Chasing Cezanne

by Peter Mayle

  “OK. But why?”

  “Ah,” said Cyrus. “There you have me. But it’s not for your health, and I don’t think it should get in the way of our little expedition. Would you agree, my dear?”

  Lucy’s answer was a huge, infectious smile that spread around the table. “I think I’m going to like Paris.”

  “You’ve talked me into it,” said Andre. He beckoned to a waiter and asked for menus. “Let’s have some practice before we go.”

  14

  THE squeak of wheels across the floor and the rasp of a heavy zipper being unfastened made Andre sit up, groggy and disoriented, conscious only that he was in a strange bed. A smaller, feminine bed, altogether more dainty than his own mattress on box springs, a bed half covered, as he now saw, with piles of clothes. At the end of the room, under the soft glow of a shaded lamp, he could see Lucy crouching over an open suitcase, a human island surrounded by more clothes. She was wearing a white T-shirt and a guilty expression as she heard him move and turned to look at him.

  “Lulu? What are you doing?”

  She put a hand to her mouth, her eyes wide as she stood up. The T-shirt was just long enough to keep her out of jail. “Andre, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I thought I’d just … you know.” She flapped a hand vaguely at the suitcase and shrugged. “… start packing.”

  Andre fumbled with sleep-clumsy fingers on the bedside table for his watch. “What time is it?”

  Lucy shrugged again. “Oh. Well, kind of early.” A flash of white teeth. “Unless you’re going to Paris.”

  He found his watch and squinted at it. “Lulu, it’s four a.m. The flight doesn’t leave until eight tonight. How long do you need to pack?”

  Lucy came over to sit on the edge of the bed and pushed the hair back from his forehead. “You don’t understand. I have things to put together here. I don’t want to look like some little hick next to all those fancy Parisian babes.” She smiled down at him; her hair, lit from the back, formed a tangled black cloud around the paler triangle of her face.

  Andre let his hand slide along the top of her thigh, feeling the long muscle move under his touch, thoughts of sleep leaving him. “You’re right,” he said. “And those Parisian babes can cook, too.”

  She pushed him back, pinning his shoulders to the bed, and leaned over him. “Not with my ingredients, they can’t.”

  They met Cyrus in the Air France departure lounge, after a day that had seemed to them curiously like Christmas Eve in early April: packing, repacking, farewell phone calls, last-minute errands, a sense of celebration. They had stopped for a late lunch of pasta and a bottle of champagne, and by the time they reached JFK they were both pleasantly giddy from a mixture of fatigue and excitement. Cyrus, peering at them over the top of a folded copy of the New York Times, looked as though he had done nothing more strenuous with his day than visit his tailor for a fitting.

  “Good evening, my dears. How are you on crossword puzzles? I need a five-letter word for ‘City of Light.’ Do you think that might be Paris?” Smiling as he put down the paper, he stood up and kissed Lucy on the cheek. “The beret looks very fetching,” he said. “You’ll be the talk of Saint-Germain. Andre, you’re a fortunate young man.”

  The start of an adventure shared among friends is one of the better moments in life and one of the few remaining pleasures of modern travel. Agreeable company, with the added lift of anticipation, provides a certain immunity from the tedium of formalities. Delays, fractious ground staff, security checks, and the usual feeling of being an inconvenient and troublesome piece of human baggage fade into insignificance and become part of the background. With Cyrus and Andre taking turns to tell Lucy about their favorite corners of Paris—the Ritz bar, the flea market, the Musée d’Orsay, the Pont Neuf, the food and flowers in the Rue de Buci—they scarcely noticed the slow shuffle of the herding process that eventually deposited them in their seats.

  Lucy studied the flight attendants, stylish in their dark-blue uniforms, the men physically smaller than their counterparts on American airlines, the women groomed to a hair and wearing the expression of polite hauteur that is such a distinctive part of the official French face. She nudged Andre. “I was right about the babes. They all look like they’re taking the day off from Dior.”

