“I expected him to come to his senses.”
Raoul sighed.
“He’s just a boy,” I said. “He has so much potential.”
“For what?” Raoul scratched his head. “Did you think he would be just like you?”
Why not? Given the alternatives, would that be so wrong?
“This fantasy you and everyone else here is living,” I said, “it’s not real. There isn’t going to be a happy ending.”
Raoul looked at me as if that were the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard. “It’s no less real than what you were living before.”
“Not to me,” I said.
He shrugged, acknowledging the impasse. “I bet if you ask any of them, they’ll tell you they like it better this way.”
“How would they know what it was like before?”
He regarded me with a strange, almost amused curiosity. “Do you really not know?”
“Know what?”
“They said you didn’t, but I couldn’t believe it.” He could see all over my face that I had no idea what he was talking about. “Look around you,” he said. “How could you not recognize them?”
“Recognize who?”
Raoul placed his hand on my knee. With the other he pointed to a man across the courtyard. I could not tell if it was the same one I had passed on my way in.
“He worked in the kitchen,” Raoul said.
“Where?”
“Where do you think? The hotel.”
I tried to make out his face, but there was no way to be sure. “He’s too far away.”
“I could call him over,” Raoul said, raising his hand to wave.
“No.”
“Over there,” he said, pointing to another villa, “live two of your houseboys.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“A couple of days ago at lunch I saw you sitting with one of your old drivers. Half the women around here were maids.”
“That’s impossible,” I said. “I knew the drivers. I knew every single one of them. I may not have known all the others, but I couldn’t be expected to know them all.”
Raoul shrugged.
“How would you know, anyway? You weren’t here then. You never knew any of them.”
“Everyone knows.”
“I can’t be expected to remember them all.”
“They remember you.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I said, noting the unmistakable relish with which he related this.
“Like you said,” he replied with a shrug, “I wasn’t there.”
I got up and walked over to the patio wall. From there I had a better view of the man who had supposedly worked in the kitchen. Even as I began to process what Raoul was telling me, I could not begin to shape it into any sense. If it was true, what did it mean? Whatever it was, something had clearly shifted beneath me, just as Raoul had known it would.
“They’re lying,” I said, knowing they had tried to make me out to be some kind of monster. “Whatever they said about me was a lie. My only crime was expecting them to work.”
Raoul spread his arms to stretch. “It’s getting late,” he said, glancing at the brightening sky above the treetops. “Claire should be here soon. She said she’d bring me some food.”
I had no memory of getting up. I was certain I never said good-bye.
The rest of the morning and the day, each in turn, lifted away, and evening lowered itself in their place. I found myself in my rooms, sitting stiffly at the edge of the bed, holding on like a man at sea, struggling to withstand the roiling waves. Even my office felt menacing, as if something unseen lurked in every corner.
Fully dressed and covered with a blanket, I still could not get warm. All around me mosquitoes buzzed with electricity, oblivious of the cold. If I was truly so despised, why had all of this remained hidden for so long? That question pressed against my skull like the weight of the ocean upon a sinking stone. Had Hector hated me too? What about Mme Freeman? For her, too, was I anything more than just a fool who did her bidding?
In my dreams that night I saw my father, and I awoke understanding I had been utterly abandoned, just as I had abandoned him.
As I sat alone eating breakfast the next morning, Marc came over to join me. Ever since my conversation with Raoul, I could not stop scrutinizing every face I saw, trying to divine in their expressions the grudges they held against me. But how could I know, now that I had lived with them for so long, whether I recognized them from the past or from the present? All I could see of Marc was Marc, the simple young man who never stopped smiling.
Leaning discreetly toward my ear, he said, “I’ve been thinking. You’re right—it’s time I went to find my family.”
I could barely summon the enthusiasm to nod.
“I’m going to start by finding the man with the boat,” he said, opening his hands before me, as if the plan lay written there. “He was the one I paid to take them. Someone will know his name and where he lives. He’s probably still doing it. There’s always a need for that kind of business. And I’ll bet he remembers my wife. The picture I had is gone, but her mother will have another. Someone as beautiful as my wife is someone you don’t forget. Especially not when she has a beautiful little girl, too. And I remember he had a son or a nephew—maybe he was a younger cousin—that worked with him. If I can’t find the man himself, I’ll find the nephew. He was the one I gave the money to, and I’m sure he could tell me where to start. Maybe I could even get him to take me there, to where he dropped them off. I know she wouldn’t have gone far. She would have wanted to stay near the water. And she knew I would come for her. She’ll be expecting me.”
“Of course,” I said, though I knew it no longer mattered. The exodus I had hoped for was no longer possible, not as long as Hector was willing to accept the cost of martyrdom.
“Do you think so?”
“Of course,” I said. “Of course.” But my mind was elsewhere. “Marc,” I added after a moment, “there’s something I have to ask you.”
He raised his eyes distractedly.
“Did we know each other before?”
“Before what?”
“Before all of this.”
