The room was crowded with too many tables and chairs, and yet there was nowhere for the four of them to sit comfortably without rearranging things.
“I need to get organized,” said Madame Bolze. “The mother of the boy who opened the gates comes to help me a couple of times a week, but even so, I never seem to have time to get through all of this. It’s a lifetime’s worth of stuff.”
Rosalyn wondered if everyone would become a hoarder if they lived long enough—then remembered her mother’s biannual purges, during which she threw out just about everything that had been inspired by the latest fashion trend. The echoing rooms then “forced”her to go out and buy new stuff, which might well have been the point.
The jumble made Rosalyn more optimistic that they might actually find papers from World War One somewhere in the clutter.
“This used to be a dovecote,” said Madame Bolze as she gestured to one section of the living room, where ancient stone steps led up to a closed-off space. Books were stacked on the steps, and within the alcove was a massive wooden desk covered with papers. Perched along a half wall that divided the room were green glass wine bottles, from the tiniest to the largest Rosalyn had ever seen.
“And that was my husband’s office. He ran his business from here.”
Rosalyn wondered: Had the papers been sitting there, just like that, since Monsieur Bolze died, just like Dash’s pills in the medicine chest at home? Another fruitless attempt to make time stand still.
“So, tell me again what you girls are looking for?”
“Monsieur Bonnet mentioned that this house used to be an orphanage,” said Emma.
“That was before my time. I’m notthatold.”
“Of course not—I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise,” said Emma with a soft chuckle. “But you mentioned on the phone that you might have some papers from back then. The thing is, Monsieur Bonnet is certain the orphanage was founded by an Australian woman, and I have reason to think she might have been a relative of mine. My great-grandfather’s sister.”
“I remember the Nazis marching in,” said Madame Bolze. “They came right down the main road of the village. I was at school, taking an exam, and was relieved when the teacher told us all to go home. I had no understanding of what was to come. But I know very little about the Great War.”
“We understand,” said Emma, glancing at Rosalyn. Was Madame Bolze a little fuzzy with the details, or was she simply not paying attention? “Why don’t you tell us what you remember about World War Two? We would very much like to hear your stories.”
Emma had an innate ability to put people at ease, to get them to talk, Rosalind thought. She would have made an excellent investigative journalist. Or a truly charming inquisitor.
“I remember the bombings, and with poor Reims just barely digging out from the previous war, according to my father. He told me about the Smiling Angel.”
“I heard about that,” said Rosalyn. “What a shame.”
“It’s become a symbol of the brutality of war around these parts,” said Emma with a nod. “But I should note that the Angel of Reims was decapitated by a bomb. It’s not like soldiers scaled the cathedral façade with broadswords, or anything.”
“Still, they are barbarians,” Blondine sniffed. “I don’t trust the Germans.”
Bolze gave her a startled look. Rosalyn had noted the number of German-sounding surnames in the area and among the champagne houses. She had assumed that the animosity over the wars had faded, what with the passage of time and developments such as the European Union. But clearly history was alive and well in the minds and hearts of the French—and no doubt the Germans as well.
“During the war, even paper was scarce,” Madame Bolze said as she led the way into the kitchen, crowded with a table and chairs, and decorated with painted blue and white tiles. “A lot of old papers were used to line trunks, or to start fires.”
“People burned historic documents?” asked Emma.
“They did what they had to do to survive. I’m just saying, don’t expect too much.” Madame Bolze opened a pie safe and extracted from a cookie jar a large key ring full of old skeleton keys.
“If there’s anything to be found, my friends here will find it. In the meantime, I’ll wait here, if that’s all right.” Emma nodded toward Blondine and Rosalyn. “Thanks,mes amies.”
The key ring clanked as the elderly woman returned to the small hallway, grasped the banister, and started hoisting herself up the stairs.
“Please, madame, we can go by ourselves,” said Blondine. “You don’t need to be climbing these stairs.”
“Nonsense,” Madame Bolze said, her progress slow but steady. “It is what has kept me alive this long.”
As they slowly mounted the steep, twisting, creaky stairs, Madame Bolze kept talking, telling them about being estranged from a daughter and a son, and the family fights over the estate. She spoke about when she and her husband used to go to Spain for vacation, to a small town on the Costa Blanca called Calpe, how they had a boat and bought cheap goods at thepulga, or flea market.
“I still have some of those sweaters,” she boasted, and it wasn’t hard to imagine the fifty-year-old jerseys tucked away in one of the numerous wardrobes, plastic bins, clothes racks, or chests that lined the narrow passageways. “Moroccan wool—it is the best.”
Rosalyn didn’t catch everything Madame Bolze was saying, focused as she was on Blondine’s legs in front of her. Blondine was wearing chic high heels, as usual. How did she manage, first on the ice, now on these stairs? It might have been very American of her, but Rosalyn was glad she was wearing comfy boots.
Finally they arrived at the fourth floor, which the French counted as the third floor. Madame Bolze tested a locked door handle. “I keep it locked. There are a lot of family heirlooms up here.”
