Delphine keeps me waiting for a good ten minutes in a fancy ivory and crimson waiting room. Is this where spouses suspecting their other halves of adultery wait with anticipation and angst? There is no one around at this late hour. Delphine at last appears, a womanly creature dressed in ruby red, flourishing a warm smile. Private detectives don't look like Columbo these days.
I sign a release form, show her my carte d'identite, and she hands me a large beige envelope that has been sealed with a thick wad of wax. This has not been opened in years, I can tell. "REY" is typed out in big black letters. I am told that what is inside is the originals of what was sent to my grandmother. I long to open it as soon as I get into the car, but I force myself to wait.
At home, I make coffee, light a cigarette, and sit down at the kitchen table. I draw a deep breath.
There is still time to put the envelope away. To never open it. To never know. I look around the familiar room. The boiling kettle, a scattering of crumbs on the counter, an unfinished glass of milk. The apartment is quiet, Lucas is no doubt asleep, and Margaux is in front of her computer. I wait, still. I wait for a long time.
Then I seize a knife and slit the envelope open. The seal gives way, cracks in two. It is done.
The first items that tumble out are a couple of black-and-white press clippings from Vogue and Jours de France magazines. My parents at cocktail parties, social events, races--1967, 1969, 1971, 1972. Monsieur and Madame Francois Rey. Madame wearing Dior, Jacques Fath, Schiaparelli. Were these dresses lent to her? I don't remember her ever wearing them. How gorgeous she looked. So fresh, so pretty.
More press clippings, this time from Le Monde and Le Figaro. My father and the Vallombreux trial, the one that made him famous in the early seventies. I find two more small clippings: the announcement of my birth and of Melanie's in the Figaro's Carnet du Jour. I then find a large manila envelope. Inside are three black-and-white photographs, two color ones. Bad quality, grainy close-ups. But I have no trouble recognizing my mother. She is with a tall, platinum-haired woman who seems older than she. Three of the photographs are shot in Paris, in the streets. My mother is looking up and smiling at the woman. They are not holding hands, but they are evidently close. It is fall or winter--they both have coats. The two color photos are taken in a restaurant or a hotel bar. They are sitting at a table. The blond woman is smoking. She is wearing a purple blouse and a pearl necklace. My mother's face is somber, downcast eyes and tight mouth. In one photograph the woman is stroking my mother's cheek.
I lay all the photographs out on the kitchen table carefully. I look at them for a while. A mosaic of my mother and this stranger. I know this is the woman Melanie saw in our mother's bed. This is the American Gaspard mentioned.
Inside the envelope is a typed letter addressed to my grandmother from the Agence Viaris. The date is January 12, 1974. A month before my mother died.
Dear Madame Rey,
As per your instructions and according to our contract, here is the information you requested concerning Clarisse Rey nee Elzyere and Miss June Ashby. Miss Ashby, of American nationality, born in 1925 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has an art gallery in New York City on West 57th Street. She comes to Paris every month for business and stays at the Regina Hotel on the place des Pyramides in the first arrondissement.
Miss Ashby and Madame Rey, during the course of the weeks from September to December 1973, met every time Miss Ashby came to Paris, which totals five times. Madame Rey each time came to the Regina Hotel in the afternoons and went directly up to Miss Ashby's room. Madame Rey came down again a couple of hours later. On one occasion, December 4, Madame Rey came after dinner and did not leave the hotel till the next morning at dawn.
Please find our invoice enclosed.
Agence Viaris, Private Investigators
I look closely at the photographs of June Ashby. A striking woman. Her eyes seem dark, but the photographs are not good, I can't really tell. She has high cheekbones, the wide shoulders of a swimmer. She doesn't look "butch." There is even something intensely feminine about her--her long, slender limbs, the bead necklace around her neck, dangling earrings. I wonder what she said in English the day she came to confront Blanche, which sounded so horrible according to Gaspard. I wonder where she is now. I wonder how she remembers my mother.
I feel a movement and quickly turn. Margaux is standing directly behind me, wearing her dressing gown. Her hair is pulled off her face, making her look like Astrid.
"What is all this, Dad?"
My first reaction is to shamefacedly hide the photos, cram them back into the envelope, and invent some story about sorting out old documents. But I do not move.
It is too late to lie. Too late to be silent. Too late to pretend I don't know.
"This was given to me tonight."
She nods.
"The brunette. She looks so much like Melanie . . . Isn't that your mother?"
"Yes, that is my mother. And the blond lady is . . . her friend."
Margaux sits down and examines each photograph with interest.
"What is all this about?"
No more lies. No more silence.
"My grandmother was having my mother and this woman followed by a private investigator."
Margaux stares at me.
"Why would she do that?" Then it hits her. She is only fourteen, after all. "Oh," she says slowly, her face flushing. "They were lovers, right?"
"Yes, they were."
A pause.
"Your mother was having an affair with this lady?"
"That's right."
Margaux scratches her head thoughtfully. She whispers, "Is this like some kind of huge family secret that nobody ever talks about?"
"I guess so."
She picks up one of the black-and-white photographs.
"She looked so much like Melanie. It's amazing."
