I watched as Claire drank. She closed her eyes briefly. We didn’t serve hot chocolate in the summertime, but I knew how legendary it was because people kept telling me about it.
“Oh,” she said, and this will sound fanciful, but she really did look slightly restored after she drank it; more color in her cheeks and a sparkle in her eyes. And she drank the whole cup with obvious pleasure, the first time I had seen her eat or drink with real appetite in nearly a year.
“Did you come all this way for a cup of hot chocolate?” I asked, and she smiled slightly.
“Well, mostly.”
Thierry followed the exchange and burst into a huge grin.
“I still have it.”
“Of course.”
He poured the last dregs in her cup and she finished them regretfully.
“I shall make you another.”
“You can make me one tomorrow, before I go,” she said.
I looked at Thierry, who had nodded without trying to insist that she stay longer. She had obviously told him everything then.
“Now, Anna,” said Claire, turning her attention to me. “I want to see where you live.”
“Do you?” I said. I wondered who Sami would have staying over today from the demimonde. “No, don’t. It’s up loads of steps, and it’s just a tiny apartment, just a box room really.”
“I’ve come here to see you and I’d like to see it,” said Claire in a “do your homework” voice, so I wheeled her around the corner over the cobbles, leaving the boys behind to work and deal with the lengthening line of excited customers.
- - -
It didn’t take long, even though maneuvering the wheelchair on and off curbs was a tedious business. Paris is not a city built for wheelchairs. As usual, the hallway was in total darkness. Claire scanned the faded list of bells.
“I haven’t put my name on it,” I said. “I’m only here temporarily.”
Claire looked at me with that penetrating gaze of hers.
“Are you?” she said. I squirmed and looked down.
“Uhm, I’m not sure.”
“Well, be careful of those Girard boys,” she said.
I pushed open the heavy door. She could walk if she held my arm.
“I wish…I wish I’d held on to mine,” she added. “I left.”
“I know.”
I found the light and squeezed it hard, then we progressed, very slowly. Upstairs I heard the mysterious door on the first landing open again. My heart sank. Oh no. That scary old woman. The last thing I needed now was for her to march out on the landing and start having a go at me because Sami’s chums kept leaving the door on the latch and played music at unlikely times of day.
We ascended the stairs at a glacial pace, as the door creaked itself wide apart. Claire stopped still on the landing. I blinked. Just before the light went out, I saw the other woman standing there too. She was incredibly old, her hair white, her figure bent over.
“Claire?” she breathed.
- - -
Madame LeGuarde’s apartment still contained much of the old furniture from the days when her family had owned the entire house. It was grand and baroque, but a little much for the space. It was, however, impeccably tidy and luxurious, a thick Persian rug in the spacious front room. There was even a maid, who sat us down and went off and brought back cups of lemon tea in bone china cups.
The two women were gazing at each other.
“I didn’t know,” said the older woman.
Claire shook her head. “Why would you?”
She finally turned around to introduce me.
“Anna, this is Marie-Noelle LeGuarde. I lived here too when I first came to Paris.”
“Upstairs?”
“Yes, upstairs, but it was all one house then.”
“Before the socialists,” grimaced Mme. LeGuarde. “And of course, we all divorced. It was quite fashionable back then.”
“What about Arnaud and Claudette?”
“Both well. Claudette lives near here and comes around often; her children are wonderfully good to me. Arnaud is in Perpignan, getting a suntan.”
Claire smiled. “They were dear children.”
“They are,” said Mme. LeGuarde. “And they were very fond of you.”
A silence fell between them.
“With…with Thierry…”
Mme. LeGuarde lowered her head.
“I apologize. I am sorry. I thought it was a summer fling that would fizzle out and you would both be better for it. So did your mother.”
“My mother?”
Mme. LeGuarde nodded. “I miss her very much, you know. We were pen pals our whole lives.”
“My mother said you could take the letters?”
“I was Thierry’s poste restante when he was at the conflict, yes. We both thought it was the right thing to do. And you know, then the divorce and I will say, I had very little time for romance in my life just then.”
“All that time I blamed my dad.”
Mme. LeGuarde smiled. “Never underestimate the power of a woman. I am sorry. I thought it was right.”
Claire shook her head. “I was so sad.”
“He was too,” said Mme. LeGuarde. “And when he got back from Beirut…Oh, Claire. You would not have known him. He was not the same man. He saw some things he should not have seen. He put on a happy face once more, but he was not happy, not anymore.”
Claire nodded. “I see.”
“And then of course you got married and your mother was so happy…she liked Richard a lot, you know.”
“I do know. He really spoiled her, was always taking her out for tea or buying her presents.” She smiled in memory. “I thought he was being a suck-up. Now I think about it, he was being terribly polite and kind. He’s a very good man.”
“That’s what she said.”
We finished our tea and the two women embraced.
“You are not well,” observed Mme. LeGuarde. She seemed, I thought, a very straightforward kind of a person. I liked her.
“No,” said Claire.
“And I am very old.”
“Yes.”
“When do you leave?”
“Tomorrow.”
They paused at the door.
“So,” said Mme. LeGuarde. “In another life.”
“I hope so,” said Claire, and the two women embraced and I stood back a little.