by Janice Law
“Nonsense,” she said. “I know that you would make yourself useful. My son is learning English. You could help him and he could help you. And my brother, Jules”—she hesitated a moment—“he always needs a hand with some project or other. Does that sound too difficult?”
“It sounds charming,” I said. “I am truly grateful.”
The next morning, as soon as I finished some textile designs for Armand, I took the train toward Fontainebleau and the small town where Madame Dumoulin had a fine stone house, stout and square, painted the palest yellow with gray-green shutters and a red tile roof. I was to have a room of my own, and both the food and the company were excellent. I sat down promptly at my table to send Nan my address.
My dear Nan,
I have fallen into a great piece of luck. My gallery-going friend has invited me to stay. Madame Dumoulin is a widow whose husband was killed in the very last month of the war. He left her several rental properties as well as the family home and everything about the household is agreeable. Besides Madame, there is her son, Luc, thirteen. If you can, please send me on any one of the Herbert Strang annuals as that would be a good English text for him.
There is also Jules, Madame’s brother. He is much younger than Madame and was “unsettled” as she puts it by the war.
I paused for a moment, uncertain what to say about Jules, who I liked but who was certainly peculiar enough to defeat any easy assessment. He was big and handsome like Madame but troubled by a cough and spells of weakness that made me think he had been gassed. Despite these problems, he was restlessly active both mentally and physically. He rose early every morning. If there were repairs to be made at any of the rented properties, he set out with his tool kit, and if it was collection day, he took a purse and returned with the rents. Otherwise, he retired to the old horse barn for his current project, because he needed to be working with his hands nearly every waking minute.
He had started, Madame said, right after he was demobilized with carving spoons—hundreds of them. Then he turned wooden bowls by the dozens, one for every house in the village. For a time he made boats, canoes and dinghies and little sailing craft, one of which still lay under a tarp in a disused stall. After that it was furniture, chiefly chairs that were neatly made and ornamented with curious designs. They populated the bedrooms, including mine.
There had been a kite phase, too, including box kites of amazing size and complexity, as well as fighting kites, designed to be maneuverable enough to cut the strings of opponents’ fliers. Some of these were painted with exotic designs in bright colors, others, which I found a bit peculiar, carried the features of favorite singers and actresses copied from press and program photographs pasted in his voluminous scrapbooks.
But recently he had embarked on some more interesting, if more troubling, creations: elaborate machines, beautifully made of wood and metal, that performed meaningless tasks. One, when wound up, hammered pegs into holes. This was in progress when I arrived, and Jules was putting the finishing touches on the pegs, shaping them into little figures of soldiers. I was enlisted to paint their uniforms.
There was another machine that dug up earth at the front and filled it in back at the rear. It moved in a circular track and turned up bits of bone and metal. And there was a miniature artillery piece that shot pellets across the room before collapsing to open like a flower. At the press of the button, it closed up again and was ready to reload. These sinister toys were occupying him more and more, Madame said, and who knew what that meant. You can see why I found it hard to give Nan a complete account of Jules Dumoulin.
Sometimes, Jules needed an assistant, and I qualified, having worked with Armand, although there were never going to be any frolics in the workshop with Jules. At least I don’t think so. He seemed very taken with certain female entertainers, although occasionally when we were alone, he acted as if we shared some big secret. What might that be but for certain preferences? Maybe so, but, fortunately, he was not my type. The Dumoulin household was as close to living in a happy family as I was ever going to get, and I intended to be the perfect guest, unexceptionable and agreeable in every way.
So I frequently spent my mornings sanding pieces of wood or painting designs or holding various struts and cables, work I found interesting, because Jules talked at length if he had a receptive audience. His eyes alight, his long, clever hands in motion, his handsome face animated, he would explain the construction of a mortise or the proper dimensions of a kite, or some other matter that had caught his attention. I thought that he must have been destined for the classroom before he became “unsettled.”
