Whispering in French

by Sophia Nash

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he retorted. “We’ve barely spoken ten words to each other.”

  I pursed my lips, but could not hold back the laughter. “True. And whose fault is that?”

  “Mine.” Not a muscle twitched in his face.

  “You know, just because your uncle wants you to talk to me doesn’t mean we can’t. We’re not in kindergarten.”

  He shaded his brow with his hand. “I don’t know. That looks like a fine sandbox down there.”

  I gazed toward the beach far below and refused to laugh. “Do you always change the subject when confronted? Do you ever let anyone in?”

  “Do you always dive into personal questions the moment you meet someone?”

  I finally laughed. “Force of habit, I guess. Comes with the job.” I waited for a smile but none was forthcoming. “I apologize.”

  “Accepted.”

  And then not another word. I refused to push it. The man either wanted to talk, or didn’t. I’d done what his relative had asked. Fifteen minutes of silently zigzagging the steep cliff brought us to the rope.

  “I’ll go down first,” he said.

  I hung my towel around my neck and was about to sling the ankle straps of the two flippers over my wrist when he grasped them and tossed them down the jagged cliff face. “Okay,” I said, dragging out the word. “That’s one way to do it.”

  “The only way,” he replied, not looking at me.

  He shimmied down the knots as expertly as testosterone mixed with military prowess demanded. And I? Well, as an adolescent, I’d always failed that rope climbing test in gym class.

  “Toss me the towel.”

  “So demanding.” It appeared that trying to engage emotionally damaged people was encoded in my DNA. Impossible to avoid. “I’m perfectly able to do this by myself, you know.”

  “Suit yourself,” he said and strode off toward the final stone wall below.

  He was already past the breakers and even the paddleboarders when I reached the beach. Struggling with the flippers in waist deep water, the pull of the current knocked me into the next wave and the icy salt water worked its way into the gaps of the wetsuit. I set out to swim to the rock formation I’d always called Mini-Belza, as it rose from the sea across from the Villa Belza.

  He was lying on the rock face when, breathless, I struggled to pull myself onto the ledge, which was just a little too high for my underused biceps. “Um,” I said. “Could you give me a hand?”

  Wordlessly, he reached over, yanked me out of the water, and returned to lie down, his arm thrown over his face.

  What person didn’t rub your nose in such obvious triumph? He was a man who just didn’t give a damn. I was always amazed and a little envious of people who could do that.

  I sat dripping on the ocean-pounded smooth rock, arms resting on raised knees as I caught my breath. Looking toward the shore, the backs of the waves undulated and passed under the paddleboarders standing on their boards before moving toward the long and then short boarders all vying for ownership of each wave.

  I glanced back at Soames and a sort of eerie calm settled in. I didn’t want to help him. That should have scared me but it didn’t. I was tired of helping everyone. Tired of rolling out the empathy carpet for people to trample and stain. I’d never been all that good at it in the end. Indeed, I’d failed with the most important person in my life. And all those clients? All those articles? All those awards? Meaningless in the grand scheme.

  I awkwardly stood a few minutes later, readjusted the flippers, and dove back into the sea, swimming a long distance underwater before breaking to the surface and catching a wave to the shore.

  I was just annoyed enough to decide on the shorter route. And smart enough to find a hiding place for the flippers before grabbing the rope. My hands were rough from trying this almost every day. Hands tight on the rope, I stepped onto the rock face and leaned back to walk perpendicular to the wall. What should have taken fifteen minutes for anyone with any type of arm strength took me twice as long. About the only thing I was becoming proficient in was swearing. Profusely. In English, and bastardized French.

  At the top, sweaty and grimy, I fumbled and yanked the wetsuit’s long zip strap and peeled down the top half as I noticed Edward Soames, arms crossed, looking up at me from the bottom of the palisade. Of course, he shimmied up the rope in a quarter of the time.

  I refused to say a word.

  “Well, then,” he said, hoisting himself to the top.

  “Indeed,” I replied.