He seemed not to have any idea what I was talking about. “I don’t think so, why?”
“I thought not.”
He nodded in agreement, as if he were just as pleased as me to have this matter resolved.
His eyes suddenly lit up again. “Why don’t you come, too?”
“Where?”
“To find your wife. You should come with me.”
I shook my head. “Not yet.”
“Then when?” His eyes were nearly pleading. “You can’t still believe she’ll come back?”
In truth, I was no longer sure how to answer. “I don’t know.”
“Come with me,” Marc said. “They might even be in the same place. They might even know each other.”
I was still thinking about what he had said before, about Madame not coming back. It was not the first time he had said such a thing, but for the first time the idea continued to linger, and I could not seem to push it away.
“No,” I said distractedly. “I think that’s unlikely.”
“How can you know?”
“She’s in the north,” I said. “My—mine.” I could not say the word.
He looked puzzled. “Have you heard from her? Did you receive a letter?”
“Yes,” I said, realizing my blunder. And then I said it again, as if to convince myself it was true.
“I’m so happy for you,” he said. Only then, as I watched the sadness overtake him, did I understand what I had done.
“It means the mail is starting to get through again,” I said, trying to undo the damage. “You’ll probably hear from your wife soon. And then there will be no need for the man with the boat.”
He smiled weakly but he was no longer listening. It was as if he had heard me say, Your wife is dead.
Marc p
ushed back his chair and stood. Just like that, without intending to, I had added another enemy.
There were more than the usual number of guards at Hector’s villa. Four of them sat at the edge of the stage, and by their movements I could see they were playing dominoes, but they had situated themselves in such a way that no one checking up on them from inside could see. When the moonlight caught me passing into the courtyard, they rose quickly, reaching for their guns.
“I’m here to see Hector.” After what had happened to Dragon Guy, I knew this was where he would be, not out on the streets.
“Is he expecting you?” one of them asked.
“No.”
I gave myself over to their rough hands.
Two lamps in distant corners of the sitting room glowed dully. In the dim light, little clouds of smoke circled each other like boxers waiting to strike. Madame’s dining table had been moved to the center of the room, and around it I counted seven men in addition to Hector. With one exception, I was certain these were men I had not seen in all the time they had been here. Perhaps that was why I knew, beyond a doubt, that the four who looked familiar did so because I had known them before. Seeing them here now, with their cigars and their grimaces, I felt again as I had all those years ago when coming upon Senator Marcus and his colleagues in his study—as though I had walked in on something I was not supposed to see.
Sitting next to Hector was the man in the seashell necklace.
“This is a surprise, monsieur,” he said, a sharpness in his voice that I immediately recognized. “We weren’t expecting you.”
So this was the colonel, the man with the office next door to mine. He was also, I was suddenly quite sure, a former waiter, one of Georges’s colleagues. And then I realized who the others were. In appearance, there was little to separate Hector’s lieutenants from the rest of the men I saw each day on the grounds. There were the same scars, the same scraggly beards. One of the younger ones had a broken tooth that pierced his cigar. Him I could not forget. He was the gardener we had arrested after he snuck onto the grounds with his pockets full of drugs. Beside him in sullen stupor sat one of the guards who had proven so useless the night of our grand opening. He had been equally useless on many other occasions too, until I was finally forced to fire him. And there was the pool boy who had nearly ruined Mlle Miller’s visit.
I did not recognize the other three, but I could only assume they also counted themselves as victims of my unreasonable demand for basic competence and honesty.
“You must be kidding me,” I said, turning to Hector. “This is your high command?”
The colonel displayed a tight, withering smile. And then he nodded toward the broken-toothed houseboy, who rose and went to the writing desk to fetch me a chair.
“I came to speak to Hector.”
“Of course,” the colonel said, gesturing for me to sit. With a false, ungracious smile, he stood and signaled to the others to do the same. “We’ll give you a few minutes.” Gesturing impatiently, he shooed the others toward the door.
Hector watched them go with slow, sad eyes, as if I were something to be feared. After all that had happened, I could not help feeling hurt. I had tried to give him everything—a new life, a future. Everything I had struggled for myself had been his for the taking. From the moment I met him, I had never been anything less than a friend.
“What do you want?” he whispered as soon as we were alone.
I slid my chair a few inches closer. “You have to end this,” I said. “It’s not too late.”
I had never seen him look more miserable. He kept shaking his head, over and over again, as if there were someone else talking who I could not hear, someone he desperately wanted to silence. “What choice do I have?”
“You can’t win,” I said. “You can’t let the army come. Think of all these people. Think of yourself. It’s not too late to save them.”
“Since when do you care about them?”
“I care about you,” I said. “And I’ve gotten tired of watching people die.”
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “It doesn’t matter,” he finally said. “We can’t just give up.”
I felt a hand on my elbow, tugging me tentatively from behind. I did not need to look to know who it was.
“Let go,” I shouted, and he did. Just as useless a guard for Hector as he had been for the hotel.
