Cady showed Johnny how to clean off the ornately framed mirrors, taking care to avoid any broken glass, while Jean-Paul rolled up his sleeves and started tinkering with the engine and the sweep mechanisms; he had researched carousels the night before, trying to understand how the basic machinery worked.
Cady found an old ladder and climbed up to check out the rounding boards, where flat decorative panels took turns with three-dimensional shields boasting jesters’ faces. Using cotton balls soaked in the specialty cleanser Élodie had given her, Cady carefully wiped soot and grime from the painted sections.
Inch by inch, she uncovered delicately detailed landscapes and wild animals, tigers and lions as well as mythological creatures: a unicorn and a hippogriff. Thanks to the cleaning solution, the process was straightforward enough for Johnny to handle it, with the instruction to proceed slowly and gently. Cady was eager to move on to her true love: the carousel figures themselves.
She climbed down from the ladder to check out Johnny’s progress with the mirrors, then went over to see what Jean-Paul was up to: He was on his back and had crawled under the platform with a flashlight.
“What are you looking for?”
“Just wanted to see how it works,” came his muffled reply. “Wecould probably reinstall those poles without too much effort, as long as all these pistons are still working. But of course the poles will wait until you’ve got the pieces in good shape.”
“Do you suppose there’s any way to track down all the missing figures?”
He crawled out from under the carousel floor. Cobwebs stuck to his hair, and dirt and soot smeared his sweatshirt. He looked... adorable.
“It would take a lot of detective work,” he said, jumping to his feet and putting his hands on his hips. “And even if you tracked them down, if they wound up in the hands of collectors they would cost a fortune. How would we come up with the money to pay for them?”
“Good question.”
“As I told you, I’ll make sure there are no others left in family hands. But beyond that, would they have to be originals?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve seen carousel pieces, here and there, over the years,” he said. “Junky pieces you could pick up cheap, redo, and add to the menagerie.”
Cady thought back on the wood carvings she had noticed in the antiques shop display in Avignon, and the carousel horse she had admired in Maxine’s window so long ago. Jean-Paul was right—there were random carousel animals to be found, especially those in need of restoration. But did she have the time? How long could she impose on Fabrice? His ankle was improving, and knowing him, she realized he might ask her to leave again if she displeased him in some way. And besides all that, she had a life in California she should be getting back to. Didn’t she?
“Think about it,” said Jean-Paul, warming to the theme. “You could adopt figures and add them to your set.”
Over the years, Cady had photographed carousels that contained a menagerie of animals, carved by different artists. The children didn’t mind; in fact, they loved the variety. Who said Château Clement’s carousel animals had to be a matched set?
She thought back to Maxine adopting broken, misshapen, unwanted items, cleaning them up and loving them and finding them a home.
Making them whole again.
• • •
After a pleasant lunch with Fabrice—Jean-Paul and Cady held up most of the conversation, but Johnny and Fabrice put in a comment here and there—Johnny left for the day, and Jean-Paul and Cady headed to Guido’s place.
“His family from Italy came after the war,” explained Jean-Paul as they drove. “A lot of Italians, and Spaniards, immigrated into France following World War II.”
“I thought France took a while to recover after the war.”
He nodded. “It did. But Italy and Spain were hit even harder.”
Given the small-town feeling of Saint-Véran, Cady had expected to find a very small shop. But Le Bricolage de Valenti turned out to be an impressively large store, providing not only tile but other floor coverings and installation supplies to the entire region.
Guido greeted Jean-Paul with enthusiastic kisses on the cheeks, and was charming to Cady. He apologized for being too busy with customers to show them to the darkroom, but assured Cady that she should help herself and that she would find everything she needed.
Guido wasn’t exaggerating; his darkroom was well supplied. Most darkrooms were extremely orderly. So much of the work was done in the dark, or near-dark, that it was essential to have all the items close at hand and in their right place. Dozens of neatly labeled bottles and jars lined the shelves:DEVELOPER, STOP BATH, FIXER.
“I’ve never done this before,” Jean-Paul said. “Put me to work?”
Cady smiled. “This is more a one-person job. But you can keep me company.”
She showed him how to uncoil the rolls of film, using only the sense of touch in the absolute dark, loading them onto reels to produce negatives. These needed to dry for a while before she and Jean-Paul couldexamine them on the light table to see whether there were any photos that were salvageable, and worth printing.
In the meantime, they went back to the Bricolage and perused Guido’s floor-covering selection, amusing themselves by finding old-fashioned-looking ceramics and stone that would look good in this room or that of Château Clement. Guido kept a portfolio of historic homes he had helped to supply in renovation. Cady watched as Jean-Paul flipped through the laminated pages, pointing to a hallway here, a set of bay windows there, speaking of which elements might work in his family’s château.
