“We’re looking for the name of his editor.” Rachel dodged a tourist who was standing at the intersection of the Boulevard and the Place de la Sorbonne, checking a map. “There are no agents here, so it’s the editor who’s the author contact.” Twenty years as a poet might not have given her much, she reflected, but at least it had given her a thorough a knowledge of the French book trade.
As they passed the Pret à Manger on the Place de la Sorbonne, a young man stepped out in front of them, carrying a croissant in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. A messenger bag was slung over his navy peacoat, the strap pushing up the back of his collar where it crossed from his left shoulder to his right hip. A student on his way to a seminar, Rachel guessed. The coat and bag were virtually their uniform. As if to prove her right, he turned sharply toward the Rue de la Sorbonne and the university, the warm, nutty scent of his drink trailing faintly behind him. Rachel sniffed appreciatively: although she hated the taste of coffee, its smell was divine.
She could make out the royal-blue awning and bright yellow lettering of Gibert Joseph just ahead, and as she opened the door, the interior heat hit her in a wave. Was it her imagination, or did she feel the cold more than she used to? Was she getting old? She thought of asking Magda for reassurance, but she was ninety percent sure she would just answer, “You say that every year.”
“I feel like I get colder these days. I must be getting old.”
“Oh please.” Magda rolled her eyes. “You’ve said that every year for the last five years.”
Rachel tucked her chin into her scarf and smiled.
The dust jacket of Blond Tiger informed them that Gédéon Naquet was a graduate of the Paris Institute of Political Sciences School of Journalism, and he had published articles in numerous well-respected newspapers and magazines. The black-and-white author photo showed a man in his late thirties, a lock of his dark hair flopping over his forehead and his arms crossed on the table in front of him so that his pale hands contrasted sharply with his dark turtleneck. Rachel, whose own author photo was more than fifteen years old, knew better than to believe the picture still represented its subject, but she wasn’t there to reflect on authorial vanity. Flipping to the Remerciements section at the back of the book, she found what they needed in the second paragraph: “and thanks to my tireless editor, Pierre Joralet.”
Pierre Joralet, a commissioning editor at Publications Apropos, was delighted to hear that two aspiring filmmakers wanted to interview one of his authors. No, he was sure Monsieur Naquet would have no objection, neither to being involved with the project nor to being interviewed at an early stage. If they could give him a contact number, he would have Naquet call them.
* * *
At Les Deux Magots, where Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre had debated philosophy in front of the long mirrors and Albert Camus, hunched into his overcoat, had worked on his essays at one of the little tables outside, Gédéon Naquet had set up a makeshift writing station next to a front window. There was no mistaking who he was. His hair was thinner, but it was still carefully disarranged, and although he had changed his turtleneck for a shirt with the top two buttons undone, it was still black. Add in the crumpled napkins and empty espresso cups strewn across the table in front of him, and the pack of cigarettes and slim gold lighter next to his right hand (a decade after Paris had introduced a smoking ban in restaurants), and he was the very picture of A Writer at Work.
Les magots—the two porcelain Chinese mandarins that gave the restaurant its name—stared down from their perches near the ceiling as Naquet rose to shake Rachel and Magda’s hands. A server soon appeared to take their orders. The magot in the red hat looked surprised at Rachel’s request for a hot chocolate; the magot in the green hat serenely approved when Magda asked for coffee. Neither seemed surprised when Naquet simply said, “I’ll have my usual.”
“They know me,” he explained as the waitress retreated. “I use this as my office. It’s cheaper than renting space, and I don’t have to make my own coffee.” He leaned back against the red banquette, stretching out his arms as if he owned the air. “Perhaps you could film me here. You know, show me while I work, to set the scene.”
“Sure, when the time comes that sounds great.” Magda took out her portable and laid it on the table between them, setting it to record. “This is just a preliminary interview, though. We’re still trying to gather funding.”
“In fact”—Rachel leaned in confidingly—“we’re hoping that our interview with you will lure investors. Show them that we have cooperation from reputable sources.”
