The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau

Colette marvels at how Paris has changed. She supports Daniel through the meeting with André Besner, and Daniel is moved to see a note in his father’s handwriting expressing his hope that Daniel and Ruth will pass on the bracelets as they see fit. Colette understands “that sense of foundational loss, of having not only your loved ones stolen from you, but also all evidence that they’d ever existed in the first place” (280). Daniel asks that the bracelets go to Colette.

Colette reflects on who she might pass the bracelets on to, besides Aviva. She tells Daniel she felt she didn’t deserve to have children because she couldn’t protect her sister. Daniel reflects on how his marriage to Paulette felt like “desperately trying to find a home in the world after it had all fallen apart” (287).

Her old neighborhood feels familiar to Colette as they reach their hotel. She takes a walk alone to revisit and say goodbye to her past. She visits her old apartment on the rue Pasteur, then goes to the garden courtyard and slips inside. To her surprise, the loose brick is still there, and inside the hiding space is a note from Tristan dated 1952. He writes that he searched for Colette but was told she died. He says his heart will always be drawn to her, like the honeysuckle and hazel of the poem. Colette can’t understand how he wrote the letter when the records show Tristan Berousek died. She feels like she rediscovered and lost him all over again.

Before she leaves Paris, Colette visits Le Paon, who is a pediatrician. He informs her that she funded the safe flight of 158 people, including 64 children. Colette wants him to help her find the man who stole her sister; she wants, she says, not revenge, but justice. Le Paon arranges for her to meet Verdier, a policeman, whom she bribes with a diamond choker. Verdier, who loves jewels, asks what her mother did with the bracelets. Colette asks about Guillaume Charpentier, and Verdier says he left Paris years ago. Colette departs with Leo and thinks, “She could feel in her bones the pull of the same shiny gemstones her mother had lost her life for, and she had no choice but to follow the call, to become the person she was always destined to be” (308).

Colette attends Hubert Verdier’s funeral. Lucas gives a eulogy in which he reflects on how people show different sides of themselves and suggests that perhaps one’s secrets define a person. He also says one should do what one can to right wrongs. Lucas’s daughter, Millie, reminds Colette of Liliane. Lucas introduces Colette to his grandfather, and Colette realizes she knows him from Paris; he was a policeman she and her sister knew and trusted. He’s Guillaume Charpentier, and just as she asks what he did to her sister, Colette faints.

Guillaume Charpentier goes to the Marceau home in an attempt to warn them. He knows Annabel was spotted stealing the bracelets. His wife, Francine, identifies Annabel from a police sketch. Francine has suffered several miscarriages, and their marital relationship is difficult. When Francine chides him, Guillaume shouts that he’s trying to be a good man. When he arrives at the Marceau apartment, Guillaume realizes the Germans are already there. He sees Liliane outside the window and carries her away, then realizes he has covered her nose and mouth. Francine finds the bracelet in the girl’s nightgown and insists on keeping it. Guillaume sees an opportunity to change their circumstances. He goes to the empty Marceau apartment and finds more jewels, enough to help him and Francine start a new life. After the war, Hubert offers to help Guillaume emigrate to the US in exchange for the bracelet.

Colette insists that she not be taken away in an ambulance so she can confront Bill Carpenter. Bill says he didn’t know Colette had survived. He explains that he wanted to warn them, and he took Liliane to save her life. He and Francine adopted Liliane as their daughter, and she’s Lucas’s mother. Bill never spoke with Liliane about her past out of respect for his wife. Lucas reveals his mother is living in Vermont.

Liliane’s new parents name her Anne and tell her that her memories of a mother, father, and sister are only imagined. They move to Weymouth, just south of Boston. When Anne is 18, she sees her mother with Hubert Verdier, who is giving her a bracelet. Anne recognizes that the bracelet belonged to her mother. Francine slaps her, and Anne leaves the house. She gets a college degree and a job at a bookstore, then falls in love with Ronan O’Mara. Their son, Lucas, is three when Ronan is killed in a construction accident. Needing help supporting her son, Anne moves back home for a time until she can afford her own home in Vermont.

Now 79, Liliane is content with her life and who she is. One April afternoon, she’s on her porch when Lucas and Millie arrive with two others. She feels the old woman is familiar, and she introduces herself as Colette. When Liliane says “Kyi-kyi-kyi,” Colette responds, “Ko-ko-ko” (341), and they tearfully embrace.

Colette fills Liliane in on what happened to their family, revealing that she’s a jewel thief like their mother. Liliane wants to hear more, and Colette tells her the story of Robin Hood. Both women feel they “had finally found their way to where they belonged” (346).

Two weeks after the sisters’ reunion, Bill Carpenter dies of a stroke. Colette and Liliane continue to get reacquainted. Aviva’s research confirms that Tristan Berousek died at Auschwitz in 1942. Colette is happy to have a family again and decides, “Maybe it’s time to put the past to rest once and for all, and to think instead about the future” (350). Colette hosts a dinner party and finally speaks of Tristan, the boy who wrote poems to her. Daniel reveals that he was that boy and quotes the poetry he wrote to her. Colette reflects that the diamonds have brought them all home.

Colette marries Daniel in a small ceremony in the backyard of her home in Quincy, where she has planted a row of hazel trees wrapped in honeysuckle, a symbol of Tristan and Isolde. Daniel gives Colette his mother’s emerald ring. Colette and Daniel bequeath the bracelets to Liliane and Aviva. Daniel reflects that the diamonds have witnessed the past and will witness their future. The bracelets will live on because, as the narrator notes, “[d]iamonds always do” (359).