The Mystery of the Lost Cezanne
Page 2
“Great. How was court this morning?”
“Well worth our effort, Bruno,” Verlaque answered. “Kévin Malongo will be behind bars for the next twenty years.”
“Perfect. See you soon.”
Verlaque was finally inside Michaud’s. Stainless steel racks had been pulled out of the back room and filled the interior of the shop, each one stacked high with the flaky galettes. Those customers still in line strained to see the cakes, already selecting their favorite. Verlaque winced; they all looked the same to him. Other customers, ahead in the queue, pointed to their chosen cake, and a black-and-white-uniformed Michaud salesgirl carefully lifted the cake and placed it in a shiny red box. The prices Verlaque could hear being rung in at the cash register astounded him. Thirty euros? There was just a bean hidden in the cake, not a bloody diamond. And why was there going to be a party at the Palais de Justice this afternoon? He tried to picture his group of police officers, gathered around the cakes, with the youngest officer—Jules?—sitting cross-legged under his desk, calling out names. Verlaque sighed; sometimes he loved the traditions of his country, and sometimes . . .
“Monsieur le juge?” a saleswoman asked. Verlaque recognized her; she had been working at Michaud’s as long as he could remember. She obviously knew him, too.
“Un galette des rois, s’il vous plaît, et deux brioches,” he answered.
“Which one?” she asked.
Verlaque looked at the cakes. The ones lower down looked too small, and he eliminated the cakes that looked lopsided or messy. The saleswoman shifted her weight and he finally pointed to one on the top shelf. If they were to be five that evening, Léa would want a big cake. “Don’t forget the crown!” he called after her.
• • •
Natalie Chazeau had been watching Antoine Verlaque from the window. L’Agence de la Ville was Aix-en-Provence’s most luxurious real estate office, or it had been until that summer when John Taylor Realtors opened a branch across the street. Mme Chazeau, a handsome, tall woman in her early seventies, was the company’s owner, and had built it up from scratch with her husband, who had died of a heart attack twenty years earlier. They were young newlyweds when they bought the office, prestigiously located on the Cours Mirabeau, and for years had lived frugally while paying back the loan. It was now worth a fortune.
Mme Chazeau was adding new color photographs of two estates for sale—one just outside of Aix and the other in the Luberon—in the office’s large plate-glass window, where the Aixois could stroll by, see the photos, stop, and dream. People who ended up buying estates sold by L’Agence de la Ville rarely did so by seeing the photographs in the windows; more often than not they hired scouts to find them the perfect (often second or third) home. But the agency was known for its window display, as was Pâtisserie Michaud across the street, whose queue Verlaque was now impatiently standing in.
She pinned up the last photograph and looked at the judge, who had his head bent, speaking on his cell phone while trying to puff on a cigar. The queue moved slowly. He reminded her of her only child, Christophe, a friend of the judge’s and a fellow cigar smoker, who had recently moved to Paris to open his own agency. Had she been a younger woman she would have done everything she could to work her way into Antoine Verlaque’s arms. But those days were over, and she knew that the judge saw her as others did—a distinguished, hard-working old woman who probably dyed her thick black hair (she didn’t). She looked at Verlaque’s wide back, clothed in a black coat that she guessed was cashmere, and she reached up and twisted one of her diamond earrings—a gift from Christophe.
Her office phone rang and she answered it, and by the time it got dark, just before 6:00 p.m., she had had more than fifteen calls. She left her office and told Julie, her secretary, that she could leave for the day. Mme Chazeau herself would lock up after tonight’s meeting. She thanked Julie for her hard work, adjusted the thin wool scarf around the young girl’s neck, and then stood looking out the glass door at the lineup across the street. The judge had long gone; she hadn’t seen how many cakes he had bought. Mme Chazeau wished she could go home, put on her slippers, call her half brother Franz, and tell him about Michaud’s famed galettes des rois. But tonight she would be working, hosting a meeting of apartment owners who owned flats in the four-story apartment at 23 rue Boulegon. There had been a time, when sales were easier to get, that she had refused to work as a syndic. Smaller, less prestigious Realtors could take on the headache of dealing with the often-daily problems in running a small apartment building. Especially apartments that had been built in old Aix and were themselves often more than five hundred years old. But finding clients—French or foreign—to buy estates worth more than two million euros was getting harder to do, so she agreed to represent the owners at 23 rue Boulegon, if only for the prestige: it was a beautiful, well-kept building, and it had been Paul Cézanne’s last residence.
