Parisian Promises

by Cecilia Velástegui

  He pointed up at the numerous gray turrets of the Château d’Ussé, located just a few kilometers from Les Charmilles. They’d ridden bicycles from his estate to escape his mother’s ongoing wrath about everything and everyone. Christophe understood that the root of his mother’s discontent was his late father’s all-encompassing treachery, and that if he let her cool down, she would grow to appreciate Monica’s genuine charm. He had big plans that included both the women getting along.

  “So did Sleeping Beauty really live here?” Monica asked. “Was that room way up high the one where she slept for one hundred years?”

  “I suppose. But it is a fairy tale, non?

  “I love fairy tales,” said Monica, not picking up on his subtle admonishment. “When Prince Charming kissed Sleeping Beauty, she woke up from her sleep, and they lived happily ever after.” As she spoke the words aloud, Monica blushed at her own gullibility, suddenly aware that she was acting like a babe in the woods. “Never mind. I sound like a fool! Tell me about the architecture or the … the formal gardens, please.”

  Christophe lifted her chin, and kissed her nose. “But why are you embarrassed to be an optimist and a romantic? You are pure and warm-hearted, and that’s why I have fallen deeply in love with you.”

  Monica blushed again, astounded by his declaration of love, and instinctively leaned into his warm embrace. She nuzzled up to him in the same manner that Rocky showed his love for her, exhaling a deep, soulful sigh. Around Christophe she could reveal her true nature. In turn, he found himself totally captivated by her authenticity. Even though they’d known each other just a short time, Christophe knew that Monica brought out the best in him.

  “We’ve been struck by Cupid’s arrows,” he whispered in her ear, “so we will create our own fairy tale.”

  “I’d rather you crossed the forest and cut through the thick brambles and thorns, like Prince Charming, to rescue me,” Monica teased Christophe. She closed her eyes in fake sleep, and he kissed her enthusiastically.

  She’d arrived by surprise at Les Charmilles, but the instant he saw her painting the lake in his property, Christophe knew that she belonged in his château, and that she should be a part of its landscape––forever. His legal training and his logical mind meant he couldn’t admit to believing in fate, but––enveloped by the aura of the fairy tale castle and the surrounding dense forest––he was convinced that there was a “happily ever after” for him with Monica. They embraced, murmuring words of love and commitment that filled each other’s hearts with hope.

  “I could stay here with you in my arms forever, but I want to show you some of the Aubusson tapestries,” he told her, guiding her through the doors into the main floor of Château d’Ussé. All along the galleries, with their black-and-white tiled floors, hung tapestries of eighteenth-century Flemish rural scenes. Christophe pointed to a spaniel dog in a woven tavern scene.

  “Next spring I plan to breed our Welsh Springer Spaniel, and I will keep the sweetest pup as a gift for you.”

  “But I won’t be able to take her back to California!” Monica pouted with disappointment.

  He picked her up and swung her round and round, the length of the long gallery. “Then you will have to stay at Les Charmilles.”

  “Until I housebreak her?”

  “No, silly, until you housebreak her great-great-great offspring.”

  They both laughed giddily at the thought of housebreaking dozens and dozens of peeing spaniels, and continued their leisurely walk through the storybook property.

  Serge’s ears perked up at the sound of tires rolling on the winding gravel driveway of Les Charmilles. He and the Vicomtesse did not like unannounced visitors; even long-time friends did not just drop by. Madame la Vicomtesse maintained a certain formality that kept everyone at bay––and she cherished this intimidating tactic.

  By nature Serge was an easygoing fellow, but when an intruder came onto Les Charmilles he reacted like a seasoned Résistance fighter, one who knew better than to trust anyone. The one and only time Serge had let his guard down and opened up his heart, Victoire had taken advantage of this weakness and broken him––completely. Old Serge now waited until the end of each day to commiserate at the village café. Instead of climbing into bed with Victoire, the only thing he could look forward to were the understanding nods from his fellow villagers as they shared stiff drinks. Serge left no room for strangers to trample his heart, not even the sweet American woman who’d obviously set Christophe’s heart on fire. Serge loved Christophe like a grandson, and his instincts told him to keep an eye on his budding romance with Monica. He didn’t like being a skeptic, but Monica’s wide-eyed unworldliness unsettled him.

