Whispering in French Read online

  “Enchanté, madame,” he said, smoothing his copiously oiled gray hair. He picked up a Montblanc fountain pen and carefully unscrewed the cap.

  “Thank you for seeing me,” I said, attempting to keep the sarcasm at bay. My grandfather’s finances were in a shambles and yet they hadn’t thrown him in the French pokey, where likely they’d serve rations of brie, baguettes, and Brouilly during two-hour lunches, followed by a solid afternoon of watching le foot (soccer to you and me) on the télé. At least, after my visit to Orange, the French version of AT&T, I was certain they’d be denied Internet. But after five months of good behavior they’d probably qualify for la cure, that epic stay at a thermal spa, for which French health insurance pays with gusto so the French can simmer in mud baths just like their Roman conquerors. That and the thirty-five-hour workweek were perks most diehard workaholic Americans could learn to love. Obviously, the socialist government found it more financially prudent to keep people out of jail than in. It almost made one want to explore criminality for a living. And perhaps Grandfather, or rather, Jean, could be talked into a little thievery if he continued to be averse to the nunnery.

  As if he could read my wayward thoughts, the banker cleared his throat. “Mais, madame, la famille du Roque ’as been a client of ours for almost cent ans.”

  A hundred years. You would think they would at least give a toaster for that kind of loyalty even if we were in the red.

  “It’s only natural I should—how you say in America?—make time for such an important client.” He perched a pair of thin wire glasses on the end of his long Gallic nose and in his elegant hand scratched out a notation on a Rhodia pad of lined paper. His handwriting looked like a daddy longlegs crawling over the page.

  “So—” I crossed my legs and inelegantly jerked forward when the chair began to twirl. “Pardon me, M. Landuran, but may I be blunt? What is the state of my family’s, or rather, my grandfather’s, finances? I’d like to ensure all is in order before I return to America shortly.”

  He peered over the top of his glasses, glanced at me, and returned to his spidery notations, which no doubt was nothing more than a love note to his mistress, or the draft of a new holiday he was cooking up for the bank. “I would have thought, madame, that there are the same rules of privacy in America than here in la France.”

  I clasped my hands together and placed them between my legs. “Of course,” I replied. “But I’m more worried about the laws that might compromise my relative’s ability to continue in his house.”

  “May I ask after your mother?”

  What? “Umm, Antoinette’s fine.” Likely planning a trip to Capri or Martha’s Vineyard, given the cyclical nature of her set.

  His gaze traveled from the top of my head down to the hands in my lap.

  “You are not like her,” he said. “Yet very beautiful.”

  That was the thing in France. Everyone thought it their right to comment on everyone else, especially their appearance. Gossip and flirting were noun and verb one. And extra points if you could do it to their face. I smiled against my will. God, I hated to descend to their level. “Monsieur, my mother has always spoken so highly of you. Said you were a man of distinction and would be the only one to see in this matter.” Liar, liar, pants on fire. I pulled out my Bank of America checkbook to lure him. “Will two thousand suffice for the immediate shortage?”

  “That is not la question, madame.”

  “Five?” My roller ball was poised over the pale blue check.

  “The question is when will your family sell the house, madame. And to whom.”

  Well, at least he’d be an ally in my goal to sell. “We shall see, monsieur. How much is it worth, do you think?”

  “Bien, madame, that is not for me to say. I can refer you to an excellent agence, but you must get the approval to sell from your grandfather first.”

  “And you don’t think he’ll agree.”

  “Non.”

  “Why?”

  He studied me with narrowed eyes like a school principal sizing up a truant. Blowing his nose with an actual cloth handkerchief, he handed down his verdict. “Your uncle is an esteemed client here as well, you must know. And I keep all confidences. But I suppose I may tell you that your grandfather fully intends to honor the tradition of handing down the villa to the eldest son as has been done for centuries. Your grandfather, madame, will never sell. Even if the walls or roof collapse—something that may happen soon from what M. Colas informed me.”

  “M. Colas?”

