Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Four

Kristina

Paris, July 1946

Kristina opened the door and Serge stood before her, holding a bouquet of Sterling Silver roses. Although his suit drooped from his thin shoulders, he looked debonair with his clean-shaven face and a gardenia in the buttonhole of his jacket. She invited him inside then put the flowers in a vase and set it on the table.

‘Is Inès here?’ he asked, looking around.

‘No. She thought we might like to be alone and went to stay with her mother. But not before cooking a quiche and baking an almond cake. She thinks you need fattening up.’

Kristina poured them a glass of wine each and they sat down on the sofa. Their meeting alone wasn’t as awkward as she feared it might be. It felt very much that they had been on intimate terms for years. Perhaps everything she needed to know was imprinted on her soul, and it didn’t matter if her mind could produce the exact pictures or not.

‘Thank you for the diary,’ she said. ‘It was a beautiful gift.’

‘I can’t imagine what it would be like to not remember your life,’ he replied, his eyes looking deeply into hers. ‘Sometimes I think I remember too much, too vividly.’

‘It’s like the destruction of a library of rare books, ones that can never be replaced,’ she told him.

She realised she had never articulated what it felt like so well, not even to herself, to have lost so much that was precious. But she looked at Serge and saw that at least one of those precious books had returned to her.

He put his hand on her arm. ‘But some memories have started to come back to you, haven’t they? Eve tells me you remembered why I wasn’t at the villa when you were all arrested.’

‘Yes, I remember.’

His eyes filled with tears. ‘I am so sorry, Kristina. So sorry that I lost control. It was not Max’s fault. It was mine.’ Then he fixed his mesmerising green eyes on her. ‘But I loved you too, Kristina. Very much. Perhaps even more than Max.’

They sat together in the quiet of the apartment, among Ines’s polished and perfectly dusted furniture. Then Flora appeared from the bedroom. She scampered across the carpet and began circling Serge’s feet.

‘That means she likes you,’ Kristina told him.

‘Your rabbit caused quite a stir in the courtroom.’

‘Her timing was impeccable.’

They smiled and fell into another comfortable silence. Kristina knew she must ask him the saddest question of all. But if she was to start a new life, she must let go of the old one.

‘Serge, where are Nadia and Ginette buried? And what happened to Max after he was arrested? Please tell me.’

Serge closed his eyes for a moment. The memory that was lost to her caused him suffering. ‘I returned to the villa the following morning to try to make amends with you. I found Nadia in a terrible state... and Ginette.’

Kristina clenched her fists but nodded to urge him to continue. She was afraid of what she would hear but she didn’t want him to stop.

‘Nadia passed away soon after and I buried the girls in the garden. In the same place where you and I buried Tulipe. I thought they would have liked that.’

‘So, they were so close by, and I never knew,’ Kristina said thoughtfully. ‘You buried them in the garden of the home where they had been loved. Thank you. And Max?’

Serge shook his head. ‘There is no record of him. Hitler had a policy of Nacht und Nebel for Allied agents. Making them disappear in a way that nobody, especially their families, would ever know what happened to them.’

‘He was the Devil incarnate. He knew destroying the memory of someone was the ultimate cruelty.’

Serge took her hands and held them. She suddenly felt very tired.

‘May I lay my head on your shoulder?’ she asked.

He nodded and lifted his arm so he could encircle her in his embrace. ‘Kristina, I want to take care of you. Keep the villa by all means, but come live with me in Paris. Lorenzo can come too. Judge Regis says I will have the gallery back by next week. You can paint again. I promised Max I would look after you, and I will.’

‘Will you be my art dealer?’ she asked. ‘Max promised me that after the war you two would finally make me famous.’

He shook his head. ‘I’m too old. Paris is destroyed. New York is the art capital of the world now and I don’t have the energy to sail back and forth across the ocean. But Eve does. She will represent you. You must have noticed that when she gets behind something, she stops at nothing until she succeeds.’

Kristina laughed. ‘I have noticed.’

‘I want to share my home and my daughter with you, as you and Max always shared everything with me,’ Serge said. ‘Please say yes.’

‘Yes,’ she said, burying her face deeper into his shoulder.

He gently stroked her hair. ‘Ours is an unconventional harmony. People won’t know what to make of it.’

Kristina looked up at him. ‘After how I have seen people behave, I don’t care what anybody else thinks is “normal”. I’d rather have our unconventional bond than their hatred and murderous ways any day. Love is love, Serge, whatever form it takes.’

‘Yes, love is love,’ he said.

She closed her eyes and drank in the peace of being with him. Even when she’d had no memory of him, she had longed for Serge. And now she had found him again.