He smiled in amusement. “Compliments, of course. I’m no Casanova, after all. But to answer your question—I don’t have either my father or my mother to thank for my eyes. I get them from my maternal grandfather, whom I sadly never met. At any rate, our whole family was thrilled to bits with this”—he made quotations marks in the air with his fingers—“cute little Sherman with the blue eyes.” He laughed, and Rosalie tried for a moment to imagine this big man in his blue-and-white-striped shirt as a little boy. “I think my aunt already had me set on a movie career—a kind of poor man’s Robert Redford.” He chuckled. “But I’m afraid I’m not that handsome.”
“Oh, you know…” Rosalie tilted her head to one side. “Beauty isn’t everything. I’d say there’s enough for a professor of literature.”
When she returned a few minutes later with two large, brimming glasses of red wine, Robert was still standing in the middle of the room looking around.
She pressed a glass into his hand, and clinked hers against it.
“What are we drinking to?” he asked, the red wine swirling temptingly in his glass.
“How about: To the end of our search together?” she suggested.
“Yes, let’s drink to the end of our search,” he repeated, but in a way that suggested he meant something completely different. “And to the fact that after a rather unfortunate beginning we have still managed to become good friends,” he added.
They both took a large sip. Rosalie felt the effect of the red wine straight away. No wonder: apart from a little piece of the tarte tatin she hadn’t eaten anything since lunchtime. What had he meant by “good friends”?
“Is that what we are, then? ‘Good friends’?” She quickly took another deep swallow and felt a relaxing warmth permeating her limbs.
Robert emptied his glass halfway and looked at her over the rim. “Perhaps,” he said slowly, “we’re more than that.”
Rosalie smiled nervously, feeling slightly giddy. She watched Robert as he put his glass down on the little round table next to his chair.
“So this is where you disappear to when you’re not down in the store,” he said. “Very cozy.” His gaze lingered involuntarily on the French bed with its blue-and-white Granfoulard bedspread and scatter cushions of all possible sizes and every shade of blue.
“Yes. My little refuge from the world.” Rosalie threw open the window that led to the roof. “Et voilà—here is my second room.” She put her wineglass down on the low bookshelf beside the window and looked out into the night. A cloud had passed in front of the sickle moon, and with a lot of imagination you might have seen a tiger in it. She remained by the window, took a deep breath of the cool air, and suddenly felt an overwhelming need to smoke a cigarette.
Robert had come up behind her, and she felt the nape of her neck begin to tingle. That morning she had fastened her hair at the back with a big tortoiseshell barrette.
“Really very, very pretty,” he said softly, and Rosalie wasn’t sure if he meant her little roof garden, where a wonderful tangle of flowering pot plants and bushes blocked the view of the surrounding houses. She felt his breath on her neck, and a pleasant little shudder ran down her back. “And it smells so good—like in an enchanted garden.” He stroked a single wisp of hair from the nape of her neck, and his lips brushed her skin so imperceptibly that she almost believed she had imagined his touch.
“That … must be … the heliotrope … over there.” With beating heart she pointed to a big bush with tiny dark-violet flowers whose delicate vanilla scent wafted over toward them.
“I don’t think so,” he said softly.
“What?” Hesitantly, she turned round. Robert was gazing at her tenderly.
“I smell wild strawberries,” he murmured, burying his face in her hair. “Wild strawberries and fresh rain. I’d recognize that scent among a thousand others.”
And then he gently took her face in both hands and kissed her.
That evening Rosalie didn’t write anything in her little blue notebook.
She had better things to do.
Twenty-nine
Contrary to her usual custom, Rosalie woke up very early in the morning. It was Sunday, it was half past five, and her left arm had fallen asleep. The reason for that was an American literature professor who was sleeping blissfully with his whole weight on it and hadn’t known what Je te kiffe means. His French was obviously a bit out of date. Rosalie smiled and tried to pull her arm out from under Robert without waking him. She stretched sleepily and sighed happily.
