“Yes, not yet.” She reached for an envelope she’d brought and handed it to him. “One can always have hope.”
Camille gazed at her, more puzzled than ever, then tore open the envelope he’d been handed. Inside was a ticket for passage to France and funds enough to live on for more than a year if he was careful with his money. He didn’t know what to say. He was not a man of many words, least of all words of gratitude.
“Mother,” he finally said, deeply moved by her generosity. “You understand that if I go back to Paris, I won’t return?”
“Of course I understand. Before you go, you’ll help your father in the store. Without your two brothers, he needs you now. Then, when our business affairs are more settled, you can leave.”
There was a war brewing in America, and the effects rippled down to everyone. Ships were lost, ships were commandeered, with goods meant for Charleston or New York stolen. It was perhaps the bleakest time for their business, and Rachel was glad Mr. Enrique had long ago suggested to Frédéric that they no longer own the ships themselves. If they had continued in the direction Monsieur Petit had led them, they would likely be destitute by now, accepting charity from their community instead of helping those in need, something Camille seemed to have overlooked completely. Every Sunday food was brought down to the synagogue for those who were faltering in their businesses and their lives, and Rachel was more than glad to give what she could.
They had finished their coffees, and now began to walk together. The market square was nearly empty in this, the hottest hour of the day, with white cloths thrown over the fruit and vegetable stands to protect them from the sunlight. “Just do your best not to bankrupt the store before you leave,” Rachel told her son.
“I promise to try,” Camille said. It was the very least he could do.
That was enough for her. Rachel was ready to go home. She found herself exhausted by the heat, even though she’d known such weather all her life. The birds were so weighted down by the temperature, they didn’t sing at this hour. The only birds that managed flight were the pelicans, and then only far out at sea, where there were breezes. Rachel imagined that Adelle’s spirit was out where the ocean was the exact shade of gray that it was in the painting her son had given her. The idea of the wind at sea was a delicious notion on such a hot day. The clouds would be enormous, white, like a canopy. The spray would be chill, the waves as high as the roofs of the fruit stands they now passed. As for Camille, he was imagining not the sea but the street where his aunt and uncle lived, the way the dusk sifted down like black powder. He would arrive in November, the start of his favorite time of year, when the trees were red and gold and black and the grass was silver. He would write to Fritz’s brother Anton immediately and ask if he might be taken on as one of his students in preparation for attending a serious art school.
Rachel paused to lean on a low stucco wall for support, cooling herself with a small fan that had been made from bone and silk in Spain. Her son offered his arm so that he might assist her as they walked on, but she waved him away.
“I don’t need your help, even if you do think I’m an old lady.” She began to walk on, toward home, quickening her pace. They had already begun to climb the twisting street that led to the store.
“When I used to walk with Madame Halevy, she always said the same thing.”
“That old spider?” Rachel said, her mouth pursing with distaste.
Camille grinned at her response. When he did, he so resembled his father that Rachel felt her love for him rise up inside her. More, not less.
“I’ll be able to return the favor to Jestine for sewing my new jacket,” Camille said joyfully. Now that he knew his fate was his own, he was filled with good cheer. “I’ll bring the dress she made for Lyddie to Paris.”
“There’s no need,” his mother told him.
Soon she would be in the gardens of the Tuileries, where she would astound strangers when she told them about the turtles that arose from the sea on a single night, and the blood-red flowers that had been planted by the wives of the pirates, and the flights of stairs built to protect runaway slaves from the werewolves that chased after them. She had begun to pack that morning, making certain to leave room in the crate for Camille’s paintings.
She patted her son’s arm to assure him she was ready for what came next. “Jestine and I can bring the dress. We’ll already be there when you arrive.”
chapter eleven
The Season of Rain
Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas / Paris, France