L'Affaire

by Diane Johnson

  Victoire had come up to him and put her hand on his arm. Amy could not but notice the proprietary gesture. Victoire embraced Posy and kissed her. ‘I have a confession. Oh, you will think I am an idiot,’ she whispered to Posy. ‘I am an idiot.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Posy reassuringly. There was nothing idiotic about her. What was she talking about? Victoire drew her away from Robin and Emile to walk along the deck as the deckhands began to loosen the ropes, and the noise of the engines drowned their conversation from the others.

  ‘I know I’ve been distant and crazy, but it is over. All along I thought – you will laugh – that you and Emile felt something for each other. I was so angry! At you and Emile both, but especially Emile. I thought That’s it, j’en ai assez. Not even Maman could make me listen to reason. I must just tell you and clear the air – that is why I’ve been so horrible to you, darling Posy, can you forgive me?’

  ‘Well! there’s nothing to forgive,’ Posy said enthusiastically, after an imperceptible beat. ‘Of course, I do like Emile tremendously, but you are my sister, after all. I want you to be happy.’ She thought God would probably not strike her dead, because this was a sincere statement. Next to Robin, of all her new acquaintance it was Victoire she loved most. She would always feel a certain hardness of heart for Emile, not enough to damage family relations, just a spark of spite, but she sincerely knew she had been spared, her anguish erased, by the great good fortune of meeting Robin. She’d narrowly escaped being in love with a two-faced North African seducer; how much better it was to marry a famous English poet, an artist, an intellectual, a man of letters with entrees everywhere, in love with her and soon to be her husband. She would get an M.A.! Even have a child! They would often come to France, where Robin had such incredible connections, and perhaps use some of her inheritance to buy something small in the Dordogne or the Midi. For somebody or other would buy the château and the money would be hers. Posy’s happiness was perfect.

  Pamela Venn and Rupert had run up the gangplank just before nine-thirty when the boat was scheduled to pull away. Each had a little agenda. Rupert had come to Paris in some hope of changing Amy’s mind about buying the château, a long chance, he knew, or in case of failure to convince her, he could try to persuade her to invest in Icarus Press. Amy was surprised to see that they were followed by Kerry Venn, walking up the gangplank with a stick, bent over to one side like a leaning branch, her legs encased in metal braces, with Kip supporting her. Amy had not herself invited Kerry, though she had said to Kip that it was okay if he brought her, given that her case against Amy was being settled for a face-saving small amount.

  ‘She needs to get out,’ Kip had told Amy. ‘She’s at the clinic all the time, and these crazy Joan of Arc people come to see her – she’s becoming their goddess or something.’

  ‘Their saint,’ Amy had corrected. But who were the Joan of Arc people? Would there be a special awkwardness, even a scene, with Pamela Venn, whose house Kerry was expropriating? When it came to the rest of her lawsuits, Kerry’s emotions had been reported to be savage; if she could not live in her own home, she had resolved to occupy Pamela Venn’s house, which now, in law, belonged to her. Amy had her own issues with Kerry – the lawsuit – but had not realized the extent to which Kerry’s appearance at the party was like that of the bad fairy at Beauty’s christening. Everyone on deck reacted, all in some way betraying their dismay, though perhaps only at seeing the poor thing so handicapped and so brave.

  At the moment Kerry wore a tentative expression of resolute sociability, perhaps making an effort because of Amy’s generosity in taking Kip back to California with her. He would go back to his old school, but the great thing was that Squaw Valley was just a few hours away from Palo Alto, so they could visit each other often, and Amy would oversee Kip as a kind of sister surrogate. Kerry did not speak to anyone but was settled in a deck chair forward, eventually to behold the marvellous sights along the banks.

  Rupert Venn managed to take Amy aside to ask whether he might come to see her with his business plan. He was going to invest his own inheritance in the press, which would move from the château to some other French structure; but he would need a partner. He would show her the numbers. Amy said she would very much welcome the discussion. She could imagine that Icarus Press could produce handsomely printed copies of Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid and no doubt other worthy titles.

  Rupert and his mother had already spoken to Kerry Venn on several matters. They knew they had little hope of changing her mind about taking the London house, though Pam hadn’t given up hope, and meantime Trevor Osworthy was trying to straighten things out legally. Pamela was curious at last to see the younger Mrs Venn; so was Géraldine. They also had already raised another delicate issue with Kerry. They had brought the ashes.

  Almost silently the big boat pulled out of the yacht basin and cruised along the banks of the Seine, headed under the first of the beautiful bridges. The guests stayed on deck a few minutes, but it was cold, and they soon consented to go down to be seated for dinner. In the central cabin, tables were set along the windows so that from either side the diners could see the marvelous sights. Amy regretted the mariachis; though they played delightfully – ‘Cielito Lindo,’ ‘La Cucaracha’ – the music didn’t seem to go with the ghostly splendor of the buttresses of Notre Dame as the lights played over them, invoking the medieval bones interred within. However, the guests seemed to enjoy the pudgy Mexicans, or pretended to, and their spangled costumes and sombreros certainly accomplished the mood of New World ebulliance with which Amy had hoped to signify her mood at leaving. Of course it was a lie; her heart became heavier and heavier as she looked at Emile, and thought of Palo Alto. Like Pamela Venn, she had in some way become homeless, fitting neither here, nor, she had a suspicion, there, if ever she had.

