An Unexpected Guest

by Anne Korkeakivi

  The night he’d proposed, he’d taken her hands but skipped right past their extravagant beauty and looked straight into her startled face.

  “You are ideal for this life,” he’d told her.

  “I don’t know if I’m…chatty enough. I mean for the wife of a diplomat.”

  “The wife of a diplomat is a diplomat, too. And a chatty diplomat is a hazard. The thing is to know when to speak and when to listen.” He’d given her the look of careful esteem she would come to see daily over the next twenty years. “You do yourself discredit, Clare.”

  Suddenly, she’d understood that her self-perceived faults—her intuitive reserve, emotive pallor, innate discretion—were virtues in his eyes. He’d been admiring her newly sheared shoulder-length hair, the cool beige she’d begun using to cloak her own long limbs and secret emotions, and her ability to appear neutral at all times, at all costs, before anyone. “If you are sure,” she said, and he’d slipped the platinum engagement ring that had once belonged to some illustrious ancestor of his onto her slender finger. Its weighty diamond had caused it to slip sideways. The following week, he’d taken the ring to a jeweler’s to be resized. Five months later, in a church filled with her family and a few members of his, he’d slid a diamond-encrusted wedding band next to it. There were no tears, no sighs nor moans nor shouting, in their new life together, just a great calm that fell over her like seaside dusk. Exactly what she wanted.

  Every morning since, when they awoke, in whatever bed, in whatever country, Edward reached over to lay a hand on her back and wish her good morning. He’d done it again this morning. And, all day long, she’d feel the reassuring weight of his trust guiding her forward.

  This was why she could not let Edward down; even more than the love she felt for him, this was what made her so determined to ensure that this evening succeeded. Of course she believed he deserved the ambassadorship and wanted him to have all he had worked so hard for. Of course she loved him and wanted him to be happy. But above all, he had offered her a share in his future, she had accepted his offer, and she had never given him any reason to believe this trust was misguided.

  Boxes of red and yellow and orange and purple tulips lay strewn across the floors of Fleurs Richert. A thin young man in a smock bent over them—the shop assistant, Jean-Benoît. Seeing that he was alone in the shop, she resisted an urge to walk right back out and return later.

  “Ah, Madame Moorhouse!” Jean-Benoît twisted his head around at the sound of the door. Rising slowly to his feet, he wiped his hands on the apron and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Quel dommage! Madame Richert is just go out.”

  Jean-Benoît’s insistence on speaking English with her was different from Amélie’s. Her housekeeper was desperate to learn the language to keep her job. Jean-Benoît was desperate to keep French out of a foreign mouth. However, Clare had long come to understand that being condescended to in barely intelligible English, with labial contortions beyond imagining, was the price she had to pay for having a mother tongue that also was the international language of communication. All over the world, people had made English their own; it had spawned bastard children on six continents.

  “Oh, well, I know you will find something wonderful for me,” she said. “We have an unexpected guest this evening.”

  Jean-Benoît led her around a stand of ranunculus, their plump faces looking like the layered tulle skirts of old-fashioned coming-out gowns, in brilliant yellows, pinks, whites, and oranges. Clare had been to a ball once in England where half the girls were wearing similar items, remembrances of another, more optimistic century, when girls were eager to look like candy packages. She couldn’t imagine either of her sons dating a girl like that. Peter’s girlfriends always were stylish in a discreet expensive manner. They wore luxuriant corduroy pants cut just a bit lower on the hips than their mothers would wear, wool jackets in black or brown or navy and tailored close around the bosom. Jamie hadn’t had a first girlfriend yet in Paris, and the all-boys Barrow School seemed to offer little opportunity to find one now. But the girls he’d been friendly with at the International School in Paris had worn studs in their eyebrows and relegated bright colors to streaks in their hair. Particularly the ones she’d seen him eye wistfully.

  “Eh, voilà, Madame, zees is what I want to show you!” Jean-Benoît pointed to three large vases filled with tall white calla lilies. Behind them, a fourth vase held yellow callas. “Zees is nice, very nice.”

