“I think it’s time we talk about what’s mine.” Simone stepped inside and closed the door behind her.
Walters thought he’d heard it wrong. “Say that again.”
“Some time ago, William agreed to help me set up my own modeling agency. But he’s gone now and it’s obvious you want me to get out of your hair. I think it’s only fair that you give me back what I’ve invested in this place, this gallery I’ve helped you build,” Simone stated, loud and clear, like she’d practiced many times.
For a long silent moment, Walters searched Simone’s face, as if trying to recall from his deepest memory where and when he’d ever met the woman in front of him. His blood began to simmer, quickly reaching the boiling point, rushing up to his head and thrashing against his scalp with the force of a volcano ready to erupt. A scene played out in front of him—he would clamp his hands around Simone’s bloodless neck, clutching her throat tighter and tighter while he watched her life drain away. Heavenly satisfaction glowed in his chest . . .
“Wes, did you hear what I said? I’ll never kill you, killing you is too easy. You’ll live as the wanted drug dealer who is responsible for many lost lives in your own country. You’ll suffer more in jail than in death.” A woman was speaking to him. She looked and sounded like Madam Jin.
Walters shook his head like a wet dog. He blinked his eyes and Madam Jin was gone. But he couldn’t blink Simone away. She was still there, studying him as if he possessed two heads.
“Yes, I heard you,” he said. Get a hold of yourself. You’re in control, you can squish her like a fly. He glanced at the Rolex watch on his wrist and said calmly, “Look, I have some business to take care of, why don’t you go and do what you have to do for the day and we’ll talk about this later.”
“O-kay.” Simone sounded unsure, but her posture visibly relaxed. She quietly retreated from Walters’s office as he sunk into a state of deep thinking.
Walters waited until Simone closed the door behind her. The nerve of that bitch. He rose and went to his desk. He pulled out the center drawer, shuffling pieces of paper around until he found what he was looking for. He picked up the phone on his desk and dialed the number on the business card. He never thought he’d be calling this number again. “Mr. La Croix, André La Croix, please.”
In a couple of minutes, Walters had secured an appointment with André in Cartier’s Paris office the next day. It was easy, he’d told André he was considering commissioning the Cartier House to fashion a piece of art, this time for the W Gallery. After that, Walters got on his desktop and reserved a first-class ticket to Paris, leaving in the late evening. Then he buzzed Simone on the internal line. “I just realized I’m running out of clean shirts. Could you do me a favor and run around the corner to pick up my dry cleaning?”
A moment later, he heard the front door open and shut. The walls were closing in on him, the walls of women, they’d been his enemies since the day he was born. His plan was risky, but he had no choice. It was time he took care of all these bitches once and for all.
*
New York City, the same day
Back in her apartment, Simone felt restless and queasy. When she had gotten back to the W Gallery with the dry cleaning, Walters had just put his coat on and was ready to walk out the door. “Out for lunch?” she’d asked.
“No. Something’s come up and I’ll be away for a few days,” he said vaguely, grabbing the dry cleaning from her.
“Where?”
“It doesn’t concern you. Since when do I have to tell you where I am every minute of the day?” His eyes drilled into hers. They had that dark glare, familiar yet terrifying.
“But . . .” she stammered.
“But what? Oh, I know, don’t worry, you’ll get your share in this place back. Soon, I promise.” His voice was a hushed echo, like a ghost whispering in the still of the night.
Dread had taken root in her stomach and was now branching into full-blown anxiety, choking off oxygen to her internal organs, cutting off blood-flow to her head. Was she naïve to have believed for a minute that Walters was willing to accept her demand unconditionally? Or was she simply paranoid, having lived in Walters’s dark world for so long that she had forever lost her soul?
Various scenarios and possibilities tortured Simone until her head was pounding with a giant headache. She couldn’t sit at the gallery until normal closing time. So, she locked up early and went home. Once inside her apartment she’d opened a bottle of wine, downed a couple of glasses, then soaked in a warm bath. But the pressure in her gut and head remained just as crushing, waves of queasiness thrashing bile into her throat and mouth.
