Theory of Remainders (26 page)

“Because I think so,” she continued. “I’ve seen pictures of her, you know.
Maman
doesn’t say anything, of course, but every year, I think I look more like my sister.”

Margaux had fetched tumblers of water from the kitchen, into which she’d dolloped raspberry syrup from a can, carefully transporting the overfull glasses to the patio on a tray. Philip had spread out the pictures from his wallet, the shot of Sophie on the tennis court, the one from the mountains, another showing her straddling her bicycle.

“How’d she break it?” Margaux asked, pointing to the shot where Sophie raised a plaster-covered arm in triumph.

“Skiing. Took third place in a race, then couldn’t stop at the very end. Rather disastrous.”

“And
this
one?” She picked out the trick photograph of the two Sophies facing each other.

“It’s what you call a Rubin’s vase.”

She crinkled her nose. “A
what?
”

“You’ve seen these before.” He used his finger to draw on the surface. Look at the outline of the faces, and then at the black background. What do you see?”

“Oh, now I get it. Two faces or a vase. You’re right, I
have
seen this trick, just not as a photograph. It’s like the picture with the old witch. If you look at it just right, it’s a beautiful young woman.”

“That’s right. Designs like this, they’re tests of perception.” Margaux squinted. “In psychology,” he explained. “They show how people perceive the world. In the case of a Rubin’s vase, you can only see one thing by
not
seeing the other.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look at it again. You can focus on either the vase or the faces, but you can’t see both at once.”

She stared at the image, canting her head.

Philip continued. “She loved optical illusions. So we made that one together.”

“You mean, on the computer?”

“No. The old-fashioned way, with film.” Everything Philip said seemed to puzzle Margaux, and he realized how much time had elapsed since he last had a child to talk to. In the meantime, the world had changed. Margaux belonged to the first wholly digital generation.

“With
film?
” she said, marveling as if he’d spoken of writing on papyrus.

“You see, we set up a mirror,” he explained. “And lit it just right. It’s Sophie and her reflection.” How he had relished explaining old-fashioned things like this! It had been one of his principle jobs at home, regaling Sophie with stories of what things had been like in the prehistoric past of his youth. There was nothing he liked better.

“But that’s so complicated,” Margaux said. “With film, you couldn’t see your pictures right away, isn’t that so? I don’t think I’d care for that.”

“Oh, there are advantages.”

She looked up. “Like what?”

“All sorts of things.”

Margaux folded her arms, waiting for a better answer.

And eventually he found one. “You take more care with things if you know you don’t get a second chance.”

She considered the comment, finally deeming it satisfactory.

A cream-colored cat emerged from the rhododendrons and rubbed up against Margaux’s bare ankles.

“There you are!” she exclaimed, scooping the cat into her arms.

“Rodolphe, I presume?”

“Yes,” she said as she rubbed the cat’s belly. “This is Rodolphe. Big, fat Rodolphe.”

Then, over Margaux’s shoulder, Yvonne’s face appeared in the kitchen window. Astonishment rapidly surrendered to outrage, and she glared at Philip with a look that held an entire inquisition, one that boiled down to a single question:
how dare you?

Margaux was still talking. “. . . off in his jungle,” she said, completing an observation.

He turned back to her. “I’m sorry. Whose jungle?”

“Rodolphe’s,” she said, her tone scolding him for his inattention. “He likes to go on safaris during the day. He’s a great hunter, although you wouldn’t think it to look at him, the fatso! But quite often he brings back his catch.”

“Nothing too big, I hope,” Philip muttered. “No gazelles?” Yvonne was twitching her head to the side, gesturing for him to leave. Pretty soon she would storm the backyard if he didn’t get away.

Margaux was laughing. “No, not yet.”

“I need to get going,” he said, rising to his feet.

“But . . . but you wanted to see Mother.”

“It will have to be another time. Roger and I are headed back to Yvetot this evening.”

“Uncle Roger?”

“That’s right. He came into town with me.”

“Will you be coming back?” Margaux asked.

“I don’t know. Not right away.”

“I’ll tell
Maman
that you came by.”

“Please do. Give her my regards.”

“I will,” she said with importance, as though entrusted with a mission.

Margaux rose from her seat as he opened the gate, and she stepped toward him, lifting her chin. It took him a moment to understand. It was the gesture of parting, the child presenting her cheek for the
bise
, that little hint of a kiss. He felt a pinch in his chest as he bent down to brush his face against hers. Her lips emitted a smack. Then they repeated the gesture on the other side.

“Your beard is prickly,” she giggled, rubbing her cheek.

He didn’t get very far. By the time he came around the front of the house, Yvonne was outside, ready to pounce.

“Before you say anything,” he began, but those were the last words he uttered for several minutes. She lambasted him, her volume growing as she dragged him down the street, out of earshot of the house. They stopped at the end of the road, at the roll of the hill, all of Rouen in the distance below them, the central spire of the cathedral as straight as an arrow.

She was livid. He’d gone against
all
the terms of their agreement: staying too long, surfacing too much, and now approaching the one person she had sought the hardest to protect. What did he think he was doing?

