Whispering in French Read online

  Instead, he played the stock market’s version of a slot machine from hell, and my mother, Antoinette, and I had no choice but to hitch our cart to a wagon driven by an amusing, fearless driver interested solely in the fool’s gold of the future, which, in fact, had an 85 percent chance of complete failure.

  But at least he was fun. He insisted upon it. And as long as you were willing to play his game, his way, life was a grand adventure. My mother was eager to play. For a while. Me? I learned the game’s rules and strapped myself in for a tumultuous ride.

  Head reeling with fatigue and clanging bells, I forced myself from my great-great-grandmother’s lumpy horsehair bed, which was so short my feet dangled off the end by six inches. The faintest dark-rose-and-jasmine hints of Patou’s Eau de Joy infused the matelassé coverlet embroidered with my forbearer’s initials.

  The screen of my cell read 3:48 and in the fog of jet lag I wasn’t sure if it was day or night in the darkness of the shuttered room. My toe caught a suitcase as I stumbled toward the windows. The oblong handle groaned its annoyance as I wrestled and pulled open the vertical panels to unlatch the dark blue shutters before throwing them wide.

  A briny cold wind instantly buffeted the T-shirt against me and I shivered. The haunting beauty of an endless stretch of small bays and beaches extended all the way to Spain in the hazy distance. Heavy, fast-moving clouds roiled over the Pyrenees, promising a pelting of the herd of surfers, who looked like seals in their wetsuits, far below the cliff. Swells undulated the sea as the paddleboarders battled with the surfers for ownership of each wave.

  Immediately below the window, the budding plane trees’ leaves threshed the air and cast shadows on the pea gravel, which surrounded the ivy-covered villa Madeleine Marie, named after two maiden aunts with too many greats before aunt to reference.

  A delicate, caterpillar-like strand of greenery had snuck its way into the window well, and tiny vine hairs had first latched onto and then delivered primordial glue into the pitted cream stone. Indeed, the ivy would outlast the stone, just like the stone would outlast the people within. Only time and the elements were the winners in the end—ever marching on, leaving husks and carnage in their wake. A gust of wind parted a stand of fern and an odd-looking little animal disappeared under the hydrangea.

  Bolting the window and dressing quickly, I felt my stomach churn with the same ill ease that had taken up permanent residence a while ago. A spiral chestnut staircase led from the third- to the second-story landing and the stairs creaked as they always had. Now it didn’t even help to avoid certain parts of each step.

  A tall, slim biracial woman of regal bearing, marking her noble Namibian heritage, emerged from the front salon. She turned and stared at me, her familiar eyes ageless and knowing, just as her mother’s had been when she’d cared for me during my childhood. Magdali’s mother, Nadine, had been my grandfather’s housekeeper until she’d died more than a decade ago, and her daughter had assumed the position. Magdali bowed slightly and looked as if she would say something but stopped herself.

  I hurried down the last of the staircase. “Magdali?” Impulsively, I hugged her rigid form to me. I forgot that hugging was uncivilized on this side of the ocean.

  She pulled away. “Madame.” Her wide-set, curious, dark hazel eyes studied me then lowered.

  “Oh no. Don’t you dare. I’m not madame to you.”

  Her pause was a beat too long. “As you wish, Kate.”

  Oh, it was as awkward as I’d known it would be. Twenty-odd years of silence after a short, intense childhood friendship such as ours cast a gut-hollow echo in the pit of my stomach.

  “I’m glad you’ve come,” she said quietly. “And I was sorry to hear about your daughter. And of the divorce. So sorry.”

  “Thank you for your letter.” I prayed she wouldn’t ask me what everyone wanted to ask.

  The silence between us pulsed in waves, and the words that I should have said remained stuck in the back of my throat.

  “Your grandfather is impatient to see you,” she finally said. “Dîner is served at eight o’clock. Promptly.”

  “Some things never change.”

  “And some things do,” Magdali replied before she straightened her spine and turned to leave. Her proud bearing spoke of her mother’s Himba ancestors who tended the sacred fires of long ago.