"She did."
"Who is the other lady, her friend? Did you ever meet her?"
"An American. This happened a long time ago. If I ever met her, I don't remember her."
"What are you going to do with all this, Dad?"
"I don't know," I reply truthfully.
I unexpectedly have a vision of the Gois passage being lapped away by tongues of seawater. Soon, only the rescue poles indicate that a road lies deep beneath the surface. An uneasy feeling washes over me.
"Are you okay, Dad?"
Margaux's hand grazes my arm. The gesture is such a rare one coming from her that it both startles and moves me.
"I'm okay, honey. Thanks. You get to bed now."
She lets me kiss her. She slips away.
There is only one thing left in the envelope, a thin sheet of paper that has been crumpled and smoothed out. It is written on the Hotel Saint-Pierre stationery. The date reads August 19, 1973. The shock of my mother's handwriting strikes me like a blow. I read the first lines with a thumping heart.
You have just left your room, and I am slipping this under your door, not leaving it in our usual safe hiding place, and I pray you get it before you catch your train back to Paris . . .
My head seems a little clearer, although I feel my heart still thrumming painfully, as it did in Gaspard's room a couple of days ago. I go to the computer and type out "June Ashby" on Google. The first item that pops up is the art gallery that bears her name on Fifty-seventh Street in New York City. Specializes in modern and contemporary art by women. I search for data about her, but there is none on the site.
I go back to Google, scroll down the page. Then I see it.
June Henrietta Ashby died in May 1989 of respiratory failure at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. She was 64 years old. Her renowned art gallery on 57th Street, founded in 1966, focuses on modern European art by women, which she introduced to American art lovers. It is now run by her associate, Donna W. Rogers. Miss Ashby was a gay rights activist, cofounder of the New York lesbian social club and advocacy group Daughters of Hope.
I feel a piercing sadness learning
that June Ashby is dead. I would have liked to know this woman, the woman my mother loved, whom she had met in Noirmoutier in the summer of 1972. The woman she had loved in secret for more than a year. The woman my mother was ready to face the world with, the woman she wanted to raise us with. I am too late. Nineteen years too late.
I print out the entry and clip it to the other documents in the envelope. I look up Donna W. Rogers and Daughters of Hope on Google. Donna is a weathered-looking woman in her seventies, with an astute face and cropped copper hair. The lesbian social club has a rich and interesting website. I surf through it, reading about meetings, concerts, gatherings. Cooking lessons, yoga, poetry seminars, political conferences. I forward the link to Mathilde, an architect I worked with a couple of years ago. Her girlfriend, Milena, has a hip bar I often go to in the Latin Quarter. Despite the lateness of the hour, Mathilde is in front of her computer and e-mails me right back. She is curious as to why I sent her that link. I explain that the social club was cofounded by a woman who had been my mother's lover. Then my cell phone rings. It is Mathilde.
"Hey! I didn't know your mother was a goudou," she says.
"Neither did I."
A silence, but not an uncomfortable one.
"When did you find out?"
"Not long ago."
"How are you feeling?"
"Odd, to say the least."
"And does she know you know? Did she tell you?"
I sigh. "My mother died in 1974, Mathilde. I was ten years old."
"Oh, I'm sorry," she says quickly. "Forgive me."
"Forget it."
"The fact that she was a lesbian--did your father know?"
"I don't know. I don't know what my father knows."
"Do you want to pop over to the bar so we can have a drink and chat?"
I'm half tempted. I enjoy Mathilde's company, and her girlfriend's bar is an amusing nightspot. But exhaustion weighs me down tonight and I tell her so. She makes me promise to come by soon. I do.
Later, in bed, I call Angele. I get her voice mail. I don't leave a message. I try the home number. No answer. I struggle not to let this annoy me, but it does. I know she sees other men. She is discreet about it. I want to tell her not to. I decide to tell her soon. But what will she come back with? That we are not married? That she's allergic to fidelity? That she lives in Clisson and I live in Paris, and how are we going to work that one out? Yes, how? There is no way she would ever move to Paris. She hates its pollution, its noise, and do I see myself being buried in that small provincial town? And she might even ask me (for she has probably guessed it) if I had slept with Astrid recently and not told her.
I miss her tonight as I lie there in my empty bed, so many questions whirling around in my head. I miss her astuteness, the fast way her brain works. I miss her body, the scent of her skin. I close my eyes and quickly make myself come, thinking of her. It gives me some sort of release, but it doesn't make me feel any happier. I feel lonelier than ever. I get up to smoke a cigarette in the dark silence.
June Ashby's fine features come back to me. I can see her ringing the Rey doorbell, tall and formidable in her fury, her grief. She and Blanche, face-to-face. The New World versus la vieille Europe, embodied by Paris's sixteenth arrondissement.
You better tell me how Clarisse died, right now.
I have never heard her voice and I never will, but it seems to me that I can hear it tonight, a deep, strong voice, the American accent coming out thick and strong through the polished French. I can hear her pronouncing "Clarisse" the way Americans say it, emphasizing the final syllable, softening the r.
You better tell me how Clarisse died, right now.
