“I suppose she wants something,” Franny groused.
“Everyone wants something,” Jet responded. “Even you.”
“It’s about my husband,” the woman said.
“Oh, God, not this again.” Franny groaned.
“What about him?” Jet had already put the kettle up for tea.
Their neighbor began to cry. Her husband was unfaithful, and it was tearing their family apart. It was then Franny realized that the girl she had met at the lake with the blue notebook was this woman’s daughter. Franny now wondered if that was why the girl had asked if she was a witch, if she’d been in search of a spell to set things right in her family. Perhaps she’d been the one to suggest her mother come to them.
“I may be able to help you,” Jet said.
“Really?” Franny said to Jet. “Are we going to do this?”
“Go to the refrigerator,” Jet told her sister. “It’s on the second shelf.”
For once Franny did as she was told. When she spied the dove’s heart on a blue willowware plate she laughed out loud. Here it was, their future and their fate. She had often found such unsavory items in the pantry or in the fridge where their aunt had stored away the more questionable ingredients. It might also be a way for them to survive their dismal financial state.
Franny turned to her sister, who was pouring cups of chamomile tea, good for the nerves. “Remember,” she told her sister. “There’s a charge for these things.”
“I’ll pay anything,” their neighbor told them.
Franny brightened then. Perhaps this wasn’t a completely worthless endeavor.
Jet went to the cabinet. There was the jar of engagement rings they’d forgotten all about. “Do you have one of these?”
The neighbor slipped off her diamond ring and handed it over.
“All right,” Jet said. “Let’s begin.”
When Haylin was wounded he was posted in a makeshift hospital in the delta, where the air was so hot it turned liquid. He had been there so long he no longer counted days. He no longer counted patients. One man after another was injured, some so dreadfully he would go outside and throw up into the dense greenery after he cared for them. When he himself was injured, he felt nothing at first. Only a rush of cold air, as if the wind had cut through him, and then the heat of his blood. He was immediately airlifted to the hospital in Frankfurt where he had previously worked, and, after surgery and intensive rehab, he was transferred to the American Hospital in Paris, on the Boulevard Victor Hugo. His father had insisted he be sent to the best private hospital in Europe, and the navy had relented. It no longer mattered; Hay was done with his service. He had read all of Franny’s letters, three times over, but he didn’t wish to upset her by informing her of the magnitude of his medical situation. Instead he called the last person anyone would have expected him to contact. His father. Later Franny would always say, “So if you had died your father would have been the one to contact me?” And he would always answer, “I wasn’t ready to die.”
Months had passed and she hadn’t heard from him. She was dizzy with worry, writing on a daily basis to the navy. She called and got no information. She phoned the Walker residence and was told there was no one there who wished to speak to her. Well, that was nothing new.
At last, Haylin wrote.
This is one thing I didn’t wish to share with you. The human body is so fragile, but more and more I think the soul has real possibilities.
She flew to Paris immediately and took a room at a small hotel near the hospital. She didn’t even take note of the name of the place. She left her suitcase and quickly showered and changed. She’d packed real clothes, not the raggedy stuff she usually wore. A Dior suit that had belonged to her mother. A pair of black heels. A purse her parents had given her one Christmas, purchased at Saks, which she had never before used. She didn’t intend to spend much time at her hotel, perhaps not even to sleep. It was merely a place to leave her suitcase.
At the hospital, the nurses were very kind, too kind. She had been alarmed, and now her worry intensified. People spoke in hushed voices, and although Franny had excelled at the French language at school, everyone talked too fast for her to follow. They spoke to her in English then, slowly, as if she were a child. She was told she must see the doctor before she could see Haylin and was brought to a well-appointed office. She was offered a coffee, and then a drink, both of which she rejected.
“There’s really no need for this,” she said, pacing the room. Then the doctor arrived and she saw his expression and she understood the news wasn’t good. She sat down and kept quiet.
