Tatiana Rosnay: Sarah’s Key

Bertrand waved to us, then pointed to the phone, lowering his eyebrows and scowling.

“Like he can’t get that person off the phone,” scoffed Zoë. “Sure.”

Zoë was only eleven, but it sometimes felt like she was already a teenager. First, her height, which dwarfed all her girlfriends-as well as her feet, she would add grimly-and then a precocious lucidity that often made me catch my breath. There was something adult about her solemn, hazel gaze, the reflective way she lifted her chin. She had always been like that, even as a little child. Calm, mature, sometimes too mature for her age.

Antoine came to greet us while Bertrand went on with his conversation, just about loud enough for the entire street to hear, waving his hands in the air, making more faces, turning around from time to time to make sure we were hanging on to every word.

“A problem with another architect,” explained Antoine with a discreet smile.

“A rival?” asked Zoë.

“Yes, a rival,” replied Antoine.

Zoë sighed.

“Which means we could be here all day,” she said.

I had an idea.

“Antoine, do you by any chance have the key to Madame Tézac’s apartment?”

“I do have it, Julia,” he said, beaming. Antoine always spoke English to my French. I suppose he did it to be friendly, but it secretly annoyed me. I felt like my French still wasn’t any good after living here all these years.

Antoine flourished the key. We decided to go up, the three of us. Zoë punched out the digicode at the door with deft fingers. We walked through the leafy, cool courtyard to the elevator.

“I hate that elevator,” said Zoë. “Papa should do something about it.”

“Honey, he’s only redoing your great-grandmother’s place,” I pointed out. “Not the whole building.”

“Well, he should,” she said.

As we waited for the elevator, my mobile phone chirped out the Darth Vader theme. I peered at the number flashing on my screen. It was Joshua, my boss.

I answered, “Yup?”

Joshua was to the point. As usual.

“Need you back by three. Closing July issues. Over and out.”

“Gee whiz,” I said pertly. I heard a chuckle on the other end of the line before he hung up. Joshua always seemed to like it when I said gee whiz. Maybe it reminded him of his youth. Antoine seemed amused by my old-fashioned Americanisms. I imagined him hoarding them up, then trying them out with his French accent.

The elevator was one of those inimitable Parisian contraptions with a diminutive cabin, hand-maneuvered iron screen, and double wooden doors that inevitably swung in your face. Squashed between Zoë and Antoine-a trifle heavy-handed with his Vétiver scent-I caught a glimpse of my face in the mirror as we glided up. I looked as eroded as the groaning lift. What had happened to the fresh-faced belle from Boston, Mass.? The woman who stared back at me was at that dreaded age between forty-five and fifty, that no-man’s land of sag, oncoming wrinkle, and stealthy approach of menopause.

“I hate this elevator, too,” I said grimly.

Zoë grinned and pinched my cheek.

“Mom, even Gwyneth Paltrow would look like hell in that mirror.”

I had to smile. That was such a Zoë-like remark.

THE MOTHER BEGAN TO sob, gently at first, then louder. The girl looked at her, stunned. In all her ten years, she had never seen her mother cry. Appalled, she watched the tears trickle down her mother’s white, crumpled face. She wanted to tell her mother to stop crying, she could not bear the shame of seeing her mother snivel in front of these strange men. But the men paid no attention to the mother’s tears. They told her to hurry up. There was no time to waste.

In the bedroom, the little boy slept on.

“But where are you taking us?” pleaded her mother. “My daughter is French, she was born in Paris, why do you want her too? Where are you taking us?”

The men spoke no more. They loomed over her, menacing, huge. The mother’s eyes were white with fear. She went to her room, sank down on the bed. After a few seconds, she straightened her back and turned to the girl. Her voice was a hiss, her face a tight mask.

“Wake your brother. Get dressed, both of you. Take some clothes, for him and you. Hurry! Hurry, now!”

Her brother went speechless with terror when he peeped through the door and saw the men. He watched his mother, disheveled, sobbing, trying to pack. He mustered all the strength he had in his four-year-old body. He refused to move. The girl cajoled him. He would not listen. He stood, motionless, his little arms folded over his chest.

The girl took off her night dress, grabbed a cotton blouse, a skirt. She slipped her feet into shoes. Her brother watched her. They could hear their mother crying from her room.

“I’m going to our secret place,” he whispered.

“No!” she urged. “You’re coming with us, you must.”

She grabbed him, but he wriggled out of her grasp and slithered into the long, deep cupboard hidden in the surface of the wall of their bedroom. The one they played hide-and-seek in. They hid there all the time, locked themselves in, and it was like their own little house. Maman and Papa knew about it, but they always pretended they didn’t. They’d call out their names. They’d say with loud, bright voices, “But where did those children go? How strange, they were here a minute ago!” And she and her brother would giggle away with glee.

They had a flashlight in there and some cushions and toys and books, even a flask of water that Maman would fill up every day. Her brother couldn’t read yet, so the girl would read Un Bon Petit Diable out loud to him. He loved the tale of the orphan Charles and the terrifying Madame Mac’miche and how Charles got back at her for all her cruelty. She would read it to him over and over again.

The girl could see her brother’s small face peeking out at her from the darkness. He had his favorite teddy bear clutched to him, he was not frightened anymore. Maybe he’d be safe there, after all. He had water and the flashlight. And he could look at the pictures in the Comtesse de Ségur book. His favorite was the one of Charles’s magnificent revenge. Maybe she should leave him there for the moment. The men would never find him. She would come back to get him later in the day when they were allowed to go home again. And Papa, still in the cellar, would know where the boy was hiding, if ever he came up.

“Are you afraid in there?” she said softly, as the men called out for them.

“No,” he said. “I’m not afraid. You lock me in. They won’t get me.”

She closed the door on the little white face, turned the key in the lock. Then she slipped the key into her pocket. The lock was hidden by a pivoting device shaped like a light switch. It was impossible to see the outline of the cupboard in the paneling of the wall. Yes, he’d be safe there. She was sure of it.

The girl murmured his name and laid her palm flat on the wooden panel.

“I’ll come back for you later. I promise.”

WE ENTERED THE APARTMENT, fumbled with light switches. Nothing happened. Antoine opened a couple of shutters. The sun poured in. The rooms were bare, dusty. Without furniture, the living room seemed immense. The golden rays slanted in through the long, grimy windowpanes, dappling the deep brown floorboards.

I looked around at the empty shelves, the darker squares on the walls where the beautiful paintings used to hang, the marble chimney where I remembered so many winter fires burning, and Mamé holding out her delicate, pale hands to the warmth of the flames.