“Charles,” Yolande cries, “it is not as if we did not know who is responsible!”
“Madame,” the mayor says coldly, “I think you should let me handle this through the proper channels. This would be best for everybody.”
Yolande glares at him. “It seems to me that things have gotten rather beyond your control, mon cher.”
“I have everything under control,” the mayor says through gritted teeth.
Lucy bursts into tears. “God, I hate this place!”
Yolande goes over to her and pats her on the back. “Ah là là, it is bad luck, hein?”
“What are you so upset about?” Richard snaps.
“I was going to buy it!” Lucy blurts out, dissolving into sobs again.
“It’s true,” Yolande says. “She gave me a down payment.” All of a sudden, I notice, she’s looking rather less devastated.
“What nonsense is this?”
“Oh God, it was meant to be a surprise, for your birthday!” Lucy wails.
“I hardly see—” Richard says.
“It wasn’t just for us! It was meant to be for everyone!”
Richard stares at her in disbelief. “You bloody idiot.”
“It’s true,” Yolande says. “She thought it would be a nice extension to the main house, a little pied à terre on the water—a charming idea, really, very practical.”
Lucy sobs again. “Yes, another lovely idea in ruins!”
“Ah, well, who knows … perhaps you can rebuild,” Yolande says cheerfully. Now she’s got Richard’s attention.
“What do you mean, rebuild? It doesn’t belong to us.”
“Ah, but you see, it does, does it not, Charles?” Then, turning to Richard, she says, “Your wife made a payment.”
“I—ah—I shall have to look this up in the statutes,” the mayor mumbles.
“There is nothing to look up,” Yolande says primly. “She signed a contract.”
“Lucy, is this true?”
“Oh God. Yes! Yes, it’s true! How was I to know they would blow it up?”
Jane breaks the ensuing silence. “I really don’t see that it matters either way. Lucy is entitled to buy a house if she wants to.”
“Stay out of this please, Jane,” Richard says.
“It was meant to be a present for you,” I point out.
“For Christ’s sake!” Lucy screams. “Would you all shut up!”
Since there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do, we disperse. I start heading toward Philippe, but Jim pulls me aside and tells me again that we need to talk, urgently, and in private. I tell him to meet me at the Marmite.
CHAPTER twenty-nine
I find Jim at a back table, a cold beer before him. I’d like one myself but there’s no sign of either Fabrice or Albertine. From the kitchen come the sounds of running water and the clatter of dishes. They must be cleaning up after the lunch rush. The place smells, as always, like bleach and fried potatoes.
“What a day, huh?” I say, pulling out a chair.
Jim nods. He looks preoccupied. “I have to admit, I didn’t taken you seriously, about the nationalists….”
I shrug. “They’re not nationalists, they’re just thugs: The whole movement degenerated a long time ago into organized crime. At this point it’s mostly about protecting smuggling routes.”
“You mean drugs?”
“Yeah, and diamonds, too; Africa’s just a couple hundred miles away. There’s a lot of money involved and it’s not a nice business. I guess it’s a natural for the mob.”
“But what does any of this have to do with Yolande?”
“I don’t know. She owns a lot of property, and she’s pretty tight with the mayor, who isn’t popular with everyone. Maybe they’re trying to get at him through her: He’s been trying to clean up local politics, so he’s got a lot of people pissed off. Or maybe she wasn’t paying enough for protection, who knows? One thing I’m pretty sure of is that they didn’t know Lucy had bought it. Poor Lucy.”
“Yeah, that really sucks, huh?”
“I’ll say.”
He swallows some beer. “Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
He gazes at me intently. “Obviously, we aren’t working out as a couple.”
“Look,” I say hastily, “it’s all right, I—”
“Let me finish,” Jim says, raising his hand, an anguished look in his eyes. “I’m really grateful you brought me here. This is kind of a new development because at first I was wondering what you were after—I mean, you seem a lot more interested in your family than in me, and frankly, they’re a little intense. I know it’s none of my business but, based on the past few days, I think you and your sisters have some issues to work out. Anyway, it’s been an education.” He grins at me in that disarming way of his.
