French Rhapsody

by Antoine Laurain

  ‘And he said you weren’t premature? He’s forgotten,’ my mother said, avoiding my eye.

  But I wouldn’t leave it there. I could tell she was hiding something.

  ‘He remembers me very clearly. He said I was the last baby he delivered before he retired. He remembers you too. Apparently he used to come here all the time with his wife.’

  My mother shrugged.

  ‘Lots of people have been here, Aurore. Can you just help me with the sheets?’

  We carried on the parallel dance, stepping towards each other and away again, holding the corners of the sheets tightly between our fingers until they were folded into a perfect square.

  ‘Why has Papa left?’ I asked, admittedly rather tactlessly.

  ‘He hasn’t left, Aurore. We’ve just decided to have a bit of time apart.’

  ‘Are you getting divorced?’

  The face my mother pulled in response suggested now was not the time to be asking these questions.

  ‘When was it that you and Papa met again?’

  ‘You know when. At the chapter of the Chevaliers.’

  ‘Which one? When exactly?’

  ‘You want the exact time and date?’ she replied defensively.

  ‘Yes.’

  Bérengère put down the sheets.

  ‘Why? What difference does it make?’ she snapped.

  Then she left the room, muttering that it wasn’t easy to bring up a fifteen-year-old daughter.

  That afternoon, I took advantage of my mother having to make a trip to Beaune to go through the family photo albums and pinpoint the date of the chapter of the Chevaliers du Tastevin. She had held on to the menu and programme for the evening at Vougeot.

  If the doctor was right, then going back exactly nine months from my birth, my mother had not yet met François Delfer.

  ‘Is François Delfer my father or not?’ I asked abruptly at breakfast one morning before my brother had come down.

  The slap came a fraction of a second later; just thinking about it, I can still feel the burn on my cheek.

  ‘You little tart,’ she shouted. ‘How dare you ask that?’

  I don’t know if it was the slap or the words ‘little tart’ that shocked me the most. When I got back from school that evening, I didn’t speak to her. After a meal lasting half an hour during which I hadn’t said a word and only my brother had filled the silences by telling us about his school trip, Bérengère put down her cutlery before she had finished her dessert and muttered, ‘This can’t go on.’ Still completely mute, I looked up at her as she stared at me in silence. That was when I knew the answer to my question. And I knew, too, that I was completely ready to hear it.

  She asked my brother to give us a minute, then she got up, opened a drawer and took out a packet of Marlboros and a lighter. I chose not to remind her that she had given up smoking three years before. She put an ashtray down on the tablecloth, took out a cigarette and lit it. She took her first puff and closed her eyes.

  ‘I didn’t know I was pregnant, not straight away. Not when I came home … Then I began to wonder; I was late, so I went to buy a test – not round here though; everyone knows everyone here. I got your Papy to drop me in Dijon; I told him I was meeting friends and asked if he would pick me up later that day. I bought the test in a chemist’s and I couldn’t concentrate on anything else all afternoon. I walked around town with the carrier bag from the chemist’s tucked inside my handbag. I stopped for coffees at pavement cafés to pass the time. A month earlier, I was still in Paris at the École du Louvre; it seemed so recent and yet so far away. Everything had changed.’

  ‘Was this when you used to sing?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. It was when I was in a band …’

  She breathed out her smoke.

  ‘My father came to collect me. I told him I’d had a great time. He was happy, seemed to have had his mind put at rest – it’s crazy how easy it is to pull the wool over people’s eyes. I got the result that evening: I was pregnant. I was terrified; I didn’t know what I was going to say to my parents, which was ridiculous really – I was an adult, I could do what I liked … The only person I would have liked to talk to about it wasn’t there and I didn’t know where he had gone. To the USA, but where? And impossible to reach, since there were no mobile phones in those days, no emails, nothing … Yes, I could have called his brother, but what would I have said to him?’

  She flicked her ash into the ashtray.

