Seen and Not Heard Read Online Free PDF Page B

at her finest. The air was cool and fresh, hinting of a heat-drenched summer to come, but right now there was only light and warmth on an afternoon of simple pleasures.
    Claire found herself walking aimlessly through a residential section. She could only be thankful she had an instinctive sense of direction. Street signs meant absolutely nothing to her, refusing to imprint on her stubborn brain no matter how hard she tried. She could find her way back by recognizing landmarks and houses, not street names, and with that she had to be content.
    Marc had taken the pale and still unwell Nicole to see her grandmother, leaving Claire to her own devices. The old woman didn’t approve of him, Marc had said humorously. It would be better to warn her of Claire’s existence, rather than spring Claire on her unannounced. After all, her daughter had been dead less than two years, and
grand-mère
was still having trouble accepting it. She wouldn’t like meeting her replacement.
    So Claire had hours of free time and nowhere to go. The embassy was now out of the question. Since Marc had so innocently covered for her, she could simply stay in Paris, waiting. Waiting until things died down, waiting until she got up enough nerve to go to the authorities herself. Waiting for something.
    She could always telephone back to the States. Telephone Brian, whom she’d sworn she’d never speak to again. The telephones in France were direct dial, thank God, and many of the public phones even had English instructions on them. It was her one defense against incomprehension, and she didn’t want to use it lightly. Once she called, there might be no turning back. She would wait just a little bit longer.
    She was heading in the direction of the tiny park. It wasn’t far from Marc’s apartment—less than a ten-minute walk, and she’d discovered it one winter afternoon when she’d been searching for an English-speaking druggist.
    It was a small and pretty patch of green in the midst of the huge city, and the benches and pathways were always pleasantly filled with people. Old people, feeding the pigeons, reading the paper, playing checkers, gossiping with each other. On a day such as this the park would be packed with people wanting to take advantage of the good weather while it lasted. Claire didn’t mind. As long as no one asked her anything in rapid, incomprehensible French, she was glad to be surrounded by people. She spent too much time alone in Marc’s apartment.
    Someone was even selling ice cream at the edge of the park. The sun was surprisingly hot, beating down on Claire’s head. She’d let her red hair flow loose around her shoulders. Marc preferred a more formal style, but Marc wasn’t there to see it. She opened the buttons of her stylish wool coat and stared longingly at the ice cream cart. Why couldn’t she even remember the French word for ice cream? Why couldn’t they have it written on the white steel sides of the cart as they would in the States? At that moment shewould have given years off her life for a scoop of coffee ice cream.
    Resolutely she moved onward, heading down the winding path toward the shallow, man-made pond. It couldn’t hurt her to lose a few pounds around her hips, she told herself. There wasn’t a woman alive who couldn’t afford to lose a few pounds around her hips.
    A woman was walking up the path from the pond, slowly, sedately, with the kind of inborn grace one only saw in royalty and the most expensive prostitutes. She was somewhere past seventy-five, with snowy white hair, dark, lively brown eyes, and softly creased skin. She was well-dressed, in a pale blue wool suit, and her hands were encased in white kid gloves. The gloves were stretched taut over knuckles swollen with arthritis, but the woman’s face reflected none of the pain and discomfort that had to be her daily lot. She caught Claire’s curious expression and smiled, a warm, friendly smile that was reflected in her youthful