by Ivo Fornesa
Lost in these thoughts, he walked through the château’s magnificent gates, with one girl’s hand in each of his own and the third hanging onto his jacket. Suddenly he felt himself being watched. He turned and saw the farmer, still staring at them with a scowl of deepest loathing.
Fortunately, he was distracted by the Great Dane, who gave a woof and set off bounding happily across the château grounds, unaware that the crafty Chimay was trying to snatch his morsel – a vivid illustration that many a romantic betrayal is due less to the villainy of the usurper than to the cluelessness of the usurpee.
As he walked on, Laurent saw that the château was in a frenzy of construction, especially the exteriors and the garden, where several workers struggled to move heavy blocks of stone.
Mayumi and the strikingly beautiful nanny led the way, walking close together and talking softly, until a third Asian woman came running to Mayumi with a worried look on her face and interrupted the conversation. Shennan’s wife, always mindful of her guest, motioned for him to follow the girls up the stairs to the large northern entrance. The girls, meanwhile, wouldn’t let go of him, tugging on his arm to lead him to their room so they could show him the fossils they’d unearthed during construction. So he had no choice but to let himself be led, while the nanny followed along behind.
The terrace was impressive: it was a huge space of over five hundred square yards, with two doors at the end, one on either side of a central tower. A smaller door, presumably the oldest and perhaps original entrance, led to the tower, no doubt with a cramped spiral staircase.
Laurent suddenly felt a powerful curiosity about what the château looked like from the inside – along with a desire to explore it hand-in-hand with the nanny. Yet Laurent was not naive: by then he knew all too well that the peace of his recent days would soon be little more than a memory. A sixth sense warned him that trouble loomed on the horizon.
IN THE GUEST ROOM
Laurent didn’t know how the château would be decorated. He half-expected to find a faithfully restored façade with an enormous exhibition of modern art on the inside, complete with some impossibly uncomfortable designer furniture. These stray thoughts were interrupted when a swarm of servants, all impeccably liveried for their duties, came to open the door for them. At first he felt flattered by what he assumed was an inordinate amount of attention lavished on him, as a guest, but he quickly realised that the maids and footmen were all looking expectantly at Madame Mayumi, who had just crossed the terrace and entered the hall, trailed by the other Asian woman who had gone out to find her. Once inside, the servants crowded around, all requiring something of her and jostling to speak with her before the others.
She calmed them down in a professional tone of voice, or so it seemed to Laurent, though since she spoke a different language with each one, he understood very little. Once she’d reassured the surprisingly large retinue, she issued orders to the nanny to take her daughters upstairs. Before they left, they first made Laurent promise he would indeed visit their room. Then Madame Mayumi excused herself in turn, as she apparently had to go straight to the kitchen to see to some culinary crisis or other.
Laurent, suddenly alone, stood for a few seconds watching her leave, when he felt someone else tugging at his sleeve. He was surprised to see a fourth Asian woman, one who introduced herself as Miss Xiao Li, Mr Shennan’s personal secretary. In fluent English she asked him to follow her to a room where he could change clothes so that she could have his washed. Afterwards, she assured him, she would take him to the hunting room for tea with her employer’s wife.
As he followed her, he studied her: she was rail-thin, almost brittle, but her eyes contained a world of suspicion. She gave off a scent of clothing that had grown old as she’d worn it. To break the silence, which had inexplicably turned hostile and thick, Laurent tried to make small talk, but the only thing that occurred to him was to praise Madame Mayumi. This was met with an ill-disguised scepticism and a cold, clipped reply. He could easily see, from the way she referred to her, that she felt no affection for her employer’s wife. Once he overcame his initial surprise, however, he quickly came up with one possible explanation: as her name indicated, clearly the secretary was Chinese, and ever since the Rape of Nanking in 1937, successive governments had sought to instil in their people a hatred of all things Japanese (even as they welcomed their neighbours’ investments with open arms). On further reflection, Laurent decided that Xiao Li’s antipathy toward Madame Mayumi probably had other causes, and he recalled a psychological condition aptly called ‘secretary’s syndrome’, which would explain the murky mix of subservience, admiration and idolatry he suspected she felt for her boss.