  “No, no, Jean-Benoît,” she said. “They’re beautiful. But I already have an idea of what I want.”

  “No, you don’t.” Behind his glasses, Jean-Benoît didn’t blink, his arms stayed pinned close to his sides.

  Clare smiled. “Well, I was thinking of dog roses. Could you get any dog roses?”

  “Dog ro-zes?”

  “Rosier des chiens.”

  He shrugged. “Of course. Dog ro-zes. But zees is not a flower to ’ave in a nice réception. It is for ze outzide.”

  “Could you get them for me?’

  He shook his head. “But ze lilies, zees is elegant.”

  “Well, then, how about dog violets?”

  “Dog violets!”

  Clare nodded her head. “Dog violets.”

  “You ’ave zomezing about dogs, Madame Moorhouse? You are ’aving the British minister of dogs zees night?”

  Clare laughed good-naturedly and thought to herself: If they don’t have asparagus at Le Bon Marché, it will mean carving out some extra time to go hunting for it. She also had now promised to pass by the apothecary to find something for Mathilde’s rheumatism. She could cut out delivering her translation for the Rodin Museum today; even though she had promised the head of the museum’s documentation center, Sylvie Cohen, to put the translation on a USB stick and drop it to her personally, and she did hate to go back on a promise, she had sent that e-mail last night from the reception saying she might not be able today after all. Sylvie would understand. She and Sylvie had become friends of a kind, and with the museum right down the street from her house, the publication office just behind it in the museum gardens, it had started to feel awkward for her not to pop in to drop things off or pick things up. But while translating museum catalogs was all very well, it could not compete in importance with the rites of international diplomacy, and she knew Sylvie accepted this would always be Clare’s priority.

  Except for the children. The boys came very first—and there was still the call back to Barrow.

  And then, after lunch, and before the hairdresser’s—because she had to have her hair done for this evening—there were also the place cards still to inscribe, the guest list to read over, the seating chart to arrange.

  All the small details.

  She would book Jamie on the Friday 3:35 p.m. flight out of Heathrow. She could do that right now while she remembered, then send a text to the embassy asking whether someone was coming in on the same flight to share a car into the city. At least that would be taken care of. Saturday morning, Jamie would sit down with her and Edward, and they would talk the whole situation at Barrow through, the three of them, face-to-face. They’d sort Jamie out before putting him back on a flight to London whenever his suspension period was over. He’d be chastened; he’d do better in the future. They would talk to the school about getting him the support he needed.

  She reached into her purse for her cell phone, then pulled her hand away. She’d finish here first: what she wanted were some flowers that grew in Ireland.

  “Bluebells,” she said to Jean-Benoît patiently. “Primroses.”

  “Zis flower, I do not know.” Jean-Benoît crossed his arms across his apron. His chin made a sharp little square; his eyes looked almost black behind his glasses. “Madame, why don’t you just tell me what you want?”

  It was just bad luck Madame Richert, the flower shop’s pleasant owner, wasn’t there. “Something with a spring theme, but British. Or, maybe, a little…Irish.”

  “Ah, Irish! We have le
s Cloches d’Irlande, not Irish, not in origine, but does zees matter? Your invités won’t know about flowers. And zey are perfect with ze lilies. I put zem with ze yellow, and zis is very spring, very élégant. It is what you want.”

  “It sounds lovely, Jean-Benoît.” She surveyed the rest of the shop. “All right, all right. We shall put them in the hall and the reception rooms. But, for the dinner table…”

  “Ah, zere is a dinner, too. Why do you not say zis? You cannot have ze lilies for zis, zey are too tall, too…big. Too much parfum.” He shook his head at her and clucked. “But, if one has primevères. Zis is very British, no?”

  Primevères were primroses. Clare nodded. “Terrific. Thank you.” She leaned over a bunch of yellow freesia to drink in their heady tealike scent.

  “Of course, zey will not last.”

  “That’s all right. It’s just for this evening.”

