Whispering in French Read online

  “If anyone can figure out a solution, you can. You’re the intelligent, practical person in this family.”

  I relaxed. “I guess that means you’ve decided to forgive me.”

  “No, you shouldn’t have stayed away so long,” she replied. “It just means that you should use the gifts you were given, otherwise it’s just a waste and it’s ungrateful. Not that I—”

  “I get it.”

  I’m not sure if she shut up because of my words or her ingrained, ridiculous notion of servitude.

  “So what kind of biscuits does my grandfather’s friend like? And who is he?”

  “M. Soames likes the ones with the chocolate on top. He’s a British expat who lives a five-minute walk up our cliff road. Don’t you remember him?”

  I shook my head.

  “He used to play on the golf tour with your grandfather. Now they watch golf and the Tour de France on the télé, and reminisce.”

  “And his relative?”

  “His great-nephew. In the military.”

  “And?”

  “Well, I overheard M. Soames telling your grandfather he was very concerned. Something about post-traumatic stress. I think they want you to help him.”

  Yet another sick puppy. So I was to figure out a permanent solution for my grandfather, deal with the finances and the natives who all had their hands outstretched, sell a house that was falling apart at the seams, and analyze an officer in the British Army, who probably had zero interest in having his clock examined.

  And all within a month and a half. Then I could escape to Espace Business with only a few more cracks etching my shell.

  “Anything else, Magdali?”

  “Don’t forget the chocolate biscuits.”

  Chapter Three

  Whispers from the Garden . . .

  In a fourth attempt to find tranquility beyond yet another fence, I, a small creature of many quills, had found a little slice of paradise. An unkempt garden, free of any animal larger than myself, except for those vicious Barkers that were always navigating an invasion beyond the chain link of the neighbor, and a slow-moving Shelled creature I’d seen day fifteen of my personal nightmare. Fewer bumbling Two-Leggeds intruded here, but they left revolting charred white sticks on the ground that one could and had mistaken for a delicious Slug in the middle of the night.

  The other irritation was the Wing Beaters. Their incessant cooing during the day from the bower of gnarled together branches of strange trees would surely drive me mad. How was a fellow to take a decent lie-down with all the din? I suppose I could put up with the cooing and crapping if the nightly forage continued to prove so deliciously fruitful. But what were those incessant clanging sounds? It was enough to make one go in search of new lodgings.

  It’s been a trying time since the last full moon. I’m not sure what happened still. For as long as I can remember, I lived in a small walled garden by day and a wire cage in a cottage by night. Oh, it had its advantages. My pet, a short Two-Legged with long brown hair that was sometimes tied back with little red ribbons, provided a never-ending source of very bland dry tidbit food. It was merely annoying that the Two-Leggeds had not a clue about the importance of keeping day and night hours. Why must there be light coming from those infernal switches at every hour of the night? Did they not know that the dark was to be savored as it swirled its inkiness throughout the land, leaving behind a trail of dew as it cringed and finally withdrew from the east? And all the while, the Call of the Slug wafted through the cottage’s windows. Yes, in my world, all things returned to the elusive, heavenly Slug.

  But I digress. This nightmare began a fortnight ago when the little Two-Legged with a penchant for ordering my days and nights to her liking, took me on a long trip across a frightfully wide body of water and left me in a foreign garden. In her excitement, she failed to examine the fence for gaps. Of course, it was the first thing I did. Freedom from the light switches and the limpid vegetables whilst on the run was divine. I slinked and snuffled my way through rusting foreign borders and gardens until even I wasn’t sure how to return. I realized I’d possibly made a grave mistake when I saw the size of the mashers on those Barkers, and so settled into my new life in the wild on the non-canine side of the Maginot Line.

  What? How do I know about the Maginot Line, you ask? Why everyone in my world knows history. It’s about the only thing we know apart from survival. But then isn’t history the ultimate survival guide? Our sole goal is to pass down history and survival tips from mother to offspring, very unlike the Two-Legged, who seem ridiculously preoccupied with turning night into day and day into night, as well as yapping and tapping on little devices. Not that I do much socializing, you understand. Not in my survival tips from Mum.