A thud brought her out of her reverie; René Rouquet had walked into the glass door. Startled, she opened the door. “M. Rouquet,” she said, “you should walk with your head up. Welcome. You’re the first here.”
Rouquet mumbled a good evening, walked in with his head still down, and stood with his back to Julie’s marble-topped desk, fidgeting with his wool hat. Mme Chazeau smiled, pleased that the gruff retired postman had remembered his manners and removed his hat. The tiny bell that hung above the door rang again and she turned around; it seemed that the rest of the owners had all arrived at the same time: Pierre Millot, who came with the new owners of his top-floor apartment, a young couple whom Mme Chazeau hadn’t yet met; Dr. Pitavy, a podiatrist who owned a two-room office on the ground floor, to the left of the building’s entrance; and Philomène Joubert, who owned and rented out the two apartments on the second floor, above Dr. Pitavy’s office.
“Did you see the queue at Michaud’s?” Mme Joubert said as she walked in, blowing on her hands, wishing she had not left her apartment on the rue Cardinale without gloves.
“I bought my galette this morning,” Dr. Pitavy said, smirking.
“I made my own,” Philomène Joubert said, glaring at the doctor. What a pretentious bore, she thought to herself.
Pierre Millot turned to the young couple, Françoise and Eric Legendre, who had just moved to Aix, and explained. “Michaud’s is an institution,” he said. “Cézanne even bought his pastries there.”
“Let’s go upstairs to the meeting room, now that everyone is here,” Mme Chazeau said. She turned the door’s lock and left a large set of keys dangling in it.
“Et le Belge?” René Rouquet asked as they mounted the stairs.
“M. Staelens,” Mme Chazeau slowly said, “called me this afternoon. He’s at home in Brussels and sends his best wishes.”
Mme Chazeau closed the conference room’s door, out of habit, once everyone sat down. She went to the head of the table and opened a red file. “Pierre, why don’t you introduce the new owners of your former apartment?” she asked, sitting down. She didn’t add that she thought it odd that Pierre Millot was present that evening, as he no longer owned an apartment at number 23. But she had seen it before—some people had a hard time letting go, even once all the documents had been signed. One seller, years ago, had such remorse that he drove every evening to his former house and parked in the street, looking at the grounds that he had lovingly tended for thirty years. When he began to wander around the yard, the new owners had to get a restraining order.
Pierre straightened his back and began. “I’d like to introduce Eric and Françoise Legendre, who moved into my former apartment six days ago. They are returning to France after spending over ten years in New York.”
“New York?” Mme Chazeau asked. “How was that?”
“Expensive,” Eric Legendre flatly replied.
“So I’ve heard,” Mme Chazeau replied. “Welcome to Aix. If you have any questions about the city, I’m always available.”
Mme Chazeau picked up a pen. She would act as secretary that night. “First on the agenda is the hall and stairway cleaning. The price is going up fifteen euros a month. Does everyone approve this?”
“What choice do we have?” Dr. Pitavy asked.
“Change companies,” Mme Chazeau said. “Which means interviewing them. And I’ve already looked into it. The one we’re using is still the cheapest, even if they raise the fee.”
“In that case, I approve,” Mme Joubert said, raising her hand.
“So does M. Staelens,” Mme Chazeau said. “We went over this evening’s agenda on the telephone.” She looked at the Legendres and explained, “Jan Staelens owns a large apartment on the third floor. He uses it for vacations. What do you think about the cleaning fees?”
Eric Legendre looked at his wife and shrugged. “We approve, I guess.”
