“What was wrong with you?” he said.
“I lost two toes,” I said.
Thierry scrunched up his face in pained sympathy. “Ah, look.” He showed me his littlest finger. It was slightly blunted. He’d obviously sliced the top off. “This is how I knew I was bound for sweets, non? No more butchering for me. No more cooking for big hungry soldiers in the desert. Ugh.”
I nodded in sympathy.
“So,” he said. “And she…she has all her toes?”
“She has cancer,” I said.
“Yes.”
We were walking above the embankment by the river, which was running fast today, a kind of dark blue color. There were a lot of boats up and down; goods and coal were coming in.
Thierry stared at the water as if he didn’t see it.
“Ah, the cancer,” he said simply. “It is the sniper at the party. Everyone, we are happy, then…boom.”
We kept staring.
“They can do many, many good things for cancer now,” he said.
I shook my head. “Maybe. She has it in three places. It is hard to have it in three places. And she is stubborn.”
Thierry glanced at me then looked away very quickly. “So it is as bad as that.”
“Maybe,” I shrugged. I didn’t want to think about it.
“And her family is kind.”
“Her sons are very good.”
“She has sons?”
“Two.”
“Ah, sons,” he said, and I supposed he was thinking of Laurent. “They are kind? They look after her?”
“They’re wonderful,” I said.
He harrumphed.
“Mine would not call the pompiers if I were on fire.”
Thierry bit his lip at this.
“Oh, my little Claire,” he said suddenly, as if I wasn’t there. “My little English bird. My little Claire.”
- - -
1972
“You look…you look beautiful.”
Claire giggled. She had never seen Thierry lost for words; she didn’t think it was possible. He was as greedy for words, for ideas and new information and jokes, as he was for food, for wine, for chocolate, for Paris, for her.
But here, out in the garden of the LeGuarde house, all closed down as the family decamped to Provence, leaving her alone in Paris, it felt like everyone had left, en masse. The entire city had emptied out, leaving the heat for the soft breezes and mimosas of the South. Businesses had closed down, restaurants were no longer serving. The city was like a ghost town. Or a playground.
In a feat of devastating boldness, Claire had left a note. A little note, at the shop, in the morning before he would be in. She had thought about it many times. She had gone to Papeterie Saint-Sabin, the great stationers, and spent an enormous amount of her earned cash on the most exquisite stationery. She had been almost unable to choose from how beautiful it all was. Finally she had gone for a pale green and yellow flower, very similar to her new dress. The heavy cream envelope was lined with pale green and gold stripes. It was absolutely beautiful. Her heart in her mouth, she had slipped into M. LeGuarde’s private office, all leather chairs and heavy furniture, and borrowed one of his fountain pens, trying to make sure not to blot the ink. And she had written, simply, a time and the address, her hand shaking with excitement.
Of course he had come; had found her, as she planned, around the back door. He took off his hat, his face a little pink in the heat, mopping his brow. The garden was built high, with fruit trees bordering the edge to give the area privacy. On the perfectly straight lawn, Claire had put out a picnic: the finest Morbier cheese, which she knew he adored; some pâté and heavy sourdough bread from the tiny southern bakery on the corner; grapes, big, shiny, and pitted with seeds—he liked to chop them with a tiny knife, nipping out the seeds with extraordinary dexterity in his huge bearlike paws; carved Serrano ham from the terrifying butcher that she had had to pluck up a lot of courage to enter; and, chilling in a bucket of ice, a bottle of Laurent Perrier ’68. Mme. LeGuarde had told her to help herself to whatever she wanted. This was clearly pushing it, Claire realized. She would make it up to them, she told herself.
The sun fell heavy and huge, rippling through the great old oak trees as she sought out some shade. The light felt thick and golden, almost like syrup, as Claire sat, waiting, unable to concentrate, fiddling with her hair, her new dress, the food, the delicate china she had carefully removed from the tall armoire in the dining room, the small jar of fresh flowers she’d picked from the beds, behind other plants so hopefully nobody would notice. She had showered as late as possible and sat, anxiously. He made his way around to the door which led onto the little back alleyway between their grand imposing street and the next, knocked quickly, then entered, taking off his hat and wondering where his handkerchief was.
Then she stood up. The sun lit up her pale hair, made it shine as if it were gold. The gentle green silk of her dress ran off her like a river; she looked like something conjured from the water, or a dryad from the trees.
“Claire. You look…you look beautiful,” he breathed quietly, for once moved to silence. She moved toward him, and he pulled her close, then sat her on his lap in the shade of the great green tree. Nothing was eaten. Words were no longer necessary. Some little time later, the birds started into the bright blue sky.
- - -
Thierry led me down to the corner of the street, where there was a tiny, packed boulangerie with a few tables and chairs very close. You could no longer see the river, nor the Île de la Cité, which sat in the middle like a great ship. Thierry barked a quick order to the waiter, who came charging back right through the middle of everyone with two tiny coffees, each with four sugar lumps placed on the side, and two enormous religieuse buns—two profiteroles, one smaller than the other, covered in chocolate and held together by cream, so they look like little nuns or priests. He ate his without thinking about it, then held up his hand for another, like a cowboy downing whisky shots at a bar.
Then he paused while I waited for him. The bun was totally delicious.
“It was difficult,” he said. “Her father…well. We were very young. It was the summer. She had to return, then I got called up…”
He looked up at me, and suddenly through his jolly, tubby demeanor, I saw a lot of sadness in his eyes.
“When you are young,” he said, “you think you will get lots of chances at love. You are careless, you spend your youth and your freedom and your love because you think you will be rich with all these things forever. But they do not last. You spend it all, then you see if you have spent wisely.”