“Here you are, dear.”
She’d fully expected him to rage and grumble and storm out the door, smashing the hat down as he went, but he didn’t. Instead he said—yes, it’s true!—he said, Thank you, Daisy, and placed the hat on his head. He’d inspected himself in the oval mirror, nodded with satisfaction, and just as Daisy had turned to hurry back down the hallway, he reached for her shoulders and kissed her. On the lips!
“Oh!” she gasped.
“When I return from work this evening, I want you to wear your best dress, my dear. That blue one, perhaps?”
Daisy resisted the urge to wipe her lips. “Whatever for?”
“We’re going out to dinner, of course. At Maxim’s.”
“Maxim’s!”
“Yes. I have something to celebrate!”
Daisy stared at her husband for the first time that morning, and she realized Pierre was smiling, actually smiling, and his eyes were as bright as if he’d taken some kind of drug. Had he? Or was he coming down with a fever, perhaps?
“Celebrate?” she asked.
He laid a finger over his damp lips. “Shh! It’s a secret.” But because he was Pierre, he went on. “Let’s just say that a certain project I’ve been working on for the past two months is coming at last to its fruition. By the end of the week—well! You’ll see. You’ll read about it in the newspapers, my dear wife, and you will be very proud of your Pierre, I promise!”
A chill went down Daisy’s limbs, thick and slow, as if her heart were pumping slush instead of blood. “That’s—that’s wonderful,” she whispered.
“All this”—Pierre gestured to the hall around them, the gilded furniture and the shining parquet floors, the intricate ceilings that yawned above—“it’s only the beginning, my love. And it’s all for you. For our children. I have done all this for your sakes.”
“Pierre, I don’t want this, I don’t want luxury—”
“Hush! None of this. Just wait. A few more days only.” He adjusted his hat and smiled again. “And remember tonight! Your best dress!”
“But what are we celebrating? What’s this project?”
“I can’t say. It’s very secret, very important.” He leaned forward and whispered, “It will take care of this Jew problem once and for all.”
“I didn’t know we had a Jew problem in Paris.”
He laughed. “My dear little wife, who doesn’t read the newspapers! Never mind. It’s for your husband to take care of these matters for you. Goodbye, now. I must be off.”
Then he kissed her again—again!—and swept out the door.
On the day Pierre had returned home from work, not long after the May dinner party, and announced that （as he had foretold） a beautiful new apartment had been found for them, an apartment fit for their new exalted place in the world, Daisy had protested vehemently. Daisy had said she would move with the children to the Ritz, to live with Grandmère, but Grandmère herself had blocked this plan. Grandmère had said she must put up with this grotesque arrangement, living in somebody’s confiscated apartment, because Daisy would be perfectly placed in such an echoing place to hear whispers from the very inner circle of the occupation. Grandmère was right, of course, but Daisy still hated herself for giving in. Wherever she went in that house, she felt the ghosts of the former occupants staring at her, whispering J’accuse! Every chair, every wardrobe, every lamp, every bed and sheet and pillow seemed to recoil from her touch, to recognize that she was an interloper, a thief.
The only thing Daisy couldn’t help appreciating about this new apartment was its location. Years ago, she had fought Pierre to put the children in the école Rousseau, one of the best primary schools in Paris, for which they couldn’t afford the fees. For once, she’d put her back into it, and Pierre had finally relented. Grandmère had paid the fees, naturally, and Daisy had gladly walked the daily two kilometers with Madeleine and Oliver, back and forth from their apartment in the less-fashionable environs of rue Portalis. As the years passed, she had walked them not so gladly. A half kilometer was a pleasant morning stroll, time to chat with the children and enjoy the sights and smells of Paris. Two kilometers was just plain tedium.
But this new apartment, this grand and guilty new abode the Villon family now called home, lay only a few streets away from the école. Daisy hated that this was a relief to her, but it was. A quick jaunt past the heavenly smells of the boulangerie, the café that served mostly German officers, the tidy facades of the fashionable shops, and there they were. She could bustle the children inside and hurry down the Champs toward rue Volney, to the bookshop. To Monsieur Legrand.