  “The best carpenter and mason in Biarritz. A good friend.”

  “I see.”

  “But that is if the pipes don’t fail first, according to M. Matxinbordakorbidea.”

  “I’m sorry, but was that a name?”

  “But of course, madame. The best plombier in the Pays Basque. Everyone knows him. You will too. Soon.”

  “Plumber?”

  “Exactement.”

  “Could you please write his name and number down?” I inhaled deeply. “Anything else?”

  “Well, of course there is the matter of la falaise . . .”

  “The cliff?”

  “Oui, madame.”

  “What is wrong with the cliff?”

  “Why, it is always falling a little here, a little there. Surely you’ve noticed. Mme Jaragoltxe, a master engineer, of course, says the cliff must be reinforced, or else.”

  “Or else?”

  “It will collapse one day. Taking Madeleine Marie with it, bien sûr.”

  Of course. “When?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe today, maybe next month, maybe in ten years. Who knows, madame? The situation is delicate and complicated, non?”

  “Indeed. I’ll need the spelling of the engineer’s name too.”

  He shook his head and carefully wrote out all the contact information.

  Well, the bank may close to celebrate every saint’s day but I had to give it to them. They kept an eye on the choice property of their clients.

  “And if I may be so bold?”

  “Yes?” Lord, there was more?

  “Do take care with your neighbors.” He leaned forward as if plotting a takeover. “Pierrot and Maïte Etcheterry are Basque, and do not take kindly to foreigners taking up residence on land that Basque separatists believe they own.”

  “What? Are they going to bomb a villa that’s been in my grandfather’s family for over three centuries just because his granddaughter is visiting?”

  He chuckled and extracted a Dunhill cigarette from its elegant pack and tapped one end on his desk. “Of course not, madame. But an American, who might convince her grandfather to sell to a foreigner or somehow”—he glanced at my checkbook—“appropriate the property herself—”

  “I assure you I have absolutely no intention of staying or living in France whatsoever.”

  He shrugged in almost a feminine way and lit the long, thin cigarette with a heavy gold lighter. Clearly the tobacco industry was alive and still partying in this part of the world. He blew a long stream of smoke discretely to one side and finally relaxed his mouth into a smile that had never seen an American orthodontist. “Ah, but you must not worry so, madame. You will find a solution.” He paused and glanced toward a bookcase housing tomes that had likely never seen the light of day. “And if you don’t, your uncle will take possession and sell it for you. Yes, that might be the best solution.”

  The damned banker was shifting loyalties as fast as a Vichy collaborator.

  “At least you are here, as any proper granddaughter would be, to take care of your grandfather. Most importantly, please give your lovely mother my very best regards.” He paused for a moment, darting a glance at my checkbook. “Six thousand two hundred fifty-seven US dollars and twenty-three cents should balance the account in euros, madame. And do not worry. The bank has canceled M. du Roque’s carte de crédit so there will be no further factures.”

  Well.

  I filled out the check, thanked the eleg
ant banker for his time, and walked through the cobblestone streets of Biarritz, toward the Grande Plage. I wondered if I would ever see a euro of repayment from someone in the du Roque family. Antoinette would likely repay me, I knew, if I could not recoup the money from the sale of the villa. So much for that week in London I’d been plotting on the way home to get the Francophile taste out of my mouth. Oh, who was I kidding? There was nowhere on this big green planet that was far enough away for me to leave behind my life.

  Settling into a metal and wicker chair in front of Dodin, my favorite childhood pastry shop, I ordered pain grillée et beurrée— grilled, buttered toast—as well as a hot chocolate, brimming with the unforgettably potent and molten flavors I’d savored as a child.

  For the hundredth time that week, I pushed back thoughts of Lily, always swirling in the outermost reaches of my mind. There was nothing more I could do for my sixteen-year-old daughter that I hadn’t already done. She was safe, or as safe as she could be given the situation. Miss Chesterfield’s was one of the best boarding schools on the East Coast and had even traded in its old stodgy ways since the year I’d been imprisoned there. The current teachers and headmaster appeared, in my jaded view, to actually care and help students find their potential. Lily wanted nothing more to do with me. I’d failed her and she knew it. I’d been the last line of defense, and I’d not been there when she most needed me.

