Le Mariage

by Diane Johnson

  She asked about his American sister-in-law, whom she knew slightly, and was told she was well. She tried to think who else they might know in common. She complimented his backhand. She mentioned a trade dispute that threatened to deprive Americans of Vuitton handbags.

  “What are you working on, Monsieur Cray?” asked Madame de Persand. “Can we expect another film? I expect you detest being asked about that.”

  “Not at all, madame,” said Cray, who was being heavily genial and neighborly. “I am making a film about American right-wing protest. Of course it’s more complicated than that. About little people in barns and covens, planning to hide from the black helicopters. People storing up food for the millennium when the world comes apart. Vast tracts of land in Montana and Idaho where the guns are cached. The Rapture—trying to get all of this in. A film about America. Modest-sounding?”

  He laughed, and his strange, smart eyes watched the listeners, gauging his effect. His effect was to silence the rest of them for a moment. Clara could hear the practiced paragraphs of a pitch, as though they were a group of studio heads. Not that Serge was obliged to pitch to studio heads. They let him do what he wanted, if he would only do it.

  “Who do you hope for the stars?” Trudi de Persand asked eventually.

  Cray frowned.

  “‘Whom’, chérie,” said Suzanne de Persand. “In English one says ‘whom’ at the beginning of a sentence. For.some reason.”

  “Whom,” repeated Trudi in the resigned tone of someone who knows she will never really speak this foreign language.

  “Are you in sympathy with all these people, or against them?” Antoine asked Cray.

  “I suppose my ambivalence will show. There’s much to admire in them, and much to fear. Much that is creepy, scary, and much that is noble. Fanaticism has its noble side.” His voice took on an interviewed intonation.

  “Difficult to agree with that, monsieur,” mused Persand. “Fanaticism seems always bad.”

  “Delia has taught me a lot. She’s in the thick of it.” Cray smiled at her. “Especially the Y2K thing. She thinks the world is going to end at the end of 1999.”

  “Well, not really. I don’t know what to think,” Delia said. “There’s plenty of evidence, people who look into it. I just don’t have that much of a tendency to think about it. Some people are more religious and spiritual than others. If the world ended tomorrow, I’d just think, shit, I never got my hip fixed. But I respect their concerns.”

  “Whom would like some more moules? Will you have some?” asked Trudi, getting up and moving toward the kitchen.

  “Fanaticism is always ugly—and, finally, futile, does not history show?” Antoine went on, with the merest undecipherable glance at his wife.

  “Not at all. History shows that eventually it works,” Serge said.

  “Of course America does not feel an interest in history, I realize that,” said Persand.

  “We have history,” objected Delia.

  “It’s not fair to speak of ‘America,’ ” objected Clara at the same time. “It’s so big and various.”

  “That’s right,” agreed Tim. “Europeans tend to think of it as one place.”

  “Where is the real America located, then?” asked Madame de Persand with polite interest. “Washington, I suppose. Or New York?”

  “Oh no!” cried Delia and Clara and Serge separately.

  “No one agrees,” Tim explained. “There are so many Amer icas. Europeans don’t realize this. It’s something I’ve tried to write about.”

  “Perhaps that’s why no one seems to take responsibility for America’s more mischievous doings,” mused Madame de Persand. “If you ask Americans about what their country has done in Bosnia or Vietnam, they just stare at you, as if to say, what could it possibly have to do with them?”

  “I always used to think the reason I didn’t feel guilty for American problems was because of being brought up in Europe,” Tim said. “But in college I realized that no one feels guilty for the behavior of America because it’s so big. Everyone is so far away from the policymakers. America is too vast to generate much solidarity.”

  “He means we each feel the problem is all the other assholes—the Southerners, or New Yorkers. But Europeans think we are all the same—all assholes.” Cray laughed.

  “You are not familiar with moules perhaps, mademoiselle? I urge you to try one,” said Suzanne to Delia, noticing her plate still heaped with mussels in their shells. Perhaps she wanted to avert a serious discussion.

  “I have this shellfish allergy,” Delia said. “We have mussels in Oregon. They grow in Oregon.”

