The Seven Turns of the Snail's Shell: A Novel

by Mj Roë

  He didn’t answer her.

  CHAPTER 35

  They were waiting with grins on their faces in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Charlie!” Léo La Bergère was the first to grab C-C and hug him. “So good to see you!” He shook C-C’s hand vigorously.

  “Bonjour, Léo. It’s been a long time.” C-C turned to the other man. “Père Truette.”

  The priest took C-C’s hand. “It’s good to have you home, my son.” His voice was soft and kindly.

  C-C introduced Anna to them.

  “Enchanté,” they said in unison as they each extended a hand.

  Lucie bustled from the dining room. “Léo and Pierre are having dinner with us. Please, everyone, come in and be seated. Jacques specifically ordered that we open bottles of Château Haut-Brion. I chose 1936, a fine year…before the war. Jacques saved them from the Germans and from the bombs, you know.” She shooed them into the wood-paneled dining room and pointed to their places at a table set with white linens, fine crystal goblets, silver, and china. A silver candelabra with white lit candles twinkled in the center, flanked by sparkling crystal decanters of dark red wine.

  “Too bad Jacques isn’t here to enjoy this celebration,” Léo lamented as the aperitif was poured. They toasted to good fortune and good food…and then to the young couple. “To Charlie and to Anna.”

  Lucie took a seat at the table as her staff entered with the first course. “I’m putting my sous-chef in charge for the next two hours,” she announced. “I don’t want to miss any of the conversation. Bon appétit!”

  The first course was boudin blanc, a delicately flavored fresh sausage made with veal.

  “Spécialité de Normandie. Ah, there is nothing I like more!” Léo declared as Lucie glared at him. “Except, of course, la pièce de résistance, the duck. Did you know, Anna, that this resto is renowned for its duck?”

  “I assumed by the name.”

  Léo went on. “Ah, but such a duck! Le canard à la rouennaise has a story.” His eyes twinkled as he seemed to be warming up to tell it.

  “Oh, non, not Jacques’ story, Léo. Leave it!” Lucie exclaimed. There was a collective sigh as they all anticipated what was coming.

  C-C smiled. He knew it by heart. “My father,” he said, “entertains anyone who will listen with the story about how the duck is killed by suffocation so that the blood is retained, giving the meat a particularly rich flavor. Each time he tells it, he embellishes it so as to make the meal a memorable experience for his clientele. It’s a story of fear and terror, but only my father can tell it!”

  Léo feigned a stab to the heart. “Bon, alors. Jacques tells it better than I do, anyway.”

  Anna asked C-C, “Why did your father decide to settle in Rouen?”

  “He never talked about it. I don’t believe that anyone ever knew.”

  “He is correct,” inserted the priest. “Jacques had an air of mystère about him. We only knew him during the war. He was young, only in his teens, at the onset. He helped form Les Amis Clandestins. Originally, his interest in the Résistance movement was only in saving France’s wine. He joined forces with the local restaurateurs and the winemakers to protect France’s treasured commodity from plunder. The wine cellar of this resto, in fact, was concealed by a false wall. It held over ten thousand bottles of wine during the war, and it also provided a safe haven. Les Amis rescued people who were in danger, particularly American and British fliers who had been shot down. Eventually, Jacques became the sole owner. He only ever talked about his life since he married Nathalie, which also occurred, of course, here in Rouen.”

  Léo La Bergère couldn’t help adding, “Nathalie was a native of Strasbourg. The way Jacques tells it, she spent all of her summers with her Norman relatives because her father, a banker in Strasbourg, originated from Rouen. She met Jacques literally over a Tarte Tatin.”

  “Those from Strasbourg believe that they make the best Tarte Tatin,” C-C added. “The Normans, of course, credit their apples.”

  “Exactly!” the rest of them chimed in.

