“Don’t forget your hat,” said Grandmère.
“Of course. Good day, madame.” He turned to Daisy and fetched up another smile. “Good day, madame. Until we meet again.”
He stuck his pipe in his mouth and made his way to the door, hardly pausing to snatch his hat from the commode as he went. He closed the door with just enough force to make a decisive click of the latch, and at that exact instant the room dimmed a degree or two, like the sun had gone behind some cloud in the western sky.
“Glass of cognac, my dear?” said Grandmère. “You look as if you need one.”
“No, thank you.” Daisy lowered herself on the sofa, taking care to avoid the small, warm hollow left there by Monsieur Legrand. “I can only stay a moment. The children will be home from school.”
“Yes, the children. And there is this dinner party to prepare for, no?”
“That too.”
Grandmère pressed her lips together. She was a slight woman, shorter than Daisy by several centimeters, topped by a mass of fluffy hair that had recently—and rather abruptly—turned from its original ash blond, without a strand of gray, to a luminescent white. That was Grandmère for you, all or nothing. As always, she was a little overdressed for the occasion, in a long dress of emerald silk topped by a short quilted jacket of aquamarine satin, a combination of colors that could never have worked on any woman except Grandmère, who had been born Minnie Gold of New York City and wore whatever the devil she liked. Now she stood in a rustle of silk and went to the liquor cabinet. “Cognac you must have, my dear, whether you want it or not. Actually, I suspect you do want it, only you don’t think it’s ladylike to ask.”
“Oh, Grandmère . . .”
“Here. I’ve saved you the trouble.” Grandmère returned with a snifter, which she handed to Daisy. The lamp made her rings glitter. The jewels used to be real, but Grandmère had sold them off, one by one, and replaced them with paste, which everybody pretended not to notice. Anyway, you couldn’t tell unless you were up close and happened to know a great deal about gems. They were excellent fakes, the best. Grandmère would accept nothing less.
Daisy stared down for a moment or two at the amber circle between her thumb and forefinger. Grandmère resumed her seat on the opposite sofa. Daisy sipped. A very small sip, and then a larger one. Oh, the burn! But it was a nice burn, a good, expensive burn, a familiar burn that tasted of home. From the sofa cushions came a whiff of pipe tobacco.
“I need your help,” said Grandmère.
Daisy glanced at the books on the sofa table. “I’m already helping you, aren’t I?”
“It’s not enough.”
“You know I can’t. It’s risky enough, what I’m doing. Carrying your stupid books back and forth.”
“There’s no risk at all. Nobody knows what you’re really carrying. Nobody would notice if they looked.”
“They might. Germans are like bloodhounds. Have your new fellow do it. That’s his job, isn’t it?”
“My new fellow?”
Daisy nodded at the door. “Monsieur Legrand. He’s one of your little army, I can smell it on him.”
“That? That’s just his pipe, my darling. He’s a poet, as I told you.”
“Oh, of course. A poet. Who just happens to have found work at your favorite bookshop.”
“Well, Jacques needed someone to replace dear émile, who—as you know—had to leave so abruptly because of his poor mother in Brittany. Someone with enough skill and knowledge to—”
Daisy held up her hand. “I don’t want to know what he does. I don’t care. I don’t want to get mixed up in your crazy plots. I have a husband and children to think of. I’m just delivering books to my grandmother, that’s all.”
“Your mother would have—”
“My mother is dead.”
She said this a little more sharply than she meant to, and Grandmère winced at the noise, or the sentence, or both. Daisy looked away, to the fireplace, where the familiar Rodin twisted its black, sinuous limbs on the left-hand side, just as it had in the old apartment. She set the empty glass on the sofa table and rose. The cognac was already making her dizzy.
“Stop,” said Grandmère. “Please.”
“I can’t help you, Grandmère. I’m sorry, but I really can’t. You’re right, I’m not like Maman, I’m not brave or defiant or cunning. I can’t do what she did. I’m just Daisy. And my children will be home soon, and my husband, and we’re having some important people to dinner tonight, people who can help Pierre in his work—”