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

by Mj Roë

  “They let me do my work, if that’s what you mean. I was treated well. It was a while before they allowed me to leave, though. I can’t tell you anything else.”

  Diamanté nodded. “I’m sorry for getting you involved.”

  Charles-Christian looked out the window at the countryside. The landscape was brown and flat. Barren trees dotted the horizon. In another hour, there would be some green to the terrain and the sun would be warmer coming in through the train’s window as they approached the Côte d’Azur. Diamanté’s sudden apology had taken him by surprise. Corsican men, he knew from experience with his father, didn’t like to apologize. It meant acknowledging their fallibility.

  “I met her before, you know. When I was working with the Médecins Sans Frontières in Africa. She visited a hospital where the AIDS patients were being treated. I was one of the doctors she spoke to.” He paused, for a moment miles away in thought as he listened to the dull, monotonous drone of the speeding train, then he continued. “She was very beautiful.”

  Diamanté didn’t answer him.

  Does Diamanté know who she really is? Charles-Christian wondered as he excused himself, got up, and went to the WC.

  When he returned to his seat, he had made a decision. “Do you remember anyone by the name of Ellis from the war? An American flier. I believe his name was Stu Ellis.”

  Diamanté seemed taken by surprise. His war memories flooded him temporarily. He cleared his throat. “Stu Ellis, ah oui, my friend Stu Ellis. He was from California. Why do you know about him?”

  “Did you ever see Stu Ellis after the war?”

  “Non. Unfortunately not. We both returned home, married, and had children. I believe he had a daughter. We wrote to each other for a few years. My son visited him.” He paused with the painful memory of the death of his son. “He was in the military, and he was in California for training. Stu and his family were very good to him.” Eyebrows knitted, he gave Charles-Christian an impatient look. “But what is all this about Stu Ellis? I haven’t heard from him in a long time.”

  “Did you ever hear the name Anna Ellis?” Charles-Christian persisted.

  “Non, jamais.” The old man shook his head, baffled. “Who is she?”

  “Anna is Stu Ellis’ granddaughter, his daughter’s daughter.”

  Diamanté didn’t have a clue as to where Charles-Christian was taking this discussion. “I assumed he would have grandchildren by now,” he replied gruffly.

  This was delicate. Charles-Christian was trained in delicate situations. He was good when dealing with patients and their relatives, but this was a whole different matter. “Did your son ever mention Ellis’ daughter?”

  “What are you saying?” Diamanté’s black piercing eyes penetrated Charles-Christian’s like daggers.

  “Diamanté, mon vieux, I have an extraordinary story to tell you.”

  CHAPTER 41

  En route to Nice, Diamanté listened intently as Charles-Christian spoke of Anna, about her being an author, about the death of her grandparents, even about the lost letters and the discovery of his mother’s hidden tin box. He narrated what he knew of Anna’s visit to Guy de Noailles and her revelation when she discovered that Guy was his very own grand-père. Finally he spoke of the coincidental discovery that she had been in Le Havre on August 31.

  “So you are telling me that the young woman I saw in Le Havre was in reality my son’s daughter? Impossible!” Diamanté shrugged his shoulders and threw up his arms. “I cannot believe it. My son would have told me about a baby.”

  “That’s just it. According to what Ellis told her on his deathbed, your son never found out, and Ellis never wrote to tell you. She didn’t say whether he explained why to her or not.”

  “Incroyable.” All Diamanté could do was shake his head in disbelief. “She is still in France, then?”

  “In Paris, oui, but for only a few more days. She was doing a book signing.” Charles-Christian pulled her novel from his duffel bag and handed it to Diamanté. “I bought a copy.”

  Diamanté held the attractively-jacketed novel in his knotted hands. He turned it over to see the photo on the back.

  “She’s good-looking.”

  “Yes, very beautiful. She looks like him. Your son, I mean. She has a photograph of her mother and Diamanté fils. She compared it to an old photo that Grand-père has, the one that was taken of you and your son in Corsica before he shipped out for Algeria. It’s unquestionably the same man.”