Thanks to his humorous turns of phrase, I began to understand French jokes and metaphors, and I picked up an assortment of odd facts and ideas. Jules had a magpie mind that seized on everything unusual, from stories in the local press to formulas in his late brother-in-law’s math or engineering books. Usually, I found no connections among these tidbits, but I suspect he did, for he was very clever and often wore a sly, inward sort of smile as if he understood something no one else did.
That was Jules when he was in the mood, smart and amusing, a born teacher, potentially a success in half a dozen fields. But sometimes the workshop remained shut, and he was a different man altogether, his restless energy switched off like a light. He would sink into the torpor that worried Madame, rousing himself only to play cards: obsessive games of solitaire if he was alone, poker or bridge if there was company.
Madame, solicitous of her brother in most ways, was bored by cards, so on those days, Jules and I played poker for kitchen matches, and I gradually learned to play well enough to be distracting, if not amusing. For this, Madame was grateful. I didn’t know how Jules had occupied himself at these times before I arrived, but playing cards for matches was apparently an improvement.
“He was such a sweet boy,” she said to me one day. “And then the war.”
I had no real idea of the war, just of the aftermath. That was bad enough.
“We cannot judge,” she added.
I nodded. Certainly my own life would have been easier with that doctrine.
We play cards, I wrote to Nan, knowing she would enjoy that, being very sharp at bridge, and he is very much a gentleman. That would also please her, the one conventional thing about my old nanny being her insistence on courtesy. Very properly, too, as one gets away with a lot if one’s manners are impeccable. Leaving Jules as an “unsettled gentleman,” I closed my letter to Nan and began one to my mother. Madame Dumoulin had already written one to her—No, no, Francis, I must, of course, write to Madame Bacon. She must be assured that you are in a respectable household. She will naturally be concerned.
As far as concern went, I thought that she should really write to Nan, but I put her note, along with a translation, into the envelope with my latest letter to Mother. I didn’t write often—and neither did she—but I wanted an advance on my allowance so I could buy some little gifts for the household. In the meantime, I earned my keep with English lessons, charm, and card games, and I visited the neighborhood cafés only in the company of Jules, whose well-known eccentricities and his supposed eye for the ladies kept me on the straight and narrow.
Such careful living paid off. Mon français developed quickly. Soon I was having easy conversations about complicated paintings with Madame and even negotiating a better deal with Armand for the piecework I collected every Thursday when I escorted Madame to Paris. Even Luc’s English picked up after Nan sent me two annuals, The Adventures of Harry Rochester and Round the World in Seven Days.
Madame was checking her mail when I opened the parcel. I’d expected a new book. These were both old and well used.
She saw my face. “What is it, Francis?”
I opened one and showed her the still half-formed handwriting inside: This book belongs to Francis.
“Oh, it was yours. Would you rather keep these and not give them to
Luc?”
“No, I am delighted. I think he will enjoy them. But Madame, Nan saved these for years. She does not have a big trunk.”
Madame understood at once and put her hand on my shoulder. “And my parents let her go,” I said and walked out into the garden. Half an hour later, it was Jules who came out, cigarette in hand. “There is a thought,” he said, “that time and space are one thing not two.” With this preliminary, he proceeded to explain a difficult and obscure theory concerning clocks and the speed of light and the immensity of space, of which only the idea of immensity has stayed with me. “I find the universe comforting,” he said. “The bigness of it. My sister finds all that horrible, I mean the infinite distances, the innumerable stars.”
He glanced at me and I shrugged.
“To think that we and our sorrows and troubles and sins are as motes in the sun consoles me.” He took another drag on his cigarette and watched the smoke spiral above the roses. “Of course, one cannot think of such things too often,” he added, and I understood that in his own way he was sympathetic.
“Maybe one should not think too much about anything,” I said.
“Maybe one should go for a drink.”