  It only took a few more seconds of awkward silence before he spoke. “Look, I apologize for my rudeness.”

  Shocker of the century.

  “We both know my great-uncle couldn’t care less if we became friends. He wants you to fix me. Take my head apart, turn my brain inside out, and return it to its original shape. And, frankly, I’m not interested.”

  “Got it,” I said, standing completely still and locked on his face.

  “And besides, you—” He stopped and his hands fisted.

  “Besides what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Look, Ed,” I said. “I can call you that, right?” I knew it would annoy him. Push him.

  “No.”

  “Okay, Edward,” I continued. “You’re right. We’re not going to become friends. So you have nothing to lose. You can say anything you want to me in guaranteed confidence and it won’t affect me. Remember, I’m a shrink. I’ll just analyze anything you say, blame it on mom and dad and how you were raised, and perhaps you’ll find a different way forward.”

  He searched my face and, for a splinter of a second, wistfulness or something tired crossed his features. Then again, he could just be hot and wanting to go coax a tepid shower from clanging French plumbing.

  “What were you going to say?” I demanded. “Something . . . ‘and besides, you . . .’ What?”

  His blue eyes looked gray in the half-light. “All right. You want the truth? Unvarnished. I don’t think you’ve got all your ducks in a row. So how can you help anyone? Yeah, it’s harsh, but there it is.”

  I felt the blood rush from my head.

  “What? You thought you could hide it? Well, maybe you can hide it from others, Mrs. Hamilton, but you can’t hide darkness from someone like me.”

  “Really? And just who are you, Major Soames?”

  “We were talking about you.”

  “Okay. What do you want to know?”

  “All right. I’ll bite. What happened to you?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Oh, I know it’s something ugly. Just go ahead. Out with it.”

  “And you just expect me to just spit something out to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. But only if you admit something about yourself in return.”

  He almost snorted as he shook his head. “Do we really need to descend to juvenile tit for tat?”

  “Yup,” I replied. “Quite simply.” And I stuck out my grimy, calloused hand.

  One side of his mouth raised a quarter inch and he gave my hand one brief shake as he focused his eyes there.

  I looked at the panorama of the Bay of Biscay beyond him and wondered how little I could get away with. “So, okay. I used to have a different kind of life than the one I have now. It wasn’t a great life, but it was something I knew, something I managed well. And I thought I knew what I was doing. I thought I had it all figured out. I’m a planner. And I thought I could protect the only good thing while I waited for the time I would be able to change the situation,” I rushed on. “And then one day, that one good part? The one and only good thing? It was destroyed. Or almost destroyed.” I paused to swallow. “I was so sure I knew what I was doing, and I am living, breathing proof that I don’t know a damned thing.”

  “Why?”

  Why wasn’t he asking me who? “I should have known better. I do know better. I see it every damned day. I’m a fucking psychologist.”

&
nbsp; A bead of sweat formed a droplet and slid down the side of his face. “Sounds like you’re a pretty fucking bad psychologist to me,” he said.

  A paroxysm of laughter nearly choked me and suddenly I felt lighter. As if I’d lost ten pounds in the space of an instant. I looked down and that jiggle of belly was still there. Sadly.

  “Yep. Sounds like you need a refresher course. I think they have those at Oxford. I’d look into it if I were you.” The not-so-innocent concern in his expression was marred by a slight smile.

  I would not let him off the hook. “Your turn.”

  “For what?”

  “You know exactly what. Tell me what happened to you.”

  He shook his head. “You don’t really think that half-arsed, vague story of yours qualifies you to demand something from me, do you?”

  “I do,” I retorted. “And you do too.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” I replied. “In fact, you want to tell me.”

  “You’re pushing it, Mrs. Hamilton. Why do Americans always feel the need to force everything? It’s a very unattractive quality.”

  “Kate.”

  “Kate.”