“I was looking for
you
,” he finally managed to insert. He gestured back to the house. “I certainly hadn’t expected Margaux to show up like that. Look, Yvonne, I tried to extricate myself, but it wasn’t easy.”

“Rubbish,” she shot back. “You say goodbye and you tip your head. It’s not so hard!”

“You don’t understand. She was asking questions. About Sophie.”

Yvonne’s shoulders tightened and her nostrils flared. “How
dare
you bring that up? After all I told you.”

He raised his palms. “It wasn’t me. She’s the one who asked. She wanted to talk.”

“How can you even suggest such a thing,” she cried.

“Yvonne, there’s a ghost in your house that you won’t even acknowledge. Margaux has questions, and it doesn’t help for you to pretend there’s nothing to say. You can’t forbid her curiosity.”

She gasped a breath and looked away. Her body was still rigid, but Philip sensed her fury subsiding. He realized he had to seize the opportunity of this ebbing.

“I need your help.”

And he started to explain. While he spoke she stared out over the rooftops of Rouen, bathed in late afternoon light. He told her about his first visit with Édouard Morin, how it had felt to sit across from the man who had killed their daughter, and what he had said. He recounted the obscure references, the wild digressions, the dodges into other languages. He repeated as closely as he could Morin’s cavalier description of their daughter’s rape.

Finally he came to the point: he planned to visit him again.

“Absolutely not,” she hissed. “You said you would see him once and then leave. You’re growing obsessed, Philip. Just like before.”

“There’s more,” he pressed. “I need you to go with me.” He gestured to counter her objection. “Hear me out. Morin, he dips into all these languages. I need you. I need your expertise.”

She shook her head violently. “It won’t accomplish anything. Philip, it’s done. It’s over. It’s not reversible.”

“Another thing,” he said. “It’s Morin’s accent. I can’t figure it out. It sounds almost German. And yet
not
German. I don’t know what to make of it.”

“What does it
matter?
” she cried.

“I’m just trying to understand, Yvonne.”

“But understand what? Why?” She stood with her hands clenched, her body knotted. Philip tried to think of something that might soften her pose. Long ago he would have taken her hand, might even have enfolded her in an embrace. But those solutions were forbidden to him now. Instead he let silence do its work. Stillness could produce calm.

“You’re wasting your time,” she said finally.

“Maybe,” he acknowledged.

“All this nonsense about accents.” She exhaled. “Why do you care?”

“I don’t know. Teach me.”

She paused, shook her head again. “It’s ridiculously complicated. There are too many variables. Who can say? Some people can never change their accent, others don’t want to. Sometimes you end up with a blend. Look at me. I started with Italian, and in Italy they say my accent is French. Then I learned Spanish, and in Spain they say I sound Italian.”

He didn’t dare move. “This is why I need you,” he said. “You’ll hear things that I won’t.”

She gazed at the ground between her feet.

“Please,” he said. “If it produces nothing, I will leave. I swear I will.”

She shook her head vaguely. “You have no idea what you’re making me do, Philip. If you did, you wouldn’t ask.”

It was the opportunity for him to back down, to withdraw the request. But instead, moving with caution, the way one reaches for a metal pot that may be hotter than it looks, he lifted his fingers to the edge of her arm and touched. When the contact didn’t burn, he allowed his whole hand to come to rest there. Yvonne’s posture began to soften.

Fourteen

It came as no surprise that Suardet objected to Philip’s request. The first meeting had left Morin agitated, and the doctor had no desire to deal with the consequences of a second encounter. However, bolstered now by Yvonne’s support, Philip was in no mood for negotiation. Suardet’s preferences were immaterial. Édouard had a right to hear about the offer, and while the doctor could advise him as he wished, it would ultimately be Édouard’s decision. Philip made that point clear over the phone, and Suardet left the conversation grumbling but compliant.

There was other business to attend to, some of it tied to Boston. Linda had arranged a phone session with Melanie, and he added it to his schedule. He was ready for this call. Moreover, he needed it. In France everything had a way of slipping beyond his control, but this thread kept him connected to Boston, to his work, to the one thing he knew he could do well. In their next session he would inch Melanie toward speaking of her father. It would lead to outbursts, confrontations. He could predict the tenor of their exchange—could practically hear the howl of her insults. But it would be in a language that he knew, with patterns he could predict. He could do it.

The best way to help Melanie after that would be for him to return to Boston, and the fastest way to Boston was to finish his business in France. So he turned his attention back to Sophie, laying out the collection of resources on his bed at the hotel: court records, police reports, photos, transcriptions, newspaper articles. It would take days to study all the new material from the courthouse, but even as he skimmed them now he sensed a deepening texture. The recollections that had faded to the thinness of an artist’s sketch began to take on detail and color, hue and shadow. He recalled the distant church striking three a.m. while Yvonne sobbed in Élisabeth’s arms. There was the stoic exhaustion in the eyes of the brigadier who provided the hourly reports. Then, as first dawn tinted the horizon, there was Roger bounding up the front steps, taking first his sister in his arms, then Philip.