The Last Time I Saw Paris - Lynn Sheene [41]
Days passed. Claire heard nothing. Her nerves started to fray. Then one morning, a week later, she opened the doors at nine o’clock and found Odette waiting outside. Claire made an excuse to Madame, slipped on her coat and joined Odette.
The women walked for blocks before a word was spoken. Pleasantries seemed absurd and the truth, too dangerous to be said aloud. They took a left on boulevard Malesherbes.
“It is a good day to walk,” Odette said.
Claire nodded. A chill in the air, but at least the sun was out. “We going far?”
“Un peu,” Odette said. A little. She flashed Claire a smile. “But perhaps we will take the Métro back, no?”
Claire grinned back at Odette. Freedom, at least a form of it, would be hers in the form of a little slip of paper.
“Have you been to the ninth arrondissement yet? Have you seen Cimetière de Montmartre?” Odette asked.
A cemetery? “Not at the top of my list, Odette.”
“We will be near there. Not a place for us to see today, but you should visit.”
“You French and your dead people.”
Odette chuckled. “History surrounds us. You cannot open your eyes, not in Paris, and see something that wasn’t touched by someone long gone.” She took a sideways glance at Claire. “You, maybe, run from your ghosts. Here, they live among us.”
Claire buried her gloved hands deep in her pockets. Odette had no idea how many ghosts trailed behind Claire.
Claire began to tire by the time they turned down rue Jean-Baptiste Pigalle. The buildings were old, sculpted grey stone, like any other neighborhood. But the flavor was dark and the neighborhood seemed to be sleeping off a long night. Unshaven men in tattered clothes leaned against doorways.
She peered into a darkened bar; the odor of stale cigarettes and sour wine wafted out. “Interesting place.”
“Not much farther.” Odette held her eyes firmly on the sidewalk in front of her.
Claire sighed. It reminded her of Fifty-Second Street in New York. A lifetime ago, before she was Claire Harris Stone, she’d spent many evenings at the Three Deuces, Kelly’s Stable or the Spotlight. That was where she had first heard Billie Holliday. She could still feel the tug of the singer’s forlorn voice in her chest.
This place, Le Renard Noir, might have been a jazz club once; she’d heard they had been big in Montmarte before the war. Not anymore. The Nazis had proclaimed jazz to be degenerate Negro-Jewish music and banned it.
They entered the faded lobby of an apartment building. Odette led her up one flight of stairs and down a narrow hallway to an odd-shaped door at the end. She knocked on the door hard once, paused, then rapped three more times.
“Yes?” a muffled voice asked.
“It’s Danielle,” Odette said, her voice low.
Claire looked over at her questioningly.
“Here, I’m Danielle,” she said, under her breath.
The door creaked and opened. A teenage boy peeked out, bundled in heavy layers, the faintest line of fuzz across his upper lip. He peered up and down the empty hallway, opened the door wide and gestured them in.
The room was more of a janitor’s supply closet than an apartment. Stacks of doorknobs, buckets and empty cans lined the walls. An unmade cot was tucked in one corner, a workbench piled with pipes and machinery in the other.
He glanced over at Claire. “This is her?” he asked Odette.
Odette nodded. “You have what you need?”
“Oui.” He grabbed a camera from the bench and snapped photos of Claire posing against a drab white wall. “Three hours.”
Odette turned to Claire. “We’ll come back.” She poked her head out the door, then stepped out.
Claire followed; she glanced over her shoulder at the boy, now hunched over equipment at his workbench. He didn’t look up.
“Danielle?” Claire asked as they stepped out onto the street.
Odette glanced at her watch. “There is a place