  Something clattered to the parquet floor beyond the heavy door. Turning the brass knob embossed with an ancient Basque cross, I faced down the man who was so cold, so impersonal, so formal, he’d never used the informal tu when addressing his own mother.

  His face was gray, his eyes large, pale blue, and rheumy. “You’ve grown even taller, Kate,” he said, his gaze appraising every inch of me. “Must be the American genes.”

  “I think the statute of limitations for commenting on my height expired thirty years ago,” I replied.

  He reached for his cane, which had fallen to the ground beside his cushioned chair. “Well, at least you’ve grown a backbone. Perhaps.”

  “Backbones are overrated.”

  His watery eyes narrowed. “I’m not leaving and I’m perfectly fine, merci. You can go right back across the ocean if that’s why you’ve come.” He murmured something in French, but it was impossible to make out.

  “Good to see you again too, Granddaddy.” Well, at least he wasn’t blubbering some sort of condolence. Neither one of us would be able to stand it. “Jean,” he said. “Only children should call someone Granddaddy.”

  “Sorry, Jean,” I muttered. “Never read that part in the French family rule book.”

  He motioned for me to come closer. “I see you’ve forgotten your manners. Not surprised, living with heathen for over two decades.”

  I crossed the large room, heel clicks breaking the stillness of the blue salon. Ovals and rectangles of a deeper blue dotted the cracked plaster walls, revealing the grim financial truth. The paintings of landscapes and exotic animals that once graced the walls had disappeared. Only a handful of family portraits remained, their ageless eyes staring at me with what seemed to be disdain. Likely because I was of the generation who would sell out as opposed to their generations who had earned and safeguarded it.

  “The heathen are happier. Usually.” I bent down and brushed a kiss on each of his moist, cold cheeks, which smelled of the familiar eau de cologne he’d always applied a little too liberally.

  His hand clawed and gripped the chair’s arm instead of mine. “That’s the thing of it, Kate. Life is not about being happy.”

  “So I finally learned.”

  “I didn’t mean—well, you know I wasn’t referring to that business of last year. It will smooth over. Everyone will forget what hap—”

  “Oh no,” I interrupted, my bones suddenly heavy. “No need to discuss that. We’ll go on as before. Far better. We always operated better with misunderstandings. And don’t worry, I won’t be here long.”

  “How long?” Turning his face toward the bank of long windows, his pale irises constricted until his pupils were pinpricks.

  “Six weeks? Antoinette asked me to put the household in order and find a more permanent solution”

  “To be installé in that mausoleum up the hill or in a little mushroom of an ugly hut in Urt? Non, absolument pas. I’m not selling our family’s villa.”

  Old age was a bitch. No question about it. And my relatives had never embraced the notion of aging gracefully. “But the nuns are so kind. Just think how much fun you’ll have tormenting them.”

  Color flooded his cheeks.

  I always forgot the French don’t appreciate irony. You know wit is on its last leg in a place where Jerry Lewis is considered the saint of comedy.

  “You forget the other option,” he thundered.

  I would not rise to the bait.

  “The one where I’m planted under the church.”

  “Well, that is an option,” I replied. “But consider the centuries your soul would be plagued by those bells. Persona
lly, I’d go with the nuns.”

  “I see your sense of humor hasn’t improved.”

  “Must be the French genes,” I said.

  “Enough.” He rattled off an order in French for whiskey and a blanket while tapping his cane on the floor.

  “Please speak English,” I said, walking back to the door.

  “Why Antoinette never taught you French properly is a travesty.”

  He said something else but it was lost on me as I poked my head out the door to ask Magdali for tea and a blanket. I’d be damned if I’d let him have a drink before seven. I retraced my steps and scooped up his cane. “My mother never taught me because my father wouldn’t let her.”

  “Of course not,” he muttered. “He was determined to make you American. And he succeeded.”

  “He had faults like everyone else, but I’m grateful to live in America—the land of the free, the brave, and the decent job.”