After all his attempts to strike up a conversation ended in failure, Laurent decided to follow Shennan’s secretary in silence. They crossed several rooms and eventually climbed a steep spiral staircase that the French call a colimaçon, or snail. On the stairs Laurent noticed two things: first, that Xiao Li, despite her thinness, had fantastic legs; and second, that he was entirely mistaken in his intuitions about the château’s interior design. Everything he saw, in the way it was arranged, indicated that whoever decorated the place not only had good taste but was a consummate connoisseur. Nothing clashed, everything was soothing and harmonious, with the unmistakable aroma that comes from a mixture of the ancient, the beautiful and the good, combined with the obviously expensive. As he proceeded through the house he admired pillowy eighteenth-century French and Spanish rugs; Flemish and Gobelin tapestries depicting mythological and sylvan scenes; sideboards inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl that held marvellous religious sculptures with exceptional patinas; and a panoply of arms, including one set that particularly caught his attention – a collection of intricate swords and daggers of Hindustani origin, as he read on their bronze plaque. Sadly, though, he had no time for such artistic contemplation, for the secretary had already climbed the stairs with the nimbleness of a lemur, and he had to make an effort to follow her and not lose his breath.
When they reached the third floor, Xiao Li opened the door to a bedroom – one of the guest rooms, she explained, where he could change once suitable clothing had been brought. Just as Madame Mayumi had predicted, he was exactly the same size as Monsieur Shennan.
Once alone, Laurent took a leisurely look at his surroundings. The bedroom was unusually large and seemed to revolve around a fireplace big enough to comfortably roast a Bactrian camel. If Shennan’s aim was make his guests feel transported to the very essence of castle life, then he deserved a medal, maybe one of those brutal Soviet badges that Russian generals use to hide their vodka stains.
Curiously, the complete set of furniture added an unexpected note of warmth, though the first-time visitor’s eyes could see only the English bed with its enormous canopy and columns so exquisitely carved they left no groove for the turner’s gouge. Laurent approached to better appreciate the detailed work in the wood, when he noticed a tray of spirits thoughtfully placed next to the wing chair over a Tabriz rug. It was a welcome amenity, and Laurent, of course, did not hesitate to help himself.
After pouring himself a beautiful glass of Calvados Grande Réserve, he turned to the bathroom, a perfect visual continuation of the bedroom, since the toilets and taps were of brands that specialised in reproducing classic models.
With one hand he raised the glass to his lips, while with the other he ran his hands over the fittings, pausing to consider that the showerhead alone probably cost as much as all the appliances and bathroom fittings in his vicarage. Well, what’s the point of having money if you don’t spend it? he thought. At least this individual – or whoever’s advising him – has a flawless sense of aesthetics.
Shortly thereafter, wrapped tightly in a cosy robe, Laurent turned toward the door, intending to place the hamper with all his dirty clothes and shoes in the corridor. As he did so, he thought he heard a faint childlike giggling. But that was impossible, because it came from inside the room. Yet after a momen
t he heard it again, so after setting the basket outside he walked back in, ready to inspect the room from top to bottom. Meanwhile, the giggling grew louder and louder, but Laurent still couldn’t find the source.
He was drawing back a curtain when he heard someone clearly call him by his name – and that someone was behind him. He leapt up like a startled cat, as much as his weighty, tassel-bedecked robe would let him, and found himself face-to-face with Shennan’s daughters, who stood right there, in his room, doubled over with laughter.
‘Scared you, didn’t we?’ asked one.
‘He was scared to death, you could tell,’ added the other.
‘You look funny in that robe,’ declared the youngest without compunction.
Laurent couldn’t help but laugh along with them. These girls were quite the little rascals.
‘But where did you come from? Were you hiding under the bed?’ he asked, to no avail, since their laughter prevented them from responding.
Suddenly the oldest girl silenced them with a motion of her hand. She looked at her sisters, seeming to ask them a question, and finally turned back to Laurent.
‘If we tell you a secret, do you promise not to tell anyone?’
‘What kind of secret, and why would you tell me if you’ve only just met me?’