The unit where Haylin had been posted could not be called a hospital; it was a surgical tent. It was hidden by greenery, but on windy days it was possible to see their location and there was a wind when it happened. During times of war, no one is immune, the doctor told her, not even those who are there to heal the wounded. When the medical tent was bombed, Dr. Walker had thrown himself across the patient he was working on. He did so without thinking, because it was in his nature, because he had always thought of others before himself. And so it had come to pass that he was the injured party.
“He’s lost a leg,” the doctor told her.
Franny made him repeat himself so she could be sure she hadn’t imagined what he’d said. And there were burns, he informed her, now not as severe.
She stood then and thanked the doctor for his time and asked if he could excuse her for a moment. She went into the hall, where she turned to the wall and sobbed. She felt a rushing in her ears, as if she had lost her hearing, as if the doctor had never said anything to her, as if none of it had happened. A nurse pulled her into a washroom so she could dash water on her face and compose herself. When she had, Franny reached into her purse for a comb and tidied her unruly hair, which the nurse pinned up so that it chicly framed her face. It was barely possible to see that she had broken down.
“Much better,” the nurse said. “Let’s not upset Dr. Walker. He doesn’t like anyone to fuss. When you visit, you’ll be calm.”
Franny nodded and was taken upstairs. Hay had a private room overlooking the leafy street. His father had spared no expense and made sure there was always a private nurse on duty. Her name was Pauline and she was quite beautiful. When Franny shook the nurse’s hand she was terribly jealous that this stranger had been here to watch over Hay and care for him so intimately while she, herself, had been clueless, worrying about the library and the garden and all manner of frivolous things.
Hay was usually in constant motion, always at work in some way, so it was a shock to see him trapped in bed. Franny was reminded of the time she went to Cambridge to visit him at Mass General and Emily Flood came in, beautiful and young and windblown, there to ruin Franny’s plan to win him back. She had had the same lump in her throat then, the same tumble into fear. She could not lose him now. It was unthinkable, for how could anything happen to Haylin, who was so confident and sure of himself and of the world?
“There you are,” he said, his face breaking into a grin when he saw her. He reached for her and she went to take his hand. She leaned to kiss him, then drew back and said, “Is this okay?”
He pulled her to him and growled, “This is the most okay thing that’s happened in eighteen months.”
When the nurse found them in bed, Franny was made to wait in the hall while Haylin was bathed. She was jealous yet again. But he was still Haylin, and still hers, no matter what had happened. All the same, he refused to talk about the bombing to her or anyone else. He had seen too much as a doctor to ask for pity or even compassion. He would be in France for some time, to be fitted with a prosthetic leg and learn how to deal with his medical reality and care for himself.
“Good thing I’m a doctor,” he said.
He had no need to tell her what had happened. She had the sight. She saw everything in his eyes, the grief and horror he had seen. She saw that he was still worried over patients he had known, men he’d worked on, but n
ever saw again, whose fates he would never know. Franny had been so worried about Vincent serving in Vietnam, but had always imagined Haylin would be safe, especially if she stayed away from him.
He saw her regret and said, “This is not the curse. This is fucking war, Franny. This is what happens to people.”
She stayed late that first day, until at last the staff asked her to leave and return in the morning. She had not eaten and went to a café where she cried as she ate, but it was Paris, and no one seemed to notice. She wished that Vincent were with her; he was the one who had always best understood her. She was not as tough as she seemed. She wished she could speak with her brother. As she had no idea where he was, she went to the place where she had last had a glimpse of him and William. She took a taxi to the cemetery, but found it was closed for the evening.
“You can climb over the far wall,” the taxi driver told her. “Everyone does. There’s a stepladder to help you. Run if you see the guard.”
And so she entered the cemetery after hours. Inside it wasn’t as dark as she expected. There was a moon, and lamplight. She took note of some shadowy figures. Not grave robbers, but fans, there to pay homage at Jim Morrison’s grave. They had left flowers and candles. She asked the group if they knew the way to Vincent Owens’s grave. One of the girls, an American who wore a torn T-shirt, said, “Who?” and the young man with her said, “You know the guy. ‘I Walk at Night.’ ”
He then turned to Franny with a map he allowed her to use. After she found Vincent’s grave listed she made her way to it, past Marcel Proust’s grave site; past the site of Adolphe Thiers, the prime minister under King Louis-Philippe whose nineteenth-century ghost was rumored to tug on visitors’ clothing if they came close; past the lipstick-kiss-covered grave of Oscar Wilde.
