French Exit: A Novel

by Patrick deWitt

  “Die?” The customs agent shook his head. “But you are not so old, madame.”

  She said, “I’m old enough to have received a corsage from a white-gloved West Point cadet with a pomaded ducktail and a solid silver flask of rye in the pocket of his gabardine tuxedo—that’s how old I am.”

  The customs agent was flummoxed. He asked Malcolm, “She is sick, monsieur?”

  “She isn’t sick.”

  “She does not die?”

  “Never.”

  “She must not die here,” the customs agent warned Malcolm.

  “She’ll die somewhere else,” Malcolm promised.

  The customs agent looked back at Frances. “No dying in France.” He stamped their passports and waved them on. They purchased train tickets, Frances digging out the cash beneath Small Frank, who was yet inert. They settled into the first-class compartment and Frances slept while Malcolm read the account of the voyages of Christopher Columbus: 7 September. All Friday he was becalmed.

  Madeleine approached and sat opposite him. She was eating a sandwich from the bar car, a blank look on her face. It seemed to Malcolm she wasn’t going to say a word, then she ticktocked her head, swallowed, and told him, “I couldn’t send her back to the conga line without telling her.”

  “Maybe people don’t want to know.”

  “Of course they want to know. Wouldn’t you want to?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I told her, and I don’t feel bad about it.”

  Malcolm asked, “How did you know to tell her?”

  “I’ve been able to see it coming since I was a little girl.”

  “But how?”

  “Toward the end, there’s a color.”

  “What color?”

  “Green.”

  A ticket taker arrived and stood before them. Malcolm handed over his and his mother’s ticket and the man punched them, then asked in French for Madeleine’s.

  “What’s he saying?” she asked.

  “He wants your ticket,” Malcolm told her.

  “I haven’t got one.”

  “Madame n’a pas de billet, monsieur,” said Malcolm.

  The ticket taker asked Malcolm if the young lady wished to purchase a first- or second-class ticket; if it was the latter, he said, she would have to relocate to another compartment. Malcolm interpreted for Madeleine, who said, “I don’t want to buy either. He can kick me off the train if he wants to but I’ve got five hundred dollars to my name and I’m going to need it in Paris.”

  The ticket taker had his credit card reader at the ready and wore an expectant, happy expression. When Malcolm explained what Madeleine had told him, the card reader slowly dropped, and the ticket taker looked hurt. The young woman was putting him in a bad place, he said. Malcolm expressed sympathy but said that she herself was in a bad place, and that that sort of thing had a tendency to spread. The ticket taker did not disagree with this, but said he resented Madeleine for upsetting what he called the graceful balance of his work. He would not kick her off the train but said he believed she could represent herself better if she strove to do so. He moved away, down the aisle.

  “What did he say?” asked Madeleine.

  “He’s unimpressed with you, but he’s not going to kick you off the train.”

  Madeleine finished her sandwich, balled up the trash, and dropped it on the ground at her feet. Standing, she pointed at Frances’s purse. “You could have just bought me a ticket, you know.” Malcolm told her the truth, which was that the thought hadn’t occurred to him. Madeleine turned to leave.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I really don’t know, Malcolm,” she said, and then she was gone.

  Frances awoke minutes before the train landed at Gare du Nord. She smiled sleepily. “I never wanted to live one life,” she said. “I wanted to live three lives.” Small Frank rustled in her purse. It was nighttime in Paris, mid-December, the city made up with Christmas accents, bodies surging in all directions.

  Paris

  14.

  Joan’s apartment was located at the easternmost tip of the Île Saint-Louis. It was on the fifth floor and consisted of two bedrooms connected by a long, slender hallway; at the midpoint between the rooms were a modest kitchen, bathroom, and living room. As a habitable space it was serviceable, but without any trace of grandiosity, and with their own previously owned and comparably lavish apartment only a short walk away, Frances felt desolate at the sight of it. “It puts the apart in apartment,” said Malcolm, but his mother could not be cheered. Neither she nor Malcolm could sleep that night, and both were up before sunrise. There was nothing to eat, no coffee or tea; they dressed and struck out with no destination in mind.

