The Curse of La Fontaine

by M. L. Longworth

  “What are you suggesting?” Bear asked.

  “I’ll stay and serve tables,” she said. “Florian told me about tonight’s dishes, so I’ll just need to look at your wine list. Is it Tuscan or Piedmont based?”

  Bear smiled. “Piedmont, of course. And some Friuli.”

  “Friuli whites, I hope,” Marine said. “What’s tonight’s ravioli?”

  “Spring peas from the market,” Florian said, “with ricotta and Parmesan and a sage butter sauce.”

  Marine grinned. “Did you get the sage from my terrace?”

  Bear laughed and pointed to Mamadou. “He did.”

  • • •

  Two hours later the La Fontaine dinner hour was in full swing. All but two of the tables were occupied, but in another half hour the dining room would be full. Marine’s dishwasher had already been run twice, and Mamadou, having done much of the prep work earlier that day, had stepped in to bus tables. A large pot of water was kept on a permanent boil for the ravioli, and the kitchen felt like a steam bath. Marine opened the door to the terrace to cool off the kitchen, and she was happy that they had decided not to set up a few tables outside. She was already concerned about the noise level and what her neighbors must think, although these were noises that she loved and she could tell that Bear and the others loved it, too: the sound of forks hitting plates, wineglasses clinking, and diners laughing and chatting.

  “Table one has just finished their first courses,” Marine said to Bear as she set a stack of dirty plates in a corner.

  “Righto,” Bear said without looking up from his frying pan.

  “Excuse me,” Florian said as he squeezed by with a knife in his hand. Marine had a galley kitchen, and while it was practical for her, with everything within reach, it now seemed minuscule. She remembered that table three had just asked for a Barbera wine, so she hurried into her bedroom where the wine was being kept. She grabbed the right bottle and on her way back into the dining room table four asked for more water. “Of course,” she said, showing the Barbera to their neighbors at the next table and slowly opening it for them, thankful that Bear had brought a proper corkscrew from the restaurant. As the husband? lover? cousin? tasted the wine, Marine studied their faces, trying to remember them, but she was so busy that each diner’s face that night was a blur. She had no time for her usual restaurant game of making up stories about the clients.

  She walked quickly back into the kitchen and out onto the terrace, where the bottled water was being kept.

  “Merde,” Florian said when she came back into the kitchen. “We’re out of chili flakes.”

  “I have some,” Marine said, “bought in Liguria this year. Second drawer on your left.”

  He nodded and Marine realized that restaurant kitchens were too busy for the niceties of “Thank you” and “Please, Marine.” Simple nods sufficed.

  Mamadou walked in and set more dirty dishes on top of the pile. “Table seven has finished their aperitif and just told me that a friend would like to join them.”

  A communal “Merde” sounded, including Marine.

  “Mamadou, slice me some garlic,” Bear said.

  “I will in a second, Chef. Table two just finished their soups and told me they are in a hurry. I’ll go clear their bowls.”

  “The dishwasher has just finished its cycle,” Florian said to no one in particular as he slid ravioli into the boiling water.

  Marine left with the water for table four, grabbing a small bowl of olives for table three to snack on as they studied the menu. Water and olives delivered, she was walking back toward the kitchen when she saw two new clients standing in the front hall (they had given the clients the door code and left Marine’s apartment door slightly ajar). It was Gaëlle Dreyfus with a distinguished-looking elderly man dressed in tweeds. Marine shook their hands, embarrassed that she hadn’t immediately recognized the Duke de Pradet, who reminded her about a university dinner party they had both attended years earlier. She showed them to table six, beside the unlit fireplace, and they both ordered champagne.

  She hurried back to the kitchen to ask Bear if they had champagne (normally they did, but had they remembered to bring it?) and as she crossed the front hall she ran into her husband. “Table for one, please,” Verlaque said.

  She quickly kissed him. “Sorry, we are full this evening. You could eat in my office, if we have enough food.”

  “You were going to tell me about this, weren’t you?”

