Daisy started. He had moved like a ghost, this tall, sturdy German, rising from the rug and joining them without a sound, while the children remained near the sofa and exclaimed over the cards, burrowing through the deck to discover his secret. Now he ran his finger over the letters on the ancient binding in Grandmère’s hands.
“English books are so rare in this city,” he said.
“It’s nice to read in my native language, from time to time,” said Grandmère.
“Yes, of course. You were born in America, I remember. May I?” He didn’t stop for permission, but rather drew the book from Grandmère’s fingers and settled the spine in his palm while his other hand thumbed through the pages. “I read this when I was a boy. My tutor wanted me to improve my English, you see, and it had just been published to great sensation. I must have fallen in love with Marguerite Blakeney a thousand times over.”
Daisy glanced at Grandmère, who made an almost imperceptible shake of her head.
“Ah yes,” said Von Sternburg. “Here it is. ‘Pride had given way at last, obstinacy was gone, the will was powerless. He was but a man madly, blindly, passionately in love; and as soon as her light footstep had died away within the house, he knelt down upon the terrace steps, and in the very madness of his love, he kissed one by one the places where her small foot had trodden, and the stone balustrade there, where her tiny hand had rested last.’” He looked at Daisy. “How must it affect a man, do you think, to love a woman so deeply?”
“I can’t imagine,” Daisy said.
“Uncomfortable, I should think,” said Grandmère. “What if it had rained, and the terrace steps were wet?”
Von Sternburg shut the book and handed it back to Grandmère. “You are not a romantic, I see. But then, you never were. All those fellows in your salon, they were resolutely Modernist. This is why I learned not to open my mouth there.”
“Very wise.”
He looked back down at the book tucked between Grandmère’s hands. “Marguerite,” he said. “That’s your given name, isn’t it, Madame Villon?”
“You have an excellent memory, lieutenant colonel.”
“Not so excellent as that. It’s the name itself that has a particular meaning for me.” He smiled at Daisy. “As I said, I must have fallen in love with her a thousand times, when I was young.”
Daisy left an hour later, having kissed both children several times in the fullness of her guilt, in her anxiety and excitement for what was to come, and told them to behave themselves for their great-grandmother. When she closed the door at last and started down the corridor to the stairway, she thought her heart might punch through the wall of her chest.
At the bottom of the stairway, a man rose from the bench. Von Sternburg, of course, waiting for her in his immaculate double-breasted suit, his solemn, scarred face. Bernard, standing at his post near the door, looked at them both and raised his eyebrows to Daisy. Did she require some assistance, perhaps? Daisy shook her head.
“Lying in wait for me, I see,” she said to the German.
“I beg your pardon, madame. There was something I wished to communicate with you, and I found no opportunity upstairs. Shall we walk out together?”
Daisy didn’t reply, only started walking across the lobby, heels clicking against the marble. Von Sternburg kept pace beside her. He said nothing until they had stepped through the doorway and onto the pavement outside. Rue Cambon lay hot and quiet on either side of them.
“I only want to say—as a well-wisher—that I admire your spirit very much,” he said. “I admire, in particular, your selfless work at this bookstore of yours. Delivering books to those in need of them.”
Daisy’s mind went numb. She kept walking, however. Feet now clicking against the pavement, the same precise rhythm as before. “How on earth did you know I work at the bookstore, lieutenant colonel?”
“You may call me Max, if you like.”
She said nothing.
He continued, “I confess, since I learned of your connection to a person—to a place that keeps its own particular shrine in my memory, I have made it my business to—how shall I say this?—to assure myself of your continued welfare.”
“You’ve been spying on me, you mean.”
“That is a terrible word.”
“Well, you have. And what have you discovered, hmm? Do you suspect some nefarious motive? Coded messages hidden in these books I deliver to the infirm and the elderly, plotting the destruction of the Reich? Do you mean to report me to the Gestapo?” She spoke recklessly. Without noticing, she increased her pace, while Von Sternburg loped along persistently beside her.