Chasing Cezanne

by Peter Mayle

  Cyrus thanked her and read aloud from the slip of paper: “Regret change in plans. Please call me at the Relais Christine, 43.26.71.80. Franzen.”

  “Now he tells us,” said Andre. “Do you think he knew?”

  “We’ll soon find out. Order me the biggest vodka they’ve got, would you? I’ll be right back.”

  Andre and Lucy went into the bar, hardly noticing the burly man in dark glasses just ahead of them, somewhat agitated, who ordered a Ricard and asked the whereabouts of the men’s room in the same breath. They sat down, and Andre brushed a smudge from Lucy’s cheek.

  “I’m sorry about all this, Lulu. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  She nodded. “We were lucky, weren’t we? If that old lady hadn’t come out …”

  Andre took her hand, a cold, still-trembling hand, in both of his. “Rum?”

  She grinned. “Double. No ice.”

  Paradou returned to the bar, taking a seat as far away as possible from Andre and Lucy. He hid behind a newspaper, nursing his frustration. The only success in an otherwise dismal morning’s work was that he knew where they were staying. But for how long? While they remained inside the hotel, there was no chance of his arranging an accident. Holtz had said he would be in Paris by this evening. Maybe he would be able to suggest something. Meanwhile, there was nothing to be done except stay close to them. He signaled for another Ricard, watching over the top of his newspaper as the older man joined the other two.

  Cyrus took a deep pull at his vodka and leaned forward, his expression serious, his voice low. “I’m afraid that didn’t get us very far,” he said. “Franzen was horrified when I told him about the explosion—sounded very shocked, asked if you were both OK—and he still wants to meet us. But not in Paris.”

  “Why not?”

  “Says it’s too dangerous. He’s got the wind up about something—or someone. But he wouldn’t say what or who. Just that Paris was unhealthy for all of us.”

  Andre felt Lucy’s hand creep into his. “Well, he’s been right so far today. Where does he want us to meet him?”

  Cyrus stared into his drink, shaking his head. “He said he’d let us know, but he’s leaving Paris now. We’ve just got to sit tight until he calls—oh, and another thing: He said we might be followed.”

  Instinctively, they looked around the room, seeing nothing but normality. Couples and groups were at several of the tables—smiling, talking, ordering lunch. A gaunt, pale girl alone at a table for two glanced at her watch in between looking out at the lobby. A man in the far corner was reading a newspaper. The thought of danger in such a pleasant setting, among relaxed, ordinary people, was ridiculous.

  “Tell me, Cyrus,” said Andre. “Did you believe him? Why should anyone want to follow us?”

  “Here’s what I feel.” Cyrus finished his vodka. “First, as I said, he sounded quite genuine. And quite scared. Second, it doesn’t take a genius to work out that this has something to do with the painting. And third”—turning to Lucy—“I think it would be better if you went back to New York. You, too, Andre. I’m the one who wants to do a deal. You don’t need to get involved.”

  They looked at one another without speaking, the murmur of conversation suddenly louder and more distinct. “… and so I told him,” said an American voice, “if the divorce isn’t through next month, I’m out of here, promises or no promises, and screw the love nest. Jesus, these French guys. What do you think? The salmon looks good.”

  Lucy giggled. “Come on, Cyrus, loosen up. It was an accident. You smelled the gas. Or maybe it was someone with a grudge against Franzen. Anyway, I’m staying.” She looked at Andre. “We’re staying, right?”

  Andre smiled at the determined, almost pugnacious set of her jaw. “I think Lulu’s right. You’re stuck with us, Cyrus.”

  “I couldn’t be more pleased,” said Cyrus, and indeed they could see the pleasure on his face, the return of a twinkle in his eye as he took a deep, decisive breath. “I seem to remember there’s a very nice little place around here called the Cherche-Midi, and there’s nothing like a good explosion to give a man an appetite. Shall we?”

  Paradou gave them time to cross the lobby and go through the door before following. The pastis had made him hungry, and when, ten minutes later, he watched them go into the little restaurant, he felt hungrier still. After waiting until he was sure that they had been given a table, he went off in search of a sandwich.

