The Undying

LATE FEBRUARY

THE American lay, haunted by the memory of the newborn, the feel of his weight in her arms, the press of his body against her hip.

Awake inside the old farmhouse, she blinked up into the gloom, her gaze settling on the exposed ceiling joists. When someone in her small company began to cry—a masculine sobbing that caused the others to stir—she rose, double-checking the boarded windows and doors before sliding back beneath the blankets and pulling the covers tight.

After leaving Paris, her ragtag group formed on the highways—eleven in total, all French—wandering north along the broken A13 autoroute. The few survivors they passed told them that Great Britain had been destroyed, covered by some great wave; the Chunnel they were heading to, collapsed. With the constant blizzard, she believed England existed under ice. Chill temperatures that kept them at bay, for now.

They followed rumors of an army garrison to the west, taking the A11—seeking a town, refuge, food, or water—crossing paths with the kidnappers on the train tracks not far beyond an old depot, with the city of Le Mans afire in the southern background. The strangers spoke with an accent she had never heard before. A country dialect, she gathered. Two men with rifles and a blonde teenage girl. Those she traveled with whispered the strangers were bouseux and péquenots. Filthy people, nasty tongues. When the strangers raised their guns, the American joined the others, hoping to fight them off, but was struck from behind and lost consciousness.

When she awoke, two were shot dead, the child was gone, and her remaining company would no longer speak of the boy. Her world, as frail as it had been, became ephemeral.

She had cared for the baby since the beginning, rocked him to sleep, changed him, kept him safe. In Paris, her breasts had grown sore. Soon after, she began expressing milk. By miracle or some buried survival instinct, she knew not. Yet, as a surrogate mother, she had nursed the orphan for weeks as they trekked along the broken highways and scorched fields.

The strangers stole the infant on the same day the blizzard fell. The day her company was forced to take shelter in the farmhouse, not half a mile from the train depot. Preying pale demons or not, she would recover the baby and follow the shoreline to temperate waters. The coast would be warmer than inland.

It had to be.

Her desire to take to the roadways again, to stay one step ahead of their hunger, was rising. The fear of being cornered prevented her from falling asleep, weeks of walking the highways a cadence which beat in her muscles even as she lay still. Outside, night or day meant no difference beneath the constant cloud layer. Long before the blizzard her circadian rhythms had been broken. For weeks now, maybe months.

Closing her eyes, she felt safer with the group, wrapped in wool and denial, and out of the storm.

The nightmares were always the same, of mold and mildew and the reaching pale sprouts which had carpeted the ruins since the fallout, plants seeking in vain for sunlight. No matter how quickly she hurried through the dreamscape, she could not find the wailing infant among the crumbling buildings. Yet she had to, before they did. No matter how well any survivor concealed their path, the moribund always did.

She gasped when she awoke, clutching her breasts. Precious liquid soaked her bra. She was still lactating.

Ta gueule, someone mumbled.

Shut up.

From a boarded window she watched the snowstorm, the wooden slats swelling and receding with the freezing winds. Without dawn, it was impossible for her to count the days. How long ago had the infant been abducted? Would his kidnappers care for him, in the tundra? In the cold? Or would they leave the boy to perish, once they realized how difficult it was to keep a baby alive?

Brittany, she reminded herself. Somewhere near the coast of Bretagne. France. Remember that. Remember who you were.

As the others huddled, coughing or weeping under their covers, someone opened a tin of awful-smelling fruit. The pungent odor was sickening. Her stomach turned.

She would wait no longer. Nothing else mattered. Not yesterday, or what tomorrow may bring.

Just the boy.

The deep snow would make walking difficult, so she fashioned snowshoes from the backs of two chairs. No one tried to stop her. A can of food was denied by the group, yet she managed half a bottle of water from the well. With two scarves about her face, she left the farmhouse, seeking the train tracks. Instinct beseeched her to forget the infant and head south, toward the Mediterranean, even if warmer climates meant running into the undying ones.

