A Bordeaux Dynasty: A Novel

by Françoise Bourdin

  Happy to have made it in one piece, Auber glanced around. He always liked coming to Fonteyne. And on this night, the large library, filled with its old books, seemed even more hospitable than usual.

  “You look a bit off, my dear,” he said to Laurène as she came to greet him.

  He frowned, concerned with the young woman’s extreme pallor. Jules, on the other hand, seemed in great shape, and Auber smiled at him.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever have you as a patient,” he said.

  “Especially since patience isn’t exactly his forte,” Louis-Marie said with a chuckle.

  He thought Jules had a triumphant, joyful air he hadn’t seen on him in a long time.

  Auber took advantage of the light atmosphere to say to Jules, “I have a message for you. … Alexandre would like to speak with you, whenever you like, whenever you’re not too far from the hospital. …”

  A heavy silence descended on the entire room. Auber took a sip of Margaux and set his glass down silently. Laurène squeezed Jules’s hand, and it warmed him. And he could feel Dominique’s eyes on him.

  “Okay,” was all he said.

  Everyone realized how hard it had been for Jules to utter that simple word, but he’d accepted. Auber stifled a sigh of relief. Jules’s psychological state had worried him these past few weeks. He was the only one who knew what had happened that night in the field, while the entire trauma department believed that it was some wild drunk who’d beat up poor Alexandre so terribly. And since the latter hadn’t refuted that version, he was the object of the nurses’ constant and exasperating compassion. Alex had missed alcohol terribly at first. Robert and Auber had talked at length about it. And, with each passing day, Alex’s stubborn silence gave way to a gloomy stupor. Every time he visited Alex, Dr. Auber noticed that while physically he was doing better, his psychological condition worsened. And so Alex’s sudden request concerning Jules that morning had pleasantly surprised the physician. That was the main reason he’d braved the snowstorm.

  Fernande appeared at the library’s door and said, “Dinner is served.”

  In the dining room, the heavy velour drapes had been shut, and Clothilde had started a fire. Dominique lit some of the tall candles, knowing that Jules liked how the flames reflected on the woodwork. They all sat at the table with a feeling of well-being, delighted to savor Fernande’s famous cod raviolis.

  “My God, the food is good here,” Varin told Jules with a blissful smile.

  “You guys should keep a close eye on Fernande if you want to keep on eating her wonderful meals,” Dr. Auber added.

  “You’re the one who should keep a close eye on her!” Jules replied.

  “Well,” Auber said, “she won’t listen to me. She takes her medication for two days and then she decides that the meds make her tired and she throws everything in the garbage can. It’s not the meds that make her tired, it’s her condition!”

  “Did you talk to Lucas about it?” Dominique asked.

  “Of course, I did. But she’s not listening to him either. Fernande can be hard-headed at times.”

  This understatement made Jules and Louis-Marie laugh. In reality, Fernande had always been stubborn as a mule.

  “Okay,” Dominique said. “I’ll take care of it. I’ll try to convince her.”

  Jules gave his sister-in-law a smile. No one spent more time with Fernande than her, and their endless conversations as they worked together in the kitchen had made them very close.

  “Is your wife supposed to be back here soon?” Varin asked Louis-Marie.

  There was a short pause, and then Louis-Marie responded blankly, “We’re all going to be here for Christmas.”

  Varin didn’t dare ask anything further, and he and Auber shared a quick glance. Keeping up with the Laverzac family’s ups and downs was no easy task.

  The sound of a stampede upstairs made Dominique look up. She figured the twins had decided to jump out of bed and run to the window to check out the snowstorm. She smiled imagining them, their noses against the windowpane, eyes wide with wonder.

  Fernande came in to serve the turbot with morels, saying that the storm was getting even worse. Jules, who didn’t have to worry about his vineyards this time of year, simply shrugged.

  “I like winter,” he said with a grin.

  Louis-Marie started to laugh and said that his brother liked all four seasons, as long as he spent them at Fonteyne.

  “You never go on vacation?” Auber asked.

  “Go where?”

  “I don’t know … Down south … where it’s hot.”

