Free A Week in Paris by Rachel Hore Page B

she’d call there later.
    The morning’s rehearsal did not go well. The musicians were all tired from the late night before. Dinner had involved five courses and there had been three kinds of wine with the meal, which some members hadn’t been able to resist enjoying to the full. The conductor was in a bad mood and snapped at a clarinettist for playing too loudly in a quiet passage of Mozart, and at the second violins for bungling an entry. Everyone was relieved when lunchtime arrived and he dismissed them for the day.
    Fay joined a group from the orchestra at a nearby café, choosing a delicious
omelette aux fines herbes
and sharing the moans about the morning, before presenting her excuses and slipping away on her quest.
    She took a different route back towards the hotel this time, approaching the Church of the Madeleine from the front to appreciate its full glory. From the outside it looked more like a Roman temple than a church, but this impression was dispelled when she entered and saw the high altar, with its stone statue of the church’s saint, Mary Magdalene, being swept up to heaven by two angels. The classical lines gave the church a very different atmosphere from the gothic drama of Notre Dame. Fay studied the ornate marble plaques to long-dead dignitaries and gazed up at the historical scene painted inside the dome. Everything here spoke of Napoleon’s triumphalism and his obsession with the glories of Imperial Rome.
    There was hardly anyone else in the church, but the organ was playing softly and beautifully. Fay hung about near the altar, hoping to spot someone to ask about the convent. She felt a little frivolous in her pale blue coat and woollen hat amidst all this formal elegance, the heels of her court shoes tapping too loudly on the marble.
    She was about to give up and return to the hotel to see if Adam had called when the sound of a door shutting echoed around, and a youngish, plain-faced man in the simple black robe of a priest came down the central aisle towards her bearing a packet of small candles. She watched his quiet approach and would have lost courage to ask her question altogether had he not looked straight at her and smiled. ‘
Bonjour, mademoiselle, je peux vous aider
?’
    He listened to her request with a patient frown and studied the piece of paper she showed him, then nodded and said in English, ‘I do not know of it myself, but I may be able to find out if you will wait, mademoiselle.’
    ‘Thank you,’ she replied, and watched him go to a votary near the altar and empty the candles into a tray kept beneath for the purpose, before returning the way he had come. Five minutes became ten before he reappeared, carrying a dog-eared reference book.
    ‘Sit down here, please, we can look together,’ he said, gesturing to the front row of chairs. There was something humble and reassuring about him so she was happy to do this.
    ‘I asked the Monseigneur,’ the priest said, ‘and he found it for me.’ He opened the tome at a marker, smoothed the pages, and held it so she could see. His slender forefinger pointed to an entry near the bottom. ‘The convent – it’s attached to the Church of Sainte Cécile.’
    ‘Place des Moineaux?’ She could only just read it in the gloom. ‘
Moineaux
are sparrows, aren’t they? Where is it, do you know?’
    ‘Sparrows, yes,’ he said. ‘Here, the book definitely says
l’Eglise de Sainte Cécile
. Near the Rue St-Jacques, you’ll understand. The Left Bank, by the Sorbonne. You have a map?’ Fay retrieved her tourist plan from her bag and unfolded it and he showed her where the church was.
    ‘
Merci
,’ she said. ‘Ah, I was near there yesterday!’ It was close to the Seine by Notre Dame. ‘Thank you so much.’
    ‘
De rien
. This handbook is 1959. The convent is not in the most recent one, only the church, I don’t know why. Is there anything else I can help you with, mademoiselle?’
    She hesitated, seeing the sympathy in his eyes.