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GILBERT
PARIS, 1987
Monsieur Géroux stared at the order slip.
Marianne had never meant for Henri to be there that night. He was sure of that now. It was there, in black and white.
Perhaps Henri hadn’t got the note somehow?
Even so, it wasn’t as Monsieur Géroux had believed for years – that Marianne had somehow asked him to work there that night. Henri’s last words, ‘I have to go,’ had over time come to mean something else to Gilbert, not a plea to get away from the pain and heartache that lay in store for him in witnessing his mother’s passing but something else, an obligation, perhaps?
Gilbert had tortured himself with those words for decades, and now – now he at least knew she hadn’t actually wanted Henri there.
Henri’s death was the thing that had confused the authorities the most. It was what had made them believe that Marianne had somehow snapped or was some kind of sociopath.
Six people were poisoned that night: four were Nazi officers; two were French; one was from the Resistance, Louisa, the woman that Sara had disliked so intensely, as they had a power play for leadership of their chapter; the other was Henri.
Louisa – it was thought by the authorities – was a collaborator, which would have served as motivation for Marianne, along with the Nazis, but Henri?
She had adored the boy, right from the start. The two were always laughing and she was quick to give him an affectionate hug. Gilbert had seen it often enough, and was usually included in her big bear hugs. He remembered telling the authorities that the following day.
It was like he was living a nightmare, after losing his mother, to discover what had happened to his brother. None of it had seemed real. When one of them asked if they thought it was possible that Henri was a covert collaborator, he remembered actually bursting out laughing. ‘They called him Dummkopf and they thought he didn’t know what it meant. But he wasn’t an idiot. He might have come to tolerate them, but he despised them really, that’s why he mocked them to their faces.’