  “It’s hot around here in the summertime. Very hot!”

  Dominique started to laugh as she pictured Jules dressed as a tourist, standing at the foot of the Great Pyramids, longing for Fonteyne. She turned to her sister and was startled by her worn-out expression.

  “You’re not feeling well?”

  Dominique stood up, and so did Auber, while Laurène stammered, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. …”

  Jules hurried over to his wife and picked her up, whispering soothing words in her ear.

  “Take her upstairs,” Auber said. “To her bed.”

  Laurène’s face was ashen, and she shut her eyes. Jules went up the stairs so rapidly the doctor had difficulty keeping up with him. When Laurène was in bed, Auber asked Jules to leave the room.

  “How long have you been in pain?” he asked Laurène gently.

  For a few hours she’d been trying to ignore the sharp, regular pain. After examining her, Auber realized that she was going to give birth soon.

  Jules fetched Auber’s bag from his car, struggling against an icy wind that made the snow swirl around him. Auber had called for an ambulance, while knowing that it would probably not arrive in time. Labor was already well underway, and Laurène was writhing in pain, screaming. She’d had contractions all afternoon long, but refused to accept that it could be a premature delivery. She’d wanted to talk to Dominique, but she was busy with Fernande in the kitchen, absorbed with dinner preparations. Jules wasn’t there, and she didn’t feel comfortable talking to Louis-Marie about it, and so she’d mostly lain in bed, convinced that her pain would go away on its own. Not wanting to behave like a spoiled child, she’d promised herself to take Dr. Auber aside at some point during the evening to talk to him privately about it, without alarming anyone before then. And in order to remain brave, she’d clung to the notion that her child couldn’t possibly be born four weeks before term. But now, she was overwhelmed by suffering and terror, crushing Auber’s hand in hers.

  Down on the ground floor, everyone had settled in the library, keeping quiet. Not wanting to hear anything, Louis-Marie shut the room’s door, while Dominique snuck upstairs, convinced that she could make herself useful. There was something reassuring about Auber’s competence as well as his vast experience as a physician, but Jules was still anxious. He kept walking to the window to look at the storm raging outside. Varin and Louis-Marie decided to play chess. Lucas came in to ask if there was anything he could do.

  In the dining room, Fernande took away the wild rabbit terrine, which no one had had time to taste. She decided to put together a tray of pastries to go along with the coffee, now essential. Extremely emotional at the thought of the birth, she saw the presence of Dr. Auber as a sign of fate. Louis-Marie, Robert, and Alexandre were born at Fonteyne. Lucie Laverzac never would’ve agreed to give birth anywhere else but the castle. That Jules’s first child would come into the world under this roof had symbolic value, Fernande was convinced of that.

  It’s as if it’s going to make up for his own birth. … she thought. To erase the nightmare. … He doesn’t know everything yet, but I’ll talk to him once the baby is here. …

  She headed for the library, where she walked in quietly. She served Jules last and whispered in his ear, “Everything is going to be fine, you’ll see.”

  The look of worry he gave her broke her heart. To her, he now looked like he was t
en or twelve years old again, with the same large, hopeful eyes. She caressed his hair, trying to fix his too-long curls. She’d been the Laverzac boys’ only feminine presence, and while she deeply loved all four of them, Jules had always been her favorite. She knew that he was suffering from being powerless while his wife was in agony upstairs.

  She stepped out of the library, making sure that the door was shut tight, and crossed the hallway in a hurry so as not to hear Laurène’s screams. But as she reached the office, she realized that no more sound was coming from upstairs. She backtracked, not sure what to do, and put a hand on the staircase’s railing. And from the landing upstairs came Dominique’s voice.

  “It’s a girl! Both are doing great!”

  Feeling dizzy, Fernande had to sit on the first step. She gestured at Dominique to not bother with her and then got up, out of breath, trying not to cough. Jules stormed out of the library and rushed up the stairs, squeezing Fernande’s shoulder so hard as he went by that he almost crushed it. When he opened his bedroom door, Auber was holding the newborn in his arms, as Clothilde rolled the dirty towels into a ball. Jules ran to Laurène, overflowing with joy, relief, and gratitude.