Even on snow, walking felt good. Not as good as the rising sun, but healthy. In her pace she found solitude. Purpose.

She heard the baby’s cries as the walls of the depot took shape through the snowfall. Her heartbeat quickened, her nipples puckering at his call. She saw no windows in the small brick building, heard no sounds inside the station besides the infant.

Taking the platform, she paused at the door, and with palsied hands withdrew the pistol from her pack. She had kept the handgun hidden since the Jardin des Tuileries. There were four rounds left. Before the fight in the garden, there had been thirteen.

She forced the memory away, turning the vault door shut on Paris. Mourning the dead would only slow her down.

Releasing the safety, she placed the handgun in her waistband and reached for the doorknob. She told herself to be patient. Instinct begged her to run.

Laissez-moi la tuer, said the man behind the rifle.

She had barely taken a step into the gloom when the cold barrel pressed against her temple. When she breathed, she breathed in straw and shit. The baby wailed from a corner. From the commotion she could not tell how many people stood in the darkness.

S’il vous plaît, she begged. I come only for le bébé . . .

The man laughed. The mother? he said in French. She’s here for the boy.

Magnifique! cried a woman. Light! Show me the bitch!

A flick of a switch and she flinched against the brightness. Her retinas burned; it had been months since she had seen electric light. As her vision cleared, she realized the baby had stopped crying. He smelled her lactation. She could hear him cooing.

Tell me, the woman demanded, how I find a fucking Américaine in my land, now?

The obese woman stood about five-two, with unhealthy pits ringing resentful green eyes. Her skin was pocked and pink. Two more armed men surrounded her, white crosses painted on their jackets as if the symbol would stop the moribund. The blonde teen huddled in a corner, filthy like the rest, hugging the infant, whose ruddy hands reached out. Wanting milk only he could sense.

I—I don’t understand.

The fat woman laughed as she slipped behind an old desk. "With the cold there is nothing to hunt, and we tire of screwing each other. We crave anything, how do you say—novel. Something to pass le temps. To pass le froid."

And you all speak English?

The woman cackled. Bordel de merde! But of course! All except la coquette.

She thumbed a broken nail at the teen and the blonde cringed, tightening her hold on the small bundle.

Stall them. Find a way to save the boy.

We were in Paris, she stammered, searching for the words. "My friends—we were looking for the star. During the fallout. It was the day I arrived from the States. The day they came."

Incroyable. We’ve heard of no one escaping Paris. What star?

As they motioned for her to sit, she gripped her hands together and tried not to look at the baby. A chance. She needed to let her words find the way.

L’Étoile, the American began slowly. From the message. The one on the radio. It told us to go to the star.

The blonde stepped forward. Quel message?

PART ONE

BLACKOUT

When good Americans die, they go to Paris.

—OSCAR WILDE, A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE, 1893

CHAPTER ONE

HER flight from Seattle arrived in Paris on New Year’s Eve, touching down at Charles de Gaulle Airport shortly after noon. Enough time to negotiate customs, catch the train to the Latin Quarter, and unpack—even split a bottle of red wine with her traveling companion, Ben Rosenfeld, before heading out for the party. After the last twelve months, saying good-bye to a shit year was exactly what the doctor ordered.

Jeanie, where are you going? We’re already late.

Waving Ben aside, she moved to the curb. They’re French, you noob. They invented fashionably late. It’s my first night in Paris and I want to see the city from the river.

Bordered with bistros and cafés, the Left Bank buzzed with evening revelers at a quarter past nine. Most passersby on the sidewalk appeared to be Parisians, although she heard a smattering of English, German, and other languages she did not recognize.

When the light changed, she split a group of young men, ignoring their catcalls and crossing the intersection toward Pont Neuf. Golden lamps dotted the causeway. Though Pont Neuf is French for New Bridge, she knew it was actually the oldest bridge in Paris. Turning away from the passing cars, she leaned over the stone lip to stare at the Seine, beaming when a dinner boat emerged from beneath the arches, its top floor packed with black-tie partiers. Following the ship’s path, she spotted the brightly lit Louvre and, far beyond the museum, the Arc de Triomphe—a tiny star atop the headlight-strewn boulevard Champs-Élysées.