  Clare could hear his heels clicking as he headed back towards the shop counter. But he did make beautiful bouquets. She didn’t even have to ask what else he would add to them. After he’d finished painstakingly inscribing the order, she signed it.

  “For sixteen ’our?” He handed her the order duplicate.

  By 4:00 p.m., the table should be set. She would be at the hairdresser, but she could put out the vases before she left, and Amélie could place them about. Clare would have time for any necessary adjustments after she returned; she would not attend the cocktail party that would be held at the embassy before dinner. She and Edward had agreed upon this.

  She nodded and folded the invoice away in her sweater pocket.

  “Madame, do you know what ze primevère signify?”

  Jean-Benoît’s particular passion, other than protecting the French language, was the perceived or historical meanings of flowers. Mme Richert had once confided in Clare that he was writing an entire book on the topic, a masterpiece, to be illustrated by a close friend, a very talented young artist. Clare had understood this meant his lover. Clare did not really wish to know, any more than she wanted to hear the presumed implication behind every bouquet or to read his masterpiece of a book someday. She used to like the look of a few sprigs of straw in an arrangement until Jean-Benoît had informed her it represented “a broken agreement.” She had never been able to use straw in a bouquet again.

  “I don’t, but please tell me,” she said.

  “Young love. I cannot live wiz-out you.” He spread his thin arms wide with a flourish before leaning forward to open the door for her.

  Five

  Back on the street, the air was still filled with the scent of spring, so light and hopeful after the thick woodsy atmosphere inside the floral shop. April in Paris, this was the celebrated time for lovers in the City of Lights, when the gray drizzle of winter broke long enough to release the fragrance of the tiny green heads of new shoots on the plane and hazelnut trees, the wisteria starting to climb its loose-limbed way up the side of old stone buildings and cast-iron gates. In truth, what a blessing this posting in Paris had been for her, surrounded by art and the languages she loved. It wouldn’t be easy to leave, no matter where they were headed, even knowing an ambassadorship somewhere else less important would be a stepping stone necessary to holding the top rank back in Paris. Because, if everything went right, that could happen. Edward could end up eventually the British ambassador in Paris. He was on the right track for that.

  Clare breathed deeply and took a few steps down the street.

  A man planted himself in front of her, blocking her way. He pressed a folded sheet of paper into her palm.

  “Madame,” he said in heavily accented English, his voice low and guttural.

  She suppressed the urge to cry out in surprise; her free hand flew up in front of her mouth.

  He leaned in closer, his legs split at shoulder width, thrusting out his elbows. There was something practiced about the way he stood, so firm and solid. His stance announced there would be no moving him; there would be no moving around him either.

  Avoiding eye contact, she took the quick measure of him: dark, with an ashy colorless type of complexion—Albanian, at a guess—and the threat of black hairs about to burst forth from just-shaved skin. A slippery-looking leather jacket, much too hot for this warm April day, much too cheap for this fashionable street, and his respiration was labored. She could smell his body heat. She made a tentative motion to the left. He shadowed her shift in balance, a complicated pas de deux where neither of them moved more than an inch but he clarified that she would not step around him.

  He was shorter than she was but wider, aggressively muscular. She glanced over his shoulder. A couple were crossing the road in their direction: young, dressed in pressed jeans and expensive loafers, deep in conversation. Students from the nearby Grande Ecole, Sciences Po. Words poured from their lips, words that she could not hear. One stopped to light a cigarette. They swung to the left when they reached the sidewalk and started down the Boulevard Raspail. A moment more and they were out of sight.

  “Madame,” the stranger repeated. He pushed the piece of paper against her hand. She knew what might be written on it: Do not shout. Or: Do not try to run. Scaffolding swathed a building across the street. She scanned its metal web, but the workmen must have been on break, or on strike. She glanced around the empty street.

  What had the U.S. done to Albania in recent weeks? Or could his nationality be something else? Iraqi, even? If it was that, what could anyone say?