  “You’re going to smother her!” Auber said. “She needs to rest. It was pretty rough-going for a while. …”

  He held the baby out to Jules’s. Jules gazed at his daughter for a while, silent, before deciding to reach out to her. He picked up the infant with infinite care and rested her on Laurène’s shoulder. Then, he knelt down by the bed to contemplate his wife and his baby girl.

  “Thank you,” he whispered.

  Laurène managed to smile at him. She was so proud to have given him this gift that for a second she forgot about her exhaustion. Before falling asleep, she took in Jules’s gaze, which was filled with all the tenderness in the world.

  The ambulance, which finally arrived at three in the morning, returned empty. Jules had insisted so strongly that both Laurène and the baby remain at Fonteyne, Auber had ended up relenting. But he insisted that a nurse be hired as soon as possible. Before being able to head for the spare room that awaited him, Auber had to have a celebratory drink with the Laverzacs. He emphasized Laurène’s courage and then mentioned that it had been ten years since he’d delivered a baby in the mother’s own home.

  “I hate it,” he admitted. “If something goes wrong, you’re completely helpless.”

  He made a promise to himself to have a talk with Laurène as soon as she felt better. She’d taken unnecessary risks and behaved very immaturely.

  “I can’t understand why your wife didn’t go to the clinic as soon as she began feeling pain early this afternoon. Especially since this is her first! Craziness …”

  Hearing that, Jules immediately felt bad. When Laurène felt the first signs of labor, he was making love to Valérie Samson. If he’d been at Fonteyne, she would’ve told him about the contractions.

  “You’ve got a weird look on your face,” Louis-Marie said to him. “Are you terrified at the thought of being a dad?”

  “For a preemie,” Auber said, “she’s superb and doing great. But I still say that a short stay at the maternity ward …”

  “No way,” Jules said. “She’s staying here and so is Laurène. I’d rather bring over an entire medical team if you really think it’s necessary.”

  As he poured himself some more champagne, he was suddenly overtaken by the memory of Officer Delgas, recalling what the old police officer had told him that he knew about Jules’s own birth, about his mother’s efforts to find a father for him. About the sordid shack where she died, and the two-month-old starving baby crying next to the body.

  He shut his eyes, livid.

  Louis-Marie grabbed his arm and said, “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine. …”

  Jules made an effort to get ahold of himself. He clinked glasses once more with Auber and Varin, both barely able to keep their eyes open at this point. He never gave his origins much thought. His life had begun and would end at Fonteyne.

  “So,” Louis-Marie said, “what’s my little niece’s name going to be?”

  Believing they still had a few weeks before the delivery, Jules and Laurène still hadn’t come up with a name. But Jules didn’t have to think to come up with a response.

  “Lucie-Malvoisie Laverzac,” he said.

  Auber and Varin gave each other a puzzled look.

  “Malvoisie?” Auber said. “What kind of name is that?”

  Louis-Marie laughed and said, “It’s the name of a Greek wine. Soft and sweet.”

  He slapped his brother’s shoulders.

  “Malvoisie!” he said. “It’s a great name! I love it! Besides, she’ll have the same initials as mine, L and M. Laurène is okay with it?”

  “I’m going to ask her right now,” Jules said, setting his glass down.

  “Out of the question!” Dr. Auber snapped. “Let her sleep. She needs it.”

  Dominique had remained at her sister’s bedside, having decided to keep an eye on the newborn until the nurse arrived, supposedly the following morning. Clothilde fell asleep in a sofa in the twins’ bedroom. They too had managed to fall asleep, even after being so worked up while their aunt gave birth.

  Auber finished his glass of champagne and begged Jules to finally let him get a bit of rest. Louis-Marie showed him and Varin to the bedrooms Fernande had set up for them and then went back down to the library, certain that Jules wasn’t sleepy. And, sure enough, his brother was waiting for him, sitting on the sliding ladder’s rung. He’d tossed a few more logs into the fireplace and opened another bottle.

