by Betsy Draine
“Sure, if that’s how you feel. But I only meant it as a compliment,” she said with widened eyes. “I’m proud of you.”
That softened me up. “Well, I’m proud of you too. Have they questioned you yet?”
“Still waiting, but Sister Glenda and Toby are done. Do you mind if I get back to you in a sec? I was in the middle of something with Roe-bare.”
She returned to the counter. I looked around the room. Toby and Maggie were talking quietly in a corner. The De Groots were whispering to each other in Dutch. Everybody else was reading, trying to ignore the situation. One of the teenagers rose to give me his seat. I took it gratefully; I’d used up a lot of energy in that interrogation room. I got out my Kindle and tried to concentrate on reading, but I couldn’t help stealing glances at my sister and Sergeant Navré.
The day was nearly gone by the time we were released, but when the van rolled up to the hotel, Maggie proposed a walk. Sitting on a hard chair in a police waiting room had given me restless legs, so I literally jumped at the chance. So did Shelley, Jane, and Klara de Groot. We wanted a change from talk about murder. We leaped from our seats and within minutes had changed our shoes, grabbed fleeces, and bounced downstairs to meet outside the entrance.
When I got there, Jane Curry was telling the others about the foliage. Emmet was turning in circles with impatience. Maggie pushed his rear to the ground and told him to sit. Jane stood a few yards back from the front steps, looking up at the face of the hotel, where leafy vines streaked with magenta grew high enough to drape the portico. “Oh, yes, you’ll see bougainvillea all over this region, even growing wild on the roadside,” she explained in answer to a question from Shelley. “At this time of year, the blossoms give a nice show of color, but the flowering is thin compared to what it will be in spring.” Small as she was, Jane had a strong presence when she was sharing her expertise.
Emmet was eager to go, pulling at his leash, but Maggie restrained him in deference to Jane. “And it’s a shame we’ll miss the wisteria,” Jane continued. Despite the name of our hotel (Hotel des Glycines means Hotel Wisteria), it wasn’t the season for them. Woody vines on the north side of the building were entirely bare. Jane walked to the wisteria vines, and we followed. “They’re ugly in winter, aren’t they? Someone was clever enough to compensate, though. See there.” She pointed to below the clay roofline, where there was a painted strip, a repetitive pattern of purple swags of wisteria against a pale pink background. “Isn’t that clever? When the vines are bare, you can look up at the painted border to see what you’re missing. But, Maggie, watch Emmet around the vines. Wisteria berries are poisonous.”
“You must be joking. Those vines look like they’re about to keel over themselves.”
“Don’t be fooled,” Jane warned. “We see it fairly often back home. A cat or dog is found in the morning . . .”
“Dead?”
“Too often. If they’re lucky, it’s just an upset stomach. They eat the berries, sometimes when they’re ripe on the vines in autumn, or in winter when they’re dried and lying on the ground. Even two seeds can make your animal sick.”
“Thanks for the warning. I’ll keep my lad away from them.” Maggie tugged on Emmet’s leash and pulled him away from the wall.
“I had no idea the plant world could be so dangerous,” I said. “Foxglove. Wisteria. What else should we be worried about?”
“If I see anything else along our walk, I’ll point it out,” said Jane.
Klara wanted to take a recommended path from Saint-Paul to a fifteenth-century chapel near Vence, but the sun was setting, and we didn’t have more than an hour till dark. Klara looked athletic enough to complete the circuit in that amount of time, but it would take Shelley, Jane, and me much longer. Maybe Maggie could do it. Her well-worn walking boots belonged to a serious hiker. In deference to the less fit majority, we scaled back our mission. Taking a back trail to the village, we headed for the cemetery and Marc Chagall’s grave. Though Maggie and I had seen it, the others had not. On the way, we passed olive trees, cypresses, and pines. Our mouths watered at fruit-burdened orange trees. The splashy mimosa, in tree and bush forms, astonished all but this California girl. (I have to admit, their pompom blossoms are extravagantly yellow.) Stone walls were dotted with winter roses. Gardens were hedged by bushes thick with berries. And all along the way, Jane kept up her running commentary on the flora.