Naquet preened a little, brushing back his artful hair. “Whatever I can do to help.”
“Well,” Magda said, smiling, “why don’t you tell us how you first started working on the biography? What made you pick Guipure?”
“It was right after his ‘Opéra’ collection in 2013. I’d just submitted Le Tigre Blond”—he held up a hand—“although I’m not assuming you’ve read any of my little books.”
Magda smiled, “As it happens, I’ve just finished Le Tigre Blond.”
Naquet bridled again, although Rachel thought he’d be a lot less pleased if he knew “finished” meant “read the acknowledgments and closed the book cover.” Still, he didn’t, and she admitted to herself that it had been wise to let Magda handle this interview. Her friend had a skill for believable lying that Rachel could only admire and envy.
“There was a lot of positive press on the Opéra collection,” Naquet was saying. “People were suggesting that Roland was at the height of his powers, and I suddenly thought he’d make a terrific subject. So I pitched it to Joralet, he contacted Sauveterre, and Antoinette loved it.” He sped up. “We negotiated, signed the contract, and I began work in January of 2014.”
The waiter arrived with their drinks. Naquet’s usual turned out to be espresso in a cup barely bigger than a shot glass, accompanied by a spoon tiny enough to match the one Mediouri had used the week before at the pressing. Rachel’s hot chocolate was served “à l’ancienne,” thick as pudding and with a small pitcher of warm cream on the side, to use to thin the chocolate. She poured a little into her cup and began stirring.
As Naquet reached for the container of sugar packets and selected a long straw of brown sugar, Magda asked, “And what was your impression of Guipure when you met him?”
“To the extent that I met him.” Naquet said sardonically. He tore open the packet and emptied it into the black liquid. “We started our first interview late because he was taking a nap, and no one wanted to wake him up. And when I showed up for our second interview—an interview scheduled well in advance– he was napping again. No apology to me, just ‘Monsieur Guipure will be late.’” He took a swallow from the little cup. “That’s when I decided I’d start by doing background research. They let me use their archive.” Another swallow. “Do you know about the archive? They’re very proud of it, and justly so. It’s like a Bibliothèque Nationale of Sauveterre. Nineteenth-century advertisements for the original Sauveterre et Fils art supplies store in Bezance, the grandfather’s bills of sale from during the war, the contract from when he first bought the house, the contract from when they rebought it …”
He was a talker, Rachel saw. But Magda expertly headed off his flow and steered it where she needed it. She had evidently decided that if Naquet couldn’t offer them any information on Roland, perhaps he could help identify possible suspects.
“We’ll absolutely make use of the archive when the time comes,” she said smoothly. “But for now … The people around Guipure, what were they like?” A little smile. “I’d really like to exploit your observational expertise, to get some background.” A little smile.
Who could resist such flattery? Not Gédéon Naquet. He gazed into the middle distance for a moment, then said, “When I went there first, the impression that I had was of a group of people all focused on the same goal. And that goal was Guipure.”
Magda nodded thoughtfully, then
asked, “How do you mean?”
He folded his arms on the table. “When you’ve spent as much time in the celebrity world as I have, you see that there’s a structure to it. And Sauveterre as I saw it fit that structure perfectly. There was a creative, and there was the practical army that protected him.” He cocked his head to one side, plainly pleased with this image. “Everyone in the place worked to make Roland’s life as easy as possible. His assistant could have been a nightclub bouncer: one minute past your allotted appointment time, and Dolly Fauré made sure you were out. His sister took care of all the financial issues, so he didn’t have to worry his creative mind with any of that. Their head pattern cutter was in and out of his office every two minutes with suggestions about fabric, about cutting angles, about buttons or trimmings. Even that little redhead who worked for his sister would pop up to ask if he needed her to order his lunch or bring in some delivery.”