Seen enough, Antoinette?

She laughed. Not even, Benji. I was hoping to see the Eiffel Tower from here. Maybe if we cross the river? Lady Di’s wreck was in one of those tunnels. Crap, did you bring the tour book? I left Frommer’s at the hotel.

He shivered. The last thing I need to see is the iron penis of Paris. It’s freezing¸ smells like pee, and I need a drink. Let’s dial this party up before old man New Year keels over.

It’s just a petite soirée, Ben. Zou Zou, her brother, and some friends. She whirled, nearly lightheaded. Two Americans in Paris, first time abroad? Don’t you feel it?

Ben smirked and raised an eyebrow. As long as no one takes potshots at the U.S. and our freedom fries, all’s good, he replied. Every country has warts. The French are just, I don’t know, more perfumed than ours.

Wow. So prickly, she replied, and slugged his shoulder. Benji, sarcastic to a tee. A true Pacific Northwesterner. Full to the gills with Seattle freeze, and a hard shell to crack. If ever a person not to base first impressions on, that would be Ben. Beneath it all, he was a gentlemen. He stood from the table whenever she arrived, walked her to her car when she left, and always held doors open. No one else she would rather be with, at the beginning of a two-week holiday.

Jeanie smiled and turned to the city. Bordering the river, the buildings’ dormer windows, wrought iron balustrades and double-pitched roofs created a surge of exhilaration, of foreign discovery, and then—as if on cue—her thoughts turned to her father, how he had simply adored Paris, and how much she missed him.

Determined to remain upbeat, Jeanie blinked back tears as she glanced at the seventeenth-century apartments, imagining Catherine Deneuve or Eva Green behind each window, champagne in hand, gracefully awaiting the stroke of midnight, and an I’m in Paris moment bubbled up, riding her skin like a biometric wave.

Places she had only studied about were in plain sight. The Île de la Cité and the Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris were to her left, and the wooden pedestrian bridge Pont des Arts bisected the Seine on her right. For months she had fantasized taking a lunch on the bridge—a baguette sandwich, maybe some wine—while Parisians sauntered past.

Tell me again, Ben asked through a yawn, why we couldn’t nap before the party.

Because we’d wake up at three in the morning, wired, she replied. And nothing is closing these eyes.

Three in the morning refreshed, you mean.

Promise me you’ll play nice, she added. I know how you get when you’re tired.

Nice? As long as I don’t have to listen to how everything in Paris is better than in the States. Remember when Zou arrived in Seattle? I’d never seen a girl with her nose so high in the air.

Sixteen going on twenty-five, Jeanie replied, and glanced at Notre Dame. God, I’ve missed her. Her turf now, Ben. And what a turf it is.

Zou Zou Delacroix. As an exchange student, Zou Zou had arrived in Seattle like nothing Jeanie had ever seen. A seductive sixteen-year-old, flirting with Jeanie’s father. She had never watched anyone flirt with Dad, teenager or adult. Zou Zou exuded sensuality, in winks, smiles, a nod of her head. Even as they sat around the dinner table eating turkey loaf.

We could still bail, Ben offered. Take a night on the town, just the two of us.

Her grin widened. If things get funky, we’ll ditch the party before midnight and toast the New Year with the crowd. Whatever happens, tomorrow you keep up with me—no matter how large your hangover is. There’s more to Paris than the inside of a bar.

Live epic, he replied, eliciting a groan. Just the way I roll.

The Delacroixes’ apartment overlooked the Seine one block east from Place Saint-Michel. Nearly every Parisian they passed—beggar, barista, or businesswoman—breathed chic. Luckily, Jeanie had ditched her blue jeans and tennis shoes for a silk tunic and slacks. Ben still wore his clothes from the flight, a pair of old jeans, a T-shirt, and his puffy North Face parka.