  Diamanté rubbed the scar on his forehead. He opened the book and squinted at the inscription Anna had written.

  “She calls you C-C?”

  Charles-Christian shrugged his shoulders and smiled his crooked smile.

  Diamanté handed the book back to him, unsmiling. “I need some time to think about this.”

  CHAPTER 42

  The train pulled into the Nice station. As Diamanté and Charles-Christian descended to the platform, Diamanté glanced behind him. He saw a dark figure waiting in the shadows of the last car, watching them.

  CHAPTER 43

  Paris

  The young man is behind her as she pushes her luggage cart toward the end of the loading platform. The look of admiration is in his eyes as she glances casually back at him. She smiles. At the end of a long journey, she returns. The same man is waiting on the platform for her. He takes her hand. They waltz together. Then, something happens that stops the dancing. He turns around suddenly and runs away. She tries to run after him. Something prevents her from moving. There is a glass window between them. She puts out her hand and cries out.

  Anna woke herself screaming an endless, frantic “Nooooooo!” Sitting straight up in bed, her heart pounding, she looked around the room. It was the old dream, but it had changed. This time, there was a face: C-C’s face. She lay back against the pillows. The tin box with the Monet painting of the Rouen cathedral sitting on the night table beside her bed caught her eye, and the nightmarish events of the past evening flooded her mind. She was not one to easily give in to tears, but they were streaming down her face now. Damn, C-C. Why did he have to come back into her life? And now he’d left again, just like that. His abrupt departure had a dark, frightening aspect that troubled her.

  “I’m through with him…for good, this time,” she told herself, wiping her cheeks with the heel of her hand.

  The apartment was quiet, and leaden light came through the sheer window curtains. Anna looked at the clock. It was half past ten. She pulled back the white, down comforter and swung her bare feet to the side of the bed. The floor was cold. She found her slippers and shuffled over to the window to look out. The sky was a thick blanket of low stratus clouds, and it was pouring rain. Below in the street, the tops of umbrellas rushed back and forth. Even in the bleak weather, the view of bell towers and domes sprouting from a mass of roofs never ceased to fascinate her. She opened the bedroom door. The wide, mirrored hallway with eighteenth-century boiserie paneling was dark. A tray with a thermos, china cup and saucer, silver dish filled with natural sugar cubes, and a basket of assorted breads accompanied by jam and sweet butter had been placed on an antique demilune table just outside. She sniffed the single pink rose in a silver bud vase that adorned the tray. Sabastien jumped from under the table and wagged his tail when she acknowledged his presence. She bent down and patted the little dog’s head as he licked her hand.

  “Good boy! You have been waiting patiently, haven’t you, for me to get up? So, where has everyone gone, heh?”

  There was a note on the tray, written in Monique’s distinctive, and very small, rounded cursive.

  Didn’t want to wake you, chérie. You must have come in very late. I didn’t even hear you! Have some coffee—that is, if it’s still hot. Sinon, Jeanne can make you another pot. She is in the apartment doing some final dusting and polishing this morning before she takes off on holiday. Georges and I will be out most of the day. Let’s plan on dinner together this evening, all of us. If you are free, that is. I’ll
have Pierre prepare something special for the occasion. I want to hear everything! P.S. Your petit ami, Mark, called three times. The last was just after midnight. I had to tell him that I was going to bed and you weren’t back yet. Didn’t know what to say, really. He seemed extremely anxious to talk to you. I think you should call him, chérie. He is so sympa!

  À ce soir,

  Monique

  Anna poured herself a cup of coffee and plopped two cubes of sugar into it. She took a sip. It was lukewarm, but it tasted good.

  “Come on, Sabastien, let’s see if Monique has any orange juice in the fridge.” They wandered down the long hallway and found Jeanne in the salon, dusting a collection of enamel vases on the white marble mantel above the period fireplace.

