Love & Death in Burgundy

by Susan C. Shea

  At precisely four o’clock, Adele looked at her watch and rose from her chair. “Adieu,” she said to the table at large. “I must go.” And, like magic, the black Mercedes pulled into the driveway again. This time, the motor shut off and the driver stepped out and walked toward the group. Albert Bellegarde was taller than his wife, well over six feet, which was underscored by his military bearing and the cut of his double-breasted jacket in a navy blue that matched his wife’s suit. His face was mottled pink and he wore a blue ascot and the same disapproving frown Katherine had seen when he dropped off his wife.

  “Madame,” he murmured to Katherine in a slight German accent, bowing.

  “Bonjour, Albert,” Katherine said with as much pleasantness as she could put in her voice. She smelled port on his breath, a small warning sign to be careful. “Do you know Marie? Perhaps you’ve met her charming husband? They’re fixing up the old place across the road from Jean’s?”

  “Enchanté,” Albert said, taking Marie’s hand briefly. “Although I do not know how you can be comfortable, living near that thiev—”

  “And you know Jean’s daughter, Jeannette?” Katherine broke in. Jeannette didn’t get up from the table immediately. Katherine frowned and flapped her hand at the girl, and Jeannette reluctantly unfolded herself, staring boldly at Albert and fiddling with a spoon.

  “I know Monsieur. He’s the German in the château. He doesn’t like our dogs,” she said in a loud voice, ostensibly to Katherine, but with her eyes on Albert. “Even our pretty puppies, the ones Papa let us keep.”

  “Her father drowned the rest,” Penny said in a sour voice to no one in particular from the far end of the table. “In a bag, Yves says. In front of the children.”

  A sudden awkward silence overtook the party. Jeannette stuck out her lower lip and glared at Penny, who merely shrugged as she lifted her wineglass and drank deeply. Adele looked daggers at Penny, presumably because her comment was so impolite. Pippa, who had been playing with her wineglass, looked up sharply. Betty Lou smiled brightly first at one person, then another, as if to encourage them to go on in this interesting fashion.

  Albert chose not to speak, but turned to his wife and gestured toward the car. Adele took the hint smoothly. “Such a charming gathering, Katherine.”

  A man’s voice from beyond the hedge interrupted her leave-taking. “Here I am, my dear ladies, come for un café.” Yves bounded through the gate and up the steps past the roses, a wave of hair falling rakishly over his forehead. “You see, I have brought you these little cakes, quite perfect for the dessert course, are they not?” Stopping at the same spot where Jeannette had put on her shoes, he gazed around him serenely and held up a patisserie box tied with a pink ribbon.

  Katherine was not fooled. Her heart sank. Yves knew exactly what his appearing here would do, and he was delighted to have all eyes upon him, even if a few were hostile. Albert was glowering at him, pulling himself up straighter, his vein-ribbed hands clenching and unclenching at his sides and his pink face getting brighter. Adele had thrust her strong chin in Yves’s direction and was squinting toward him as if suspecting a new trick from the scoundrel who had jilted her daughter.

  Penny jumped up and came to him with her hand held open to take the box, a small smile playing around the corners of her mouth. Yves handed off the pastries with a flourish and, dancing over to Katherine, planted twin kisses on her cheeks before turning to the table. “Ah, but is there no demitasse for me?” he said in mock surprise. “Has someone stolen my cup, eh? How about you, my petite nimble fingers?” he said to Jeannette, who laughed heartily and raised both hands to show all she held was a silver spoon.

  Yves turned, still smiling. “Madame, Monsieur,” he said, clicking his heels and bowing to the Bellegardes, “it is interesting to see you at my dear friend’s home. Katherine is such a kind person and she would not want—how to say this—for anyone to feel they were not welcomed in the social life, no matter what, would you not agree?”

  Katherine uttered a small, involuntary cry, and signaled to Yves to be quiet. He ignored her and smiled blandly at the old couple. Albert’s hand shook as he took his wife’s arm and attempted to turn her toward their car, but Adele pulled her elbow away and drew herself up as tall as Yves.

