A Tangled Web (5 page)

So she doubled back, almost to her hotel, and found the shop, where a riot of sun-drenched colors greeted her. She bought a long narrow scarf and wound it around the crown of the hat, letting the ends float free, just as she and Stephanie had done all the years they were growing up in Europe, just as their mother had taught them to do on a limited budget: to change a hat with scarves, feathers, flowers, so it always looked new.

She went out into the slanting rays of the late afternoon
sun, softer than before. People walked more slowly here than in Paris or London; they stopped to chat and gave way when others approached. Children in school uniforms with book-filled backpacks walked hand in hand or ran across the squares, chased by yapping dogs.
You were across the square, walking in the other direction.
Which square? There were several, linked by narrow streets or gracious esplanades, and Sabrina walked slowly, looking into people's faces, beginning at the highest part of the city, where, almost six hundred years earlier, a succession of seven popes had made Avignon their Rome, building a huge palace of domes and spires and great windows fronting on an enormous square that dwarfed everyone in it. So many people, Sabrina thought as she walked across the square; so many families, so many generations standing on these granite slabs, all with their own stories, their own problems, hoping for answers. And so am I.

She went into the small hotel at the edge of the square; she walked in and out of shops in the streets leading from it. What did she expect to find? Someone who would look at her with recognition; someone who would greet her. But no one did; she was anonymous. And so she went on, leaving the palace behind, walking purposefully, as if she knew exactly where she was going, and found herself once again at the Place de I'Horloge with the great clock for which it was named.

This time she paused and let herself enjoy the scene. It was the largest square in Avignon, like a small town lined with trees and shrubs, outdoor cafés and shops, with the magnificent white stone theater at one end and, nearby, a carousel of brightly painted horses and elephants and great throne-like seats, turning to the accompaniment of hurdy-gurdy music. Sabrina stood beside it, wishing Penny and Cliff were there, wishing she and Garth could sit on a matched pair of elephants and circle in stately grace for hours with no past, no telephones, nothing to break their private rhythm, while people came and went, filling the
square with shifting colors and the soft French pronunciation of the south.

A stillness came as evening fell: the carousel still revolved, but the children went home to their supper, taking the dogs with them; shopkeepers swept up and straightened their shelves with slow, dreamlike movements; in the cafes people sat at small metal tables in a kind of reverie, reading newspapers and talking softly while waiters glided among them with trays held high.

Sabrina found a table and sat down. She felt she was waiting for something. No one questioned her being alone, as did the maître d's in London; cafés were a place for those who had no one with whom to share a meal. But I have a family to share my meals, Sabrina thought. A whole family, waiting for me.

Not yet, not yet. She was the one who was waiting now.

The next morning she had a brioche and coffee in the courtyard of her hotel, then went out again and walked again, up and down the streets, looking into shop windows, looking into people's faces, asking directions. She was waiting for someone to recognize her. But no one did; she wore her hat, grateful for it in the hot sun, and walked through Avignon, a stranger.

Just before noon, she walked on the cobbled street along the Sorgue River, cooler than the open squares, admiring the mossy waterwheels on the river's edge and the antique shops on the other side of the Rue des Teinturiers. Almost as mossy as the waterwheels, she thought with a smile, and went into a secondhand bookshop, a shop that offered embroidered waistcoats and decorative fabrics, and then into one crammed with antique maps. She had never dealt with maps and knew nothing about them, but she went in.

No one was in the small room, though she heard rustling and footsteps beyond a doorway in the corner. She moved slowly around a large table, idly lifting heavy folios, each map encased between protective sheets of plastic. The air was cool and musty, the only sounds the rustle of papers in the other room and Sabrina's steps on the dark
wood floor as she moved to a wall of shallow drawers and began to pull them out, glancing at the maps inside. She had no reason to be there; she had no idea of the value or rarity of the maps she saw in drawer after drawer, but she did not want to leave. Twice she thought about it
—there are other places to go; it's a big town and I have only today—
but both times she stayed where she was.

“Good morning, madame, may I be of service?” A small man came through the doorway, stooped over a cane. His white hair was in disarray; his white beard was trimmed to a neat point. “I'm sorry I kept you waiting; I was wrapping some maps for a customer—Ah, madame, have you come for the Tavernier? Perhaps your friend could not wait to have it shipped; it is not surprising: he was so excited about it. I have it wrapped for you; I will get it.”

Sabrina's heart began to pound; she felt herself sway.

“Madame! Here, a chair, oh, I'm so sorry, only a stool, but still . . . please, please, madame, it is perhaps the heat outside?”

He was holding her arm, but Sabrina gently moved away. “Thank you, I don't need to sit down; I'm fine.” A map had fallen from her hand and she saw its delicate traceries and pale colors waver as she stared at it.

“There is a doctor, madame, not far from here; I can take you to him.”

“No, really, I don't need a doctor.” She smiled at him. “You're probably right; it was the heat.” She paused, then made a decision. “However, I must tell you that I am confused. I was not here recently; I have never been in your shop. Whoever was here must have been someone who looked like me.”