“So do I,” Dr. Pitavy said, sighing.
“M. Rouquet?” Mme Chazeau asked.
René Rouquet looked up. He had been twirling his hat in his hands, thinking of other things. More important things.
“We were voting on the fee increase for cleaning the building’s common areas,” Mme Chazeau reminded him. “Everyone has approved it.”
“Oh, okay, then,” Rouquet said.
Mme Chazeau tapped her pen on the table.
“I approve,” René said.
“Thank you,” Mme Chazeau replied, taking notes. She had expected more of a fight from René Rouquet, who was notoriously cheap. He usually paid more attention. “Second on the agenda—”
“The mysterious storage room,” Dr. Pitavy interjected.
“Yes—”
“I’m willing to pay rent for its use,” Dr. Pitavy went on. “It’s right across the hall from my office. I have equipment I need to store, and paperwork that the tax man and medical fraternity insist we keep for ten years. If I don’t have somewhere to put all of that I’ll have to move my office. And, as you all know, it’s quite nice having a quiet podiatrist downstairs, instead of a dentist, who’s drilling, or—horror of horrors—a snack shop, frying meats . . .”
“Who is using the débarras?” Philomène Joubert asked. “One of my students, the one who’s renting the smaller flat, asked if she could put her bicycle in it.” Mme Joubert loved renting her two apartments on rue Boulegon to students—always female—and she treated them like family (especially the ones who went to Mass). She no longer had to list the apartments at the university; they passed down through friends, sisters, and cousins by word of mouth.
“The clothing store at 21 Boulegon,” Dr. Pitavy answered.
Mme Chazeau sighed and set down her pen. It seemed that the podiatrist had taken over the meeting.
“They use it to store extra stock,” Dr. Pitavy continued. “And they won’t say who they’re renting it from!”
“M. Rouquet,” Mme Chazeau carefully said, looking at René. “Since the subject of the ground-floor storage room has never before been an issue, only today did I look at the deeds, and I discovered that it belongs to you. Would you be willing to rent it out to Dr. Pitavy?”
René Rouquet looked at her, surprised, and then glared at Pierre. He grabbed his coat and got up, knocking over a chair in the process, mumbling as he opened the door. Eric and Françoise Legendre looked at Mme Chazeau, bewildered. Philomène Joubert took out her wool and needles and began knitting.
“Please don’t leave, René,” Mme Chazeau called after the ex-postman.
“I’ll talk to him,” Pierre Millot said, getting up and quickly putting on his coat. “René’s just being—”
“René,” replied Mme Chazeau, as she heard the front door open and close, its little bell ringing. She stood up and walked to the large window that overlooked the Cours Mirabeau. There was still a queue at Michaud’s, and René and Pierre had stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. René was gesturing wildly and Pierre reached up to the old man’s shoulders, only to have his hands brushed away. “Where were we?” Mme Chazeau asked as she turned back around to the now-smaller group.
Chapter Two
Pierre’s Request
You know you look foolish wearing a gold paper crown while driving a Porsche,” Marine said, glancing over at her boyfriend.
“Really?” Verlaque asked, feigning surprise. “Do you mean to say that if I was driving a different vehicle, say, a newer-model Peugeot, or a battered pickup truck, I’d look better with the crown?”
Marine laughed out loud. “You had fun, didn’t you?”
“I always have fun with the Pauliks,” Verlaque answered. “And as much as I dislike the cake, I do get a kick out of the youngest person in the room sitting under the table, calling out names. It was always Sébastien who got to do it at our place.”
“And it was always me at ours,” Marine replied. Marine Bonnet, a law professor, was an only child, born to a family doctor and his theologian wife. She went on, “Léa was tickled pink you were served the slice with the bean.”
“My loyal subject.”
“I think she was more excited to see how ridiculous you’d look wearing the crown.”
“You’ll be sent to the tower for that remark.”
