Adrien got red carded for me.
The notion gave me a little thrill that he would defend my honor like that, but it was fleeting. To think of what he might lose…How they did lose.
I sat down on the front steps of his house. It was possible Adrien had been delayed helping his father settle into the pension, and he was on his way back right now. Or maybe he’d gone out after. Even if it took hours, I was prepared to wait. Late into the night if I had to.
But a few minutes later, the front door opened and Sophie struggled out onto the stoop. Adrien’s sister clutched the railing of the front stairs of her building with both hands; the twilight sun glinting dully off her leg braces. I rose to my feet.
“Sophie…”
“Adrien doesn’t live here,” she said, almost in a whisper.
I blinked. “He doesn’t live here?”
She shook her head. “We rent his room and the guest space to two girls. University students.” She brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “We need the money.”
“Where is Adrien, then?”
“He lives at 23 Rue Cassis, in the 18th arrondissement. He won’t like that I told you, but he likes you.” She smiled shyly, and looked to the ground. “And I know you won’t mind.”
“Mind what?”
“About our situation.” Sophie glanced back at the house. “I have to go. Maman is resting but she won’t be happy if she knows I told you.” She turned back to me, not able to meet my eyes. “Our secret?”
“Of course.”
Sophie stumbled, then caught herself.
“Can I help?” I asked.
“I can do it. I can do more than Maman thinks,” Sophie said with more strength behind her words than I’d ever heard. At the door she turned. “Tell Adrien I’m sorry but…No.” She shook her head and laughed softly. “I’m not sorry. I like you. For him. And I have to watch out for my brother, don’t I?”
“That’s right,” I answered, strangely proud of her. It was odd to think of that frail woman as anyone’s protector, and I know most people felt the same. Including me, up until that moment.
Sophie let go of the railing to give me a wave and then retreated back into the house, leaving me with an address and more questions. I exited the Metro and as soon as I stepped foot onto Rue Cassis, another current of shock jolted through me.
I know this street…
I recognized the street because I had just been there hours before with Adrien and his father. The address Sophie gave me was for the same ramshackle pension with a maroon awning that Adrien had helped his father into.
The front door stuck a little from too many layers of paint over the years. I opened it on a front foyer that was cramped and dim, but homey and warm. I felt comfortable immediately.
The carpet and walls were both the same maroon as the front awning, that dark color making the small space feel even smaller. Black and white photographs that looked dated from the 1940’s hung on the wall, and a pall of pungent cigarette smoke.
A rotund woman with a head of short, graying curls, stepped up to the little office from a back room. She looked to be in her sixties, and wore a worn cardigan over a housedress, and rested her arms over the ledge. Behind her, a wiry, darker-skinned man with gray hair e
merged to lean against the back wall, smoking the cigarette that gave the foyer its fog.
“Can I help you?” the woman asked in French, though with an accent I didn’t recognize.
“I’m looking for Monsieur Rousseau?” I said.
The woman narrowed her eyes at me. “You are American?”
“Oui.”
The woman’s heavy jowls lifted at once in a smile and she said something to the man behind her in a foreign tongue. It sounded like Arabic, but I couldn’t be sure.
The wiry old man came to the desk. “New York City?”