  C-C continued. “My mother was a good match for my father. She had a fine sense of cooking herself, being that she always claimed that she originated from the gastronomical capital of France.” He looked around the table with a mischievous grin. “A fact that she maintained is corroborated by most French citizens.” Around the table could be heard loud objections. “Everyone note!” He wagged his finger at them. “She eventually won out on the Tarte Tatin, and it was her recipe, not Papa’s, that the resto served.”

  “And still does today,” Lucie added. “That’s one recipe I won’t change.”

  “Voilà!” C-C put both his hands on the table in triumph.

  Lucie thought for a moment and then added with a wink as she took them all in, “There’s another story about Jacques that we can tell since he isn’t here.” She hesitated, then began with a dramatic flourish. “Because he enjoyed his own cooking, he was from time to time submitted to la régime de Madame Gérard.” She emphasized each of the last words dramatically.

  A collective “Ahhhhh!”

  “This diet that Nathalie claimed to have invented herself consisted of vegetables, lots of water, and no bread, cheese, wine, or sugar!”

  A collective “Oh, quelle horreur!”

  The unified audience’s support for Lucie’s story was amusing to Anna. She looked at C-C. He seemed to be enjoying himself.

  Lucie continued, “This put Jacques in atrociously bad humor, and everyone could tell by the booming of his voice when Madame had submitted him to yet another round of her famous régime. It was impossible for Jacques to live without his Camembert!”

  Collective shaking of heads all around.

  C-C looked over to Anna as the conversation paused. “Our Anna here is a raconteur. She has published several books. One was just introduced in France.”

  Admiring glances and a collective “Ah bon, ah bon! Félicitations!”

  “What kind of books do you write, Anna?” The question came from the priest.

  “Novels. Fiction. They’re stories. I like to tell stories.”

  Lucie beckoned to the sommelier to fill the wine goblets. “Tell us a story, Anna.”

  Anna glanced around the table. They were all looking at her with anticipation. She thought for a moment, made a personal decision, and then cleared her throat.

  “This is the tale of three men,” she began, “one American, one French, and the third Corsican. Each of them has a story.” She paused for dramatic effect. “The American was a handsome young flier during the Second World War. He flew bomb runs over northern France. The Frenchman left his farm in Normandy and eagerly went off to fight in the war in Italy. After his leg was badly wounded, he returned to France. The Corsican also left his native Corsica at a young age and joined the maquis. He was said to have a lethal gaze and magical powers of survival. One day, during the worst of the fighting, the American flier’s plane was shot down over France. After landing his parachute, he was found and hidden by the Frenchman and the Corsican who were with the Résistance fighters working against the enemy. He called them his liberators. The Corsican became his good friend. They wrote to each other after each had returned to his respective homeland after the war. Each married. The American had an only daughter; the Corsican had an only son. One day, the Corsican wrote to the American that his son was coming to the United States for military training. Would the American entertain junior on weekends so that he wouldn’t get homesick, he inquired.”

  Anna paused to take a sip of the wine. It tasted smooth and rich from decades of aging.

  “The American’s daughter was seventeen,” she continued. “She fell in love with the Corsican’s handsome son. He in turn was enchanted by her and returned her love. When it was time for the young man to leave, he promised her that he would come back to get her. But he never came back. Several months later, the old Corsican fighter sent another letter to his friend, the Ameri
can flier. His son, it said, had been sent to yet another war…the Algerian conflict… and he was killed. The Corsican was heartbroken. So too was the American’s daughter, for she had just delivered his baby. The little girl’s complexion was light olive. She had black, curly hair, and she resembled her Corsican father. The American flier didn’t hear from the Corsican again, and he never told him that he had a grandchild. The granddaughter grew up, tragically without either her mother or her father, and went to study in France, never knowing that she was half Corsican.” Anna paused again. The group around the table gave the impression of a photo at a family reunion. They were all looking her way, chewing on their food and listening intently. Finally, the priest spoke.

  “But, Mademoiselle, you said the story was about three young men? What about the Frenchman?”

