A Week in Paris (27 page)

‘I think Jack’s right, you should leave,’ Kitty said. ‘But oh, we shall miss you both so much.’

There was one small element of happiness. ‘We’ve decided to get married. Jack says it’ll be easier for us when we travel. That doesn’t sound very romantic, does it, but I couldn’t bear to be separated from him so I guess that means it’s the right thing to do.’

This was the closest Milly would ever get to telling Kitty how much she loved Jack, though it was blindingly apparent to any that knew them. Their recent troubles seemed to have brought them closer. Milly was no longer the outspoken young woman who’d arrived in Paris six years ago and won Jack’s heart. She hardly took risks now. She’d become more careful and, Kitty thought, more caring. Life here was no longer full of colour and laughter. Instead it was monotone and full of shadow, but this made the underlying bones of people’s characters stand out, and she saw that Milly’s was strong and true.

It was different for Kitty, having a child. Although she felt desperately worried about her future, Fay also helped her take pleasure in the world. With the spring came the swallows darting in the air beyond their window, the blossom hung as thick and heavy as always on the trees, and a gentle sun warmed their faces as they walked in the park with Lili and Joséphine. Kitty shared her little daughter’s delight and wonder at these things. Fay helped her live for the moment.

It was a fine Wednesday morning in early April that Eugene and Kitty witnessed Jack and Milly’s quiet wedding ceremony in the American Cathedral. The Knoxes were practically the only guests, for by now nearly all their other friends had decamped. A week later, Kitty and Fay went to wave them off at the Gare d’Orléans on the first leg of a long and arduous train journey that would take them across the Spanish border and on to Lisbon, where they’d managed to book berths on a ship for New York. For Kitty their departure was one of the saddest moments of the war so far. She’d never imagined that Milly would leave Paris. For Milly it was accepting defeat – and she had never done this in her life before.

During April, Gene came home with anxious reports about the future of the hospital. The question was whether it should remain under American management, given that the United States was likely to be brought into the war. Eventually, it was decided to deliver it into the control of the French Red Cross, and this happy arrangement left Gene and his colleagues much relieved, for its work could continue as before. Everywhere in Paris, Americans were in retreat. At the beginning of May, the US Embassy finally closed. Americans still had the hospital, their own library, churches and charities to assist them. But apart from that, they were on their own in Occupied Paris. If their country went to war with Germany, there would be no one to protect them.

‘Madame Knox!’

She heard the man’s voice as she was wheeling Fay past the Métro station near the Quai d’Orsay one June afternoon. She’d been walking by the river simply to get out of the flat. There was something about the river that comforted her, the way it continued to flow, the same as ever, as the city changed around it. The man was climbing the steps from the station and at first she didn’t recognize him. Then she saw it was her former piano teacher.

‘Monsieur Deschamps!’ She waited for his approach, thinking him less spry than when she saw him last. He kissed her soundly on both cheeks and smiled at Fay, who was sitting in her pram, staring back at him with her serious expression. ‘I’m so glad to see you,
m’sieur
. I had no idea you were back in Paris.’

‘I suppose I should have written to advise you,’ he sighed. ‘I returned some months ago, but I’m afraid I have been doing very little teaching. I have been ill, you see.’

He wore a greyish look, she thought. He had always been on the thin side, but now his clothes hung off him and something of his old vigour was gone. She saw him glance away to where a pair of German soldiers loitered on duty outside the railway station, chatting to one another as they kept a casual eye on the crowds that passed in and out. The fellows were too far away to hear their conversation, but still, their presence put her on her guard.

Monsieur Deschamps must have felt the same because he said, ‘I’m on my way home now. Perhaps you’d like to come back with me? I can at least give you some music to practise – if you still have time to play, that is.’

‘Thank you. I try to make time, but it isn’t easy with this little one.’ Kitty smiled at Fay, who gave her a gap-toothed grin and began to suck at the wooden zebra the man next door had given her, for she was teething. Kitty gently eased the animal from her, and when she creased her face to protest, pushed a rattle into her hands to distract her.

