A Twist of Orchids

by Michelle Wan

  Julian said he couldn’t imagine any animal, migratory or not, liking food funneled down its gullet until its liver swelled to obscene proportions. Mara kicked him under the table.

  “Hey,” Donny offered, half rising, anxious to conciliate. “If you’re not okay with this, no hard feelings. I’d be glad to do you an omelet.”

  “No, no. I’m fine,” Julian backed down, feeling the moral coward. He went through this struggle every time. The foie gras, meltingly delicious, was served with bread and chubby spears of white asparagus, another abnormality as far as Julian was concerned: white asparagus was grown in the dark. A normal green salad followed. Donny put everything on the table at once, North American style.

  “Now, I know,” their host said apologetically, “the French like all these different courses. Back and forth from the kitchen with clean plates and new knives and forks. Never could get into it myself. I like my food out where I can see it.”

  A little later he held up his glass and said, “What do you think of this Sauternes? Isn’t it a beaut?”

  Donny talked about property deals he had going in the States, the Caribbean, the Gulf Coast. “Land speculation’s all a question of timing,” he told them seriously. “And patience. The trick is buy low, hold, sell high. I’ve even got a sweetheart of a project on simmer in Buttonville, Ontario. That’s near Toronto. Your neck of the woods, Mara.”

  “I’m from Quebec,” she said with her mouth full. She had no trouble with foie gras, indeed was wiping up the rich remains with bread.

  “Ah well, it’s all one big, snowy country.”

  Donny omitted the cheese course and cut straight to dessert, large squares of baklava, oozing honey, that Julian recognized immediately.

  “Now these are great,” said Donny, breaking into his with a fork. Paper-thin bits of pastry shot everywhere. “Buy ’em at the market in Saint-Cyprien. There’s a Turkish stall there. Woman and her son. She makes everything fresh.” He chewed, swallowed, and frowned. “Though to tell you the truth”—he poked the baklava critically with his fork—“I think she’s losing her touch. This is definitely not as good as I usually get.”

  Donny was clearly unaware that the son’s market days were finished. Julian thought of Betul in mourning. Another surge of guilt made him put down his fork.

  “Listen,” Daisy addressed her guests once the preliminaries of the meal were over. “I need to cut to the chase. The reason I asked you two over is that I wanted to talk to you about Joseph.” She was completely candid, taking no pains to disguise the fact that she had an agenda independent of the pleasure of Mara and What’s-His-Name’s company. “I want to know how he’s doing, and I can’t get a straight answer from that nurse.”

  “As well as can be expected,” Mara said cautiously. She knew Daisy was still pressuring Jacqueline Godet to recommend that Joseph be bundled into a nursing home.

  Daisy tossed her head. “Oh, boy. What does that mean?”

  “He has good and bad days.”

  “Listen,” Daisy said a little aggressively, “my father had Parkinson’s. I know what the disease is like. He was a wonderful man, my daddy. Successful, outgoing, active. Parkinson’s changed all that. He had private nursing care, of course, but I visited him every day until his death. I’m not happy about poor old Joseph all on his own with no one to look after him. We go back a long way with the Gaillards: 1975. They were running a kind of bed and breakfast on their farm then. Donny and I wanted a rural experience, and we stayed with them the first time we came to the Dordogne. Their house wasn’t exactly comfortable—you know what it’s like—but they needed the cash, and the cooking was terrific, so we came back year after year until they closed the B and B and we bought our place here. That’s how we became friends. I happen to care a lot about what happens to Joseph.”

  “But it’s really not your call,” Mara told her bluntly. “Or anyone’s but his. You’ll have to let him make his own decisions. And right now he wants to remain in his own home, on his own land. As soon as extended home care is arranged for him, he’ll be fine.”

  “When’s that going to happen? It’s been a month now.”

  “This kind of thing takes time.”

  “Anyway, he needs more than a caretaker, you know. He needs trained nursing supervision. My daddy had three nurses working shifts round the clock.”

