Now and then the wail of a siren could be heard, coming from the world outside. The blast of a horn. A shout.
But all that did was intensify, for Armand, the sense of extreme peace he’d found, he felt, in the garden. A peace he hadn’t known since that quiet knock on the door.
They walked slowly around, Stephen, for the first time, not leading but following, as Armand stopped in front of each of Rodin’s statues.
But the boy kept glancing over his shoulder. To the cluster of men at the entrance, and exit, to the garden.
Eventually, Armand led them back there, and stood transfixed in front of the statue.
“The Burghers of Calais,” Stephen had said, his voice hushed, soothing. “In the Hundred Years’ War, the English King, Edward, laid siege to the French port of Calais.”
He looked at Armand to see if he was listening, but there was no indication either way.
“It was a crisis for the citizens. No food, no provisions could get past the English blockade. The French King, Philip, could have parleyed. Could have negotiated, to relieve the city. But he did nothing. He left them to starve. And they did. Men, women, children began to die.”
Now Armand turned and looked up at Stephen. The boy might not really understand war. But death he understood.
“The King did that? He could’ve done something, but he let them die?”
“Both kings did. Yes. In order to win. Wars are like that.” He could see the confusion, the upset, in the boy’s deep brown eyes. “Do you want me to go on?” Stephen asked.
“Oui, s’il vous plaît.” And Armand turned back to the statue and the men frozen in time.
“Just as complete catastrophe threatened, King Edward did something no one expected. He decided to have mercy on the people of Calais. But he asked one thing. He’d spare the town if the six most prominent citizens would surrender. He didn’t say it exactly, but everyone knew they’d be executed. As a warning to anyone else who might oppose him. They’d die so that the rest could live.”
Stephen saw Armand’s shoulders rise, then fall.
“The most prominent citizen, Eustache de Saint-Pierre, volunteered first. That’s him, there.” He pointed to one of the statues. A thin, grim man. “Then five others joined him. They were told to strip to their undergarments, put nooses around their necks, and carry the keys to the city and castle to the great gates. Which they did. The Burghers of Calais.”
Armand raised his head and stared up into the eyes of Eustache. Unlike all the other statues he’d seen around Paris, here he didn’t see glory. There were no angels ready to lift these men to Paradise. This was no fearless sacrifice. They were not marching, heads high, into splendid martyrdom.
What the boy saw was anguish. Despair. Resignation.
The burghers of this seaside town were afraid.
But they did it anyway.
Armand’s lower lip began to tremble and his chin pucker, and Stephen wondered if he’d gone far too far in telling this boy this story.
He touched his godson’s shoulder, and Armand swung around and buried his face in Stephen’s sweater, throwing his arms around him, not in an embrace but in a grip. As one might cling to a pillar, to stop from being swept away.
“They were saved, Armand,” said Stephen quickly, dropping to his knees and holding on to the sobbing boy. “They weren’t executed. The King spared their lives.”
It took Armand a few moments to absorb that. Finally pulling away, he dragged his sleeve across his face and looked at Stephen.
“Really?”
“Oui.”
“Really truly?” Armand gulped, his breath coming in fits as it caught in his throat.
“Really truly, garçon. They all lived.”
The little boy thought, looking down at his sneakers, then up into Stephen’s clear blue eyes. “Would you?”
Stephen, who knew what he was asking, almost said, Yes, of course. But stopped himself. This boy deserved the truth.
“Give up my life? For people I love, yes.” He squeezed the thin shoulders and smiled.
“For strangers?”
Stephen, just getting to know his godson, was realizing that he would not be satisfied with the easy answer. There was something quietly relentless about this child.
“I hope so, but honestly? I don’t know.”
Armand nodded, then turning to the statue, he squared his shoulders. “It was cruel.” He spoke to the burghers. “What the King did. Letting them think they’d die.”
His godfather nodded. “But it was compassionate to spare them. Life can be cruel, as you know. But it can also be kind. Filled with wonders. You need to remember that. You have your own choice to make, Armand. What’re you going to focus on? What’s unfair, or all the wonderful things that happen? Both are true, both are real. Both need to be accepted. But which carries more weight with you?” Stephen tapped the boy’s chest. “The terrible or the wonderful? The goodness or the cruelty? Your life will be decided by that choice.”
“And patience?” asked Armand, and Stephen caught something he hadn’t noticed before. A hint of the mischievous.
The boy listened after all. Took everything in. And Stephen Horowitz realized he’d have to be careful.
There was no bench in front of the burghers, so Stephen had taken Armand over to his own favorite work by Rodin.
They opened the brown paper bag and ate their tartelettes au citron in front of The Gates of Hell. Stephen talked about the remarkable work while brushing powdery icing sugar off Armand’s sweater.
“I still can’t believe,” Stephen said fifty years later as they sat in front of the same statue, and ate their tartelettes au citron, “that you decided to propose to Reine-Marie in front of The Gates of Hell. But then the idea did spring from the same mind that thought it was a good idea to take her mother a toilet plunger as a hostess gift the first time you were introduced.”
“You remember that.”
But of course he did. Stephen Horowitz forgot nothing.
“Thank God you came to me for advice before proposing, garçon.”
Armand smiled. He hadn’t actually gone up to Stephen’s office, high above Montréal, that spring day thirty-five years ago, for advice. He went there to simply tell his godfather that he’d decided to ask his girlfriend of two years to marry him.
On hearing the news, Stephen had come around his desk and pulled the young man to him, holding him tight. Then Stephen gave a brusque nod and turned away. Bringing out a handkerchief, he glanced, for just a moment, out the window. Over Mount Royal, which dominated the city. And into the cloudless sky.
Then he turned back and considered the man he’d known since birth.
Taller than him now. Sturdy. Clean-shaven, with wavy dark hair, and deep brown eyes, both solemn and kind. With, yes, still that hint of the mischievous.
Armand had been to Cambridge to learn English, but instead of taking law, or business, as his godfather had advised, young Armand had, upon his return to Québec, entered the Sûreté academy.
He’d made his choice.
And he’d found wonderment. It came in the form of a junior librarian at the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales in Montréal named Reine-Marie Cloutier.
Stephen had taken his godson out for lunch at the nearby Ritz, to celebrate.