Her original plan to tempt Robert out onto the roof terrace to drink a glass of wine, smoke a cigarette, and look at the moon had sunk without a trace.
Someone else had taken over the reins and proved to her that life can sometimes—very seldom, but it did nevertheless happen—be far more romantic than anything you might possibly envisage.
Robert had kissed her, and after that they had never reached the roof.
After that kiss, which did not stop because neither Robert nor Rosalie would ever have had the absurd idea of wanting to stop something so wonderful, they had finally been compelled to tear themselves apart and breathe deeply to get some oxygen into their lungs.
The barrette had sprung open and fallen to the floor, along with many other unnecessary items they had dropped as they stumbled in an intoxicated embrace the few steps over to Rosalie’s bed. Laughing and whispering, caressing each other with fingers and words, they sank into the blue cushions as if into a tumultuous sea of joy, where nothing more and nothing less could be heard but the beating of their hearts.
“Je te kiffe,” she had said some time later, impulsively ruffling his hair. They were lying facing each other on the rumpled Granfoulard, as close as they had been almost three weeks earlier on the dusty floor under the bed in Le Vésinet.
“You’ve developed a lisp?” He’d looked at her in astonishment.
“Idiot,” she had said. “That means that I like you.”
“Oh, she likes me,” he’d replied. And then he had pulled her to him with a swift movement and kissed her passionately. “You like me?” He lay on her and kissed her again. “And what else?”
She had laughed, then smiled and then simply looked at him. “I love you,” she had said, and he had nodded with satisfaction and traced the line of her eyebrows, her nose and her mouth with his finger.
“That’s good, that’s very good,” he had murmured. “Because this is how it is, ma petite: I just happen to love you, too.”
He lay back and folded his arms behind his head. “My goodness,” he said. “The day was exciting enough. But compared with the night…” He left the end of his sentence open and stared happily at the ceiling as she snuggled in the crook of his arm.
“Okay,” she said happily. “We don’t need a joint—but how about a cigarette?” She mentally apologized to René, but one cigarette wasn’t going to finish her off.
“I’m just trying to give up,” said Robert.
“Oh, that’s good. Me, too,” she said.
“In other words, a cigarette to break the habit.”
“Exactly.”
They’d exchanged meaningful looks, and then Rosalie had quickly gotten out of bed. “Before either of us changes our mind.”
After she had lit his cigarette, and he was lying back on the cushions, smiling, with his right arm carelessly laid over his drawn-up knees, the cigarette between finger and thumb, she had started. It was like a moment of déjà vu.
“What is it?” he’d asked.
“Nothing. I think I knew you in another life.” Rosalie had shaken her head and smiled in some confusion. She couldn’t have said herself what had just moved her so strangely.
* * *
AS SHE NOW CAME barefoot out of the bathroom in her short nightdress and gazed lovingly at the sleeping man with his tousled hair, who was lying diagonally across the bed, tangled up in both the sheets and the Granfoulard with only his left leg sticking out, she suddenly knew what
it was.
“I don’t believe it!” she whispered, suddenly wide awake. Wide-eyed, she bent over Robert’s right foot which was lying on the covers with the left side upward. She frowned.
If you hadn’t known better, you might have thought that the sleeper had banged his toe somewhere during a bout of passionate lovemaking. But if you looked closer, you could see that it wasn’t a bruise or a cut.
On Robert Sherman’s right little toe you could see a very noticeable big brown mark. Rosalie remembered seeing a similar one very recently on another man’s foot.
She looked up and breathed deeply, and then a breathtaking cascade of images flooded over her: the light-blue eyes, the friendly catlike smile, the vertical anger line on the forehead, the powerful hands with their long fingers, the way he raised his eyebrows so arrogantly.
The truth had been there the whole time. Why hadn’t she seen it before?
All of a sudden it was clear to Rosalie what had disturbed her in that old photo of Max. It wasn’t the fact that Max was smoking, or that he didn’t have a beard. It was the unmistakable resemblance to Robert, his son.