Before she had left the gallery, Simone had gone into Walters’s office, hoping to find some clue as to where he was disappearing to. His desktop was shut down tight, no way she’d ever be able to hack into the system. He guarded his passwords like his most expensive art. Then she found a single piece of paper in the wastebasket. Walters must have tossed the piece of paper that morning. It appeared to be the last page of an airline reservation confirmation, stating flight cancelation and change policies. But on top there was a line cut off from the previous page, showing the returning date of a flight from Charles de Gaulle, Paris to JFK, New York City.
Why did he suddenly want to go to Paris? Simone wrapped herself in a bathrobe and went to the kitchen. She took the glass and the half-empty bottle of wine she’d left on the counter and padded to the living room. She sank into an armchair near the window. Another glass of wine emptied quickly, whooshing through her veins, warming her blood. The pressure in her head seemed to be easing. She poured another, the bottle almost empty, anyway. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d polished off a bottle of wine this quickly. It had to have been when she was still roommates with the cockroaches, before she’d met Walters. She was going to be bombed tonight and she didn’t care. Perhaps Wes had gone to Paris for legitimate business reasons. He often attended auctions and special art exhibitions. But if that were true, she would have known. He always coordinated his business travel through her and she’d have made notes on her calendar. What else then? Could it be that French slut . . .?
Funny how a brain drowning in booze worked, throwing Simone’s senses into a twilight zone between hallucination and reality. She saw herself in the lobby of the Crystal Palace Residence on the day William died. She’d called him earlier, left several voice messages telling him she needed to talk to him before he went back to London. William had answered her call but said he couldn’t talk and would call her back later. At around six p.m. that day she decided she’d go to William’s penthouse. Chances of him being there were quite good, usually William would be primping himself for his evening out. She had ample time to talk to him before her scheduled dinner with Walters and that group of Chinese artists at the 21 Club a few blocks away.
She’d passed the front entrance to the Crystal Palace Residence, about to round the corner to the private entrance reserved for the penthouse residents when she caught her eye on a woman walking toward her. It didn’t take long for Simone to recognize the woman—Gerel, in a long camel coat and felt hat, the same outfit she’d worn to the ceremony at the Tate. Simone turned immediately to a boutique window, pretending to browse the merchandise on display. She waited until Gerel passed and decided to trail her from a safe distance. Gerel proceeded to the front entrance of the Crystal Palace Residence. The doorman pulled the giant pewter-paneled door open for her. She went in. Simone hastened her steps toward the entrance and the same door was pulled open again. She stepped into the lobby and stopped in her tracks. A few yards ahead, William greeted Gerel with a kiss on her cheek. He was wearing that herringbone coat Simone always liked to see him in, with its collar half upturned. Simone watched the two walk through the lobby. As they approached the elevator corridor, they stopped in front of a giant flower arrangement. William put his hand on the woman’s back as she stepped around the vase, seemingly admiring the grand French crystal that held
the flower arrangement.
That French whore! Simone stood frozen, her teeth clenching her lower lip until her mouth was filled with the metallic taste of blood. The entrance door behind her opened again, the person who walked in almost bumping into her. She mumbled a sorry and hurried out.
She never told that to anybody. The next day, when they found William dead in his own bed, she certainly was not going to tell the police that she’d set foot in the Crystal Palace Residence lobby just hours before William’s death. But Simone remembered the anger she’d felt toward Gerel that evening, and it was boiling up again. That bitch had robbed Simone of her future, luring William away with her dark everything—her hair, her eyes, her skin, all seemed to work up the dark magic that William could not resist.
But what about Wesley Walters? Didn’t he have more to lose because of Gerel? Whether Simone liked it or not, there was a time that Wes and William seemed to have genuinely cared for each other. But their bond began to falter the moment Gerel came on the scene, igniting a spark that ultimately burned down everything Wes had planned and carefully built around himself. He’d lost his lover and the W Gallery had lost its most significant patron. Wes had to be just as mad.