  I snuffled the ivy at the base of this crumbling pile. Something was off today. There were far too many lights piercing the glass squares of the structure. And far too much noise. I blame the new intruder, who left two long grooves in the pea gravel with a wheeled monstrosity. This spelled change, which always spelled trouble. I’m very good at spelling by the by. It’s certain names of living, breathing creatures that complicate everything. Except the Slug. I was born knowing that word. Indeed, my brother, sister, and I used to fall asleep in rumbly-tumbly balls as Mum ignited our other inherent traits with Slugenly historical chants.

  Ah, a delectable, plump little offspring, the size of a pearl, gleamed in the light of the waxing moon. And where there was one, there were certain to be more. This would take the edge off my—

  Yurump! A swipe from behind knocked me over. Bloody hell. My drawstring muscle constricted, and I tucked my extra bits inside the ball of spines. If only I could see what hit me. Its scent was peculiar, not at all like the Barker.

  It batted me about the garden until dizziness set in. But, crikey, its scent was heavenly—sweet and wild—and nearly had me letting down my defenses. And then, finally, the scent undid me. I unfurled myself. She was palest orange in the moonlight, with only the end of her tail twitching as she gazed at me with what looked like an evil grin framed by a pair of white whiskers that would surely intimidate the dead. I flexed my quills and stood my ground. It’s easy to be fearless when you are intoxicated. I would have even endured the promise of claws and worse if it meant imprinting that scent.

  She yowled and then licked a paw, obviously injured by a quill. Then she stared, almost as transfixed by me as I was with her. I think. What in bloody hell? Finally she turned, and slunk away, favoring her left paw.

  Clawing Yowler—0. Me—1.

  And then her scent hit me again. It was coming from my quills, where she’d had the audacity to swipe me. I felt saliva rising on my tongue and was helpless to fight the urge to self-anoint with the perfume left behind by this damned creature.

  How ridiculous. I do not like Yowlers. I do not like anyone really. And now I am sure I especially don’t like this new land. It was enough to make me want to find the red-ribboned, short Two-Legged, and become partial to switches in cottages.

  Almost.

  There’s a saying here. If you can see the Pyrenees in the distance, it’s going to rain. And if you can’t see them, it’s raining already.

  Today, it hailed.

  The baker pushed out his lower lip and shrugged his shoulders, a Gallic reflex instilled at birth. “C’est normal.”

  Normal? Everyone else in the northern hemisphere was surfing a late spring heat wave; AC cranked to the max.

  He refused to meet my gaze as he twisted the ends of the paper around three baguettes. A beribboned box of biscuits sat beside the flour-dusted register plastered with advertisements for everything from babysitting and lodgings for rent to surfboards and guided yoga—all in French, Spanish, and Euskara, the Basque language of which there were many different dialects, with almost no similarities. Of course.

  This from a mysterious people who counted seven provinces in a nation they’d been trying to wrest from France and Spain since the Paleolithic period. No o
ne knew where they’d come from. Even they didn’t know. Or maybe they did, but refused to tell anyone. The ETA tended to let their bombs speak for themselves. If the code-loving Nazis had just promised them a Basque sovereign nation in exchange for the secrets of their dialects (which as far as I could see had as many x’s and z’s as there is butter in croissants), we’d all be speaking German. It’s said that the devil tried to learn Basque for seven years and gave up.

  The baker scratched his ear and appeared embarrassed to bring up the subject of the family’s debt. “Et ben, madame . . .”

  And so . . . The heavy Basque accent poured over my senses and warmed me as much as the heat from the ovens. “Alors, M. Gaina,” I replied, “this should settle the account.” I handed over three hundred euros.

  He studied me in the way a thief examines a gull. And then he scratched his hairy ear again and broke into a broad smile. “Et ben, merci, madame.” He reluctantly handed over the change, obviously doubtful of ever seeing another euro from the family.

