Sarah's Key Read Free

bathrooms,” I said.
    “The bathtub has claws,” said Zoë. “I’m going to miss those.”
    Antoine examined the walls, knocking on them.
    “I suppose you and Bertrand want to redo it completely?” he asked, looking at me.
    I shrugged.
    “I don’t know what he wants to do exactly. It was his idea, taking on this place. I wasn’t so hot about coming here. I wanted something more … practical. Something new.”
    Antoine grinned.
    “But it will be brand-new once we finish it.”
    “Maybe. But to me, it will always be Mamé’s apartment.”
    The apartment still bore Mamé’s imprint, even if she had moved to a nursing home nine months ago. My husband’s grandmother had lived here for years. I remembered our first encounter, sixteen years back. I had been impressed by the old master paintings, the marble fireplace boasting family photos framed in ornate silver, the deceptively simple, elegant furniture, the numerous books lining the library shelves, the grand piano draped with lush red velvet. The sunny living room gave onto a peaceful inner courtyard with a thick thatch of ivy spreading out on the opposite wall. It was right here that I had met her for the first time, that I had held out my hand to her, awkwardly, not yet at ease with what my sister Charla dubbed “that kissy French thing.”
    You didn’t shake a Parisian woman’s hand, even if you were meeting her for the first time. You kissed her once on each cheek.
    But I hadn’t known that, yet.
     
     

     
     
    THE MAN WITH THE beige raincoat looked at his list again.
    “Wait,” he said, “there’s a child missing. A boy.”
    He pronounced the boy’s name.
    The girl’s heart skipped a beat. The mother glanced toward her daughter. The girl put a swift finger to her lips. A movement the men did not catch.
    “Where is the boy?” demanded the man.
    The girl stepped forward, wringing her hands.
    “My brother is not here, Monsieur,” she said with her perfect French, the French of a native. “He left at the beginning of the month with some friends. To the country.”
    The man in the raincoat looked at her thoughtfully. Then he made a quick gesture with his chin to the policeman.
    “Search the place. Fast. Maybe the father is hiding, too.”
    The policeman lumbered through the rooms, clumsily opening doors, looking under beds, into cupboards.
    While he made his noisy way through the apartment, the other man paced the room. When he had his back to them, the girl quickly showed her mother the key. Papa will come up and get him, Papa will come later, she mouthed. Her mother nodded. All right, she seemed to say, I understand where the boy is. But her mother started to frown, to make a key gesture with her hand as if to ask, where will you leave the key for Papa, how will he know where it is? The man turned around swiftly and watched them. The mother froze. The girl trembled with fear.
    He stared at them for a while. Then he abruptly closed the window.
    “Please,” the mother said, “it’s so hot in here.”
    The man smiled. The girl thought she had never seen an uglier smile.
    “We keep it closed, Madame,” he said. “Earlier this morning, a lady threw her child out of the window, then jumped. We wouldn’t want that to happen again.”
    The mother said nothing, numb with horror. The girl glared at the man, hating him, hating every inch of him. She loathed his florid face, his glistening mouth. The cold, dead look in his eyes. The way he stood there, his legs spread, his felt hat tilted forward, his fat hands locked behind his back.
    She hated him with all her might, like she had never hated anyone in her life, more than she hated that awful boy at school, Daniel, who had whispered horrible things to her under his breath, horrible things about her mother’s accent, her father’s accent.
    She listened to the policeman continuing his clumsy search. He would not find the boy. The cupboard was too cleverly hidden. The boy would be safe. They would