“But the fact is,” he continues, “I’m not in love with you, Constance. I’m in love with Odette—please don’t say anything. She’s changed my life. I’ve never known anyone like her. I’d feel terrible for Yves—he’s a good guy, by the way, you should give him a break—except it turns out they had more of an arrangement, for companionship. I have to tell you that this kind of thing probably would have shocked me before, but I feel like I’ve learned more about human nature over the past ten days than in my whole life. I know I have you to thank for that, by the way.”
My first reaction, I confess, is indignation: How could he fall in love with Odette over me? This is undoubtedly what people mean when they talk about a double standard. Then I start to laugh: My god, how could I have been so stupid!
“Why are you laughing at me? If it’s the age difference, I have to tell you that—”
“No,” I gasp, “It’s not that at all! I’m thrilled for you, I—”
Albertine comes out of the kitchen and I wave and point at Jim’s beer. She looks disappointed. No doubt she was hoping to find Isabelle.
“Terrible about the bomb, hein?” she nonetheless can’t resist saying as she puts the bottle and glass down before me.
News sure gets around fast. “Tragique,” I agree.
Fabrice appears with a fresh ashtray, even though no one is smoking. Probably making sure Albertine isn’t running off at the mouth around the foreigners. I haven’t forgotten that I saw his buddies Eddie and Toto creeping around down by the fishing cabins the other day.
“Not good for tourism,” I remark.
Fabrice shrugs. He does the stone-faced thing quite well; I’ll bet he watches lots of gangster movies.
“It’s those petits cons from Orzo. They won’t get away with it.”
Albertine slides him a molten glance but remains silent.
When we’ve finished our beers, we walk out and cross the square to the parapet that buttresses the far end. Up here, the view is even better than from the house: more mountains, more sea, more endless sky. “Sure beats the Hamptons, huh?” Jim says, but he’s not really here. His eyes are alive with a secret excitement, and I think of Léon, after he’s finally seduced Emma Bovary, that line about him savoring the inexpressible delicacies of female elegance. What dizzying worlds has Odette opened to him? But of course I know: Since last night, I’ve felt as if my skin were humming. I look down at Philippe’s house, pretending I have magical powers and can see through walls. I picture him sitting at his desk, head bent, little black hairs curling on the nape of his neck, his own eyes looking out over the water, searching for words, missing the din of the city. I told him I would come back tonight.
“And anyway,” Jim says slyly, “you have a crush on that writer.”
I actually blush.
“I’m not that dim, you know,” he adds, and I realize that I do know he’s not dim, he’s just never set me on fire.
“I’m going with Odette to Paris after the memorial.”
“That’s great,” I say. “I’m really happy for you.”
“Thank you. That means a lot to me.”
&nb
sp; “I can actually kind of see you two together, if you want to know the truth. I mean, I think you make a nice couple.”
“Yeah, well, it feels right. It feels really good.”
“What about work?”
“I’m not going to start that new job after all,” Jim says.
“What?”
He fixes me with those earnest eyes again. “I’ve discovered all sorts of things about myself in the past two weeks, and one of them is that I’m not cut out for investment banking.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” I say.
“Oh, don’t get me wrong, I liked the work all right, and it was fun getting to know you, but I don’t love it—like I don’t love you. Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it to come out that way.”
“That’s okay,” I say magnanimously. “I don’t love you, either, though I think you’re a really nice guy.”
“I think you’re a good person, too, Constance.”
“Okay, but we have to stop this, because I’m going to start squirming.”
“What about you? Your vacation’s just about up too.”
“I haven’t decided yet. To tell you the truth, I’m not so sure I’m cut out for investment banking, either, but I’ve gotten so used to being Constance the Banker, I don’t know what else I could do. What are you going to do?”
