He banged on the door again.“Maman! Papa! Capucine!”
Still nothing. He was about to use his key when he saw the silk curtains rustle in the window on the corner. Fabrice ran into the apartment foyer and up a winding stairway to the second floor. He banged on the door of the old woman but heard no answer. He tried the knob; it was unlocked, so he burst in.
The old woman was sitting in an upholstered chair by the window. The apartment was humbly furnished, and Fabrice remembered a time when his mother had sent him with a hunk of bread and a pot of soup when the old woman suffered from pneumonia. But for the life of him he could not remember her name.
“Did you see anything?” he demanded. “Have you seen my family?”
She shrank back from Fabrice’s ire.
“Madame, excusez-moi. But did...” He was afraid to even say the words. “Did anyone come? Did the... did soldiers come?”
Finally, she answered in a flat voice:“Ce matin.”
This morning.
“But what did they... where did they go?” he stammered. “What do I do?”
She pulled her black shawl tighter and shook her head, sadness in every move.
“What do I do?”Fabrice shouted, wanting to hit her, wanting to hurt her. Wanting to ask why she did not intervene to help the kind neighbor lady who had sent her bread and soup when she was ill.
Fabrice returned to Charpenterie Clement, hesitated a moment, then slipped his key into the rusty lock and turned the latch. He pushed the door in carefully.
“Allo? Maman? Papa?”
He knew it was dangerous; the Nazis often left a young soldier behind to round up the strays, anyone coming to look for their loved ones. But in this moment Fabrice almost hoped for arrest, to be reunited with his family, even under these circumstances. He was desperate to know what had happened to them, where they had been taken. Would they be sent to a work camp? Or perhaps they would be released—some people were released, after all, and Marc-Antoine had skills that might be useful to the occupying forces. Capucine was nothing but a sticky cherub, barely five years old; surely she would not be seen as any kind of threat. Or... would his parents be tortured for information? Information abouthim? They knew nothing; he had never told them about any of his activities. Which meant they would have no tidbits to offer the Gestapo to trade for their lives.
These thoughts whirled around in Fabrice’s head, incessant, excruciating.
The workshop was empty; boot marks marred the film of wood dust on the broad-planked floor. One shelf had been knocked over, the tools and squares and knives scattered in the doorway.
Upstairs, in their apartment, a pot of cabbage soup still sat on the stove, but the fire was off, the broth gone cold. He ducked into his parents’ bedroom, and then the one he shared with his baby sister. The beds were neatly made, but the closet doors stood open, the contents ransacked. Surrounding the small desk by the window, papers and books had been tossed on the carpet like oversized confetti.
The Nazis came for people, but they always checked for valuables. It was the way of it.
Fabrice stumbled back down the stairs, his mind a blank.
The Madonna stood atop the workbench, her hand repaired, her blue velvet robes mended, fruitlessly praying for them all.
Fabrice knocked her to the ground, cursing her name.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
PRESENT DAY
CHÂTEAU CLEMENT
Cady
Johnny showed up with a black eye.
“Where’d you get that?” Cady asked.
He shrugged. “A fight.”
“I should see the other guy, huh?”
“What?” he asked with a sneer.