  “Is this how you are with your family? With anyone close to you? What are you so afraid of?” I looked at him and waited. I’d wait until the appearance of the mythical rayon vert, that flash of green light signaling the sun’s retreat on the horizon, before I’d say another word to let him squirrel out of an answer via his British armor of wit, thicker than a Hummer on steroids.

  “I understand there is some sort of littoral one can hike along the coast,” he said finally. “Do you know it?”

  I refused to answer.

  “All right, I’ll mull it over,” he said quietly. “And I’ll collect you at zero-six-thirty hours next Tuesday if you’d like to hike a bit. Agreed?”

  That was as much of a concession as I was going to get. “Think it over all you like, major. I’m not the one with a family waiting for me to get it together. Wait too long and you’ll be just like me.” I turned back toward Madeleine Marie and began walking, not waiting for his answer. “See you early Tuesday.”

  It was a gamble and it took a bit of time for his words to float to me. “Zero six thirty. Sharp.”

  Well, at least he presented a challenge. It had been a long time since I’d wrangled with an animal of that caliber. He’d so easily manipulated me into doing what he wanted. Gotten me to drop my facade for a few seconds and reveal something personal. Totally unprofessional on every level. Yes, I’d bet my mildewed, rotting wetsuit that it would be a fight to the bitter end to get him to show me an inch of his true self. I had no idea what was inside that shell. Was it an innocent, pure thing losing a war against something dark and fetid and growing? Or just the opposite—something hard, and manipulative, without feeling at its core combined with a practiced facade that rarely, if ever, slipped? And for the first time, I wondered if the only good thing that would ever come from my recent hideous past was a greater understanding of the night inside a person’s soul. But facing my festering doubts? Those thoughts that bounced from shame to existential ambivalence in a circle of never-ending pathos? Yeah. It was just too late for a pity party and too early to fade away like the end credits of a movie.

  I felt a shadow fall onto my back as I put the key into the heavy ornate door’s keyhole to the home of a hundred ancestors’ ghosts. The shadow moved over the intricate lace of black wrought iron delicately protecting the two glass panels embedded in the door. I turned. Storm clouds mushroomed over the Pyrenees. There was a hell of a storm stampeding across the vast expanse of sky. Would the villa withstand just a few more of these Atlantic beasts before I could palm off this magnificent, monstrous pile to someone else? And were the ghosts here with me or against me?

  I was losing it, clearly, and I was not sure I could blame it on this crazy Gallic atmosphere. Next door, the two boxers’ guttural snarls segued to insane barking as an ancient VW bus rattled by, loaded down with a dozen surfboards. The Stones’ “Miss You” was drowned out by the atrocious accents of the French surfers singing along. Behind them, a brand-new Bentley glided by, driven by a middle-aged man with slick black hair, Ray-Bans, and a cell phone glued to his ear. The now familiar hoard of German cyclists followed, all cursing as the first raindrops sprayed down like machine-gun fire.

  I dashed inside to safety.

  A flash of lightning illuminated the long hall before the first boom of thunder shook the villa.

  Chapter Seven

  Pounding. Pounding. Someone—no, Oliver—was pounding his feet as he ran down the long second-floor hallway and down the stairs. He was chasing Lily. Out the door. Up the endless driveway bordered with pink dogwood. And my feet were cemented to the kitchen floor, unable to run after her. Protect her. The pounding started again. Her feet were bare in the snow as she ran away, while her father—

  I woke and sat straight up in bed to the echo of Madeleine Marie’s brass door knocker striking its matching plate two stories down. Dazed, I clumsily felt for my charging iPhone. One o’clock. In the morning. What?

  Outside, the storm bore down with Herculean force. Rain, sounding like gravel, sprayed the shutters. Maybe it was hail.

  The pounding restarted. I grabbed the peignoir my grandfather had lent to me from his dead wife—likely the second one—as it featured an embroidered R for Rosemary on it.

  Two bedraggled men, one tall, the other short and fat, leaned sideways against the gale force. Looking very much like two species of sodden mushrooms in their Basque berets, they tugged the tips in greeting. The smaller one bowed and a stream of rain poured off his beret.