  Andre winked at her. “That’s just the part you can see. French women spend more money on underwear than anyone in Europe. I got that from the lingerie correspondent on the Wall Street Journal.”

  Lucy leaned over to watch a pair of strictly-corseted hips swaying up the aisle and nodded thoughtfully. As the plane eased away from the gate, she reached for Andre’s hand to give it a squeeze. “Don’t get any ideas, buster. You’re booked.” Her head settled against his shoulder, and with the suddenness of an exhausted child, she was instantly asleep.

  Cyrus was less fortunate with his immediate neighbor, a skittish middle-aged woman from Washington, D.C., who seemed eager for conversation and guidance, this being her first trip—solo, as she pointed out with an inviting smile—to France. Further personal details followed and even more were hinted at, but after half an hour Cyrus decided to have a headache. He pushed back his seat, closed his eyes, and reviewed once again his chances of handling a thirty-million-dollar sale for a man he had never met.

  They were as slim as they had been the last time he had thought about them. A lot would depend on Franzen—his relationship with Denoyer, his discretion (or, with luck, his lack of it), his reaction to the three of them. Forgers were understandably nervous by nature, quick to suspect and slow to confide, their professional lives conducted with one eye looking permanently over their shoulder. What did a man like Franzen tell his friends he did for a living? Would he be inclined to trust anyone introduced by a little rogue like Villiers? On the other hand, who else was likely to bring business to a forger? Certainly not a curator at the Met.

  As for selling the Cézanne, Cyrus could see no serious problems. The unofficial market for fine art was, as he knew, extensive. There were the gloaters, who would keep the painting insulated from public view in a vault, to be visited and enjoyed in secret; there were the Japanese, who could benefit from an obliging Japanese law that protects private property from discovery; there was Hong Kong, where treasures of all kinds could conveniently disappear. He was confident that a quiet, judicious sale could be arranged. There was never a shortage of rich and acquisitive people.

  Cyrus glanced across the aisle at Lucy and Andre, their bodies slumped together in sleep. He weighed the prospect of dinner against more revelations by the enthusiastic lady from Washington, and decided to contain his appetite until he could do it justice in Paris.

  But Paris was not to be reached without a struggle. The flight was delayed by congestion in the pale-blue morning skies above Roissy. More delays were provided by the immigration inspectors, who were on a go-slow, limbering up for the annual summer strikes. And traffic from the airport into the city was moving at the speed of congealed syrup. Plans for a café breakfast were discarded as the taxi made its way down the autoroute in a series of short lurches and sudden stops, and it was past eleven by the time the three travelers crossed the Seine to join the crawl of cars in the narrow streets of the Left Bank.

  They were staying at the Montalembert, in a small side street off the Rue du Bac, vieux Paris on the outside, cool and contemporary within, a hotel much in favor among the black-uniformed ornaments of the fashion world. Andre had chosen it not simply for its looks and its location but because the staff were charming, young, and—flying in the face of Parisian convention—genuinely friendly. There was also the bar.

  The bar at the Montalembert, just to the left of the lobby, is a place where one could easily spend an entire day. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are served there. Drinks flow from late morning onward. The world comes and goes, deals are done, love affairs begun (seldom ended, for some reason; perhaps the lighting is too cheerful for tears and remorse). There ar
e no TV sets. The entertainment is human.

  As they were waiting to check in, Lucy cast an appraising eye over two wafer-thin, high-gloss women sitting with glasses of champagne, puffing cigarettes and recoiling after each puff, with a twist of long and elegant necks, from the smoke. “Babes,” said Lucy. “Look at them. They’re comparing cheekbones.”

  Cyrus patted her shoulder. “Two suburban housewives, my dear. Probably discussing what to give their husbands for dinner.”

  Lucy pursed her lips, trying to imagine either of them anywhere near a kitchen. Andre turned away from the front desk, two keys in his hand. “Lulu, stop staring at those nice old ladies.”

  He gave one of the keys to Cyrus and shepherded them into an elevator of that particular Gallic size which encourages close personal relationships. If the occupants are strangers at the beginning of the ride, they certainly aren’t by the end.

