The Courtyard In Paris

The courtyard gate slammed shut behind Vivienne Hale with the authority of a verdict.

She turned, one hand still resting on the iron latch, and looked up at the four walls enclosing the narrow rectangle of Paris. Her apartment occupied the second floor of the old building on the rue de Varenne, its tall windows opening over a garden no passerby could see from the street. A plane tree lifted its branches above the tiled roofs, and beneath it, a stone basin caught the last gray light. Somewhere beyond the walls, a scooter coughed and accelerated toward the boulevard.

Vivienne checked her watch. Seven twenty.

She had twenty minutes to reach the restaurant where she had promised herself dinner alone. The reservation was for one, made under a name the maître d’ had pronounced with patient uncertainty. She had dressed carefully for it: black silk, a narrow gold bracelet, her late husband’s watch hidden beneath her cuff. She wanted the first evening of her return to Paris to belong to no one but herself.

“Madame?”

The voice came from beneath the archway.

An elderly woman stood beside the concierge’s lodge, one hand gripping a polished walking stick. Her silver hair was arranged in a severe coil, and a cardigan the color of mustard hung over her narrow shoulders. Vivienne had noticed her earlier from the apartment window, seated behind the glass with a newspaper folded across her knees. She had assumed the woman was a tenant.

Now the woman was staring at Vivienne as if the gate had admitted someone who had no right to enter.

“Yes?” Vivienne said.

The woman took one step forward. Her shoes scraped the paving stones.

“Forgive me. I thought you were - ”

She stopped.

Vivienne glanced toward the dark windows above the courtyard. No one appeared to be watching, though she had the distinct sensation of being observed. “Do we know each other?”

“No.” The woman’s gaze moved over Vivienne’s face, lingering at her eyes, her mouth, the line of her jaw. “Not exactly.”

A gust moved through the courtyard, carrying the dry rustle of leaves and the faint metallic clatter of dishes from an open kitchen window. Vivienne felt the evening cooling against her bare arms.

“I’m Vivienne Hale,” she said. “I’ve just rented the apartment on the second floor.”

“I know which apartment.”

The answer was not rude. That made it worse.

The woman lifted her chin. “You look exactly like the woman who disappeared from this courtyard in 1987.”

For a moment, the words seemed to belong to another conversation, one taking place behind a closed door.

Vivienne gave a small, polite laugh. “I’m afraid you’ve mistaken me for someone else.”

“Camille.”

The name struck with such clean force that Vivienne forgot the restaurant, the time, the cold.

She had not heard it spoken in Paris since she was twenty-one.

“Camille what?” she asked, though there was no reason to ask.

The woman’s fingers tightened around the walking stick. “Camille.”

Only Camille.

Vivienne looked toward the lodge. A brass plaque beside the door read M. BERNARD, CONCIERGE, though the woman in front of her was plainly not Monsieur Bernard. Perhaps this was his mother. Perhaps she was confused. Perhaps the city had begun its welcome by presenting her with a stranger’s grief.

“My sister was named Camille,” Vivienne said.

The woman’s expression changed. Recognition became something more guarded.

“Your sister?”

“Camille Hale.”

The woman’s eyes dropped to Vivienne’s left hand, where the old gold ring she wore on a chain beneath her blouse had slipped into view. “She lived here?”

“I don’t know.”

That was the truth, though it sounded evasive. Vivienne knew only what her family had told her: Camille had died in an automobile accident outside Lyon in 1987. There had been rain. A truck. A funeral closed to the family because of the condition of the body. Vivienne had been in Boston, finishing a design course, when her mother telephoned. By the time she returned, everything had been decided.

The woman leaned closer. “You don’t know if your sister lived here?”

“I was never told she did.”

“Then they lied to you.”

A door opened above them. A man in a linen shirt stepped onto a balcony carrying a bottle of wine. He looked down, saw the two women in the courtyard, and retreated inside without a word. Another window lit up. Then another. The secluded garden no longer felt private. It felt like a stage filling with an audience.

Vivienne lowered her voice. “Who are you?”

“Madame Duret.”

“And you were here in 1987?”

“I was here before the war.” Her mouth tightened. “I cleaned rooms for the Laurent family when they owned the entire eastern side of this property. I saw Camille come and go.”

“Camille Hale?”

“Camille.” Madame Duret said the name as though the surname were an unnecessary invention. “She had your face.”

Vivienne felt the old, familiar irritation rise - the irritation of being measured against her sister, of being told that resemblance was a form of identity....