“Not me, you vultures," she yelled at them, and felt better.
As she approached the pile of rocks, she was disappointed to discover it was not a shepherd's hut where she might have bedded down for the night, but a dolmen, a burial chamber from megalithic days. Whoever had occupied it thousands of years ago had become one with the plateau, yet even if she could have squeezed into the chamber, Faith was uneasy with the implications. Besides, it was still daylight and she needed to press on.
How fascinated Tom would be with all this, she thought as she picked a few wildflowers, then looked at them slightly dazed, dropped them, and pinched herself. Keep walking. Keep moving. Don't stop. She started to say it out loud. It wasn't a desert, though it felt like one. Everything was so flat. She wasn't thirsty—there had been a stream in the woods—but mirages seemed to beckon. She thought she saw a cross ahead of her. She was hallucinating.
“Don't waste my time!" Michel slammed the receiver down. He'd sent Tom back to the Leblancs ostensibly to check on Benjamin, but in reality to keep him from hearing too much of what was going on. Now Faith had been sighted in the chorus at the Folies Bergere in Paris.
Gina Martignetti had disappeared into thin air. There was no record of anyone of that name and age living in Rome. Giovanni had been grilled but apparently knew nothing at all. The other two prostitutes, Marilyn and Monique, had also gone underground—and Michel hoped not literally. Everybody was missing and he was at a loss to figure out what it all meant. ^ It was a cross. Intricately carved and standing straight up. Cared for. No lichen. Which meant someone came here sometimes. Faith took it as the good sign it was and continued to walk. She was slowing down and she saw her shadow lengthen. It would be dark soon.
Where was Christophe now? she wondered. Far, far away. Having failed to find her, she assumed he would have made for the nearest border. Spain? Poor Solange and Jean-Fransois. A child like that wasn't just sowing wild oats, but bad seeds. She'd feel a whole lot sorrier for them if she hadn't been the victim, or one of them.
The two girls must have heard the shots or maybe they'd left by then. She couldn't figure out where they fit in or what the business with the clochards and the break-ins meant. She certainly had plenty of time to try now. She matched her steps to her mental gymnastics. The kids figure out who's going to be out of town and one of them robs the apartment—or maybe a pair of them. More than that would be too risky. She wondered how many kids were involved. Could there be a giant ring of adolescent cambri-oleurs in Lyon? Christophe, Dominique, Berthille, and the other boy, Benoit, had seemed so tight at the gallery—a little world unto themselves. She wouldn't be surprised if it was just the four of them. So they robbed the apartments and what did they do with the stuff? Hard to explain to Maman where the new diamond and emerald choker had come from.
“I don't care about the clochards," Dominique had said, and something about their being lazy and drunk, that they could get jobs. Was it some sort of nouveau Robin Hood enterprise? Steal from the bourgeoisie and give to the poor? Passing the loot to Christophe's uncle to hand out to his friends? But the first time one of them tried to buy a bottle of wine at Monoprix with a gold medallion of the Sun King, the smiling lady at the register would be more likely to call the police than say "Merci beaucoup. Bonne journee," as she invariably did. So polite—like everyone else in other stores.
And what about Faith's own clochard? The dead one. Bernard. Had he wanted too many goodies? No, the whole thing didn't make any sense at all, she thought wearily. And how did Marie connect with the kids? She wouldn't have been afraid of them. She'd have told their parents.
Faith realized the land was sloping down again and decided to follow it. Nothing except sheep or goats could live on such a plateau. She might not know a great deal about animal husbandry, but this much was clear. She wouldn't mind encountering a sheep or two about now. They'd make cozy companions for the cold night ahead, plus she did have a very serviceable knife and a few matches. There was plenty of rosemary around. She began to salivate. Bo Peep would have done the same thing in Faith's place, she was sure.
But there were no sheep and she started down the slope that soon became a steep incline. She had to walk sideways to keep from tumbling forward on the loose stones. The sun set slowly. It was glorious, streaking vivid pinks and oranges across the sky until they faded to deep violet. Another night alone. Yet, she was still alive, she'd saved her baby's life, and in the morning, she was sure she would come across a road and find help. She had faith, she told herself—both.
Before long it was pitch-dark, but soon the moon rose, a bright golden half, joined by more stars than she had ever realized existed in the firmament. She noticed she was now following a rough track that showed an occasional tire mark in the ruts. Faith didn't think any find could excite her more than the Missoni sweater dress marked 50 percent off that she'd unearthed at Bergdorfs last January, but it paled in comparison with the exquisite pattern of these tires— proof that civilization and help were at hand. This track couldn't be called a road, yet it was bound to lead somewhere.
It did. Straight down again.
Standing at the top, Faith thought she detected the glimmer of a light far off in the distance. Without hesitating, she eagerly followed the trail down toward the speck and was rewarded to find it steadily enlarge as she moved closer. The way leveled off again, but the light did not disappear, and after about a half hour, she stood looking at a large, two-story stone house with a variety of outbuildings. An old Citroen truck was parked outside and she felt like kissing its fenders. The light was coming from the ground-floor front windows and she summoned all the energy she had left to go to the door and lift the heavy iron knocker. It fell with a thunderous bang. She was weeping in relief.
The door opened wide immediately and a dramatic figure filled the frame. It was a very large man in his late forties, dressed like a farmer, but under his beret, his graying hair reached almost to his shoulders, where it mixed with a long beard, creating confusion as to where one left off and the other began. His bushy eyebrows rose slightly in mild surprise and he said in an incongruously soft voice, "Vous etes perdue, mademoiselle?”
Very, very perdue. Tres, tres lost, Faith reflected as she answered, "Out.”
A woman's voice called something out and the man stepped back, telling Faith to come in. It was a farmhouse, not unlike the one she had left but larger, and a different decorator had been employed—or rather, it was a matter of self-employment and frozen in tune at some point during the late sixties. Batik wall hangings, pots of geraniums swinging in macrame planters, and furniture that had been scrounged and/or made from scratch. She'd entered a time warp—a sensation heightened by the immediate appearance of the lady of the house, who wore her salt and pepper hair parted in the middle and down to her waist. She was clothed in multiple layers constructed, surely by her own hands, from bright, well-worn India-print cottons. Sandals with several pairs of wool socks completed the look—a look that identified the individual as belonging not so much to a particular nation as to the whole world—in 1968.
“Pauvre petite!" the apparition exclaimed, and quickly pushed a chair stacked with pillows toward Faith. Faith let herself sink gratefully into their softness. She'd made it. She was safe.
The man and woman began to speak at once, quickly. It was impossible.
“Parlez-vous anglais?" Faith asked. She was so tired and speaking French took so much concentration.