  “Really?” said Madame de Persand.

  “Give them to me,” said Serge and pulled her plate nearer himself. Clara could not look at him lifting the shells and popping the gruesome little gobbets of flesh into his mouth.

  “I was wrong to say history. Perhaps it is memory that America does not seem to have,” began Antoine. “She seems to live in the now.”

  “We are having pheasant. They were just brought in, but perhaps they should have been hung,” said Suzanne, persisting in changing the subject. “We shall see.”

  Clara in her mind’s eye saw the hanging of pheasants in the butcher’s window, their shimmering breasts dulled, their crests limp and eyes unseeing. Could it be Antoine who shot these pheasants? Her throat suddenly felt very dry, so that the food was hard to swallow. Was this some sort of joke or criticism of their attitudes to hunting? Or had they simply not reflected? She did not eat. Her mind drifted into a reverie of being somewhere else, alone with him.

  When she returned her attention to the table, Antoine was saying to Serge, “My idea is to sell you some hectares at my back, which will expand your holdings into safe territory. I can spare two or three without myself coming under the twenty-hectares limit, and it would just suffice for you.”

  “That’s a damned generous thing,” Serge said, startled.

  “I don’t mean to make you a gift of it, to be sure.” Antoine smiled. “Land in this region is expensive. It would set you back some.”

  Suzanne and Trudi were staring at him in disbelief.

  “Mais, c‘est vrai, this is not the moment—we can discuss—another time.” He seemed suddenly embarrassed to have made public this handsome offer, as if asking for his good nature to be noticed. Or perhaps he was unnerved by the disapproving astonishment of his wife and his mother.

  “It’s a good idea,” Serge said. “That could checkmate the mayor nicely.”

  39

  A Walk in the Woods

  As all French Sunday lunches must, so this one ended in going for a walk, the obligatory brisk, restorative, health-preserving tramp, whether along country lanes or adjacent green spaces, around a park, or even in the street if one is stuck in the city. Even Cray was bound by this imperative. The party set out together into the public forêt between the Persands’ and the village of Etang-la-Reine. Now, by common consent, conviviality was no longer required. Civilization understands the limits of its dominion. Digestion, intimate confidences, personal reflections, and the need to sober up have their places too. In the perfect freedom of after lunch, they fell into knots of two or three according to their pace and interests, trailed, separated, wandered off one by one. Suzanne de Persand had changed her shoes for a pair of mud boots from the hall, and botanized at a leisurely pace along the paths with Garance and Delia, telling Delia the French names of things.

  She had not recovered, apparently, from the shock of Antoine’s offer to sell a hectare or so of land to Cray. It was clear he hadn’t mentioned it beforehand. She was pensive, markedly less animated. Her experience had taught her to associate Americans with trouble, and here were more Americans.

  Trudi de Persand walked briskly with Tim and Anne-Sophie, then fell back to let her mother-in-law catch up. Cray walked for a time with Persand, perhaps discussing the land sale, then, Tim saw, struck off to find his car.

  “Let’s go back to Etang-l
a-Reine to the stables and rent some horses, just for an hour or two,” Anne-Sophie proposed to Tim. “It would be so nice to ride, and we could go all the way to the grands rochers,” the site of great boulders deposited by some ancient glacier in the center of the forest. Though Tim was not especially fond of riding, he had no objection beyond the danger to Anne-Sophie of riding one-armed. She was scornful of his concern: “Riding stable horses? Nonsense, pas de probleme.”

  They debated the direction of Etang-la-Reine. Anne-Sophie’s sense of direction was not good, but her feeling about which direction they ought to go was strong, and completely at odds with Tim’s. He pointed out that as it was well past three in the afternoon, the sun would soon be lowering in the west, in the direction of the village, i.e., the other direction from the one she wanted to go. Tim as usual prevailed, but now it could be said, somewhat to his relief, it was too late to go riding. The nights were coming early, it was nearly December after all.

