Natalia sat next to Madame Cohen during the service. One of the grandsons held a black umbrella over the old women’s heads. A rabbi said the mourning prayers. Claire was in the last row, wearing the black dress Jeanne had given her when she first started working at the shop. It was wool and scratchy. Philippe came to sit beside her halfway through the service.

“Did your patient die?” Claire whispered.

A woman in the row directly in front of them turned and glared.

“Turn around,” Philippe suggested to the woman. “There’s a funeral going on.” When the woman turned away, Philippe exchanged a look with Claire. There was a glint in his eyes she hadn’t noticed before. “Still alive, but on his way. No longer conscious. At this point, he didn’t know if I was there or not. And I had to leave to be here with you.”

“Let me guess,” Claire ventured. “Your grandmother told you to.”

Philippe looked at her and didn’t answer. Claire glanced away, unsettled. Now it seemed that she was the one who knew nothing of him.

THERE WAS A dinner afterward at Madame Cohen’s home. Women from the neighborhood brought their best dishes and soon the table overflowed with food. Claire recognized many of the recipes, the pot-au-feu, the Love Is Blind Stew, the beef with prunes, the crème caramel with pistachio, the meat pies. She had made them all and tried none. She tasted several at the dinner and thought them delicious.

Natalia was staying with Madame Cohen for the night. Everyone insisted Philippe take Claire home. He stood there and shrugged, as if it made no difference to him. “Go on,” Claire’s ama said. “I don’t want you walking home alone.” Madame Cohen handed them their coats and pushed them out the door.

“How’s the crow?” Claire asked as they took the stairs to the street.

“A pain in the ass. He wakes me up at four A.M.”

Philippe had double-parked in a taxi stand. He was always late and always in a rush. As they approached, one of the drivers accosted him and started to yell. Because of Philippe’s lousy parking the driver had lost several fares. They both told each other to go to hell, then Philippe gave the driver a few euros to placate him.

“Some people are idiots,” Philippe said reasonably.

“Yes,” Claire remarked. “I know.”

“Or nincompoops, whatever that is. I presume it means idiot.”

“More or less,” Claire agreed.

It was late and a light rain was falling. Cars were racing by. Philippe opened the door for her because it was rusted. There was a trick to it that involved kicking the door in the right place, just below the handle. The rain was green and quiet and cold. Claire was wearing the lapis necklace. When she bent forward to get into the Saab, she thought she heard the bell chime. Clearly it was nothing. Just to make sure, she took a step back and looked at Madame Cohen’s youngest grandson, the one who had been such a problem as a boy, who’d broken windows and made flyswatters and buried dogs and sat with dying men and tried to please his grandmother whenever possible.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” she answered.

SOMETIMES MADAME COHEN couldn’t recall what had happened the day before, but she remembered the past as if it had happened only moments ago. The color of the dresses she and her sisters used to wear, the dappled peels on the apples set out on her grandmother’s table, the recipe for Honesty Cake—three perfect eggs, white flour, cherries, lemon rind, and anise—the scent of the forest in Russia, her first glimpse of Paris, such a stunning sight that even now she sometimes saw it exactly as it had been on that day. Natalia frequently stopped by the shop, even though Madame Cohen was often asleep in her chair in the back room. Madame Cohen’s daughters-in-law worked in the shop now; it had become their pet project. Claire spent her days in the deuxième Monsieur Cohen’s workshop. The jewelry store featured her amulets and talismans exclusively. Lucie and Jeanne joked that perhaps Claire should be called the troisième Monsieur Cohen. They were in awe of what she was capable of. Without question, she was the best of the three jewelers. Recently, her work had been exhibited in a gallery on the Rue de Rivoli, with a huge gala to celebrate the opening. Madame Cohen and Madame Rosen had been there and it was all they could talk about for weeks, that and the fact that Philippe was there when his grandmother hadn’t even told him about the event, let alone insist that he come.

Madame Rosen had sewn her granddaughter a dress for the occasion, an astonishing creation of pale gray silk and yellow tulle. Claire had framed it afterward and hung it on the wall of the workshop. Under glass, the gown glowed like a firefly. Afterward she had made the firefly charm for Mimi. The two had continued to write on a regular basis. Claire could always tell when one of her letters had been delivered. Mimi used pink stationery and she addressed her letters to Gigi Story, my aunt.

THE NEIGHBORHOOD WOMEN no longer worried about Claire. They turned their attentions elsewhere, to Natalia, who was grieving, and to Monsieur Abetan, who they decided must have a wife. Claire was too busy to worry about, plus she was in love. The first time she had slept with Philippe was after their first serious argument. They enjoyed provoking each other, and liked to slyly tease each other, but this was something else entirely. They’d taken Monsieur Cohen’s crow to the Bois de Boulogne to set it free. “A crow should be a crow,” Philippe had said. “If he dies, then at least he’ll have lived a crow’s life.”