Marine smiled and looked out of the car’s window; even when it was dark out, they both insisted on taking the narrow, winding Route de Cézanne instead of the straighter Route Nationale. The Porsche’s lights lit up the shimmering silver leaves of the olive trees as they passed. Every time she was on this road she thought of Aix’s famous son Paul Cézanne, and how he would walk this road daily, his easel strapped to his back. He died on this road, too, caught in a sudden storm and contracting pneumonia, dying a few days later at the age of sixty-seven.
“It’s amazing when Léa sings for us, isn’t it?” Verlaque asked, smiling as he drove.
“Mmm,” Marine said, frowning. “But I worry about the amount of time the music conservatory takes out of a young person’s life.”
“Didn’t you see her face?”
“Yes,” Marine slowly replied. “Of course she was happy singing. She had a captivated audience.”
“So you think her happiness wasn’t genuine?” Verlaque asked, glancing at Marine.
“She’s the kind of little girl who’ll do anything to please her elders.”
Verlaque geared down to first gear and swung his 1961 Porsche around a hairpin turn. “How do you know?”
Marine tried to smile. “Because I was that kind of little girl.”
“And look at you now.”
“Exactly. Careful, there’s a sleeping policeman coming up.”
Verlaque slowed the car down to slowly pass over the speed bump. “Thank you,” he said. He had been happy listening to Léa sing, and so he was frustrated that Marine was putting a black cloud over the evening. They entered the outskirts of Aix, and the olive orchards gave way to small houses and low-rise apartment blocks. This was Aix’s quiet La Torse neighborhood, almost as expensive as the Route de Cézanne itself. Every time he met people from La Torse they bragged that they could walk downtown and yet were only a three-minute drive from the highway, plus they could park their cars right in front of their houses or apartments. He hated La Torse.
“Let’s get back to Léa,” Verlaque said. “Don’t you think that Bruno and Hélène would stop her from all of the music lessons if they saw that she was suffering?”
Marine bit her bottom lip. “I don’t know them well enough to say.”
“But you claim to know their daughter.”
“Oh just forget it, Antoine.”
“What’s bothering you? Why are you in such a gloomy mood? You’ve been acting weird lately.”
“I’m okay,” she said quietly.
Verlaque turned right onto le périph—t
he ring road that surrounded Aix’s old town—and then quickly turned left and drove down the steep and narrow rue Emeric David, which almost dead-ended into the great white neoclassical Palais de Justice.
“You don’t sound convinced,” he said, glancing over at her again.
“I don’t like sounding whiny,” she anwswered. “I know that I should be happy: I have a good academic job that challenges me and that I enjoy—well, except for the numerous pointless meetings. My parents are both alive, and healthy. I bought my apartment before the new TGV station brought trainloads of Parisians to Aix, flooding our real estate market. And,” she said, reaching over and rubbing Verlaque’s shoulder, “I’m in love with a wonderful man. But tonight I have the blues, and I don’t know why. I’m almost ashamed—”
“Are you mad at me?”
Marine sighed. “Honestly, Antoine.” She almost added “not everything revolves around you,” but she kept that thought to herself. Antoine wanted an explanation—words, and answers. But despite being surrounded by words and arguments all day at school, tonight Marine couldn’t describe her feelings. She could only describe what she saw: the Pauliks in their three-hundred-year-old farmhouse, laughing about the leaking roof in the dining room; Léa singing, her brown eyes lighting up when she looked at Antoine; and Antoine, despite being one of the moodiest people she had ever met, laughing like he hadn’t a care in the world. She didn’t understand it, and she hated being emotional over something she couldn’t explain. She had overheard Antoine, while washing the wineglasses with Hélène Paulik, tell Hélène of his parents in Paris. He’d said, “I think they pass each other in the hallway once a week.” But he had said it in a light enough way—imitating his mother’s permanent frown—that Hélène had laughed. It had taken a year of dating before Antoine had even told Marine his parents’ names.
“The city is more beautiful at night,” Marine said, looking out the passenger window. “At least in the winter. At night the buildings are more than just gold; they’re luminous.”