  The fact of their being in Paris was different than it had been with past visits; now they were there because it was required, and this was somehow meant to be their home. They were lonely in their silence but neither could summon a topic of conversation. Shopkeepers were raising their shutters and hosing off the sidewalks; Frances was cold, and suggested they visit a church. Thinking of the view on this bright winter day, Malcolm said they should go to Sacré-Cœur.

  “Sacré-Cœur is a casino,” said Frances.

  “Notre-Dame?”

  “To stand in line with the morons?”

  “Saint-Sulpice?”

  “Oh, well, fine.”

  Actually, Frances preferred Saint-Sulpice to all other churches in Paris; this was the church she’d had in mind when she brought it up. But she was embarrassed to like something so patently likable. It was good of Malcolm to play along, she thought. They crossed the Île Saint-Louis and walked up the Boulevard Saint-Germain. The city was awakening, traffic thickening; crossing the street, Frances took Malcolm’s hand in hers.

  Saint-Sulpice was dark and grand, the air thick and warm. In response to a nameless cue they parted at the entrance, Malcolm following a counterclockwise line, Frances clockwise. She stopped to admire each of the chapels, dropping a bill into the box marked Chapelle des Ames-du-Purgatoire. She lit a candle and set it upright on the altar, gazing at the flame and thinking of her curious relationship with the Church.

  Growing up she had had no religion; in fact the first time she’d set foot in a church was for her mother’s funeral. She was fifteen years old, and had felt powerful standing over the corpse of her tormentor. Looking up at Christ’s admirable rib cage, she quietly told him, “I’m glad she’s dead. Thank you for killing her.” She didn’t expect an answer, and she had no need for dialogue, but after she left the church she felt unburdened. Over the years she’d found it beneficial to visit churches from time to time and share her darker thoughts.

  At Franklin’s funeral she felt impenetrable, which isn’t to say strong, but resilient, nonporous—a leaden rod. Being expressly barred, she’d snuck in with the crowd, face covered by a veil. Standing beside the coffin—closed, naturally—she pulled the veil back, and all in the church turned to watch, to wonder and gape at her gall. Out of the crowd came Carlson Wallace, Franklin’s second in command at the firm; he approached Frances with his hands outstretched, not to greet her but to remove her, bodily if need be. He took her by the arm and led her to the exit. He deposited her on the steps of the church and returned to the funeral. He had looked at Frances as though she were a fiend capable of violence. A lurching pipe organ accompanied her departure. She placed her veil in a trash can and followed after the thin warmth of an autumn sun, away and into the park.

  The pews at Saint-Sulpice consisted of oak and wicker chairs connected at the leg by long rods. Frances sat; her chair creaked and snapped dryly, loudly. She removed her gloves and folded her hands in her lap. Speaking lowly, and generally upward, she gave voice to her private, two-part plan. It was a relief to say the words, but also frightening, for the plan became suddenly concrete, and there was the sense of a countdown’s commencement. Her hands were trembling; she waited for this to pass before standing to seek out Malcolm.

  She found him
sitting on the far side of the church, looking at nothing and thinking of it. Malcolm had less of a reason for visiting a church than his mother. He didn’t take the notion of God seriously but couldn’t deny the feeling of beatitude he knew when he sat in a church pew. He attributed this to aesthetics; he wasn’t conflicted about it.

  “Are you up for a spree?” Frances asked. Part one of the two-part plan was to spend every penny they had.

  “I don’t need anything.”

  “You need an overcoat and I need a dress.”

  Recalling the heft of her luggage, Malcolm asked, “What do you need a dress for?”

  “An uncommon engagement. Are you up for a spree or aren’t you?”

