The Last Time I Saw Paris - Lynn Sheene [70]
Her gaze turned toward her dresser, hidden in the darkness, and the bundle strapped behind it. She imagined the cold weight of the diamonds in her hand. Her nest egg, the Cartier. She could take it and run, pay her way to be smuggled over the Pyrenees to Spain then God knew where.
A soft breeze against her cheek called her attention back to the brightening city. Her body softened as her eyes feasted on the dark lace of the Eiffel Tower against a violet sky that shifted to cobalt, then intensified to a luminous powder blue. Her heart ached in her chest. The beauty here had entered her soul. Running would feel like death. She couldn’t abandon Paris. Not today.
Claire rose early and readied the store, changing water in the buckets, tidying the back counters and shelves, trimming back weakened stems and curling leaves, polishing the counter and dusting the register. On a fresh pad of paper by the phone, Claire left Madame Palain a note, A friend needs assistance, not sure how long it will take, and locked the door behind her.
The woman Claire saw in the shop window’s reflection was so very foreign in the red suit she left New York in more than three years ago. She fingered the vial she had tacked with thread into the fold of her jacket cuff.
She chose to walk along les Champs to gain distance from the shop and to pass the Palais de l’Elysée and gardens along the way. A hot August morning already, the sun was heavy in the sky and the air was liquid gold. The brick wall guarding the empty palace and garden loomed well over her head, but she could smell through the hedge the sweet blossoms on the chestnut trees and the flowers blooming unattended inside.
Claire was handed the package on avenue de Marigny by a slender man in a suit striding in the opposite direction. She tried to see his face, but only noted a thick mustache and faded blue tie before he was gone.
Held tight under her arm, the package compressed against her ribs. It was soft, with the faint smell of tobacco and fresh bread, wrapped expertly in brown paper and tied with twine as if directly from Le Bon Marché. She imagined the shirts were silk, exactly the luxuries an American might require for an extended, unexpected stay.
Claire tried to swallow but her mouth was too dry. She’d hoped Grey would bring the package. His eyes would be serious today, the color of stormy skies. Walking close but not touching, his voice low, words precise, he would have described the gardens, naming each plant, dating each structure. How he knew these things, she didn’t understand, but she would have loved to be unafraid, if just for a moment.
Claire slipped on the armband. Within a hundred feet of turning off rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré onto rue de Saussaies, she passed three restaurants, a bar, a jewelry store and two fine hotels. A much smaller street than Champs-Elysées, she decided, but an expensive neighborhood, nonetheless.
The building at 11, rue de Saussaies was as beautiful as any other around it. Six stories, grey stone-carved balustrades on wrought-iron balconies. But thick iron bars covered street-level windows and heavy metal doors towered over the SS guards standing at attention.
The man in front of her was searched before he entered. Claire produced her papers for the soldiers, was scrutinized thoroughly and waved inside. As the doors banged shut behind her, the emotion drained from her body.
The lobby was large, with raised ceilings and long stone walls. In the far corner, three Nazi officers worked behind a broad wooden desk. A short line had already started to form in front. Details clicked through her mind like photographs as she walked over to join the end of the line. The floors were white marble. Marks on the bare walls showed where art had once been.
The man in line in front of her wrung his hat in his hands, shuffling his weight from one foot to the other. His blue worker’s uniform reeked of an acrid oily smoke that made her eyes water.