  Serge had worked for Madame la Vicomtesse for decades, and some of her haughtiness had rubbed off on him. He’d always pictured Christophe falling in love with a proper French woman of his social circle, not this dainty cowgirl from some insignificant ranch in California. Serge could not put his finger on Monica’s fatal flaw, but he resolved to ingratiate himself with her. By playing the country hick, he could be Christophe’s eyes and ears––old and defective as his own faculties might be. He wouldn’t let Monica pull the wool over his eyes. He would do anything to stop any Victoire-like, two-timing ways from destroying Christophe. He could feel female treachery in his bones the way he felt an incoming storm.

  Serge picked up his long and sharp garden shears and headed towards the front of the estate, ready to intimidate the intruder, but a voice from behind him alarmed him.

  “I am so sorry to startle you, my good man. I called out to you from a few meters away,” said a young man. It was Jean-Michel, pointing back towards the pool house.

  Serge puffed his chest and stood as erect as possible, brandishing his shears. “What are you doing here unauthorized?” he demanded.

  “I do apologize, but I did not see a guard house. My classmate, Didier Tremblay de Lambert, drove me here and is waiting in the car. Shall I call him to make the proper introductions?”

  “It is not necessary to bother the young Marquis Tremblay de Lambert. I, I apologi––”

  “Nonsense, my good man.” Jean-Michel extended a firm handshake. “You are obviously a vigilant property manager. I’m Jean-Michel Martin de Betancourt.”

  “I’m just Serge, the groundskeeper and valet. Been here since the war ended,” mumbled Serge, clearly intimidated by the mention of the well-known young marquis and equally impressed with Jean-Michel’s elegant manner.

  He was simply Serge Guinvar; there had never been a “de” preceding his last name and no familial estate in his rural pedigree, either. Serge knew his place in the world, and although he had never seen the elegant young man standing in front of him, he knew from his quick assessment of the man’s expensive cashmere sweater, antique gold watch, custom-made shoes, and impeccable French that he belonged to Christophe’s set.

  “How fascinating and how admirable! Where were you deployed in the war?”

  “I never talk about it anymore, sir. It is better forgotten.”

  “Nonsense, you are much too modest, but I admire a man who doesn’t puff his own chest. And I’m sure that you were a fearless fighter, even during the Occupation, n’est-ce pas?”

  “That was long ago––”

  “Precisely why I’m here. My dear friend Madame Caron de Pichet recommended that I stop by to interview you for a book I am writing about the dauntless French Résistance.”

  “Ah, so that is why you’ve stopped by. How is Marce…that is, Madame Caron de Pichet?”

  “Frisky and talented as ever…I suppose you know what I mean? Did you know her quite well?”

  Serge blushed the color of the red roses spiraling up the arbor. He looked down; he did not want the glimmer in his eye to give him away.

  “Please give her my regards,” he mumbled.

  Perhaps, Jean-Michel thought, old Serge had also been a beneficiary of Madame’s flawless fellatio. He allowed the erotic memory to wind its w
ay through the craggy memory paths in Serge’s ancient brain, then asked, “May we sit down and have a chat?”

  Serge had never been the subject of any special attention, so he was at a loss. “Er, perhaps you can ask me a few questions now. But…I regret that I am forbidden from inviting you into the residence. Ever since the passing of the late Vicomte, we are a closed estate. I was reprimanded a couple of days ago for allowing two young American art students into the salon. They were here for a couple of nights––I mean to say, one is still here, but Madame la Vicomtesse is distraught since she is missing one of her Hermès scarves and an ivory letter opener…I’ve spoken out of turn. Forgive me.”

  “Not at all, my good man. Not at all. Shall we have a drink?” Jean-Michel pulled out a silver hip flask from his back pocket. “Perhaps a shot of Cognac to fire up the memory?”

  “But isn’t the young marquis still waiting for you in the car?”