  The shop door’s bells jangled and an elegant, birdlike old woman queued behind me. Madame la Comtesse de Bergerac with the same pinched, haughty expression she’d worn two decades ago. It was the quarter hour before shops closed for a civilized little three-hour lunch. The lure of earning more money would never make a Frenchman forgo déjeuner. That would just be unpatriotic.

  But the way M. Gaina blushed and stole glances at the aging countess behind me, I would have bet my last sou he was trying to work up the nerve to butter a baguette with her as soon as I left. He didn’t stand a chance. Class and station were as impenetrable here as they were not in the States.

  Turning to leave, I darted a glance at the countess.

  Well. Clearly the countess had a sweet tooth that was blind to social standing.

  Four hours later, I learned Mr. Soames did, indeed, like chocolate biscuits. His relative did not. Major Soames did not like tea either. But there was something he disliked even more than the former and latter.

  Me.

  It was ridiculous. Everybody liked me. Except me, of course. If there was one thing I knew how to do with strangers—albeit obviously not strangers on planes—it was to be likeable. It was the most important requirement of the job: gain trust. It was the great perk of active listening, my favorite oxymoron. Become fake friends or a pseudo good parent. Whatever. It was easy to do with a little practice and it came in handy in forced social situations. Except, apparently, when taking tea with a recalcitrant British major.

  “So what is it you do, Mrs. Hamilton?” Boredom wafted off him like the scent of mothballs in wool. While he was younger than my forty-two years, the parched gray of his expression made him seem far older.

  A spidery feeling always curled up my neck when I came across someone who had flirted with the stickiness of malevolence. Narcissists, psychopaths, sociopaths, and the like oozed a morass of charm glue over everyone in their path before they went for blood. Major Soames exuded nothing. And yet, my neck was clammy. “What I do? Why, like everyone else, major, I exist.” When kindness fails, go for the unexpected.

  “I told you, Edward,” his great-uncle said. “Mrs. Hamilton does social work. Well known, indeed. Excellent article in Psychology Today last month. Something about self-sabotage?”

  “Self-doubt in children of narcissists,” I said.

  He turned to Jean. “You must be very proud.”

  Jean concerned himself with a chocolate biscuit.

  “You are a psychologist,” the major clipped.

  “I prefer life coach. Less stigma.” I popped a chocolate petit beurre in my mouth.

  “But she also does social work for the poor,” Mr. Soames almost pleaded.

  The major flexed his fingers and leaned back in the dilapidated pale yellow chair in the salon overlooking the sea. “I see.”

  “And what do you do, Major Soames?” I couldn’t help myself.

  “Construct infrastructure. In sand.” He paused. “But mostly kill and maim.”

  “Edward—” his relative said sharply.

  “No,” I stopped him. “It’s all right. We’re among friends. I understand—”

  “I’m sure you do,” the major interrupted. Abruptly, he unfolded himself from the cramped quarters of the chair and stood up. “Must go. Thank you for tea, M. du Roque, madame.”

  “Edward,” his great-uncle said. “Don’t go. We’ve just arrived.”

  But he was already at the door, pressing the brass lever. “Excellent tea. Thank you so much.” And then he was gone.

  I gazed at his untouched teacup.

  Grandfather absently tapped his cane.

  “I don’t know what to do.” The ridges in Soames’s forehead were deep with worry.

  My grandfather stopped the comment on his lips when he looked at me.

  “I think he’s going to kill himself. Eventually.” The older man said it so quietly, I almost missed it.

  “Arrêtez, Phillip. Stop,” Grandfather said.

  I stood up and went to the window. The major bypassed his family’s brand-spanking-new black Range Rover parked on the pea gravel and strode through the dark enameled gates to turn left on the road perched on the sea cliff.

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Hamilton,” Soames continued. “My great-nephew was impossibly rude—the opposite of how he used to be. I’m certain you have no desire . . . I wouldn’t dream of imposing on your time, and surely you wouldn’t consider helping him . . .” His words trailed to a stop. Grandfather had the decency to remain silent.

  I turned from the window. “I can only help someone who wants to be helped.”

  “But perhaps you could just work on him a little,” Grandfather said. “Drop by Phillip’s house from time to time. Become friends. The villa is not far.”

