The Urn
April 16, 2010, Paris
Part three
Illustrated and written by Elaine Troisi
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| a stroll along the Seine watercolor by Elaine Troisi |
The next few days passed in a blur of activity as Marin and Rachel settled into their Parisian home and began to explore the city a little.
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| Marin steps outside her Paris home to explore La Marais watercolor by Elaine |
Now Marin sat in their favorite café, nursing a cup of coffee as she stared out the window at the wet morning streets of Paris. Rachel, her loyal companion, sat across from her, sipping a tea and watching Marin with concern.
"Hey, kiddo, you okay?" Rachel asked, her voice soft. “You haven’t touched your croissant, and I know you love them.” She picked at the remaining crumbs on her plate.
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| Rachel and Marin enjoy a petit dejeuner watercolor by Elaine |
Marin nodded, but her eyes betrayed her. She picked up the buttery croissant, brought it to her lips, and set it down again. She was struggling to come to terms with her father's past and the mysterious request he'd left her. The urn, with its strange symbol and unknown secrets, weighed heavily on her mind. How would she ever find it?
She asked Rachel to re-read the letter one more time. They had discovered the letter when they arrived, right there, on the foyer table, now smudged and crumpled from living in her pocket this past week.
“Okay, here goes for the tenth time, Rachel said. “My dearest daughter, if you are reading this, it means I’m gone. But you are not alone. You have Bill, Rachel, and Maurice to help you” … Rachel paused with an aside, “That caretaker is quite a hunk of you ask me, she sighed. “Okay, okay, she continued. “As you now know, I am French. My parents were French. I don’t know what became of them. Just that they sent me away during the Vel d’ Hiv in 1942. I need to know what became of them! I want you to know everything. The memories were just too horrible, so I never had the courage to do my own research. Now it is your turn. You need to know your heritage. The urn is the key.” Rachel stopped for a breath.
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| Rachel reads Max’s letter drawing by Elaine |
"Mind if I join you?" he asked, his eyes crinkling at the corners.
Marin nodded her head, and Maurice sat down?” In a week’s time the caretaker had become a comforting familiarity in their lives. "I've been thinking," he said, "about your father's request. I think I can help you understand what he was getting at."
He continued, “From what my parents told me when they were your grandparents’ caretakers, they were prominent members of the Jewish community here in La Marais, and they played a significant role in the city's history.” The waiter brought him a café au lait.
“I knew they had a business here, but not much else,” Marin was thoughtful. “Do you know what business they were in?”
“Look,” Maurice paused for a sip. “I know you think I’m just the caretaker of your ancestral home … but there’s more you don’t know about me. And I don’t know how much you want me in your personal affairs.” He let his sentiment sit heavily on the air, not sure whether to proceed.
Marin looked at Maurice in surprise. She realized she knew nothing about him, beyond the fact that her father trusted him. But who was he really? Forty-ish, ice blue eyes like Rachel’s and hers, jet black hair, easy on the eyes. Caretaker. “Hmm, He could be a fraud or a crook, for all I know,” she thought.
“Okay, I’m interested in knowing more.” Maurice looked at Rachel. She nodded.
He continued. “I inherited the job of caretaker from my parents who owned the boulangerie next door. When your father bought this house in 1964, it was in terrible disrepair. The Nazis ransacked it during the German occupation,” he stopped. Marin and Rachel stared at him in surprise. “Tell me you weren’t aware?”
“My God,” Marin gasped. She was about to say something but stopped.
“Anyway,” he went on. “I was a boy at the time when my dad took on the task of restoring the house. Your dad returned often to oversee the progress until it was done. After that my mother and dad became the caretakers of the manse.”
Marin sat silent, staring into her coffee, as though reading tea leaves. So Rachel spoke for her, “Honestly, Maurice, we had no idea. Did you take over for you parents?”
“Well, not at first. They passed while I was in school, at Columbia University. So, the house sat shuttered while I finished my internship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”
Marin looked up. “I went to college there, too. Administrative Affairs. Masters. That’s quite a coincidence. Wow!.”
“When did you graduate?”
“We’ve been sitting too long,” Marin sighed. “My tush is getting numb!”
“How about a walk along the Seine?” he offered. “It’s a lovely day.”
“Ooh,” Rachel jumped up. “What a wonderful idea!”
As they walked, Marin and Maurice talked about their time at Columbia, though they graduated 20 years apart.
“After I came home,” Maurice explained, “I took over the care of your house. But I also attended the Sorbonne.”
“Did you continue studying art there?”
“Indeed. Particularly art conservation and provenance research.”
Rachel interjected, “I don’t know what that means.”
Marin explained, “I’m assuming it means Maurice tries to locate and uncover the provenance of lost or recovered artifacts. Am I right, Maurice?”
“Exactly. Now I work as a consultant to museums around the world, including the Louvre here in Paris.”
They walked on past the Notre Dame. Marin was deep in thought, while Maurice and Rachel chatted amiably.
Later that night, Marin went up to the third floor to her father’s library. There she found huge ornate bookshelves laden with heavy volumes.
The streetlights came on. She sat in her father’s green leather chair, art books strewn across the desk. She started to nod off when she suddenly became uncomfortable, sensing that she was being watched. Chills climbed her spine. She stood up and turned. No one was there… but she heard a door closed softly somewhere down the hall.
“Maurice?” she wondered. “What’s his game?”
But with each new discovery in the week that followed, Marin couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched. She began to notice strange occurrences around her – a misplaced book, a faint scent of lavender, a whispered conversation in the hallway.
To learn more about the secrets the house holds, you will have to read part 4 in two weeks, on April 11, 2025.
In the meantime, talk to me. I’ll be listening.