  ‘Anyway, we had broken up, said goodbye, it was all over. What could I do, back in Burgundy? It was all … too much.’

  ‘You could have just had an abortion,’ I said, immediately regretting it.

  ‘That never crossed my mind,’ she replied emphatically. ‘Never,’ she insisted, looking me straight in the eye.

  I looked down.

  ‘Then I met François. Two or three days later, I’m not sure exactly. My parents dragged me along to Vougeot. I didn’t want to go, but they were so looking forward to it that I agreed. I had told them I had come round to the idea of taking on the running of the hotel and so they were keen to show off the daughter who would be taking over the family business. It was a big deal to them – they had been worried about me being an art student in Paris and even more so when I joined the band. They were afraid I’d become a junkie or something … If I had done well at the École du Louvre, it would have been different …’

  She stubbed out her cigarette and immediately lit another.

  ‘So I met your father, François, at Vougeot,’ she continued. ‘I had heard a lot about him; he was the son of one of Mamie’s school friends and I knew they were all keen for us to meet. Such a cliché, now that I think about it … That night at Vougeot, we drank a bit too much, went out into the vineyard and kissed. I’m not even sure why I did it, I just wanted to forget it all, start afresh, and I’ll say it again, he was kind, thoughtful … I wanted to forget … everything. François and I went out on a date a few days after the kiss in the vineyard, then it became serious, very serious. He asked me to marry him, just like that, one evening; he seemed so sure … I asked if I could think about it. I wanted to tell him I was pregnant with another man’s baby but I couldn’t do it; I thought it would ruin everything, our blossoming relationship, my parents, his parents. Then a thought occurred to me: maybe I didn’t have to say anything at all … There was only a three-week gap – men don’t really understand these things,’ she said with a smile. ‘I only had to pretend the baby was early. François only came to the doctor with me once, a totally routine check-up. Every other time, I saw Dr Lessart on my own, and he didn’t know the date I had met François. It was easy … On top of that, François wasn’t even there when you were born; he was on a wine trip to Singapore. Arriving three weeks premature, you’d still have been a bonnie baby; you wouldn’t have needed to go in an incubator … Lessart and I were the only ones who knew you weren’t premature. Nobody blinked at the story. As soon as you arrived, all anybody was interested in was you and your smiles. The only person who might have guessed something was my mother,’ she said softly, biting her bottom lip. ‘I think she might have had her doubts, but we never spoke about it.’

  ‘Who was he?’ I asked. ‘Who?’ I said again when she failed to answer.

  My mother stood up, walked back over to the cupboard with the cigarettes and opened one of the doors to take out a copy of Challenges, which the hotel subscribed to. Quite a few businessmen came to Burgundy with their families to recharge their batteries, and were glad to find this economics magazine on the coffee table with the others. She put it down in front of me. On the cover, a man with brown hair, a cat-like smile and eyes that, though slightly sad-looking, sparkled had his hands clasped in front of him and seemed to be paying a great deal of attention to whatever he was looking at. You could also see that his shirtsleeves were held together by elegant tiger’s-eye cufflinks. The headline was ‘JBM, birth of an emperor’.

  ‘That’s him,’ my mother said ma
tter-of-factly. ‘Ask me whatever you like about him, but let me ask you something in return: however things are between me and François, I don’t want you to tell him what you know and I don’t want you telling your brother either. Promise me.’

  I paused. Why would I go talking to François Delfer, and what could I possibly share with my eleven-year-old brother? Then I mumbled, ‘I promise …’ without taking my eyes off the picture of JBM, and inside my head – I remember as if it was yesterday – I added in a whisper, ‘… to find him.’

  675 x 564 = 380,700

  From then on, Aurore’s entire life became focused on one goal: to meet the man with the cat-like smile. Bérengère had told her how they met; about the band, Pierre, the antique broker, their trips to Le Relais de la Clef; and then how the relationship had ended. It was late by the time they said goodnight on the first-floor landing.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Bérengère said, taking her daughter in her arms.

