Maps and Notes
Jane leaves the following day, after they agree to meet again in Berlin, a few days after their return from France. Sarah and Paul spend the day looking at maps, reading notes Paul took following his first analysis of Julian’s journal entry on a visit they supposedly made to Chalons, they being Sarah, Jane and Gabrielle. Sarah cannot remember much, except for a long drive on that eastern motorway. They pack their light bags, as they intend to travel light, by train. In the evening Paul checks his mail, while Sarah expedites some business, and have a long phone call with Jennifer, her office manager, who she intends to leave in charge when she stays in Berlin.
Leaving Kent
The following day they are at the Eurostar terminal in Saint Pancras early, check in, and board their train to Paris. They fall back in their seats, watching the Kent landscape fly by. Sarah thinks that it is the first time in recent years, in fact since Paul started his studies in Berlin, that they travel together. She turns to him, a hand on his shoulder, and told him she loves him. In the morning sun filtering through the window his face is that of Julian, a young Julian, and she says that he must marry, and have children. Paul’s reply is silent, he knows and he wants her to meet Solange.
Paris
A little later, after they’d crossed the Chunnel, she says she was looking forward to meeting the young lady. Soon they are in Paris. In the last decade the capital has cleaned up her act. The station is clean, calm, gone the graffiti, the dirty floors, the annoying pseudo beggars, the traffic outside is slow moving, quieter, sparse. The walk to Gare de l’Est is pleasurable. Sarah thinks that it has been many years since Julian and her came together to Paris, she cannot remember what the occasion was then.
Reims
Their fast train to Strasbourg has one stop in Reims. They could go on on the same train, that carries on to Frankfurt and Berlin. Paul has rented a car in Reims, as he’s booked them in a small country inn a few kilometres from the city. In Reims, after a brief train journey through the flat plain, they pick up the car and Paul drives them expertly to the village where they are staying. It’s early evening and the sky is still clear of cloud. The place is charming and quiet, the couple running it welcome them with a happy smile. Their room faces a lovely garden with a view on distant hills covered with vineyards. They change for dinner which will be an hour later. As they come downstairs the lady of the house discreetly congratulates Paul on the elegance of “his young lady”.
An old Church
They walk out to the garden after ordering a bottle of Alsace wine, they are not going anywhere tonight. The evening is mild and silent: a blackbird is singing in a tree a few paces away from their table. Sarah is indeed looking lovely, in a simple dark blue dress, wearing Paul’s present over the low cut collar. Paul, in a simple light grey suit, looks like the perfect young husband. The wine is delicious. Chalons is a few kilometres away on the straight motorway. Sarah says she recalled a visit to an old church, and admiring medieval statues of saints, she thinks Jane may have been there with them, though Jane told her she could not remember such a visit. Paul explains that he wishes to have a look, he read notes from Julian who remembered the beauty of the Latin mass of his childhood. His (Julian’s) parents had left the town shortly after his departure to the army, as his dad, Paul’s grand father, had changed job. Paul did not know where they’d gone from there. Sarah says she’d met Julian during one of his frequent visits to Berlin, when she was still a student there. Soon they decided to go and live in London which was Julian’s adopted city.
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