Monsieur Deschamps’ flat was the same as it had always been, except messier, and it was a bony, sallow-faced woman with a dead expression in her eyes who brought Kitty a glass of water instead of the lively little maid of before, of whom there was no sign. The mess was caused by dusty cardboard boxes that lay piled against the bookcases, some split open with the contents spilling out. Kitty had to grab the toddler, who had made a beeline for them and started pulling out sheet music, creased and yellowed with age. A violin case that hadn’t been there before lay under the piano.

‘All this belongs to a colleague who’s been interned,’ Monsieur Deschamps explained. ‘A fine player, very fine, but the brutes who took him left his apartment in a terrible state. Since Germany invaded Russia they’ll imprison anyone they suspect to be a Communist. Communist, pah. It’s a crime now to have a Russian name. His neighbour contacted me after it happened. I’ll keep everything safe for when he returns.’ The last words were spoken with a false heartiness.

Kitty nodded, compassion rising in her. She was becoming used to these sad stories. They haunted her dreams, though she tried not to dwell on them, tried to distance herself. It was the only way. She’d seen something similar happen to the watchmaker and his wife who lived opposite. One late afternoon, a fortnight before, a van had drawn up outside. She’d looked down from the window to see two soldiers jump out and shoulder open the shop door, then after a moment the old couple were brought out, the man complaining and the woman wailing. She’d watched with pity as they were pushed into the back of the van, which drove off at speed. Soon afterwards, another vehicle arrived with two men in overalls who arrived to clear the shop of its contents, hammering bars across the door before they left. Now it stood empty, and passers-by threw litter in the porch. Who had denounced the couple and for what imagined crime, nobody had any idea. Nor did anyone wish to speak about it, in case they were next.

Monsieur Deschamps was sifting through the contents of a drawer in the music cabinet that stood behind the drawing-room door and muttering as he selected the scores. ‘Beethoven. We have to remember there are good Germans, you know. Ah, and here is my old friend Ravel – how I miss him.’ He pushed shut the drawers and took the music over to the piano, where he sat and spread open the Beethoven score – a Sonata Kitty didn’t recognize – on the music-rest and began to play.

Kitty sat on a chair beside him, Fay in her arms, and once more allowed the surge of the music to fill her. Her teacher played with his old strength, and the heights and dips of the harmonies released something in her that had been stopped up by the fear and stress of the last months. Sometimes his playing stumbled or slowed as he turned a page, and sometimes she saw his eyes were closed, the emotion naked on his face as he played from memory. How was it that the composer knew such a language of feeling that through Monsieur Deschamps’ playing communicated to her what being human was all about? When the movement came to an end, they were quiet for a moment.

‘That was beautiful,’ Kitty whispered. ‘Beautiful. Thank you.’

‘Beethoven says the things we cannot put into words, no?’ Monsieur Deschamps said, exactly echoing her thoughts as he closed the score and gave it to her. ‘Perhaps you would play it at home, and when you feel you know it well enough, come and see me and I’ll listen to you.’

She tucked the music under her arm and said, ‘The Ravel – I’d love to hear you play that. Serge used to play that for you, didn’t he? I heard him once. Have you had any contact with him?’

To her dismay Monsieur Deschamps rose from his stool, snatched the Ravel from the music-stand and cast it down on the piano. ‘I had forgotten,’ he said in a voice trembling with anger. ‘We shall not play this piece, after all.’

‘What’s wrong?’ she stammered, feeling Fay stiffen in her arms.

‘When I think of all I’ve done to help that young man. Gone. Thrown away. It turns out he has no courage at all. He shall not come here. Ever again.’

‘Why, what has he done?’ she cried. ‘I’ve truly no idea.’

‘If you do not know, you do not need to,’ Monsieur Deschamps snapped, pacing the room, a mixture of rage and sorrow on his lined face. ‘There is nothing you can say in his defence. We shall not speak of him any more. No. He has betrayed music, betrayed his friends, and worst of all, he has betrayed France.’

‘Monsieur!’

‘No, not one more word.’

He was breathing audibly now, as though fighting for breath, and the greyness of his face was tinged with blue. He made his way across to a small side table from which he took up a bottle of pills, fumbled two out in his hand, and swallowed them down with water from a carafe. Kitty watched, bewildered. Whatever medication it was he’d taken worked quickly, however, for quite soon he was breathing more steadily, and his face returned to a more normal colour.