Maybe Wes went to Paris to confront Gerel, to even the score. Maybe he found out that bitch had already put her claws into William’s fortune before he died. Good for him, Gerel deserves to be punished, she deserves to die . . . Simone emptied rest of the wine into her glass. Everything around seemed fuzzy, she felt good.
Someone was knocking softly on the door. Who could be looking for her in the middle of the afternoon on a workday? She ignored it, hoping whoever it was would go away. But the knocking continued, louder and more urgent. With a sigh, Simone heaved herself up and wobbled across the living room. She opened the door. A dark figure stood in the dim hallway. She squinted her blurry eyes. The figure came into focus. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I’m delivering this.” He waved a little piece of paper in front of her and pushed in.
Chapter 19
Normandy, France, present day
The walk back home was beautiful. Looking west from the impossibly wide beach, the sparkling blue water ran into the distant cliffs. The air was warm and moist, full of the promise of early spring. The setting sun, minutes ago a giant fireball, was now a mere ray of pale light melting into the grey horizon. The sand stretched ahead of her, not a soul around, not even the lone seagull who’d been her intermittent companion for the past two days. The quiet was pure, except for the rhythmic sound of waves, the sound of nature.
If only my life could be this simple and serene, thought Gerel.
She had finished reading the story of Sarnai and her life with Priest Jacques Bernard the previous evening. Sleep didn’t claim her at night. The last moments of Jacques Bernard’s life flashed in front of her eyes again and again. Dragged out of his cage, they beat him again until his entire body was covered in blood, yet he rose and walked to the execution ground on his own. When asked if he wanted to die for his Christian faith, his last words were “He Who gives us life demands that we should take reasonable care of His gift. But if danger comes to us, then happy are those who are found worthy to suffer for His dear sake.”
And die he did. In the darkness of the night, Gerel wept for Jacques Bernard, she wept for Sarnai. She couldn’t imagine what it was like for Sarnai to watch the man she loved being beheaded. Did Jacques know before he died that Sarnai was bearing his child? Had they ever dreamed of a life together in a place where they would not be persecuted, and their love not forbidden? Gerel had long stopped believing God. A benevolent God would never have let her maman throw herself in front of that giant black truck. A kind God would never have made her father desert a woman who’d loved him so deeply. Sarnai must have prayed for God to protect Jacques. Was she disappointed when God didn’t answer her prayer? So many questions, and the answers to them Gerel knew may never be found.
Gerel had gotten up when dawn cast the first opaque light on the glass panes of the French doors in her bedroom. Two cups of strong French roast later, she became keenly aware that the life of Sarnai and Jacques was not just some epic story, it was part of the Garnier family history. Their blood, after almost two centuries, was still coursing through her. Yet the irony was not lost on Gerel that generations of Garniers before her, all self-proclaimed men of science according to her father, had no idea that part of their DNA came from two people of deep faith, one of them a man of God.
At the kitchen table, Gerel had flipped open her laptop. She Googled the name Jacques Bernard. There’s got to be something about him. The search returned only several entries, each providing unexpected, if not startling, revelations of historical importance.
Father Jacques Bernard was beheaded due to unlawful preaching of Christianity in China.
The French government considered the torture suffered by Father Bernard, his cruel death, a blatant violation of France’s honor and dignity. The country soon joined Britain in the second Opium War against China. Some say Father Jacques Bernard was the priest who helped start a war.
In October 2000, Pope John Paul II canonized St. Jacques Bernard.
One entry caught Gerel’s special attention—Jacques Bernard was born in a small farming village in Northern Normandy, only a couple of kilometers away from Gerel’s villa. Right away Gerel had decided to go there, on foot, traversing through the land Jacques Bernard might’ve wandered around as a little boy and a young farmer.
