Maxine

by Claire Wilkshire

  Emmanuelle is not my girlfriend, he says, surprised. She’s my cousin.

  Your cousin?

  Her father is my father’s younger brother. Karim is also my cousin. My parents come from large families, so there are lots of cousins.

  Karim is your cousin?

  Yes. I look more like my father, but my mother is Algerian.

  Oh I see.

  Karim is my cousin préféré. We grew up together. You should see him play football.

  Serge has said several times that he will soon have to leave and now he moves slowly toward the door. He must go to work. He works in the agricultural sector, he has explained. On the development of environmentally sophisticated fertilizers. He smiles his nonchalant smile, the one that floored Maxine when she first saw him, and she pictures him for a moment in fields of thigh-high crops, scrutinizing a leaf, picking up a little soil and letting it run through his fingers, making the earth a kinder, safer place for little French babies. Au revoir, then, Serge says. He kisses her on the cheek, four times in alternation, the way he has explained it, and he’s out the door.

  She yanked out a pouch that had been hanging around her neck.

  “Quickly,” she said, slipping it over Jerome’s head. “You must take this now. ”They ran down the stairs and out into the street, where a car was stopped in front of the hotel as if a deliveryman had gone inside for a moment, front door open, keys in the ignition. Jerome started to get in.

  “No!” Frédérique pulled his arm and they ran for the end of the street. As they neared the corner, a warm wind picked them up and lifted them forward, as if someone wanted to help them on their journey. There followed a very loud noise, a deep silence, and then screaming. Jerome turned but Frédérique kept pulling on his arm and then they were around the corner and in the main street. A beige taxi idled nearby. They flung themselves in the back seat.

  The phone rings and rings again on the other side of the door, which she is fumbling to open, trying in the dim light of the hall to stick the key in the right place. It could be a family emergency for Serge. God knows what Emmanuelle might have done. She bursts through the door.

  As soon as she lifts the receiver, a male voice starts talking in a language that is definitely not French or English.

  Um, allo? says Maxine, and the caller hangs up. The next time there is no talk, just the hang-up. The third time she decides she’ll just ignore it and let them call back for Serge later. But Maxine is obedient by nature. If the phone rings, you answer it. And it isn’t for Serge.

  Mademoiselle Maxine Cartère?

  Ummmm. Oui.

  Ici Madame Duclos, des Editions Merluche. I have been calling you for trois jours.

  Maxine feels told off in a schoolteachery way. She explains that she has been out every day and doesn’t know how to use the answering machine. She hears a buzzer.

  So, we are expecting you at the reception ce soir. With your invité. You will be attending, oui?

  At this point Maxine has pulled the cord to its limit and is opening the door for Serge, who looks casually immaculate in a white short-sleeved shirt and jeans.

  Um. Ce soir?

  Madame Duclos seems deeply annoyed that Maxine has not received the invitation which Serge is just now depositing on the table. There is no stamp or postmark so someone must have delivered it.

  Yes, Maxine says, I’ll be there, merci. She hangs up and exhales strenuously. Serge raises an eyebrow.

  It’s the phone, oh my god, phone calls in French, it’s so stressful... People don’t speak French a lot where I come from. I’m not used to it. Serge, I don’t suppose you’d, um, liketogotoareception.

  A reception?

  Areceptionwithmetonightatseven-thirty. It’sOKyoudon’thaveto.

  Avec plaisir.

  Really? You really would? Oh thank you, Serge, that is so great, otherwise I would be terrified—oh, I don’t mean that’s the only reason I hoped you would come, I didn’t mean that at all, please don’t think—

  I shall bare mes dents and scare away all the terrifying French people.

  Oh thank God.

  He has managed to get the morning off work and perhaps she’d like to have coffee and go for a walk along the Champs. The Champs? The Champs Elysées, does she know—Oh those Champs, yes, she would like that very much.

  “The gare,” Frédérique told the driver. “Quickly!” But soon he pulled up outside a pizzeria. “What are you doing?” she shouted. “No stopping, no more customers, I will pay!” The driver didn’t answer. The door opened. Two large men grabbed Jerome and threw him out while a third blocked Frédérique’s door. Jerome landed on his shoulder in the dust; the men climbed into the taxi and sped off.

  They get off at Concorde. Fountains with mammoth statues of black women with gold fish, so much black and gold. And the traffic. Cindy would have loved it here, Maxine realizes. All the people, all the activity, even the traffic, always something happening. Cindy had been energized by movement. Compared to the traffic circle, though, the avenue is calm, the sidewalks wide and peaceful, and they walk close together.

  Maybe, Serge is saying, I am a sinister Français. Maybe I have a plan and circumstances will require that I leave Paris in the next few months, and I will escape to the frozen north and ask to stay in your apartment.

  It’s not the frozen north. It’s the same latitude—

  —as Paris, oui, I think you made that point earlier. A few times.

