Losing the Light

by Andrea Dunlop

  “You just relax,” I said, cheerful now, unconcerned about leaving him alone with Sophie.

  I happily trotted down the stairs. It felt so wonderful, so luxurious, to be allowed free rein of the house like this. It seemed to me that Sophie, knowing me as she did, must have an inkling that something had happened with Alex. I imagined that when I finally told her, she would roll her eyes and tease me for telling her what she already knew. But not just yet; I wanted it to be my secret for a while.

  The wine cellar was dark and had a hard, dry, musty smell that assaulted my nose. It was small and cramped but well stocked, and as I made my way through the racks, I laughed at my previous vision of Alex and Sophie caught in an embrace here. That hadn’t happened, I told myself. Wouldn’t happen now. He had declared himself. As I picked up bottles one by one, I realized that I hadn’t the slightest idea what to choose. I was a novice in the face of what I could only assume was a fairly impressive collection. Some bottles looked ancient and I feared I would defile them even by removing them from their racks. Toward the end of the room was a case of Côtes du Rhône that looked newer and had only a few bottles missing from it. As it seemed like the safest option, I grabbed a bottle and headed upstairs.

  As I made my way through the kitchen, I heard a small commotion in the foyer and slowed my steps, suddenly rigid with fear. Was this only Magdalena back from the market? Even if it was her, I didn’t relish the idea of encountering her alone after having raided the de Persauds’ wine cellar. It was not Madame de Persaud, I knew she was upstairs in her room napping because Sophie had been to check on her when she’d put her paintings away in the studio.

  I froze in the wide-open foyer when I saw Magdalena with several pieces of monogrammed luggage and behind her an elegant middle-aged woman who was removing her hat. They both stopped in their tracks when they saw me, standing in my denim skirt and sweater, my hair bunched on the top of my head, holding what was—for all I knew—an expensive bottle of wine pillaged from their cellar.

  “Hello,” the woman said. This, of course, was Alex’s mother, the other Madame de Persaud.

  In my rush to explain myself I bungled my French so badly that I might as well have been speaking Greek.

  “Excuse me?” she said. Upon closer inspection, she appeared a little frailer than she had at first glance, like someone who had smoked since birth and didn’t eat enough protein.

  More slowly this time, I tried again to explain that I was a friend of Alex’s, that he was in the garden and had asked me to bring up a bottle of wine. I heard myself botch several tenses, but at least these rudimentary facts seemed to register with her. She looked to Magdalena for confirmation, and she grunted in response.

  “I was not planning on having company for dinner this evening,” Madame said.

  I told her we didn’t need to stay, that we could leave soon. I apologized again and again—for what I didn’t know—but it felt necessary.

  “No, no. I want to know Alex’s friends. You must stay.” It was an order, not an invitation. She smiled now and I could see traces of Alex in her face; the eyes in particular were the same, although his dark complexion must have come from his father, as her skin was pale and her face was pulled a little tight.

  I smiled back and stumbled out my thanks: “Oui, d’accord. Er, avec plaisir.”

  What should I do now? I wanted to tell Alex and Sophie that she was here—she seemed like a person you might like to be forewarned about—but it felt rude to scurry out of the room while she was still standing in the foyer.

  She said something to Magdalena too quiet and too low for me to hear, and they headed toward the kitchen. As she passed by me, I saw Madame de Persaud’s eyes swoop over me and take in what I was wearing with a hint of disdain. Stopping when she was right next to me, she glanced at the label of the bottle of wine that I was still clutching like contraband.

  “Ah, the Domaine Saint-Martin that le maire sent us this Christmas.” She looked me square in the eyes with a gaze both warm and terrifying. “What excellent taste you have.”

