Twenty-One Nights in Paris: Chapter 39

‘I still don’t understand how you met Mademoiselle Asquith-Lewis.’

That makes two of us… Sacha had been sitting in the interview room for over an hour and had already outlined everything once, including his alibi for Monday night and his tip-off to the Ministry of Culture. But he gathered his thoughts to answer the young police officer, trying to tell the story more coherently this time.

‘And after the crash, you went to a bar and searched for her engagement ring? Or do I have that wrong?’

‘No, no, we went to the hospital in between and she got the ring stuck on her finger.’

‘She needed a doctor to get it off?’

‘No, we were at the hospital for me. I was hurt in the crash.’

‘And after this night, you went back to see her?’

‘I found her ring in my sweater.’ The officer’s withering expression was eloquent. ‘It’s a thick, woollen sweater. It got caught…’ He had to agree he sounded like Scheherazade, spinning tales to save his own skin.

‘And you came to the Ritz and… asked her on a date?’

‘Not quite… Ren asked me to act as her boyfriend.’ A smile tugged on the corners of his mouth. What a circuitous route they’d taken, but he wouldn’t change a moment.

The officer blinked. ‘And you have a tax registration for this… activity?’ she asked drily.

He opened his mouth to protest that Ren had never paid him a centime, but the door of the interview room burst open to reveal another young officer who seemed equally disgruntled that something had actually happened on Christmas Day.

While the second officer beckoned the first out of the room, Sacha glanced around with unexpected contentment. The appearance of the officers, firearms on their hips and arms dangling over their bullet-proof vests, had prompted unpleasant memories, but he was oddly satisfied sitting in this interview room, trying to tell his disjointed and outlandish story.

Perhaps it was because a police interrogation room was preferable to a private dining room at the Ritz with Grandmother Asquith-Lewis and her Grand Vizier, Ziggy. In all the scenarios he’d envisaged, he’d never imagined that Ren’s family would tip off the police and frame him for theft.

Photographers had captured all of his progress from the door of the Ritz to the back of a police car and, to top it off, he’d been wearing an accursed bow tie. He pulled the thing off and slapped it onto the table, wrenching open the top button of his shirt.

But in the midst of what should have been a wretched moment, he was wired with unexpected energy. He’d confronted Grandmama Asquith-Lewis. Like some trigger-happy teenager in star-crossed love, he’d lost his cool, because that was just how he felt about Ren.

He felt vindicated and obstinate and far from philosophical. Inside he was screaming that, if this was the worst that could happen, then fuck it. It had already happened, and he still wanted her. Why couldn’t they screw the rest of the world and their expectations and just be together? His perception of inferiority was his own problem and it was a stupid reason to push away the woman he loved. If she wanted him, he would put up with a lot more than a snobbish matriarch, a few smears in the media and assorted minor injuries.

Putain de merde, he was practically in prison for her and the only concern he had was whether she could work things out with her grandmother, as she would undoubtedly want to do – his tender-hearted Ren. Why had he ever thought she’d have to choose? Her heart was big enough for both of them.

His bag had been searched, but not taken from him when he arrived, so he rummaged in the bottom until he found the notebook, turning it over in his hands. Instead of the usual stab of loss, his thoughts drifted back to Nadia and Christmas Eve. He sensed she was right and that, when he opened the book today, he would find something different to what he’d understood before and a niggle of fear still shivered through him at the thought of what he might discover. Nadia knew about life – and love – more deeply than he did. She’d taken chances and been hurt and… let things go. Why had he lived as though he was the only one in the world who had ever lost someone?

Ren had lost her parents, her childhood and her innocence. She’d learned to smile all by herself. But his father had died and that was it? His life had to be preserved in formaldehyde so he could relive the anguish over and over again every time he looked in the mirror?

He rubbed at his neck, remembering Ren’s fingers there, the way the words of his tattoo had acted on her as a key in a lock, rather than the trigger of loss and confusion they had been for him, all these years. Go back and read the notebook in this context.

He took a deep breath and opened it. He flipped through the first few pages, skipping over the short, dark poems with twisted metaphors, where Karim had laid bare his episodes of depression.

He finally paused on a poem entitled ‘Just a Man’.

He’d read it many times, feeling sadness and regret in the lines, but that day, he noticed the chronology of the poem. A few pages before came a short verse that burst with colour and emotion, Karim entirely unable to contain himself at the birth of his daughter. That poem was easier to work out, because the title was ‘Hope’, which was the meaning of the name Nadia.