  And now, once again, I was in an impossible family situation, where no good solution presented itself. Someone was going to end up in tears. My grandfather, my uncle, a hundred dead, wailing ancestors . . . yes, all of them would hate me before I was finished.

  Then again, I was perfect for the job. I’d make all of them face the brutal financial facts, be brave little du Roque soldiers, and get on with disposing of the relic. And I was the best person to do this because I just didn’t care about any of it. I was the antisavior, who excelled at cold, hard failure by looking disaster and bullies in the eye and trusting diplomacy instead of a big stick. My recent swing in the opposite direction was, at best, ineffective.

  But the damned villa was nothing more than a mildewed, disintegrating millstone around all the family’s necks. It was only a matter of holding good old Jean’s feet to the fire until he capitulated and sold Madeleine Marie to the highest bidder so they could all retire to a small modern house in the country to live out their lives modestly in peace—if I couldn’t reconcile him to a life with the nuns with a nice sum to Magdali to start a new life.

  Almost four hundred years of passing the relic from father to son would stop here. Now. My uncle’s inheritance be damned.

  Something I knew all about.

  From my little café table under the shade of the red parasol, I glanced to the right of the Grande Plage, toward the pink-and-white Hôtel du Palais, a formidable five-star hotel originally built by Napoleon III for his Princess Eugénie, who had spent her childhood summers here. The court had followed the royal couple and erected magnificent houses up and down the coast. Each and every one of these buildings had evolved, passed from one family to another, to host hordes of different families, royal and not.

  Madeleine Marie would do the same, and would likely receive a much-needed facelift by new owners. The only question was if I could withstand the childhood memories that lay coiled in every mossy corner of this epicenter of familial disharmony until I managed to sell it. Or were these memories so well buried, and I so far removed from caring, that I’d remain immune to all? Only the whispers of my ancestors who had entrenched themselves behind the limestone walls and endured the battering weather of history taunted me.

  A gust of the prevailing southwest wind, which had gathered force as it wound through the Pyrenees beyond, fluttered the edges of the parasol. The chocolate high dissipating fast, I glanced at la note, and slipped a few euros onto the small silver tray.

  I motioned to the waiter and stood up.

  What was the point of remembering the past? It would change nothing.

  Chapter Four

  There were the strangest noises coming from outside the window of the bedroom. It sounded as if the most inept burglar in the world was loitering in the drive or ET was snuffling about in the hydrangeas. Clearly my imagination was running amok. Must be the pastis combined with the recent visit to the nuns, or Skyping clients at all hours of the day and night.

  But for some reason, I felt rested and alert.

  There was something about watching the days drift into night or the nights fading to day all awash with the hypnotic sounds of the ocean rising and falling in a cycle off by about an hour each day. It felt like I was being force-fed a curriculum of ethereal nature and peace. Thank God I had a stable of clients back home to keep me rooted in the level of insanity I felt most comfortable. At the desk overlooking the window, Skype’s blue screen cast an eerie light in the room as I waited for the first client to call me.

  It was four A.M. and under the haloed yellow glow of a nearby streetlamp, I could see the chunky arms of the baker, pumping up the cliff road toward his shop. Soon, very soon, he’d be shoving the first boules, followed by baguettes, into an oven so hot it left his arms hairless. Those black rags he used to wick moisture from the baguettes looked like ray skins fluttering in the breeze when he dried them outside each day. The natives here speak of crust texture with as much gusto as American politicians promising to solve the debt crisis a week before Super Tuesday.

  Skype’s melodic ringtone bleated before the nasal voice of Max Mulroney’s assistant zapped me back to the moment. Max took it as a point of pride to pay double for the privilege of booking seven o’clock appointments in LA.