  I traced the word le maire in my head; shit, I thought, the mayor? I wondered if she might take it from my hands as if I were a child who had mistakenly gotten hold of something valuable, but she continued past me and then I was alone in the foyer. I decided the only thing to do was to take the bottle to Alex and let him deal with it. Heading toward the stairs, I wondered how I had the misfortune of selecting what had looked to me like the most innocuous bottle in the wine cellar and having it turn out to be a gift from a local dignitary.

  “Ah, non,” Alex said, sounding more disappointed than angry when I told him about the return of his mother. “Was she horrible to you, Brooke?”

  “Not at all,” I said, unsure whether that was the truth but feeling that it was the safest answer, that if she had been a little bit horrible, it would be more polite to pretend I hadn’t noticed.

  “She wants us to stay for dinner,” I added quietly. Sophie sat silently, her eyes flicking back and forth between Alex and me. I was suddenly struck by the notion that I was interrupting something.

  “Of course she does.” Alex’s tone was more exasperated than at the initial news of her presence. “She wants to figure out what the two of you are doing here.” He laughed caustically. “Imagine. My mother comes home to find an American girl standing in the foyer with a bottle of her precious Domaine Saint-Martin!”

  “I . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that this was expensive, I just saw that there was a whole case of it and thought it would be okay.”

  “Oh, chérie, no, it’s absolutely fine. I told you to take what you wanted.” He snatched the bottle from my hands and carried it to the hutch that held the clean glasses, where he expertly plunged the corkscrew in and popped the cork out in one smooth motion. “In fact it’s marvelous that this is what you chose.”

  I took a seat next to Sophie, and Alex handed us both a glass of the deep red vin extraordinaire. “Marvelous,” he repeated again under his breath as he poured himself a glass. “I will go talk to her.” He touched Sophie’s shoulder as he passed. “You should stay, though, unless you’ve got someplace else to be.”

  I had told my host family I would be back that night for dinner. “No, I would love to stay.”

  When he had disappeared, I turned to Sophie, resisting the urge to ask her what they’d been talking about while I’d been gone.

  “This wine is wonderful,” Sophie said with a devious little grin. “You have good taste.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t believe that just happened. And look at me.”

  “What about you? You look fine.” Of course, Sophie was wearing one of the fetching little floral dresses she seemed to have a dozen of with a light cream cashmere sweater. The outfit managed to be both demure and show off her long, golden legs at the same time.

  “Not for meeting Alex’s mother.”

  “Well, me neither in that case.” I looked at her incredulously but she didn’t react. “Anyway, how were we supposed to know she was coming by? I was beginning to think she didn’t exist!”

  “I can assure you that she does and that she is everything you would imagine.”

  “I wonder what his father was like,” Sophie said. “I get the sense he was the nicer one.”

  “Why the past tense? Where is his father?”

  “He passed away. I thought you were here the other day when Alex was talking about it but I guess you weren’t. It sounds like they were close.”

  “Interesting,” I said, trying to find a word that might mask my bitterness that she’d known this essential Alex information before I had. “What happened to him?”

  “I don’t know. Alex didn’t really say and I didn’t want to press him about it.”

  Of course not!

  “A mystery,” she said to my silence, then leaned in toward me, smiling mischievously. “These people are full of them.”

  I nodded and drank more wine.

  I had e
xpected Alex and his mother to be a little cold with each other from the way he spoke about her while she wasn’t around. But to my surprise, when mother and son were face-to-face, she seemed quite loving with him, offering gratitude that he’d looked after her mother-in-law. And Alex was solicitous and made inquiries about his mother’s time in the Loire Valley, which he referred to as la campagne, with no mention made of “an ugly old château.” So Alex was capable of a certain duplicity—but weren’t we all with our families? Who has not had the experience of simultaneously complaining about a family member but still loving the person deeply? I assumed that whatever differences existed between French and American families, one rule held true for both: that we may say whatever nasty things we like about our own family but become enraged when anyone on the outside does so. I decided to try to see the best in Alex’s mother.

