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Even now, after all these years, she could recall the sensation of the back of his hand held, like a question mark, against the back of hers.
‘Reste ici,’ he said. Stay. ‘Jusqu’à ce que la tempête se calme.’
But the snowstorm hadn’t calmed. It had whirled around the church for more than an hour. It had lasted more than long enough.
Jérome. Mireille closed her eyes and let all the air escape from her lungs. For one breathless moment, she lived in the life that might have been, had either of them – or both of them – been just a little bit braver.
‘Ça suffit.’ She shook herself back to reality. Enough. She was making up for it, that long ago failure of courage. She was more than making up for it now.
* * *
In the two seats across the aisle, Yeva and Olena were curled into each other, watching videos on Yeva’s phone. Olena was visible only from the shoulders down. She was wearing Mireille’s yellow hat and holding a very pretty hand-painted teapot on her lap. Mireille could see that Yeva was wearing the chunky watch the police had returned to her.
He hadn’t looked hopeful, that skinny young officer, when Yeva had described her father’s watch to him. If anything, he had looked especially discouraged as she had painstakingly detailed the particular navy blue of its face and the red Swiss Army symbol, just like on the knives. Nevertheless, he had disappeared into a back office and had returned moments later with a watch that matched Yeva’s description. He held it out to her with eyebrows raised.
Mireille had watched as the girl swallowed back her tears. She had nodded solemnly at the policeman. He, in return, had smiled broadly and slipped the watch onto her wrist.
Mireille, for her part, had shaken hands with the young policeman, and implored everyone to hurry so that they wouldn’t miss their train.
* * *
It hadn’t taken much – concerningly little in fact – to convince Commissaire Cloutier to place the two girls in her care. Officially, they were released to the temporary guardianship of Commissaire Antoine Delassus of the Dijon police force, but that was merely a formality. Mireille didn’t want to think about what Antoine had made of the out-of-hours phone call from the Paris Commissariat, but whatever his response was, it seemed to have done the trick. The legalities, evidently, had been negotiated.
The real difficulty had been in convincing Yeva to leave Paris. Her father knew they were in Paris, and she had promised not to move without telling him. Yeva had shaken her head furiously and stood stubbornly with her back against the wall, refusing to budge, while all the while Olena sat next to Mireille, surreptitiously holding her hand. It had seemed like an impasse until the commissaire had made a pledge to investigate the man’s whereabouts and to keep Antoine Delassus informed on every detail of her progress.
Antoine. Mireille took a breath and steeled her nerve at the thought of facing him. He had promised to pick them up from the station, amid dire warnings that she, a grown-up woman of seventy-nine, had a lot of explaining to do. Nervously, she drummed her fingers against the shiny brown leather of the bag on the seat beside her.
And that brought her to Rémy. Had they helped each other or hindered, and could such questions ever be answered? She wondered whether it was a lack of courage that had prevented Rémy from leaving her for the person in Paris he so obviously loved, or whether, having promised his life to Mireille, it was for her sake that he stayed. Maybe there was a point in time when they could each have released the other from their secrets. She would never know. They had been happy enough, she thought, in their own way.
She opened the bag, pulled out the tin of pastilles and passed it across the aisle. She had to rattle it a little to draw Yeva’s attention from the screen of her phone, but the girl, when she looked up, appeared calmer than she had at the station. She took the sweets with a polite smile and handed them to her sister.
Mireille pointed to the watch on Yeva’s wrist. ‘Ça te dérangesi je regarde ta montre?’ Could she look at it?
Yeva nodded eagerly. She sat up in her seat and turned to face Mireille, as if she was pleased to have something they could share. She slipped the watch off and passed it across the aisle.
Mireille felt the weight of it in her palm. It was nothing new to her, the way ownership and daily use could turn a mere object into a belonging, and the way a belonging could hold a spirit close.
‘Quels beaux mots,’ she said, looking at the inscription. What beautiful words.
A look of confusion crossed Yeva’s face, and she held out her hand for the watch. She examined the back of it and tilted her head far to one side, as if it hurt. ‘Ce n’était pas là avant.’ That wasn’t there before. Tears brimmed in her eyes.
‘Es-tu sûr?’
Yeva looked at the words again and shook her head in confusion. No, she wasn’t sure.
‘Mais, pourquoi c’est en anglais?’
Mireille shrugged. Perhaps, she thought, it was because it was in English that Yeva hadn’t noticed it.
‘Nous avons tous nos secrets,’ she said. We all have our secrets.
Mireille could think of no easy explanation for a Ukrainian man’s watch having an inscription in English, but then, as she well knew, life didn’t always provide all the answers. She reached across the aisle and squeezed Yeva’s arm.
It occurred to her that the girl might not understand the words. ‘Comprends-tu les mots?’
‘Oui, bien sûr.’ Yeva smiled, displaying just a little bit of pride in her linguistic proficiency. She read the inscription aloud. ‘Together, for all time.’
Mireille nodded. There was nothing more to say.