  “But you’re French,” he whined. “The food, the wine, the culture—and your family. You should live here. My great-granddaughter . . . Lily should live here.”

  “No.” No was such a great word. I loved the slightly bitter tang it left on the tongue, like arugula. It was an acquired taste learned too late in life.

  He wouldn’t let up. “But you love the sea. Nature. You hate cities. And that awful plastic food they prepare and eat in haste. They have no idea how to live. All work, no leisure.”

  I would have almost felt sorry for him if I hadn’t seen the old steel of condescension lurking in his watery eyes. “Where is Uncle?”

  He glanced toward the yawning marble fireplace stained with centuries of soot. “In Paris.” He could have said Hackensack with more excitement.

  “When will he return?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Pulling answers he didn’t want to give was an endurance test. “When did you last see him?”

  “A while ago.”

  I waited.

  “When he came with M. Reynaud.”

  “Who is . . . ?”

  “The estate person.”

  “Estate person?”

  “The one from Christie’s who took the paintings.” He scratched the back of his liver-spotted hand.

  “Did you tell Antoinette?” The concept of frank communication was always lost on the French.

  He waved a hand above the armrest. “Jean-Michel said he would call her.”

  The likelihood of my uncle doing anything unless it involved money going into his pocket was the same likelihood of my mother doing anything unless it involved business or an amusement. And the likelihood of my grandfather facing the truth about his offspring was about as likely as me facing the truth about myself and my daughter.

  It was obvious things were far worse than my mother knew or had let on.

  Magdali entered, tea tray in hand. She set it on the glass-topped table, her elegant, slender arms graceful in their movements. She refused to meet my eye. My grandfather said not a word of thanks, befitting his class. Or maybe he was just furious the whiskey was absent.

  “Thank you.” I went through the motions of serving tea and burnt my fingers on the silver teapot. Magdali faded into the shadows near the overcrowded bookcases. She had that silent, floating footstep of old-world, ingrained servitude.

  “You haven’t forgotten M. Soames is coming to take tea with us tomorrow, Magdali?” Grandfather continued without waiting for a reply. “You are to join us, Kate. I should like you to meet him, and his relative, who is visiting. Do not forget those biscuits he likes, Magdali.”

  “Oui, monsieur,” she replied. “About the pâtissier’s account—”

  “We’ll have no mention of that,” Jean interrupted.

  “Magdali, does the house have Internet?” I breathed in the ancient smoky pine tar scent of the Lapsang Souchong. “A Wi-Fi password, perhaps?”

  “Of course not,” Jean said. “Why would we have something so unnecessary?”

  “Because we’re in the twenty-first century,” I retorted, catching the birth of a smile about Magdali’s mouth as I offered a teacup in her direction. “And some of us require it. To work. And by the way, could we turn up the heat? It’s freezing in here.”

  “Magdali,” Grandfather said without looking at her, “you may leave us.”

  She looked at the offered cup, shook her head when I started to open my mouth, and left without a sound.

  The gravelly voice that had ordered my childhood three months a year took on a clipped tone. “I’ll ask you to keep your ideas to yourself, Kate. And I shall remind you that you are under my roof. In case you have forgotten, we do not speak freely in front of servants. Ever.” His long nose rose an inch. “It breeds impertinence.”

  “I don’t think Magdali could be impertinent even if her life depended on it. And by the by, you might want to reconsider your ideas. I’m not the one who has trouble finding and keeping employees.” I held up my hand when I saw him ready to burst. “Enough. I’m not here to argue with you. I’m here to help.”

  “I didn’t ask you to come and I don’t need your help,” he said.

  The old bugger would never give over. “Of this there was never any doubt.” Reverse psychology was the answer. I was not above using it. “But you’re absolutely right. You have everything in order. I should leave. I’ll look into rebooking flights tomorrow.”

  Contrariness won over pride every time in our family. “I forbid it,” he replied.

