“Indeed, you have come to the right place,” the priest smiles, coming forward and looking closely at my face, “but the records are all online now, you know. You needn’t have travelled all this way.”
“Really?” I can’t help feeling completely thrown by this.
“Did you imagine a room full of dusty old books full to the brim with birth, deaths and marriages,” he smiles gently.
“Uh, yeah, I guess I did.”
“Oh well, you won’t be disappointed. We do have that. But these days I just sit at the computer and type in a name, it is all digitalised, marvellous.”
“Oh.”
“I can certainly still help you if you would like to step into my office.”
I nod and breathe out a sigh of relief, following him back through the ornate doors he had just come from.
I catch her eye, and swallow hard, as she raises her glass to me and toasts my obvious reincarnation.
“Oh, fuck.”
I knew I shouldn’t have come back, God, I’d told myself a dozen times; ‘Josephine just stay in tonight, eat a sandwich.’ But no, my crazy desire for a recipe, and, if I was honest, my desire to say goodbye to the magician and apologise for not having a glass of wine with him on the night I was killed, drew me back for one last meal.
And I wanted to celebrate, celebrate the fact I had extended family here in this tiny French area. They didn’t know me, true, and I didn’t plan on knowing them yet, true, but they were here, my church visit had confirmed it. Entering that church had been the best decision I had made because while the records were all digitalised, it was Monsieur Levac’s memories and knowledge of the township that proved to be far more valuable.
“Ah yes, Nicolette Marluse, how could I not have seen the resemblance,” he chuckled when he pulled up the photograph of my grandmother.
“You knew her?”
“The finest pastries in the town, such a loss when she married and immigrated,” he sighed, “but then, nothing was the same after the war.”
“My grandmother was a baker?”
“Her family owned the little patisserie that still stands in the town square,” he smiled kindly at me, “I believe it has not left the family for generations, your own distant relatives are still baking fine bread and pastries daily.”
I swallowed hard, tears obviously about to choke me if I tried to suppress them for too long.
“You don’t know what this means to me,” I gulped, hastily wiping my cheeks with my fingers, “to know I have family, no matter how distant. You don’t know…” I cried then, and he, giving me some time to collect myself, wandered over to the printer, nestled amid stacks of bibles and papers on a low table, where he collected the print-out of my family’s records; births, deaths and marriages, even some photographs down through the centuries.
“And what of you?” he asked gently, as he handed me the information, “do you have children?”
“No,” I gulped, taking the papers and holding them tightly to my chest, “but I want them, lots of them, and if I have a daughter, I will be sure to name her Nicolette. I never knew this was my grandmother’s name until today. I can’t thank you enough for helping me.”
He patted my shoulder kindly.
“A beautiful gesture, to name your children after family,” he smiled, “and I’m sure your daughter will be as lovely as you. Now that I know the link, I’m surprised I didn’t notice your eyes straight away, they are hers; kind, generous. Your grandmother was a big believer in helping the community, the patisserie even to this day gives bread to the homeless and needy. I can see you too have that spirit.”
I left then, shaking my head. How could he have known that I used to feed the homeless back home in Boston? He couldn’t. Maybe I really did have some of Granny Nicolette’s genes. I hoped so. But then, it occurred to me she probably wouldn’t eat and run from expensive restaurants; she probably never broke the law in her life.
‘I need to stop doing that. It’s not who I am. I will stop.’
Feeling optimistic about the future, about one day contacting my new-found family when I no longer feared for the lives of people associated with me, I decided then to dine one last time in Pierre’s restaurant before I left on the train the following morning.
And now, I was screwed, obviously.
Slowly, like a mouse mesmerised by an approaching snake, I watch her rise and wend her way through the tables to mine.
“And so, you are Kept,” she says, her eyes never leaving mine as she pulls out the chair opposite and eases herself in, “as we suspected.”
Anger courses through me.
