Read Chapter 7: A Sunday in Two Languages

Sunday opening began with protest and ended with Luc reading Where the Wild Things Are to fourteen children.

Clara considered this a complete victory.

The morning session was meant to be bilingual story time. The volunteer reader cancelled with a fever twenty minutes before the doors opened. Clara could manage conversational French but did not trust herself with the dramatic demands of children's literature. Luc, who had come downstairs only to borrow milk, attempted escape.

"Absolutely not," he said.

"You draw monsters professionally."

"For adults."

"Children are shorter adults with fewer inhibitions."

"That sentence should disqualify you from childcare."

The first family arrived.

Luc looked at the door, then at Clara.

"I hate you."

"Noted. Sit on the blue chair."

He was magnificent.

He performed the French text with theatrical contempt, then the English with an exaggerated accent that made Clara threaten him with a picture book. The children roared at the monsters. A little boy named Hugo crawled onto Luc's knee halfway through and remained there as if claiming territory.

Afterward, parents bought books and stayed for coffee. A Canadian family asked Clara about English schools in Paris. A French father ordered a stack of Roald Dahl. Two mothers exchanged phone numbers beside the children's shelves.

Luc watched from the counter.

"Do not say it," he told Clara.

"Community."

"I warned you."

At two, they finally closed for lunch and walked to the Jardin du Luxembourg with sandwiches from a nearby boulangerie.

Paris had decided it was spring. Chairs around the fountain were occupied by readers with faces tilted toward the sun. Children pushed small wooden sailboats across the water. Runners passed in expensive shoes. The chestnut trees held fresh leaves bright enough to look artificial.

Clara and Luc found two green chairs.

"I had forgotten Sundays could be like this," Clara said.

"Like what?"

"Existing without preparing for Monday."

Luc unwrapped his sandwich. "You worked too much."

"Says the man who draws at four in the morning."

"I work badly distributed hours. Different pathology."

She smiled.

A silence settled, easy at first.

Then Luc said, "Why editing?"

Clara watched a child chase a sailboat with a stick.

"Because when I was thirteen, Marianne gave me a terrible novel."

"Cruel woman."

"It was genuinely terrible. She asked me why. I wrote twelve pages explaining what was wrong with it."

"At thirteen?"

"I was unbearable."

"Was?"

She kicked his shoe.

"Marianne read my little essay and said, 'You don't want to write the book. You want to stand beside someone while they find it.' I thought that sounded noble."

"And was it?"

"Sometimes. On good days."

"And on bad days?"

"Meetings about jackets."

Luc laughed.

"What about you? Why comics?"

He looked toward the palace.

"My father was a mechanic in Tours. My mother worked in a pharmacy. Books were important, but drawing was considered a thing children do before useful education begins. I drew constantly anyway. At university I studied law for one year."

Clara turned to him. "You?"

"I was extremely bad at obedience."

"I'm shocked."

"My father did not speak to me for six months when I quit. Then my first book was published and sold four hundred copies."

"Did that help?"

"No. He asked if four hundred people was enough to pay rent."

"Practical man."

"Very."

"And now?"

"He owns every edition. Including Polish, which he cannot read."

There was affection under the words.

Clara looked at Luc's hands resting on his knees, the nails short, a small ink stain near his thumb.

"You draw people as if you like them," she said.

He glanced at her. "I do like people. Individually. Humanity is the problem."

"That should be on your next book jacket."

"You are never editing me."

"Terrified?"

"Reasonably."

They walked back through the gardens. Near the Medici Fountain, a couple was kissing with the focused indifference of people who believed the public had ceased to exist.

Clara looked away.

Luc did not.

"The French," she said.

"What?"

"Public kissing."

"The British invented pretending not to see desire."

"We invented curtains."

"For weather."

"For dignity."

Luc stopped walking.

"Do you always make jokes when you are uncomfortable?"

Clara stopped too.

The question was not playful.

"Do you always ask intrusive questions when you're bored?"

"Only when the answer is obvious."

She started walking again.

He caught up but did not apologise.

At the shop door, Clara searched for the key. Luc stood close behind her because a family was passing on the narrow pavement.

For one disorienting second, she felt the warmth of him at her back.

The key stuck.

"Your old enemy," Luc said softly.

"Don't."

He reached around her.

His hand covered hers on the brass key.

"Lift slightly before turning."

Clara did.

The lock opened at once.

Neither moved.

His arm was still beside hers. His face, when she turned, was much closer than she expected.

The bells of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont began ringing somewhere uphill.

Luc stepped back first.

"Technique," he said.

"Apparently."

They went inside.

For the rest of the afternoon, Clara became intensely aware of every lock in the building.