  “Your behavior, sir,” she said in her best finishing-school voice, “is, as usual, boorish. You dishonor our hostess, but then I suspect you don’t care as long as you are the center of attention. Good day, dear Katherine.”

  Katherine, who had been holding her breath, let it out in a rush. Good, the Bellegardes would leave and peace would be restored, no thanks to Yves.

  But Yves wasn’t about to let Madame Bellegarde throw the last dart. He began to laugh theatrically, his head thrown back and his hands in his pockets.

  Albert rose to the bait, suddenly lurching toward him. Raising his hand high in the air, the old man swatted Yves feebly across the cheek. “How dare you insult my wife,” he cried in a quavering voice.

  Jeannette backed away from the table, her eyes sparkling and her mouth making a perfect letter O.

  Penny called out to Yves, “Oh, quit it, for heaven’s sake.”

  Betty Lou cackled. “Oh dear,” she said to the table at large, “I guess we’re gonna see a real catfight.”

  Yves stopped laughing and grabbed Albert’s arm. “Listen, old man, I will say what I like, since you and your wife feel free to tell lies about me to the entire village. My life is my own business, do you hear?”

  As Yves turned away, Albert, much more quickly than Katherine would have believed possible, picked up a dessert plate and broke it smartly over the younger man’s head. The sound of crockery falling onto the slate path was the only sound in the yard for a moment. Then Penny screamed, the neighborhood dogs started barking, and Michael came barreling out of the house.

  “What’s going on out here? Is there a problem?” He stopped when he saw Yves standing in some degree of shock, raspberry jam dripping down his forehead and a dollop of crème fraîche poking out of his hair. Albert grabbed Adele and force-marched her to the Mercedes without another word, Adele looking as stunned as Yves. The car started up and lurched out of the driveway with complete disregard for any traffic that might be rounding the bend.

  “Damnation,” Michael said into the silence. He looked a question at Katherine, who shrugged and made a helpless gesture, then tossed a napkin in Yves’s direction. “Are you still fighting World War II? Wipe off your hair and let Penny take you home. Kay’s had enough excitement for one day, I expect. You made a mess of her party.”

  Katherine sat down and pondered silently the precariousness of men’s egos in general, and the loss of one of her beloved dessert dishes, part of a delicately gold-rimmed set that she had found in an antique store in the historic city of Beaune, always bustling with tourists, a few years ago. They had been much too expensive and Michael had asked if she was sure she needed them as he pulled out a roll of euros, although they both knew he would buy her anything if she made it clear she had to have it in order to be happy. Now, she could cry, really she could. Only eleven, and even if no one else ever noticed that there was an odd plate when they had a dozen people over to eat, she would see the mismatch and it would bother her every time.

  She was angry with Yves, and she rarely allowed herself to get angry. He was spoiled and conceited and thoughtless. When he came over to apologize, she didn’t look at him. By extension, and unfairly, she knew, she was angry with Penny too. They left quietly, followed quickly by Marie, whose cheese lay uneaten in a dish on the table.

  Jeannette gave Katherine a noisy kiss and a rough hug before skipping down the steps, thrilled at the story she would have to tell at home. She was careful to hold the two spoons she had pinched so they wouldn’t hit each other in the pocket of her dress and give her away.

  Pippa had been leaning forward in her chair, as if to catch every detail. Katherine wondered how soon they would all wind up as suspects in a manuscript. T
he young woman suddenly shook herself, as if waking from a trance, and stood up. “Oh dear, I must go. So nice of you, Katherine, such an interesting party.” Not being French, she didn’t kiss Katherine, but shook her hand absently and scurried down the steps, holding up the hem of her skirt.

  Betty Lou leaned back in her chair under the pear tree, smoking and fingering her wineglass. “That young man certainly got what he wanted. Handsome devil, but full of himself, isn’t he?”

  Katherine sighed. “What you must think of us,” she said.

  “Not you, was it? That Yves’s got a bee in his bonnet, and the old guy flies off the handle pretty quickly. Reminds me of a couple of rockers I knew in L.A. back in the day. They’d get so stoned they could hardly see straight, then brawl ’til one of ’em passed out. Had a half-dozen albums go platinum, if you can believe it. Don’t know when they had time to get into the studio and make anything decent. What is it with these two guys? Michael said something about a war. Was the old man a Nazi?”

