The Sweetness of Forgetting (39 page)

Elida smiles. “I believe so. His information matches the details your mother provided.” She turns to me. “Now you must go find him.”

“How can we ever thank you?” I ask, my voice trembling.

“There is no need to,” Elida says. “
Besa
is our honor. Just promise us that you won’t forget what you learned here today.”

“Never,” Annie says right away. She hands the piece of paper back to me, and her eyes are wide as saucers. “Thank you, Mrs. White. We’ll never, ever forget. I promise.”

Chapter
Twenty-two

Rose

Once, very long ago, when Rose was four years old, her parents had taken her, along with her sister Helene, to Aubergenville, not far from Paris, for a week in the countryside. Her mother was very pregnant that summer of 1929; Claude would be born just six weeks later. But for those glimmering summer moments in the sun, it was just Rose and Helene, four and five years old, the objects of their parents’ attention and affection.

Helene had been charged with watching her younger sister, while her parents sipped white wine on the back deck of the small home they were renting from friends for a week. They were not watching when Helene took Rose around the corner of the house, to the little creek that babbled by.

“Let us go in the water,” Helene said, taking her sister by the hand. Rose hesitated. Maman and Papa would be angry, she thought. But Helene insisted, reminding Rose of the stories their mother read them at bedtime about the family of ducks who lived along the banks of the Seine. “The ducks go swimming all the time, and it is fine,” Helene told her. “Do not be such a baby, Rose.”

And so Rose followed her sister into the water. But the calm surface was deceptive; there was a current running underneath, and as soon as Rose stepped in, she felt it sucking at her toes, pulling her under, taking her away. She did not know how to swim. She was suddenly underwater, thrust into another world, where there was no air, almost no sound. She tried to scream, but the water only filled her lungs. It was dark beneath the surface, dark and unfamiliar. She could see light far away, far above her, but she couldn’t seem to get to it. Her limbs were heavy and wouldn’t move, and in these strange, watery depths, she felt that time was suspended. Until the moment her father pulled her to the surface, called there by her screaming sister just in time, she had been sure she would disappear into the murky, muted world forever.

That was how Rose felt now, under the surface of the coma she’d been in for two weeks. She was aware that there was a surface—voices and sounds, distant and muffled; light and motion very far away. Her limbs felt heavy, like they did that day in the creek in Aubergenville, and she knew that her father was long gone; he would not pull her out of this frightening underworld. She was on her own, and she still didn’t know how to swim.

On that day in Aubergenville, she had wanted to be saved. She had wanted to find the surface, to return to life. But now she wasn’t sure whether she wanted that at all. Maybe it was time to let go. Maybe it was time to drift away. Maybe the murky deep held more for her than the bright surface that she could just barely see.

Hope was up there, she knew. And Annie. But they would be well. Hope was strong, stronger than she gave herself credit for, and Annie was growing into a fine young woman. Rose could not stay with them forever, protect them forever.

Maybe it was finally her time. Maybe
he
was here, somewhere beneath the depths, somewhere in this hazy world that seemed to exist between life and death. She missed seeing the stars,
her
stars, and without the sky to shelter her each night, to remind her of the people she’d loved so much, she felt cold and alone.

Rose was sure she was dying now too; she was beginning to hear the ghosts of her past. And that is how she knew her life was nearly over, for she recognized the voice of her brother Alain, grown up and deep now. It was how she’d always imagined he’d sound if he had survived during the war and had the chance to grow into manhood.

“It is you who saved me, Rose,” the distant voice kept repeating over and over in their native tongue.
“C’est tu qui m’as sauvé, Rose.”

The voice in Rose’s mind screamed, “I did not save you! I let you die! I am a coward!” But the words would not come to her lips, and even if they had, she knew they would be lost in the depths of this shrouded world. And so she listened, as the voice of her dear brother went on.

“You taught me to believe,” he whispered again and again. “You have to stop blaming yourself. It was you who saved me, Rose.”

She wondered whether this was the absolution she’d spent her life searching for, although she was sure she did not deserve it. Or was it simply one more result of the dementia that she knew nibbled at her mind? She didn’t trust her own eyes, her own ears anymore, for they often didn’t match reality or recollection.

And when he began to whisper to her, “You have to wake up, Rose. Hope and Annie may have found Jacob Levy,” she knew that her mind was entirely gone, because that was impossible. Jacob was gone. Long gone. Hope would never know him. Rose would never see him again.

Were it possible to shed tears in the deep, murky sea, Rose would have cried.

Chapter
Twenty-three

O
n the way home from Elida’s house, I can see Annie’s eyes shining in the darkness, glinting with reflected light.

“You have to go to New York tomorrow, Mom,” she says. “You have to go find him.”

I nod. The bakery is closed on Mondays anyhow, and even if it weren’t, I know I can’t wait another moment. “We’ll leave in the morning,” I tell Annie. “First thing.”

Annie turns to look at me. “I can’t go with you,” she says miserably, shaking her head. “I have my big social studies test tomorrow.”

I clear my throat. “That’s responsible of you.” I pause. “Have you studied for it?”

“Mom!” Annie says. “Of course! Duh.”

“Good,” I say. “Okay. We’ll head down to New York on Tuesday, then. Can you miss school on Tuesday?”

Annie shakes her head. “No, you gotta go tomorrow, Mom.”

I glance at her, then refocus on the road. “Honey, I don’t mind waiting for you.”

“No,” she says instantly. “You have to find him as soon as possible. What if we’re running out of time and we don’t even know it?”

“Mamie’s stable now,” I tell Annie. “She’ll hang in there.”

“C’mon, Mom,” Annie says softly after a pause. “You don’t believe that. You know she could die any time. That’s why you’ve got to find Jacob Levy as soon as you can if he’s out there.”

“But Annie—” I begin.

“No, Mom,” she says firmly, as if she’s the parent and I’m the child. “Go to New York tomorrow. Bring Jacob Levy back. Don’t let Mamie down.”

After swinging by the hospital on the way home, staying with Mamie for a bit, and getting Annie into bed, I sit in the kitchen with Alain, sipping decaf coffee and explaining what we learned from Elida and her grandmother.

“Besa,”
he says softly. “What a beautiful concept. The obligation to help our fellow man.” He stirs his coffee slowly and takes a sip. “So you will go tomorrow to New York? Alone?”

I nod. Then, feeling foolish, I add quickly, “I was thinking about seeing if Gavin would want to come with me. Just since he helped us out a lot at the beginning of this search, you know?”

Alain smiles. “It is a wise idea.” He pauses, then adds, “You know, there is nothing wrong with falling in love with Gavin, Hope.”

I’m so startled by his bluntness that I choke on the sip of coffee I’ve just taken. “I’m not in love with Gavin,” I protest through coughs.

“Of course you are,” Alain says. “And he is in love with you.”