  She saw she should have put place cards on the small tables. She would have liked to have Emile, Kip, and Géraldine at her table, but as people shuffled around and paired off to sit down, she was only able to organize for herself Géraldine, Victoire, Joe Daggart, the awful Dolly, and another woman she had never seen in her life. Kip sat at the next table with his sister, Emile, Géraldine’s husband, and a French couple whose name Amy had forgotten.

  Amy could not be with Victoire without suffering a pang; but Victoire’s simple sweetness, pretty blue eyes, and unsuspecting nature ensured forgiveness. Amy told herself she respected Emile for not leaving his wife and children, and that respect was almost as important, and much less mysterious, than love. She tried not to be sorry that the day-to-day disappointments of life with Emile would be left to Victoire. But it was hard.

  She was glad to talk to Joe Daggart, though, for he had a bit of news: in the midst of escalating tensions between the U.S. and France, though the United States had officially denied its role in causing an avalanche in the French Alps, it was compensating certain of the victims nonetheless. Nothing to do with airplanes, he said. Someone had seen American snowmobiles on the ridge above the place the Venns had been swept away, and had come forward with accusations. He himself had been with the snowmobile party, Daggart said.

  ‘No damn way we caused the avalanche, but they were right that it was a woman who called the rescue patrol on her cell phone. It was someone called the baroness von Schteussel, who was skiing opposite. We saw the avalanche from above, where we were, on the ridge in our snowmobiles. We couldn’t get down there, and we ourselves didn’t have the equipment to search for victims, but I confirmed what she had already told them, exactly where to look – two people under the snow, relatively shallowly buried, as it turned out.

  ‘You didn’t go to help?’ asked Amy, very shocked.

  ‘Well – no, we had no gear, we’d have had little chance of finding them. The professionals found them much sooner. I’m certain we didn’t actually dislodge the snow, though. Up where we were, the cornice was intact. They must have done it themselves.’

  ‘Why were you there?’ Victoire ask
ed.

  ‘We were looking for a bit of wreckage, something belonging to our satellite program that was thought to have landed just about there.’

  ‘Will Kerry and Harry get compensation?’ Amy wondered. He was negotiating it now, Daggart said. The widow would get something, but he didn’t think it would make a difference to her plan to go to England. She had decided Harry should be brought up an Englishman, like his father. On the other hand, she was under a lot of pressure from the Joan of Arc votaries to remain as their symbol and treasured, important presence in France, so maybe she would change her mind.

  ‘I’m glad they’re getting some money. America always does the right thing eventually,’ Amy said, though she was less sure of this than she had once been.

  ‘I like to think so,’ said Joe Daggart, without irony, it seemed.

  After the dessert – chocolate sundaes – the tables were pushed back and people began to dance. Amy observed Rupert and Posy Venn, with their mother and Kerry Venn, leave the dining room together.

  ‘Let Kerry do it,’ said Posy, helping Kerry undo the parcel.

  ‘We should read something, or say something, I suppose, Posy?’ said Rupert.

  ‘I could say Robin’s poem “Go to the Dark Starling,”’ she said. Goodbye, Father, she said to herself.

  ‘Let’s do it silently, each with our thoughts,’ Kerry said. After a moment, she opened the box and abruptly dumped the contents into the starboard breeze. Little stinging grains flying back at them made them blink painfully, but tears soon washed them away. Rupert looked around to see Pamela, withdrawn at a distance, watching them, making a little sign to say that she was with them. Goodbye, Father, said Rupert in his heart.

  ‘All right?’ Kerry asked, turning to Posy and Rupert.

  ‘Fine,’ they said. Posy wished Robin had been there, he had such a sense of occasion; but he had been deep in conversation with Emile.

  Under cover of the music and dancing, Emile and Amy found a furtive sexual opportunity in what looked like a chart room, their passion proving to them it was not going to be so easy to say an absolute goodbye forever. ‘Kip and I leave Thursday,’ Amy sighed. They smiled insouciantly, neither feeling reassured, but neither quite believing in the entire unkindness of fate, to part two lovers so perfectly suited in every way, and both so generally favored by fortune. Was this to be the punishment after all, to miss the love of their lives? If so, it would not be without a struggle, a fortune spent on airfares, tears, a Hoover fellowship for Emile, silent financial backing from Amy for some of his projects, torrid lovemaking in San Jose motels or Provençal hotels – or in Amy’s new house in Tahoe, not far from Kip’s school – they saw it in prospect, probably underestimating the ways in which it would preoccupy them for years to come, desire increasing with the trouble they had to go to to gratify it. It would not be so bad.