  “Bonjour, Mademoiselle.” The girl nodded politely to Anna. She was young, pretty, no more than twenty, and was wearing a traditional black maid’s dress with a starched white collar and cuffs and a starched white linen apron.

  “Bonjour, Jeanne.”

  The girl noticed that Anna was carrying the china cup and saucer. “Est-ce que le café est toujours chaud, Mademoiselle?”

  “Oui, tiède, mais ça va.” Anna smiled at her, indicating that she needn’t feel compelled to make her a new pot of coffee.

  Anna walked into the turquoise-green tiled kitchen. A half-empty bottle of Perrier sat on a white, marble-topped table with chrome legs in the center of the room. It was a small room, low-ceilinged, mostly functional, with sparse white cupboards and modern stainless steel appliances. The outstanding feature of the kitchen was a sculpture of a large, golden snail, its body and muscular foot fully extended from its coiled shell, which took up the entire countertop in front of the frosted glass window. Monique had explained that it had once been a sign that probably hung over a snail monger’s shop. She had found three of them in a flea market somewhere and had placed the other two as if they were marching one after the other along a wall in the apartment’s long corridor.

  Anna opened the small refrigerator. As usual, it was mostly empty. Like most Parisians, Georges and Monique tended to eat out, and when they did occasionally stay in for dinner, their chef, Pierre, always brought fresh ingredients with him. When Anna had stayed alone in the apartment in September, she had stocked the fridge with bottled water, orange juice, yogurt, and an assortment of cheeses, patés, and fruit.

  “Hmmm. No orange juice. Guess this Orangina will have to do.” She plucked out a small bottle of orange soda and found a crystal tumbler in the cupboard. Balancing it, the bottle of Orangina, and her china cup and saucer, she wandered back down the darkened hallway past the other two golden snails toward her bedroom. Sabastien followed at her heels and found a comfortable spot for himself on the woolen rug at the end of the bed. Anna reread Monique’s note. “Wonder what Mark was so anxious to talk to me about?”

  She booted up her laptop and brought up e-mail. “Whoa!” There were eighteen new messages, half of them spam. Two were from Harry, including the most recent. She opened it.

  Hi, Anna. Thought I’d pass this opportunity on to you. Hollywood is looking for a good story on this, and I thought, well, with your background and all, you might want to take a shot at it. I think you were there in Paris when it happened, right? Anyway, consider it and let me know. Wouldn’t be too bad to have a book advance with film rights already built in! Good news on the sales in France. You’ll have a nice check for the holidays. See you soon. H.

  There was also an attachment, a letter from a producer. The subject of interest appeared to be Princess Diana’s “assassination.”

  “Interesting choice of wording,” Anna said aloud as she saved it in a file to look at it later. “Maybe I can use that scene in Le Havre harbor somehow.” She did a quick reply to Harry, thanking him and telling him that she would be back in the U.S. soon and would give him her thoughts on it then.

  She next opened Mark’s most recent message.

  Hi, I just tried to call again. Monique said she’s going to bed, so guess I had better quit bothering her. Call when you get in. Just wondering…where have you been anyway? M.

  Another e-mail from Mark piqued her interest. It contained an HTML link to a Parisian apartment real estate site. The link pointed to the specific address of a posh-looking apartment in the seventh arrondissement near the Eiffel Tower. Anna studied it for a moment. There were photos of the interior and the view of the tower.

  “Mmm…looks nice…expensive.” Anna stared at the screen. Why was he sending her this? She looked at the time as she dialed his number. It was two o’clock in the morning in California.

  “Hi, ah, Mark?”

  “Anna! Christ, where have you been?”

  “Did I wake you?”

  “No. Shit. I’ve been worried sick about you. How could I sleep?”

  “I’m sorry, Mark. I ran into this old friend. We took a Sunday drive.”

  “Old friend?” He emphasized the “old.”

