But if things had been different, Cady never would have come to Paris.
Madame Martin breezed back into the restaurant and sat down with a plop, taking a great gulp of champagne.
“Je suis désolée,”she excused herself. “So, what are we talking about?”
“Having children,” Jean-Paul responded without hesitation.
Madame Martin straightened, her eyes wide, looking at one, then the other. Jean-Paul chuckled.
“Oh,you,” Madame Martin said, slapping him playfully on the arm. “You like to tease.”
“We are talking about Château Clement and its surrounding drama,” Jean-Paul said. “As usual.”
“Did Jean-Paul mention to you that he is traveling to the village of Saint-Véran at the end of next week?” Madame Martin asked. “Perhaps you could go with him and see it for yourself.”
“Oh, thank you. I’m heading back to California next week,” Cady said.
“Paris is a world-class city, but there is more to France than Paris. There are many fascinating regions with their own histories and ways of doing things,” Madame Martin continued. “You should see more of the country before you return to the United States. Provence is a different world.”
“Oh, I couldn’t—,” Cady started to say.
“Jean-Paul, tell her she would be welcome.”
“You would be welcome,” said Jean-Paul dutifully.
“That’s very nice of you, but no, thank you.”
“You don’t trust me,” Jean-Paul said. It was more a statement than a question.
“Not really, no,” Cady said.
Madame Martin looked taken aback.
“It’s not him, it’s me,” Cady assured her. “I’ve never been particularly good with people.”
Jean-Paul gave Cady a slow, searching smile.
“What?” she demanded.
He responded in English: “You see? Lack of guiles.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
1944
PARIS
Fabrice
Defiance of the invading Germans, and of his own parents, was what first led Fabrice to the meeting of the Résistance. But Paulette was his motivation to return. She was the true reason for the depth of his anti-German fervor, for his willingness to give his life for the Résistance.
Paulette. She was all he could think about.
He would not admit this to anyone, least of all to Paulette.
Fabrice knew he should hate the Nazis for occupying Paris, and he did; he avoided them on the street, refusing to meet their eyes or speak to them unless compelled. In silent protest he carried in his satchel a book,Le Silence de la Mer—The Silence of the Sea—by Jean Bruller; in it, an old man and his niece refuse to speak to the German officer occupying their house. At first Fabrice couldn’t believe such a story had been published during the war, but later he learned it was put out by one of the underground publishing houses set up to circumvent Vichy and German censorship.
He found the book in the abandoned apartment of their neighbor Monsieur Schreyer, an ancient widower who used to feed stray catsand play his mournful violin late into the night. Monsieur Schreyer had disappeared one day, like so many others Fabrice had grown up with in the neighborhood: the owners of the jewelry shop that was set afire, or the kind woman who used to sneak Fabrice sweets out her window when he was a child. More than twenty students from his school, who simply stopped coming to class.