  18

  FRANZEN joined the traffic on the périphérique, relieved to be getting away from Paris and Holtz and murderous psychotics with bombs. He suspected—no, he was almost convinced of it—that Holtz was behind the explosion, only giving him warning to protect the paintings. God bless those paintings, thought Franzen; a portable life insurance policy. What he needed now was a safe haven, time to think, time to decide. And there was, he knew, a fundamental decision to be made: Holtz or Pine. It had to be one or the other.

  Without conscious thought, he found himself following the signs leading south, on the A6 that cuts down through Burgundy to Lyon. The south held good memories for him, and one of them in particular just might—with the right mixture of apology, flattery, invention, obvious desperation, and winning charm—provide the answer to his immediate problem. His mind drifted back to Les Crottins, the tiny village lost in the countryside between Aix and the mountains, and the tumbledown house with its view of Mont Sainte-Victoire. And Anouk.

  He and Anouk were together—off and on, it had to be said, because of Anouk’s highly volatile temperament—for six years. She was in every way an imposing woman: her voice, her height, her opinions, her mane of hair, her presence, her generous contours. Critics might have called her overupholstered. Rubens would not, nor would Franzen. On the whole, those years together had been good years, and seemed even better with the rosy tint that time imparts to these things.

  The break had come eighteen months before, over what Franzen considered a trifling artistic misunderstanding. One afternoon, Anouk had returned to the house unexpectedly, to find Franzen adjusting the slender limbs of a village girl who had agreed to pose for him. All would have been well if the girl had been wearing anything more than a garland of flowers in her hair (it was for a painting in the romantic style), or if she had been reclining in a more decorous manner, or indeed if Franzen had been wearing his trousers. As it was, Anouk had jumped to conclusions and had thrown them both out. Attempts to clear up the misunderstanding had failed, and Franzen had retreated to Paris with his tail between his legs.

  But time was the great healer, he told himself as the sprawl of Paris gave way to open countryside, and despite her volatile disposition she was a goodhearted woman. He would call her tonight and throw himself on her mercy, a man on the run. With the reconciliation already accomplished in his mind, his thoughts turned to more mundane matters, prompted by a capacious stomach that had been given nothing since the early morning and that was making audible complaints.

  After the squalor of the previous night and the tragedy of a missed lunch, Franzen felt he deserved the consolation of an excellent dinner and a clean bed, and a sign for Macon and Lyon triggered his memory. Somewhere between the two, off to the west, lay the town of Roanne. He and Anouk in their early days had once stopped there for a lunch at Troisgros that came back to him now, a lunch with many chilled pewter jugs of the house Fleurie and seven exquisite courses, a lunch that left them so overcome that they could barely cross the street to the small hotel opposite the restaurant. What fugitive could ask for more? As if confirming the wisdom of the decision, Franzen’s foot pressed harder on the accelerator.

  Paradou’s afternoon was doing nothing to improve his mood. He had taken the chance of going to fetch his car and had sat in it for two hours outside the Cherche-Midi. When at last Andre and the others had left the restaurant, he had followed their taxi to the Eiffel Tower, for another interminable wait. Now they were on the top of the Arc de Triomphe, and Paradou had run out of cigarettes. He used h
is cell phone to call his wife and see if there were any messages. She asked him if he would be home for dinner. How in God’s name did he know? The worst of it was that he knew there was no chance of doing the job on them in such public places, but at least he would be able to tell Holtz where they had been. It was almost five o’clock. How much longer would they want to stare down at the putain Champs Elysées?

  “There’s one more sight you should see today,” Cyrus said to Lucy as they stood at the bottom of the Arc de Triomphe, the spokes of the great avenues radiating out around them. “Every girl on her first trip to Paris should have a drink at the Ritz, and I can show you the cinq à sept.”

  Andre grinned. “You’re a wicked man, Cyrus.”

  “I’m ready for something wicked at the Ritz,” said Lucy. “But what is it?”

  “It’s an old tradition,” said Cyrus, giving his bow tie a tweak. “The two hours between five and seven are when Parisian gentlemen entertain their mistresses before going home to their wives. Very discreet, very romantic.”

  “Romantic?” Lucy stiffened; if she hadn’t liked Cyrus so much, she would probably have bristled. “That’s terrible. That’s the most chauvinistic thing I ever heard.”