Then came a long gap, where Karim’s suffering had receded for long enough that reaching for his notebook had been less necessary. Then he’d started to write again. Sacha didn’t know exactly when.

He stared at the poem. Only half a soul… The meaning of it transformed before his eyes as he realised the subject was not the title, but the missing part, the thing not mentioned. It wasn’t about being a man. It was about a woman. It was about his mother.

Two deaths… That part he understood. A part of Karim had died along with his wife. Nadia had been right. Sacha was afraid of loving like that. One life… The life he’d committed to Maman? Or had he meant that every man had only one life, one chance to say and do the things that needed to be said and done, one life to experience that kind of love.

Despite his failures, his father had left a powerful legacy and he suddenly realised Ren was right. Nothing Sacha said or did could alter that legacy. He had been fighting a futile battle for years, trying to keep the memory alive. But he didn’t have to struggle. The memory was alive. Sacha understood, now, what it was to be flawed, to be afraid, and to love anyway. He suspected his father would have been horrified to see how long Sacha had resisted it.

Two words, one truth.

He could think of two words that expressed true loyalty and sincerity. Je and t’aime.

Sacha silently admitted to himself why he was content to sit at the police station and await his fate. It was a reprieve. He’d been set an assignment and he’d failed. He’d almost allowed today to be the end. He would have left her, the words unsaid, the story half-written.

Until the police had dragged him off for questioning and given him the chance to see his mistake.

He couldn’t control what would happen in the future, but he could focus on writing history for a little while, instead of preserving it. He could say the words and see what happened.

He closed the notebook with a deep breath. Two eyes, one look. Two hurts, one remedy. Two fates, one thread. Two words – not said.

His father didn’t feel so… gone any more.

The officer returned, announcing that he was free to go, and, for a moment, Sacha didn’t believe it. ‘There is someone outside. A friend of yours. She says she will also provide information. We are still investigating, so please do not leave Paris, but you can go home for now.’

Sacha shoved the notebook back in his bag and shot to his feet, his heart pounding. He followed the officer out into the foyer, trying to decide what to say to her first, but when he reached the waiting area, he froze.

‘Malou?’

Ren’s friend stood to greet him with kisses and a grave look. ‘Come on. Can I drive you home?’

‘Monsieur Mourad, one more thing,’ the officer said, glancing at a computer screen. ‘We have a bicycle in the system registered to your name. Could that be correct? It was recovered after a presumed theft.’

He blinked at the officer. ‘Yes, it was stolen from the Place Vendôme.’

‘Here’s the address where you can collect it,’ she said, handing him a card. He took it numbly, mumbling his thanks, before following Malou out into the deepening dusk, hoping for some answers.

‘Is Ren okay? Did she send you?’

‘Not exactly,’ Malou said, sliding behind the wheel of her tiny Renault. ‘I saw the news flash. But there’s something else you don’t know.’

‘What?’

‘Livia was rushed to hospital an hour ago.’

‘Is she all right? What happened?’

‘I don’t know anything further, just that Ren is with her.’

‘Which hospital?’

‘You can’t go! Livia just accused you of theft. Unfairly, I know, but whatever’s happened, you’re not going to help.’

He groaned, propping his forehead on his hand, then he swore violently. Hesitating only a moment, he pulled out his phone, tapping his foot as it rang.

She answered with a rush of words. ‘Are you okay? Will they let you go? God, I’m sorry I’m not there! Grandmama—’

‘I know,’ he interrupted. I love you. ‘They let me go.’

‘Thank God. I was so worried.’

‘I’m sorry for everything I said. I shouldn’t have—’

‘What was that? Can I see her?’

‘I’ll… I should leave you to…’

‘Sacha…’ she began, an odd ache to her voice. He clenched his jaw, afraid of what she might say. ‘I’ll phone you later.’

He ended the call, numbness stealing through him. When would she contact him and what would she say? It was an odd anti-climax after a day of revelations. Or had his outburst changed nothing? Ren had to be by her grandmother’s side, and he was not welcome there.

He knew the course of history wasn’t always kind, but… he’d only just considered the possibility of a damned happy ending.

‘Give it some time,’ Malou said quietly.

Time was something he and Ren had never had. ‘Thanks for the lift. I live in Belleville.’

‘I think everyone knows where you live by now.’