She came to a halt as we approached a stand of blue flowers poking up from a cluster of bushes. “Now there’s a really dangerous plant,” she announced. “As pretty as it looks, it’s one of the deadliest plants in the world. That’s monkshood.” Each bulbous flower, on its tall stem, resembled the cowl of a monk’s robe as it swayed in the breeze. Jane grasped Maggie by the hand that held Emmet’s leash and guided them both to the side of the trail farthest away from the wildflowers. “Don’t let him near them. One touch could be the end of him. And if the poison gets into your system, it could be the end of you too.”
“They look so innocent,” protested Maggie.
“That’s why they’re so dangerous,” said Jane. She stood still for a moment. “I was just thinking of Isabelle La Font. You know, the strangest thing is that monkshood almost always kills, but its antidote is digitalis. Isn’t that odd? Foxglove and monkshood are both poisonous, yet one plant can save you from the other.”
Klara observed, “There’s a lot we don’t know about drug interactions. Or doses. In the right dose, digitalis is beneficial for those who need it. In the wrong dose it’s a poison. That’s true of the world of chemicals in general. It’s the basis of homeopathy. That’s how Dr. Gachet was using foxglove. A small amount of a potentially harmful substance can be used for good.”
“And the wrong amount for . . .”
“Evil,” said Jane, finishing my sentence.
We were nearing the entry to the village, where the streets are narrow, so we paired off. I stayed with Jane, hoping to repair the damage of Toby’s quarrel with her husband.
“How’s Bruce doing?” I asked.
“Not so well. He was rattled by his interview with that detective.”
“Nobody likes to be interviewed by the police. We all need a walk like this to renew our spirits.”
“I’m afraid that won’t do for Bruce. He broods about this sort of thing, and when he broods, he gets more and more distraught. That could make him look even more suspicious to the police. To tell you the truth, as worried as I am, I was glad to leave him to go walking. It doesn’t help to talk with him when he’s like this.”
I tried to be comforting. “It’ll come out all right.”
“I hope so. It’s about the bloody foxglove. I was the one who grew it for his talk. I never should have done it.”
“Do you still think someone took it from your room?”
“I can’t be sure. Bruce had nothing to do with harming anyone. I’m sure of that.”
The walk up to the graveyard shuffled us, and I crossed through the gate with Klara. We were the first to reach the grave. Beneath Chagall’s name on the gray slab of stone, someone had placed a red, glass-blown heart in homage. It hadn’t been there yesterday.
“Someone who loves Chagall,” I observed. “So do I. Do you?”
Klara shrugged indifferently. “I’m not that familiar with him. That’s my husband’s department.”
“But you come to his conferences.”
“And your husband comes to yours,” she replied. “Does he always?”
“That depends on the location,” I answered honestly. “We both like France, and Toby has an interest in art. You don’t?”
She pursed her lips. “It’s not at the top of my list. Van Gogh is the exception. In the Netherlands he’s a national hero, you know.” Klara pronounced the name as “Van Goch,” or something like that, instead of using the French or American pronunciation of “Van Go.”
“As well he should be,” I said.
“Not that Hans attends any of my confe
rences,” she continued, with a sour smile. “The difference is, I can follow a paper on art, but he can’t follow a paper on chemistry. In any case, he doesn’t like to travel alone.”
“Neither do I,” I admitted. “I’d much rather have Toby with me.” We started to walk back. “Do you go to a lot of chemistry conferences?”
“I have to choose carefully, or I would never get my own work done. But yes. I have a talk to give next month in Tokyo.”
“And you’ll go by yourself ?”
“Unlike my husband, I don’t mind. In fact, I rather enjoy being by myself.” She strode ahead of me briskly, as if bored by the conversation. I didn’t try to keep up.
We returned to the hotel under dim light, realizing we were late for dinner. Rather than miss a course, we decided to defy dress codes and dine in our hiking clothes. Entering the dining room, I saw Professor Curry towering over a seated Sister Glenda and pushing his finger into her breastbone. She was leaning back, protesting, “I did not! You’re mistaken.”