  “Oh! Didier left a couple of minutes ago. No need to worry about my transportation, my good man.”

  “In that case, sir, please sit down by the arbor bench.” Old Serge was beaming. “I’ll go get us some glasses.”

  Jean-Michel was disappointed with himself. He should never have told Serge that he wanted to interview him for the purported book on the Résistance. Soon the old man would return with drinking glasses and commence a long, meandering walk down memory lane, and Jean-Michel had no intention whatsoever of strolling down that lane with him. His initial plan had been to show Serge his sketch of Monica’s face, pretend to be her art professor, and ask if she was still at Les Charmilles. But he’d been thrown off-guard by the old man’s aggressive posture with the garden shears, and that meant he now had to follow through with this war-memoir interview and lose minutes, if not hours––precious time he needed to head back to Paris and carry through with his next assignment.

  Jean-Michel felt his charisma waning like the sun now setting beyond the turrets of Les Charmilles, and he envied the courageous action of other rival militant groups whose attacks were taking place across Europe, from Ireland to Greece. The bile of envy rose into his throat and he suppressed it with a swig of Cognac. Recently a lone anarchist, Gianfranco Bertoli, had attacked the police headquarters in Milan with a hand grenade. It was this type of lone-wolf surprise attack that Jean-Michel wanted to emulate––except in his case he would be the invisible leader of the pack and command his lone wolves to do his bidding.

  Thus far, Jean-Michel’s solitary accomplishment had been the loss of valuable Bordeaux in the wine cellar where Bertrand’s long leg had left a giant size-thirteen clue for investigators. He didn’t dare to publicly claim his role in the squad’s fiasco. In fact, he had to drop his previous idea of claiming that his planned devious deeds were executed by Le Poing–– The Fist––since the press had already dubbed their ham-handed attack as the Premier Abruti (“First Moron”), as a play on the words Premier Cru, the finest quality of Bordeaux wines that had been destroyed.

  After their bungled attack, Jean-Michel’s elite-school squad had scampered like cellar rats to hide who knows where. But what truly rubbed salt in Jean-Michel’s emotional wounds was that his assault on Monica’s self-esteem had not broken her down sufficiently––his “California Girl” mind-control method appeared to have failed miserably. If Madame Caron de Pichet’s giddy gossip was accurate, Monica had already betrayed him with the scion of this grand estate. He’d been outfoxed by a titled French lover, and he would never tolerate such a humiliation. He would outmaneuver his competition and hurt him very deeply, retaliating with the cunning strategy of a true revolutionary.

  Jean-Michel rubbed his prickly Che Guevara beard for good-luck. If Monica was still at Les Charmilles, he would take control of her again. He would make her feel guilty for having betrayed him. He would force her to suffocate in her guilt and denounce the little princeling who lived here, demanding that she remain eternally loyal to Jean-Michel. Once she was back under his control, he would set Monica loose in Paris and elsewhere; she would become his agent of terror. And he would start right here among these colossal architectural reminders of power and greed: the precious châteaux of the French aristocracy.

  After riding their bicycles for seventeen kilometers away from the Château d’Ussé, Christophe and Monica dipped their toes in the cooling waters of the River Indre that surrounded the Château of Azay-le-Rideau. When Monica rolled a damp log closer to the edge of the river, a long salamander crawled from underneath.

  “We don’t get any salamanders in my ranch,” Monica told Christophe, trying to pick up the moist amphibian.

  “Then you may not know that these creatures were considered to be magical and mythical. The ancient Greeks thought that salamanders could extinguish fires with their cold skin or with the white liquid they exude. Some even believed that their venom could strangle a tree. What do you think of that?”

  Monica laughed. “Are you kidding me? I grew up with rattlesnakes behind every boulder, and their venom will definitely kill you. And that’s no myth, it’s a fact.”

  Christophe hugged her. “But what if a salamander, perhaps even that salamander, has lived in this château for centuries and is said to appear magically from the logs in the fireplace?”

  “Let’s go inside and see,” challenged Monica. She led the way inside Azay-le-Rideau, struck by the coolness and magnificence of its grand foyer. As she climbed staircase after staircase, Monica noticed that each stone window pediment contained a carved stone salamander along with the Latin motto: Nutrisco et extinguo.

