By the timewe reached the apartment, my limited French had run its course. We knew only what we’d learned first, their names and that they lived on the streets.
We’d walked with them between us. The boys held hands the entire way but didn’t speak to us or each other. Fiona held her head high and pursed her lips, inviting no questions from me. I stayed quiet and tried not to panic, between looking behind us to see if anyone followed. So far, we were safe.
I unlocked the door and stood aside to let Fiona and the boys enter first. Gabriella, duster in hand, stopped what she was doing and gaped at the sight before her. Two raggedy boys, smelling of the worst of Paris: urine, grease, and perspiration.
Gabriella spoke in rapid Parisian French. I couldn’t understand much, other than she wanted to know where we’d found two urchins and could we smell them? I explained this to Fiona, who nodded, and instructed Gabriella to start a bath for them, all said as if it were not at all peculiar that we went out for a walk and returned with two children from the streets.
Gabriella, frowning with obvious disapproval, left the room muttering to herself.
“They’ll need new clothes,” Fiona said. “Before anything, they need a meal. Let’s give them some bread and cheese.”
“Before the bath?” I asked, hoping for some relief from their less-than-lovely scents.
“Yes, they were probably fighting for scraps of food,” Fiona said. “Look at their rib cages. They’re starving.”
I nodded and told the boys if they would sit at the table, we would bring them food. Their faces lit up, losing the dull, hopeless appearance for a few seconds. Followed closely by a narrowing of eyes, suspicious. Only desperation would allow them to come with us without questions. A young, pretty woman had asked them back to her apartment. What had they thought would happen? Were they hungry enough to take a chance that we wouldn’t do them harm?
A memory jostled awake in my mind.
The day Lord Barnes had come for us had been bright and frigid with temperatures below freezing. We’d been staying in the old office of the mining company, long since abandoned. It had not been built for longevity or insulation. That day, I stared through a crack between boards to the outside. The snow sparkled under the sun. Such beauty brought hard times, I’d thought. We would not make it through the winter. Not unless I could trap and kill something for us to eat, not just today but every day.
I was nine years old. Too young to perish. Too weak and small to know what to do to save us.
I’d heard the bells around Lord Barnes’s horses and thought I was imagining the sound. No one came this direction during the winter months. Two men were in the front of a large sleigh. Fear chilled me further. What would the white men want? Was this their property? Would they drive us away? Where would we go?
They would make us leave. I knew they would. The men probably owned this building and all the land around us. A certainty had come over me. We would not make it another day. This was the end. We would die. As cold as the old office was, it provided shelter.
But I’d been wrong. Lord Barnes had appeared, speaking softly and asking if we would like to go home with him for food and warmth. Grandmother had not understood all that he said but had gotten enough that she’d nodded to us that it was all right.
After that day, everything changed for my family. All because of the kindness of one man.
His daughter had inherited the same compassion for the unfortunate.
“Li?” Fiona asked. “Are you listening?”
I looked over at her, meeting her indulgent gaze. “Yes, I’m listening. I’ll stay with them if you’d like to put something together for them to eat.”
She nodded and gave us each a smile before she headed toward the kitchen. I asked the boys to sit on the sofa, which they did. They perched on the edge of the cushions. Wary expressions and muscles taut, they looked like ragged dogs who had always been shooed away from sitting on the furniture. Their small fists clenched at their sides. Ready to fight or run, depending on what I did. They didn’t trust me. How could they?
I sat on the chair across from them, noticing how their hands were nearly black with soot and grime. They smelled of decay, as if they’d taken on the scent of trash.
The bath was now ready. Would they go willingly? How vulnerable would they feel taking off their clothes in front of strangers? I would do my best to reassure them.
I spoke to them in the best French I could muster, telling them I would not hurt them and that we wanted to give them food and shelter. “Je ne vous ferai pas de mal. Je suis votre ami. Nous voulons vous nourrir et vous donner un bain. Vous pouvez dormir ici ce soir.”
Neither spoke, but Bleu watched me with eyes that suited his name. Beaumont dipped his chin into his neck as if he were a baby bird hoping to stay disguised from the enemy.
Soon, Gabriella returned, telling me that the bath was ready for the first boy. I told her Fiona wanted to feed them first. She frowned in disapproval but nodded. “Yes, all right. We will feed them at the table.”
“Will you speak to them in French about what’s happening?” I asked, after explaining that I’d tried already but that they didn’t seem to understand. “Please, make sure they know we mean them no harm.”
“What do I tell them? The mistress of this home is malade dans la tête?” Gabriella smiled at her joke.
“Fiona’s not sick in the head,” I said, biting the inside of my lip to keep from laughing. “Her heart is soft.”
“Or her head,” Gabriella said.
Gabriella rattled off a few sentences. The boys’ eyes widened as they began to understand what we were offering.
“Where should I go to get them new clothes?” I asked her.
Gabriella’s gaze swept the boys’ bare torsos. “There’s a clothing shop around the corner. They will have clothes their size.”
“Ask them how old they are,” I said.
She did so. Bleu answered, chirping out a few sentences with such rapidity I couldn’t follow. He must have slowed his speech for me earlier, I thought.
“They’re almost nine,” Gabriella said. She asked them about how they came to live on the streets and what had happened to their parents.
Once they answered, she said to me, “Their mother died last year. Bad men came and took all of their belongings and ran them off from the apartment where they were living. They’ve been living on the streets ever since.”
“Ask them about the fight.”
“What fight?” Gabriella asked me.
I explained how we’d first seen them and what Fiona had taken it upon herself to do.
“They had them fighting each other?” Gabriella asked. “Mademoiselle couldn’t bear it, could she?”
“No, she couldn’t,” I said.