  Together they left Saint-Sulpice, taxiing to the Galeries Lafayette. Shopping for Frances was a healthful exercise, and she went about it with determination and diligence. Malcolm did not dislike it but possessed such a meager vanity that clothing held only a minimal appeal. Frances forced him to try on several coats and bought him a houndstooth Burberry trench. For herself she purchased a deep-red, raw-silk Chanel cocktail dress. Malcolm wore the coat out; Frances rolled her dress like a cigarette and tucked it into her purse.

  They stood on the sidewalk in front of the Galeries Lafayette breathing exhaust and watching the tide of humanity wash past. Travel fatigue was setting in and Frances wished to return to the apartment but Malcolm suggested they stay awake until nightfall, that they might correct their clocks. Neither of them was hungry but they entered a nondescript bistro for an early dinner. The waiter disliked Malcolm and Frances from the moment he saw them, and made no attempt to hide this, refusing to address them in French and seating them next to the men’s toilet. Malcolm and Frances found it amusing for a time—here was the legendary rude French waiter made flesh—but it was half an hour before the wine arrived, and an evil smell came from under the men’s room door, and with their fatigue becoming more acute, the situation grew tiresome. Without speaking of it they both had the sense of being tested by the Fates, and both decided they could and would rally and endure the occasion. The wine was off and they drank it and ordered a second bottle. The food was cold and it was awful and they ate it.

  Now came the trial of paying the bill. The waiter was annoyed by their refusal to take noticeable offense at his discourtesies, and decided he would make them wait longer than any other customers had waited before. Malcolm waved three separate times but the waiter, standing idly at the bar, merely waved back. Malcolm crossed the restaurant and asked for the bill directly; the waiter nodded and said, “Soon, buddy,” then went outside and made a show of smoking not one but two cigarettes, exhaling as he watched them watching him.

  Frances had had enough. She pulled a bottle of perfume from her bag and began spritzing the bouquet of flowers in the center of the table. The waiter looked on from the sidewalk, wondering what she was playing at. Malcolm knew, and he studied his mother admiringly as she removed her lighter from her coat pocket: click! She held the flame to the bouquet and it went up in a ball. The restaurant had filled up by this point, and nearby customers stood away from their tables, cutlery clanking to the floor, the light of the fire dancing in their frightened eyes. The waiter rushed over to stand before the blaze in speechless disbelief. “L’addition, s’il vous plaît,” Frances told him. Malcolm sat beaming. The waiter ran off in search of a fire extinguisher.

  15.

  A week after their arrival, Frances entered Malcolm’s room and set twenty thousand euros on his pillow. “For walking around,” she said.

  A piece of mail had arrived, an invitation to a dinner party scheduled for that same evening. The inviter was unknown to them, one Mme Reynard; at the bottom of the card were the words, Please come!! You will find yourself among friends!!!

  “What do you think of that?” Frances asked Malcolm.

  “Too many exclamation points.”

  “But do you think we should go?”

  “Late notice. But sure, I’m up for it if you are.”

  Frances spent the afternoon getting ready. She had in her youth thought of her beauty as something to be weaponized, something capable of inflicting pain, and now this feeling returned to her. A good many of her invitations in New York during the previous decades had been rooted in a certain macabre social value she possessed as the grisly widow of Franklin Price; she had the sense this was the reason for her invitation now, and she wanted to arrive looking so attractive as to smite whoever opened the door. Hatred was a fillip and she was glad in her preparations.

  The party was located near the Place des Vosges and they set out on foot in the early evening with Small Frank leading the way. It occurred to Malcolm that his mother and father had been to Paris without him, and he asked her about this. “I’ve been coming since I was a young girl, of course.” She pointed at the cat. “But he’d never been until I insisted. Actually, we spent our honeymoon here.”

  “I can’t picture the two of you on a honeymoon.”

