As I drove, Zoe read aloud about Lucca. It was one of the rare Tuscan towns to have kept its famous medieval walls circling an unspoiled center where few cars were allowed. There was a lot to be seen, Zoe continued, the cathedral, the church of San Michele, the Guinigui tower, the Puccini museum, the Palazzo Mansi. . . . I smiled at her, amused by her high spirits. She glanced back at me.
"I guess we don't have much time for sightseeing." She grinned. "We've got work to do, don't we, Mom?"
"We sure do," I agreed.
Zoe had already found William Rainsferd's address on her site map of Lucca. It wasn't far from the via Fillungo, the main artery of the town, a large pedestrian street where I had booked rooms in a small guesthouse, Casa Giovanna.
As we approached Lucca and its confusing maze of ring roads, I found I had to concentrate on the erratic driving methods of the cars surrounding me, which kept pulling out, stopping, or turning without any warning whatsoever. Definitely worse than Parisians, I decided, beginning to feel flustered and irritated. There was also a slow tug in the pit of my stomach that I did not like, that felt oddly like an oncoming period. Something I ate on the plane and that didn't agree with me? Or something worse? I felt apprehension flicker through me.
Charla was right. It was crazy coming here in my condition, not even three months pregnant. It could have waited. William Rainsferd could have waited another six months for my visit.
But then I looked at Zoe's face. It was beautiful, incandescent with joy and excitement. She knew nothing yet about Bertrand and me separating. She was preserved still, innocent of all our plans. This would be a summer she would never forget.
And as I drove the Fiat to one of the free parking lots near the city walls, I knew I wanted to make this part as wonderful as possible for her.
I
TOLD ZOE I NEEDED to put my feet up for a while. While she chatted away in the lobby with the amiable Giovanna, a buxom lady with a sultry voice, I had a cool shower and lay down on the bed. The ache in my lower abdomen slowly ebbed away.
Our adjoining rooms were small, high up in the towering, ancient building, but perfectly comfortable. I kept thinking of my mother's voice when I had called her from Charla's to say I wasn't coming to Nahant, that I was taking Zoe back to Europe. I could tell, from her brief pauses and the way she cleared her throat, that she was worried. She finally asked me if everything was all right. I replied cheerfully that everything was fine, I had an opportunity to visit Florence with Zoe, I would come back to the States later to see her and Dad. "But you've barely arrived! And why leave when you've only been with Charla for a couple of days?" she protested. "And why interrupt Zoe's vacation here? I simply don't understand. And you were saying how much you missed the States. This is all so rushed."
I had felt guilty. But how could I explain the whole story to her and Dad over the phone? One day, I thought. Not now. I still felt guilty, lying on the pale pink bedspread that smelled faintly of lavender. I hadn't even told Mom about my pregnancy. I hadn't even told Zoe. I longed to let them in on the secret, and Dad as well. But something held me back. Some bizarre superstition, some deep-rooted apprehension I had never felt before. In the past few months, my life seemed to have shifted subtly.
Was it to do with Sarah, with the rue de Saintonge? Or was it just a belated coming-of-age? I could not tell. I only knew that I felt as if I had emerged from a long-lasting, mellow, protective fog. Now my senses were sharpened, keen. There was no fog. There was nothing mellow. There were only facts. Finding this man. Telling him his mother had never been forgotten by the Tezacs, by the Dufaures.
I was impatient to see him. He was right here, in this very town, maybe walking down the bustling via Fillungo now, at this precise moment. Somehow, as I lay in my little room, the sounds of voices and laughter rising from the narrow street through the open window, accompanied by the occasional roar of a Vespa or the sharp clang of a bicycle bell, I felt close to Sarah, closer than I had ever been before, because I was about to meet her son, her flesh, her blood. This was the closest I would ever get to the little girl with the yellow star.