I agreed this was a capital idea and we set off for the café where normally Jules flirted with the pretty waitress and exchanged gossip with the locals. Monsieur Jules was popular, and now that my French was better, I could see that his odd habits and obsessive enthusiasms counted among the notable features of the neighborhood, right up beside a few historic houses, fine gardens, and superlative bloodstock. “What are you up to these days, Monsieur Jules,” was the usual greeting, and when he was in fine form, Jules was happy to oblige, being a sort of one-man lecture institute.
But that particular night he returned greetings with a friendly wave, took a seat in the shadowed courtyard, and nursed a vin blanc. He had learned from Madame Dumoulin of my plan to set up in London with Nan, and after a long silence, he told me I should by all means pursue what he termed my “interesting course.” “A man needs to be independent,” he said, “and that means money.”
I had to agree, though anyone seemingly less concerned with money than Jules would be hard to find.
Perhaps he read my thoughts, for he said, “I’ve spent too long on my various projects without bringing any of them to profit. Even when I might have. Do not make my mistake.”
He looked terribly gloomy, and I ventured to remark that he was still young.
“Indeed,” he said. “And I have some thoughts in mind to change my way of life. It is time.”
“Timing is all,” I agreed. He ordered more wine, and we had a long and deep discussion about timing and time and independence and other topics and agreed so well that I decided that in my next letter to Nan, I would tell her that Jules was a fine chap.
Chapter Four
For six weeks, everything was lovely in the garden, as Nan would say, and I count my time at Madame Dumoulin’s as one of my happiest. But with my French vastly improved and my wallet still light, I decided to return to Paris, confident that Pyotr’s sinister friends would have given up and that it would be safe to return to my favorite cafés and usual habits. I told Madame Dumoulin I needed a job and more contacts in the design business. For those, I needed Monsieur Armand.
She kissed me on both cheeks in the French manner and asked me to come once a month for Sunday dinner and to meet her as usual on Thursdays at the galleries. I was delighted to agree. I caught a train to Paris with a light heart, convinced, contrary to all my experience, that I was set for smooth sailing.
And at first, everything went swimmingly. The cafés were still full of the rich and idle, some of whom were happy to make my life agreeable. With my new command of the language, I was able to follow the artistic debates at Le Select and the other cafés favored by painters, even if I was too shy to contribute. Work was fine, too. Armand had suffered a romantic setback during my absence and now recognized my virtues. He raised my pay by a few francs and assigned me the preliminary designs for rugs with the promise of a crack at some furniture designs. Since I’d been coached by Jules on the finer points of chair construction, I anticipated no problems there.
Weeks passed in this pleasant manner. I saw no sign of Pyotr or the sinister Russians. I built up a portfolio and cultivated Philip, a wealthy English antiques dealer, who I hoped might help me to a studio in London. After my hand-to-mouth existence in Berlin, Paris in the spring was everything I could desire. I dispatched postcards by the handful to Nan and began to imagine us both in London before winter.
Naturellement, as Armand would say, such good fortune couldn’t last, and I was not totally surprised when it didn’t. I shouldn’t have been surprised by the agent of misfortune either, but I was, which showed that I don’t always have as much foresight as I like to think. In any case, complications did not arrive with a thunderclap. Rather, what became big problems crept in with a stealthy accumulation of small incidents. The first came when I was at a small café with my English antique dealer. Philip was a familiar type: rich and free spending abroad; timid and discreet at home. I saw him as promising and presented myself as a discerning “gentleman’s gentleman,” adding a few years to my age in hopes of seeming more stable and sophisticated.
Whether that ploy worked or not, I soon found that he was interested in new art, and there, I could oblige. Thanks to Madame Dumoulin, I knew every select gallery, and, thanks to my excursion to the Beehive, I had lines to a number of studios. In return, Philip took me out for fine dinners with expensive wine, so that my palate, neglected since the Hotel Adlon of delightful memory, began to revive. We strolled the boulevards and took in racy vaudeville shows and saw many performances by the remarkable aerialist Barbette. All this was good.