  “Doc, the film is tanking. Can’t get it into one damn festival. Not even in some unheard of piece-of-shit festival in Cyprus. Where the fuck is Cyprus anyway? Isn’t there a war going on there?” Max Mulroney’s laugh was deep like he was having a warm gurgle of whiskey. Which he was. A fat glass of Chivas neat tilted in his hand.

  “No. That’s Syria,” I replied, and glanced at his drink again. “How are you dealing with the stress?”

  “Stress?” Max Mulroney repeated. “Who the fuck has time for stress? I’m just hanging this one up as a complete fail and locking in the money for the next before it dries up. It’s a shark-eat-dolphin world out here in Malibu-bu.”

  A disturbing half smile blurred the bottom of his face for a moment and then caught up to real time.

  “And you’re okay with this?”

  “Sure. Hell, it might be an epic fail—but I was in it for the journey, like you always suggest. Just can’t have too many journeys in a row, ya know?”

  I nodded. As far as I could tell, Max Mulroney was the healthiest, nicest narcissist in Hollywood. The sole reason he arranged weekly sessions was because everyone who was anyone in the film industry had a shrink, but he couldn’t be bothered to get on the PCH in his Carrera to meet someone face-to-face. Journey, indeed.

  “You really should invest in the next one, Katie. A romance á la Titanic. DiCaprio is set to lead. Trying to tie down Sandy Bullock. Set in Italy. Kind of Titanic boy meets Miss Congeniality. Get it?”

  “Intriguing. So. How are you and Kelly getting along?”

  He laughed. “Same old. She makes demands, I refuse. She charges up the Amex, I explode. It’s just damn tiring.”

  I sighed.

  “I know, I know, Doc. Hey, you know I’m just kidding, right?”

  He pulled up a sock on the other side of the world. “Well, halfway kidding.”

  “How do you think Kelly feels about it?”

  “Doc, I know you want me to care about how she feels, but why should I? Relationships are business transactions. But you know I’d never be anything less than a good guy. I always give them a fat little golden parachute.”

  “And that makes you happy? To have women attracted to your money?”

  “I’m always happy. How could I not be? Living on the same block as Caitlyn Jenner for Christ’s sake. Communing with
goddamned nature here in frigging paradise. And you should see my new yoga teacher. Comes here to teach me downward dog and Shiva twice a week.”

  “I think you mean shavasana. Do any of them throw the money back in your face?”

  He nearly choked with laughter. “Not when it’s a check with five zeros after numero uno.”

  For the next forty minutes, I heard a litany of first-world problems.

  Maybe I should break up with Max. Or maybe we should speak daily. I wondered how much he’d hand over to the only woman he’d allowed into his sphere for longer than a year, albeit the only one whose naked body he’d never seen. But still. Maybe it would be enough to keep the house from falling off the cliff before a solution could be found.

  On the screen, he looked over his shoulder toward the door and then swung around in a blur. “Hey, you can keep a secret right? We’ve got something like attorney-client privilege and all that, right?”

  I nodded. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” He smirked and scratched the back of his balding, red kinky-haired head. “Okay. So I’ll give you a little stock tip. Invest as much as you’ve got in Limerack. Big payout guaranteed next month. Then give me a fifty percent discount for our sessions. Hell, just deduct the cost of our pep talks from your earnings. I like you, Doc. Maybe I’ll try to get you some IPO the next big opportunity from Marty Friedman’s group.”

  “Max.” I sighed. “I appreciate it, I do. But let’s stick to talking about you.”

  “That’s what I like about you, Doc. It’s always about me.”

  Had to love Max. He was quick on the uptake. A few minutes later, Max cut out to take an incoming call from his stockbroker.

  The bakery’s yeast and flour scent flowed into the room upon the wind rustling through the plane trees beyond my window. And for the first time in a long time I felt simple and true hunger, irrespective of the hour, rise from my belly to my throat. A few more minutes and then it was time to regroup before connecting via the ping-pong ringtone to Gillian St. James, a divorced Manhattan lawyer contemplating marriage to a pathological liar and cheater.