The Day After Tomorrow

16

“YOU TELL me why!” Henri Kanarack was drunk. But it was not the kind of drunk that messes up a man’s mind and tongue so that he can neither think or speak coherently. He was drunk because he had to be, there was no other place logo.

It was a half hour before midnight and he was alternately sitting and pacing in Agnes Demblon’s small flat in Porte d’Orleans, barely a ten-minute drive from his own apartment in Montrouge. Early that evening he’d called Michele and told her he had been asked by Monsieur Lebec, the bakery owner, to go with him to Rouen to look over a property where he was considering opening a second bakery. It would be a day, perhaps two, before he got back. Michele was elated. Did this mean Henri was getting a promotion? That if Monsieur Lebec did open a bakery in Rouen, Henri would be asked to manage it? Would they move there? It would be wonderful to raise their child away from the bustling lunacy of Paris.

“I don’t know,” he’d said harshly. He’d been asked to go and that’s all he knew. And with that he’d hung up. Now he stared at Agnes Demblon and waited for her to say something.

“What do you want me to tell you?” she said. “That yes, maybe the American did recognize you and hired a private detective to find you. And that now, since he was in the store, and since that foolish girl gave him the names of the employees, we can assume he has found you or soon will. Assume, too, that he has no doubt reported that back to the American. All right, suppose it’s so. Now what?”

Henri Kanarack’s eyes glistened and he shook his head as he crossed the room for more wine. “What I don’t understand is how the American could recognize me. He’s got to be a dozen years younger than I am, maybe more. I’ve been out of the States for twenty-five years. The fifteen in Canada, the ten here.”

“Henri. Maybe it is a mistake. Maybe he thinks you are someone else.”

“It’s no mistake.”

“How do you know?”

Kanarack took a drink and stared off.

“Henri, you are a French citizen. You’ve done nothing here. For once in your life the law is on your side.”

“The law means nothing if they’ve found me. If it’s them, I’m dead, you know that.”

“It’s not possible. Albert Merriman is dead. Not you. How could anyone make the connection after so many years? Especially a man who couldn’t have been more than ten or twelve when you left America.”

“What the hell is he after me for, then, huh?” Kanarack’s stare cut through her. It was hard to tell if he was frightened or angry or both.

“They have pictures of what I looked like then. The police have them and they have them. And I haven’t changed all that much. Either bunch could have sent that guy to look for me.”

“Henri—” Agnes said quietly. He needed to think, to reason, and he wasn’t. “Why would they look for a man who is dead? Or, even if they did, why would they look here? Do you think they are sending this man to every city in the world on the off-chance he might bump into you on the street?” Agnes smiled.

“You’re making something of nothing. Come, sit here by me,” she said, smiling gently and patting the worn couch beside her.

The way she looked at him, the sound of her voice reminded him of the old days when she’d been not as unattractive as she was now. Of the days before she’d purposely let herself go for that very reason, so that he would no longer be attracted to her. Of the days before she refused him her bed, so that after a while he would not want her. It was important that he vanish wholly, to absorb the French culture and become French. To do that he must have a French wife. To make that possible it was necessary that Agnes Demblon no longer be part of his life. She had reentered it only when he had been unable to find work and she’d convinced Lebec he needed another hand at the bakery. After that, their relationship had been totally platonic as it was now, at least as he saw it.

But for Agnes there wasn’t a day her heart didn’t break at the sight of him. Not an hour or a moment when she did not want to take him into her arms and into her bed. From the beginning she had done it all. Helped him fake his own death, posed as his wife crossing the border into Canada, arranged for his false passport and finally convinced him to leave Montreal for France, where she had relatives, and where he could disappear forever. She’d done it all, even to the point of giving him up to another woman. For no other reason than she loved him so much.

“Agnes. Listen to me.” He did not come to sit beside her; instead he stood in the center of the room staring at her, the glass no longer in his hand. The room was absolutely still. There was no sound of traffic outside, no sound of people arguing in the apartment downstairs. For a moment she thought maybe the couple who lived there might have taken the night off from their loud and constant bickering and gone to the movies. Or maybe they were already in bed.

It was then she caught sight of her fingernails, which were long and ridged and should have been cut days ago.

“Agnes,” he said again. This time his voice was little more than a whisper.

“What we don’t know, we have to find out. You understand?” he said.

For a long time she kept looking at her nails, then, finally, she lifted her head. The fear, anger and rage were gone from him, as she knew they would be. What was there instead was ice.

“We have to find out.”

“Je comprends,” she murmured and looked back at her nails. “Je comprends.” I understand.