Daisy glanced at Grandmère, who made an almost imperceptible shake of her head.
“Ah yes,” said Von Sternburg. “Here it is. ‘Pride had given way at last, obstinacy was gone, the will was powerless. He was but a man madly, blindly, passionately in love; and as soon as her light footstep had died away within the house, he knelt down upon the terrace steps, and in the very madness of his love, he kissed one by one the places where her small foot had trodden, and the stone balustrade there, where her tiny hand had rested last.’” He looked at Daisy. “How must it affect a man, do you think, to love a woman so deeply?”
“I can’t imagine,” Daisy said.
“Uncomfortable, I should think,” said Grandmère. “What if it had rained, and the terrace steps were wet?”
Von Sternburg shut the book and handed it back to Grandmère. “You are not a romantic, I see. But then, you never were. All those fellows in your salon, they were resolutely Modernist. This is why I learned not to open my mouth there.”
“Very wise.”
He looked back down at the book tucked between Grandmère’s hands. “Marguerite,” he said. “That’s your given name, isn’t it, Madame Villon?”
“You have an excellent memory, lieutenant colonel.”
“Not so excellent as that. It’s the name itself that has a particular meaning for me.” He smiled at Daisy. “As I said, I must have fallen in love with her a thousand times, when I was young.”
Daisy left an hour later, having kissed both children several times in the fullness of her guilt, in her anxiety and excitement for what was to come, and told them to behave themselves for their great-grandmother. When she closed the door at last and started down the corridor to the stairway, she thought her heart might punch through the wall of her chest.
At the bottom of the stairway, a man rose from the bench. Von Sternburg, of course, waiting for her in his immaculate double-breasted suit, his solemn, scarred face. Bernard, standing at his post near the door, looked at them both and raised his eyebrows to Daisy. Did she require some assistance, perhaps? Daisy shook her head.
“Lying in wait for me, I see,” she said to the German.
“I beg your pardon, madame. There was something I wished to communicate with you, and I found no opportunity upstairs. Shall we walk out together?”
Daisy didn’t reply, only started walking across the lobby, heels clicking against the marble. Von Sternburg kept pace beside her. He said nothing until they had stepped through the doorway and onto the pavement outside. Rue Cambon lay hot and quiet on either side of them.
“I only want to say—as a well-wisher—that I admire your spirit very much,” he said. “I admire, in particular, your selfless work at this bookstore of yours. Delivering books to those in need of them.”
Daisy’s mind went numb. She kept walking, however. Feet now clicking against the pavement, the same precise rhythm as before. “How on earth did you know I work at the bookstore, lieutenant colonel?”
“You may call me Max, if you like.”
She said nothing.
He continued, “I confess, since I learned of your connection to a person—to a place that keeps its own particular shrine in my memory, I have made it my business to—how shall I say this?—to assure myself of your continued welfare.”
“You’ve been spying on me, you mean.”
“That is a terrible word.”
“Well, you have. And what have you discovered, hmm? Do you suspect some nefarious motive? Coded messages hidden in these books I deliver to the infirm and the elderly, plotting the destruction of the Reich? Do you mean to report me to the Gestapo?” She spoke recklessly. Without noticing, she increased her pace, while Von Sternburg loped along persistently beside her.
“You remind me so much of your mother,” he said.
Daisy stopped and wheeled to face him. “I’m not a bit like my mother. Anyway, I have a father. Nobody ever thinks of him, but he’s there. He was kind and good, and he loved my mother. He created me with her, and then he marched off to Verdun to be killed by some German. He’s part of me, too, and I expect I’m a great deal more like him than her. The so-heroic Demoiselle de Courcelles.”
Von Sternburg simply stared at her, and it occurred to Daisy that his blue eyes had grown glossy, that his expression had become one of immense longing. He wore an ordinary trilby hat with this civilian costume of his, and it cast an arc of shadow on his face. Suddenly he seemed human, diminished. Even a little old.
“Of course, I wouldn’t really know, either way,” she heard herself say, sounding for an instant like the old Daisy instead of this new, impudent one, who felt unaccountably free to spar with German officers. With this German officer. “They’re both dead.”
“I am so sorry,” he said hoarsely.
“So am I. Have you anything else to say to me? Is it now forbidden to bring the comfort of literature to the destitute of Paris? Can I expect the police to knock on my door in the middle of the night and raid my children’s rooms?”
“Of course not. I only mean to tell you this. If you have need of a friend at any time, for any reason, I hope you will consider me that friend.” He took a small rectangular card from his pocket and pressed it into her hand. “I live at the Hôtel Meurice, on rue de Rivoli. The number is here.”
Before she could reply, he walked away, in the opposite direction. The heat shimmered around him. Daisy watched him go, until his trilby hat and his broad shoulders simply disappeared around the corner, leaving her alone and unsettled, yearning for something she couldn’t name.
Chapter Nineteen
Babs
Paris, France
April 1964
I sat with Drew at a table outside a small café on rue de Richelieu feeling rather alone and unsettled, yearning for a cup of strong tea that seemed strangely absent from the café’s menu. I felt very out of place surrounded by beautiful, chic people at neighboring tables, most smoking and chattering loudly in French while they sipped coffee or wine. Even Drew, with his large Americanness, seemed to fit in. He wore sunglasses, and his long legs were stretched out under the table, his ankles crossed, making him look quite bohemian. Except for the broad shoulders and tan, of course.
When we returned from Picardy the day before, Drew had rushed off to his office, so we hadn’t had the chance to go over everything we’d learned at the ruins of the château. Or the reason why I still felt his hand where it had clasped mine as we’d descended the hill. I found myself stroking my hand with the other and immediately sat on them. It had been a successful strategy to stop biting my nails when I was a child, after all.
The hand stroking had started the night before when I’d gone to Margot Lemouron’s room to read to her from Les Misérables, but she’d fallen asleep after just a few pages. I’d stayed with her for a long while, to see if she might awaken and need something, and as I sat I’d replayed the day in my head, still feeling Drew’s hand on mine.
“Are you all right?” Drew asked, his dark glasses masking his eyes so I couldn’t tell if it was real concern or if he might be laughing at me.