  I stood up. “Well then, I shall arrange for Internet. And pay for it, don’t worry.” I hurried toward the door before he could object. “Sorry, I really must find an Internet café and check email.”

  “Dinner is at eight,” he boomed. “Promptly.”

  “Got it.”

  Magdali was on the other side of the door, waiting. I touched her arm. “How much does he owe the baker?”

  “Two hundred seventy three euros,” she replied.

  “And the others?”

  She sighed. “Almost three fifty to the butcher. And about five hundred to the corner marché.”

  “And?” I encouraged.

  “He owes the electrical company, water company, and the gardener has stopped coming. None of the restaurants will serve him. He’s stopped going out anyway. He has only his military pension for food and a bit of electricity and, of course, water.”

  “And you?”

  “I have my room and one for my daughter when she is here,” she replied. “And my savings.”

  “How much does he owe you, Magdali?”

  “Seven months.” She whispered a figure that was shamefully low.

  I nodded. “All right, then. I’ll go to the bank in the morning. And I’ll see to the biscuits and more if you give me a list. No one will remember me in the shops, anyway.” I stopped. “Yes?”

  She brushed an invisible piece of lint from her skirt. “I would not count on that.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ve forgotten the ways of a village. Everyone knows you’re coming. And everyone will recognize you. And be wary.”

  “Why?”

  “They know your arrival means change.”

  Of course. Gossip and news was the lifeblood of this chic seaside village.

  “Paying off debts is not the solution.” She continued, tilting her regal head. “It’s a waste of money. It will bleed you dry.”

  “Then, what do you suggest?”

  “I don’t know, but I can tell you what everyone else thinks. Except your grandfather and uncle.”

  “Sell the house,” I replied for her.

  “Yes.” The rhythmic whine of the crickets rose and then fell as a buffeting wind pierced the hollowness of her voice.

  “And I’m guessing my uncle is trying to guilt him into living in poverty so that he can inherit it and then sell it himself, right?”

  She nodded.

  “Although, how he means to cut my mother out of this remains to be seen.”

  “I would not underestima
te him.” It was not in Magdali’s nature to say something like this. I paid attention.

  “What do you think?”

  Her sloe-eyed expression held no emotion, save for her mouth, which twisted. “I don’t know the solution. I only know it will take a small fortune to save the villa.”

  “Right.” And suddenly I felt my throat and chest tighten. I immediately breathed through the constriction. It was ridiculous. Automatons don’t feel anything, especially not feelings concerning crumbling houses.

  I was leaking emotion at the oddest of moments, remembering. It was all so long ago. The near-suicidal secret slides down the four-story staircase railing, the peace of reading by a fire in the blue salon as a storm raged outside, playing hopscotch with Magdali on the endless expanse of black and white marble tiles in the foyer, and the feel of my grandfather’s large, leathery hand taking mine as we closed the villa’s massive door and walked to the beach. But that was a past era and it was time to move on. Nothing good came of living in the past.

  And I should hate everything this dusty relic represented to boot—ancestors gone astray, profligate living, cowardice, even Nazi occupation. Magdali would get a pension, Jean would be settled somewhere very comfortably and as miserable as he wanted to be until the end of his days—and uncle? Well, uncle would just have to suck it up and take it like the man he was not.

  “Don’t sell it,” she murmured.

  “What? This place is nothing but a money pit haunted by ancient memories of frivolous living by past generations who mean nothing to me. Or you. My grandfather treats you and everyone else he doesn’t pay like an indentured servant of three hundred years ago. Always has. Why have you stayed?”

  “He employed my mother before I was born when no one else would and she was desperate.”

  “Twenty-plus years of your hard labor paid off that debt. And countless more by your mother.” Sweetest woman who ever lived, in my book. Magdali’s mother had always been so kind to me when I was a child.

  She turned as if to walk away but stopped and looked over her shoulder. The low wattage hall sconces cast a sheen over her expressionless dark face. “It’s called loyalty.”

  I crossed the space to stop her leaving. “If you have something to say to me then just say it.”