The Clasp

by Sloane Crosley

  “Now there really isn’t any room at the inn,” he said.

  “I don’t know what to do.” She leaned her head on the dashboard. “We could drive straight to Tours-of-David-Arquette.”

  They had been intentionally mispronouncing each town name, lazily butchering them for their own amusement. Tourville-sur-Arques was the first to fall.

  “Hold up.” He consulted his phone, really thumbing through it.

  “Are you trying to tweet this?”

  “Take this.” Nathaniel held out the road map. “We get back onto the highway and make a right. We’re going to this spot. You navigate.”

  She accepted the map without looking at it, blinking at him. What useful information did the phone have now that it had withheld over the last couple of days?

  “Do you trust me?”

  “No.” She laughed as he put the car in reverse.

  An hour later they were going up a steep wooded driveway that tested Nathaniel’s stick-driving skills. At the top, there was an immaculate stone mansion with awnings protruding from the entranceway. It was as nice a hotel as any she had seen. Everywhere there were strawberry plants dotted with little white flowers. In addition to the grander signs of luxury (a lion insignia on the entrance and lilacs perfuming the air), there was a polished plaque. This place was host to a three-star Michelin restaurant.

  “You must be joking.” She leaned forward in her seat.

  A deer came springing past them with a speckled fawn behind her.

  “I can’t expense this and I don’t know what those SAG checks are paying you . . .”

  “That’s the Screen Actors Guild.”

  “So?”

  “So I’m a writer.”

  “Well, you must have cleaned up with your pilot.”

  He shrugged and bounced out of the car, opening her door for her.

  “Who are you?”

  “Follow me, m’lady.”

  As she walked beside him, she thought, for the first time really, of Caroline and Felix. This week had felt as if she were on someone else’s honeymoon (with triple the bickering and none of the sex). But this place? This place made her feel as if she were on Caroline and Felix’s honeymoon specifically.

  “Bonjour,” Nathaniel chirped to the man at the front desk, a guy their age with a middle part.

  “Bonsoir, monsieur. Comment puis-je vous aider?”

  “Sorry to barge into your establishment,” Nathaniel said.

  “Ce n’est pas grave, monsieur.”

  “I hate that expression,” he said to Kezia, pitching his voice up an octave. “Ce n’est pas grave, ce n’est pas grave. Of course it’s not grave. Nobody stabbed anybody.”

  “You’re embarrassing us,” she muttered.

  “Oui. Je m’appelle Nathaniel Healy et je voudrai une chambre pour le nuit.”

  “Apologies, sir, but the hotel is at capacity for tonight.”

  “See?” Kezia said. “Of course it is.”

  Now she was annoyed. She wasn’t brimming with bright ideas herself but not only was this detour a waste of time, it was psychologically damaging. She knew the feeling, having ordered enough four-hundred-dollar dinners, sat in front-row seats, and walked through VIP entrances with Rachel, only to come home at the end of the night and have her key stick in the lock and her ceiling leaking brown water onto a fresh pile of laundry.

  Nathaniel leaned his elbows on the desk.

  “Can you please check again? This should have all the information you need.”

  He put his cell phone on the desk like a gauntlet, brushing against a bellhop bell as he straightened. Kezia muffled it silent. The guy took the phone, a skeptic forced to look into a crystal ball. Then he handed it back to Nathaniel and asked them to excuse him while he disappeared through an oak door behind the desk. Nathaniel winked at her.

  “Do you have something in your eye?”

  “Do you have something up your butt?”

  The man returned with a second man following behind him, wearing the same charcoal uniform with two sets of brass buttons running down the chest like candy dots.

  “Apologies for keeping you waiting, Monsieur Healy. Bertrand will take your bags from your car and escort you to your suite. Please let us know if you have need of anything during your stay.”

  “Merci,” Nathaniel said, a self-satisfied grin blooming across his face. “Kezia, how old do you think this place is? Look at those ceiling carvings. I bet we’re standing in the servants’ quarters.”