* * *
AFTER DISCOVERING THE TELLTALE birthmark in the early hours of the morning, Rosalie had first made herself a café crème. For over an hour she sat with her legs drawn up on the blue wooden chair in her kitchen and thought deeply. Would it be right to tell Robert the truth? For Rosalie there could be no doubt that Max Marchais was his father. But of course no one knew all the details. What had really happened back then? Max seemed not to know that he had a son, and Ruth, the only person Robert could have asked, was unfortunately dead.
But Paul Sherman, whom Robert regarded as his father, was also, like Ruth, dead. If Paul had still been alive it might perhaps have been better to leave things as they were, because in that case the truth might have been a destructive force, doing more harm than good. But as things were, a young man who no longer had any parents would find his father. And an old man who thought he had no children would find his son.
And so she had provided Robert with the truth—together with a small breakfast.
Robert was astounded. “What nonsense—there’s no way that can be true. Paul is my father.” He had shaken his head vehemently. But the more he listened to Rosalie the more thoughtful he became.
“There’s no denying the resemblance between you,” she ended. “If Max were younger and didn’t have a beard, I would probably have noticed it earlier.” That made her think of the way she’d met the two men, and she smiled. “I’d say you even have the same tendency to knock postcard stands over.”
“But Max said nothing had happened,” he protested helplessly.
Rosalie sat down on the bed beside him. “You didn’t listen carefully enough, mon amour. He said that everything and nothing happened. Perhaps it was ultimately more than just a couple of kisses. Perhaps they did have a night together after all—a magical night where they flew over Paris together.” She was thinking of the story.
“And then?”
Rosalie tugged at her lower lip, and considered the situation.
“Hmm. What happens then? Ruth travels to New York, where her fiancé Paul is waiting longingly for her, and they spend the night together. They get married. Ruth is pregnant and everyone is delighted, and perhaps in the beginning she herself thought it was Paul’s child—but then she notices certain resemblances.”
“Like the blue eyes, for example.”
Rosalie nodded. “Absolutely right. Or the birthmark. Or a lot of other things. All the others see what they want to see. But it’s too late. The child is already there and Paul is overjoyed to have a son. Ruth doesn’t want to risk her marriage. She loves her new life. And it’s a good life, a fulfilled life. And so she says nothing. Until the very end. She couldn’t reckon on Marchais ever publishing the story, or that you would discover the connections.”
Robert seemed uncertain. “So you think she knew the whole time?” he finally asked.
Rosalie nodded. “It was a secret she couldn’t share with anyone. Not with Max. Not with you. Out of consideration for your father. For all of you.”
Robert sat there for a while without saying anything, his head buried in his hands.
“I have to speak to Marchais,” he said finally, looking at her earnestly. “I’m afraid your suspicions may be right.”
She put her arm around him. “I think you should go to the bois de Boulogne alone this afternoon and talk things over with Max. I assume he knew as little about the truth as you did. But together you may be able to get a little closer to it.”
Robert nodded. Then he seemed to think of something. He pressed his lips together before saying haltingly, “There’s something else. Back then, it must have been about six months after my father died, we came to Paris together, Mom and I. I’d just turned twelve and I still clearly remember the way my mother suddenly seemed both happy and agitated. She was so excited. As if something really special might happen in this city. But nothing happened.” He shook his head thoughtfully. “At least, nothing I knew about. And at the end of our trip she seemed so sad. That made me very anxious as a child at the time.”
Robert shrugged his shoulders and stared out of the window without really looking at anything. “Why did she come to Paris with me after my father died? Did she want to return to the scene of her old love? Did she intend to get in touch with Max? Did things go wrong for some reason?” He sighed helplessly. “So many questions. Will I ever get an answer to any of them?”
* * *
“I’M SURE YOU’LL SORT things out. Give Max my love,” said Rosalie, as they stopped outside the famous Brasserie Lipp on the boulevard Saint-Germain early that afternoon. She had accompanied Robert, who was by now feeling a bit uneasy, the short stretch to the taxi stand. From there he’d have to make his own way alone. In the café with the white umbrellas not far from the high cast-iron gates that led into the parc de Bagatelle there would be a conversation between the two men that would be no business of hers.