  “Don’t push it, honey,” said Donny. “Leave the old guy where he is.”

  Mara looked at Donny in surprise. She expected him to fall into line with his wife on everything, at least publicly.

  “You don’t know the first thing about it,” Daisy said, annoyed.

  “She said he’s okay, Daze.” Donny turned to Mara. “He’s coping, right? No bad spells? Daisy’s dad was pretty up and down in his final years. Needed constant attention. ’Course, he could afford it.” There was just a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

  “Joseph’s not nearly there yet,” Mara said firmly.

  “Glad to hear it.” Donny rose to clear the table. Daisy glared at his retreating back.

  “So,” said Julian to Daisy, filling an awkward gap. “When are you two leaving?” Again, the pointed toe of Mara’s shoe found his shin.

  “What?” Daisy looked momentarily blank. “Oh. Donny’s around for a while. He’s closing a deal. He’s always closing a deal. Or trying to. With my money.” That was to get back at him for spiking her argument for getting Joseph into care.

  Donny stuck his head back through the kitchen doorway and said, “Now, now, honey,” before disappearing again.

  “As for me,” Daisy went on, “I’m off next week. New York and Philadelphia. London and Paris after that. Then back here. It’s the life of a freelance buyer, I’m afraid. I go where the sales are.”

  “A buyer?” Mara asked. “A buyer of what?”

  “Antiques,” replied Daisy. “I specialize in nineteenth-and early twentieth-century European furniture and art.”

  Julian glanced across the table at Mara. She was looking at Daisy with a new interest.

  “Really?” she said thoughtfully. Then she asked, “You wouldn’t like to acquire an art deco sofa in excellent condition, would you?”

  •

  Daisy came to look at the sofa the next day. She was all business. Her keen eye picked out a repair to one of the legs. The upholstery was not original. These made the piece less desirable. While she spoke, she scanned the other objects in Mara’s front room and quickly dismissed them. She went away saying she would consider it, but Mara knew that this in Barbie doll speak translated as no.

  “Damn,” uttered Mara as she watched Daisy drive away from the house. She herself had not noticed the repaired leg or the upholstery.

  “Worth a try,” murmured Julian.

  Mara leaned her head against the window. It was a breezy April day. She watched a buzzard spiral up, riding a thermal high above the treetops.

  “You know,” she muttered, “I really wonder about the O’Connors. They’re in and out, spend like money’s no object. The stuff on her back costs more than my entire wardrobe. Does land speculation pay that well? And how much do you earn as a buyer in the antiques trade?”

  “A damned sight more than I do, at a guess.” It had been a long, slow winter financially for Julian. “Maybe,” he suggested, “she inherited a pile from her daddy. Whom she visited every day until he died.”

  •

  That night the rhyming burglar struck again, making off once again with a small treasury in portable art objects. As usual, he did not touch easy-to-dispose-of electronic equipment. Nor did he bother with two large abstract paintings of some value, a modernistic tapestry, and an antique but very heavy cast iron wall plaque. The poem he left behind was a real provocation. Like the others, it had been written in French, but strongly suggested the influence of the Baroness Orczy. In English, it went like this:

  They seek him here, they seek him there

  Those gendarmes seek him everywhere

  But none
can say

  And none can know

  where next his cunning hand will show.

  Again, the allusion to an English literary work raised questions about the burglar’s nationality, and again it was concluded that this was probably a red herring. The Baroness’s taunting lines were well enough known that anyone could have cribbed them. However, it was thought that the choice of the Scarlet Pimpernel as a role model suggested an older man with a definite flair for the dramatic.

  Adjudant Compagnon was delighted that the robbery had happened in Quinsac, well away from his territory, and vastly relieved that the doggerel had made no mention of him.