  Lucy investigated their room with the thoroughness of a Michelin inspector, running her fingers over the rosewood, testing the bed in its crisp navy and white striped cover, admiring the steel and slate of the bathroom, throwing open the tall casement windows that overlooked a tumble of Parisian rooftops, rooftops like no others, in the world. Andre smiled as he watched her dart from one discovery to the next.

  “Well?” he said. “Will it do?”

  “I can’t believe I’m here.” She took his hand and pulled him over to the window. “Look,” she said. “Paris!”

  “So it is,” he said. “What do you want to see first?”

  “Everything.”

  There are several thousand starting points for such an ambitious enterprise in Paris, but few more pleasant or fascinating for the first-time visitor than Deux Magots, the quintessential café on the Boulevard Saint-Germain. Its critics may say that there are too many tourists; that the waiters, world-weary and flat of foot, have made an art form of curmudgeonly service; that the prices are inhospitably severe. Much of this may be true, but there is nowhere quite like a table on the terrace for watching Parisians do what Parisians do so well: strolling, posing, inspecting each other’s spring outfits, exchanging multiple shrugs, pouts, and kisses, seeing and being seen.

  As morning gave way to noon, it had become mild and sunny, with a light breeze off the Seine, the best kind of street weather. The leaves on the trees, not yet made dull by gasoline fumes, shone against their branches as though they had been freshly painted a clean, strong green. It was the kind of day that had turned April in Paris into a song.

  Lucy sat between the two men, enthralled. She could have been watching tennis, her head swiveling from side to side, not wanting to miss anything. How unlike New York it all was. There were so many smokers, so many dogs, so many old and beautiful buildings, a feeling of spaciousness that was impossible in a skyscraper city. The coffee was stronger, the air tasted different, even Andre was different. She watched him with the waiter. When he spoke French, his body changed gear and became more fluid, his hands and shoulders constantly on the move, his jaw and bottom lip thrust forward as he pronounced those words that sounded so exotic to ears accustomed to the harsher cadences of Anglo-Saxon speech. So fast, too. Everybody spoke so fast.

  Cyrus suggested they eat lightly, saving themselves for what was likely to be a long and elaborate dinner, and after coffee they ordered glasses of Beaujolais and ham sandwiches, substantial half-baguettes, Lucy’s first taste of true French bread and Normandy butter. She took a first appreciative bite, then stopped eating to look at Andre.

  “Why isn’t everyone in Paris fat?” she said, waving a hand at the people around them. “Look at the stuff they’re putting away, and the wine. And then they’re going to do it all over again at dinner. How do they do it? Do they have some special diet?”

  “Absolutely,” said Andre. “No more than three courses at lunch, no more than five courses at dinner, and they never drink before breakfast. Isn’t that right, Cyrus?”

  “Something like that, dear boy. Don’t forget the daily bottle of wine and a small cognac at bedtime—oh, and plenty of butter in the cooking. Very little exercise, too. That’s important. And a pack of cigarettes a day.”

  Lucy shook her head. “OK, maybe it was a silly question. But so far, I haven’t seen a single fat person. Not one.”

  “It’s part of what they call the French Paradox,” Andre said. “Do you remember? There was a big fuss about it a few years ago. I think it all started when they did a survey of twenty countries and their eating habits. They were looking at the relationship between national diets and the incidence of heart disease.”

  Cyrus looked thoughtfully at his wine. “I’m not sure I want to hear about this.”

  Andre grinned. “You’ll be fine as long as you stay here. When the results came out, they showed that the country with the healthiest diet was Japan—not surprising, really, when you think that they mainly eat fish and rice. But the big surprise was the runner-up. Number two out of twenty countries was France; despite the bread, the cheese, the foie gras, the sauces, the three-hour lunches, the alcohol. So of course, people wanted to know why. They thought there must be a secret, some kind of diet trick that allowed you to eat what you wanted and get away with it. And what they came up with as the explanation was red wine.”

  Cyrus nodded. “I remember now,” he said. “It was on television, wasn’t it? Most of the liquor stores in America sold out of Cabernet Sauvignon in forty-eight hours.”