There at last was Vincent’s headstone. Agnes Durant had ordered it, since Franny and Jet had been too distressed to do so at the time. It was very stark and beautiful. A white stone with his name and the dates of his birth and death. Franny leaned down and kissed the stone. She stayed until it was pitch dark. Perhaps she thought if she waited long enough he would manage to find her. But the place was deserted, and at last she went back to where the taxi was waiting. Vincent had always known his life would end young, but she was thankful that somewhere a new one had begun. She asked to return to the hospital. She would sleep in a chair in the lounge until visiting hours began.
She had become jealous of Paris. Haylin had fallen in love with the hospital. Every day that he was stronger he seemed more at home. He had begun to meet with the doctors not just about his own case but also to discuss the histories of other patients. He’d been an excellent surgeon and would be again. Rather than stand during an operation, he could sit in a chair that rose up so there would not be pressure on his good leg.
On days when Hay was busy, Franny walked through the city. She liked to go to the café in the Tuileries, a place Madame Durant had told her Vincent had frequented, and to the Ile de la Cité, where she sat on a wall near the cathedral so she might watch the river, and to the garden of the Rodin Museum, where the budding roses were impossibly large. One day she found herself in the Place Vendôme. She had been following a crow, aimless, with no particular destination in mind, until the bird had led her here.
She went into the Ritz and asked if she might use the telephone. Allowed to do so, she called Madame Durant, who lived around the corner, on the Boulevard de la Madeleine. She was invited to tea. Just a short visit, that was all that could be managed, for Madame was preoccupied with plans to leave the city for her country house. The housekeeper was waiting at the door, poised to show her in. It was a very beautiful tall house, covered with vines. The shutters were painted black, but the light was so glorious who would ever want to try to shut it out?
“Well, here you are,” Madame Durant said, kissing Franny lightly. “What a surprise.”
But the truth was, she knew Franny would arrive someday. It was difficult to keep the truth from someone with the sight. Every once in a while Franny thought she could see Vincent in a field of yellow flowers. Now, she and Madame Durant sat by the window at a marble table. The light fell through the room in bright bands, illuminating some things, and leaving other items in the dark. The furniture was upholstered in apricot silk and the walls were fabric, gold brocade. The woodwork was all painted a pale blue that might have been white, but wasn’t. Franny thought her mother would have loved the room.
“We were roommates during her time here. We had a small apartment that we adored. But Susanna thought everything was beautiful,” Agnes said. “When she was in love.”
“Yes, the man she ruined.”
“She didn’t ruin him, dear. He drowned. They were on a sailboat and she, being one of us, couldn’t save him because she could not dive underwater. She tried. She was hospitalized after because of the cold. But it did no good.”
Franny was stunned by the idea that she and her mother were so alike. She remembered waking from a deep sleep as a child to find her mother sitting in a chair by her bed, watching over her.
“She was crushed, but she went on with her life in New York. When she gave birth to you she wrote me a long letter about how perfect you were.”
“You must be mistaken,” Franny said. “I was her problem child.”
“Oh, no. With your red hair and your curiosity you were perfect to her. She said she knew you would grow up to be a beauty and to be difficult. Which I see has come to be true.”
“Difficult, yes,” Franny said, embarrassed not to have known anything about her mother’s true feelings.
“Well, we can’t really know our parents, can we?” Agnes said, reading her thoughts. “Even for those with the sight, parents are unfathomable creatures.”
After the maid came in with tea in bone china cups, Franny took note of a photograph of Vincent on the mantel. He was wearing a white shirt, sitting under a striped umbrella, the blue sky behind him.
“When was that taken?” she asked.
“When he first arrived in Paris. We met in the park.”
“He was here in autumn. That looks like the height of summer.”