  “What did you do?” Her mouth hung open.

  “Ah.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “I didn’t do anything. Caroline did. This is my officiant present. A deluxe supreme accommodation at any Markson hotel property in the world. All expenses paid. They don’t just own the chains in the United States. They have a couple of what’s-it-called hotels around the world. Trophy? Marquee?”

  “Vanity.”

  “Yeah, that.”

  “Oh my God.” She flung her arms around him. “And you used your golden ticket on us?”

  “Desperate times.” He shrugged. “I was going to use it to take a real girl to Singapore or something. But I guess you’ll do.”

  They followed Bertrand to their room, accessible via a private staircase so different from the Bates Motel staircase last night. Bertrand held open the door for them. The room was massive but understated with sponge-painted blue walls and groups of low white chairs in two clusters—one around the fireplace and the other beneath a painting that looked like a Cézanne and probably was. The ability to arrange furniture in circles, to create living rooms within living rooms, struck Kezia as a luxury greater than a dishwasher. Every inch of wall space she had in New York was spoken for by the backs of couches and chairs. Every bed she had slept in since graduation touched two walls at once, trapping every guy she had slept with since graduation against a hissing radiator pipe. You had to be a millionaire in New York to expose the back of your furniture.

  Nathaniel sprawled out on the bed.

  “I have an idea.” He bounced up and put his temple against the bedpost.

  “Normally I’d say I don’t want to hear your ideas, but after this”—she spun in a circle—“you may present whatever idea you wish.”

  “Let’s get shit-housed.”

  FORTY-TWO

  Victor

  As promised, this room had the exact layout of the one below it. There was a small, vintage-looking bed in the corner, custom-built to fit against the curve of the wall. Translucent curtains floated in and out of the open window. And just his luck—the entire circumference of the room was covered in exposed brick.

  He gingerly shut the door behind him, releasing the knob into the doorframe, and placed his duffel on the ground.

  “So this is where the magic happened,” he said, testing the sound of his own voice.

  He scratched the back of his head. Unless he had tripped a silent alarm—and he somehow doubted that people who raised billy goats also installed silent alarms—he had made it into the château undetected. Now it was time to hunt. He ran his fingers along the walls, hunting for a shift in brick texture. He was gonna have to feel up every brick in this room, hoping that the Nazi soldier wasn’t taller than him. None of the bricks were loose. He tried to keep track of the ones he had already checked, counting by touch like a blind man. He looked up at the ceiling, at the decorative plaster wreath that once had a chandelier hanging from the middle of it. Where was his necklace? That plaster wreath knew but it wasn’t telling. He had been raised by people who hid all their valuables in empty Ajax containers (his birth certificate had a permanent bend in it). None of this trick chest of drawers and pick a brick, any brick crap.

  Finally, he came to the side of the room with the bed. Victor got down on his hands and knees, inhaling dust. The legs of the bed had pinned the edge of an area rug up against the wall, blocking a row of bricks. Victor attempted to lift one of the legs and squeeze his body farther in. He pawed at the wall. H
e was running out of bricks. Then what? He would have to check again. He didn’t get this far to perform a half-assed brick-frisking. His fingers pushed against a clay corner.

  It made a sound like a mortar and pestle.

  He moved it back and forth like a loose tooth. Now he was flat on his stomach, reaching forward as he strained to remove the brick. He rested it on the carpet and plunged his hand into the space behind it. His hand searched, afraid, somehow, of being bitten. Nothing.

  Nothing.

  “Jewelry is as alive as whomever it touches.” He could hear Johanna say that, sitting in her windowsill, tropical breeze moving the ruffles on her shirt. He should have asked her while he had the chance: But what if no one ever gets to touch it? What then?

  He pulled his hand back to take a break and regroup. As he did, he grazed something. He looked in, squinting, and spied a small, flat object. He reached in as far as he could and held it between his fingers, bringing it closer to his face. It felt glossy, like a photograph. A clue, perhaps? His eyes came into focus. He couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing: A school photo of some kid in a Lacoste shirt, bowl cut, and braces, smiling like a schmuck.