“I’m thinking of going to culinary school.”
“Wow,” I say, and then, ever practical, “How are you going to pay the bills? Don’t you have loans from business school?”
“Well,” Jim says bashfully, “to tell you the truth, I’m independently wealthy.”
“What? I thought you grew up on a farm.”
“It’s kind of a big farm,” Jim says, blushing a bit. “More like an agribusiness—hogs, if you really want to know. My dad sent me to Harvard with an eye to my running the company someday, but I don’t think I ever will.”
I laugh out loud. “Oh, this is so great! Good old Odette …”
“Pardon me?”
“Nothing; it just amazes me sometimes how things work out. Look, we’d better get back: I have to deal with Jiri before Marge plunges an ax in his back.”
“He’s a real character, huh?” Jim says.
“Yeah, he sure is.”
We turn off the place and walk down the street, past the newsstand and the boucher, both shuttered for lunch. The butcher shop’s driveway is empty, but just as we round the bend, Eddie’s van comes tearing around the corner. As if on cue, the mayor, old Mr. Peretti, and one of the Costa uncles emerge from the pink house opposite. When Eddie gets out of his van, they’re waiting for him.
“Looks like they mean business,” I remark.
“What was that all about?”
“Santerran law enforcement. We’d better get out of here: They might not want any witnesses.”
Jim shakes his head. “Constance, you have one weird sense of humor.”
CHAPTER thirty
“H ow positively Stendhalian!” Philippe says when I tell him the story that night. “She must be at least fifteen years older than him!”
“Actually, nobody has any idea how old Odette is. She was younger than my father, but that’s not saying much.”
“Yes, she has that ageless French quality, does she not? In another century she would have been a courtesan.”
We’re lying on his bed, a warm breeze wafting over us, cooling our sweaty skins. Through the wide-open window, a nightingale trills in the fig tree. Philippe traces his finger along my stomach. “I love how muscular you are…. Do you know, when I first saw you, you reminded me of a statue of Artemis.”
“Anyway,” I say, “it’s nice not to have to feel guilty—not that I did exactly, but I did come here with Jim.”
“Ah yes, the noble American….”
“He’s actually a really decent person,” I say.
“Of course he is; they always are. You know, I love watching your family: Do you realize that they are all perfectly formed characters?”
I narrow my eyes. “What are you going to do, put them in a novel?”
“My prickly Constance…. Don’t worry, I deal exclusively in tired old Europeans.”
I stretch and gaze at him. I’ve never enjoyed looking at a man so much—the jut of his Adam’s apple or the black mole on his hip, where the skin turns bluish from stretching over his pelvic bone. I run my finger over it.
“You drive me mad!”
“Don’t say that.”
“But you do. I feel like a teenage boy, a mass of seething, uncontrollable hormones.”
He grabs at me, though in fact we’re both too sated and sleepy to do anything but play around.
“Listen,” I say, suddenly serious, “I saw Eddie’s van down by Yolande’s place the other day. And this afternoon he was paid a visit by the mayor and a couple of the village elders, and it didn’t look like they were ordering a veal roast.”
“Aha, so you think our sympathique butcher is the culprit?”
“Well, I think it’s more likely someone would have put him up to it. Eddie isn’t exactly the sharpest pencil in the box.”
“A delightful expression, I must write it down—but you see, this is the charm of Santerre: If they didn’t blow something up every now and then, it would be like any other Mediterranean island. I am sure the matter will be handled in the time-honored fashion, with no summer residents incommoded further…. Still, I grant you, it is rather decadent of us to be wallowing in concupiscence while poor Yolande lies roofless in the night.”
“It was a rental.”
“Indeed. And one suspects that Madame Van Langendonck, who is not descended from generations of Flemish merchants for nothing, will recover. To tell you the truth, I would much rather hear about your new guests: that extraordinary surly lesbian, and your sister’s magnificent husband. I can’t imagine what she could possibly have seen in me; if I were a woman, I’d be mad about him.”