‘Because you’re nice. And you’re like a kid inside, even if on the outside you’re a grown-up,’ explained the second one.
‘Plus you’re handsome,’ started the youngest, but she didn’t dare go on, after the fierce looks of warning from her sisters.
Laurent nodded, not knowing whether to feel flattered or offended by the girls’ words. After all, they had just called him childish and easily scared. In the end he raised his right hand and solemnly declared, ‘You have my word, lovely ladies, and I assure you your trust does me honour.’ And then he performed a palace bow, which they seemed to enjoy very much.
Then the oldest of the sisters took him by the hand in silence and proudly led him to a wooden panel in the wall that she slid aside with ease.
‘Look! I bet you’d never notice, right?’ she said with an air of satisfaction.
‘No one else knows about it, not even Mum or Dad,’ added the middle sister. ‘You and our nanny are the only ones.’
Laurent noticed right away why no one would have noticed it during the restoration work. In front of the panel stood an ancient silver processional lamp that rested at an angle on the floor, attached by a thick chain to the upper edge of the wainscoting above the panel.
Both this panel and those on either side were quite thick, and as they were in good condition, the restorers had had to do nothing more than clean and wax them, so no one had discovered the secret door.
Laurent leant down for a closer look: behind the panel was a steep, narrow tunnel carved out of the stone, through which only a very slight person could fit, like the girls or their nanny, the one who drove Laurent mad.
‘The passage goes straight up to the toy room, next to our bedroom. Tum found it, and she opened it up and has been secretly cleaning it. Every day she sneaks out small pebbles and things in her bag, just like in the movies,’ explained the oldest girl, while the others smiled and nodded, each prouder than the last.
Laurent said their discovery was very impressive. It was hard not to feel affection for that trio of adorable little ladies, but the day was getting on, and while he would have liked to stay, he had to get going. With the excuse that he had to finish getting dressed, he suggested they retrace their steps and head back to their rooms – though this happened only after he solemnly swore, crossing his heart, that the secret would die with him. Alone again, he put on Shennan’s clothes, which, no doubt thanks to his wife’s good eye, fit him like a glove.
Once outside the room, as he shut the door, he felt someone behind him, half-hidden behind one of the enormous columns holding up the ceiling of the landing in front of the spiral staircase.
For the second time in under a half hour, he spun around, this time bumping into an attractive blonde woman of around forty whose clothing, demeanour and scent encapsulated all the poise and confidence of a born-and-bred Parisian.
‘Did I startle you?’ she asked with a half-smile, holding out her right hand to shake Laurent’s. ‘My name is Pia de La Tressondière – Carlos’s architect. I’m looking over the wiring. Carlos is set on placing a colonial baroque altar from Bolivia on this landing, but there’s not enough light,’ she explained, brandishing enormous rolls of blueprints.
Laurent found all this information excessive. Even stranger was the architect’s liberal use of the name ‘Carlos’, especially in a country like France, where nearly everyone addressed each other as monsieur or madame, and formal speech was a way of life.
As she gave him her hand, Laurent performed one of his quick but efficient visual scans. Without a doubt, the architect was a remarkable woman: she had elegance coming out her ears, with an undeniable air of a good girl from a good family, even as her expertly arranged décolletage, never seeming to go beyond the confines of decency, left two hefty mounds of tanned flesh easily discernible, sprinkled here and there with a few graceful freckles. A quick glance at her blue eyes, beautiful and hard, confirmed that this Parisian left nothing to chance, not even those two strands of hair that, while the rest sat atop her head in a bun, hung down gracefully, framing her face like the sidelocks worn by orthodox Jews.
Lastly, he noticed that on one of her meticulously manicured hands she wore a small ring with the seal of a noble family – all very French upper class, and very professional to boot. Already starting to get a sense of what Shennan was like, he had no trouble imagining his work meetings with the architect, both of them leaning over blueprints laid out on a table, while she pointed to this or that space on the paper, and he savoured the scrumptious view of her neckline opening up before his eyes like a water lily.
Laurent deduced that Madame de La Tressondière was not there by chance. He couldn’t guess the reason, but nothing in that encounter seemed like pure coincidence. What interest could she have in me? he wondered. Maybe just curiosity.