  Aurore went into her room, closed the door behind her and fell onto her bed, burying her head under the pillow until she could barely breathe.

  The magazine article described a secretive, charismatic and well-regarded businessman, and analysed his links with a powerful group she had never heard of, which ran a global chain of luxury hotels and casinos: Caténac. Jean-Bernard Mazart was married to Blanche de Caténac, a name that seemed like something out of a fairy tale. The man was light years away from François Delfer. The following year, François and Bérengère got divorced. Aurore kept her promise. She never told him that she knew he wasn’t her father. He distanced himself from her and her mother and started a new life with another woman a few miles away.

  There would be many steps to climb in order to reach JBM. Aurore set to work. She took herself from being an average student with little interest in school to a highly motivated pupil at the top of the class, and went on to study law and languages. If she was to work alongside JBM, she would need to master at least four languages; she learnt six. Her dedication to her studies gained her the affectionate nickname ‘the Terminator’ from her classmates. The years went by and JBM seemed as inaccessible as ever – the few times Aurore had sent her CV to the Arcadia group, she had only received stock replies to the effect that there were currently no openings. Aurore pursued her career as a PA, moving gradually up the ranks of responsibility, until, while working for the European Commission, she was told she would be attending a conference entitled ‘Digital Europe, the last frontier’. Aurore was now an elegant young grey-suited woman of twenty-six.

  She hardly slept for two nights before the conference. She went over and over her plan, like one of those criminals who spend weeks plotting a raid on a security van and a quick getaway, knowing the whole operation will be over in the space of five minutes. As for her, she would have mere seconds to play with. She spent the evenings practising in front of the mirror, acting out how she would approach him and shake his hand. ‘Good evening, I’m Aurore Delfer and I’d very much like to work with you.’ It was important to look him in the eye but without seeming too forceful or demanding. Arouse his curiosity. Everything depended on a few words. And then she did it; at the drinks reception after the conference, she had moved away from her colleagues at the Commission and waited for the men to stop talking to JBM. When he was finally alone for a few moments, she drained and put down her glass of champagne, took a deep breath and walked straight up to him, barging a man chewing a petit four out of her way. Once she was standing in front of JBM, she stopped, looked him in the eye and held out her hand, flashing him her best smile.

  ‘Good evening, I’m Aurore Delfer and I’d very much like to work with you.’

  The touch of his hand. Eleven years had passed since she had seen his face on the cover of Challenges, eleven years before she could touch him.

  ‘Evening.’ He smiled. ‘And who might Aurore Delfer be?’

  ‘One of Mario Moncelli’s personal assistants.’

  ‘Good,’ JBM said softly, nodding his head, apparently impressed. ‘And why do you want to work with me?’

  Aurore started delivering the little spiel she had practised in front of the mirror, but he stopped her short.

  ‘What’s 675 times 564?’ he asked with a smile.

  Aurore closed her eyes and then opened them again to look straight at him.

  ‘380,700.’

  The smile vanished from JBM’s face; he tilted his head and stared at Aurore, a serious look on his face. She felt as if everyone else in the huge room had disappeared, all the noise and conversations had ceased and only the two of them were left.

  ‘Now that’s not something I see every day. Let’s try again,’ he said in English.

  ‘Try me,’ Aurore challenged him, maintaining eye contact.

  ‘8,765 minus 5,438?’

  ‘… 3,327?’

  ‘Aurore!’ her manager called from across the room, indicating with a slight tilt of the head that it was about time she came back to join the group, even that talking to JBM in person was not entirely appropriate.

  ‘I’d better go,’ she excused herself, smiling apologetically.

  ‘You’re speaking to me,’ JBM replied steadily, holding her gaze, ‘so you can do what you want. Let me demonstrate.’

  He waved amicably at the woman who had shouted at Aurore, accompanying the gesture with a perfectly false smile. The woman immediately raised her glass in their direction, all sweetness and light.