  Well then. And you’d be welcome to stay.

  Vraiment?

  He takes her hand and swings it in his as they walk. His hand feels warm. The day is not yet too hot and they walk in the shade of the trees along the broad, straight avenue.

  Jerome went over things in his head. What she’d said. Things that could be clues. He got away from the pizzeria and walked for a time, dodging into side streets, wondering how to proceed.

  “That hotel manager,” she’d said, “I don’t like him. I don’t like the way he watches us.”

  Could the hotel manager have betrayed them? It would be a terrible irony, to discover that your host, the person who offered you shelter, was in league with the enemy. That he was plotting your death.

  They have lunch in a crowded brasserie in a side street.

  I’m reading a book, Maxine says, about an English boy who comes to Paris. He’s reading Le Grand Meaulnes.

  In your book, he’s reading Meaulnes? We did it at school. Too much nostalgie. Everyone has loss. You move on, you do things.

  Maxine had taken a night course the year before, to keep her hand in. Coming of Age in Five Countries. They’d studied Catcher in the Rye too. Coming of Age didn’t look like a lot of fun and as for the Emergent Sense of Self, well, Maxine didn’t feel much more emerged than any of the teenagers in the novels. But the books were good.

  He would have to get to Paris, that’s all. As soon as possible. But first he would call the number. Frédérique—every time he saw a beige taxi he felt sick. He felt sick wondering what might have happened to her. But the good thing was that she’d been right: they didn’t seem to suspect him, and she’d had time to give him the pouch with the USB storage devices, the passports, and a shocking amount of money in several currencies. His only hope was that Frédérique would escape. She knew what she was up against. He trusted her.

  Serge arrives a few minutes early to take her to the reception. He has changed into a brown summer suit and brought her a small bouquet. He gives her a kiss, just one this time, but he does hang in there for a while. The language of kissing is so complicated here that she can’t tell what if anything it might mean. At home if someone kisses you, you know right off the bat what way you’re headed. Here you can kiss someone loads of times and it might be your sister. It’s all rather mysterious. He compliments her on her dress and once again Maxine has that slightly dizzy feeling that this can’t quite be true, that she is in Paris, going to a reception with a handsome Frenchman as her date.

  Serge. I sa
w a poster of you today. What were you doing on a poster?

  What sort of poster?

  It was a black and white poster of your face. I was lost in a back street. It was kind of a dark corner and the bottom of the poster had been torn away and there was graffiti on the picture, but I could have sworn it was you.

  Graffiti? That must have been the problem. There is no poster of me.

  Are you sure?

  You were wandering the streets with your head full of ideas about what your new French dress for the reception would be like and you saw a face that looked a bit like mine—lots of people have faces like mine—but it was partly covered, and you missed me so much and you longed for my good company, in fact your eyes were blurry with tears because you didn’t know how you would get through all those hours until sev—

  Yes, all right, let’s go.

  Jerome just made the last train for Tangiers. The couchettes were all taken. He found a seat by a window so he could lean against the wall. He hadn’t had much sleep lately. The train was hot and crowded; the man next to him was carrying bags and parcels that stuck out in every direction. When the train began to move, all Jerome knew was that it was taking him farther away from where he’d last seen Frédérique. He leaned his head against the wall of the train but it was vibrating too much. He shifted and leaned back in his seat. He tried to think positive thoughts. He pictured Frédérique jumping out as the taxi turned a corner, Frédérique wrenching her arm away from one of the men on a Marrakech street and disappearing into the crowd.

  Maxine has no idea what to expect of the reception. A handful of staff from the publishing house and the man who won the novel contest, she supposes. A tablecloth draped over a few boxes of books at the back of the office, some wine in plastic cups, a few crackers. When they arrive, though, they’re led to an elegant, high-ceilinged room with fifty or sixty people talking loudly. Smells of food and perfume. Unless Emmanuelle has been invited, which is unlikely, Maxine won’t know any of them other than Madame Duclos, so they slip into the crowd and find a place to stand near a tall open window. A gauzy curtain sways in the breeze from the street like a ghost who’s visited the wine table too often. Serge heads off to find that table and Maxine looks out into the evening, which is still light and pleasant. An elderly woman is walking her dog. Two young people in jeans hug on a street corner.

  Maxine?—Madame Duclos is all smiles this evening. Maybe this is the real Madame Duclos, who has escaped captivity at the hands of her evil twin. Clearly, she feels the situation has sorted itself out and she has done the honourable thing by offering as an olive branch an invitation to the reception. And in fact she is wholeheartedly hospitable. She stays quite a while by Maxine’s side, she laughs, makes friendly inquiries. She is charming to Serge. She compliments Maxine on her writing and manages without ever actually mentioning the competition to plant the suggestion that the entries were so numerous and of such high quality that even a Nobel prize winner didn’t stand much of a chance and that Maxine had done very well, considering. Eventually she says she must go and take care of some other guests but she insists first on escorting them to the food table, where an impressive spread has been laid out on white cloths. Please, she says, you young people must eat, and then she’s whirring off with apologies and encouragements to enjoy themselves, and promises to return later.