  There was such forlorn desperation in Soames’s eyes.

  “I’ve never worked with someone in the military.”

  Soames clenched his hands. “His wife, Claire, has gone back to London. Taken the children.”

  “Children?”

  “Yes, he has a daughter, Winnie, who is eight. The light of his life—just like him really. And a son, Charles, seven.” The rest of the story gushed from the old man like tea through a broken strainer. Five tours in Bosnia or the Middle East, a leave of absence, threats of divorce, late-night pacing, drinking alone, silence. The full panoply of denial and depression.

  I looked back through the window. The wind had picked up and the sea was roiling, playing havoc with the surfers, most of whom were paddling toward the shore. Only the stand-up paddleboarders were hanging tough. “Mr. Soames?”

  “Yes?”

  “My grandfather tells me you’re a betting man.”

  “Indeed. I like whist very—”

  Grandfather cleared his throat and I turned to observe the two elderly friends.

  “Oh, all right. I play a bit of vingt-un at Le Casino in Biarritz from time to time.”

  “From time to time,” Grandfather said with a straight face.

  “Well, I would not bet on my ability to lure your nephew into therapy. And I won’t be here for more than a few weeks myself. I’d have to refer him if, by a long shot, he agrees to see someone. How long is he staying with you?”

  “Indefinitely. He will not discuss why he is on leave. No idea of the why or the how of it.” He rushed on. “He’s very dear to me, Kate—I may call you that, may I? He and his sister are my only relations in this world apart from their parents. He is a good man. A very good man. I can’t imagine him ever doing anything wrong intentionally.”

  Oh, the innocence of those who had never faced down a weakness lurking in the soul and lost.

  “Of course he did not,” Jean said.

  “I would pay for your—”

  “No, Mr. Soames—”

  “Phillip.”

  “Phillip,” I continued. “I won’t accept anything unless your nephew agrees to seek help. And like I said, it would end up being someone other than me.
Please remember, the chances are slim.”

  “But there must be something . . . I’m a businessman by trade. Now retired, of course. I’ve never found that people give their best effort without a check.”

  Curiosity reared its tail. “What was your profession?”

  “Headhunting. Soames Headhunters of London?”

  And of USA, and every major city in the world. I reined in the smile. “Why, Mr. Soames, it’s said that your company is responsible for the success of half the industries in the Western world.”

  “No. Not at all. It’s the people who make those companies successful.”

  “Phillip is far too modest,” Jean added. “His specialties were in the oil, mineral, and communication industries.”

  Phillip Soames smiled. “I had the best job in the world because most of the business was conducted on the golf course or in the club afterward.”

  “I see. Well, would you agree to a barter? I’ll attempt to talk to your nephew if you attempt to find a caretaker for my grandfather. Agreed or—”

  “I don’t need another damned nursemaid feeding me gruel and wiping my derriere. Merci but no,” Grandfather interrupted.

  “I think he means hiding the wine and helping him with his bath,” I explained.

  “Done,” Phillip said, smelling a deal and knowing when to close it. “It will be my pleasure.”

  TWO STEPS FORWARD. Three steps back. I had forgotten the bureaucracy of the French government. French bureaucrats in notary offices, post offices, banks, and, worst of all, mayors’ offices had all (I was convinced) taken a secret oath to demand documents from innocent citizens and noncitizens (especially) that would and did destroy entire rainforests every year. In triplicate and embossed with meaningless but impressive-looking stamps. Particularly unimportant documents were additionally adorned with tricolor ribbons. Yes, the Dark Ages were back, and nowhere did they seem more officially documented than here in the Land of the Beret Basque.

  On this third Monday in May, the fifth attempt to get into the bank after one of the two hundred–plus saint’s day closings, lunch closings, and someone being sick, and the funeral of someone’s eighth cousin seven times removed, I was ushered past the faded-burgundy-velvet-roped lines to the hushed, carpeted confines where real money loitered. M. Landuran gave me a pinched look, shook my hand, and motioned toward a hard-backed chic white leather chair that swiveled with the slightest provocation.