And of course, there was the carousel.
His father had told him about joyous festivals when the children from the village were invited to ride the carousel. That was before the rumors and innuendo had finally estranged the family from the villagers, before things fell apart.
A few of the carousel figures were still intact, as was most of the actual mechanism, though all were covered in soot and grime. Still, the ruins drew him out in the evenings; he liked to smoke there in the dark, when the silvery light of the moon filtering through the dirty windows lent everything an air of ghostly nostalgia. He could practically hear the raucous music, could see his father as a boy, whirling round and round with the other village children. His former friends.
And one night, this was where he stumbled upon Paulette.
Her hair had been shorn, like that of a prostitute; her dress was fashioned out of a burlap sack. Her cheeks were wet with tears, but she cried silently. She sat on a once-whimsical carousel horse, unmindful of the soot. A gun in her lap.
“It was you?” Fabrice finally managed.
She nodded.
“They took my family.”
“I know.... Fabrice, I’ll never be able to tell you how sorry I am. I’ll never be able to explain—”
“They took my family!”he raged, running toward her.
She held up the gun with both hands, training it on him. He paused, coming to a stop right in front of her, trying not to heave, to vomit. Wanting to kill her; wanting to kill himself.
“Listen to me! Please, Fabrice, justlisten.” The tears kept flowing, but her voice was steady. “I had no choice. They threatened my family. My mother, my brother and sisters... The Gestapo threatened such terrible things....” Finally, she started sobbing aloud. “I’m so sorry, Fabrice, I amsosorry.”
“Stop saying that!It doesn’tmatterhow sorry you are. It doesn’t matter, don’t you understand?” He glanced down at the gun, still trained on him. “Go ahead and shoot. It seems fitting that I would be murdered by the woman I loved.”
“It isn’t for you,” Paulette said, her voice now quiet, calm. “It’s for me.”
She lifted the gun and placed the muzzle to her temple.
He lunged, grabbing her hand. A shot rang out.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
PRESENT DAY
CHÂTEAU CLEMENT
Cady
“Fabrice?”
The old man had stopped speaking, staring at the carousel figure for so long that Cady started to worry. But he seemed to be telling his own story, in his own time.
“There were terrible retaliations for the French who cooperated with the Germans. We called themcollaborateurs. But when you live with your occupiers, like we did... Well, there are many sides to every story.”
“So what happened, when Paulette came?”
“She was sitting on that horse, the one you’re cleaning. Just sitting there, but with a gun in her hand. She had heard that I was looking for her; she said she knew I would come out to the carousel eventually.”
“Why?”
“We used to talk about my family’s château back in Paris. Before she betrayed us all, before she gave my name to the Gestapo. She was the reason my family was taken.”
Cady let that sink in for a moment.
“My mother and sister did not survive. My father did; he never blamed me for what happened, though of course he had cause. I foundhim after the war. One thing you can say about the Germans: They kept excellent records.
“After I made money off my writing, my father and I came back to the château and lived here together until his death at the age of eighty-two. We worked together to renovate it, for a while. Sometimes when he and I carved together, he would say it was God’s cruel joke, to allow him to live so long, after taking the lives of his wife and child. But I knew the truth: God did not take their lives;Idid.”