  This didn’t prove to be difficult, as she was charming and seemed pleasantly amused to have Sophie and me there. We ate dinner on an enclosed outdoor patio where we could appreciate the cool evening breezes. I was sure she could tell that I was nervous to be there, and I hoped that this wasn’t communicating any bad intentions on my part. I wanted to amend her first impression of me as the grubby American girl helping herself to her treasured wine collection. Every so often she smiled at me in a way that was more incisive than reassuring, as if I were some kind of rare species that she was trying to identify.

  Sophie smoothly recounted a story of a winery trip through the Loire Valley that her parents had taken when she was in high school, of how the gems they’d brought back were some of the first wines she’d ever tasted. I could tell that Alex’s mother was impressed with her. Sophie seemed rather relaxed in the company of the intimidating Frenchwoman, and as usual Sophie had perfect control of the language and was fluidly explaining how she was finding life at the university. I was at a disadvantage for how unsettled I was feeling after the kiss; the scene kept flashing through my mind, obliterating my ability to focus on anything else. I stole looks at Alex throughout dinner, trying to gauge whether he was similarly preoccupied, but he never seemed to be looking in my direction.

  “Will you be staying the summer?” Madame de Persaud asked.

  “No,” I replied, “we’re only here until the end of May.”

  “Only a couple more months, quel dommage.” I thought I heard in her voice an undercurrent of relief that we would not be permanent fixtures in her courtyard, in her son’s life.

  “We may come back,” Sophie said. “That is, Brooke and I love France. We might look for work here after we’re finished with school.”

  Madame de Persaud seemed surprised by this, as though Sophie had just announced that we would be moving into her house. “Well, that’s marvelous. So what sort of work would you like to pursue? Perhaps work as teachers or with an American company? So wonderful all that you girls can do these days. Not like when I was young. Then it was always about le mariage.”

  “Actually, Mother, they’re artists. Sophie is a painter and Brooke is a writer,” Alex said, smiling.

  “Oh, girls, you mustn’t listen to Alex too much.” Madame de Persaud turned away from her son as though he had been responsible for putting in our heads the notion of who and what we were. “He’s very bright, but he’s not terribly sensible about work. That is, on the rare occasion that he encounters it. La vie bohème, it’s the French disease, you must be careful not to catch it.”

  She took a sip of her wine and a fraught silence engulfed the table. I watched for Alex’s reaction, for an explosion or harsh words, braced for the moment when he would do something dramatic like crash his plate to the ground and storm away from the table. But to my surprise, he was simply smirking. I looked at his mother, who still had her air of relaxed contemplation, and then back at Alex and his slightly menacing expression.

  “You must listen to my mother, girls,” Alex said finally. “She knows so very much about hard work.”

  “But she did work hard,” I said, unable to stop the words before they came out of my mouth. “I mean, it’s hard work raising a family.”

  The three of them looked at me as though stunned. Madame’s face wore a frozen, slightly horrified smile. I sensed I had said something deeply inappropriate.

  Alex at last began to snicker. “It is hard work indeed!” I looked helplessly at Sophie but she was staring at her plate as Alex spoke. She was embarrassed for me. “Just ask our nanny, Marie-Louise.”

  Now Madame de Persaud laughed and turned to us. “You always love your children when you are a mother, girls. It’s a blessing and a curse.” But her hands shook a little as she put her fork down on her plate. Unsurprisingly she had hardly touched her food.

  Sophie and I smiled uneasily. The conversation went on calmly. Madame de Persaud asked us questions about the United States. I felt the edge of my deepening sadness that though it felt as if my experience in France was just beginning, in reality it was speeding toward a conclusion, and that—despite what Sophie and I said to each other in our giddy moments of invincibility—I would forget my French, my bond with Sophie would slowly loosen and eventually evaporate, and I would never see or hear from Alex ever again. Almost unconsciously I slipped my hand into the pocket of my sweater and ran my finger over the edge of the photograph. The memoires wouldn’t be enough. I couldn’t bear the thought of Alex and Sophie going on without me. There had to be another way.