The colonel was waiting for us on the patio, fingering the shells on the string around his neck. “Gerard will see to it that you make it back safely.”
With a jerk I once again pulled my arm from his grasp. “I’ll take my chances on my own.”
Chapter Thirty
I ran into Louis the next morning at breakfast, just as he was leaving. He asked if I had seen Marc.
“No one knows where he is.” He seemed distraught.
“He mentioned something about going to look for his wife,” I told him, not sure how much was appropriate to say.
One of the men in Louis’s group called out impatiently from down the hall, and Louis waved for him to wait. “Do you think he’ll be back in time?”
“Back?” I said.
“For my wedding.”
Smiles had been so rare of late that it felt strange to suddenly find one on my face. “Are you getting married?”
My smile was immediately dwarfed by his. “Tomorrow.”
“To Lulu?” I said. “The laundress?” I would not have thought such news would please me so, but it had been a long time since we had experienced anything worth celebrating.
I offered him my hand in congratulations. After a tentative pause, he accepted, first brushing his palm against his pant leg.
“How could he miss it?” I said.
Louis’s face lit up with relief. “You should come, too.”
“Of course,” I said. “Of course.”
He was about to walk away for good when I raised my hand and gestured for him to stop. I hurried to close the distance.
“There’s something I want to ask you,” I said.
He eyed me warily.
“I’ve been wondering if we knew each other before. Before all of this, I mean.”
He seemed to be doing the same sort of calculation as I had just a moment before. “Yes, monsieur.”
“You were a houseboy?”
He shook his head. “A porter.”
Of course. How could I not have recognized him? He looked exactly the same—as if he had not even aged. The skinny boy who could never keep his shirt tucked. Always quiet. The clerks often failed to see him standing there, ringing their bells while he shifted uncomfortably and invisibly beside them, one shirttail hanging out like an oar in the water.
“Of course,” I said with a smile. He had been so frail then. Despite his sloppiness I had never yelled at him, never raised my voice. Of that I was sure. There was nothing he could possibly hold against me.
I knew just where to look and found the box easily, high up on the shelf in the back of the closet. Sitting at my desk, I pulled off the top. My fingers did not have far to dig. Around the edges, the brochure had turned the color of a tea-stained saucer. Some of the creases had frayed, but it was nonetheless intact. “The Wedding of Your Dreams.”
What would that look like, I wondered, the wedding of Louis’s dreams? I doubted he had ever dreamed of any kind of wedding at all. What did he know of rose petals and horses and champagne?
Setting the brochure aside, I picked up the otherwise blank sheet of paper I had long ago addressed to Madame. I began to write.
I am sorry that it has been so long since my last note. Several times I have sat down to write to you, but I have found it difficult to know what to say. By now you have no doubt heard that our troubles continue. Yet having just written these words, I realize how ridiculous they must sound. When have our troubles ever ceased? Still, however accustomed we have become to these difficulties, it is true that the situation we now find ourselves in is the most dire we have seen.
I must confess, I have held back some of the harshest realities in the hopes of sparing you. Things have reached such a state, however, that I can no longer do so in good faith. The truth, Madame, is that you would no longer recognize Habitation Louvois. I fear you would be heartbroken even to glance upon it. I have done my best, but it was not enough.
I put down my pen. I could not go on.
* * *
That afternoon, I went for a walk, and for the first time since our encounter in Hector’s villa, I allowed my course to take me past the casino. I had been waiting to explain to Mlle Trouvé how well I understood what she was going through, how difficult I knew it to be to find oneself so compromised. She needed to know that there was someone here who cared.
It was recess time, and Mlle Trouvé was sitting in her accustomed spot on the dusty steps while the children played in the grass. Seeing her again now, I could not help wondering if it had been recognition that had first drawn me to her, all those months ago. Was it possible she was one of the many maids Raoul said had come back? No. If I had forgotten the others, it was because they were so forgettable. Even dressed in their hotel uniforms, they had never been anything but what they had since become. This had always been their fate. Mlle Trouvé was different. Within her she contained something far larger and far better than the circumstances in which she found herself.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw one of the children playing in the grass—a little girl in a light pink dress—turn too quickly toward one of her classmates and catch her foot on the uneven ground. She landed on her side, and initially it appeared everything would be fine—she would dust herself off and her friends would laugh and together they would resume whatever it was they had been playing. But after the girl had taken a moment to examine the dirt on her hands and the scratch on her knee and the circle of classmates gathering around her, she suddenly broke out in a bitter sob. I realized by the way she held her hand to her head that she had struck a stone.
In an instant, almost simultaneously, her classmates’ worried expressions turned toward their teacher, anxious to see what she would do. But somehow Mlle Trouvé appeared not to have noticed, either the fall or the little girl’s bawling. It was not until another of the children—a little potbellied boy with slightly bowed legs—ran over and patted her on the knee that Mlle Trouvé seemed to awaken. Dazedly lowering her eyes to discover the child waiting at her feet, a look akin to horror crept onto her face.
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