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world shaded with deep folds.
Bécot was still talking, and a word snagged Philip’s attention. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“Bodies, Monsieur.”
“What?”
“Skelets.”
“Skeletons?”
“That’s right.” The old man hesitated, studying his guest. “Or parts of them,” Bécot continued. “Now and then, they come up to the surface. If we can tell—German or American or French—off they go to the military cemetery. But sometimes they do not know, and then Rouen sticks in its nose. Rouen,” he added with distaste, “wishes to be in charge of everything.”
But Philip was no longer listening, troubled by the image.
The two men stood in silence. Bécot bobbed his head as though he’d just made a decision. “I can perhaps offer you an aperitif, Monsieur Adler?”
“No, thank you.”
“ C’est gratuit . No cost. A little Calvados , perhaps? Liqueur made of apples?”
“I’m afraid I don’t drink.”
The old man gave him a surprised, faintly pained look.
“Thank you all the same, Monsieur Bécot.” Philip turned and started up the steps.
Before he was halfway up the flight, Bécot spoke to his back. “It must be very hard, I think, to come back to Yvetot after all these years. Monsieur Adler.”
He turned to find Bécot eyeing him. Philip had missed something. Back in the States he prided himself on his powers of observation, noticing people’s tics, reading them like the tells of poker players. But here it wasn’t just the language that was different. So were the looks and gestures.
“I remember the story well,” Bécot continued. “When I saw your reservation, I suspected. But Adler is not an unusual name. I was not certain it was you, even when you arrived. You are different. Older. But I do not forget faces or names, even from the newspaper. Even when a person hides behind a beard. It is you. I can tell.”
Philip nodded slowly. “Yes,” he said. “I’m afraid it’s still me.”
“You have come for Anne-Madeleine Aubert? For the . . . enterrement? ”
“The funeral. That’s right.”
“You are too late.”
“I know.”
A new silence hovered between them.
“You should not have returned, Monsieur Adler.”
Philip bristled. “And why is that?”
Bécot raised his palms in defense, but offered no reply.
So this was to be his welcome. Philip turned and mounted the stairs, ducking at low passages in the hallway.
The room was squashed under the mansard roof of the hotel, and it had the sloped ceiling to prove it. The bed occupied most of the space, a beige cotton coverlet hugging the corners of the mattress tightly enough to conceal the sagging basin of the middle. When he slid his carryon into the great wardrobe by the armchair, the door gaped back open, again and again, like the chin of a mouth-breathing boy. Near the bathroom, the odor of mildew grew stronger. Flanking the minibar stood a lame desk, one leg shorter than the others, pushed with its chair into a shallow alcove below a yellow-curtained window overlooking the main square. So this was Monsieur Bécot’s penthouse suite.
He opened the envelope the old man had given him. Just a few lines in Yvonne’s hand. The ceremony had gone as well as possible, she reported, despite his absence . He could call her that evening if he felt up to it, but in any case would he please meet her the next day at the office of Maître Caumartin? She gave the address.
Maître , Philip realized, was a title given to a lawyer or notary. Whatever could she want of him there?
 
 
Dusk had settled by the time the Renault pulled up outside the Saint-Louis cemetery on the south end of town. Near the entrance leaned a centenarian oak tree, its stocky trunk dividing into branches that strained against their own weight, some sporting great wooden knobs where arboreal amputations had been performed long ago. Philip climbed out of the car and smoothed down his necktie. He buttoned his sport coat. From the back seat of the car he retrieved his camera and