he might have a wife, and more than a wife, a child. What was he doing roaming about with Albert? Or he might not be married, the child could be the product of a liaison, he’d left some girl from the lower orders shoved off in a garret somewhere. Of course, she herself had a husband and a child, but he had known that before their encounter began.
“He’s a year or so older than your baby. It’s strange: a growing child destroys each earlier version of himself. I miss the helpless infant, gone forever.”
Jacques brushed his index finger against Marcel’s palm and instinctively Marcel’s hand clasped it. It was his finger that had been inside of her, that smelled of her. What he was doing seemed sinful, almost incestuous, and yet two months ago the whole of Marcel had been inside of her, moving through her.
“May I pick him up?”
“All right. Just—”
“Oh, I won’t wake him. Don’t worry.” He rocked the cradle, and swayed his body back and forth in time with it, so when he lifted Marcel his movement was smooth and unbroken. He lay him on his left shoulder. “Yes, I remember this weight.” He inhaled deeply. “And this smell. At this stage they still smell of their mothers.”
She was not naive, she wasn’t, not the sort of woman who expected life to be like romantic novels—but nonetheless, there was something so—almost brutal—in the way he said At this stage they still smell like their mothers, as if Marcel were interchangeable with all other infants—and she were interchangeable with all other mothers.
“This one more than mine. My wife is a doctor, so she didn’t breastfeed. The smell of a nursed baby is purer.”
She took a deep breath and asked, “What’s your son’s name?” trying to sound off-hand, but her voice was tight with tension.
“Frédéric.”
He laid Marcel back in his cradle, rocked it a few times, whispered, “There, there,” kissed Simone and departed.
It seemed to her that she did not sleep again, although that was not, strictly speaking, true: throughout the early hours of the morning she dove down into sleep and then darted just as quickly awake, moving in and out of sleep like a barn swallow swooping across the evening sky. She did finally fall into a real sleep, because she distinctly awoke, her room filled with mid-morning light—and Marcel’s cradle empty.
She washed and dressed as quickly as possible—given the lodgers in the house, it was quite unthinkable for her to come down in her dressing gown. Cecile, doing the last of the breakfast dishes, wiped a lock of hair back from her damp forehead, leaving a ribbon of grey suds on her brow.
“Sleep well?” her mother asked.
When that failed to produce a response from Simone, her mother said, “I trust our work here in the kitchen didn’t disturb you.”
Simone lifted Marcel from her mother’s arms. He squawked slightly at the change, and her mother shot her a look, Your own son prefers me to you.
“Shall I get you some coffee?” Cecile asked.
“Oh, she can get it for herself.”
“Thank you, Cecile.”
With her small hands, it was difficult for Simone to manage the morning bowl of coffee with a single hand while she held Marcel so he could nurse. She finally clenched the rim between her thumb and forefinger, despite her mother’s disapproving glare.
“What does the day look like?” Simone asked.
“Bright and sunny, as you can see for yourself.”
“No, I only meant—the others, the birdwatcher, of course I know—have they gone down to the sea, or—”
“To the seaside. The major and the two families.”
“And?”
“Yes?” her mother said.
“Albert and his friend?”
“Jacques. I know you haven’t forgotten his name is Jacques.”
Cecile walked past, lugging a pail of dishwater out to splash over the kitchen garden, the water sloshing from side to side, the heavy thump of her footsteps, the door slamming shut behind her.
“Did they go to the beach, too?”
“Curiosity killed the cat,” her mother answered.
“Satisfaction brought it back.”
“We have quite enough satisfied cats about the place as is. Out in the barn, and now, it seems, in the house, too.”
During the remaining course of the morning, Simone managed to piece together the answers her mother had refused to give her. Albert and Jacques had risen early—the mother from Rouen had heard them whispering with the birdwatcher—her bedroom being directly above the kitchen, sound does travel—not to mention the kitchen smells! The poor woman from Rouen had never gotten back to sleep.
At lunch, the table was set for thirteen. Mme. Vidal mentioned it before anyone else could. “Of course, I’m sure no one here is so silly as to be superstitious. And who knows, we may only be twelve, sometimes our birdwatching friend’s rambles allow her to return, sometimes not. She’s left quite strict instructions that we are to start without her—”
“Have the young gentlemen taken their leave?” the major asked.
“No, they’ve only gone off for a day hike,” Mme. Vidal said.
“To the lighthouse,” Simone added, pleased to be in the possession of some intelligence.
“To a lighthouse?” the mother from Rouen said. “It seems a strange destination.”
“You can climb to the top—I believe there are six hundred stairs—and it’s a magnificent view.”
“Six hundred stairs!” The mother from Rouen did not approve.
The major, to head off the threatening unpleasantness among the ladies, began a discourse on lighthouses in his execrable French. The great lighthouse at Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, actually on the island of Pharos in the Alexandrian harbor, and it was from this word that the French word phare as well as the Spanish and Italian words faro had been derived. The lady from Rouen offered her opinion that Alexandria was in Palestine, and those at the table who knew better declined to correct her. Her husband’s cousin had known a man who was a lighthouse keeper and was a very strange sort indeed. Just when it seemed the conversation might flag, the Alsatian birdwatcher returned, darting to her seat at the table, saying, “Oh, I’m so glad you didn’t wait for me. I would have felt terrible had you waited. Just some soup, please, and then I’ll catch up with the—but I heard you were talking about lighthouses! Once at a lighthouse in the La Coruna in Spain, right among the rocks, I saw a black stork.” She clasped her hands to her bosom, leaned her head forward and looked about the table at each and every one: “Yes!
