadn’t been time. Dear Nico was dead.

“Let’s go into the kitchen and get you a hot cup of tea,” Clarie said. Bernard stood aside, a grave expression on his face, as they passed by. Once in the kitchen, Maura took the usual place at the table, where she learned her numbers and went over spelling twice a week. Clarie struck a match and lit the stove, then reached for a tin of biscuits. She set them in front of Maura and spooned tea into a pot. They didn’t say anything until the water had boiled, the tea had steeped, and Maura had her cold hands wrapped around a warm cup.

“Do you know how he died?” Clarie asked as she sat down.

“In his sleep. They said he was smiling. Maybe he was dreaming about Jeanne or Italy.”

“Or you.”

“I should have—” Maura bowed her head and pressed her lips together. It was so unlike Maura to cry in front of anyone. Clarie was glad that she felt she could do it now, here, in her place.

“Maura,” Clarie leaned over to peer into the girl’s eyes, “didn’t you go at least once a week to see him?”

Maura nodded, staring down at her cup.

“Didn’t he say you didn’t have to come, but that it gave him great joy?”

Another slight nod.

“You gave him so much. You made his last days very happy. You know that.”

“He didn’t need me to be happy. He was happy because he was so kind and good.”

“But you were a gift, an unexpected blessing for him.”

Maura sniffled and took a sip of tea.

“And you didn’t abandon him. You could have, you know.”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t, I—” Maura almost smiled. Between the arithmetic and the orthography, Clarie had often taken time to tell Maura that she was a smart, good, brave girl who would grow into a fine woman. The smile seemed to be proof that she was beginning to believe it.