  “I did,” Marine answered. “I left a message on your phone.”

  “Ah, I saw that you had called but haven’t listened to your message yet. I was in Avignon—” He looked toward the kitchen and saw Bear, who quickly glanced at the judge and then looked away. “I need to speak to Bear—”

  “After the dinner rush,” she said.

  Their laughter was interrupted by Mamadou, who stood beside them, beads of sweat glistening on his forehead. “The next courses are up,” he said, looking at Marine. “I need to empty the dishwasher and reload it, and also cut more garlic and parsley—”

  Marine looked at Verlaque. “Which job do you prefer?”

  “Cutting, definitely,” he replied. “Really thin, right?”

  Mamadou said, “Paper-thin, the chef always says.”

  Verlaque hung up his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves as they followed Mamadou into the kitchen. “Good thing I bought you those good knives for your birthday,” he said to Marine.

  “And what a romantic gift it was, darling,” she answered as Florian handed her two plates of grilled calamari.

  “When you go out there eavesdrop on the duke and the antiques monger,” Verlaque whispered.

  Marine nodded and smiled as her husband began to peel cloves of garlic at lightning speed.

  • • •

  At twenty minutes after eleven the last clients had gone. Bear, Marine, and Verlaque sat in the dining room, having pushed two tables together. Florian stood outside on the terrace, a cigarette in one hand and a can of beer in the other, and he waved at them through the window. Mamadou was in the kitchen, whistling, doing the dishes.

  “That was tremendous fun,” Marine said. “But I couldn’t do it every night. Chapeau!”

  “And every day at lunch,” Bear said as he stretched his back muscles.

  “I always wondered why in Italy the pasta isn’t a watery mess when delivered to the table,” Verlaque said. “Now I know.”

  Bear nodded. “You blanch dried pasta in small undercooked batches, then lay it out on an oiled sheet.”

  “And you finished cooking it in the sauce,” Verlaque said. “The pasta stood up on the plate instead of swimming around.”

  “That last couple who came late,” Bear said. “Who were they?”

  Verlaque sighed. “A police officer and her husband. I’ll have to deal with that tomorrow.”

  “Merde,” Bear said.

  Sophie Goulin had heard about the pop-up restaurant through her sister-in-law and made a reservation to celebrate her wedding anniversary. She hadn’t realized that it was La Fontaine just changing addresses, as her sister-in-law hadn’t mentioned the name, only saying that it was “hyper branché.” When Sophie had called to reserve a table, the young man on the other end of the phone had answered with a quick “Oui?” and hadn’t said the restaurant’s name. After the babysitter showed up a half hour late and her younger son threw a temper tantrum, they had arrived at the restaurant almost forty minutes late. When she and her husband had been greeted in the front hall of that large quartier Mazarin apartment she wasn’t sure who was more surprised—she or Judge Verlaque.

  Verlaque thought of Officer Goulin and the possible uproar she could cause at the Palais de Justice. He folded his arms and stared at Bear. “I hate to break this evening’s reverie, but we need to talk about—”

  “I wanted to talk with
you about Grégory,” Bear cut in, taking a sip of the Lagavulin that Verlaque had offered to him.

  “So why didn’t you?” Verlaque asked.

  “Shock,” Bear replied. “I knew that he had sort of disappeared, but I never imagined him dead.” Bear’s voice shook again, and Marine now realized why. He had known Grégory.

  “Murdered,” Verlaque said.

  Bear groaned and leaned forward.

  Verlaque asked, “When did you meet?”

  “Junior high, here in Aix. Collège Mignet, just around the corner. Grégory was rotten at school; his parents were always forking out for tutors. But he was funny and smart in other ways—like in history and politics. We hung around with this other guy, Jean-Baptiste Dellaney, who now lives in Australia and is making a mint in advertising.”

  “And did you have a falling-out?”

