Chapter 6: Two Sides…

"Oh, never you mind, Lieutenant, I'll be fine. The house is just 'round the corner! You get back to keeping the streets safe now, you hear?"

Lieutenant Blanche wished Madame a safe journey, said his goodbyes, and drove off.

Scattered couples hurried home as Madame Trousseau waddled down the riverside walkway. The paving stones glowed with the ruddy gold of the setting sun. Sheets of sliver flame coruscated over the water, an escort of candles guiding ships into the night, a perfect compliment to its natural aroma.

A glass clinked.

There, by the railing at the edge of the water, a stout tumbler had met its mate, and was now raised in salute to persons unknown by a familiar figure, half-shadowed though it was.

"Is that you, Miss Bouquet?" asked Madame, as she hobbled over to the railing.

"Mm? Oh. Evening, Madame Trousseau. I forgot you walked this way."

"Beautiful scenery, great exercise, completely safe, and downhill both ways," she quipped. "Who wouldn't?"

She said nothing, leaning over the rail, watching the water, the half-filled glass dangling from her fingers. Its mate stood with a bottle of scotch on a nearby post, empty.

"Is, ah, something the matter, dear?"

"No," said the blond, softly. "I just thought I needed some time to think. Alone."

She nodded, sagely. "I'll leave you to it, then. Don't stay out too late, now," she added, as she turned to go.

"Wait!"

She did.

"Wait," sighed Mireille. "I…thought…I did, but maybe I was wrong."

Wordlessly, she shuffled back, and settled onto a nearby spot on the railing. A late ship slipped by along the opposite side of the river.

"Where's Monsieur?" asked the blonde, once it passed.

"He wanted to fix the Bruns' windows. Peter's had it on his to-do list all week, but he's been out at nights all hours, he's too tired to do much of anything lately. Toulouse wanted to surprise them when they got back. Bruised his ankle on the last step, he did." She shook her head. "I told him to be careful on that ladder, but would he listen?"

Waves lapped against the river's walls.

"This is a lovely spot, isn't it?" said Madame. "Y'know, I've lived here my entire life, and I don't think I'll ever get tired of this place. The warm evening sun, the ships in the water, drifting by like dreams…my old friend, the Seine, always changing, always the same. A place to reflect, to think back, to remember…old friends."

Her neighbour grinned, sadly. "Is it that obvious?"

"Well, two glasses, one person. And there's the inscription," said Madame, with a nod to the bottle.

"I trusted him," said Mireille, carefully. "He had…insight…into the ways of the world. He was always there with an answer whenever I had a question. This was a gift," she said of the bottle. "A bit of parting advice, I guess."

"I remember," said Madame, apropos of nothing, "an evening back in 1960 that was just like this one. Oh, the water was cleaner, and they didn't have this new guardrail in yet (how sturdy it is!). But we were all here. Just down that way, actually, by the wharf, do you see it? My brother Felix was in town and treated us all to a day on the town. That Felix," she said, smiling at the memory. "Huge man, with flaming red hair, a chest like a locomotive, and a voice to match."

"We went up the Tower, of course (Felix was a maniac for heights). I remember how he'd pretend to hold little Peter over the edge. He'd squeal with fright, and Felix would laugh with that sky shaking voice of his. Later, over dinner, he started up one of his tall tales about his time with the navy (I don't remember which one). Anyway, that got Peter and Marien all excited, and they demanded we all go sailing that very instant."

"Well, Toulouse and I, we knew it was too late; all the ports were closed. But Felix, well, he said," and here her voice dropped an octave, "'Don't werry yer pretty little heads, children. Felix will get things done!' Turns out he knew someone who managed a tour service. In less than ten minutes we were all out right in the middle of the Seine in this ugly little aluminium dingy he'd weaselled out of the fellow."

