A Good Woman

by Lisa Appignanesi

  ‘This is my mémère,’ she announces proudly. ‘And this is Maria.’

  ‘Monique Arnault,’ the woman fills in for me, smooths a strand of impeccably coifed silver grey hair from an arched cheekbone. ‘And you must be Maria d’Esté. My son has told me about you.’

  I flush despite myself.

  ‘You’re helping him finish that book he should never have undertaken to write. Not that it’s any of my affair, of course.’

  I think she winks at me then, but it is so incongruous in that haughty face, that I don’t quite believe it.

  ‘But you’ve come to see Nicolas, not me. I think this game of his which I’ve been trying to understand - with no success whatsoever - must just about be finished.’

  Nicolas is huddled over a computer screen being traversed by some muscled Rambo figure engaged in superhuman hurdles and dizzying pitfalls, in any number of fistfights with any number of monsters,

  ‘Ouee!’ he shouts and I imagine the epic struggle is over.

  ‘How’d you score?’ I ask him.

  He gives me the first genuine smile I have ever seen on his thin face. ‘2063.’

  ‘Beat your record?’

  ‘Not quite. Almost.’

  ‘You understand these things?’

  ‘Not really,’ I smile at Madame Arnault’s surprise. ‘But I did some public relations once for a software firm that developed a series of games like this in America. Just think of them as mythic quests or combats recreated for the screen. Hero slays cyber-monster instead of many-headed Hydra.’

  ‘Be nice if these heroes needed a little more cunning than brawn,’ Madame Arnault mutters. ‘We don’t really want a new generation of simple-minded warriors, do we now Nicolas?’

  Nicolas looks away. ‘It’s just a game,’ he mumbles. ‘I do other things on it.’

  ‘Yes, well let’s hope girls distract you soon. And you treat them better than these monsters.’

  Nicolas blushes. Marie-Françoise pulls at my hand. ‘My room now, or there won’t be time to show you all the things.’

  ‘Until later then,’ I nod at Madame Arnault, wave at Nicolas.

  Marie-Françoise opens the next door down the corridor with a touch of drama.

  ‘So you’re at the end,’ I grin at her.

  ‘Oh no. There’s the guest room where mémère is staying, so we won’t go in there. And there’s another room up in the attic where Maman goes to work in quiet, but I don’t like it up there.’

  ‘Oh.’ My pulse makes an erratic leap.

  ‘Look!’ Marie-Françoise gestures elaborately and I see an apple-green room with a bunk bed tucked in high under the ceiling, a little desk beneath it and every spare scrap of wall between shelves and cupboards covered with pictures of dogs. ‘I hope you like dogs.’

  ‘I can see that you do,’ I laugh.

  She makes a funny face. ‘Maman says it’s cruel to have dogs in the city. So I have pictures instead. Which is your favourite?’

  I can tell by her expression that this is a deeply serious question and I begin to examine the pictures one by one.

  ‘This one, I think,’ I point to a woebegone spaniel whose ears droop too low.

  She nods sagely. ‘That’s Mr. Kim. And this is my favourite,’ she gestures towards a white husky with bright blue eyes. ‘She’s called Storm.’

  ‘Storm, that’s nice.’

  ‘But sometimes Storm is very bad, so my favourite is Peluche,’ she points towards a golden retriever.

  ‘So you like big dogs best.’

  ‘The more dog the better,’ she says earnestly. ‘Did you ever have a dog?’

  I shake my head, ‘But I used to go to a farm in England every summer where there was a huge old dog called Small or Petit.’

  ‘Mémère has a dog in the country. He’s called Rabelais because he eats so much.’ She giggles, ‘But maybe we could rename Arnold, Petit.’ She stands on her toes and shows me a giant Great Dane.

  ‘Good idea.’

  ‘You didn’t by any chance bring me any chocolate, did you?’

  ‘Well, in fact, just a very little.’

  ‘Goody,’ she claps her hands and I bring a small beaded purse out of my bag into which I have stuffed a few chocolates covered in gold foil. She looks inside then puts the purse carefully into a drawer.

  ‘I’d almost forgotten.’

  ‘That’s ‘cause you look so pretty tonight.’ She touches my dress softly. ‘Thank-you.’