  “No, no,” Bear quickly answered. “Nothing like that. We just grew apart. Grégory went to La Nativité for high school, and Jean-Baptiste and I went to Zola. Then I moved to the UK for university. When I started working at Cavolo Nero in London, I got really focused on cooking. And I suppose I just ran out of time; you saw how it was tonight, and we only had seventeen diners.”

  Verlaque leaned back and folded his arms across his chest. “Do you have any idea who would want to hurt Grégory?”

  “No, but—” Bear reached into the right-hand pocket of his chef’s jacket and pulled out a folded envelope. He slid it across the table. “This is the second one I’ve received. I got it today, on my way here.”

  Verlaque picked up the letter and Marine leaned over to look at it. “It was posted in Avignon,” he said. “Do you know anyone there?”

  “No,” Bear said.

  “Ever met Juliette de Castelbajac?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Bear answered. “Once or twice, at Grégory’s. She was weird.” He drew out the word weird.

  Verlaque read the letter. “Are they all the same?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have any idea what it means?” Verlaque asked.

  “No,” Bear answered, shifting slightly in his chair.

  Marine looked at him and saw that he slowly swallowed before answering and rubbed his sweating palms on his jeans.

  Verlaque asked, “Nothing at all? What are they alluding to, do you think?”

  Bear shrugged. “I have a lot of enemies since opening up the restaurant. ‘What I did’ could mean anything. I could have taken someone’s preferred parking spot one night.”

  Marine thought he was lying. But if he was, why show them the letter? Unless he was truly frightened.

  Chapter Seventeen

  L’ANF

  M arine sat across from her student. Emilie Givron was in her third year of law; she’d made it past the grueling first two years, but just. Marine knew from past conversations that Emilie was a tennis player—a very good one—and on this warm spring day Emilie had come to school wearing her tennis clothes. Although her student was thick around the middle—this surprised Marine, as she normally thought of athletes as being quite thin—she could see that Emilie had powerful arms and legs, twice the size of her own, of solid muscle. But it was the girl’s wide shoulders that awed her.

  The two of them leaned together, looking at Emilie’s essay, and Marine could smell the soft sweet smell of baby powder. “Look at this phrase,” Marine said. “This is a great example of where you went amiss, trying to sound like an old fart of a lawyer—”

  Emilie laughed, and Marine went on. “I’d like you to use your own voice. Please don’t try to sound like a lawyer, or an academic, or how you think I want you to sound.”

  Emilie looked confused. Marine guessed that the girl had never heard anyone say that to her. She imagined that Emilie had studied hard for her French Bac but had simply memorized and regurgitated her lessons. Marine believed that any good writing began with clarity and a natural voice, but there was no time for that in law school. It was a constant battle that Marine had with her fellow faculty members. They accused her of not teaching law but creative writing. She also took the time to sit down with students, off hours, which had released a series of insults from her colleagues, ranging from her teaching “à l’américaine” to obliterating the good work the teachers’ union had done by giving office hours on her own time. Part of the problem, she knew, came with her recent marriage to Antoine Verlaque, who hardly hid his family wealth. Marine looked at the text, pointed at it with her pencil, and then at Emilie. “Tell me, in your own words, exactly what you wanted to say here.”

  Emilie sucked on the end of her pen and then gave Marine a sentence that, while a little dull, made absolute sense and was nothing like the jargon she had written in her essay.

  “That’s it,” Marine said. “Just get rid of all the ‘so it would seem’ and ‘however’ expressions and write in simple clear prose. If you confuse your reader, especially the person grading your paper, what will he or she do?”

  “Give me a poor grade?”

  “Yes,” Marine said, smiling, “after I get up and change the radio station, and make myself another tea, and check my phone messages. Do you see what I am saying?”

  “Yes, don’t confuse the reader or he or she will be bored.”

  “Exactly. Have you heard of Luc de Clapiers?”

  Emilie shrugged her shoulders.

  “The Hameau de Claps? On the north side of Saint-Victoire, just after Vauvenargues?”

  “Oh yes! I’ve hiked up there, with my family.”