  “It’s still snowing out there,” he said to Louis-Marie. “The roads are going to be a huge mess tomorrow. If need be, I’ll ask Bernard to get the nurse. I’ll tell him to put chains on the Jeep’s tires. … Dominique can go with him to pick up whatever Auber says we need for the little one at the drug store. …”

  Jules spoke with a dreamy look on his face, planning the day to come for his wife and new daughter.

  “Are you happy?” Louis-Marie asked him.

  “Yes. I really am. Did you feel the same when Esther was born?”

  “The same? Meaning? I do remember this one amazing moment when I was filled with pride and gratitude and … joy.”

  He sounded bitter, cynical. He added, his voice low, “I would’ve liked more children. A single child seems kind of sad. But Pauline didn’t want to.”

  He poured himself some champagne and gulped it down.

  “You see, my first reflex tonight was to call and give her the news of your daughter’s birth … but I didn’t do it because I imagine she’s in bed with Robert right now.”

  Empathizing with Louis-Marie, Jules remained silent.

  “This situation doesn’t make me sick anymore, I’m past that. I know Bob, he wants her so badly, at any price. … And Pauline, she’s so …”

  He didn’t finish his sentence, knowing that Jules understood what he meant. He drank some more, set on getting hammered.

  “It’s ten years of happiness I’m leaving behind,” he said. “Of torture, too. … I’m not going to be worried all the time anymore. But I’m never going to be happy again, either. …”

  “You don’t know that,” Jules said.

  “How could I ever replace her? You know, Pauline is a one in a lifetime kind of woman. And yet at the same time, there’s nothing extraordinary about her!”

  Jules left his ladder and went over to Louis-Marie to grab him by the neck affectionately.

  “You still love her,” he said. “That’s the problem.”

  Louis-Marie shook his head and said, “I don’t want to spoil the evening for you. I’m being ridiculous.”

  He straightened and smiled at his brother.

  “You’re going to flip out the first time she calls you Dad,” he said.

  “And I’m going to feel old.”

  “No way. Lucie-Malvoisie is going to make us all feel young again.�
�

  “I don’t have many memories of our own mother. But you must have a few. … Was she nice?”

  The question took Louis-Marie by surprise.

  “She was … Yes, she was nice. Soft-spoken. She had to be, in order to put up with Dad. I know that you considered him some kind of god but, between us, he was a handful. I was heartbroken when she died, but Aurélien didn’t do or say anything to console me. He was very demanding. …”

  “He was also very giving!”

  “In your case, yes. And it wasn’t spontaneous. You practically forced him to love you. You were like a puppy with him, Jules. …”

  Louis-Marie smiled, amused by those memories. He’d never had jealous feelings toward the little “Gypsy.”

  “Alex was really affected by your arrival, you know. Don’t forget about that too much. And please do what Auber asked you to. Go see him. …”

  Jules lit a Gitane. He knew he’d have to do it sooner or later, and that he didn’t really have a good excuse to postpone the inevitable face-to-face any longer.

  “I’ll go see him,” he said simply.

  Jules was always true to his word, and Louis-Marie sighed with relief.

  Laurène was on cloud nine. She couldn’t take her eyes off her baby. After giving her the bottle, the nurse wrapped the little one in a heavy blanket before resting her on her mother’s shoulder. Jules came by for a half-hour in the morning, quietly sitting on the edge of the bed, not moving. Laurène had to grab his hand and set it on the newborn herself. Before leaving the room, Jules promised Laurène that he’d get Marie, in spite of the snow. The nurse had patiently waited in the hallway, and she gave Jules a large smile when he stepped out of the room.

  The weather wasn’t any better, quite the opposite. Overnight, the wind had picked up. Jules decided to forget about his usual tour of the vineyards and went over to the stable. It took him a good fifteen minutes to fit cleats under Bingo’s horseshoes, and then he led him to the field, where the horse ran around with glee.

  Wearing the heavy boots that Lucas had lent him, Louis-Marie joined his brother by the fence.

  “I suppose there’s nothing to be done today in this lousy weather, right?”