Just then, as if she’d read his mind, she asked, despite seeming to know the answer: ‘You must be the other New Worlder, I suppose.’
Laurent smiled. ‘I see that here in Berry any attempt to keep a secret or remain anonymous is futile. But yes,’ he finally answered, ‘unless there’s a third, I’m the other one. And you? You’ve got a scandalous scent of Paris about you.’
The architect couldn’t conceal a gratified look from what she understood to be a compliment. ‘How did you guess?’
Laurent, who was a professional flatterer, took his time. ‘No one but a vraie Parisienne could be so magnificently reckless as to wear heels like those in a construction site like this, with a mud pit in the yard.’
‘Merci, Monsieur,’ she said graciously. Laurent smiled to himself. ‘Actually I have boots for when I have to go outside, but inside the castle I prefer my shoes. I feel it’s a show of respect to my clients,’ explained Pia, with a look that let Laurent know without a doubt that she was a true huntress, fiercer than Artemis, with arrows by Hermès or Vuitton.
But Laurent could clearly see that he wasn’t her objective, as much as she loved the attention. No doubt she’d lassoed and brought down a larger, more interesting beast. And yet, he thought, he at least didn’t come with the cumbersome baggage of three daughters and a wife whose icy gaze could freeze the family jewels off Polyphemus. Still, he felt obliged to continue flirting. ‘Then I imagine your assortment of boots must be outstanding.’
Just as she gave a very chic laugh, an angry voice interrupted the flirtation.
‘Mademoiselle Pia, what on earth are you doing here? Need I remind you that this is a private area, and that you need to ask me personally for permission to enter? Madame Mayumi has been extremely clear on this point.’
The diminutive secretary stood in the doorway, arms akimbo, with an eely expression frightenin
g enough to send cracks through the twin moons of Planet Krypton. Her lips looked so tense that Laurent was afraid she might sprain her zygomatic muscles.
Pia, embarrassed, tried to mumble an appropriate response, but she couldn’t quite get one out. Finally, turning back to Laurent, she forced a smile.
‘I don’t understand how a man like Carlos can have this scarecrow ordering people around like some sort of political commissar.’ And then she walked off, muttering something like putain de connasse chinoise.
Laurent was shocked. He never thought he’d see a Parisienne crumple so easily, least of all when faced with this sort of emaciated elf. Xiao Li walked over to him.
‘Monsieur de Rodergues, you ought not waste your time with such insignificant people,’ she said, urging him toward the stairs. ‘Now we must go. Madame is waiting for you in the hunting room.’
As they left, Laurent could hear her muttering under her breath, and even though she did so in Chinese, he would have bet her words were something to the effect that even in the dens of sin of Sodom and Gomorrah that architect would be judged a lewd woman with an indecent profession. As they continued toward the hunting room, Xiao Li explained that when he finished his tea he could leave without waiting for his clothing, since she’d have it sent to his home. Laurent didn’t doubt for a second that she would do as she said. Everything about her radiated efficiency, self-control and distance.
Left once again to his own thoughts, Laurent concluded that if he ran into another headstrong woman in the château, he’d be ready to kneel down before Shennan and beg him to take him on as an apprentice in the difficult art of handling the female temperament.
IN THE HUNTING ROOM
What they called the hunting room was an enormous hall of around a thousand square feet that housed an extensive collection of hunting trophies. Stretching from wall to wall in an imposing array were the heads of every horned creature in existence, from the oryx to the gnu to the rare Spanish ibex, mounted on wooden plaques indicating the date and location of the kill. The chesterfield chairs were draped with hides, and before them stood what Laurent reckoned to be the largest open-jaw crocodile he’d ever seen, serving as a footrest. In the hearth a dozen logs crackled behind bronze andirons as big as elephant tusks. African masks decorated the few empty spots on the walls, and the glass cases atop the cabinets contained jewels from North Africa, the Sudan and who knows where else. Assegais, spears, arrowheads, knives and axes were on display everywhere, and not even the ceiling was bare: tribal shields hung from above, their polychrome designs on hippopotamus or cow hide suggesting they came from the Maasais or the Zulus.