  Frances shrugged. “It was all the normal things. Hotels and flowers and champagne. It’s strange to think he was actually fun, but in the beginning he really was. We went to the Luxembourg Garden and I noticed him watching the children beside the pond with their sailboats and long sticks. I rented one for him and he set about following the boat with his stick, a glad, stupid look on his face. We were twenty-five years old. He lost interest in the boat and it floated away; then we started feeding the carp bits of a hot dog I was eating. They went berserk for it, and there was something about all these grotesquely fat fish piling on top of one another, and for a hot dog—it made me laugh, hard. I never laugh like that anymore, and rarely did then. I think your father was surprised by it. Well, he went away and came back with six hot dogs.” She looked at Malcolm. “He’d bought them because he wanted to make me laugh again. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Such a small gesture,” she said, “but it couldn’t have been further away from the man I knew later. A groundskeeper came over and asked us to please refrain from feeding hot dogs to the carp. Your father’s response was to toss the hot dogs and stick into the pond. The groundskeeper and sailboat rental man both were shouting after us as we left the garden, but it was like we couldn’t hear them. Our arms were linked. We were making plans for dinner, I remember.”

  The story made Malcolm feel solemn. Frances squinted at her son. “What do you remember about him?”

  Malcolm didn’t remember much, but two moments stood out. The first was a trip to the Central Park Zoo when he was eight. It had been going well enough at the start; they weren’t sharing anything significant but it was something, time together, a modest experience, but real. They drifted from cage to cage, saying nothing. Malcolm had wanted to know his father so badly in those days, and he wondered if this wasn’t the beginning of an understanding between them. Then came the gorillas.

  When they entered the monkey house, the gorillas were lazing about peaceably, docile in their fabricated jungle. But the moment Franklin took up his position at the glass they stirred, became agitated. Soon they were howling and circling the cage, every one of them taken up with a collective outrage. Franklin had watched the shift in the gorillas’ mood with an amused bafflement, but as it became clearer he was the focus of their hostility, his expression grew more severe. Now the largest gorilla approached and stood before him, shrieking and pounding at the glass. Reaching down, he shat in his hand and smeared his waste at the level of Franklin’s face. Franklin yanked Malcolm away by his wrist, dragging him to the ticket booth to formally protest. The woman in the booth was afraid of Franklin; his anger was acute and his complaint sounded like paranoiac raving. “You’re saying the gorillas didn’t like you, sir?” She assured him it wasn’t personal, but that was just it: it was. Franklin had been singled out by distant relatives as one unfit to live among them, and he felt the sting of tribal ostracism. He got his money back, a bitter victory. Malcolm sensed his father blamed the incident on him. Years
passed before he would be alone with him again.

  Malcolm’s second memory told of the time his father had brought him along to a father/son function at the Metropolitan Club. The other children seemed far more competent than Malcolm was—miniature men who understood the value of wit, who knew that socializing was a game of consequence. They had their schools and professions selected, and their fathers were proud, affectionate, present, whereas his own father had gone off to some secret chamber and left him to sit and chat with a sleepy bartender named Sam. Malcolm drank four cherry colas in a row and vomited on the carpet of the foyer. His father was called for; when he saw the vomit, he pressed a hundred dollars into Sam’s hand. “Clean him up and put him in a cab. He knows the address.” Franklin left the room, cigar smoke cresting over his shoulder. Sam looked at the hundred-dollar bill, then Malcolm, who wore a bib of cooling bile that was seeping into the top of his boxer shorts. “All right, kid,” he said.

  Malcolm told these stories to Frances but she wasn’t listening very closely. She was studying the party invitation. Pointing at the building before them, she said, “This is us.” Small Frank was no longer with them, having chased after a plump, hobbling gutter mouse.

  16.

  A bell rung, a door opened: Mme Reynard. Frances had prepared herself to face off against a roomful of impeccably dressed French women of high social standing. It was to be a night of implied insults and needling insinuations and she could hardly wait to get started. But the woman standing before them wore slacks and a baggy sweater, and she smiled and spoke English in an American accent. “Oh, hey, you made it!” She ushered them in, took their coats, and led them through the apartment to the dining room. The table was set for three; Frances experienced a lesser horror.

  “We’re not early?” she said.

  “No, right on time.”

  “Where are the others?”

  “There are no others but us,” said Mme Reynard. “Would either of you like a martini? I’ve been waiting all day for mine.”