Even better was the fact that the four- and five-star restaurants Philip favored were unlikely to attract undesirables like Igor and the Cossacks from the Beehive. I felt safe with Philip, and I began to let down my guard. Mistake! One evening, we were having an aperitif at a modest café, preparatory for what Philip liked to call “a night on the town,” when I looked over and saw, to my alarm—better make that to my horror—a shock of dyed red hair, a tatty beret, an ill-cut French suit: my uncle Lastings.
I’d last seen him on a train out of the Weimar Republic, when the old hypocrite had the nerve to congratulate me for traveling at official expense—as if deportation were a species of Cook’s tour. He’d already become French by then, which was no doubt the safest way for him to leave Berlin, and he’d hinted at plans, no doubt as fraudulent as his last scheme, that had very nearly gotten us murdered.
Had he seen me? I feared he had. Know your terrain was one of his catchphrases, and I have to say that, like a good soldier, the old bastard rarely let himself be taken by surprise. But he was French now and might not want to recognize his Anglo-Irish nephew. That was my hope, along with getting off to dinner as fast as possible. I glanced at Philip in a meaningful way and made to rise, but he’d begun a conversation with the adjoining table. Philip’s French was excellent (another attraction in my view) and he had a friendly, open manner that I guessed made him successful in a trade that relies as much on plausibility as provenance.
The few remarks they exchanged were just time enough for Uncle Lastings to put some coins on the saucer, push back his chair, and approach our table. I was prepared to deny our acquaintance when, to my surprise, he greeted Philip enthusiastically.
“Ah, bon soir, Claude,” Philip replied, rising to shake my uncle’s hand.
Claude! My foot.
“And this is Francis, who has been showing me the little galleries known only to Parisians and clever art students.”
“Bon soir, Francis,” he said and gave my hand a little extra squeeze. He really was incorrigible. I have to admit that my uncle’s accent passed muster. For the moment, he was not my lecherous uncle but a Frenchman named Cl
aude who had some business in mind and whose French was almost too rapid for me to follow.
“A boule chest?” I heard Philip say. “Ormolu mounts? Those do very well in London—if pre-1830.”
Here, Claude shrugged. “Might be later, but the ormolu is the real thing. Not every workshop obeyed the mercury prohibition, you know.”
“Indeed.” Philip gave a little laugh. “What would our trade be with strict legality? Genuine ormolu, yes, I might be interested. Francis and I might come and have a little look.”
“D’accord,” said my uncle, and when he thought Philip wasn’t looking, he gave me a wink. Uncle Lastings had something up his sleeve all right, and I was unsurprised when I spotted him outside Armand’s studio two days later. He was standing under a chestnut tree smoking one of his vile Gauloises.
“Francis!”
“Uncle Lastings. Or am I to call you Claude?”
“Needs must. It’s Claude at the moment.”
“And what do you want?”
“Now, now, let us not drop family feeling along with the name,” my uncle said, and he took my arm. “I want a little advice, as it turns out, and I’ll treat you to a slap-up meal in exchange. Though I can see that you’re doing all right for yourself. As I knew you would, my boy. Did I not say that you were remarkable?”
I was in no mood for my uncle’s cynical flattery. “Why do you wear that horrible suit? And the dyed hair. Red is not a good color for you.”
“I see I never discussed deep cover with you, Francis. Of course, your uncle Lastings would never appear in anything but Savile Row and his own hair. But Claude is someone else entirely.”
I wasn’t so sure of that. I figured that, dye job or not, he was certainly up to something.
Just the same, he got us a good dinner. My uncle shared Pyotr’s talent for finding modest restaurants with excellent kitchens. We had salads and rabbit and a good wine plus a handsome gateau, and I was beginning to warm to my uncle when he remarked, “Philip thinks well of you.”