  “What does that mean?” she asked.

  “It means: I nourish and I extinguish. As I said earlier, the salamander is said to feed on the fire and also to extinguish evil.” Christophe starting to tickle her, and she batted his hands away.

  “Stop being silly. Seriously, why are there so many salamander carvings in this château?”

  “They were in the coat-of-arms of Francis I, and Nutrisco et extinguo was his motto. That’s all.”

  “Phew! Don’t scare me with any weird tales. That’s all I’ve heard since I came to France. Our housemother keeps telling me bawdy war stories, and Lola is always going on about some courtesan called La Belle Otero and the men who committed suicide over her rejection of them. Then I heard about this lovelorn woman and her journey down the Amazon––”

  “I can top that. In the Middle Ages, hundreds of soldiers were executed on this very spot and the château burned to the ground,” Christophe needled her.

  “I’m out of here. Let’s go back to the Sleeping Beauty castle. I prefer a love story.” Monica scampered down the stairs, and Christophe had to run to catch up with her.

  “All right, no more frightening tales,” he said, clutching her arm. “Why don’t you tell me your favorite story while we ride home?”

  They picked up their bicycles near the damp log now crawling with more salamanders, but the shimmering river no longer reflected the white stone façade of the château. Only a mirror image of the carved salamanders on the exterior walls seemed to be swimming in the downhill current. Monica felt her ebullient mood sinking in the current’s coiling depths, though Christophe didn’t seem to notice her somber expression.

  “So,” he asked, pulling his bicycle up alongside hers, “why was the woman from the Amazon so lovelorn?”

  “She lived up in the Andes Mountains back in the late 1700s, and her French husband deserted her. He was living in French Guiana, I think. After many years without her, he commanded her to board a boat from the headwaters deep in the rainforest and cross the length of the Amazon River basin in order to meet him.”

  “Surely she didn’t go on this trip all by herself?” Christophe shook his head in disbelief.

  “Isabel Casamayor de Godin, that was her name. She started out with a party of forty people, including her son, brothers, a nephew––but everyone died along the way. Eaten by crocodiles, poisoned by snakes, overcome with fever, or drowned. She was the sole survivor.�
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  “Stop, please. That is no love story––that is hell. Who told you this dreadful tale?” he asked.

  Monica didn’t reply. She pedaled rapidly past the tall dense trees, aware of the river splashing angrily against its now-shadowy banks. Each lap of murky river water became a drumbeat calling her back. The harder she pedaled, the more she understood Isabel’s obsessive love for her husband. Isabel had given herself entirely to her husband, despite his serious flaws, and when he needed her back in his arms, she had crossed hell and high water to meet him. “Could you love me that much?” Jean-Michel had asked Monica repeatedly as he penetrated her feverishly under his bat canopy. The more Monica tried to out-pedal Jean-Michel’s memory, the louder she heard his constant question–– “Could you love me that much?”––and the more her upper thigh ached with biting desire for his rough love.

  Monica looked behind her shoulder and saw a puzzled Christophe gazing at her.

  “But what has frightened you, ma petite? Please slow down,” he cooed like a gentleman, a devoted knight in shining armor. Christophe, she thought, was a prince of a man who would brave the brambles and thorns to come to the aid of his princess, a knight who would prevent anyone from harming her.

  But Monica could feel Jean-Michel’s fire igniting within, a coiling and demanding salamander––and there was nothing she could do to extinguish it. She had to pedal right back to his flame.

  At dusk, Madame la Vicomtesse finally left the horse arena at Les Charmilles where she had been practicing her dressage movements for an upcoming competition. Rather than dismount her Selle Français horse, she decided to ride him around her property. It was something her late husband did not approve of, since anything could startle the horses at this twilight hour, but Madame la Vicomtesse continued to be a contrarian, even to his memory. As she approached the bench close to one of the arbors, she saw Serge talking to an unknown man. From high above them on her horse she truly reined supreme, startling them with her loud command from a distance.