‘Is there anything I can do? Shall I fetch your maid?’ she asked, starting from the chair, but he shook his head.

‘No, I am soon recovered,’ he said, ‘but tired. The doctor says I must be calm, but that’s all very well. It’s impossible to be calm in these terrible times.’

Kitty sat down again. Fay wriggled off her lap and tottered over to the door, where she stopped and looked back enquiringly at her mother.

‘Go home,’ she said.

‘Yes, we ought to. Monsieur,’ she said, rising, ‘thank you so much for the music. I’ll come and see you again soon, though please don’t feel you must give me a lesson. It seems that you should look after yourself.’

‘All I have is my music, Kitty,’ he said, giving a weak smile. ‘To teach you has always been a pleasure. I’m so glad to have met your daughter, too,’ he said, winking at Fay. ‘She has something of your determination, I believe.’

‘She keeps me strong,’ Kitty said fondly. ‘I don’t know where I’d be without her.’

It was the simple truth. Fay was nearly two now, and developing well, despite the erratic nature of her diet. She had grown into a quiet child, shy with others but with a strong sense of who she was. She loved to sing to herself and to play with a favourite toy, a set of wooden animals that she marched into an ark. One of the zebras had unfortunately been lost, and there had been much excitement when M’sieur Zipper, as she called him, had given her the one she clutched now. She had often looked at it longingly on his bookshelf.

Was she an over-protective mother? Kitty sometimes feared she might be, but Fay and Gene were her little all. She would do anything for them. Anything. Even give her life.

The following week, Kitty could not stop thinking about Serge. Was he in trouble? What had he done to offend his old teacher so deeply? She recalled that Miss Dunne had seen him in the Rue du Faubourg St-Honoré, and he had pretended not to know her. This might be genuine – he’d only met her once, at Kitty and Gene’s wedding, but perhaps it was part of the mystery. She discussed the matter with Gene, who thought it puzzling, but showed no surprise. The normal rules of social behaviour had been suspended. Now, survival was all. For some reason she couldn’t explain, she was determined to find out if Serge was all right. She wrote another note for him at the Conservatoire, urging him to be in touch, and this time she left Fay with the downstairs neighbour and delivered it herself.

She felt odd walking into the building now. It was a part of her life that was gone, but she had never meant to let it go. She’d had to leave it behind because of Fay, she told herself. There was no point being nostalgic about it. This fierce reasoning didn’t prevent envy rising in her, envy for the trickle of students coming past with instruments and music cases as she waited at the desk to present the letter she’d brought. It was just at that moment that she heard her name called and turned to see Serge himself, as thin and nervy-looking as ever.

‘What are you doing here?’ he said in a low voice, but his face lit up with pleasure all the same.

‘I wanted to see you,’ she said, stuffing the letter, no longer needed, back into her bag. ‘I met Monsieur Deschamps, you see.’

‘Ah.’ He glanced quickly about, then took her arm and steered her out across the courtyard, where their feet rang on the flagstones, then in through a far door and down a corridor until they came to an empty practice room.

‘No one uses this much, it’s too dark. We can speak more freely here,’ he said, drawing her inside and shutting the door with the quietest of clicks. He went over to the oblong window and glanced through it as if nervous that someone could see them. She watched him, feeling troubled. It was as though he was haunted by something.

Apparently satisfied that they were alone he sat down at the elderly upright piano that gleamed in the pale patch of grey light coming from the window. ‘Do you know this waltz?’ he asked, and began to play a rich lilting tune from memory.

‘It’s Brahms, isn’t it?’ she guessed, coming to stand by the piano, facing him, and he nodded as he continued to play, but now in a fast and furious style that would have sent the dancers madly whirling. Halfway through the concluding phrase he stopped suddenly and lifted his hands from the keyboard.

‘The German Romantics – that’s all they want,’ he said in a savage tone. ‘No Scriabin, never Debussy or Bartok.’

She stared down at him in puzzlement. ‘Who are the “they” you’re talking about?’

‘Don’t you know?’ he said in a fierce, low voice. ‘I assumed you’d come to condemn me like the rest. Deschamps won’t speak to me, you know. He’ll cross the street if he sees me coming – the man to whom I owe so much. The man who encouraged me to go in the first place. It cuts me to the bone, Kitty.’