They’re bohemians, she said as she rang the apartment. Zou Zou dances for a local theater group and her brother works in the music industry. They got the flat after their parents died in a car accident.

Ben led them up three stories of wooden treads, slippery and worn in the middle, to an open apartment door and the smell of roasting chicken wafting from inside. When he reached the platform, he paused. Ladies first, he offered, and moved aside.

Warm light issued from the interior, yet Jeanie hesitated as she reached for the doorknob. I made it, she thought. Finally.

You ready? Ben asked as he waited patiently on the step.

Jeanie nodded, settled by his presence. After deciding to skip winter semester at college, she had barely finished asking Ben if he would delay business school to play chaperone, when he simply said, You bet.

I didn’t come to the most stuck-up country in the world for its food, Jeans. Let’s go get drunk and make fools of ourselves.

Benji, so ready to blaze your way through Paris. Promise you’ll be polite?

I promise to act like a grown-up. And tell me again, how many French ladies will be here? Vive la différence—that’s the saying, right?

She shook her head, grinning as she turned the doorknob. A party lay beyond. A chance to become something new. As the grief counselor had suggested to her during their last session, the New Year was a blank canvas.

It was time to pick up the brush and paint the first stroke.

Zou Zou Delacroix cooked before a window overlooking the Seine. The petite woman sliced vegetables, whistling to jazz streaming from an iPad, unaware that Jeanie and Ben had entered.

Always a knockout, with her full lips and raven hair—a lethal combination during her time in Seattle—Zou Zou now wore it pixie short, something Jeanie could never pull off. She beamed when she noticed them, hurrying over to exchange kisses.

Ma chérie, bienvenue à Paris! How was your flight?

I’m so glad to be here, Zou. But I have to apologize, we didn’t bring anything for dinner. I should’ve thought—

Don’t be silly, Zou Zou replied, you are the party, ce soir. Et Monsieur Rosenfeld, my American soccer player. Always très cool, Benjamin.

My middle name, dear Zou, Ben replied, and gave her a mock bow. Here to please.

Ah, but the sarcasm remains, bien, bien. I worried you would lose that edge. Did I hear right? Business school? I remember a night in Jeanie’s basement when you talked of nothing but architecture. Why stop?

Common sense, Jeanie replied. His mother, she wanted to say.

Et what happened to soccer? You also spoke of playing for the university, non?

Decided to focus on my studies, Ben said, winking as he plucked a grape from the table.

Well, maybe Paris will help with those dreams. Now come, almost everyone is here. Mon frère is in the living room. Victor, ma petite soeur Jeanie is here!

In the high-ceilinged living room, two men spoke before a marbled fireplace where flames crackled and the scent of burning wood filled the chamber. Like Zou Zou, the short and stout Victor Delacroix somehow managed to succeed in a scarlet smoking jacket.

"Welcome, Mademoiselle Anderson. I was very sorry to hear about your father’s passing. Still, Paris is a wonderful place to get away. Let me introduce Monsieur Farid Nejem. He is an Algerian who lives in the Eighteenth but spends all of his time in our apartment. I believe he wants women to think he owns the place."

Enchanté, Farid said, and they kissed cheeks.

As they pulled apart, she paused. Attractive, sure. Unshaven, with shoulder-length dark hair. Foreign. The difference stalled her. When she caught the scent of incense—sweet and pungent—she realized she was staring. Jeanie nearly frowned. She had promised herself no men on the trip, and here she was, not nine hours in Paris, wavering.

Victor calls me Algerian yet I have spent my whole life in Paris, he continued. Pardon, but I know only poor English. Are you . . . Merde. Victor, comment dire ‘décalage horaire’?

Jet lag? she laughed. Not yet, but thanks.

He grinned warmly. Ah, you speak French. Better than my English. Première visite à Paris?

First time in Europe, thanks to Zou.

Farid nodded and motioned to the window. Well, if you need someone to take you about, I would be happy to show you a different side of Paris than Zou Zou knows. Sans terre and, how do you say, exotique?