  They were startled by a low growl and a snap of twigs in front of them in the underbrush. Tim, who was ahead on the path, stopped, putting up his hand to signal Anne-Sophie to stay back. At first he couldn’t see the source of the menacing noise, but then, through the heavy bushes, he did make out people, a man and woman frozen in alarm, and one of Cray’s Rottweilers, in his heavy leather muzzle, crouching nearly at Tim’s feet, eyeing them. It turned its eyes to Tim and again to its prey, back and forth, uncertain about its course of action.

  Tim understood that he had happened to make the gesture that controlled the beast. When he lowered his arm, the dog crouched lower and prepared anew to rush the luckless pair in the brambles; when he held his hand immobile in this way, up, the creature froze on its haunches, its eyes never leaving Tim’s hand. The animal must have associated Tim with Cray, with the maître-chien, with the other white hats of the place, and was prepared to take orders from him.

  “Stay still,” he said to Anne-Sophie, who had crept near enough to see what he had seen. For a second Tim was filled with dread that they would see him there and think he was a spy. She made a moue and mimed a giggle. The figures in the shrubbery slipped hastily away.

  Only seconds had elapsed. The maître-chien came up the path behind them, whistling for the dog.

  “Ça va?”

  “Ça va, gentil chien.”

  “Could you see who it was?” Tim asked Anne-Sophie. Anne-Sophie had had an impression of khaki pantalons and white shirt on the one figure, dove gray top and black pants on the other; the two people were to anyone with clothes memory perfectly recognizable.

  “Pas vraiment,” she said. It amused her at first—she remembered Tim’s story of seeing the two at the Tennis Club Marne-Garches-la-Tour. But then she thought of plays by Feydeau, where the naughty and guilty married people are always popping out of closets and crawling under beds, and this was called French farce. Alors, why French?

  A feeling of deep uneasiness came over her. French people in and out of closets, whereas in an American play the wife was always in tears, with no friend but a dog or cat, and she was always a drug addict or an alcoholic. So, would you rather be the wife in a French play or an American one? Should an American man and a French wife settle beforehand which kind of play they were in? What kind of play were the American Madame Cray and the French Antoine de Persand about to open in? And she, Anne-Sophie, didn’t want to be in a play at all, but in the life that was soon to begin, of real mariage.

  What was it that made you desire one woman above another, Tim asked himself guiltily, and what made her desire another man above you? Something more than beauty, something infinitely chemical and resonant of past encounters, dreams, early imprints—it was out of your control. What made you act in a way you clearly did not intend to act? Were the people in the woods about to act in a way they didn’t intend?

  Cray had taken his car and gone, so Tim and Anne-Sophie drove Delia back to the Crays’ house. Delia was ebullient; she had evidently enjoyed the afternoon, the neighboring house with its orderly grandeur, and the salad. She had also enjoyed the walk.

  “I must have walked two miles. Did you notice that? I couldn’t have done that two weeks ago. It’s definitely working.”

  “Working?”

  “Going to the Louvre. I’ve been doing it for a week now. If I could do it another week, I know the improvement would definitely be permanent.”

  The idea of the improving powers of art made Tim laugh, and he found himself wanting to tell Clara about it; the funniness wasn’t something Anne-Sophie would see.

  When they got to the Crays‘, Tim was surprised to see his friend Cees—there was his official-looking small Renault parked by the front door, and Cees himself standing leaning against it, and another car, in which Gabriel sat in the backseat. Delia rushed over to him. The driver did not seem alarmed at the approach of a screaming young woman.

  “I waited in hopes you were coming here,” Cees said.

  “You didn’t say you’d be in Paris. What’s up?”

  “I rang your apartment. Also here, but someone said you were out.”

  “Paris weekend? Is Marta with you?”

  “No, no, business. We came to pick up your captive, on suspicion of stealing the manuscript. If he won’t tell you, he may be induced to talk to us. It appears there’s enough hanging over his head to keep him on a few other charges for at least a few days. I began to feel he wasn’t going to make any move toward Cray.”

  “Where are you taking him?”

  “The warrant was issued in Amsterdam, we’ll keep him there. We have the permission of the French.”