Magda began to ask another question, but Rachel cut in. Something was scratching at her. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but she came up with something else. “You keep saying things were a certain way when you first saw Sauveterre, or when you were first there. Were they different when you went back?”
Magda looked slightly put out that she hadn’t made this analysis; Naquet gave a little smile, as if he’d been deliberately hinting and was glad someone had picked up on it. “They were worse.” He stopped smiling. “Much worse.” Then he stopped. “But this can’t be the kind of thing you want for your investors.”
“Yes, it is,” the women said together.
“It gives the project shape,” Magda added reassuringly. “Tell us as much as you can.”
Naquet thought for another second. “Look, there’s no good way to say it: he was high out of his mind, and no one seemed to be in control of him.” He raised a hand, palm out. “Correction. He’d acquired this”—he pursed and thinned his lips at the same time, producing an expression of dislike that was nearly disgust—“this young man, and he was very much in control. When I arrived to try to interview Guipure, he came up, stuck out his hand, and offered himself as an interview subject. Said he was Cyrille Thieriot, Roland’s partenaire à vie.” Again the expression. “Whereas in fact he was a leech. You spend enough time around celebrities and you recognize the type. The whole time I was trying to do the interview—I say trying, because I’d ask a question, and Roland would start to answer it, maybe get three or four words out, then lose his train of thought and nod off—the whole time this kid sat in a chair nearby, playing on his phone. Sometimes he’d interrupt to show Roland something he wanted him to buy, or sometimes when Roland dozed off, he’d take the cigarette out of his hand if it looked like it might burn him. And every time one of the croquis would fall on the floor, he would pick it up—”
“Sorry,” Magda interrupted. “Croquis?”
“Sketches, design sketches. That’s what they’re called in fashion, croquis. Roland drew them all the time. It was his thing, apparently. I read a couple of articles in which he said that if he made croquis when his mind was elsewhere, his unconscious produced amazing designs. He was still doing it, only now it was like the talking, but on paper. He’d fade off in the middle of one, then wake up and forget he’d started that one, start a new one, then forget that one too. There were all these half-finished sketches all over the floor. And the boy just took them and—” He wiggled his fingers to indicate disappearance.
“Then about half an hour in, Roland started to wake up. He became very jumpy.” Naquet darted his eyes around exaggeratedly, miming nervousness. “The kid suddenly asked him if he wanted lunch, asked him for some money, then went off and came back a little while later with a paper bag, saying it was the delivery. Roland looked a lot more cheerful, so I figured—” He spread his hands, and looked at them. Rachel understood: he figured it had been a drug delivery. “I didn’t want to get involved with any of that, so I ended the interview.”
Magda tapped the nail of a forefinger on her saucer, making a light chinking noise as she frowned. “And where was the practical army during this?”
Naquet shrugged. “The sister’s assistant and the chef modéliste were nowhere to be seen. The dragon Fauré was still guarding the outer office, and she obviously hated Thieriot. She did everything but spit on him. But she couldn’t kick him out or bar the door to him, could she? That’s problem when the boss is a drogué.” He raised his eyebrows. “He’s the boss. If everyone depends on you for their check, who’s going to stand up to you?”
“What about his sister?” Magda asked.
“What about her?”
“Well, she was also the boss. The CFO. She didn’t depend on Guipure for her check, and surely she cared about him. She didn’t do anything?”
He held up his hands. “I don’t know what went on when I wasn’t there. But I do know that when I saw him, he was in terrible condition, and I also know he only did the désintox after the reviews turned bad. You do the math.”
“What do you mean?”
Naquet’s sigh said that Magda was unutterably naïve. “Remember John Galliano, yelling at those women in that bar? He did exactly the same thing the year before, but he was making big money for Dior then, so they hushed it up. Then someone recorded him doing it on their phone and put it online, and he was out. Coincidentally, his most recent collection for Dior hadn’t done so well. As long as he was an anti-Semitic drunk who could make money for them, they would cover for him. As soon as he could affect the bottom line, off he went to désintox. That’s what I mean.”
