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‘Yes?’
‘Moi aussi.’
His face broke into a wide, toothy smile. ‘Oh yeah?’
She nodded. He held each of her shoulders and kissed her, in the Parisian manner, first on the right cheek, then the left. She laughed.
He was jumpy, struggling to contain an explosion of emotion.
‘Je t’aime,’ she said.
That gave him pause. He ran his hands down her arms until he was holding her hands between his. ‘Will you come with me?’
‘Je ne sais pas.I can’t decide just like that. Let me think.’
‘Okay. Good,’ he said. ‘You think. And then we’ll work it out.’
He kissed her again, on the mouth this time, and hard.
‘Ow,’ he said, a gurgle of laughter. ‘My lip hurts.’
Noémie kissed the tip of her finger, then held it gently against the sore lump on Dan’s lower lip.
‘Je te ferai un bisou magique,’ she said. ‘How do you say it?’
Dan wrapped both his arms around her and pulled Noémie’s body close against his own. His voice, when he spoke, was low and warm and brimming with hope.
‘Kiss it better,’ he said, and she did.
La Gare de Lyon
The iron and glass roof of the train station broke the sun into lofty shafts of light and shade. Yeva, leaning against the dark side of a pillar, tucked each of her hands up the end of the opposite sleeve of her sweatshirt to warm them up. Sitting on the Métro, on the way back from rue Saint-Denis, she’d been overtaken by a bout of shivering. All night, even with Olena’s body beside her, she’d felt as though her bones were frozen, chilling her from the inside out. She inhaled deeply now, sucking in the warm caramel smell of American coffee.
Sunday was her favourite morning here. It was less frantic than weekdays. There were fewer passengers coming and going and they were quieter. It would be easier to spot someone she knew.
She didn’t really expect her father to alight from one of the arriving trains. She knew that any traveller from Ukraine was more likely to arrive at the Gare du Nord, just as she and Olena had done back in March, but she didn’t like the Gare du Nord. It didn’t calm her down like this place did. It only reminded her of waving off the Kravets when they moved on to England. She had reached the realisation that there was so little likelihood of her father arriving, by plane or train or special transport, that it hardly mattered where she waited. The thing she believed in was that he was more likely to come if she made a point of being there, waiting.
The station had become a sort of touchstone now, so that she felt a superstitious obligation to walk through it every morning. On weekdays, when commuters pushed past Yeva in their hurry, slowing her circuit of the platforms and blocking her view, she was sometimes crushed by an absolute certainty that her father had arrived and that she couldn’t see him. She would step up onto benches, standing tall and spinning around, hoping he would see her, sick to her stomach at the thought of him missing her. On Sundays, it was better. She could survey whole platforms at a glance. She felt a quiet sureness that she would see him, if he came.
Right now, she was keeping one eye on the door of Le Train Bleu. A half hour earlier, she’d seen the elderly lady from yesterday, the lady she’d linked arms with, walking up the broad staircase that led to the station’s posh restaurant. She still had her walking stick, but she was leaning on the arm of a younger woman, who was carrying that crazy yellow hat. After the restaurant door had swung closed behind them, Yeva had run up the stairs and surveyed the menu forpetit déjeuner. The extravagance of it, smoked salmon and champagne at prices that would have more than covered her rent, made her lips twitch in irritation.
In her head, she had done the same sums over and over. Sixty-five euros plus last night’s hundred left her only thirty-five euros short. Of course, even if she got it, they’d still need to eat, and the same amount again would be due in a fortnight, but there was no point in thinking beyond today. It wasn’t so much. There had to be a way.
A uniformed waiter held open the restaurant door while the elderly lady and her companion shuffled out, followed by a porter who carried the lady’s brown leather bag. At the bottom of the staircase the two women embraced, the elderly lady taking hold of the younger woman’s elbows and kissing her on both cheeks. For a moment, it seemed to Yeva, that the two women were going to stand there all day, like those gold-painted living statues you saw on the streets.
At last, the elderly lady made a show of looking at her watch and held out her hand for the yellow hat. The younger woman made a move to give the hat to the porter, seeming to suggest that he would carry it and the bag, but the lady refused. She said something that made the younger woman laugh, then took the hat and put it on her head. The younger woman took the bag from the porter, exchanging it for a tip, and waved him away.
The two women walked to a kiosk where the elderly lady bought a newspaper and a tin of sweets. Then, arm in arm, they crossed to a bench that was catching the morning light and faced each other again. They clasped hands for no longer than a second, before the younger woman handed the bag to the elderly lady, then turned on her heel and quickly walked out of the station.
Yeva watched the old lady lower herself onto the bench. She opened the tin of sweets, popped one into her mouth, and tucked the tin and the newspaper into an outside pocket of her bag. She kicked the bag under the seat with the heel of her shoe and leaned her walking stick against the end of the bench. She looked at her watch again, then seemed to settle back into the seat. Her head tipped slightly forwards. Yeva could just about see the woman’s chin below the brim of the hat, but sensed that, even if she wasn’t quite asleep, her eyes were closed.
Yeva stepped out of the shadow of the pillar and, making her steps slow and casual, sauntered over to the bench. She sat down, as close as she dared. She smelled the same clean lavender scent that she’d noticed before. The lady was completely still, so still that Yeva wondered if she might be dead. She peered at the lady’s hands. Her skin was thin and speckled with age. A knotted vein close to the knuckle pulsed with life. Yeva breathed in, then out. It was a sigh of pure relief.
She closed her eyes, thinking how good the warmth of the sun felt on her back. The idling hum of a train, the steady clack of a wheelie bag, the hissing release of steam from a coffee machine, a cooing bird, a ringing bell, a binging phone, all melded together into an insulating cushion of noise. In that moment, Yeva felt the weight of responsibility lifted from her. She felt minded.
The respite didn’t last.
Yeva was snatched out of her reverie by the sensation of something hitting her arm and a cold, bony hand grasping her wrist.