For more than eight hours, Gerel had combed the ancient village, the market halls, the museum, the cathedral. There was no trace of Jacques Bernard and nobody seemed to know that their little village had once produced a saint. Finally, she’d gotten a little piece of information at an old bistro. The elderly owner behind the cash register told her she might find what she was looking for at a parish in Boucey, Basse-Normandie, about one hundred and fifty kilometers away.
That would have to wait for another day. But she’d go to Boucey soon, Gerel had promised herself. Strange, she’d thought her lineage tracing had ended in China. Now it looked like that had been only the beginning. The circle would most likely close here at home, in Normandy.
Dusk was falling precipitously. The air had turned cool and wet. Rain could start falling any minute. Gerel quickened her steps. Soon she’d rounded a curved low hill and the silhouette of her villa came into view. For a second, she thought she saw something move on the protruding balcony. She blinked, all was motionless. It could be her friend the seagull flying away, tired of waiting for the occasional breadcrumbs she left on the balcony.
Before she entered the villa, Gerel scanned the surroundings. All was quiet, nothing seemed to have been disturbed. Large rain drops began to fall, she hurried inside.
She turned on all the lights downstairs but they didn’t chase away the chill in the air. She lit a fire and sank into the armchair by the fireside, and for the first time in a long time, she felt rather lonely.
She’d been alone since her mother died. She’d physically lived under the same roof with her father for another eight years, but her mother’s death had shattered her innocence. At age ten she could sense her father’s emotional restraint and indifference. At eighteen, she’d confirmed her father’s reticence. He didn’t want her, he didn’t want her to have been born. Her coming into the world meant the end of the Garnier family bloodline unless he divorced his wife who could no longer bear his children. Gerel was a lonely soul ever since, and she’d gotten used to it.
“You’re so young, Gerel, you need to find someone special to share your life with,” André used to say to her. She’d love to, if she could have a relationship like André’s. They had been together for a loving decade before André’s partner died, and that was seven years ago. Since then André had never been with another man. “I’m convinced you can only have one true love. Hard to replace it once it’s gone,” André had concluded when it was Gerel’s turn to convince him to put h
imself out there, to find someone new. She’d envied André. He was the lucky one because he had truly loved, not too many people could have done that. She certainly had not. Maybe she was not capable of loving. Her own father didn’t just withhold his love for his daughter, he didn’t want her in the first place . . .
Sarnai came into Gerel’s thoughts again. Where did she go after Jacques’s death? She was left alone to raise her daughter while her husband must have been doing everything to hunt her down. Did she go back to her Manchu home? How did her parents receive a daughter who was bearing a western devil’s child? Sarnai didn’t tell that part of her life. Did Sarnai ever consider abortion before she’d risked her own life, made the choice to endure the adversity and hardship in order to save the unborn baby?
My parents took the easy way out. Gerel knew her mother had loved her, but in the end she chose to leave her daughter alone in the world. Gerel felt a stab of pain, like an old scar was being ripped open.
The fire roared in the hearth, warming her up. She pushed herself up and kicked off her hiking boots, still coated with wet sand. She shook herself out of the damp peacoat and tossed it on the sofa on the other side of the table, the one Ryan had sat in the previous day when he’d barged in on her again. Part of the peacoat caught on one corner of the table and slid off, knocking a bright red folder to the floor—the translated manuscript. She’d left it there after finishing Sarnai’s story. The next part of the transcript was a diary Meigui had kept while she was living in the Forbidden City. Gerel had planned to continue reading that day, but her internet discovery about Jacques Bernard had taken her on an unexpected all-day excursion. She should read it. Meigui might have answers to Gerel’s questions. And there was something else Gerel had been looking for. She’d like to know more about the red stone that Jacques had given to Sarnai, before Meigui inherited it from her mother, before it became the face of the Empress Seal. It could shed the burden of doubt that had been weighing Gerel down—did she do the right thing? What should she do next?
The Face of the Seal Page 23