  “I’m coming to that. Thirty-five years later, after the American flier had passed away, the granddaughter was going through his mementos. As if by magic, an old Christmas card from the Frenchman caught her eye. It had been sent from France five years after the war. The granddaughter set off on a quest. She traveled to France and tracked down the Frenchman, who by this time was almost ninety years old. One day, she knocked on his door. She found out many things about her Corsican grandfather, except his whereabouts. To this day, the granddaughter does not know where he is, but she continues her quest with the anticipation of one day finding him.”

  C-C was looking intensely at Anna. Her eyes locked on his.

  “The moral of the story is, whatever the quest, it is the journey itself which in the end makes the story interesting. The American was my grandfather. The Frenchman is—” she was still swimming in C-C’s gray eyes. “I didn’t know it before I visited him, but he is Charles-Christian’s grand-père, Guy de Noailles. And the Corsican? I believe you all know him as le loup.”

  “Diamanté?” They gasped in unison.

  Anna nodded her head as she pulled her eyes away from C-C’s and looked at the others.

  Léo La Bergère was the first to speak. “But this incredible story, it is true?”

  Anna laughed. “As with all stories, there is an element of fiction and an element of reality. For example, it is not known whether the young man ever promised to return to California. What is true is that I am the granddaughter with the quest, and Diamanté doesn’t know of my existence.”

  “Whew!” There was a collective wind, and the candles flickered as they blew through their lips in unison.

  Lucie looked at her, tears glistening in her eyes. “But this is étonnant, an astonishing story, Anna. I hope you find the old mec. That fellow’s a hard one. We all know that.” They all indicated that they agreed with her. “It will do him good to have a granddaughter such as yourself. He could use some softening up.”

  Anna thanked them for listening to her. She had told the story in French. C-C leaned over to her and whispered, “You told it well.”

  The meal was just as promised. The duck, strongly flavored and redolent of herbs, garlic, and spices, was superb, and there was apple Tarte Tatin for dessert. They were all stuffed and happy as they sipped on strong coffee afterward. The laughter and stories continued, some from the war days, prompted by Anna’s story. Finally, Léo and Pierre said their au revoirs, and Lucie excused herself to return to the kitchen to check up on her staff.

  C-C leaned into Anna. “How about a walk?”

  They put on their coats and headed out the front of the restaurant down the rue du Gros-Horloge. As if by habit, as she had done so many times in the past without thinking, Anna slid her arm under C-C’s elbow. It was midafternoon, and already the December sun was low in the sky.

  “How did Lucie come to be your father’s sous-chef? Is there a story there?”

  “Actually, oui. Lucie’s mother, as I understand it, was with the Résistance. She was a member of the same organization with Léo, Father Truette, and my father. There were others, too. Some of them we heard about in the stories during dinner. They are mostly gone now. Lucie was just a little girl during the war, but she grew up hanging around the restaurant, and my father taught her everything. She is quite a natural.”

  “Certainly seems to be. The food was excellent.”

  “You can’t find any better in Rouen, my father always says.” They crossed the street. Directly in front of them was the ancient clock which had been there since 1389 and for which the street had been named.

  “C-C, what was all that hush-hush business about?”

  “Hush-hush? I don’t understand what you mean.”

  “Secretive. They kept asking you questions about something, and you kept trying to divert the conversation. You were deliberately keeping something guarded. I could tell.”

  He smiled. “It’s a game I always play with them. Since I was a little kid. I don’t want them to know everything about me.” He kicked a stone into the street. “Did you notice, Anna? I haven’t smoked all day.”

  “You just changed the subject.”

  He grinned and put his gloved hand on top of hers still hooked in the crook of his arm.

  “Did we accomplish anything today?”

  “What did you expect us to accomplish?”

  “I thought we would resolve the differences with your father. We didn’t do that.”

  “We opened the door. I talked to him.”

  “Will you go see him?”

  C-C looked at his watch. “We should be getting back to Paris.”