She hoped that Robert wouldn’t lose his nerve and that Max would be able to deal with the truth. And she was sure that the two men had a lot to say to each other.
There were a couple of taxis outside the Brasserie Lipp with its orange awning, and on the terrace all the tables were full. Hand in hand they walked to the taxi at the front of the line.
“When I came to Paris I thought my biggest problem would be deciding whether to take the job at the university,” said Robert as he opened the taxi door. “And now all of a sudden my whole life is being rewritten.”
“No, it’s not like that at all, Robert.” Rosalie took him in her arms once more and looked straight into his eyes. “The things that have already been will always be with you. It’s just that something new is being added. Paul was a wonderful father to you, and you will always be his son. But to find your biological father now that both your parents are dead is a gift that life is handing you.”
He frowned and looked at her with an expression of comic desperation. “You would have been enough of a gift for me.”
She smiled. “That may be so. But I still believe that nothing happens without a reason. And Max Marchais isn’t exactly someone you need to be ashamed of. He’s a famous writer, he’s pleasant, he has good taste, he loves literature—he really appreciates me.…”
She saw Robert curling his lip.
“He’s French,” he said, getting into the taxi.
“Hey! What’s so wrong with being French?” she shouted after him as the car set off and Robert waved to her with a wry smile. She put her hands on her hips. “You’re half French yourself, my dear, and don’t you forget it!”
* * *
WHEN ROSALIE TOOK HER blue notebook out from under the bed that evening, she was very, very tired. She looked at the dog basket beside her bed where William Morris was sleeping. He had an enormous bandage around his middle. “My poor little doggie,” she said softly, stroking his head. Before putting out the
light, she wrote:
The worst moment of the day:
William Morris was run over by a car this afternoon. When I saw his little body lying twisted and bleeding in the road, I thought at first that he was dead. I took him straight to the veterinary hospital. Thank God it was only external damage. They gave him two injections and we have to go back again tomorrow for a checkup. It was such a fright.
The best moment of the day:
Father and son have found each other!
Robert has just called. He was still very emotional about their talk in the parc de Bagatelle. Max showed him the spot under the old tree near the Grotto of the Four Winds where he was with Ruth that day.
Apparently Max already knew when we left yesterday evening. A feeling of affinity. And then there was that date on the photo … My suspicion was also correct. Ruth spent the last night with him. And almost exactly nine months later, Robert was born. And yet for all those years Max had no idea that he had a son. He never saw Ruth again—not even at the time when Robert was in Paris with his mother.
By that time Max was already married to Marguerite. Did Ruth travel to Paris on that occasion to look for Max and then see him with his wife? Perhaps in a café? Perhaps she found out somehow that he was married? That would at least explain why she was so depressed when they left.
How could she ever have forgotten Max, since she had his son in front of her every day, a boy who was so wonderful that she showered him with love? Perhaps she guessed and hoped that he would combine the best qualities of Paul, Max, and herself.
Robert says they talked a lot, he and Max. About Ruth and everything else.
He’s spending the night in Le Vésinet.
Thirty
Looking back with the nostalgia of a woman in love, Rosalie had thought that she would never experience such great happiness as she had that night when she first lay in the arms of the professor of literature from New York. She would never forget that night, not least because the lack of an entry in her little blue notebook would always remind her of it.
Robert had whispered the tenderest words in her ear, lover’s oaths both invented and borrowed interwove magically in that very personal midsummer night’s dream, and Rosalie was almost a little jealous of this precious, unique moment which she would be as little able to keep hold of and prolong as any other moment in her life. And as her feelings flew higher than they had ever done before, she allowed herself the bittersweet and somewhat sentimental thought that their feet would have to touch the ground again sometime—but only to tread a path into the future together.
Paris Is Always a Good Idea Page 22