“Did your father speak about what he did in Korea?”
“No,” I said. “Dad might say he hadn’t been so cold since Korea, or that if he wanted to camp out he’d rejoin the army-he’d say a hotel without room service was as close to camping as he ever wanted to get again. And I knew about his wounds; couldn’t miss the scars when he wore shorts or swim trunks. But he didn’t talk about what happened over there, and I knew not to ask because it made him sad.”
“Oui,” he said. “Same with my father. He talked about the airplanes he flew in Indochina, but not much else. One time, he took me to an air show and told me about flying the Bearcats. Papa had far more to say about what the Germans did to his family during the world war than about what the French did in Indochina when he was there ten years later.”
I smiled at that. My recently discovered French grandmother, Élodie Martin, had much to say not only about what the Germans did in Normandy, but also about what she and the women in her village did to the Germans: a bloody tale she told with relish, and one I was hoping to capture on film.
“What happened to your family during the German occupation?” I asked.
“My father was just a boy at school in Paris when the Germans conscripted him and forced him to work in a munitions factory in Belgium. His father died in a prisoner of war camp,” he said, an edge of sadness in his voice.
“Papa was a reasonable man, an intellectual,” he continued. “But for the rest of his life he refused to buy anything made in Germany or to invest in any company that held German interests. I cannot tell you the scolding I got when I bought a Mercedes. He would always say, ‘Scratch a German, find a Nazi.’ And there was nothing anyone could say or do that would make him change his mind.”
“Wars do not necessarily end when the armistice is signed, do they?”
“No.” He stroked my back. “It is not only war we are talking about, is it, chérie?”
“No?”
“The police are investigating the death of your friend’s mother, yes?”
“Kevin Halloran is.”
“And he is competent?”
“He seems to be.”
“And yet, when you found a lead on a line of inquiry, you did not inform him immediately, but went yourself, first.”
“You mean Duc?”
“Yes, Duc, and this Larry who keeps popping up late at night.” After a pause, he said, “Do you believe what Larry told you?”
“About Mrs. Bartolini? Sorry to say, but I do.”
“Maggie, my dear, I hear your questions and they all seem to come back to your father. Are you afraid he was involved in some illicit way with the woman or with her death?”
I started to deny it, a protective reflex. Instead, I said, “I think he knew something that worried him enough that he made inquiries. But he never went to the police.”
“Because he was protecting someone?”
“Probably.”
“Perhaps he found what he was looking for,” he said.
“He would have gone to the police if he had.”
“Unless it was too dangerous,” he said, raising my hand to his lips. “And perhaps it still is. Maggie, I have to leave tomorrow.” He lifted his head up enough to see the bedside clock; it was already Sunday. “Today, actually. Please come with me. Lyle and Roy will finish the work here.”
It was an attractive idea. I thought about it, but told him, “I can’t leave until Tuesday at the earliest. My cousin is coming this afternoon and staying overnight. We have some decisions to make before I can finish up here. There are haulers to arrange, a cleaning crew to boss around, truck repairs to see about, and-”
“Yes, yes, but you should not be here alone.”
“I’ll hardly be alone,” I said. “Max will be back, Guido is coming up to talk about what we’re going to do about the Normandy film, and Susan will be here in the afternoon. Her entire book club will show up Monday.”
He was quiet for a moment.
“I love that you are concerned, but I’ll be fine,” I said.
“Everyone leaves again on Monday,” he said. “Yes?”
“They do.”
He yawned. “I have business to tend to in Los Angeles, but I’ll be back Monday evening.”
I did not protest. Instead, I snuggled down against him, and fell asleep.
– -
First thing in the morning, we went for a run up Grizzly Peak Road. I had been bending, stooping, and lifting for nearly a week and cherished my early morning runs to stretch my legs, breathe fresh air, and clear my mind. Jean-Paul ran easily next to me, though I knew he was the better runner and could have sprinted ahead or run circles around me. I had hoped to show him the view from the peak of San Francisco rising like Camelot out of the Bay. But the City was shrouded by its summer cloak of gray fog, as usual, and we couldn’t even see the top of the Transamerica Building. Jean-Paul seemed more interested in the towering redwoods on the Cal campus below us than on the postcard-quality view of the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge rising up out of the gloom.
Altogether, it was a good run. By the time we returned home, my head felt decluttered, as it generally does after a good run or a hard swim. A few bits and pieces of what happened in my neighborhood thirty-some years ago were beginning to come together.
Back at the house, after showers, we made breakfast and took it outside to eat at the big table under the grape arbor. On Sunday mornings, both of us had transcontinental phone calls to make. My college-junior daughter, Casey, was spending the summer on her grandmother’s farm estate in Normandy with about half a dozen cousins who were more or less the same age. Jean-Paul’s son, Dominic, was staying in Paris with his aunt, now gearing up for a two-year preparatory course before he entered one of the grandes écoles. It was already late afternoon in France when we pushed our breakfast dishes aside and took out our phones.
“Mom, great, I was waiting for you to call,” Casey said with unusual enthusiasm for this Sunday ritual. “When are you flying over?”
“Does my darling daughter miss me?” I asked.
“What? Oh, yeah. Sure, of course. But when are you coming?”
“One way or another, in a couple of weeks. What’s up?”
“Are you bringing a whole film crew or just Guido?”
“Probably just Guido,” I said. “Why?”
“We had this great idea-”
“We?”
“David and Dom and I.”
I turned to look at Jean-Paul, who had the strangest expression on his face. I knew he was speaking with his son, Dominic. Catching Jean-Paul’s eye, I asked Casey, “Dom Bernard?”
Jean-Paul heard me and was nodding when Casey affirmed, “Yes. You know his grandmother is Grand-mère’s friend. She brought him to see the farm.”
“Let me guess, his grandmother and your great-grandmother are plotting something,” I said.
“They’re matchmaking,” she said, very matter-of-fact. “As always. Grand-mère hopes that you two will get married and move to France so you can come over every Sunday for dinner.”
From the look on his face, Jean-Paul was hearing something similar from his son. He smiled and lifted a palm in a whatcha-gonna-do? gesture.
“Anyway, Mom?”
“Yes, dear.”
“We had this great idea to film promo spots to raise awareness about the amazing local farm products. You know, globally.”