Page 26 of One of Them

But she was intent on finding out more about what had happened to her mother; she had to know.

And then there was the sculpture, which was another aspect of her mother’s personality and life, not the often distracted or mercurial mother Sophie had actually been.

Not the mother who had abandoned Delia or the mother who’d betrayed Simon.

No, she wanted to find the mother who’d created that nesting pair of faces, the mother who felt so close to her daughter that she’d shaped a form containing them both.

Late on the second day of her walking, Delia went in search of Marie-Pierre’s apartment on the rue Saint-Sulpice.

It took her a few minutes to find the six-story limestone building with the sheared-off corner.

There were terraces in that spot, and she remembered standing at the iron railing, looking down at the city while her mother and Marie-Pierre talked, talked, talked inside.

Now the building seemed dirtier than Delia remembered, and one of those iron railings—the one below Marie-Pierre’s apartment—was broken.

Delia found her name still on the bell; so she hadn’t moved.

But when she rang, there was no answer, and she soon left.

She tried again the next day, but this time, when there was no response, she decided to wait at a café on the corner.

After a while she saw a woman she thought she recognized at the door to the building; she was carrying a string bag in one hand and using the other to rummage for her key.

Delia jumped up, leaving her unfinished café au lait on the table along with a few coins.

“Marie-Pierre!” she called out.

Startled, Marie-Pierre dropped the bag, and Delia dove to pick it up and hand it to her.

“C’est toi, Sophie? Is that really you?” Marie-Pierre spoke in French, which Delia felt quite comfortable with, after the few days she had been in Paris.

“Non. C’est Delia. Sophie’s daughter.”

“Mon dieu!” Marie-Pierre stared for a moment. “You look so much like your mother for a moment that I thought it was she, even though I know that’s not possible. Ce n’est pas possible. Come upstairs, let’s talk.”

Once inside, Marie-Pierre brought her to a room that appeared to be a parlor and also a workspace; there was a tilted table at one end, and next to it stood a small cart that held jars of ink, pens, and brushes.

On the walls, ink-drawn fashion illustrations had been tacked up by their corners—a woman with a flouncy dress and parasol, another in a hooded cape, and many others.

Delia remembered now that Marie-Pierre had been an artist and illustrator; she and Sophie had moved in the same circles.

“I’m shocked to see you,” said Marie-Pierre. “When did you get here?” She had produced a bottle of wine and poured a glass for each of them.

“Just a couple of days ago.” Delia took a sip. “Can you tell me about the last time you saw my mother?”

“That fall of 1940, the one right after the occupation began. She was horrified that the French were cooperating with the Germans. Sophie was very attached to France. She always said that coming to Paris felt like coming home.”

Delia remembered that too.

“She was already talking about the Resistance. Serge was an early member, and she wanted to join as well.” Then she stopped talking, studying Delia’s face for—what, exactly? “You knew about Serge?”

“Yes. I know about Serge.” Delia didn’t say how she knew, and Marie-Pierre didn’t ask.

“Toute facon, I heard that they got involved early on, and that they, well, your mother really, became essential to the movement.” Marie-Pierre had finished her wine and poured herself another glass; she tipped the bottle in Delia’s direction, but Delia shook her head.

“Once she became immersed in that work, I didn’t see her.

None of her friends from outside the group did.

Later I heard that someone within the group was working for the other side.

She and Serge were both found out, and—well, you know the rest.”

Delia left Marie-Pierre’s apartment in a daze.

Not knowing how her mother had died was a quiet torment, but there was no way for her to find out.

What she could find out was what had happened to the sculpture.

She set out for Mercier it had tiny red buttons and was certainly something Sophie would have liked.

Several more shops were empty or boarded up, reminding Delia once again that the wounds of the war hadn’t healed yet.

Finally she reached the big brick building of the warehouse, but saw nothing that would help her take the next steps.

She stared at the sign, which now hung from a single corner.

Several of its letters were missing. She tried ringing the bell; it emitted a weak, faraway sound.

No reply, so she walked around the perimeter of the building.

Occasionally she jumped up to try to see inside, but the windows were high, and dirty besides.

As she stood there catching her breath, she spied a wooden crate and brought it over to the window.

Now she could climb up to look inside. But a prolonged view of the interior was as disappointing as those glimpses had been. The big space was empty.

“They’re long gone,” said a voice behind her.

Delia turned to see an old man with a fat little dog on a leash. “Do you know where?”

He shrugged. “No.”

“Maybe you know when?”

“I can’t say exactly. But it was a few years ago already. While the Boches were still here.” He spat on the ground, and the little dog looked alarmed. “Stuff scattered all over the street. What a mess.”

“Stuff?” Delia got down from the crate. “What sort of stuff?” Had it included Sophie’s sculpture?

“Eh, I wouldn’t know.” He tugged on the leash and walked away, the dog waddling beside him.

In addition to the invoice, Delia had a list of three storage companies that the telephone directory listed in or near Montparnasse; she spent the rest of the day calling or visiting all of them.

It was a futile effort. None of the places had any records of her mother’s sculpture, and two of them had not even heard of her.

The day had grown hot, and Delia was now sweaty, tired, and discouraged.

She found herself walking along the boulevard de Montparnasse, where she had walked so many times.

She slowed when she came to La Coupole and stood for a moment in front of the entrance to the celebrated and vast brasserie.