Just reach out your hand, pick up that phone, and call him. Simple. Easy. Yet I was incapable of doing it. I gazed at the obsolete black telephone, helpless, and sighed in despair and irritation. I lay back, feeling silly, almost ashamed. I realized I was so obsessed by Sarah's son that I hadn't even taken Lucca in, its charm, its beauty. I had trudged through it like a sleepwalker, trailing behind Zoe, who seemed to glide along the intricacy of the old winding streets as if she had always lived here. I had seen nothing of Lucca. Nothing mattered to me except William Rainsferd. And I wasn't even capable of calling him.
Zoe came in, sat on the edge of the bed.
"You all right?" she asked.
"I had a good rest," I answered.
She scrutinized me, her hazel eyes roving over my face.
"I think you should rest a little longer, Mom."
I frowned.
"Do I look that tired?"
She nodded.
"Just rest, Mom. Giovanna gave me something to eat. You don't have to worry about me. Everything is under control."
I couldn't help smiling at her seriousness. When she got to the door, she turned around.
"Mom . . ."
"Yes, sweetheart?"
"Does Papa know we're here?"
I hadn't told Bertrand yet about bringing Zoe to Lucca. No doubt he would explode when he found out.
"No, he doesn't, darling."
She fingered the door handle.
"Did you and Papa have a fight?"
No use lying to those clear, solemn eyes.
"Yes, we did, honey. Papa doesn't agree with me trying to find out more about Sarah. He wouldn't be happy if he knew."
"Grand-pere knows."
I sat up, startled.
"You spoke to your grandfather about all this?"
She nodded.
"Yes. He really cares, you know, about Sarah. I called him from Long Island and told him you and I were coming here to meet her son. I knew you were going to call him at some point, but I was so excited, I had to tell him."
"And what did he say?" I asked, amazed at my daughter's forthrightness.
"He said we were right to come here. And he was going to tell Papa that if ever Papa made a fuss. He said you were a wonderful person."
"Edouard said that?"
"He did."
I shook my head, both baffled and touched.
"Grand-pere said something else. He said you had to take it easy. He said I had to make sure you didn't get too tired."
So Edouard knew. He knew I was pregnant. He had spoken to Bertrand. There had probably been a long talk between father and son. And Bertrand was now aware of everything that had happened in the rue de Saintonge apartment in the summer of 1942.
Zoe's voice dragged me away from Edouard.
"Why don't you just call William, Mom? Make an appointment?"
I sat up on the bed.
"You're right, honey."
I took the slip of paper with William's number in Mara's handwriting and dialed it on the old-fashioned phone. My heart thumped away. This was surreal, I thought. Here I was, phoning Sarah's son.
I heard a couple of irregular rings, then the whir of an answering machine. A woman's voice in rapid Italian. I hung up quickly, feeling foolish.
"Now that was dumb," remarked Zoe. "Never hang up on a machine. You've told me that a thousand times."
I redialed, smiling at her grown-up annoyance with me. This time I waited for the beep. And when I spoke, it all came out beautifully, like something I'd rehearsed for days.
"Good afternoon, this is Julia Jarmond, I'm calling on behalf of Mrs. Mara Rainsferd. My daughter and I are in Lucca, staying at Casa Giovanna on the via Fillungo. We're here for a couple of days. Hope to hear from you. Thanks, bye."
I replaced the receiver in its black cradle, both relieved and disappointed.
"Good," said
Zoe. "Now you go on with your rest. I'll see you later."
She planted a kiss on my forehead and left the room.
W
E HAD DINNER IN a small, amusing restaurant behind the hotel, near the anfiteatro, a large circle of ancient houses that used to host medieval games centuries ago. I felt restored after my rest and enjoyed the colorful parade of tourists, Lucchesans, street vendors, children, pigeons. Italians loved children, I discovered. Zoe was called principessa by waiters, shopkeepers, fawned upon, beamed upon, her ears tweaked, her nose pinched, her hair stroked. It made me nervous at first, but she reveled in it, trying out her rudimentary Italian with ardor: "Sono francese e americana, mi chiama Zoe." The heat had abated, leaving cool drifts in its wake. However, I knew it would be hot and stuffy in our little rooms, high above the street. Italians, like the French, weren't keen on air-conditioning. I wouldn't have minded the icy blast of a machine tonight.