  “Bonsoir, Mme Hamilton! Je suis la maire. Pardonnez-moi mais nous avons un petit problème.”

  The mayor had a little problem? At one in the morning? “Entrez, messieurs. It is freezing out there.”

  The taller one snatched off his sodden black felt beret, revealing a tonsured crown as he nodded a greeting. “Madame.”

  “Oui?”

  “Enchanté,” he replied, looking not at all enchanted.

  The mayor smiled and gripped my hand in a firm shake, looking pleased with himself for adopting an American greeting. “Mme Hamilton, delighted to make your acquaintance.”

  Water poured off their navy anoraks onto the black-and-white marble of the foyer’s floor as they removed them in unison. For some bizarre reason they appeared completely at ease invading Madeleine Marie in the middle of the night.

  The mayor continued, glancing at the white marble columns in the hall. “Such a lovely villa, madame. It’s been many years since I’ve been inside.”

  “Is there something I can do for you, sir? Let me find a towel for you.” I prepared to search for one but the mayor stopped me.

  “No need! This is but a little sprinkling. Actually, I wanted to introduce you to my good friend, Pierrot Etcheterry. Your neighbor. I was most surprised you have not made each other’s acquaintance.”

  I bit my tongue. “M. le Maire, pardon me for saying this but it is one o’clock in the morning. Can all of this wait until tomorrow?”

  “Ah,” he said, with a little shrug. “I fear it cannot. You see, here in France, neighbors help one another. Perhaps it is different in les États-Unis?”

  I gave up, knowing they’d tell me when they were good and ready. “What can I do for you?” I looked at my neighbor.

  “Beh, you have flooded my cave.”

  His basement? “I’m sorry. Your cave?”

  “Yes. It is flooded.”

  “And how have I caused your basement to be flooded?”

  The mayor stepped in. “Why, because of your puits perdu.”

  Lost something. Yes, perdu meant “lost.” “Puits? I’m sorry, my French is not perfect.”

  The mayor shook his head with a sad expression. “Ah. Such a shame you did not learn French, madame. One can’t live in France without speaking the most important language in the world.” He actually sa
id it with a straight face. “A puits is, ah, a well, I think.”

  “So I have caused M. Etcheterry’s basement to flood because there is a lost well on our family’s property? Where is this well?”

  “Madame,” the mayor said with pity, “it would not be a lost well if it was not lost, now would it?”

  “If you were Basque,” continued Pierrot Etcheterry, “you would know all about la légende. Many centuries ago there was a well, a source really, of the finest water in all of Gaulle. Someone would make a fortune if they could find it and bottle it, I assure you. But you are American, so of course, you do not know this.”

  Therapists have a saying: When locked in an insane asylum, pretend to understand the inmates. Sort of like “When in Rome . . .” I opened my mouth only to be interrupted by the Basque neighbor.

  “Madame,” he said, “I would show you my basement now.”

  I shivered. It had to be forty degrees Fahrenheit outside. “Now?” Another spray of pellets, or rather rain, hit the door and the wind howled. It was time to make a break from the asylum. “M. Etcheterry, while I appreciate the seriousness of your situation, I am not going to go out in the storm at one in the morning to inspect your flooded basement. I will take your word for it. Furthermore, unless you can demonstrate how a mysterious well on our property has been the cause, I can’t imagine why you think our family is responsible.”

  The mayor opened his mouth but I continued.

  “And, furthermore, your house is uphill to my villa—”

  “Your grandfather’s villa, madame,” interrupted the mayor, his smile fading. “And one day your uncle’s villa.”

  “It’s the du Roque villa, monsieur. My mother is a du Roque and so am I,” I said, and was unable to stop my stupid chin from rising in a distinctly Frenchified fashion.

  “You are American,” the Basque neighbor stated, brushing a few drops of water from a tightly knit gray turtleneck sweater that strained against the bulk of torso.

  “And French,” I retorted. “And that is beside the point.”