The red awning with its sans serif lettering was the same.

And the two women walking in—one in a tight black skirt, fishnet stockings, and frilly white sleeveless blouse, the other in a halter dress with a pattern of sunflowers all over it—looked like the kind of customers she remembered.

There had been so many dinners here, either alone with her parents or with their lively entourage; they always ordered the onion soup, a tower of fresh seafood, and a platter of oysters.

Delia had loved the oysters and devoured them greedily when they were set before her; the waiters had been tickled by how she, such a little girl, could eat so many and with such apparent delight.

The ma?tre d’ saw her standing there. “Voulez-vous entrer, mademoiselle?” No, she did not want to come inside.

She shook her head vigorously and hurried along the boulevard until she came to the Café de la Rotonde, another place they had frequented.

This time she walked by quickly without stopping.

Nor did she stop at Le D?me, but why would she?

That was the place where the English speakers gathered, and her parents never went there; they held it in disdain.

She kept walking, almost without volition headed not to the Métro station but toward the rue Vavin.

Here too were the empty stores emblematic of this new postwar Paris.

The seamstress Sophie had used was gone, and so was the cobbler.

But these were not just boarded-over shops; Delia had known the owners, the seamstress with her head of very tight red ringlets and her pumps with bows in the front, the cobbler who always managed to produce, from somewhere amid the heaps of shoes and boots piled on the counter, a single foil-wrapped caramel, which he presented to Delia with a flourish.

But then she saw that some shops still remained: her mother’s favorite patisserie, the butcher, the newsstand where her father bought his packs of Gauloises and the daily edition of Le Figaro .

Soon enough she came to number 26. It looked the same as it had when she had lived in the neighborhood: seven impressive stories, crisp white tiles, contrasting blue details, and a stepped structure that had been designed to let more air and light into the apartments.

Delia’s family had lived on the third floor; who was living in what had been their apartment now?

Gabrielle had been on the fifth floor, and the two girls were always running up and down the stairs to visit each other.

Delia looked up to the windows she knew had been Gabrielle’s.

Could she still be here, or if not, was her family?

Just then someone left the building, and Delia slipped through the open door and took the elevator up to the fifth floor.

Rapping sharply on the door, she waited.

The sound of footsteps grew louder, and when the door was opened, there stood Gaby—taller and with shorter hair, parted on the side, but Delia recognized her instantly.

“May I help—” She stopped and threw up her hands.

“Delia! Is that you? I can’t believe it.

Come in, come in!” They hugged, and Gaby stepped aside.

Delia recognized the marble-topped chest in the entryway, the gilt mirror above it, the round Chinese rug on the floor.

“It’s been so long. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. ”

Delia sat in the small kitchen she remembered so well. The same copper pots hanging above the stove, the same checkered dishcloth on a hook near the sink. Gaby was slicing a baguette and setting out cheese and ham when a little boy burst into the room and flung himself at her knees.

“Félix! So you’re awake, are you? That was quite a nap that you had.” She scooped him into her arms; he put his head on her shoulder and his thumb in his mouth.

“Is he—” Surprised, Delia looked from the boy’s face to Gaby’s and back again.

Gaby nodded. “He’s mine. I was just going to tell you.”

“Are you... married?”

“I was. Do you remember Christophe Fornier?”

“From school?” Delia recalled a tall, awkward boy who hardly ever said a word. He had been a year or two ahead of them, not one of their friends or companions.

“Yes. Well, after I graduated, I would see him around the neighborhood, and we started spending time together.... He was really very sweet once you got to know him.”

“I never would have guessed that you two—I mean, we barely even noticed him.” She didn’t add that when they had, it was to make fun of him.

“Neither would I. But he was different outside of school. And of course, we were both older by then. We fell in love and got married. That was in 1944. November. We found a little place of our own, just a few blocks from here. Despite everything, we were happy. In the spring, he was drafted. The war was almost over by then, and so we thought he’d be home very soon. But he didn’t come home at all.”

“Oh Gaby!” Delia took her hand and pressed it hard. “I’m so sorry.”

“I miss him terribly. Still, he left me a gift—a miracle, really.” Gaby kissed the top of Félix’s head.

“This little one saved me. I don’t know what I would have done without him.

Félix, do you want to say hello to my old friend Delia?

” Félix sucked harder on his thumb and didn’t answer.

“I moved back here after he was born. Papa had died by then and Maman was alone. So it seemed like the best thing to do.”

“Where is your mother?” Delia asked. “I’d love to see her.”

“She died last year,” said Gaby. “She was never the same after she lost my father.” There was a silence, and then Gaby asked, “And what about you?” She sat down at the table, repositioning Félix in her lap. “You went to New York, yes? Is it as exciting as people say? And how are your parents?”

To her own surprise, Delia started to cry—to wail, really, with great, heaving sobs. She almost never cried. But Gaby had known her when she was young and innocent; she was still young, but her innocence had turned to ash.

“Delia! What’s wrong?!”

Delia told her the story, every single, shameful bit: her mother’s disappearance, her affair with Ian, getting expelled from Vassar, the letters she’d found from her mother, and her current search for the lost sculpture.

Gaby listened quietly before she said, “You’ve lost so much.”

“So have you.”

Somehow this mutual acknowledgment—and recognition—was more comforting than Delia would have expected, and once she’d calmed down and the tears stopped, she felt more hopeful than she had in a long while.