  Then the door swung open and hit him right in his ass, knocking him flat.

  It took both Victor and the Ardurat girl a moment to process what was happening, for her to determine that Victor was a person and not a piece of furniture.

  She was wearing pajama pants and a tank top. She looked even younger to him now than she had spouting history. She had a terry-cloth headband wrapped around her face and her skin was shiny. She had gotten up to go to the bathroom and had come back to a man crawling under her bed, ass up.

  He saw himself perfectly through her eyes. Not just an intruder but the creepily gangly intruder with a battered face who had tagged on to her tour group. She covered her mouth with both hands and then dropped them immediately, flicking on the light.

  And then the screaming started.

  Victor had never experienced auditory slow motion before. It sounded like falling. He held his hand up in disagreement. He felt like he was blocking a bullet.

  Finally, she let out a sharp, short “Ah!” and slammed the door, shutting Victor inside. Now, with the lights on, certain teenage elements revealed themselves. The curtains were violet. There were pictures everywhere, clusters of friends at the beach, pieces of one-dimensional memorabilia, cards with inspirational quotes on them, dried roses that wouldn’t quite get flat. A gold chain hanging from a hook that read, ALEXIA.

  Victor brushed the curtains aside and looked out the window. The trellis had provided him with a ladder up to the hallway but even if he could reach it from here, he would break his neck trying to get back down the way he came up.

  Two sets of footsteps came thundering down the hallway.

  “Allô?” screamed Mr. Ardurat. “On appelle la police! Vous êtes armé? Vous m’entendez? Vous m’entendez!”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Victor shouted.

  He heard Mrs. Ardurat fumble with the desk drawer in the hallway. Victor watched the knob rattle, thinking he was about to receive his second beating in twenty-four hours. Instead, they locked him in.

  In the distance, the dogs were going berserk.

  “I’m not armed,” he offered. “I . . . je n’ais pas une gun. No gun. Pas de gun.”

  No one responded. Two sets of footsteps had moved away but one remained. Mr. Ardurat was manning Victor’s cell in the interim. It had been established that Victor didn’t have a gun but what about Mr. Ardurat?

  “I’ll wait here,” Victor said.

  Mr. Ardurat pounded the door once, hard, which Victor took as his cue to shut up. He sat on Alexia’s bed, holding the picture of some kid with a newly acquired Adam’s apple. The windowsill was covered with bottles of bright nail polish and plastic snow globes. He shook his head and almost laughed. All of this risk for a picture of some teenage girl’s crush. Though, looking at the photo, a thin retainer wire across the kid’s top teeth, he knew it was not only the necklace he had risked everything for. It was also his crush, so ancient that he had stopped considering if Kezia was ever really right for him. He was just so accustomed to the steady hum of wanting her. Her picture had hung in his heart for so long, he both couldn’t see it and couldn’t imagine the walls without it.

  The echo of Alexia’s voice came from downstairs, carrying with it a sustained panic. Frightened as he was, Victor felt awful. She probably thought he was rifling through her underwear drawer right this second. If he thought there was a chance the necklace was hiding in there, he probably would be. He put his head between his knees and exhaled.

  “I’m not a burglar,” he sputtered, “or a rapist. Pas de violate votre femme. I promise.”

  “Ferme la bouche.” Mr. Ardurat pounded on the door again. “Do not move, asshole.”

  It sounded like oh, soul.

  “Okay. But I can explain . . .”

  This was a lie. Ever since Florida, he’d felt himself on a path. Maybe not the right path, but, for once, a path. A single string of events so that getting his apartment keys copied for Matejo and getting the shit beaten out of him in Rouen felt like the same thing. They were all part of the necklace, as if the ghost of Guy de Maupassant and Johanna Castillo and Johanna’s aunt and Johanna’s aunt’s Nazi lover were all waiting for him somewhere, all counting on Victor to replace what they had lost, all promising to connect him with the world again.

