“The affair was a mistake,” Madame continued, “but when you make a mistake you take care of it, you take responsibility, don’t you agree?” I mumbled that I did, so she went on. “He left, and that would have been the end of it, but he came back. He and his wife were childless. They’re the ones who took Jestine’s daughter.”
“You can’t just take someone,” I said. “That’s theft.”
“You are twelve,” Madame replied. Again, I didn’t correct her. “Do you know that women have few rights? And African people even fewer? People are stolen every day, dear boy. And there are those of us who feel she was taken to a better life.”
The heat was strong and my companion faltered as we went on, though she had her cane. She had to lean against a building we passed. After that we stopped every once in a while so that Madame Halevy could rest. When she was quite tired, she sat on a stone wall beside an orchard. There were some parrots that she pointed out to me, slashes of bright green and scarlet among the leaves. “When I was a girl there were hundreds of them,” she said. “You probably guess that I’m a hundred years old myself and that I can’t even remember being young. Do you think you’ll get old?” she asked me.
“I’ll probably die before I do, in a fight or a fall.” I saw myself as a hero not as an old man with a long beard. “Maybe on a boat. Or in the mountains.”
“Unlikely. No. You’ll be an old man who has to sit on a stone wall, and when you do, you’ll think of me.”
When we reached the old mansion, I asked Madame where Jestine’s daughter had been taken.
“Paris. If she’s still alive. It’s been years. You lose people sometimes, you know. You don’t expect to, but then it happens and you can’t get them back.”
We went into the kitchen, where Mrs. James took the groceries from us and asked Madame Halevy what on earth she was thinking to be walking through town on such a hot day. People fainted in weather like this. She should stay behind the shutters, which would block out the too bright sunlight.
“I had to tell this boy the end of the story.”
“It’s not the end,” I said. “You don’t know if she’s still in Paris.”
“The end of that story,” Madame Halevy corrected me. “Jestine’s not the only one with a story, you know. There are people who die all of a sudden, as if their hearts exploded. But for others it takes a long time. They walk around, as if they’re still alive, and it’s years before you realize nothing’s there.”
“Enough of this,” Mrs. James told us. We were told to remove ourselves from the kitchen and she would bring us limewater to refresh us. She would add a splash of rum for Madame. After she brought our drinks, Madame and I sat together in the parlor. It was much cooler there, with a breeze. The paint on the walls was faded, I saw, with patches of plaster showing through. There were dark veins of soot in the window glass.
I realized that my companion’s eyes were closed and that she had fallen asleep. The stray bands of sunlight in the room were lemony, with a dusky brilliance. There was the scent of verbena. I closed my eyes and dreamed of walking along a path of pale red earth under a soft cloudy sky. There were birds I didn’t recognize. I woke with a jolt of fear. My companion was already awake, watching over me. I realized then she hadn’t said one word about her own daughter, and I asked after her. Why had she gone to Charleston? Why didn’t she answer Madame’s letters?
“I’ve decided I don’t want to burden you with my story. I think I’ll fold it up and take it with me when I go. You’re too nice a boy to carry something that doesn’t belong to you for the sake of an old lady who won’t be in this world much longer.”
She patted my arm, and I realized then that I was not just a delivery boy to her. She had become attached to me, and I to her.
Afterward, I kept thinking about her story, folded into a desk drawer or in her night table or perhaps in a pocket she had sewn, close to her heart. I intended to go back to see her, but a shipment came in from Portugal of all manner of fabrics, embroideries and lace and flowered muslins. My father insisted I help my brothers unload the shipment and store everything neatly folded in tissue paper. I did put something aside, perhaps you can say I stole it, though I didn’t think of it that way. It was a lace table runner to replace the frayed one on Madame’s table. I never got to give it to her. Madame Halevy died the next week. I attended the funeral at the synagogue. People prayed and I saw my father there among the men. I followed the mourners and the Reverend to the Jewish cemetery.