  I don’t know why but the comment and the touch make me want to cry and I wonder what I’m doing here immersed in conversation with a little girl, I who don’t like children, and in a house where I shouldn’t be, amongst people who inadvertently or not I’ve deceived, and I feel like hugging the child good-night and running off again, disappearing.

  ‘Still not in your nightie?’ Paul’s voice startles me from the door. ‘Come on little cabbage. Get a move on. Dinner will be on the table in five minutes. And you can’t keep Maria in here all night.’ He casts me a look of such pure longing that I shiver, then bends to the child and in a trice has her frock off and her nightie on. ‘Now off to wash and brush your teeth. Maria and I will wait here to give you a goodnight kiss.’

  The child leaves us. I want to follow her and I cannot move. I want to fall into his arms. I want to be somewhere else, on another planet, where guilt and desire do not exist.

  ‘It’s impossible. I see that now,’ he says in a voice so flat I do not recognize it. ‘I’ve talked to Beatrice and I see that. But there’s no guilt Maria. No blame. Don’t bring it here from somewhere else. Here there is only pain.’ I meet his eyes and the pain sweeps over me. His. Mine. The pain I’ve kept at bay with dogs and children and chatter and Beatrice’s innocent rectitude. I have to sit down.

  ‘I’ll bring all the files back on Monday,’ I say in a voice as flat as his.

  ‘No.’ It is as if I had hit him. ‘I can’t lose you altogether Maria. Not just like that. Please. Not just when it seemed…’ he stops abruptly, clenches his fist. ‘Stay. Perhaps…’ He doesn’t finish his sentence.

  ‘What did you tell Beatrice?’ I ask after a moment.

  ‘Nothing. I listened. She told me you were her only childhood friend. She cares for you, admires you. Your mother. That’s why… You won’t say anything either, will you?’

  Marie-Françoise bounces into the room. ‘All clean.’

  From somewhere I dig out what must be a ghastly smile. ‘Beautifully clean.’ I kiss her, watch as Paul lifts her into bed, collect what remains of my reason.

  People are beginning to take their places at table when we return. Beatrice rushes over to me.

  ‘I knew it. My family is already monopolizing you far too much,’ she says to me with her serene smile. ‘Now come I’ve switched all this seating round again and you’re sitting over here. Close to me. With Patrick between us. Paul will probably be furious.’

  ‘Does he often get furious?’

  She pauses for a moment, reflects. ‘No,’ she says with an odd laugh. ‘In fact he’s infuriatingly considerate.’

  I laugh, too, in an attempt at girlish complicity. I empty a glass someone has filled and laugh too much, begin to float, become a machine for social repartee. I do not look down to the other end of the table where Paul presides unless my eyes find themselves there involuntarily. As the food comes, I banter with Patrick Morin instead, juggle with the language of veiled and teasing seduction. I can do this in my sleep and Patrick is evidently as much of a past master as I am. The act is like a skilled interlude between the main parts of the drama, but at one point I catch Beatrice’s eyes on me and have the sense that she thinks it is the play itself. I cannot tell whether she is appalled or fascinated. Perhaps both, but I turn away from Patrick to listen to the people opposite.

  Their tone is far more serious. They are discussing the war in former-Yugoslavia and the Hague War Crimes Tribunal which is slowly moving into operation under the auspices of the United Nations.
One of the lawyers I have briefly met explains how this is an unprecedented venture in international law. Not a military tribunal, like Nuremburg, but a civilian tribunal, which can judge any member of the population who has been shown to have been engaged in atrocities. New codes will emerge, new conventions to govern civil wars.

  ‘But it’s impossible,’ the woman next to him exclaims. ‘Precisely because it’s a civil war. Once the process starts you’ll end up having to put half the male population behind bars, more. Serb, Croat, even Muslim. A whole generation of young men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. And what happens when they come out seething with resentment because they’ve done time and not others - more hatred, more killing.

  ‘Yes,’ Patrick nods sagely. ‘We’re talking about the emotions of vengeance here. And revenge is self-perpetuating. Better to sue for peace and let a new emotional order gradually take over.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Beatrice suddenly erupts, her voice raw, high-pitched, her face fierce. ‘Revenge is essential. If you had been with some of those children whose parents were killed, mutilated before their very eyes; if you had talked to those thirteen-year-old girls raped by drunken savages, like I have, you would know that they have to have revenge. They won’t survive without it. The nightmares will go on and on. There has to be vengeance.’