  He had an explanation, but that was different from being able to explain.

  FORTY-THREE

  Nathaniel

  The menu at the hotel restaurant was wrapped in leather straps with a sprig of lavender tucked into the central knot. It wouldn’t loosen, so he pushed the entire thing against his abdomen and tried to pull the straps down from the side. Kezia held her fist to her face, snickering, fingers resting beneath her nostrils.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” She shook her head.

  “Where’s the wine list?” He took stock of the table. “It’ll be the one with the padlock on it.”

  She tugged at one of the straps on her own menu and it obediently unfurled. Then she leaned over and did his, too. After days of car food, a Michelin-star menu was almost too extensive to absorb. Black salmon with crisp vegetable shoots. Rabbit stuffed with artichokes and olives. Fois gras with diced figs. Pig’s foot with spicy mustard and mussels. Roasted duck fillet with sautéed carrots and turnips. Prawns in a chutney mousse garnished with monkfish puree, Coco de Paimpol beans, and lemon-fried oysters. There was a separate page with a cheeseboard. He had consumed more dairy in four days in France than he had in one year in Los Angeles. The last page featured only two desserts: a Grand Marnier soufflé and something having the audacity to call itself a “blue plum ball.”

  Kezia looked at the menu as if deciding where to make the first incision. When a waiter came to alleviate her confusion, she was prepared with so many questions, Nathaniel thought she might ask what “sautéed” meant.

  He sat back in his chair. “I like that you eat meat.”

  “I’m glad.” She unfolded her napkin into an unwieldy tent.

  By the time their food arrived, they had each downed two martinis and were working on their wine, constantly replenished and impossible to tell how much was being consumed. Their dishes came with sauce smeared in quotation marks on the plate.

  “You know what we should play?” He tossed a mussel shell into an empty bowl.

  “I’m afraid I’m about to find out.”

  “All my ideas are brilliant tonight.”

  “True.” She put her palms up. “I cede the floor.”

  “Fuck, marry, or kill.”

  “I ceded too much. I de-cede.”

  “Come on. You love riddles.”

  “Fuck, marry, or kill is not a riddle. This is a riddle: A man is found dead in a room with fifty-three bicycles. Who is he and how did he die?”

  “The man is a gambler who got caught
cheating. There are fifty-two cards in a deck of Bicycle playing cards, so his opponent figured he had an extra up his sleeve and murdered him.”

  She pulled a pin from her hair and twisted a tendril of it.

  “Fine.” She squinted. “You go first.”

  He wondered if he was squinting, too. He was buzzed and he was twice her size.

  “Caroline, Paul, Victor.”

  “I hate this game. Let the record show that I hate it. Okay. Well, I can’t kill Caroline or else who’s going to pay for dinner?”

  “The literal approach.” He clinked her glass. “I like it.”

  “So it’s obviously fuck Caroline, marry Paul, and kill Victor.”

  “You are so bad at this. It is obviously marry Caroline, fuck Victor, and kill Paul.”

  “Explain,” she said, her voice muffled by a wineglass as wide as her face.

  “Caroline for the money. You’d be set for life. Paul because I love Paul—we all love Paul—”

  “A couple of months ago, you called him a dilettante.”

  “What? I did not. I don’t think he’s a dilettante. I just think you would have a boring marriage to Paul. And Victor is . . . Victor is very tall. If you get my meaning.”

  “Oh, stop it.”

  “I lived with the man. That wavy shower glass only covers so much.”

  “Please stop.”

  “You think he’d be a more confident dude is all.”

  “No, you’d think that because guys care about one another’s penis size more than women do.”

  “Your turn.”

  “Fine.” She popped a little carrot into her mouth. “Bean—”

  “Done. No matter who else you say, I’m gonna fuck Bean.”

  She snorted deeply. He signaled for another bottle of wine.