Her interest piqued by the offer, she returned his smile. They were in Paris, after all. Hell, if the clichés were correct, she’d likely be posing for an artsy nude photograph before vacation ended. A bit of flirting could be healthy. She was moving to thank him, when Zou Zou raised her glass.

Let Rome have their God, she belted. On New Year’s Eve, all of Europe comes to my city to party. And so, my little American sister, did you. To two weeks of adventure with your new French family. Bonne année!

The New Year’s Eve feast included coq au vin, a green salad, baguette and cheese, all in no particular order. A bottle of Côtes du Rhône followed a Bordeaux. Jeanie pulled her hair into a ponytail and slipped into a jet lag– and wine-induced trance, where she nibbled on bread and listened to the group flitter between subjects—the war in the Middle East, the latest Spike Jonze film, the differences among the wines—no one caring if someone spilled over a sentence or changed the topic completely. More than once she felt Farid watching, but their eyes never met.

The last guest to arrive was also the tallest, Zou Zou’s manager, Günter Bahr. His French was rough compared to the others’, but the pale-haired, broad-shouldered German shifted to English without transition and Jeannie thought his Saxon accent somehow rounded out the evening.

I work out of Munich, he explained. But sometimes I bring my production here, if it succeeds in Deutschland. The French love crap theater. Too bad the same can’t be said of you Americans. If only your zeitgeist would consume as much of the stage as it does of oil . . .

Ben coughed. And what do you do again, Dieter?

Dieter? Can you not tell? He motioned to his frame and smiled. Dance. I do dance. And my name is Günter.

Dance. Wonderful. Do you happen to know the phrase ‘Game on’?

Game what? Ah, you fool with me, eh? And what are you doing in Paris, Herr Rosenfeld?

Just here to keep an eye on Jeanie. There are a couple sites I’d like to visit—Picasso’s museum, Morrison’s grave. And the catacombs. Some Scottish cavers blogged their descent last year. Left mad notes. If I could talk Jeans into braving the underground, that’d be about it.

Günter finished his beer and slapped Ben’s shoulder. Shizer, the catacombs are for tourists and artists afraid to show their work. Seventeenth-century graffiti? Stay aboveground. Go to Musée d’Orsay or watch jazz at Le Caveau des Oubliettes. If you visit Père Lachaise, fuck Morrison. Find Oscar Wilde’s tomb. Leave a kiss . . .

Victor and Farid cleared the table while Jeanie and Zou Zou smoked hashish rolled with tobacco by an open window. When Jeanie held the smoke in her lungs, Zou Zou laughed and told her to inhale the joint and let it out like a cigarette, or she would get too high. At a quarter to midnight, Victor called them to the dining table. Before they went, Zou Zou raised a glass for Jeanie’s father.

Losing one parent is awful enough, Jeanie offered. I can’t imagine both at once. I’m sorry, Zou. I should’ve come sooner.

You are here and that is all that matters, Zou Zou replied as they toasted. "Benjamin, aussi. And we get along. A first time for everything, non?"

Jeanie giggled as she leaned back, trying to absorb some of Zou Zou’s confidence. The same self-assurance that allowed an eighteen-year-old to perform for an overseas dance tour in Las Vegas, months after her parents had passed away. If Jeanie could find such courage in a bottle, she would buy the whole darn store. Click and ship.

That’s sweet, Jeanie added. But I remember you and Ben only agreeing once. Ever.

One thing? Quoi?

My tattoo.

Zou Zou laughed. Ah, the bird. I had nearly forgotten, she said, and reached for Jeanie’s sleeve.

Forgotten? I recall both of you trying to drag me out the door, right up until the ink touched my skin.

What was it again, a swallow?

A raven, Jeanie replied and rolled up her cuff, revealing the Native American raven on her wrist, the sun in its beak. Once meant to symbolize Jeanie’s readiness to fly the coop and head to college. After her father’s cancer, the bird nearly became a harbinger. "My Girl with the Dragon Tattoo moment, she said. At least I haven’t gotten another."

Zou Zou raised her glass again and nodded. There is always tomorrow, ma petite chérie.

