That Time in Paris by Monique Martin

Author:Monique Martin [Martin, Monique]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Monique Martin

Simon rapped impatiently on Marius and Remi’s apartment door. They waited, but there was no answer, and the complex was unusually quiet. Even the courtyard, which was typically busy at this time of day, was empty.

“Try again. He sleeps a lot during the day,” Elizabeth suggested, hoping he was just sleeping off another long night at work. But it was no use; no one was home.

With a frustrated sigh Simon turned to her. “What do we do now? He could be anywhere.”

“Maybe Remi knows where he is.”

“That would be helpful if we knew where Remi was.”

Elizabeth started for the stairs. “Sometimes he goes to this little park nearby to paint or sketch. We can start there.”

The Place du Calvaire was also nearly empty. Only a few artists plied their trade under the shade of the linden trees. Even the streets around it were uncharacteristically quiet.

“Wonderful,” Simon said sarcastically.

“You give up too easily,” Elizabeth said and walked over to one of the artists.

He didn’t know where Remi was, but the second one did. He looked up from his watercolors with a faraway look in his eyes.

“We’re sorry to bother you,” Elizabeth said. “But do you know where Remi Dujardin might be?”

Startled from his reverie, the gauzy look in his eyes disappeared, and a sharp look of anger took its place. He glared at them before frowning and returning to his work. “He has gone to sell his soul.”

“Could you be more specific?” Elizabeth asked.

With a put-upon sigh, the artist dabbed his brush in a cup of water. The blue paint he was using swirled, making a small, colorful eddy in the water. “The parade. Where the bourgeois will offer him a pittance to draw funny little pictures while our military parades behind them like so many circus clowns. Pfft.”

“The Bastille Day parade?” Simon asked.

The artist eyed him with distaste. “What else?”

“Where is it?”

“Please,” he said, “can you not see that I am working?”

For a moment, Elizabeth thought he wasn’t going to answer, but Simon held out a few francs. The artist saw them in the corner of his eye, took them without looking away from his painting, and said, “Bois de Boulogne.”

They started back toward where they’d left Pierre and the carriage.

“See? That wasn’t so bad.”

Simon wasn’t as enthusiastic. “It’s a bit like saying, ‘he’s in Central Park,’ only worse because Bois de Boulogne is about twice that size.”

“Oh.”

Seeing her disappointment, he leavened his mood a little. “Surely, the whole park won’t be used. We’ll find him. Eventually.”

And she hoped they weren’t too late.

Elizabeth’s heart sunk, though, as they arrived at the northeast edge of the park. It was enormous, but, as Simon had guessed, the official Bastille Day celebrations and parade were centered around the Hippodrome de Longchamp, a racecourse on the western edge of the park near the Seine.

It took them a while to navigate around the park, past lakes and even a waterfall, before they reached the heart of the celebration. It was like the Fourth of July, but with one important difference.

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