When we got back to Casa Giovanna, dazed with jet lag, there was a note pinned on our door. "Per favore telefonare William Rainsferd."
I stood, thunderstruck. Zoe whooped.
"Now?" I said.
"Well, it's only quarter to nine," Zoe said.
"OK," I answered, opening the door with trembling fingers. The black receiver stuck to my ear, I dialed his number for the third time that day. Answering machine, I mouthed to Zoe. Talk, she mouthed back. After the beep, I mumbled my name, hesitated, was about to hang up when a masculine voice said: "Hello?"
An American accent. It was him.
"Hi," I said, "this is Julia Jarmond."
"Hi," he said, "I'm in the middle of dinner."
"Oh, I'm sorry . . ."
"No problem. You want to meet up tomorrow before lunch?"
"Sure," I said.
"There's a nice cafe up on the walls, just beyond the Palazzo Mansi. We could meet there at noon?"
"Fine," I said. "Um . . . how do we find each other?"
He laughed.
"Don't worry. Lucca is a tiny place. I'll find you."
A pause.
"Good-bye," he said, and hung up.
T
HE NEXT MORNING, THE pain was back in my stomach. Nothing powerful, but it bothered me with a discreet persistence. I decided to ignore it. If it was still there after lunch, I'd ask Giovanna for a doctor. As we walked to the cafe, I wondered how I was going to broach the subject with William. I had put off thinking about it, and I realized now that I shouldn't have. I was going to stir sad, painful memories. Maybe he did not want to talk about his mother at all. Maybe it was something he had put behind him. He had his life here, far from Roxbury, far from the rue de Saintonge. A peaceful, bucolic life. And here I was bringing back the past. The dead.
Zoe and I discovered that one could actually walk on the thick medieval walls that circled the small city. They were high and wide, with a large path on their crest, hemmed in by a dense row of chestnut trees. We mingled with the incessant stream of joggers, walkers, cyclists, roller skaters, mothers with children, old men talking loudly, teenagers on scooters, tourists.
The cafe was a little farther on, shaded by leafy trees. I drew nearer with Zoe, feeling strangely light-headed, almost numb. The terrace was empty save for a middle-aged couple having an ice cream and some German tourists poring over a map. I lowered my hat over my eyes, smoothed out my crumpled skirt.
When he said my name, I was busy reading the menu to Zoe.
"Julia Jarmond."
I looked up to a tall, thickset man in his mid-forties. He sat down opposite Zoe and me.
"Hi," said Zoe.
I found I could not speak. I could only stare at him. His hair was dark blond, swept with gray. Receding hairline. Square jaw. A beautiful beak of a nose.
"Hi," he said to Zoe. "Have the tiramisu. You'll love it."
Then he lifted his dark glasses, gliding them back over his forehead to rest on top of his skull. His mother's eyes. Turquoise and slanted. He smiled.
"So you're a journalist, I gather? Based in Paris? Looked you up on the Internet."
I coughed, fingering my watch nervously.
"I looked you up as well, you know. That was a fabulous book, your last one, Tuscan Feasts."
William Rainsferd sighed and patted his stomach.
"Ah, that book contributed nicely to an extra ten pounds I've never been able to get rid of."
I smiled brightly. It was going to be difficult to switch from this pleasant, easy conversation to what I knew lay ahead. Zoe looked at me purposefully.
"It's very nice of you to come here and meet us . . . I appreciate it. . . ."
My voice sounded lame, lost.
"No problem." He grinned, clicking his fingers at the waiter.
We ordered tiramisu and a Coke for Zoe, and two cappuccinos.
"Your first time in Lucca?" he asked.
I nodded. The waiter hovered over us. William Rainsferd spoke to him in rapid, smooth Italian. They both laughed.
"I come to this cafe often," he explained. "I like hanging out here. Even on a hot day like this."
Zoe tried out her tiramisu, her spoon clicking against the small glass bowl. A sudden silence fell upon us.
"What can I do to help?" he asked brightly. "Mara mentioned something about my mother."