  CHAPTER 36

  Anna shivered as C-C opened the door to his apartment and held it for her. Neither had talked much on the trip back to Paris. He had driven directly to his apartment, and she had not objected. Their day together had been easier than she had anticipated. It was as if they had rediscovered an old bond by driving to Rouen.

  The apartment was sparsely decorated. It had oak beams and a narrow, wooden spiral staircase that linked the first floor to a room above. There was an outsized sofa in the space by the window, a writing desk next to a bookshelf along an ancient, exposed stone wall with a fireplace, a small empty table with two chairs, and a modern-looking stainless steel kitchenette at the back. A miniature abstract painting hung over the bookshelf, and a CD player sat on top of it. Much to Anna’s surprise, the apartment smelled of French soap rather than smoke.

  C-C took off his coat and lit the gas fireplace. “This will get you warmed up.”

  “What’s up there?” She nodded toward the top of the spiral staircase.

  “The bedroom. A bed and a TV is all there is room for. It’s really very small.”

  He put on a CD. Anna caught her breath as the captivating strains of Strauss’ “Blue Danube” waltz filled the room.

  “Do you remember our weekend in Vienna?”

  “How could I forget it?”

  She took off her coat and walked over to look out the French windows to the double balcony where Madame Russe had sat a decade earlier. “This apartment is definitely larger than your old one.”

  “Oui, do you remember how we had trouble waltzing in that one?” He laughed as he rearranged a coffee table from the center of a Persian rug in the middle of the floor. When he had moved it aside, he stood in its place and held out his arms to her in invitation. “Dance with me, Anna?”

  She smiled and took his hand. She had definitely missed dancing with him.

  It had all started with a Viennese waltz. Anna had thought it rather clichéd at the time. Waltzing to Strauss in Vienna had seemed so trite to her that she had laughed aloud. But the memory had permeated their love life when they returned to Paris. They had made romantic modifications, allowing their bodies to move in slow motion together to the music. It had seemed, as the tempo quickened, that they heard only the beat of each other’s heart. She closed her eyes now as she remembered the intense lovemaking that always ensued.

  C-C put his arm around her back and moved his cheek close to hers. As before, they began to waltz in slow motion, pressing closer and closer together, each aware that th
ey had not been intimate for a decade. His groin touched hers; he was hard with wanting her. He brushed his lips against hers, and then his tongue played with her ear. She let him undo her chignon, and as he did, her hair fell to her shoulders. He slowly maneuvered her to the sofa by the window. She lay back against the pillows. He started to undress her, kissing her cheeks softly. His tongue sought her mouth, and then his hands traveled down her abdomen. He pulled her in close, feeling inside her thighs, and touching her most intimate erotic spots. Her spine tingled. She took his head in her hands, pulling him up to her, kissing him hard on the lips.

  “I have missed you so,” he whispered as he smothered his face in her hair. “It was never like this…I mean…I never felt the same with anyone else.”

  She pulled his sweater over his head and kissed his chest.

  A car’s security system suddenly blared loudly in the street. It didn’t stop.

  “Merde,” he said. Still holding her in his arms, he reached over and pulled the curtain aside so he could see into the street below. “It’s the Renault. I’d better investigate.”

  “Do you have to?”

  “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back.” He looked worried as he pulled on his sweater and put on his coat.

  “Be careful,” Anna told him as he closed the apartment door. She shivered and pulled a throw around her bare shoulders.

  C-C saw the dark figure immediately. Someone was tampering with his car. There was very little light, and the street was wet. He maneuvered next to the wall in order to get a better view. Suddenly, everything went black, and then he dropped to the ground.

  CHAPTER 37

  Downstairs in the concierge’s loge, Elise was awakened by the unsettling sound of a car siren in the street. She peeked through her lace-curtained window, which gave her a view of the courtyard, just in time to see the shadow of one of her tenants slipping through the heavy wooden door.

  A raspy, heavily accented male voice came from behind her. “What is it?”