Later, when I finally fall asleep, the disquieting vision of seawater closing hermetically over the Gois never leaves my troubled dreams.
It is done. Blanche lies in the Rey family grave at the Trocadero cemetery. We stand by the tomb under a surprisingly blue sky, a small group of us--my children, Astrid, Melanie, Solange, Regine, Josephine, close friends, faithful servants, and my frail father, leaning on a cane I have never seen him use. I notice how his illness has gradually taken over. His skin, sickly and yellow, has a waxlike consistency. He has lost most of his hair, even his lashes and brows. Melanie is at his side, and I observe how she never leaves him, holding his arm, looking across at him with solace like a mother comforting a child. I know my sister has a new boyfriend, Eric, a young journalist I have not yet met, but despite this new man in her life, she now appears to be thoroughly taken up by our father and his well-being. During the ceremony in the cold and dark church, her hand was always on our father's shoulder. I can tell how concerned she is, how he moves her. Why is it that I am not moved? Why is it that my father's vulnerability triggers only pity? As I stand there, it is not my father I think of. Nor my grandmother. I think of my mother, whose coffin lies in that grave a few feet below me. Did June Ashby ever come here? Did she ever stand where I am standing now, looking down at the tombstone that bears Clarisse's name? And if she did, was she overcome by the same questions that are now tormenting me?
After the burial we gather at the avenue Henri-Martin for a party in Blanche's honor. Several of Solange's friends turn up. The same elegant, well-to-do throng that was here the night Blanche died. Solange asks me to help her carry flowers into the grand salon, which has been opened especially for the occasion. Gaspard and a couple of employees have laid out a tasty buffet, and I observe Regine, cheeks caked with rouge, starting on the champagne. Josephine is too busy chatting up a rubicund, oily gentleman to notice. My father, very quiet, sits in a corner with Melanie.
I am alone with Solange in the office, helping her find vases for the sickly sweet-smelling lilies that keep pouring in every time the doorbell chimes. On the spur of the moment I tackle her as she is concentrating on arranging the flowers.
"Do you remember a woman called June Ashby?" I ask point-blank.
Her carefully made-up face does not move a muscle.
"Very vaguely," she murmurs.
"An American woman, blond, tall--she had an art gallery in New York."
"Rings a bell."
I watch her hands hovering over the white petals, her pudgy, bejeweled fingers, her scarlet nail varnish. She was never a pretty woman, Solange. It could not have been easy for her, having a sister-in-law who had Clarisse's looks.
"June Ashby spent a couple of summers in Noirmoutier at the Hotel Saint-Pierre. While we were there."
"I see."
"Do you remember she was friendly with my mother?"
She finally looks at me. Nothing warm in those brown eyes.
"No. I don't remember."
A waiter comes in carrying a tray of glasses. I wait till he leaves.
"What do you remember about her and my mother?"
Again the stony look.
"Nothing. I remember nothing about her and your mother."
If she is lying, she is an accomplished liar. Her eyes look right at me, unwavering. Her entire self is composed, unruffled. The message she is sending my way is clear: "Don't ask any more questions."
She walks away, her back as stiff as ever, carrying lilies. I return to the grand salon, noting that the room is full of people I have never met. I greet them politely.
Laurence Dardel, wearing a black suit that makes her look years older, unobtrusively hands me a brown envelope. The medical file. I thank her and put it away next to my coat, but I am itching to tear it open. Melanie's eyes follow me from afar, and I feel a pang of guilt. Soon, I tell myself, soon I will share all this with her. About June Ashby, the scrap with Blanche, the detective report.
I notice Astrid watching me as well, no doubt wondering why I look on edge. She is busy consoling Margaux, who was miserable during the funeral, for it brought back painful, fresh memories of Pauline.
Arno comes to stand next to me. He is home from boarding school to attend his great-grandmother's funeral. His hair is shorter, cleaner, and he has shaved.
&nbs
p; "Hey, Dad."
He reaches out and pats my shoulder, goes over to the table where drinks and petits fours are laid out, and pours out a fruity beverage. After a longish spell of not talking to each other at all, apart from minimal conversation, our relationship has thawed out somewhat. I suspect the boarding school, with its strict hours, bracing hygiene, and vigorous, compulsory sports program, is doing him good. Astrid thinks so as well.
He leans toward me and whispers, "You know, those photographs. Margaux told me."
"About my mother?"
"Yup. She explained. About the letter from the agency and everything. Heavy stuff."
"How do you feel about it?"
He grins. "You mean about having a gay granny?"
I can't help grinning too.
"Kinda cool when you think of it," he says, "although I guess it wasn't so cool for Grand-pere."
"No, I guess it wasn't."
"Kinda hard on a man's pride, I'd say. You know, like, to have a wife who prefers girls?"
Coming from a sixteen-year-old, I find his observation both mature and relevant. How would I have reacted if Astrid was having an affair with a woman? Isn't that the ultimate snub for a man? The most humiliating form of adultery? The true way to make a man feel anything but virile? But when I think of Serge and his hairy buttocks on Astrid's camera, I somehow feel that nothing could be worse.
"How are things with Serge?" I inquire, keeping well out of Astrid's range.
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