I praised Mara inwardly. She had made things easier, it seemed.
"I didn't know your mother had passed away," I said. "I'm sorry."
"That's all right." He shrugged, dropping a lump of sugar into his coffee. "Happened a long time ago. I was a kid. Did you know her? You look a little young for that."
I shook my head.
"No, I never met your mother. I happen to be moving into the apartment she lived in during the war. Rue de Saintonge, in Paris. And I know people who were close to her. That's why I'm here. That's why I came to see you."
He put his coffee cup down and looked at me quietly. The clear eyes were reflective, calm.
Under the table, Zoe placed a sticky hand on my bare knee. I watched a couple of cyclists wheel past. The heat was pounding down on us again. I took a deep breath.
"I'm not quite sure how to begin," I faltered. "And I know it must be difficult for you to have to think about this again, but I felt I had to. My in-laws, the Tezacs, met your mother in the rue de Saintonge, in 1942."
I thought the name Tezac might ring a bell, but he remained motionless. Rue de Saintonge did not seem to, either.
"After what happened, I mean, the tragic events of July '42, and the death of your uncle, I just wanted to assure you that the Tezac family has never been able to forget your mother. My father-in-law, especially, thinks of her every day."
There was a silence. William Rainsferd's eyes seem to shrink.
"I'm sorry," I said quickly, "I knew all this would be painful for you, I'm sorry."
When he finally spoke his voice sounded odd, almost smothered.
"What do you mean by tragic events?"
"Well, the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup," I stammered. "Jewish families, rounded up in Paris, in July '42 . . ."
"Go on," he said.
"And the camps. . . . The families sent to Auschwitz from Drancy . . ."
William Rainsferd spread his palms wide, shook his head.
"I'm sorry, but I don't see what this has to do with my mother."
Zoe and I exchanged uneasy glances.
A long minute dragged by. I felt acutely uncomfortable.
"You mentioned the death of an uncle?" he said at last.
"Yes . . . Michel. Your mother's little brother. In the rue de Saintonge."
Silence.
"Michel?" He seemed puzzled. "My mother never had a brother called Michel. And I've never heard of the rue de Saintonge. You know, I don't think we're talking about the same person."
"But your mother's name was Sarah, right?" I mumbled, confused.
He nodded.
"Yes, that's right. Sarah Dufaure."
"Yes, Sarah Dufaure, that's her," I said eagerly. "Or rathe
r, Sarah Starzynski."
I expected his eyes to light up.
"Excuse me?" he said, eyebrows slanting downward. "Sarah what?"
"Starzynski. Your mother's maiden name."
William Rainsferd stared at me, lifting his chin.
"My mother's maiden name was Dufaure."
A warning bell went off in my head. Something was wrong. He did not know.
There was still time to leave, time to take off before I shattered the peace in this man's life to pieces.
I pasted a blithe smile on my face, murmured something about a mistake, and scraped my chair back a couple of inches, gently urging Zoe to leave her dessert. I wouldn't be wasting his time any longer, I was most sorry. I rose from my seat. He did as well.
"I think you've got the wrong Sarah," he said, smiling. "It doesn't matter, enjoy your stay in Lucca. It was nice meeting you, anyway."
Before I could utter a word, Zoe put her hand into my bag and handed him something.
William Rainsferd looked down at the photograph of the little girl with the yellow star.
"Is this your mother?" Zoe asked with a small voice.
It seemed that everything had gone quiet around us. No noise came from the busy path. Even the birds seemed to have stopped chirping. There was only the heat. And silence.
"Jesus," he said.
And then he sat down again, heavily.
T
HE PHOTOGRAPH LAY FLAT between us on the table. William Rainsferd looked from it to me, again and again. He read the caption on the back several times, with an incredulous, startled expression.
"This looks exactly like my mother as a child," he said, finally. "That I can't deny."
Zoe and I remained silent.
"I don't understand. This can't be. This is not possible."
He rubbed his hands together nervously. I noticed he wore a silver wedding band. He had long, slim fingers.
"The star . . ." He kept shaking his head. "That star on her chest . . ."