Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Two

Eve

Nice, June 1946

I had to let Georges know about Kristina’s amnesia as soon as possible. When she looked better the morning after her seizure, I told Lorenzo I needed to telephone Paris.

‘I am sorry, Mademoiselle Archer,’ he said. ‘There is no telephone. All the lines were cut when the Germans retreated and they haven’t been fixed yet.’

‘I’ll have to call from the post office then. When is the next bus into town?’

‘This afternoon.’

‘But I must telephone Serge’s lawyer this morning.’

It looked like my only option was to walk. But the idea of it was unappealing as I wasn’t wearing practical shoes and the warm morning was foreshadowing an even hotter day ahead.

Lorenzo coughed into his fist. ‘There is a bicycle. You can use it to get into town then catch the bus back here,’ he offered.

‘Would you mind getting it for me while I fetch my handbag?’

When I returned to the front of the house, Lorenzo presented me with a contraption that looked more like an eggbeater than a bicycle. It didn’t have any rubber on the wheels.

‘The Germans took Madame Bergeret’s bicycle during the war and left this one,’ explained Lorenzo. ‘It has steel tyres because rubber was in short supply.’

It was no surprise to me that the Germans would have got rid of it. With no rubber on the tyres the suspension would be terrible. The fixed gears meant it would be impossible to ride up a hill. But it was a long walk to the centre of town, and time was of the essence.

I rode the bicycle around the courtyard a few times to get my balance before leaving down the villa’s private road. As I reached the intersection to the main road, a woman driving a black Renault turned towards the villa. Our eyes met and the way she stared at me gave me the chills. But I didn’t have time to think too much about who the visitor might be, I was more concerned about surviving the trip down the steep winding road on a bicycle with bald tyres that squeaked like rusty bedsprings.

When I approached the Promenade des Anglais, the grinding of the bicycle’s tyres was so loud a group of glamorous suntanned people lying on the beach turned around to look at me.

‘ Mon Dieu! ’ one of them said. ‘I thought we were rid of the Nazis.’

It was a relief to finally reach the post office, but as I stood in line I felt as if my thighs were on fire. I would have to find a pharmacy to buy talcum powder to stop them rubbing otherwise I would be walking like a cowboy for days.

‘What have you managed to find out?’ Georges asked, when the operator put my call through.

‘Kristina has lost her memory,’ I said. ‘She doesn’t remember what happened during the war. She knows about Serge but can’t recall anything about him. She can’t even remember her own children. It’s some sort of amnesia.’

Georges paused before asking: ‘Amnesia? Doesn’t that go away?’

‘According to her butler, Lorenzo, she has shown some signs of improvement since she returned to Nice. But they have been slight.’ I took a breath and forced myself to say the words that terrified me. ‘Her brain may take months to heal... or it may never heal at all, and those memories might be lost forever.’

Georges’s silence made my own fears roar louder in my ears.

‘She’s our main witness,’ he said in a tone so serious, and so unlike his usual sanguine self, it filled me with dread. ‘We go to court in three weeks.’

‘Three weeks! I thought we had months, and that meanwhile Serge would be released on bail.’

‘The French judicial system is different from the Australian one,’ Georges quickly explained. ‘It functions under the Napoleonic code. The examining judge is already processing evidence to report to the judge who will preside over the case in court.’

‘Three weeks is unreasonable! Regardless of the court system, shouldn’t there be a fair trial?’

Georges’s hesitation to answer worried me.

‘What is it?’ I asked him. ‘What are you not telling me?’

‘We are being rushed and the examining judge is being rushed too. It smacks of political expediency.’

‘You mean they are going to use Serge as an example? That this is going to be some sort of show trial?’

‘What I’m saying is that we are going to need the strongest case possible if we are to have any chance of winning this.’

My legs trembled and I thought I was going to be sick. The seizure Kristina had suffered the previous day looked so dangerous it could have been almost fatal. But it seemed to me the only hope we had was if I could persuade her to go with me to Paris and see Serge. Perhaps then she would remember more about what happened during the war.

After I rang off from Georges, I turned towards the pharmacy with the intent of buying the much needed talcum powder. A woman crossed my path and stood in front of me. I recognised her as the dark-haired woman I’d seen turning into the villa’s private road. Had she followed me?

‘Excuse me, mademoiselle,’ she said, with the faintest inflection of a Russian accent. ‘Who are you and why are you visiting Kristina?’

Her arrogant manner was off-putting and I was inclined to walk past her, but she put her manicured hand on my arm. Despite the heat of the day, her touch was ice-cold.

‘Who are you ?’ I asked.

‘Sonia Vertinskaya. Kristina’s told you terrible things about me, hasn’t she? But I understand she has some sort of damage to her brain and that she can’t remember things? She doesn’t remember that we were friends and that I helped her during the war?’

My ears pricked up at her last statement. ‘You helped her? Do you mean by rescuing Jewish people?’

Sonia nodded. ‘Yes, that’s right. I help her still. Lorenzo gave me a self-portrait she painted and I had it auctioned for her anonymously at the H?tel Drouot in Paris. Otherwise, she and that poor old man would have had nothing to live on. I’d help her more if she’d let me. I happen to know of a very good specialist in London who can restore people’s memories. I would be willing to travel there with her and pay for anything she might need. Lorenzo is open to my help, but Kristina keeps pushing me away.’

I wavered. The fact that the woman knew about Kristina’s Resistance work was a godsend. But something about her approach made me wary.