He was frowning at her. “Madame makes some kind of joke? Everything is the same, the hat, the scarf, the hair . . . and the face! Someone so beautiful, madame, so in love, so eager to learn, is not quickly forgotten. And your friend, who knows so well the world of maps; I do not forget him either.” He bent to retrieve the map from the
floor. “It was a pleasure to talk to him; not many these days have such knowledge. And he is a painter, not a cartographer! It astonishes me still.”

Sabrina shook her head. “There is some mistake. Did they tell you their names?”

“You are asking me if you told me your name, madame? You did not. I asked your friend if he had a card, but he said no and made a little joke, that painters have canvases but not cards. No, madame, your friend did not tell me his name and neither did you.” He looked at her pointedly, waiting for her to tell him, and end whatever game she was playing.

Whoever they were, Sabrina thought, they had some reason for not telling you. A long conversation about a shopkeeper's wares, a possible purchase, almost always led to an exchange of names.

“My name is Stephanie Andersen,” she said, “but that is not the name of the woman who was in your shop.”

“Madame!” he exploded. He turned away to replace the map in its proper drawer, then turned again to face her. “If you have changed your mind about buying the Tavernier, that is one thing. I understand that you are not especially interested in maps—that you deal with antique furniture instead—but . . .”

“What?”

“I beg your pardon, madame?”

“You said antique furniture.”

“
Mon dieu!
Madame, I am baffled that you insist on playing this very strange game; it is nothing to me what your name is—”

“Did they say where they live? What neighborhood in Avignon, or nearby town?”

He flung up his hands. “No, madame, you did not tell me that.”

“What kind of painter is he?”

“As you know, he did not tell me.”

“Did you watch them after they left your shop? Where did they go?”

“I do not know where you went, madame. Nor am I interested in finding out. Now, if you will excuse me, I have work to do.” Furious with her, he returned to the other room.

Sabrina stood indecisively, then slowly left the shop and retraced her steps along the river and returned to the center of town. The shops would be closing soon for the afternoon break, and by the time they reopened, she would be on her way to Marseilles to catch her flight to London; otherwise she would miss the morning flight to Chicago. But what difference did it make whether the shops were open or closed? If this woman, this
impostor—
for what else could she be?—was determined not to tell her name to shopkeepers, and her friend was determined, too, what good would it do to go from shop to shop to try to find out who they were and what they were doing and why?

But he's a painter. If he was telling the truth about that, he would have wanted to go to galleries. Or maybe he needed more supplies.

Suddenly filled with energy, she went to the tourist office on Cours Jean-Jaurès and got a list of art galleries and artists' supply shops. There were only two supply shops, and the first, Monet Fournitures Artistiques, was a few blocks away. She walked quickly, ignoring the heat, her face shaded by her hat.

“Ah, madame, I am so glad you return,” said the tall woman behind the counter. She had broad shoulders, her cheeks were round and full, and she wore oversize glasses that made her look like an amiable owl. “I left out one brush in wrapping your package; I have it here.” She brought a narrow box from behind the counter and held it out to Sabrina with a wide smile. “Otherwise I would have had to go looking for you, which would have been a long process, since I did not know where to look.”

Sabrina avoided the truth; it was too difficult. “I didn't tell you where I live?”

“No, madame, the subject did not come up.” The woman tilted her head and contemplated Sabrina's pale
face calmly and with sympathy; she was prepared to accept any kind of infirmity or eccentricity. “Did you think you did?”

Sabrina laughed. “No, I know I didn't. Did I tell you my name?”

“No, madame, and neither did your companion.”

Sabrina frowned slightly. “How do you know he was not my husband?”

“In fact, madame, at first I thought he was, from your closeness, your joy at being together, so very evident, especially to someone recently widowed, but I overheard a conversation when I left the room for a moment and it was clear that someone else was the husband.”

Their eyes met. They liked each other. “I'm sorry about your husband,” Sabrina said gently, and the woman bowed her head in acknowledgment. Her hands gripped each other; tears were in her eyes. A loving woman, Sabrina thought. So loving that she was willing to indulge a stranger in a bizarre conversation rather than issue a challenge and perhaps cause distress. A wonderful woman, a caring woman.

And Sabrina knew she could not intrude with her own concerns on memories of a dead husband.

Slowly, reluctantly, she turned to go. But the woman's voice stopped her. “Madame asked me if you told me your name.”

She turned back. “Yes.”

“As I said, you did not.” In gratitude for Sabrina's sympathy, the shopkeeper no longer spoke as if it had been Sabrina in her shop. “The woman did not tell me her name. But when I was in the other room—I was searching for a kind of gesso that I thought I had, and indeed I did—she and her friend were talking together and he called her by her name. And she spoke her husband's name.”

Sabrina looked at her, waiting.

“Her name was Sabrina,” the woman said. “And the husband's name was Max.”

T
he explosion ripped open the
Lafitte
's staterooms, flinging debris in a wide arc above the Mediterranean. The roar echoed off the white and pink buildings on the shore, causing cries of alarm in the streets and cafés of Monte Carlo. Those who had binoculars grabbed them, but saw little in the turbulence of waves and wreckage. On the ship, within seconds, water flooded the elegant quarters where Max Stuyvesant had entertained and made love, and the crew's quarters below, and within minutes the ship began to sink. It was five-thirty in the afternoon of an overcast October day.