Echoes

An old housekeeper led them away to get them dinner, as an older gentleman came down the steps of the château. Amadea assumed he was Armand's father. The distinguished-looking man shook her hand and was very pleasant to her, as Armand introduced them. All he knew of her was the name on her most recent set of papers. Philippine de Villiers. Which was how he introduced her to his father, whom he then introduced to Amadea. “May I introduce my father,” he said politely, “Comte Nicolas de Vallerand.” Amadea stood staring at him, and as she did, she saw the resemblance, although he was older than her father had been the last time she saw him. Her father was forty-four when he died, and would have been sixty now. As she looked from Armand to his father, she looked shocked, but said nothing. Armand could see that something had disturbed her severely, as the count invited her inside. They had prepared a meal for her, and served it elegantly in the dining room, as the two men joined her. She was quiet as she looked around, and the count noticed her pained silence but didn't comment.

“It's a beautiful old house. It was originally built in the sixteenth century. And rebuilt about two hundred years later. I'm afraid it's badly in need of repair these days. There will be no one to do it until the war is over. The roof leaks like a sieve.” He smiled. He was looking at her as though there was something familiar about her too. She knew what it was, she was the image of her father. She wondered what would happen if she told him the truth. But things must have changed, if he was hiding Jewish children. It seemed the ultimate irony now, since her father had been banished and never seen again by any of them because he had a Jewish wife.

They finished dinner, and the count invited her to walk in the gardens. He said they had been done by the same architect who had designed the gardens at Versailles. It was a strange feeling walking through the same halls and rooms and places where her father had lived as a boy, and as she walked outside, the thought of it brought tears to her eyes. These same rooms had been filled with the sounds of his voice and laughter as a child and as a young man. They were the echoes of her past, which she shared with these two men, although they didn't know it.

“Are you all right?” Armand could see that she was deeply moved by something. His father was already waiting for them in the garden. She nodded as they went outside, and he showed them around.

“You're a very brave woman to bring those children down on your own. If I had a daughter, I'm not sure I would let her do that. In fact, I'm sure I wouldn't.” He looked at Armand then, frowned, and lowered his voice. “I worry about Armand as well. But none of us has any other choice these days, do we?” In fact they did. There were others who made different choices. She liked the one she was making, and theirs.

As they walked around through the once-beautiful gardens, the count asked her nothing about herself. They were all better off not knowing too much. Everyone was careful these days. It was dangerous to say too much to anyone. But as she sat down on one of the ancient time-worn marble benches that had been rubbed smooth by the elements, she looked up at him with sad eyes.

“I don't know why,” he said gently, “but I have the feeling I know you, that we've met somewhere.” There was no one around but Armand. “Have I?” He was in his late fifties, she knew, and not old enough to be senile. But he looked confused, as though he heard voices from another time, and wasn't sure what he was hearing, or seeing. “Have we met?” he asked her again. He didn't think it likely, but he might have forgotten. And as she sat there, looking at him, she looked remarkably like Armand.

“You knew my father,” she said in a gentle voice, never leaving his eyes with her own.

“Did I? What was his name?”

“Antoine de Vallerand,” she said calmly. Nicolas was his brother, and her uncle, and Armand her first cousin. There was absolute silence between the three of them for an endless moment, and then without saying a word, tears began to roll down his cheeks, and he took her in his arms.

“Oh my dear…oh my dear …” He couldn't say anything else for long minutes. He was overwhelmed by the memories she had brought with her. “Did you know when you came here?” He wondered if that was why she had taken the mission. But she hadn't known.

She shook her head. “Not until we drove in here, and Armand said your name. It was a bit of a shock, as you can imagine.” She laughed through her own tears. “I wanted to say something at dinner, but I was afraid you'd ask me to leave. I wanted to savor it for a little while. My father always talked to me about all this, the place where he grew up.”