  Beatrice’s words and voice are so charged that a hush settles over the length of the long table, a fidgeting discomfort. The directness of her emotion has forced nightmare through the thin walls of civilisation and we don’t know how to look at each other any more, how to speak. People prod the pink skeletons of langoustine on their plates, raise napkins to mute lips.

  At last Paul’s voice breaks the silence. Beatrice is right, he says. She has given us the rationale for the War Crimes Tribunal, indeed for the very existence of Law. Revenge yes, it is necessary - if not feudal revenge of the eye for an eye kind. But retribution through the Law, an impartial third party. Its judgments may not be able to restore the past, but it can start to patch some of the wounds. So that the social order can begin to limp again.

  There is a muted chorus of agreement. Paul’s mother flashes her son a proud look. People find their voices. I watch Beatrice. She is getting up. She looks slightly dazed as she mumbles something about the next course. I follow her into the kitchen, ask if I can help. She doesn’t respond. She looks desolately at the trays the caterers are heaping. Suddenly she turns to me, ‘I always put my foot in it when his friends are here.’

  ‘What are you talking about Beatrice? You didn’t put your foot in it.’

  ‘I did. It’s always the same. I can’t get it right. Even when I keep absolutely quiet.’

  ‘It didn’t seem that way to me. Anyhow, they’re your friends too, aren’t they?’

  ‘Not really. They only pretend.’

  ‘He doesn’t pretend. He listens to you.’

  She turns away from me. ‘Yes,’ she says in a flat voice, then walks towards the window, stares out, stares as I do into the house opposite. For a moment it is as if I am disembodied, have flown back to my own apartment and our eyes meet in fear across the distance of the street.

  ‘Do you remember, Maria,’ Beatrice’s tone has grown dreamy, ‘in your kitchen when your mother gave us dinner? I used to sit there and wait to see what you both did so that I could imitate you, make sure I did the right thing. But neither of you ever noticed. You just accepted me. As I was.’ She veers back to me. ‘His mother never makes me feel that. I always do the wrong thing for her. Even when I just move my little finger.’

  I laugh, genuine mirth for the first time. ‘She’s your mother-in-law, Beatrice. That’s what she’s there for. Otherwise she wouldn’t have a job.’

  Beatrice grimaces. ‘Do you really think so?’

  ‘I really know so.’

  She smiles, her face tranquil again.

  ‘I wish I were more like you Maria. So light, so easy.’

  I laugh again and for the briefest moment I feel heroic, like one of those Racinian heroines who battle nobly between duty and passion. Then I gesture toward the window, ‘That reminds me. I bumped into an American friend the other day and she asked me if I’d like to look after her apartment for a bit. It’s somewhere on this street. We could be neighbours for a while.’

  Beatrice claps her hands. ‘How wonderful. I’ll help you move if you like. I can drop in on you after school, like the old days,’ she giggles, stops herself. ‘When you’re there, that is. What is it that you’re doing for Paul by the way?’

  I look at her in astonishment. ‘Research for his book. Translation. Don’t you know?’

  She shrugs. ‘We never talk about his work. All these years… I’m not really interested. People commit crimes. Are or aren’t punished for them. Over and over… It’s too tedious.’ Her shoulders stiffen, ‘We’d better get back in there, I guess.’

  Later, after we have made our way through magret and salad and an assortment of delicately scented ices and Patrick has extracted a promise that we will meet for dinner and the conversation has moved through the latest financial scandals and the prospects for Europe, Paul’s mother taps her glass with a spoon and makes a well-turned and humorous little speech in honour of her son’s fortieth birthday. Paul doesn’t squirm. He thanks her with only a little irony for putting up with him for forty years. Then he runs his fingers through his hair, pauses and raises his glass in a toast to Beatrice who has brought them all together, his oldest and nearest. His tone is all respect. His eyes are warm. Beatrice flushes. I have a funny sensation at the pit of my stomach. Perhaps it is just another nail in the coffin of my all-too-recently awakened hopes.