  “But ...” Tim was stunned, he hadn’t realized Cees would or could do this.

  “God damn you,” screamed Delia at Tim.

  Tim was appalled. He, Tim, had in effect set the guy up. He hadn’t meant to do that. It had the taste of treason, of tattletale, of teacher’s pet, of collaboration—all the tainted and despised stances a man avoids. Not that he condoned lawbreaking, but informer was just not a role he saw himself in. Yet he realized that all along he had been informing, by keeping Cees informed. How had he not thought Cees would be acting professionally? He was aghast.

  “I think he’s just the seller,” Cees said. “Not the thief.”

  “He hasn’t sold it, though,” Tim said. “What has he done really?”

  “No, we’re saving him from himself.” Cees laughed. “If he helps us recover it, we’ll have little to charge him with, and things may go a bit easier on the American weapons charges. That’s the something in the past, apparently.”

  Anne-Sophie was also shocked. She came up to remonstrate with Tim and Cees. “But he is a nice young man, he spent days in the grenier at Clignancourt. I knew he was there, and I did not turn him in. Not exactly. I kept watch. But obviously he was not the murderer. He did not interfere or harm in any way. It’s awful to turn someone in”—here she remembered that she had in effect apprehended him in her attic—“the people who did that in the war, for example.”

  “I didn’t turn him in. I don’t know that he’s done anything,” said Tim miserably. “What would I turn him in for?”

  “What a jerk!” Delia limped toward him, denouncing him in high wailing tones. “You never said you were working with the police.” She began to cry.

  “But I’m not,” Tim protested. “I just—Cees is my old friend, we talk all the time.”

  “It may be nothing, young lady,” said Cees, “but if you would be candid about what you know of his business, it could help him. Ah—is this Anne-Sophie?”

  “No, this is Delia, a friend of Gabriel’s from America. This is Anne-Sophie. This is Cees, my friend from Amsterdam.”

  “Bonjour, onsieur,” said Anne-Sophie in an unfriendly tone.

  “This is horrible, he was so happy, he was safe, he’d been hounded—” Delia went on.

  “He had not been hounded,” Cees said. “Whatever impelled him to hide out all this time, it was not the police—he was twice interviewed
and released.”

  “I suppose we should look in the suitcase,” Tim said. “It’s in the trunk.” Determined to be forthright, and hoping to find the rare manuscript before their eyes, he brought it into the kitchen and opened it, with Cees, Delia, and Anne-Sophie crowding round. Razor, change of underwear, toothbrush, several book catalogues. Nothing at all incriminating.

  “What did I tell you?” Delia said.

  40

  The American State of Mind

  Over the next days Delia’s rage continued to erupt, an immoderate fury, frantic and shrill, but not really directed at Tim; she had accepted his apology, she apologized, saying she knew he hadn’t been trying to betray Gabriel. She was on the telephone constantly, or closeted with Cray, who began to turn into a Gabriel partisan. In the course of the many phone calls—it appeared they were to her colleagues the antiquarians of Sweet Home, Oregon—it was decided that now she would have to stay longer in France to help Gabriel. What good luck that she had a free room. The antiquarians would send money, Sara Towne would shoulder the burdens of the boutique without Delia, everyone in Oregon appeared to agree it was for a good cause. Forby Anderson who had connections in the legal profession was getting the names of some international lawyers in Paris. No one was quite sure about the fee of such a person; the solidarity eroded a little there. But probably Gabriel himself could raise the money, or had the money to pay it back, or—what was never said—he would after he sold whatever it was he had been going to sell Monsieur Boudherbe.

  Of her private devotion to Gabriel, Delia said little. Tim and Cray were allowed to speak to him once, from the jail in Amsterdam, and to his Dutch lawyer, who spoke to them guardedly. The lawyer was also a friend of Cees, so there was a clubby, almost gentlemanly thing about everything surrounding Gabriel’s incarceration.

  “What worries him is extradition,” said this Dutch lawyer. “Though the Americans have not yet asked for it. Why would he be worried about extradition, if he’s innocent? He seems especially afraid of the FBI.”