  Cyrus beamed at her. “Absolutely,” he said, his eyebrows going up. “But then Chauvin was a Frenchman, although better known for patriotism than for sex.”

  Lucy shook her head. “You’re a piece of work, Cyrus. This is the French happy hour, right? Do I have to do anything special?”

  “Indeed you do, my dear. Look beautiful, cross your legs, and drink champagne.”

  Lucy considered for a moment. She inclined her head. “I like it.”

  Andre had other plans. “There’s a little errand I have to do,” he said, “and I’m not dressed for the Ritz. Lulu, if you hitch that skirt up a couple of inches, they’ll give you extra peanuts.”

  She stuck her tongue out at him and tucked her hand under Cyrus’s arm. “I won’t even ask where you’re going.”

  “A surprise,” said Andre. “I’ll see you back at the hotel.”

  Paradou scowled as he watched the group split up to go in different directions, the older man and the girl to look for a taxi, the young man to the Métro station on the Avenue Kléber. That decided it. He couldn’t leave the car here, and he couldn’t take it down there. He would keep an eye on the other two.

  Lucy and Cyrus were still in the thick of the Champs Elysées rush hour when Andre came up from the subway at Saint-Germain and made for the antique shop in the Rue Jacob. It was, like many similar establishments in the neighborhood, presented in a way calculated to lure the tourist off the street—an artful, seemingly random clutter of objects, most of them dusty, none of them priced. Porcelain bowls, bundles of cutlery tied with string, brass hatracks, mirrors showing the bloom of age, mustache cups, ebony and silver button hooks, vintage corkscrews with brushes in their handles, goblets and cordial glasses, tiny footstools, snuffboxes, pillboxes, crystal inkwells—all of them were thrown together in a haphazard, apparently careless fashion. Innocent window-shoppers could be forgiven for thinking that they had stumbled upon the last surviving outpost of that modern rarity, the bargain. Andre, having been a friend of the owner since his student days, knew the truth: the prices were extortionate, and the best stuff was always in the back.

  He pushed open the door and stepped over the supine body of the stuffed cat that never failed to deceive the unsuspecting visitor. “Hubert! Wake up! It’s your first customer of the day.”

  A grunt from behind a lacquered screen was followed by the appearance of the proprietor, a tall man—exceptionally tall for a Frenchman—with curly brown hair, eyes half closed against the smoke of the cigar between his lips. He was wearing a collarless white shirt and ancient pinstripe trousers held up by an equally ancient silk tie in colors that identified him as a member of the Marylebone Cricket Club.

  He removed his cigar, craning his head forward as he walked from the gloom to the front of the shop. “Is this who I think it is? The modern Lartigue? Tomorrow’s Cartier-Bresson? Or is it you, Andre, you salaud? What are you doing here?”

  Andre was given a Havana-scented hug before the big man held him at arm’s length and inspected him. “You’re too thin. But I forget—you live in New York, where there is nothing for a civilized man to eat. How are you?”

  “I’m well, Hubert. And you?”

  “Oh, scratching a living from the parched earth. Hand to mouth, as always.”

  “Still got the racehorse?”

  Hubert winked. “Three, but don’t tell Karine.”

  The two men compared recent histories, falling into the easy way of old friends: well-worn jokes, affectionate insults, gossip about shared acquaintances, speculation about their wives. It was half an hour before they got down to the purpose of Andre’s visit.

  Hubert listened attentively as Andre explained what he was looking for; then he nodded. “You’ve come to the right place, my friend.” He led Andre over to an old partners desk. “Here—have a look at these.” He pulled open the wide middle drawer and took out a large tray covered in moth-eaten velvet. With the smooth flourish of a conjuror producing a particularly noble white rabbit, he whisked away the covering. “Voilà. The best selection in Paris, although I say it myself.”

  Andre looked down through the haze of cigar smoke and whistled. “Where did you steal all those?”

  Hubert shrugged. “See anything there you like?”