"And as we drifted along into the setting sun, Felix brought out this wretched flask of what he called whiskey. Whoof! You could have curled paint with it. He could never hold his own very well. After a few healthy swings, he stood up, feet on the gunnels, and started belting out this dreadful sea-shanty. I think half the city must have heard it. So, of course, Toulouse tried to get him to keep it down, but he just got louder and louder. Finally, he got to his big, arm-swinging finish, when whoops! This red-hot speedboat almost knocked us over. We were fine, if a bit wet, of course; we were all sitting down. But Felix?" She quaked with laughter. "Right overboard into the Seine, flask, song, and all!"

"Still, sounds like you had a good time," said Mireille.

"Well," said Madame, "Felix was furious, of course, but mostly with himself. It was a night to remember, certainly. The last night all five of us were together as a family."

"What happened?" asked her neighbour, with a touch of concern.

"Well, Marien would move away in '68, of course. As for Felix, well, he never was one to stick around long. He sailed off around the world, and never returned. He wrote, of course, up until '83, when the accident occurred."

"Accident? Did he —"

"Oh yes. Choked while swallowing a trout whole."

A foghorn blared.

"That…that's so terrible," said Mireille, hiding her face.

"Yes it was," said Madame, sadly. "He hated fish."

Her neighbour gawked at her, then tried desperately to stifle a laugh at her quaking shoulders. She failed.

"But it was the way he would have wanted to go, I think," said Madame, after they'd settled down. "Life of the party, a drink in hand, among friends and good cheer."

"Thank you, Madame," said Mireille. "I needed that. There's been a lot on my mind lately."

"You worry too much, Miss Bouquet," she teased. "A young woman like you? You needn't have a care in the world."

"I know," she lied. She set down the tumbler, and held the bottle up for examination. "The man who gave me this, my…friend…I asked him for a favour. A big one. He granted it. He…passed away, soon after."

"Oh," said Madame. "I'm so sorry."

"And," she continued, "and I can't help but think —"

"I killed them," she thought. She drained the glass. "I deal in death," she thought, as the amber liquid burned her throat. "It follows my every step. I am its right hand. I reached out to him, and it claimed him, claimed his entire family." She closed her eyes, and saw the faces of those few she called "friend."

"Will they be any different?"

She choked off the end of the sentence, teeth clenched.

"Miss Bouquet…Mireille." Madame leaned out over the railing. "We all make choices in life, my dear. Now, whatever happened between you and that man, that's your business —"

"Yes," she said, bitterly. "My business…"

"— But if he chose to help you, well, that's his business, now isn't it? He had his own reasons for helping you. And in making that choice, he chose to bear its consequences, whatever they might be." Madame pointed at a tiny sailboat, out for a late-night journey. "See that? When I was young, Felix would go out on this little raft of his every weekend, no matter the weather. Even when it was raining cats and dogs, he'd push off, rod in hand, and float down the Seine, dodging the ships, spinning in the currents, splashing through the waves. And I would always say to him, 'Don't go. You'll be hurt. Don't go.' I said those same words when he joined the navy at the start of the war. And on that day, he took me aside, and he told me something. Do you know what he said to me?"

Mireille shook her head.

"Well, he picked me up in those big arms of his, and said, 'Cosette, the sea calls to me. My country calls upon me. And if I do not answer, I will regret it for the rest of my life. I do not know what lies around the next bend. But I put my trust in God, and I will sail for him. He may guide my ship into safe harbour or sharp rock, and there is not a thing me and you can do about it. But I can, and I have, choose where to sail in the meantime.' Then he kissed me on the cheek, walked out the front door, and I never saw him again for the rest of the war."

Her neighbour thought on this for some time. "He was a religious man, this Felix?"

"Only when drinking," replied Madame. "Bit of a polytheist, actually. There now, that's better," she said, as a smile broke out in her neighbour. "That's the face a young woman should have!"

Mireille tipped some of the bottle into the empty tumbler, and offered it to her. She accepted it gracefully, its contents made liquid flame in the evening light.

"To old friends, no longer present," said Mireille, with a touch of sadness.

Madame charged her glass in return. "And to new ones, still here today."

Two glasses clinked.