  Except…and a part of Clare flew up to view herself from afar, as though she were one of the pigeons roosting in a cote above. Or, better yet, an anger-filled terrorist hiding in a nearby car. There was nothing to indicate she was American. If anything, she could be taken for British. She had on flat Tod loafers, ecru woolen slacks, a cream-colored sweater set. The heavy silk scarf. Tall. No makeup. No hair spray.

  Except…he could know exactly who she was. He could have been following her this whole time. She hadn’t looked around when she’d stepped out of the Residence’s courtyard. American wife to a high-powered British diplomat. What a twofer she represented for a terrorist—and the children, offspring of both nations. Thank God it wasn’t Jamie standing on this street right now. Edward had been right about sending him away.

  Clare reached her left hand up to pull on a strand of hair, then quickly dropped her hand back to her side. No reason to flash the diamond.

  “Uh…,” she said. “I…”

  “Please, to help me?” One of his eyes was smaller than the other, heavy-lidded. He unfolded the paper and lifted it.

  She stopped trying not to look and, instead, looked closer. The paper contained a photocopied map of the center of Paris, torn maybe from a phone book, in faded black and white and gray. Written in round blue script along the margin of the sheet were a couple of phone numbers and the address for what was labeled as a medical clinic.

  The labored breathing, heavy jacket, resolute stance…Color rushed to her cheeks. The man was ill. He was speaking in English with her not because he knew she could but because he could. He was sick and lost, and looking for a doctor. And she was everything bad in the world, a racist, a profiler. She didn’t know what she felt in greater quantities, relief or shame.

  “Let me see,” she said and took the map from him.

  Hardly a week after she’d married Edward, she’d received a booklet from an association of spouses in the FCO with advice on keeping safe. And that was twenty years ago, before it had become commonplace for people to turn their own bodies into bombs and acceptable to broadcast images of people jumping out of blazing skyscrapers. Maybe her reaction had been inevitable; violence was the shadowy partner of the tea-and-handshake life of the diplomatic corps. But she couldn’t blame Edward or the world he’d brought her into. Her life of violence had begun before she married Edward, the day she said yes to Niall, maybe the very day she met him. Certainly the day she allowed him to wrap her abdomen with layers of hundred-dollar bills, pounds of paper taped to her tall
frame, and then headed for the Boston airport.

  “We’ll be safe coming in,” Niall had assured her. “No one looks twice at a pregnant girl in Dublin, no one looks twice at an American tourist either,” and she’d clung to that word “we.”

  “That’s why you’re carrying the money into Dublin,” he’d said. “No one would believe a tourist arriving up north. But we get it safely onto the island, and the lads will ferry it up to Belfast. No worries.”

  That “we” again. Still, as soon as they boarded the plane in Boston, bound for Dublin, the “we” seemed to disappear.

  She was alone, just she and the phantom child, and the fear she felt, as the plane took off, as they sailed above puffy white clouds and plunked down on the Irish tarmac in a gust of rain, as she undid her seat belt, stretched to accommodate her extended midriff, and padded along the jetway, trying to remember everything Niall had told her about how a pregnant woman shifted her weight from hip bone to hip bone. The arrival terminal in Dublin sucked her in, and she gave herself to it, all the time half wishing she was back at Harvard studying how to say amar, the Spanish verb for “love,” in the first-person past-perfect subjunctive. During the flight, she’d resisted the temptation to make eye contact with Niall, seated two rows ahead of her under a separate booking, even as she made her way up and down the airplane aisle to the lavatory—“You be remembering to go often,” he’d instructed her. “Women with child do.”—but as she and all the other passengers tottered towards the baggage carousel, she had to restrain herself from using her long legs to catch up with him. “I can feel the baby kicking,” she might say, making light of this whole crazy escapade, when she realized she couldn’t see him anymore, that he’d walked straight through the baggage claim and disappeared into the crowd of Irish voices. Was the rush of panic that overcame her from fear of the customs authorities or from having lost sight of him? She felt herself sway. For a moment, she thought she might faint.