  Andre looked more closely at the rows of small silver photograph frames, all in the Art Nouveau style, the fluid, beautifully worked curves smooth and gleaming and soft. Hubert had put sepia photographs in each of them—Dietrich, Garbo, Piaf, Jeanne Moreau, Bardot—and there, given pride of place in the center of the tray, was exactly what he wanted. A little bigger than the rest, it was a perfect reproduction of the iron signs above every Métro station. Set into the design was one word in simple capital letters: PARIS. And smiling out of the frame, her spit curl making a black crescent on her forehead, was Josephine Baker. Andre picked it up, feeling the heaviness of the silver and the silky nap of the backing. “I like this,” he said.

  Instantly, Hubert the friend was replaced by Hubert the professional antique dealer, preparing his customer for the shock of the price. “Ah, yes. What an eye you have, Andre. Very few of those were made—I’ve only seen two in the past five years, and you hardly ever find them in such perfect condition. It’s all original, even the glass.” The big man nodded, putting his arm around Andre’s shoulder and squeezing. “And for you, I throw in the photograph for nothing.”

  The price—Hubert mentioned it sorrowfully, as though it had been imposed against his will by a higher authority—was all that Andre had expected and took all the money that he had with him. The frame was gift-wrapped in a page torn from that day’s edition of Le Monde, and, business concluded, Andre borrowed a hundred francs from his friend and went to celebrate his purchase with a glass of wine in the café Flore.

  The frame heavy in the pocket of his jacket, he sat watching the evening parade on the boulevard, looking forward to the sight of Lulu’s face when he gave it to her. He smiled at the thought, feeling a surge of happiness. It was wonderful to watch her fall in love with Paris.

  “Is the traffic always like this?” Lucy and Cyrus were inching their way down the Rue Saint-Honoré in a taxi, the driver’s irritated monotone providing a commentary on the stupidity of other drivers, on the gendarmes who only added to the congestion, on the impossibility of earning a living under such conditions. They didn’t need to understand the words; it was the cabdriver’s lament, an international hymn of woe, the same in every big city in the world.

  Cyrus paid him off at the corner of the Rue Royale, leaving him like a cork in a bottle as they finished the rest of the journey on foot. A hundred yards behind them, Paradou got out of his car and saw them turn left into the Place Vendôme. Unable to move, unable to leave, he got back in the car and banged the horn i
n frustration.

  “Now, my dear,” said Cyrus, as they walked toward the great column commemorating Napoleon’s military triumphs, “I’m not going to take you anywhere near Armani, and it’s for your own good. See his shop over there? The ruin of many a credit rating. I’m always astonished by—”

  “Cyrus, wait.” Lucy took his arm, pulling him into a doorway. She nodded in the direction of the main entrance to the Ritz, where a black Mercedes had stopped at the bottom of the steps. A man and a woman wearing dark glasses stood by the open trunk, watching the luggage being unloaded, the woman a head taller than her companion. “I know her,” said Lucy. “That’s the woman who runs the magazine, Camilla.”

  Cyrus looked intently at the couple. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “I know the man with her. That’s Rudolph Holtz.” Rubbing his jaw and frowning, he watched them go up the steps and into the hotel. “Would you be very disappointed if we gave the Ritz a miss? I think we’d better go back to the hotel and find Andre. Come on—I’ll tell you about Holtz on the way.”

  Paradou drove twice around the Place Vendôme, parked, and walked around again before accepting the fact that he’d lost them. He stopped in front of the Ritz and looked at his watch. Unless Holtz had been delayed, he would be there by now. He and his seventy-five thousand. Merde, what a day! Squaring his shoulders and cursing his bladder, he ran up the steps and into the hotel.

  Camilla was making the two calls she made by habit as soon as she arrived in any hotel: champagne from room service, and a dear little person from housekeeping to take away all her important clothes for a quick sponge and press. She was feeling more like her old self now, after a journey during which Holtz’s mood had improved greatly, as it always did when things were going his way. And although he hadn’t gone into any of the details, it was clear that he anticipated good news. One could tell from the fact that he tipped the hotel staff instead of pretending they weren’t there. He was on the phone now, chattering away in that marvelous French of his, as the champagne arrived. Putting a glass in front of him on the table, Camilla glanced out of the window at one of her favorite views; the Armani boutique here was such a joy. She’d pop across tomorrow morning while Rudi was having his massage.