Farid shook his head as he glided past, tsk-tsking when he noticed their glasses were nearly empty. He smiled and poured Zou’s wine, keeping his eyes on Jeanie’s glass as he filled hers. There’s something there, she thought, curious when he did not look up. Not cheesy. Mindful. Refined. Zou Zou caught Jeanie’s stare, laughing while Farid sauntered away.

Now come, she told Jeanie, my brother wants to explain our family’s New Year’s Eve tradition. We do it special, for you. The first time since our parents passed.

Set on the table was a round brioche, sprinkled with powdered sugar. Hidden inside the galette des rois—kings’ cake—was a white bean. Whoever bit the bean would be king or queen of New Year’s. Before they could begin, the youngest in the party had to crawl beneath the table.

Now, Victor went on, if our redheaded American Jew would call out who gets what piece, in what order . . .

From below the table, Ben floated Victor the bird—which made Günter snort loudly—before selecting Jeanie to take the first slice and Farid the last. After Jeanie bit the hard bean, Victor placed a golden paper crown on her head, and asked for her plans as queen for the day.

Jeanie snagged Zou Zou’s cigarette and stood, feeling more than a little high. I would begin with a petit déjeuner in the Jardin du Luxembourg, along with Hemingway’s pigeons, she said, winging it. Next, I may saunter to the grave of Guy de Maupassant at Montparnasse—one of my father’s favorite authors. After a limo ride to the Louvre, a Campari at Café Marly and then off to the Eiffel Tower—with Johnny Depp as my guide . . . Taking a large drag, she exhaled, coughed, and added, But I’d spend the rest of the evening in Gaultier, shopping.

Günter spit beer across the table. A real American queen, prost!

Paris is beautiful, Victor said as he poured champagne. But she can also bite. Thankfully, she shows her tits more than her ass. Now everyone, up.

As the others stood, Jeanie hugged Ben. Thanks for being there, these last few months. My dad would want me to say so.

He smiled widely. Wouldn’t be anywhere else during your hour of need, he said, slurring. By the length of his blinks, she could tell he was drunk. Besides, he went on, someone needs to defend America against German collaborators . . .

Zou Zou cried out, Dix, and Jeanie held her champagne flute high. The feeling of release, of losing oneself in the moment, felt within grasp. She glanced at Farid and their eyes met.

Neuf! the party echoed.

Seven! Ben shouted.

Before Jeanie could snicker, the lights went out.

CHAPTER TWO

IN the sudden darkness, no one moved. The flames in the fireplace sparkled in glasses held out to make toasts.

Blackout? Jeanie asked.

Günter chortled as Farid glided to the window. Oui. The New Year starts with a whimper. So French.

Outside, no illumination streamed from any apartment, car, or streetlamp. The entire city was dark. The Seine, once iridescent and glistening, was eerily flat, its waters hard to discern, every building within sight, every stoplight, apartment and lamp, without power.

Jeanie leaned out the window, unable to distinguish Notre Dame or the edges of Pont Neuf. The only luminosity was the night sky, where shimmering emerald-blue and green lights flowed above the city, backlit by stars.

Guys, look.

Goose bumps prickled her arms as the curtain of ethereal colors shifted across the heavens. The aurora borealis over Paris? Have you ever seen the northern lights so far south?

Zou Zou shook her head. Non. Once in Reykjavik, but not here. C’est superbe.

From below, a murmur grew from the crowd. Fear took Jeanie and she swallowed. On purpose, she had left her meds behind, stuffed in the sock drawer back home. Barely four weeks into this latest round of antidepressants and she detested the little pills—all they did was remove her highs and lows and leave her in some hazy middle.

In the darkness the living room constricted, the walls compressed. Her apprehension rose, along with the feeling of being trapped, heightened by the power outage and the strange, sentient light show. Jeanie took the crowd’s whispering as a communal gasp and tensed, turned to reach for Ben, and from the dark streets heard the shouts of—

—joy.

Zou Zou whooped as she reached for more champagne.