  “Oh, that isn’t it. Albert’s German by birth but his parents immigrated to Switzerland when the Nazis came to power. He took French citizenship ages ago, before he and Adele were married. But you’re right to wonder. The occupation and French resistance to it was intense in this area and still ignites harsh memories and prejudices. Albert gets tarred with that brush behind his back, unfairly.”

  “What kind of work does the old guy do? My husband says he’s rich as Croesus.”

  “J.B. knows more than I do about his money, then. I do know he used to deal in arms, you know, sales of guns to armies. But later, he was a French honorary consul of some kind for a few years. He must be close to ninety now, and I doubt he does anything other than escort visitors to Bellegarde around on the occasional tour. Sophie, his daughter, pretty much runs his business, I think. No, the argument between him and Yves is personal,” Katherine said, sighing. “Yves dated Sophie for a couple of years, but when Penny opened her house this spring, he dropped Sophie to take up with Penny.”

  “Fickle, is he?”

  “God’s gift to women, you know the type. Sophie took it hard and the senior Bellegardes saw it as an insult. I’m afraid her parents have been badmouthing him, and he them, in the village and the entire area. In a small place like this, you know, gossip has consequences. Everyone’s been forced to take sides. I hate it.”

  “But you had them both here for lunch,” Betty Lou said, puffing smoke into the tree thoughtfully.

  “I didn’t invite either of them,” Katherine said. “Albert was chauffeuring his wife, and Yves? He crashed. I’m furious. All that work to make a nice party and he ruined it.”

  “No,” drawled Betty Lou, getting up and shaking out her dress. “It was a lovely lunch. Thank you, my dear. Must get back or J.B.’ll have my ass. He is bound and determined I’m going to get a new album ready this summer, whether my dwindling number of fans want one or not. I think he must have his eye on another of his investment properties. Some vacation this is. The man has expensive tastes and I must feed them.”

  She patted Katherine on the shoulder, called out good-bye to Michael, who had retreated back to the house, and pulled away in the SUV, leaving Katherine alone with the dregs of the lunch, a mess of broken crockery, and the beginning of a serious headache. As she brought dishes back to the kitchen she wondered uneasily if Yves and the Bellegardes would now call a truce, having had a shot at each other and relieved the pressure of their mutual resentments, or if the rest of the village would be treated to more histrionics. “I guess it could have been worse,” she told Fideaux, who was happily licking the remains of the veal off a plate. “They could have decided to duel at sunrise.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Jeannette smiled, thinking about the excitement at Katherine’s party. It had been a much more interesting way to spend those hours than minding her younger brothers or stacking bricks in the front courtyard for her father’s business. Living here was such a bore, she thought from her perch hidden in the tree. If she lived in Auxerre, say, or even in the market town a few kilometers away, there would be more traffic, more people walking around, people who didn’t know her and wouldn’t automatically yell “Stop that, Jeannette” when an apple or a hen’s egg hit their windshield or the ground in front of them.

  She dangled one long leg down from the branch and leaned back against the trunk. Two adult dogs lay panting at the foot of the tree, and she could hear her younger brothers teasing the puppies, who barked incessantly back at them. Summer afternoons were so dull, nothing but the sounds of the kids and her father’s rock-cutting tools in the quarry, and Emile singing to himself as he fished under the bridge. The only part of the day she liked was hearing Michael play the guitar in his yard.

  Michael, she had decided long ago, was sexy for an old guy, with a way of looking at you that said he noticed you in particular. He dressed chic, in jeans and boots with a real cowboy hat and an Indian belt buckle with stones in it. Everyone knew he was a rock star, living here to get away from his American fans.

  Katherine was okay too, and sometimes gave her little presents, although it was easy to fool her. Katherine thought Jeannette needed a mother, which was ridiculous since she was almost fifteen. Jeannette liked being free to come and go. Her father told her he didn’t want the authorities coming around asking questions, so it was her job to make sure the boys had food, slept in their own beds, and wore shoes to school. Other than that, he didn’t much care how she spent her time. She was used to having no mother. It hardly bothered her to hear her school friends talk about going places with their families, or how their mothers were always wanting to know what they were doing. Who needed that?

