or later they’ll be forced to slow down and fall back.”
The others nodded without conviction.
“What if we danced?”
As Emil started to play, Christina grabbed Oskar Müller in her arms and dragged him into an energetic waltz, soon to be followed by the other women in the group. Emil observed her looking happy, joyous even, completely serene. She seemed like a different woman, he thought, and she didn’t even glance at him for the rest of the evening. Once again, the young accordion player was sure he’d simply been dreaming.
Back in the barracks, Emil couldn’t sleep a wink. He was so confused. This magnificent woman, this apparition, speaking of his father, Anton, of whom he hadn’t heard a single solitary word of since the scattering of their kumpaníya a year ago now. Was Anton alive? Held in a camp just like this one perhaps. Worried for his son and the rest of his family. How did Christina Müller know of his existence?
The next morning little Otto Schwarzhuber was waiting for him outside the barracks. His eyes steady, looking straight at Emil. Expecting Emil to play his accordion for him. Emil had no desire to do so, had no desire to do anything, except maybe to dream a little, to escape. A hand fell on the boy’s shoulder. Emil raised his eyes. It wasn’t Otto’s mother, but Christina Müller, looking after the child.
“Play, Emil. Play like yesterday.”
Emil lifted his Paolo Soprani and played again, but for her this time. Little Otto couldn’t guess what was happening, of course. Emil played and Christina looked intently at him, just as she had during the Kommandantur party. What did she want from him, exactly? His first song ended, and as he was about to start another, Christina sent Otto back to the officer looking after him a few metres away. The little boy grumbled but obeyed.
For the first time they were alone, Christina and him. Emil asked in his clumsy German, “You’ve seen my father? You’ve talked with him?”
She hesitated, then answered, “Your father is dead.”
A break, his mind like a handful of pebbles thrown into a roiling sea. He’d believed, he’d hoped, he’d dared to dream, and now all of it was crushed once again. Would his misfortunes never end? Emil wanted to speak but didn’t know how anymore. All he could muster was a questioning look.
“He was in Birkenau,” she told him. “But not with the Gypsies. He was hiding. He was pretending to be someone else.”
Emil didn’t understand. Why would he be hiding, pretending to be someone else? What false identity? The Roma only used borrowed names, in any case, depending on the country they were passing through with the changing seasons.
“Come closer.”
Emil hesitated. What did this woman want? He had to know more about how his father had died. And so he stepped forward, a single step. Carefully, Christina lifted her hand so very gently, as if wary of startling a savage, famished beast. She caressed his face, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. It was, of course, but not in this place, not in this hell on earth. In another world he would have expected it, in another world he was now sure he would never see again.
“Emil, I was sent by your father.”
10
New York, September 16, 1999
After Sacha’s birth, Max O’Brien lost contact with Kevin Dandurand and his family. Max did visit them in Montreal a few times, but for Kevin and Caroline, Kevin especially, he represented the past. Gabrielle was the only one whose attitude toward him hadn’t changed. The girl was growing so quickly. She’d started school and was learning, little by little, to go without her mother, who was often off to Toronto for work. The family now had the means to pay for a full-time nanny to take care of Sacha when Caroline was away.
Kevin seemed to enjoy his job at Nordopak. His truce with Raymond held despite Sharon’s now-official role as his new wife, a role that still bothered Kevin, though his mother had been dead for years. Kevin had convinced himself that Raymond could do whatever he wanted with his love life. He wasn’t cheating on anyone anymore. Perhaps Raymond had even been sensitive by keeping this woman — and their daughter, Josée — far from his first family. Kevin had learned that his father’s relationship with his mother had soured long, long before. They’d only remained married for Kevin. Ironically, Roxanne’s death had put an end to an impossible situation for both of them.
At the time, all of eleven years old, Kevin had interpreted Sharon and Josée coming to the house on avenue Shorncliffe as a betrayal. His father’s betrayal, combined with his mother’s defeat: a painful shaming Kevin sought to avenge. And yet, curiously, Sharon had ended up being a wonderful substitute mother, in some ways better for him than Roxanne had ever been. She had often come to Kevin’s defence, though he wasn’t her own son. The situation with Josée, his half-sister, was entirely different. While Kevin hated his father, the little girl adored him, and felt much closer to her father than to her mother, Sharon. This powerful affection negatively impacted her relationship with her half-brother, four years older than she. A sort of cold war had begun, unchanged by the passage of the two children into their teenage years. In fact, Raymond had been forced to intervene a number of times between the two of them, usually to Josée’s advantage. Kevin had had the impression they were ganging up on him to make his life miserable.
Sharon had been the neutral arbiter. She was interested in Kevin’s day-to-day life and treated him with respect. She was the one who remembered his birthday every year and drove him to the hockey rink on Saturday mornings. She was the one who made sure his grades were good in school, who waited for him when he came home late from a party in high school while Raymond slept soundly in their bedroom. Kevin was especially impressed by how Sharon could hold her own against his father’s mind games, something Roxanne hadn’t been able to do. Kevin had never understood his mother’s seemingly shameless and total submission toward Raymond. He’d even talked about it with Roxanne — he was nine, maybe ten years old at the time. Even back then he had been able to intuit that the relationship between his mother and father was a strange one. But, as always, Roxanne had avoided the question. Kevin had insisted, and so she’d answered, “Your father can do whatever he wants. Do you understand?”
No, he hadn’t. But Roxanne had refused to say more.
A few days after her death Raymond had told him to get in the passenger seat of the Cadillac. Without another word, father and son drove to the countryside. They eventually reached a small river, made famous after a local newspaper’s exposé on young people drinking beers and smoking grass around campfires on its banks. To the great despair of the neighbours.
Raymond parked his car near the river and got out. Finally, he broke the silence. “Come on. Give me a hand.”
In the car’s trunk, Roxanne’s personal effects. Boxes filled with her clothes, books, perfume. A scarf she had loved dearly. Raymond had lit a fire on the pile of ashes left by the previous night’s revellers and thrown all of his wife’s possessions on it. Soon, the objects were only smoke in a clear blue sky.
Raymond took his son by the shoulders. “Your mother’s belongings are with her now. She’ll need them up there.”
Carried by the wind, a half-burned piece of paper floated above the trees. Raymond didn’t notice it. Kevin ran after it, finally catching it at the foot of a tree. He recognized his mother’s writing, the sharpness of it. A piece of paper saved from the flames. Half a sentence printed on it in a language he couldn’t read. He thought for a moment of asking his father