Madame changed the subject to more current issues. They spoke a little of Haylin and his interest in the hospital. Then Madame glanced at her watch. Her car had arrived. It was time to go. Madame Durant walked Franny to the door.
“Can I not see him? Or know where he is?” Franny asked.
“It’s best to let go,” she told Franny. “That way he stays safe. In truth it is easier to let your old life disappear in order to start anew. And there’s the matter of the curse. Now it can’t find him either. He has a new name and a new life. Therefore love is possible.”
They were at the door when something overtook Franny and she simply couldn’t leave. Without a word to her hostess, she turned and took the staircase to the second floor. The carpet was plush, cream-colored. The walls were a lacquered red. Off the hallway was a bedroom, and then a sitting room, and then a plush bath tiled with marble. The last door in the hallway was closed. Franny hastily pushed it open, her heart thudding. The room, however, was empty.
“Please, Franny, I have to leave,” Madame Durant called from the front hall.
And then Franny saw it. A guitar, propped up against the bookcase.
Madame came up the stairs after Franny. They met in the hallway. She wasn’t young, and chasing after Franny was an effort. “My car is here.”
“To take you to the country?”
“Yes.”
The yellow flowers. When Franny concentrated she could see two men walking in the pale sunlight. “Is that where he is? And William?”
Madame shrugged. “What do you want me to say? He is not here. You’ve looked for yourself. He’ll never go back, Franny. You must know that.”
“That is his guitar, isn’t it?” Franny asked.
Madame looked at Franny and Franny could see it was true.
“Do they stay here when in Paris?” sh
e asked.
“Occasionally. Paris wouldn’t have suited Vincent in the long run. There are fields of sunflowers out in the country. It’s beautiful and peaceful. And, you must understand, Franny, he’s safe.”
“Considering who he is?” Franny said.
“Considering what the world is like.”
Franny took a taxi to her hotel and sat looking out the window of her room, watching the darkness fall. She felt Vincent’s presence in the world, in the beauty of the evening and in the sunflowers Madame Durant had had sent over in a glass vase. That was the message, that bouquet, the most Madame would tell her.
Franny telephoned Mr. Grant at his home in Sag Harbor. It was early in the morning, but he was glad to hear from her.
“They live in the countryside,” she said.
“That would be William to live someplace that reminded him of home. Do you still get the postcards?” he asked.
“Yes,” Franny said.
“They’re happy,” Mr. Grant said. “So we must be happy for them, dear girl.”
They made plans for Franny to visit Sag Harbor. She would bring Jet and they would sit on the porch and have lunch and look out at the sea and the island William used to row toward even in high seas. She had been in Paris six weeks. Soon it would turn cold and the paths where Franny liked to walk would be covered with ice. In the countryside the sunflowers would be cut down and their stalks would turn brown. Birds in the hedges would rise, twittering, to fly over the meadows in the last of the daylight.
“Yes,” she agreed. “Let’s be happy.”
Now when Franny came to see Haylin he was no longer in his bed or at physical therapy, but in consultations. The nurses shrugged. A doctor was a doctor, they said. A man’s situation might change, but the man himself never did. Such was Haylin’s character. He was more interested in the well-being of others than he was in himself.
One day she took him to the Tuileries on an outing from the hospital. He struggled with his walking at first, and called himself a damned peg leg, but by the time they reached a café, he had caught a second wind and his stride was fine. His French was impeccable, hers merely good, so Franny let him order for her. They had white wine and salads with goat cheese and everything was cold and delicious. He spoke about a surgery that had been very successful earlier that day. A sergeant who had taken a bullet to the spine. It was a delicate operation, one Hay excelled at, so the patient had been sent from Germany so that Hay might supervise. He was taking measures to get his French medical license so he would be able do the surgeries himself. He was excited to be helping servicemen who had lost limbs, as he had. He thought he would use some of his father’s money to bring these patients here to France to be treated. He lit up when he spoke of his work, and Franny recalled the way he would speak about science when they were young, the way a lover might speak of his beloved.