  “Well, not old, old. I mean former friend,” she stammered. “We were friends a decade ago when I was studying at the Sorbonne. It’s long story, Mark. I think it can wait until we see each other.” She hesitated and waited for a reaction. When there was none, she added as brightly as she could, “Which won’t be too much longer now.” Still no reaction. She didn’t need this. “Look, I can explain, but not now, not over the phone.”

  “I’m sorry, Anna. I should have known you could take care of yourself. It’s just that, damn it…” he hesitated. “You’re so freakin’ far away. I felt helpless.”

  “I’ll be home soon. Monique and Georges are leaving at the end of the week. They’re giving all the help the holiday off and closing up the apartment. Basically, they’re kicking me out.”

  “So, have you booked your flight home yet?”

  “Well, no, not yet. I was planning to do that today. I have to run a few errands this afternoon.” She had totally forgotten until then the promise to deliver C-C’s money to Elise.

  “Did you see that e-mail I sent about my parents’ fancy new apartment in Paris?”

  “Oh, it belongs to your parents? So that’s what you were so all-fired anxious to talk to me about last night?” She took a croissant from the breakfast tray and dabbed it in the apricot jam.

  “Well, yeah. What would you say, gorgeous, if I told you that my parents want me to oversee it for them for a while?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We didn’t think the deal would go through so soon. Real estate purchases in France can take a long time. They want me to make sure all the paperwork is in order, manage the delivery of the furniture my mother picked out, etcetera. Mom can’t be in Paris because of all the preparations for Christmas, and they’re planning on traveling to Europe in January, so the place has to be ready for occupancy.”

  “So when are you going to accomplish all that?”

  “That’s why I was wondering if you have your flight booked yet. How about if we make up for that lost weekend in Paris we didn’t get?”

  “What?”

  “I mean it. I’m clearing my calendar for a week so I can fly over. We can spend the weekend and fly home in time for Christmas. I promised my mother we’d be back by then.”

  “This is so…so sudden.”

  “Yeah. Sorry about that. So, what do you say, gorgeous?”

  She didn’t answer him.

  “I’m not sure whether we’ll be able to stay there,” he went on. “It will depend on whether there is furniture. Mom insists that it’s in a Paris warehouse, ready for delivery. She purchased it in Italy, most of it, when they were there recently, and had it stored in Paris. She’s a whirlwind when it comes to decorating and furnishing her houses. You’ll be amazed at what she’s done with the new mansion in Bel-Air.”

  “I bet I will. So let me get this straight. You are arriving end of the week? Really?”

  “Anna, remember that square in Montmartre? The one in the painting I gave you?” He was suddenly serious.


  “Yes,” she said, sudden panic setting in.

  “I still want to walk there with you,” he said invitingly, thinking to himself, and there’s some unfinished business to tend to with regards to a certain engagement ring. When Anna didn’t react, he cleared his throat and added, “Well, okay, we can discuss our itinerary after I get there. I’m just anxious to see you. Call you later?”

  “Sure. Bye, Mark.”

  Anna hung up the phone and stared into space. She had a gutwrenching feeling that someday she would be forced to decide between Mark and C-C.

  CHAPTER 44

  An hour later, Anna walked past C-C’s green Renault, which was still sitting in the street in front of his apartment building. She stared at it with a shiver, wondering why it was still there if a car thief had wanted to steal it just the night before. As she pushed open the wooden door to the courtyard, she looked up to the window of his apartment, lingering for a second, allowing herself to be swept into his arms, if only in memory, one last time.

  Elise spotted her from her apartment window and hustled to open the door. “Anna? Oh là, mais, entre, ma chère. I didn’t know you were in Paris.”

  “Bonjour, Elise.” The two women embraced.

  Elise closed the door to keep the cold air from entering the warm apartment. She appeared younger than she had when Anna had visited her in September. She was wearing makeup, her naturally wavy hair, salted with gray, was pulled back in a smart coif, and a pair of gold earrings sparkled in her earlobes. The spectacles were gone, replaced by fashionable reading glasses hanging from a beaded chain around her neck. There was definitely something that had occurred in her life that had prompted a positive change in her appearance.