‘And you haven’t said your name yet, mademoiselle?’ she added.

‘I’m Eve Archer,’ I ventured cautiously. ‘Why did you say Kristina was saying awful things about you?’

‘Because with those sorts of injuries, the person always turns on the person closest to them.’ She smiled, treating me to a flash of gold dental work. ‘I have a suite at the H?tel Negresco. Why don’t you come and have a drink with me? I’ll tell you all about it.’

If I wasn’t so desperate for any information that might help Serge, I probably would have declined. Instead, I nodded.

Sonia’s suite was lavishly decorated with items that did not belong to the hotel – antique Chinese screens, Syrian embroidered fabrics, and a large leopard-print rug.

‘What does the doctor think is wrong with Kristina? Is her memory loss permanent?’ Sonia asked, pouring a glass of chilled rosé, which the bellboy had brought to the room.

‘No one knows.’

She offered me a seat. ‘Are you here because of Serge Lavertu?’

I hesitated a moment before answering. ‘Yes.’

‘He’s as guilty as hell, you know,’ she said, stretching her arm over the back of the sofa. ‘Everyone in the art world knows it. He’d kill his own mother to get his hands on a painting he wanted. Nobody would dare cross him at an auction. If he was after a painting, it was safer to let him have it.’

I flinched and Sonia noticed.

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Are you a friend of his?’

‘Yes.’

She eyed me carefully. ‘Well, you can’t have been friends long otherwise what I said wouldn’t have shocked you.’

I’d walked straight into a trap, and I knew it. I wasn’t going to say anything more until I discovered exactly what Sonia Vertinskaya was after. Then the answer hit me.

‘Are you testifying against Serge Lavertu at the trial?’ I asked. ‘If you are, I don’t think I should be here.’ I stood up to leave.

Sonia stood up with me. ‘He is going to frame Kristina,’ she said. ‘That’s why I’m concerned. If she can’t remember anything, she’s an easy target.’

‘He didn’t know that she’d lost her memory. No one knew until I came here.’

‘Didn’t he?’ replied Sonia, racing to the door ahead of me. ‘Serge Lavertu says a lot of things and I’d be wary if I were you. He knew perfectly well Kristina has amnesia. It was what he was counting on when he sent you here.’

I rushed into the corridor and hurried to the elevator. As I pushed the buttons, Sonia leaned against the doorway of her room. ‘It was a pleasure to meet you, Eve Archer. You are rather famous in Paris, you know. That little thing with Cyrille de Villiers. Are you going to be a character witness in the Serge Lavertu trial? Are you going to say how reliable and trustworthy he is?’

The elevator arrived and I jumped inside. When the doors closed, I could smell Sonia’s musky perfume clinging to me. I had never wanted to have a bath so much in my life. It was a relief to get back out on the street. But as I walked the bicycle to the bus stop, I realised I had been the winner in that exchange with Sonia Vertinskaya. I hadn’t told her anything she didn’t already know, but she had told me something important. She had something to hide, and she had wanted to make sure Kristina didn’t remember it.

*

I took my seat on the shady side of the bus back to the villa, and even there the leather scorched my back and legs. I kept my eyes peeled to the view outside. Palm trees lined the wide boulevard, and then as the bus wound its way uphill and around bends, lemon and orange groves came into view. I was struck by all the things I’d been too wrought-up to notice the first time I travelled up the hill, including the brightly coloured stucco mansions and the large gardens, full of pine and fig trees. Nice had once been a sleepy fishing village before it was discovered by the English and the Russian aristocracy and the opulence of their homes remained. We passed a woman on a bicycle, and I was taken by her flowing floral dress and the wide-brimmed hat that bounced on her head as she pedalled. How I would have enjoyed coming to Nice for any other reason than the one I was here for. It might have been an exciting adventure. Instead I was in one of the prettiest parts of France, feeling the weight of the world bearing down on me.

But the war had come to Nice as well and there were signs of that too. Some mansions had been reduced to rubble, and on some properties, barbed wire and other barricades remained.

As we progressed up the hill, the passengers got off at various stops and soon I was the only one remaining. Finally, the bus driver pulled over and turned to me.

‘This is the last stop before I turn around, mademoiselle. The Villa des Cygnes is up that private road. I’ll help these passengers with their bags and then I’ll get your bicycle down for you.’

I looked out the window to see Kristina and Lorenzo standing under a palm tree with two suitcases next to them. I recognised one of the suitcases as mine. Kristina was holding Flora in a wicker carrier.

‘I’ve decided to come with you to Paris,’ Kristina said, as I stepped out of the bus. ‘Perhaps it will help me remember.’

She still looked wan from her seizure the previous day.

‘Are you sure?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ she said, as the driver took the suitcases and put them in the undercarriage before taking the bicycle off the rack and leaning it against the tree.

‘You’ll take good care of her, won’t you?’ said Lorenzo, with the voice of a man who was entrusting his most precious possession to a stranger.

‘I will. I promise,’ I told him.

Kristina and I took our seats on the bus with Flora’s carrier perched on the seat in front of us. As the bus turned around we waved farewell to Lorenzo who looked bereft. I only hoped everything would somehow turn out right, and Kristina would be returning to him soon.

I took her hand. ‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘You are welcome,’ she replied, squeezing my hand back. ‘I have to try to help. From the way you’ve described it, me remembering something is the only chance Serge has got.’