‘Ah, well, it was most difficult. A few days later came the liberation and everything was changed. Hans I think was killed, or captured, in the fighting, and Isabelle …’
Simon reacted sharply. ‘She killed herself? In our room?’
‘No, not in your room,’ said Monsieur Chamond, unable to mask his quick smile. ‘No, Isabelle drowned herself, did she not, in the river?’ He looked to his wife for confirmation. ‘At least, that is what I have heard. No one has ever died in this hotel, not like that.’
Neil turned in his chair. ‘And what became of the diamonds?’
‘No one knows,’ said Christian quietly. It startled me a little, to hear the cadence of the German voice, so soon after surfacing from my imaginings. It was as if Hans himself had spoken to us.
‘Diamonds …’ Garland Whitaker breathed the word like a prayer. ‘Wherever did the Germans get diamonds from?’
‘From … displaced persons.’ Christian’s eyes touched Simon and Paul for the briefest of moments before he lowered his gaze and went on. ‘The Nazis hid many such things during the war. But you know this, you were talking of it at the restaurant on Friday, of the place you lived in Germany.’
Garland nodded. ‘And no one’s ever tried to find these diamonds? Well for heaven’s sake, where was this tunnel that Hans and Isabelle used to meet in?’
‘I do not know,’ Madame Chamond replied, her smile indulgent. ‘Chinon is not so large, Madame, but the tunnels, they are everywhere. And it is just a story, after all. It happened many years ago. The diamonds might just be invention, added later to the story. Who can say?’
Jim Whitaker gave his Scotch a swirl. ‘So Isabelle left her ghost behind, did she?’
Monsieur Chamond looked over at him from behind the bar. ‘If she did, she is a quiet ghost. She does not bother us.’
‘She’s murder on my electronic equipment,’ Neil said drily, and Monsieur Chamond laughed.
‘Apart from that.’
Simon sent our host a suspicious look. ‘And you’re sure she didn’t die in our room?’
‘Quite sure.’
Paul smiled finally, in his quiet way. ‘I thought you said,’ he reminded Simon, ‘that there were no such things as ghosts.’
‘Well, yeah, but—’
‘Then it really doesn’t matter where she died, does it?’
Neil Grantham’s dark eyes moved thoughtfully from Paul to me. ‘I think our Miss Braden believes in ghosts, though. Don’t you?’
It was quite unsettling, the feel of those eyes on my face, and I answered without looking up. ‘On occasion,’ I admitted, ‘yes, I do. I’d think Isabelle would have every right to haunt this place, after what happened. I mean, war is so futile, isn’t it? So inexcusable, the things it does to people’s lives.’
Garland widened her eyes. ‘Oh, but it’s necessary sometimes, Emily. The Germans – excuse me, Christian – but the Germans just had to be put in their place, don’t you agree?’
Simon spoke up in my defence. ‘But I think I know what Emily is saying. My grandfather never talks about the war. It hurts too much for him to think about it. And that was over fifty years ago.’ He looked across at Jim Whitaker, with a vaguely curious expression. ‘You said your father fought in Normandy. Does he ever talk about it?’
‘No.’
‘My father talks,’ said Christian, unexpectedly. ‘He was a child in the war. He talks in his sleep. He has dreams.’
We were all silent a moment, reflecting on the wreckage of a war that none of us had lived through. For me, the war meant only Granddad’s faded ration book and the neighbour’s horrid bomb shelter and musty gas masks gathering dust in the cupboard under the stairs. It all seemed so distant from me, really – an hour or so of film in black and white, and stories told by old men at the local, when the winds of November came cold off the Channel.
So distant, and yet … for a moment, there in the bar of the Hotel de France, the echoes of the past came calling, calling, and trailed a haunting trace of laughter through the air.
It was Christian who spoke up first, shifting his position at the bar, his soft eyes thoughtful. ‘But this war,’ he said, ‘it is over now, and now we all sit here and talk, French and German and American …’
‘And Canadian,’ said Simon.
‘… and Canadian. It is strange, is it not?’
Paul smiled at him. ‘It’s reassuring. Nice to know we can all move forward, once the scars heal over.’
Half swallowed by the shadow in the corner, Neil calmly pointed out that all old scars felt twinges now and then. ‘You can’t erase the memory altogether, unfortunately.’
After another full minute of thoughtful silence Simon leaned forward, reaching for his beer glass. ‘It’s kind of sad, really, when you think about it,’ he said, ‘but I guess for some people the war is never really over, is it?’
It was Jim Whitaker who answered him, but he wasn’t looking at Simon. He wasn’t looking at any of us. Eyes fixed unseeing on the darkened windows, his voice came absently, almost as if it didn’t quite belong to him. ‘No,’ he said, slowly. ‘I don’t believe it is.’
I didn’t sleep well, tossed by dreams. I heard the tramp of soldiers’ feet across the fountain square, the sound of German voices in the rooms below, the lighter running rhythm of a woman’s feet along the corridor. I sighed and shifted restlessly upon the bed, the covers tangling round my legs. Isabelle may not have died in the Hotel de France, but she had left her shadow here. I felt it passing over me, as though she stood beside my bed, and then the curtains at my open window fluttered while the fountain’s song grew louder, lulling me to dark oblivion.