  She heard the harsh sound of metal clunking against pockmarked pavement, a stuttering noise coming closer and closer until it rounded the corner. It was the American, Brett, on his skateboard. Was he coming to see her? She flushed and scrambled out of the tree, brushing crumbs of bark off her shorts and yanking at her tight T-shirt. Brett Holliday was the coolest, well, the only cool thing in her whole summer, a stranger who had dropped into her village when she thought she would go crazy with nothing to do. He was living with his parents in the fancy converted barn on the outskirts of town. Brett was the handsomest boy Jeannette had ever seen and the most sophisticated. It was cool that his father was a record producer and his mother, even though she was really old, was a famous singer. He was nearly eighteen, and she thought he liked her.

  “Hey,” he said, jumping off his still-moving skateboard and catching it with one hand as he stopped in front of her.

  “Hey,” she mimicked in the same bored tone, carefully picking the green polish off one fingernail. The dogs stood up slowly and padded back to the courtyard.

  “What’s up?” He spoke in a lazy voice that made her heart turn over. He flicked his long dark hair off his face and looked at her from under thick black brows.

  “Rien, nothing,” she said with a shrug. “It’s hot.”

  “Wanna ride my board?”

  “Sure. Where?”

  “Same place we did last time, the castle driveway.”

  Jeannette hesitated. M. and Mme Bellegarde did not like them to play in the driveway, but it was the best place in the entire village for skateboarding, a long, curving slope with hardly any traffic and better paving than everywhere else. M. Bellegarde was rich and had the whole driveway paved last year, all except for the circle in front of the château’s old wooden doors. Her father said it was a waste of good money and that M. Bellegarde had too much money for one man. But Jeannette knew he was mainly pissed that the old man hadn’t brought the whole job to him, only the part he told her father needed to be reproduced with local quarry stone as close to the original as possible, the carriage entrance.

  “We can look if they are home,” she said, concentrating to get the English right. Brett had no French, and Jeannette couldn’t wait to tell her friends how her English had improved because she had an American boyfriend this summ
er. They would look at her with respect and envy.

  “The château is open for tourists only some days. Other days, they go for the lunch or for visiting the other châteaux, and sometimes all the way to Paris.” If they were gone today, she and Brett could skateboard all they wanted. You could hear the old people’s Mercedes coming through the village and hide in the little forest that started right next to the château and they would never know. Jeannette thought the forest was the best hiding place in the whole village, better even because it backed up onto the quarry, where you could lie on flat rocks on the hottest days and get a tan.

  “Okay, let’s go,” Brett said, looking around. “Got your bike?”

  “No, my brother borrowed it to do some errands for Papa,” Jeannette said. “I can walk.”

  They set off, Brett riding slowly on his board, pushing off only enough to stay even with Jeannette. As she fiddled with her hair, she saw him looking sideways at her breasts. She knew they showed through her shirt. She was conscious of her bare legs. Did he think she was pretty?

  Brett had told her he argued with his parents when they told him they were spending the whole summer in France and that he couldn’t stay home by himself. His father had reminded him about a time last winter when Brett offered to sell marijuana to a man who turned out to be a flic. Brett laughed as he told Jeannette the story. Of course his father talked the cops out of pressing charges. “My dad’s kind of a big deal back home,” he said, shrugging. “I’m still a juvenile, technically, so the cops were more into scaring me, anyway.” Until he ran into Jeannette, Brett said, he had done nothing but lie around the pool house next to his parents’ recording studio, watching DVDs. He had looked at her in a special way when he said it.

  Jeannette knew what boys wanted. They bragged about it in school. “Ooh la la,” she could imagine Brett saying to his friends when he got home. “There was this French girl I did it with.” Her face got hot thinking about the implications. Did she want to “do it” with Brett? She had a feeling she was going to have to decide one day soon, which made her heart—or was it her stomach?—flip over again.