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SABINE
PARIS, 1987
Sabine had been listening to Monsieur Géroux recount the first days of opening the restaurant in awe, and was shocked to find that over two hours had passed. She needed to catch a train.
‘Oh, monsieur,’ she said, with regret. ‘I’m sorry, I need to get to work, my shift at the library – well, it’s already started.’
Monsieur Géroux blinked, looking at his own watch in his surprise. He seemed shocked too. ‘Is that not the way?’ he mused. ‘I wasn’t, you know, looking forward to discussing the past, and when I did finally start, I find I can’t shut up. Forgive me – and I didn’t even get to… well, you know.’
He meant that they hadn’t as yet got to that awful night, when everything changed, and Marianne poisoned all her customers.
Sabine waved her hands. ‘No, this was better,’ she said, meaning it. ‘It’s so much more than I could ever have imagined – to get a real feel of what it was like back then. Look, I hope this is not presumptuous of me, but if you find you still want to share, I’d love to hear more. Perhaps I could take you to dinner – maybe Thursday night?’
Monsieur Géroux nodded. ‘You know,’ he said, in more of the same, shocked voice, like he was surprised at himself, ‘I’d like that.’
Sabine was glad.
‘Should we meet at Pistachios at seven?’ Pistachios was a fashionable local bistro, that was covered in wisteria in spring and was famed for its cassoulet. This was according to the entry she’d looked up in her Michelin Guide for France; it was well-thumbed, and she and her husband, Antoine, often made weekend trips to restaurants and villages based on its recommendation.
‘Perfect. The cassoulet is good, so I’ve read.’
She smiled, wondering if he did the same thing.
In the afternoon, Sabine was sorting through the returns at the Montparnasse library where she worked, and putting them back on the shelves, when Antoine came past.
He was tall with gangly limbs, big brown eyes and an easy smile. He worked ten minutes away; he couldn’t wait to hear what had happened. ‘So – what did he say?’
Katrine, the other librarian, saw and mouthed, ‘Ooh la la,’ at her, and despite the fact that they’d been married now for five years, she blushed. Antoine made it worse by leaning forward and giving her a lip-smacking smooch for Katrine’s benefit. Sabine’s colleague laughed uproariously, stopping only when a customer gave her a silencing look from one of the tables near the back.
‘Tea break,’ said Sabine, pulling Antoine away, to a local café around the corner for a quick takeaway. ‘Can’t be long – I was already late this morning.’
Antoine was the only person Sabine had told when she found out about her grandmother. She’d tried to keep it to herself but he dragged it out of her after her meeting with the lawyer.
When she’d finally told him, she’d been hesitant. ‘I want to tell you, but I’m afraid of what you’ll think.’
His eyes had bulged. ‘You can tell me anything, my love – gosh, even if you killed someone I’d still adore you.’
Sabine had issued a short, barking laugh. ‘Funny you should say that.’
Antoine had looked shocked. ‘What? You really did kill someone?’
Sabine had shaken her head, ‘No, not me…’ and proceeded to tell him everything.
Antoine was a good listener. He’d kept any potential gasps to a minimum, apart from when she told him her mother was adopted.
‘You can’t be serious – Marguerite? But she looked like your grandmother Aimee!’
‘Right!’ she’d exclaimed, she’d thought the same thing. ‘But no; the lawyer showed me the paperwork, she was definitely adopted.’
And when Sabine had told him how her biological grandmother had killed all those people, he’d swallowed, and looked at her with such empathy. ‘How awful for you to find that out.’
Later, he’d said, ‘I’m not excusing anything but those were dark times, maybe there was more to the story.’
Now as they sipped their takeaway drinks outside the library, watching as people walked past, wrapped up against the spring chill, he asked about her visit to Monsieur Géroux, and Sabine filled him in on everything that had happened.
He looked amazed. ‘It’s incredible. I mean, it’s so horrid what she did, of course, but to actually hear an account from someone who knew her – amazing.’
Sabine agreed. ‘It makes her, I don’t know, more real somehow. Though that’s hard too. I mean, yes, what I’m hearing is a young man’s memories of her, but I can’t help liking her so far – isn’t that awful?’