“And what about after the désintox? Were calm and happiness restored when he could make money again?”
He drank the final mouthful from his little cup. “I couldn’t say. I didn’t see him after he came back.”
“What?” Magda raised her eyebrows. Rachel shared her surprise. Antoinette’s description of Naquet as “Rolé’s biographer” had led her to assume his work was ongoing. To learn now that he hadn’t been in contact with Guipure during the period they cared about! She felt a snap of annoyance.
Whatever Magda felt, she hid it well. “I’m sorry.” She frowned. “We were under the impression that you were Guipure’s current biographer.”
Naquet shifted in his seat. “Well, yes and no. That is, I was, and I’m hoping I will be again.” He scratched at an imaginary stain on the tabletop with his thumbnail, then looked up reluctantly. “After that interview, I telephoned to discuss—well, really to discuss how I should handle Roland. Antoinette’s assistant told me that Antoinette would get back to me. Then a week or so later, I read on The Fit that Roland was going into désintox.” He looked affronted. “That was the first I’d heard of it. The next day I received a letter from Antoinette saying that in light of developments Sauveterre had decided to shelve the biography, and here was a fat check for my troubles.”
“Did you cash it?”
Magda’s voice was neutral, but the implication was clear: cashing the check indicated abandoning the project.
“Of course I cashed it,” Naquet snapped. “I need to eat. But I also—” He inhaled, then sighed the air out. “Look, when I began my career, I was a serious writer. My work on Anne Pingeot, that was a study of a complex woman who had made complex decisions. When Roland came out of rehab, I saw a genuinely intellectually engaging story. What’s it like to rebuild yourself from your lowest ebb? I thought maybe I could pursue that with him.”
“And?” Magda’s voice was like a needle.
He looked up. “And nothing. I telephoned a few times, suggesting we collaborate, but I never heard back. I thought maybe he was busy with the upcoming show. Then I got the alert that—” He shrugged, raising a hand and letting it fall. “Of course, now the time is really ripe for a study like that. A respectful summation of Roland’s life. And who better to get it out quickly than someone who already has substantial material? But Antoinette won’t take my calls.”
There was a moment’s silence, sorrowful on his part
and thoughtful on the women’s. Then Magda cleared her throat. “I’m sorry to hear that. I do think, though, that our film will allow you to engage with that story. It might even reignite her interest.” Naquet perked up a little. “And I hate to ask you for even more than you’ve given, but could you possibly point us to anyone else we could interview? You’ve been very helpful, but the more fully rounded our pitch is, the more likely we are to get funding.”
Naquet squinted slightly, considering. “Well, no one at the company itself. But I did keep the number Thieriot gave me, if you want to try that. If his behavior with me is anything to judge by, you’d have no trouble getting an interview.” He picked up his phone and stabbed at the screen a few times. Magda’s portable chimed. “There it is. Now,” he said, his voice turning crisp, “when do you think you’ll know about funding?”
“A couple of months,” Magda said vaguely.
“Great, great.” He craned his neck, looking for the waiter. It was plain that now that he was no longer their focus and he’d found out what he wanted to know, he had lost interest. “Well, let me know as soon as you hear anything. I’m thinking of moving into television, and some footage would really help my showreel.” He spotted a server and raised his hand for another espresso. Their time was up.
* * *
“Not at all helpful in some ways, but very helpful in others,” Magda said once they were outside. She turned and began walking up the Boulevard Saint Germain toward the Rue de Bac métro station.
“God, didn’t his description of Guipure before he went to rehab break your heart?” Rachel finished buttoning her jacket as they passed the Café de Flore. “How could people so protective of him let him get into that state?”
“He told us.” Magda stopped at a pedestrian crossing and waited for the light to change. “It sounds like they were so used to catering to him that they didn’t notice there was a problem until it was too late. And this Thieriot guy was obviously well dug in by that time”—she made air quotes—“‘helping him out.’ That’s someone we really need to talk to.”
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