Chapter Three #2
‘Quick-tempered, as I said,’ Zizi replied curtly. ‘She was always worked up about something. That’s why she had to leave Paris, I think: because she talked back to the Germans.’
‘And?’
Zizi stared into the distance, pursing her lips. ‘Clever,’ she said eventually. ‘I’ll give her that. She’d gone to university and had a job at the museum, until the Nazis took over.’
‘Which museum?’ Juliette asked.
Zizi tutted with irritation. ‘I can’t remember. Mon Dieu, all these questions! It was a long time ago.’
Juliette had one last try. ‘It sounds like you weren’t great friends.’
Zizi considered that idea. ‘We were never close. She was a few years older than me, you see, and she and Jacques were too wrapped up in each other to have time for anyone else. He was the most wonderful man, so brave and kind: I adored him. If he’d been my husband, I would never have left his side. ’
‘I wonder where she went,’ Juliette pondered. ‘Didn’t you once tell me that your husband saw her working in a vineyard in the south?’
Zizi pursed her lips. ‘Was it a vineyard, or maybe a rose garden? I really don’t recall. Why are you so interested?’
‘Because she was my grandmother,’ Juliette replied. ‘And I don’t understand why she never told us she’d been married before – to a man who turned out to be a war hero.’
‘Because my generation didn’t tell the whole world our business,’ Zizi said. ‘Unlike you young ones, always shouting from the rooftops. So is this the only reason you come to see me: to ask about Mathilde Duval?’
‘Not at all. You know I love to see you.’ Shamefaced, Juliette reached into her purse. ‘Look, I’ve brought some of the rose soap you like.’
Zizi accepted the tablet graciously and held it to her nose. ‘That is very pleasant, thank you.’ She smiled at Juliette. ‘You’re not such a bad girl, really.’
That evening, Juliette’s brother Andrew finally called back: she’d been trying to reach him for days.
‘Yay, congratulations to Ben and Sophie!’ he crowed, and his familiar voice made her happy all over again. ‘So it looks like the whole family is turning French. Emily had better not come visit in case she falls for some hot Parisian guy.’
‘Now you know that’s not going to happen.’ Juliette had told him several times that her daughter was gay but he continued to ignore the fact – as though this was just a phase Emily was going through. ‘Anyway, Ben and Sophie are going to live in New York.’
‘Ah well, the world is smaller nowadays,’ Andrew replied. ‘You’ll still be able to keep in touch.’
But seeing someone on screen wasn’t the same as holding them in your arms, inhaling the scent of their skin and absorbing their energy.
With a sudden flash of insight, Juliette realised why her visits to Zizi were so important: she was in search of family now that she was divorced and both her mother and grandmother had gone, looking for a connection that would outlast the shifting bonds of friendship.
Yet Zizi couldn’t fill that void; her loyalties would always lie with Nico.
‘I miss you, even though you are a pain in the ass,’ she told her brother. ‘When can we get together?’
‘I’ll come to the wedding if I’m invited,’ he said. ‘I guess it’ll be in France, right? Have they fixed a date?’
‘Sometime in September,’ Juliette replied. ‘They’re with Sophie’s parents right now, trying to organise everything.’
Andrew whistled. ‘So soon? Well, I’m sure I’ve nothing on that can’t be rearranged.’
‘There’ll be a party in New York later,’ Juliette said. ‘So one way or another, we’ll see each other before too long. How’s Rachel?’
She let him talk, enjoying the sound of his voice.
The two of them were closer now than they had been growing up, and the arrival of his girlfriend Rachel two years before had cemented their bond.
Andrew was a tech geek in San Francisco who lived very much on his own terms; Rachel softened him, smoothed off his rough edges and made him realise the effect his blunt manner might have on other people.
He was also Juliette’s business partner.
He’d lent her enough money to keep La Page Cachée afloat in the early days: a gesture of trust and confidence she would never forget.
When he was about to end the call, she suddenly said, ‘Hey, do you remember that vacation we took in Provence with Mom and Mémé, years ago, when we were kids? I was about five, so you must have been seven or eight.’
‘Vaguely,’ he replied. ‘Why?’
‘I want to find out more about Mémé’s life during the war. I mean, we’ve learned Jacques was a hero, hiding all those people in his bookstore, but haven’t you ever wondered what she was she up to?’
‘Can’t say I have. Helping him, I guess,’ Andrew said.
Juliette could tell he’d lost interest but she carried on regardless. ‘No, she’d left Jacques in Paris by then and gone south. About that trip: I was just wondering whether she wanted to show Mom the places she knew. I seem to recall we visited a vineyard, and Nico’s grandma once told me—’
‘Jules, this is kinda dull,’ Andrew interrupted. ‘But listen, you have Mom’s photo albums, don’t you? Why don’t you see if she took any pictures that could give you a lead?’ And with that, he rang off.
Juliette sighed: typical Andrew. He’d made a helpful suggestion, though.
