“But if I’ve been robbed of my childhood, then I am already a man. You could love a man, could you not?”
She gave a humorless laugh. “My dear, dear Fabrice. You are so brave, so capable... but you are still very young, and naive. Let’s not get off track. Sit back, relax, and let us plan the victory dinner we shall make when we win this wretched war. What will be our aperitif?”
• • •
One day Fabrice was summoned to the doctor’s office.
Paulette ushered him into an exam room as though he were a patient. The doctor asked him to take off his shirt and placed the cold end of a stethoscope against his chest, as though examining him.
“There is a submarine base in Saint-Nazaire,” Dr. Duhamel said in a low voice. “The British forces want to attack it, but they need photographs.Cough.”
Fabrice coughed.
“The only people allowed to come near are children on field trips, who are shown the base as a way to impress them with the strength of the Nazi fleet. Garçon, you are doing an exemplary job with the informational pamphlets. But there are not many who could manage this assignment.” He paused, gazed out the window for a moment, then turned back. “You are young enough to be in school. Are you good with a camera?”
This was his chance. Fabrice’s heart pounded; it embarrassed him that the doctor would be able to hear it through his stethoscope. This was his chance to prove to Paulette that he was more than a boy.
“I will go,” said Fabrice. “I will take photos.”
“This is a very dangerous mission,” warned the doctor. His tone had a resigned sort of hope to it. The physician had been a healer of bodies for decades, but was now called on to help heal his country, and seemed unsure that he was up to the task.
“I understand.”
“I would not ask this of you, but this intelligence is essential for the Allies.”
“I am not afraid. I want to do it.”
Just then Paulette came to the door to tell the doctor he had a phone call.
Fabrice held Paulette’s gaze and repeated, “I will go.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
PRESENT DAY
CHÂTEAU CLEMENT
Cady
The château grounds looked different in the morning sunshine. The phantoms of the night had vanished, replaced by glistening trees and buildings freshly washed by the rain. Still, the beautiful morning did little to improve the estate’s ramshackle appearance, much less the broken windows and graffiti.
As Lucy sniffed at the grass, Cady looked around.
Who would paint graffiti out here in the otherwise bucolic French countryside? Cady was accustomed to seeing “tagging” on the streets of Oakland, but she was disappointed to find it in this pastoral setting. She preferred to think of Château Clement as a place out of time, as in a fairy tale, but apparently it was as depressingly real as anywhere else.
The tag readJTC, in a stylized graffiti script Cady recognized from her days running the streets of Oakland. She had never been a tagger, but had known plenty who were. Jonquilla had tried her hand at it for a while, before she lost interest in anything but pursuing the next high. The last time Cady had seen her childhood friend, Jon was panhandling on a street corner in downtown Berkeley. Neither of them spoke. Cady gave Jon her last five-dollar bill and walked away.
Gravel crunched underfoot as Cady led Lucy across the courtyard to peek into the same window as last night. But now, in the daylight, she didn’t hear band organ music, much less see what she’d thought—for an instant—she had seen last night. There seemed to be another structure within, as though the outer building were a shell built around a smaller interior construction. There were some covered items, what looked like old tractor parts, random pieces of lumber, an old tire. Panels here and there, like a very large three-part folding screen. Maybe she had imagined that one of the tarp-covered lumps was a carousel figure. Had she wanted to see it that badly?
It was still hard to make out much through the grime of the windowpane, but there were several large panels that appeared to be blackened with soot.
Jean-Paul had told her the carousel had been destroyed by fire.
She tried the doors, but they were locked.
Cady knew she shouldn’t snoop, but other than holding a gun on her, Fabrice hadn’t seemed overly concerned about her nosiness last night. She had started to go around the side of the building in search of another door when she heard the sound of breaking glass.
“What was that?” Cady asked Lucy, who sat waiting patiently, wagging her tail.