  • 26 •

  Mara and Julian climbed the eighteen steps leading up to the Two Sisters’ porch. According to Julian’s tenet of parsimony, the best explanation for Amélie’s going up there was the simplest: she had used it as a vantage point to pick out Joseph in the throng of market-goers. Mara’s suspicions of Christine and Alice had made her want to see the spot for herself, and she was very pleased that Julian had agreed to accompany her.

  “Hmm,” she said, stopping at the top. From the stair head they had a full view of the place, where the market was held every Tuesday and Saturday. It was, in fact, a good spot to look for someone in a crowd. Today, Sunday, there was no market. The square was empty, apart from a few parked cars.

  Mara studied the restaurant porch. It ran the depth of the two houses it joined and was roofed with a trellis that showed new growth among last year’s withered vines. Chairs and tables had been set out, but the weather that day was too unpredictable—warm, almost hot one minute, showery the next—for drinks or food alfresco. The front of the porch, masked by an ornamental wrought-iron grille, protruded slightly over the street. The gnarled branches of an ancient wisteria—growing up from street level and more tree than vine—were wired to the grille. The wisteria was fully in leaf and setting cascades of little buds.

  It was twenty to twelve. The Two Sisters was not yet open for lunch. There was no one in the right-hand part of the restaurant, but they could see movement through the double glass doors leading into the left-hand side.

  “So what is it you plan to say?” Julian asked.

  Mara repeated her prepared speech: “I’m here on behalf of Joseph Gaillard”—she wasn’t, but it sounded better that way—“the husband of the woman who fell down your stairs last month. I’d like to ask you a few—”

  “For heaven’s sake, Mara, you can’t say that. You sound like a insurance investigator.”

  “Don’t be silly. Joseph isn’t suing them.”

  “You’ll make them think he is. You’ll put the wind up them good and proper. Why don’t you just ask if Madame Gaillard came to the restaurant on the fifteenth of March? Better still, if anyone named Gaillard—that covers both her and Christine—or—what’s the girlfriend’s last name?”

  “Lescuras. Alice Lescuras.”

  “Or Lescuras made a reservation for that date?”

  Mara almost said, “I wish you’d stop telling me how to run my investigation,” but caught herself, realizing how ridiculous it sounded. His suggestion was a good one. Anyone eating at the Two Sisters would have needed a reservation. It was a popular place, especially with the lunchtime crowd. Even in the offseason it was a good idea to book in advance. Business people who still believed in the lengthy working lunch congregated there. They oiled the pump of good will with aperitifs; sounded each other out over starters; got into the meat of the deal during the main course; hammered home the details with the cheese tray; and sat back to enjoy the sweetness of concluding a mutually beneficial accord over dessert, coffee, and liqueurs.

  Mara just hoped the management would not prove sticky about the confidentiality of patron names. If they did, her subterfuge, no matter how cleverly worded, was not going to work.

  As it turned out, the only person available for Mara to give her spiel to was a young waiter who was busy setting tables. He hardly listened to her reason, pointed to a little table by the door, and told her to look for herself.

  Reservations were recorded in a fat spiral notebook, the pages of which were dated. Mara flipped back to March 15. She and Julian scanned the handwritten entries together. There was no Gaillard or Lescuras.

  “Hello,” murmured Julian. “Here’s a name. Luca.” Next to it was a time, 12:30, the number 3, and an X.

  “Rocco Luca?” Mara wondered. Had Ton-and-a-Half been at the restaurant at the time of Amélie’s fall?

  Quickly, they scanned all of the pages, going back through March and then January (the restaurant appeared to have been closed for the entire month of February). There was no entry for Gaillard or Lescuras. The name Luca appeared three times.

  Mara thumbed forward again to March 15. “Can you tell me,” she called across to the waiter, “anything about this person?”

  The waiter set down a stack of napkins and came over to read the name she indicated.

  “Ah, oui. Monsieur Luca,” he said. His expression became animated. “Eats here a lot. Business lunches. Everyone always wants to get his table because he’s a tremendous tipper. Looks like he booked for three at half past twelve on the fifteenth. In fact”—he tapped the entry—“I made this one. See this little E? It’s for Emile, which is me. We put our initials beside the reservations we make. But it must have been a no-show. That’s what the X means. We always put an X beside a no-show. So I guess he didn’t turn up.”

