Death and Transfiguration

Chapter 12

It was around noon, and I was in Sylvestre's parlor room, reading a copy of Le Petit Journal while working on my cello sonata, when I heard a knock on the door. I immediately put the newspaper down and went to answer the door, wondering who it could possibly be. Was it Sylvestre, home early from work? Was it Léa, stopping by to tell me about her latest fencing victory? Was it Moreau, ready to finally make amends?

As it turned out, it was none of them. Instead, there was a thirteen-year-old boy in the doorway, with a violin case in his hand and tears in his eyes.

"Jean-Luc?" I said. "Aren't you supposed to be at school?"

This only seemed to make him cry harder, so I reached out to give him a hug, but he pushed me away and collapsed onto the couch. "I...I'll go make you some tea," I said as he continued to sob.

I headed into the kitchen and made the tea, wondering what exactly had happened to Jean-Luc, although I supposed that I would find out soon enough. Once it was done, I returned to the family room with two cups of black tea, one for me and one for Jean-Luc. I offered Jean-Luc the tea cup, and he grabbed it and immediately downed the whole thing in a single gulp. "Can you please tell me what's going on, Jean-Luc?" I asked.

"Antoine," he mumbled.

"What about Antoine?" I asked, remembering the small boy with the dark complexion that I had seen at the concert.

"I don't want to talk about it," Jean-Luc said as he shoved his face into a pillow.

"You can tell me anything, Jean-Luc," I said as I sat down next to him. "I only want to help you."

Jean-Luc turned toward me and said, "Antoine didn't sit with Romain and I at lunch today. He got his food, and he went straight to Louis and Gilbert and Marie's table. He didn't even stop to say hello to us. I...I think he hates me, Miss Brackenborough."

"I'm sure that's not the case," I said. "He probably just wanted to sit with someone else for a change."

"No, he's been acting like this for a while now. He never wants to hang out with Romain and I, he avoids me in the hallways, he insulted me when I asked to copy his homework..."

"You shouldn't be copying his homework, Jean-Luc. That's cheating."

"Don't tell my father, but I've been doing it for years. I would be failing French right now if I didn't copy Antoine's work. And now he hasn't spoken to me for a whole week! I'm going to fail out of the most prestigious school in Paris, and Papa is going to kill me."

"Do you have any idea of why Antoine won't speak to you?"

"That's the worst part!" Jean-Luc exclaimed, bursting into tears once again. "I have no clue!"

"I think you just need to talk to him, Jean-Luc. I'm sure this is all nothing more than a simple misunderstanding."

"He won't talk to me. He's spent the last week pretending like I don't exist."

"You'll never fix this if you don't try." I then sighed and added, "I would tell you to go back to school..."

"I can't! Antoine's in my next class, and I can't face him after this."

"But there are only a few hours left in the school day, and I think you deserve a break. Would you like another cup of tea?"

Jean-Luc nodded eagerly, and I left to make him more tea. When I returned, Jean-Luc took his tea cup, wiped away his tears, and said, "I wish Maman was here."

I looked toward the photographs on the wall, the blue-eyed matriarch of the Sylvestre family staring back at me, and I said, "I'm sure it must have been hard losing her."

Jean-Luc nodded, looking like he was about to start sobbing again. "I miss her so much. She...she understood me. She listened to what I had to say. She cared about my friends, my dreams, my life. She never would have hired some stranger to drag me to concerts." He laughed and then turned to me and said, "No offense, Miss Brackenborough."

"None taken."

"Maman always knew exactly what to say when things like this happened."

"She must have been an amazing woman. I wish I could have gotten to meet her."

"You would have liked her a lot. Everyone did."

I decided to use this as an opportunity to dig a little deeper into Sylvestre's story, to determine whether or not he was telling the truth. "Your father said that she knew Léa Valencourt," I said.

"The opera singer?" Jean-Luc said. "Yeah, she was here all the time while Maman was alive. Papa never liked her much though."

"What about Johann Bergmann?"

"I remember him from when I was little. He stayed here once or twice - I think I played violin for him when I was seven or eight." Jean-Luc then glared at me and asked, "Why are you asking me all of this?"

"I was just curious. I'm a big fan of Bergmann's music."

"Classical music is overrated."

How could he say such a thing? I had heard him play - how could he fail to recognize the beauty of the music resonating from his very own instrument? Maybe he didn't truly understand music. Maybe something was missing from his musical education.

"You just haven't listened to the right pieces, the right composers," I said. "Just listen to someone play Debussy or Mahler or Bergmann. It will change your life."

"I've heard them all, and I don't care for any of them."

I was about to say something, but all of a sudden, someone knocked on the door again. I left to answer the door, and when I opened it, Léa was there.

"I have a brilliant idea," she said.

"What is it?" I asked her.

"You wanted to know who killed Johann Bergmann, didn't you?" I nodded, and she said, "When he died, he was staying in a hotel in Montmartre, and the Paris police, as lazy as they are, haven't even bothered to look there yet."

"Where are you going with this?"

"We should break in and investigate."