Grabbing the apartment keys and my wallet, I head downstairs. Outside the building door, a look in each direction reveals a sleeping homeless man, no one else. Around the corner, the convenience store is empty at nine thirty on a Sunday. The young cashier points to my liter of Coke Light and smirks. “Party big?” He eyes the Bank of America debit card I offer, putting the proverbial two and two together on my nationality.

I pay without replying, not knowing where to begin. (Yes, a debilitating party of one.)

Dark green imprints the light skin of his inner elbow—a tattoo. He catches my glance, then pushes his sleeves higher so I can see the faded right angles of a swastika. A proud smile spreads his thin lips as he hands me my receipt.

I hurriedly exit the store. Emotions jumble in my chest as I reach Angela’s building and jam the jailer’s key in the door—disgust, confusion, anger. Why would anyone be proud of a Nazi tattoo in this modern era? Upstairs, inside her apartment, I slam the door as if someone were on my heels. I pause, my heart pounding against my ribs, and suck down a gulp of air. Faint streetlight filters through Angela’s shutters. Shadow hands stretch across her bed and seem to grow longer with each second I stand still.

In the dark of night, and with far more important tasks ahead, I don’t have the bandwidth to mull the implications of that cashier’s grin or wonder whether he was silently judging me as something unclean. Whether he was viewing me as some mixed-race disgrace.

Whether the neighborhood convenience store clerk, or anyone else, mistook me for my sister.

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Day 2, Monday

The morgue sits on a small island between the Left and Right Banks of Paris, as if neither one wanted that much death on their side. Sounds of traffic carry from behind a row of perfectly square hedges lining the sidewalk where I stand. From a tour boat on the Seine River below, a disembodied voice speaks in French.