  ‘There you go, sorted. Where were we … How do you do it?’

  ‘I can visualise numbers.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Later,’ JBM told a man who was on the verge of striking up a conversation but immediately turned on his heel.

  ‘Now, you’d better give me your business card; that’s what you came for, after all.’

  ‘It is, but that’s going to be tricky – Madame Crespin won’t take her eyes off me,’ she said, turning briefly towards the woman who had called her over.

  ‘Where’s your card?’ JBM asked.

  ‘In my jacket pocket.’

  ‘OK. Take it out, hold it inside your hand using your thumb, and shake my hand. I’ll take it from there.’

  Aurore slipped her hand into her pocket and then held it out to shake with JBM; he took it in his grasp and she felt his fingers slide the business card under his shirt cuff. She took a few steps away before turning back to look at him. She had already been replaced by a circle of other delegates. They were talking to JBM, but he appeared disinterested. A minute later, she turned round again. He was gone.

  Aurore was sorting out the change to pay for her coffee when she saw the door to the hotel swing open and JBM appear in the doorway. She stood up and the coins slid out of her hand, but she didn’t hear them hit the ground. He crossed the road and walked towards her without taking his eyes off her, the emotion clear to see on his face. He came up the three steps to the café terrace and stopped in front of her. Aurore couldn’t tear her gaze away from his as he stood looking at her as if for the first time. Then, without saying a word, he threw his arms tightly around her. Aurore would always remember how she had struggled to breathe; he couldn’t seem to let go of her, as if the pair of them might be fixed in that position for eternity. And she would remember his breath on her neck, the suddenly shallow breathing that replaced all words.

  Zénith and Semtex

  ‘We’re not going anywhere! We’ve been here for a thousand years!’

  The Zénith arena was crammed with people that evening. Vaugan, without using notes, was pacing the stage with his clip-on microphone, haranguing the crowd. It had been forty minutes now since the extreme-right leader had started talking. His website, which was live-streaming his performance with English subtitles for his international audience, had had four hundred thousand views from across Europe. The day before, the New York Times, which was compiling a dossier on the extreme right in Europe, had run an article entitled ‘Sébastien Vaugan – the man who won’t be stopped’.
The photograph showed the founder of France République (previously the WWP), chin raised in a pose worthy of Mussolini.

  Vaugan had talked about the crime rate amongst ‘immigrants born in France’, the suburbs he himself came from (a son of the working class, a grandson of the working class, and working class myself!) and ‘French people who were not really French and never would be’. He had then called for a moment’s ‘noise’ to show condemnation of the ‘black day’ in 1976 when President Giscard d’Estaing and his prime minister Jacques Chirac had signed the family entry and resettlement law that allowed immigrant workers to bring their families over to France and base themselves and their descendants on French soil, where they had absolutely no business to be. And before getting onto the Islamisation of France (‘I know that’s the bit you’re waiting for; you won’t be disappointed’) Vaugan had given his geopolitical views on the continent of Africa since the end of the post-war economic boom. Against the advice of his communications adviser, he had adopted an intimate tone with the audience and it seemed to be working.

  ‘What is a revolution? It’s when one caste replaces another, and the replacement is achieved with violence. Because all the legitimate, soft means have failed. That’s what a revolution is. I know what you will say in response, friends; you will give the whining response of the sucker who has been brainwashed with ideas of humanism: “But Vaugan, you’re mad, you’ve no idea; these Africans don’t have the means to revolt. They are poor and sad. They’re sunk in poverty, and that’s why they want to come here.” Really? Are you joking? Haven’t you noticed that when the Africans took up their machetes and decided to go to war with the next-door village, there was blood spilt everywhere. Has it escaped you that those Africans were not exactly intellectual humanists! They’re the best in the world at two things: the machete and running …’

  When Vaugan finished with Usain Bolt’s famous victory gesture, there was thunderous applause.