  “That’s right. Then someone started talking about the incidence of cirrhosis of the liver in France being higher than in the States, and everyone went back to hamburgers and Coke.”

  “Where did America come on the list?” Lucy asked.

  “Oh, way down. Something like fourteen or fifteen, I think. Red wine isn’t going to change that. Actually, my theory is that red wine has less to do with it than people think. Obviously, what you eat and drink is important, but so is how you eat and drink. And there’s an enormous difference in national habits. Food for most Americans is fuel—eat in the car, eat on the street, finish dinner in fifteen minutes. Food for the French is treated as a pleasure. They take their time over it. They concentrate on it. They like being at the table, and they don’t eat between meals. You’ll never catch the President of France sucking up potato chips at his desk. Cooking is respected here. It’s accepted as an art. The top chefs are almost like movie stars.” Andre paused and finished his wine. “Sorry. That sounded like a lecture. But it’s true.” He turned to Lucy. “Wait till you see the food tonight.”

  “I didn’t tell you,” said Cyrus. “I called Franzen from the hotel.”

  “Is everything OK?”

  Cyrus rolled his eyes. “He’s an enthusiast. Couldn’t stop talking about the menu—apparently Senderens is one of the great chefs, and Franzen sounded as though he already had his knife and fork out. We’re meeting him there at eight. He seemed very friendly, I must say, told me to call him Nico. I have a feeling we’re going to get on.”

  Lucy was watching a tall blonde in black leather stride through the boulevard traffic with a borzoi, ignoring the cars, both girl and dog walking with haughty, head-high grace. The effect was marred by the dog’s decision to cock his leg against the rear wheel of a parked motorcycle while the owner was attempting to get on. The owner expostulated, his leg also cocked across the saddle. The girl ignored him and strode on.

  Lucy shook her head. “In New York, they’d be in a fight by now. Then the dog would be sued.” She shook her head again and turned to Cyrus. “Can we talk business?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you think I should wear black tonight? No, I’m kidding. What do you hope to get out of Franzen?”

  “Well, let’s see.” Cyrus straightened his bow tie, his eyes looking across the boulevard at the Brasserie Lipp. “I’d like him to feel comfortable with us, to feel that he can trust us. I’d like him to tell us how he came to work for Denoyer and to see what he knows about the original painting—where it is, where it’s g
oing.” He looked at Lucy and smiled. “I’d like him to tell us all the things he shouldn’t be telling us.”

  Lucy frowned. “Do you have a plan?”

  “Certainly,” said Cyrus. “Get him drunk and hope for the best.”

  Camilla was livid. She paced back and forth in front of Noel’s desk with short, agitated steps, her elbow crooked, her cigarette held up at shoulder level. It really was too bad. She had offered Andre the chance of a lifetime, a chance any photographer would kill for, and now he’d disappeared. Disappeared. She must have called his apartment a dozen times over the past two days. His flight to Hong Kong was booked, arrangements had been made—complicated arrangements that had required the most servile pleadings on Camilla’s part—and where was he? Vanished. The irresponsibility of creative people! The arrogance! The ingratitude! She felt like banishing him forever from her Filofax.

  “Try his office again, Noel. Talk to that little Walcott girl. Maybe she knows where he is.”

  Camilla stopped pacing to stand over Noel as he made the call. He was shaking his head as he put the receiver down. “She’s not there. On vacation until next week.”

  “On vacation.” Camilla sniffed. “Package tour to Jones Beach, I suppose. Well, keep trying Andre’s home number.”

  Noel watched her march back into her office, rigid with irritation, and sighed. It was going to be one of those difficult days.

  15

  THEY met in the lobby shortly before eight, Lucy in her best black, Andre with the sense of imminent strangulation that wearing his tie always gave him, Cyrus in a boulevardier’s suit of Prince of Wales check. With a courtly swoop, he took Lucy’s hand and bent over it. “You look ravishing, my dear. Quite the prettiest girl in Paris.”