  Marine went on. “Luc de Clapiers was the Marquis of Vauvenargues. He was sickly and died when he was only thirty-one in 1747, but he was helped financially and morally by Voltaire, which enabled him to write. His strength was in aphorisms. Do you know what that means?”

  “Sayings?” Emilie asked.

  “Yes, sort of miniphilosophies. One of my favorites is: ‘When a thought is too weak to be expressed simply, it should be rejected.’ So, before you write, say it out loud and try to express your idea in the simplest way possible. If you can’t, it means you are too muddled—”

  “Like I’m not sure of my idea.”

  “Exactly.”

  Emilie gathered up her papers, stuffing them into her backpack. “Thank you so much, madame.”

  “You’re welcome.” Once Emilie left the room, Marine sat back and thought of Luc de Clapiers, whose own father, Joseph, had stayed behind in plague-stricken Aix in the early eighteenth century, risking his life to tackle the crisis. There were certainly good people in the world: nobles and nonnobles, chefs and dishwashers, teachers and police officers. She thought of another of Luc de Clapier’s aphorisms: “Everyone is born sincere and dies a liar.”

  • • •

  Marine drove her bright green subcompact Renault through the château’s gates and pulled up beside the other dozen or so cars that were parked beside an outbuilding. She smiled at the collection of nondescript, older model cars, most of them made in France. No Mercedes or BMW, and certainly nothing as bling as Antoine’s 1963 Porsche. The French nobility may still live in châteaux—although some were crumbling—but outward displays of wealth, especially fancy cars, were frowned upon. That much Marine knew. The rest of this evening’s meeting was an unknown, and she was prepared for it to be dull. But Antoine was convinced that the ANF had something to do with Grégory de Castelbajac’s death—perhaps directly, perhaps indirectly—and Marine was being sent to infiltrate the nobles.

  It was not quite 7:00 p.m. and the sky was still light. The château was big and blocky, built in a U-shape, and she could see a man standing in the imposing front door, waiting for her, or the other ANF members, to arrive. She smiled as she approached and extended her hand. “Bonsoir,” she said,

  “Dr. Bonnet,” the man said, shaking her hand. “Welcome. Please come in. I am Casimir de Tressan.”

  “Thank you
,” Marine said. So the count had been waiting for her, and he had assumed that the woman who had parked her beat-up Renault was the law professor, their special guest. “Lovely château,” Marine said, smiling at the count.

  “Please, Dr. Bonnet,” the count said, “you must admit that it looks like a big boxy train station. But my great-great-grandfather built it.” He threw his hands up in the air. “And I inherited it, including its taxes and upkeep. Please—” He ushered her through a set of double doors, where twenty-odd people, not all of them with white hair, were mingling around an unlit, oversize fireplace, two sagging nineteenth-century sofas, and a collection of caned armchairs mixed with folding chairs with cracked leather seats. He led her to a small cocktail table. “I’ll introduce you in a bit,” he said. “But first, would you like something to drink? Juice? Wine?”

  Marine looked at the wine, a supermarket brand, and replied, “Juice, please.”

  The count poured her some juice with a shaky hand and passed it to her. He smiled a genuine, warm smile and she felt guilty that her husband had sent her to this meeting, to eavesdrop, or whatever it was she was supposed to be doing. She felt like a fraud, which made her uncomfortable.

  “Let’s begin the meeting, if everyone would take a seat,” the count said. “We should have enough chairs.” He smiled as his fellow nobles sat down in a semicircle, and Marine thought that he looked like a grandparent or a preacher, proud of his flock. “Welcome, everyone, to the April meeting of the ANF, Aix-en-Provence chapter. We have a few things on this evening’s agenda and then we’ll adjourn for some light snacks, but first I’d like to introduce our guest, Dr. Marine Bonnet, from the law faculty of our university here in Aix.”

  Marine stood up and did a small wave, then sat down. The count once again smiled and said, “Dr. Bonnet is researching European nobility and how current European laws can help—or hinder—us. She has proposed to deliver one of the lectures at our annual meeting in Paris this September—”