Paris: The Novel

elderly clerk, suddenly flushed and with his half-moon spectacles not quite straight.
    “Excuse me, sir,” he said, “but the war is over.”

    Everyone had believed that it must come soon. But the day London heard that the Great War had truly ended and that the Armistice was signed was like no other before or since. Four years of slaughter, done with. From street to street, from smokestack to steeple, from grimy terrace to stucco mansion, there was not a household, an office, a congregation that had not lost at least a friend. Thanks to the food shortages, there was not a child who had had enough to eat.
    And now at last the great cloud over their lives was about to be lifted. The bleak, seemingly endless nightmare was over. The loved ones would be reappearing over the horizon.
    As the news was heard, as the realization took hold, an extraordinary thing occurred. Spontaneously, like some huge chemical reaction, people started pouring into the streets. From shops, from offices, from department stores, even from Harrods itself, they came out. People were cheering, smiling, weeping with relief. All work stopped. People who had never seen each other in their lives embraced.
    Outside the offices of Fox and Martineau, the sedate little alley was filling with the workers from legal offices. Twenty yards away, the traffic in Chancery Lane had already halted. The roadway was suddenly full of lawyers, clerks, typists, stationers, even wigmakers.
    Louise went down the staircase with James Fox, whose tall figure was soon moving through the crowd outside, shaking hands to left and right. He let his old clerk pump his hand, and put his long arm around a secretary who had burst into tears.
    Louise stood close to the door. She smiled and murmured kind words to at least a dozen strangers, but not knowing anyone, she had no reason to delve into the throng.
    And then an idea suddenly occurred to her.
    The passageway inside the door was empty. Everyone seemed to havegone into the street. She went back up the stairs to Fox’s office, and looked in through the open door. It was quiet. Her eyes scanned the room. Apart from his desk, three leather chairs and a low table, there was no other furniture to speak of, apart from the bookcases on the walls. No sign of any filing cabinets.
    She went to the next door along the landing. This was a secretary’s room. A large typewriter on a desk, some files, but only a few. Perhaps they kept the files in another part of the building, down in the basement perhaps. She tried the next door.
    Files. Shelves of files. Some in boxes, some tied with ribbons, all rather Victorian, but clearly in order.
    “Can I help you?”
    She started. A young woman of about her own age. She smiled and tried to look relieved.
    “I was seeing Mr. Fox. I was looking for a lavatory.”
    “Of course, miss. This way.” She led her downstairs and toward the back, to a small room containing a water closet and a washstand.
    “We’re quite modern,” the girl said proudly.
    “Thank goodness I found you.”
    “Shall I tell Mr. Fox you’re waiting?”
    “It’s all right. We were in the middle of our conversation when all this happened. We went down into the street.” She smiled. “I’ll just wait. I’m not in the slightest hurry. What a day.”
    “Yes, miss. Is there anything else?”
    “I should go outside if I were you. Everyone else seems to be there.”
    She went into the washroom, waited a minute, then looked out again. The coast was clear. She went quickly upstairs again.
    The files were in alphabetical order. It took only a minute to find her father’s files. They were contained in two boxes.
    There were quite a lot of papers. Letters in connection with some property he’d purchased a few years ago. Various deeds. His will, revised not long ago. She didn’t bother to read it. She went right through the first box but found nothing. She opened the second. The top papers in this box were ten years old, She began to peel though them. Fifteen years ago, eighteen. She was nearly at the bottom of the box.
    ADOPTION. A sheaf of papers wrapped in a ribbon. She opened it. A summary sheet. Child’s name: Louise. Chosen by the birth mother,agreed to by the client. The birth was in Sussex, the mother’s name Corinne Petit. An unusual name. Unless the mother was not English. French, perhaps, or Swiss?
    Father’s name: Not given. She searched through the other papers to see if she could find it. There was no clue.