  It is when we rise from the table for coffee that Paul comes over to me. He is awkward, uncomfortable, as he leads me towards the quiet end of the room. ‘I had hoped to introduce you to someone Maria. I invited him especially for you, but Patrick, not that I blame him, has monopolised you. Now my friend doesn’t have much longer. And I’m not sure the moment is right. So I don’t quite know whether…’

  I laugh. ‘Another hesitation and I’ll think you’re trying to marry me off. Perfect remedy for all my lost loves. The wedded state. I could become as remarkable as Beatrice.’ The wine has loosened my tongue.

  He grips my arm fiercely, then remembers himself and lets go. Our eyes lock unhappily. ‘That’s not what it’s about Maria.’ He takes a deep breath. ‘Though I’m sure the other could be arranged without much difficulty. Not that I imagine you need an arranger.’ He looks away. ‘What I’m trying to tell you is… do you remember I said I had a friend at the Vietnamese Embassy? Well he’s here. And I asked him about your father. He knew him. Not well, but…’

  I lean against the wall. I am not sure it is strong enough to hold me.

  ‘What are you doing to this poor woman?’ Patrick is beside us.

  ‘Not now Patrick. Leave us.’ Paul scowls at him, places himself like a bodyguard squarely in front of me. I close my eyes. Sniff a bluebell wood. Taste his body. We talked of loss. My father. Father. Strange word. ‘Papa,’ Marie-Françoise says. ‘Tuck me in, papa.’ Eyes all round, bossy and flirtatious at once.

  ‘I’d like to meet him. Even for a moment.’

  Paul nods. ‘I think he might have gone next door,’ he murmurs and leads me to the front of the apartment.

  On the sofa sitting beside Madame Arnault is a small dapper man of indeterminate age. He rises as Paul introduces me, greets me in a voice so soft that I almost want to make him repeat the words.

  ‘So you are the daughter of Guy Regnier.’

  ‘Regnier, did you say?’ Madame Arnault queries. ‘I used to know a Guy Regnier or at least my father did. A doctor wasn’t he? Brought up in the East, trained here before the war and went back after it.’

  I stare at her and she chuckles. ‘Don’t look at me like that, young lady. I’m not a witch. My people were all doctors. Even I was once. And my father taught a good number of them, so it’s hardly surpri
sing. It’s a small world.’

  I am sitting down and I must look odd for they are looking at me oddly. Paul is beside me and he has taken my hand.

  ‘It’s just that Maria doesn’t remember her father,’ he murmurs. ‘And I don’t think she’s met anyone for a long time who knew him.’

  ‘I encountered him on only a few occasions,’ Monsieur Tran looks beyond me and then for a brief second into my eyes. ‘He used to be known as ong bac si tot lam, the good doctor.’

  Paul’s hand feels very warm, so mine must be cold. I hold on to it.

  ‘Ong bac si tot lam,’ I repeat like a child. ‘The good doctor.’

  ‘Yes,’ Monsieur Tran smiles. His face is as smooth as porcelain and I imagine he must have been a mere stripling when he met this good doctor.

  ‘If I remember the gossip correctly,’ Madame Arnault intervenes, ‘Guy Regnier was a kind of médecin sans frontière before the organisation existed.’

  Monsieur Tran nods politely. Questions flood my mind, a slew of them in no particular order and of such mingled consequence and inconsequence that I don’t know where to begin and before I can Beatrice comes into the room and Paul springs up with so marked an alacrity that we all stare at him.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he murmurs, walks quickly towards Beatrice and after a brief exchange follows her next door.

  Mr. Tran clears his throat. ‘I’m afraid I must leave you too. But in a few weeks time, a colleague of mine arrives from Vietnam who would be able to tell you far more about your father than I can.’ He reaches in his pocket and hands me a card. ‘Perhaps you could contact me then or I can ask him to telephone you. At Maître Arnault’s Cabinet, yes?’

  I nod, then quickly add, ‘Or at home.’ I scrawl my number on a slip of paper. ‘Thank-you. Thank you very much.’ I lean back into the sofa. I don’t know how much time passes before I am aware of Madame Arnault’s scrutiny. I try a smile at her.

  ‘Yes, it must be strange not remembering your father. I remember mine so clearly, though it was so long ago, that I can still see the way he peeled and cut apples for us into neat surgical slices.’ She laughs, stops herself short. ‘And your mother? Who is she? If you don’t mind my being inquisitive.’