  “What about the other people in his party? Did they come?” Mara asked.

  Emile frowned. “Let me see. I think someone did—no, I can’t be sure.” He broke off to screw up his face more tightly. “Wasn’t that the day that old woman fell down the stairs? C’est ça. Everyone was crowding around the windows and going out on the porch to see what was happening. There were cops and paramedics everywhere. Sorry, I can’t remember. There was so much going on. Is it important?”

  “It might be,” said Mara.

  “Well, I’ll think about it. Maybe it’ll come back to me.”

  They thanked Emile and turned to go.

  “He’s coming in today,” the waiter volunteered as they headed toward the double glass doors. “Monsieur Luca. Twelve-thirty on the dot, as usual. Corner table, by the window. It’s where he always sits. If you want to meet him.”

  Julian looked at Mara. “You don’t happen to have space for two today, do you?” he inquired.

  •

  Their table—the only one left—was tucked into the right of the passageway that led back to the kitchen and the little elevator at the rear of the building. They got the noise and the cooking smells, the bustle of staff who created sudden rushes of air each time they hurried by, and occasionally the rattle of the old-fashioned elevator door admitting patrons who did not want to use the stairs. Which was how they got their first close look at a large man and a thin man dressed in black. Emile, on his way from the kitchen, stepped back to let the pair pass and cocked his head to indicate to Mara and Julian that the large man was Monsieur Luca. The man in black they took to be his sidekick, Serge Taussat. Ton-and-a-Half impressed Mara with his solid bulk. His small, round, bear-like eyes had a dissatisfied, slightly congested look. She noted that he dyed his thinning hair. She could see the discolored roots. Serge, with his narrow, shrink-wrapped face, made her shiver.

  “I think I know why Luca didn’t keep his lunch date,” Julian said as the two men took the window table at the other end of the room. “Emile said the place was crawling with gendarmes and ambulance crew. Not his kind of scene at all.”

  “Yes. However, the reservation was for three,” said Mara. “If Luca and Serge make two, who was number three?”

  “The Third Man,” Julian grinned, and then his attention was diverted by the arrival of lunch.

  In summer, the Two Sisters catered to the trendier expectations of the tourist market, with prices to match. In the offseason, although the prices were still enough to make you raise your eyebrows, you could enjoy tra
ditional fare that was becoming harder to find. Julian had chosen mique, served with a hotpot of salt pork and winter vegetables. Usually the mique, a large dumpling simmered in the juices of the hotpot, was regarded as the accompaniment. In this case, it had star billing as one of the restaurant’s specialties. It was served sliced, revealing an interior studded with diced bacon, chives, and—a Two Sisters innovation—black olives, and came to him steaming smugly in the center of a platter surrounded by the rest of his meal.

  Mara had ordered one of her favorites: stuffed goose neck. It was made by deboning the neck of a goose and filling the skin with a mixture of sausage, goose meat, Armagnac, foie gras, and truffles. Then the neck was sewn up and slowly roasted in goose fat. It could be eaten hot, cold, or conserved as a confit—submerged in more goose fat in an airtight container—the old way of preserving things before refrigeration.

  Mara’s dish arrived sizzling hot, like a delicate sausage. She found, as she slid her knife through it, that even the textures added to the experience: the slightly puckered outer casing giving way to a dense interior rich with flavors. She closed her eyes and swallowed. It was remarkable, she thought as she went in for another mouthful. Goose or duck fat was used with everything. She couldn’t understand why people in this part of the world didn’t all have cholesterol readings off the chart. Also, although many attained a kind of happy stoutness, there were few really obese people around. Everyone looked healthy and seemed to live a very long time. Probably because they were all so well lubricated with red wine and walnut oil.

  “What?” She became aware that Julian had said something.