The summer before, she’d gone back to the States to see her kids and sort out which of her clothes and belongings she wanted to keep (not many) and which could be left with the family, sold or given away.
She’d retrieved her mother’s photograph albums then, and they were now languishing with the rest of her worldly goods in Nico’s storage unit.
The trip had been exhausting. Kevin had chosen not to be there while she dismantled their life together, so she and Emily had gone through the heap of things he had set aside.
It was strange to be back in the bedroom she and her husband had shared for so many years, removing the last traces of herself.
Her marriage had failed and, however you looked at it, that was sad.
She knelt on the floor, sorting through the detritus of happier times: photos of family celebrations, clothes she’d worn for parties and anniversary dinners, birthday presents and jewellery Kevin had given her.
She and Emily had both shed a few tears, which surprised Juliette, as her daughter usually kept her emotions under tight control.
Having something practical to do allowed them to spend time in each other’s company without having to talk unless they wanted to, and released from any pressure, gradually Emily’s feelings about Juliette living in France had spilled out.
‘It’s like I’ve lost you,’ she said, blowing her nose and sitting back on her heels with one of Juliette’s sweaters in her lap. ‘And like my whole childhood was a lie. Did you and Dad ever love each other?’
‘We really did,’ Juliette replied. ‘We were so happy when you kids were growing up. We didn’t have much money but we were a team.
And then somehow we drifted apart once you’d left home – or maybe even before – and I didn’t notice.
Look, Dad’s not a horrible person.’ (It had cost her something to say that, but it was true.) ‘There must have been a reason he had an affair.’
Emily snorted. ‘Because he was thinking with his dick. You can’t blame yourself for that.’
‘I’m not,’ Juliette said. ‘Maybe I should take some responsibility, though.’
Emily looked at her for a few seconds without speaking. ‘So what about this new guy?’ she said at last. ‘I mean, he seems nice enough—’ she’d met Nico once on her trip to Paris the previous fall ‘—but isn’t it a bit sudden? And do you really have that much in common?’
‘We’ve led very different lives, it’s true,’ Juliette replied.
‘He’s travelled the world, doing all kinds of different things, while I’ve stayed in one place and raised a family.
Yet when we’re together, it works. Feels like fate, somehow.
We’ve met each other at exactly the right time: he’s ready to settle down while I’m spreading my wings. ’
‘Forgetting you even have children,’ Emily remarked.
‘Of course not!’ Juliette protested, stung.
‘How could you say such a thing? I’ve missed you and Ben like crazy.
But, honey, you’ve already up and gone. Half the time you’re on a ship somewhere in the Southern Ocean, and the rest you’re in Colorado.
Both you and your brother are independent now, which is just as it should be, and I can’t spend my days waiting for you to call.
I’m still here, though. If you ever needed me, I’d drop everything – you must know that. ’
‘I guess.’ Emily held up the sweater. ‘Sure you don’t want this?’ When Juliette shook her head, she added it to the growing pile beside her. ‘And if you and Nico broke up, would you come back to the States?’
‘No.’ Juliette didn’t have to think about her answer.
‘For now, my life is in Paris. I love running the store, being my own boss and talking about books to people who adore them as much as I do. We’ve become part of the community.
Now the square’s busier, the café’s always full, and we hold a book group once a month, and author talks and signings – we even had a cookery demonstration the other day. ’
‘That’s great,’ Emily said, her voice flat. ‘I’m glad you’re happy.’
Juliette put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Isn’t it a relief that you don’t have to worry about me? I could be sleeping with one awful man after another or drinking a bottle of vodka before breakfast.’
‘But I do worry about you,’ Emily burst out. ‘You’re thousands of miles away in a foreign country, in a relationship with some random guy who could be preying on you, for all I know.’
‘Sweetheart, I’m a grown woman,’ Juliette said. ‘You’ll have to trust me, just as I trust you. I’ve been through a lot these past couple of years and it’s made me stronger. We’re fighters, both of us. Remember when Laura walked out? You were in pieces but you picked yourself up and carried on.’
Emily and her first serious girlfriend had been living together for a year when Laura suddenly packed her bags and announced she was leaving, without any warning or explanation.
The next few months had been bleak. Emily lost a lot of weight and looked like she wasn’t sleeping; she wouldn’t talk to anyone, not even Ben, and Juliette was so concerned that eventually she’d flown to Colorado and confronted her daughter.
Emily had been furious at first but Juliette had worn her down: taking her out for dinner, cleaning the apartment, shopping for groceries, dealing with the garbage and a hundred other practical matters that had been let slide.
Finally, Emily had allowed herself to be mothered, though she still couldn’t open up about her feelings.
‘Thanks, Mom,’ was all she’d whispered, hugging Juliette goodbye at the airport. Yet that had been more than enough for Juliette.
‘Whatever life throws at us, we can deal with it,’ she’d told her daughter in that gloomy bedroom in Philadelphia. Brave words, though in her darker moments she wondered what else might be in store, and how much fight she had left in her.