Emmet ran up, yipped, and started jumping on Curry. Toby, who’d been sitting with Sister Glenda and Angie, rose to his feet, as Jane rushed to her husband’s side. She pulled at his arm. “Bruce, stop! What’s going on?”
“You know what’s going on,” answered Curry, glaring at Sister Glenda. To Toby he said, “You and this nun turned the detectives against me, blaming me for the foxglove. So what if I brought it to France? I lost it—I didn’t use it. Not to kill that woman. Somebody stole it from me.”
“I didn’t say you killed anyone,” said Toby.
“Neither did I,” said Glenda, adjusting her posture now that Curry had backed off.
Curry turned on me. “Then it was you. You told the police about the foxglove, didn’t you? You did, didn’t you?” He lunged at me, but Toby cut him off, pinning his arms to his side. Emmet jumped left and right, first scratching at Curry’s shins, then at Toby’s.
“Stop it! Stop it!” cried Jane.
“Let me go!” yelled Curry.
“I will if you promise to calm down,” said Toby. “Nobody’s accusing you of anything, okay? Will you try to get hold of yourself ?”
“Let me go, damn it.”
“I’m going to, all right? Just say that you’ll stop swinging.”
Curry grunted.
“All right?” said Toby.
I moved away. Maggie got control of Emmet.
Toby counted to three, then opened his arms and stepped back out of range. Curry slumped down on a chair. Jane put her arms around his shoulders and pleaded with him in a low voice. “Come away,” she said. “Let’s go upstairs, Bruce. Please, dear. Come away.”
The room had fallen silent. It stayed that way until the Currys reached the stairs.
Hours could pass without us talking. He would paint, I would watch. I didn’t know anyone could paint so fast. Vincent could begin a painting in the morning and finish it in the afternoon. During that summer he made sketches of all of us and several paintings too. I recall one painting he did of René before he left town, showing him in a red jacket while he was fishing from a small boat. The jacket belonged to me. Vincent insisted René should wear it because he refused to paint him in his cowboy outfit, which Vincent detested. When the girls came up from Paris that time, he painted them sitting on the riverbank, one of them next to me. René used that painting for target practice, though Vincent never knew that. What became of the others, I don’t know. Except for the last one he ever painted. What became of that one I know all too well.
6
DANIEL DIDIER AND JACQUES GODARD were presenters the next morning. When Angie heard their talks would be in French, she dropped out in favor of shopping. Toby decided this was his morning to play boules. I must say, I also had some apprehension about the talks. Their topics were heavily theoretical. Didier’s title was “The Self under Erasure: The Disappearance of the Ear in Van Gogh’s Self-Portraits.” Godard’s paper was called “In-Self and For-Self in Van Gogh’s Self-Portraits: A Dialogue with Daniel Didier.” Godard and Didier often gave papers in tandem, leaving the impression they were talking to themselves.
“I call them Gogo and Didi,” Maggie confided, as we were taking our seats. “They talk and talk, but nothing ever happens.” She touched her heart in a gesture of mock contrition. “Aren’t I awful?”
They seemed an odd pair. Didier was sixtyish, tall, and slender, with a full head of dark hair. In his Italian-styled suit, he was nothing short of dashing. Godard was smaller, younger, stooped, and balding. Up-to-the-second red-rimmed glasses called attention to a florid complexion. A brown cashmere sweater sagged over his hollow chest.
I found my mind wandering soon after Didier began his talk. I recalled that awkward moment in the restaurant when Isabelle approached his table and bent down for a kiss. What had been the reason for his cool response?
After an hour, when Didier showed no sign of concluding, Maggie leaned toward me and moaned, “He can’t go on. He must go on. He goes on.” When we were mercifully released for a coffee break, she asked me, “How much of that did you get?”
“I got the words, but the sentences flew into the ether.”
“I believe that’s the point. The imagery was colorful. But there were a bit too many disappearances and reappearances, didn’t you think? For a while there I thought I was at a séance.” I glanced around for eavesdroppers, but people were focused on the coffee.
We took our seats, and Maggie was at it again. “Theorists,” she complained. “And here comes the other one.”
We sat patiently as Jacques Godard repeated much of what Didier had said, a little more softly. That seemed to be the essence of Jacques. He was the lesser Didier. Less clever, less emphatic, and, blessedly, less long-winded.