  Maxine watches Serge lean over the table and pluck two mussel shells from a basket. Short hair tapers to a clean line behind his ear. He slips the mussels onto toothpicks and holds one out to her; he watches inquiringly as she chews it, and then tastes his own. C’est bon, he pronounces, and it is too, a fishy white wine and garlic taste, but what Maxine wants now is not really food. It’s true that food is nice and most often she does want it, but now what she would like is to step right up against him and slide her hands under his suit jacket and around his waist, where it would be shirty on the outside and softer and warm inside. She’d like to insinuate her nose between his shirt collar and his neck and smell the laundry smell, aftershave, and a little sweat. She’d like to lift up the white cloth draped over the food table, like Shackleton with a tent flap, and follow him in so they could spend the evening there.

  Somehow Jerome fell asleep. He dreamed he was camping with Frédérique near Tofino. It must have been midsummer because the tent was unbearably stuffy. He reached out to unzip the tent flap and saw to his alarm that Frédérique’s sleeping bag was empty.

  16

  it’s becoming difficult to stand this close to Serge without touching him. But what if she did? What if she leaned in and slipped her arms around him and he looked embarrassed and pulled away? He wouldn’t say anything—he’s too well-mannered—and she would be mortified and he would avoid her until she left town. Or he wouldn’t be able to help himself: a look of alarm and revulsion would cross his face, a neon sign would light up on his forehead: YUCK! He would pretend he had to go to the bathroom, come back and announce that he’s just taken an urgent call on his cell and he’s so sorry but. Or maybe, worst of all, he would look resigned and suffer through it. Maybe Emmanuelle’s rich mother has paid him to be nice to her.

  You look sad, Serge says. Ça va?

  Nonono, I’m fine.

  You worked so hard and you still did not win?

  No that’s not it, really, I—

  He’s gazing at her with brown eyes full of such concern that she thinks she might—well she isn’t sure what she might do, so it’s a great relief when everyone turns and the voices fall away and it becomes evident that something is beginning to happen. Now she can see Madame Duclos on a podium which had not been visible. Madame Duclos stands at the microphone and begins a speech about the current state of world literature and its particular manifestations in France, the publishing industry internationally, the publishing industry in Paris in recent months, the importance of books, of reading, of buying books, the power of a resonant image, the power of many resonant images collected in one slim volume, even and especially when they are all, or almost all, images of Black-Tailed Godwits. It seems the winner has written a thriller about birds. In which birds are the characters. But maybe Maxine has misunderstood. She leans up to Serge’s ear: an English-language bird-murder? Serge shrugs. And sure enough, a small, neat man mounts the podium and shakes Madame Duclos’ hand. He smiles a lot and accepts his envelope. As the assembled crowd inspects him for signs of genius, he gives a short, gracious speech before bowing and leaving the stage to Madame, who thanks everyone for coming. Serge puts an arm around Maxine’s shoulders and leans in: I believe your book is much better, he whispers, although he has read neither, and he kisses her or perhaps brushes against her accidentally, and she feels the warm smudge of lips on her ear. The gathering is poised to return to its conversation and consumption, but Madame Duclos continues:

  Before you go, she says, I would like to announce another winner, this time of the Prix Merluche for sportsmanlike literary comportment, a very special prize to be awarded this year only, and this prize is awarded tonight to our distinguished guest from across the Atlantic Ocean. She talks a little more, but Maxine no longer hears her. Serge is pushing Maxine gently forward, the crowd is parting, she’s walking toward a smiling Madame Duclos. Her neck and hairline feel hot, everyone is looking at her as she climbs the podium, which she feels that she should not be doing even though it’s obvious that’s what is expected of her.

  When Jerome woke up he reached for Frédérique and encountered something like a large birdcage belonging to his seatmate that was driving into his ribs. He did not feel rested. He needed a shower. He stank. The air conditioning was now working though, which was fantastic. He went over the call he’d placed from the train station. A man’s voice had answered, an elegant-sounding voice. Jerome pictured a large and elegant Paris apartment. Expensive paintings. A man’s manicured fingernails, the cuff of a white sleeve.

  “Allo.”

  “I was given this number by a friend. My friend is in trouble. She ha
s been taken away.”

  “One moment.” Jerome thinks he can hear a siren, a door closing.

  “How long ago did this occur?”

  “A few hours.”

  “I must warn you to say as little as possible in response to what I am about to ask. Did your friend entrust you with anything?”

  “Yes.”

  “And do you know where, generally speaking, you must deliver this item?”