  THE PREMIERE of Véronique’s play was on a Friday night. The theater was little more than a basement room with dingy rows of seats and a low ceiling. Sophie and I brought Adam along. We hadn’t seen much of him outside of school for the past few months; he had a French boyfriend whom we’d never met. He wasn’t out, according to Adam, but given how conservative and Catholic Nantes was, that wasn’t too surprising.

  “So, will Alex be here?” Adam asked as we hurried along the side street to the theater.

  Despite the fact that it was now late March, there was still the occasional very brisk day, and I pulled my coat more tightly around myself. “Yes, he should be,” I said. I still hadn’t told anyone about the kiss. The longer I went without saying anything, the harder it became to speak up, and I began to wonder if it had actually happened.

  “Can’t wait to meet this mystery man,” Adam said as we joined the back of the small queue outside the door to the theater.

  “You’re one to talk about mystery men, Adam,” Sophie said, punching him lightly on the arm.

  “True,” he said with a grin, “but not my fault.”

  Following each other down the narrow staircase, we sat down in the third row. I didn’t have to look to know that Alex wasn’t in the room.

  “We’ll save him a seat,” I said, pulling off my coat and draping it over the chair closest to the aisle. We’d brought flowers for Véronique, and the cellophane around them crinkled loudly in my lap.

  Just as the lights were dimming, Alex materialized beside me as if out of thin air. He murmured his hellos and then turned his attention to the stage, where Véronique had appeared dressed in a white nightgown, sitting on the edge of a bed combing her long hair and looking lovely as Chimène. It was oddly thrilling to see her onstage, even in such a small theater.

  She gave a stirring performance despite having to play opposite a meek and unconvincing Rodrigue. Was I surprised that she was a good actress? I wasn’t sure. Something about her was malleable but at the same time opaque; you could know her in one sense but not in another.

  After the show we went to meet her backstage. Alex looked calmer than when he’d arrived, and he greeted Adam with a hearty handshake that someone must have told him to use with American men. As we wound around the stage to the tiny area behind the curtain, Alex fell behind with Sophie, slinking an arm around her shoulders, asking her what she’d thought of the show.

  “Oh, baby”—Adam leaned in to whisper in my ear—“you better watch out for that one.”

  I looked at the two of them together. She looked a little sull
en, and then Alex whispered something to her that made her laugh.

  I turned back to Adam.

  “Alex, he seems like trouble.” Adam winked at me and I smiled.

  Véronique saw us and ran over. “You came!” Her stage makeup was still on, making her look hyperreal, like a caricature of herself.

  “Of course we came!” I handed her the flowers. “Véronique, this is our friend Adam from the institute.”

  Véronique squealed with delight and kissed him on both cheeks. “Of course, I’ve heard all about you. You’re the only one of the Americans that the girls still like. We’ve turned them, you know!”

  “I know it,” Adam said. “I’ve been dying to meet you two.”

  Still on a high from the performance, she threw her arms around Sophie and Alex as they joined us. “Let me get this stuff off my face and put my clothes back on and we’ll get a drink.”

  “To Véronique!” Alex said. We clinked glasses.

  “To Chimène!” I said.

  We drank a couple of rounds together at the bar next door to the theater. I was filled with the warmth of having brought two separate groups of people together and having them like each other. About an hour after we’d arrived, Adam’s mobile phone started buzzing incessantly.

  “Goodness me, I forgot the time.” He handed me some euros for the bill and began his goodbyes. “Off to meet my own Rodrigue.” He gave Véronique a wink. After he left, she and Alex said how much they’d liked him, and Sophie and I beamed as though he were ours.

  A bit later when the bar got crowded and our waitress seemed to have abandoned us, Sophie and Alex went up to the bar to get us another bottle of wine, looking conspiratorial again.

  “What’s with those two tonight?” I said out loud, barely meaning to.