“That’s part of the problem.”
“Ah, an Eastern Bloc Don Juan…. Actually, I seem to recall that he has a bit of a reputation.”
“You know him?”
“My dear, I’ve heard of him. He is a fellow homme de lettres —not exactly on Kundera’s level, but his early poetry isn’t half bad if you go in for that particular brand of testosterone-driven Slavic sentimentalism.”
“Well, whatever. He’s a lousy husband and an irresponsible parent, not to mention a gambler and a slob.”
“You disapprove of him?”
“No, I like Jiri. I just think you’d have to be nuts to marry him.”
“Yes, I suppose these types work best as lovers…. Still, the combination of art and raw masculinity is awfully alluring, no?”
“Not to me. I guess they deserve each other, though; I mean, Isabelle isn’t exactly easy to live with.”
“Ageing beauties seldom are.”
“That was a little harsh,” I say.
“Was it?”
“There’s more to Isabelle than her looks.”
“I stand corrected—she is ravishing in all respects—but you’ll have to forgive me for preferring your subtler charms. Now, tell me about the lesbian!”
“Marge? Oh, she’s a pill. Nobody can figure out what Jane sees in her. By the way, do you really own one of Jane’s paintings?”
“Oh yes, a very pretty one of a naked lady with a geranium. She intrigues me, your Jane: Those Raphael Madonna looks and what I suspect is quite a nasty mind underneath. If you ask me, what binds those two together is good old sex.”
“You’ve got to be kidding: Jane could have anyone she wants.”
“Undoubtedly, but that’s beside the point. Maybe you are a little in love with her?” he says slyly.
“With Jane? Of course I’m not, what a dumb idea! We practically grew up together.”
“Well, you know, stranger things have happened,” Philippe says, beginning to stroke my stomach again. I have a feeling that the thought excites him.
�
�I don’t do lesbian fantasies, in case you’re getting ideas.”
He laughs. “Please, Constance, you must try to be more oblique.”
“I wouldn’t get my hopes up,” I say. “Why don’t we talk about you now?”
He feigns dismay. “Me? What do you want to know?”
“Why did you split up with your wife?”
“Oh, the usual reasons. Actually, she left me.”
“Really?”
“You sound shocked. Is it so unfathomable?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know you that well. Were you cheating on her?”
“Young lady, marriages do occasionally break up for other reasons.”
“Such as?”
“Heavens, where to begin: listlessness, dissatisfaction, deceit, petty grievances, financial worries, professional rivalry, excessive ambition, insufficient love, diminishing sympathy, and, of course, the ineluctable monotony of the quotidian. My wife, however, fell in love with my best friend.”
“That sounds like it came out of one of your books.”
“Not one I ever published: Autobiography disguised as fiction is very boring, you know.”
“I sometimes worry,” I say, “that I’m not a nice enough person to get married.”
Philippe laughs. “My dear, I am living proof that that has nothing to do with it.”
CHAPTER thirty-one
“C onstance, there you are!” Lucy, looking agitated, grabs my arm in the hallway. I try to adopt an expression of dignified aloofness but she isn’t fooled. “Oh, stop it, I know perfectly well where you’ve been—that’s not what I want to talk to you about. How could you not tell me about Electra?” she cries, her wide blue eyes boring reproachfully into mine. It hits me all of a sudden that, now that we’re friends, certain things are expected of me.
“I’m sorry, Lucy, there was a lot of stuff going on.”
“You can say that again,” she says bitterly. “Agnes! Of all names….”
“Aren’t you happy that she started talking?” I say, though in fact that’s a bit of an exaggeration. It’s not exactly like the floodgates have been unleashed.
“Oh God, of course I am; it’s just, well, one almost gets the impression that she’s known how all along but was just being obstinate. Oh dear, do you think I’m mad?”
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