Didier had arranged for one of his graduate students to be installed on the program as a commentator. This was the only session that had one. The young man’s name was Thierry Toussaint. He spoke in English, which gave me hope I’d get a grasp on the previous two talks. In a high-pitched voice, he lauded his mentors and rehashed their papers, claiming that their dialogue shed light on a point that someone I’d never heard of had made about something complex. The obfuscation part he got down pat. This was Toussaint’s professional debut and surely would be listed on his résumé. He seemed a decent enough sort, good-looking too. Godspeed, I thought. These days it was tough to land an academic job.
I gave him kudos when I saw how deftly he managed the question period. He had a knack for shutting down a questioner’s diatribe by nodding vigorously and then pointing to Didier, who was always glad to take the floor. When Didier had worn out the audience, Toussaint would look to Godard and ask, “But Jacques, are you in accord?”
The questions began to clarify the talk for me, but I noticed they were getting sharper. The room began to buzz when Professor Curry started in on Didier, accusing him of hiding a flimsy argument under a scaffolding of critical jargon. It was just as well that Toby wasn’t there to fuel his irritation. Ray Montoni popped from his front-row seat and announced that time was up. “The shuttles are waiting, people. You’ll have plenty of time to talk with Daniel and Jacques over lunch.”
Maggie leaned toward me and said, “I think I’ll call him Theory-Thierry.”
“Come on,” I said. “I like him. He started out bowing and scraping, but when he took over as moderator, he stood up to Didier and let the room take him down. You could see the kid coming into his own, right before your eyes.”
“He’s not such a kid,” said Maggie. “Let me have him for one night and he’ll be all grown up, with a voice an octave lower.”
“Let’s duck down to the women’s room,” I said. I wanted to get Maggie away from the others, since she was in such a provocative mood. But she kept up the patter, even between stalls.
There was time before lunch to go up to our rooms, and I found Toby in ours, bundling up jackets and sweaters. “Hey, how was your morning?” he asked.
“Mi
ddling. You and Angie made the right decision.”
“Well, I hope you like our next decision. We’re skipping today’s excursion. We’re going to drive the Grande Corniche.”
“You and Angie?”
“You’re coming too.”
“But I want to see the Chagall Museum. Don’t you?”
“We can see it after the conference is over. That’s what our extra week is for.”
“What about lunch?”
“We’ll stay for lunch, then take the van with the others to Nice. I was going to pick up the car in Nice on Monday. We’ll just get it a few days early. Then it’s off to the cliff road and a bird’s-eye view of the Riviera.”
“We’ll have to rush. It gets dark early.”
“We can do it. When the sun goes down we’ll find a restaurant by the water, have a good meal, and get back here before bedtime.”
That sounded great, but I was worried about my paper. “I hope so. I’m giving my talk in the morning.”
“How ’bout if I get you back by ten?”
I signed up. We knocked on Angie’s door, heard she’d convinced Glenda to join us, and hurried down to the dining room. I looked around for Maggie, and, wouldn’t you know, she had pulled up a chair next to Theory-Thierry. Who knows what she might have gotten up to if Sister Glenda, with Angie in tow, hadn’t put herself right opposite them. Mother superiors have instincts about that sort of thing.
In the shuffle of seating, Toby and I joined Jacques Godard for lunch. His soft-spoken manner played better at our table than it had at the Maeght lectern. We started with small talk about Toulouse, where he was a lecturer, and Bergerac, where he was born. Toby told him about our trip from Bordeaux to the Dordogne Valley a few years back. All the while I was looking for a chance to ask him about Didier. If anyone here knew what Didier’s relationship was to Isabelle La Font, it was Jacques.
I made a few obligatory remarks about his paper, then asked about his work with Didier.
“You know, the world of art criticism is very small in France. Everyone knows everyone. The graduates of Paris stick together. Daniel and I share the fate of being ‘provincial.’ Until recently, the universities of Bordeaux and Toulouse were beneath notice by the Parisian elite. At any rate, Daniel and I are close geographically, and that allows us to meet often.”
