“Perhaps, but I cannot let the incident vanish. I must say something to the others.”
“Ask Lisa to tell them how frightened she was. She’ll probably exaggerate—they all do, at that age—and it will become a better lesson than anything you could say.”
Their eyes met and they laughed. “Ah, Madame Lacoste, how well you know children,” said Marie Frontenac. “Are you a teacher?”
“No.”
“But of course you have children of your own.”
“No. And I didn’t think I knew . . .” Her voice trailed away. “I work in an antique shop in Cavaillon,” she said abruptly. “Jacqueline en Provence.”
“Ah, I know that shop, it is exquisite. Oh, madame, perhaps you will consent to speak to our class sometime on what that means—antiques. Children cannot comprehend the past, and perhaps you can help them understand how it still lives and comes to us in furniture and buildings and art and other antiquities.”
“I’m not an expert,” Stephanie said. “I’m just beginning.”
“But you know more than we do. Would you consider it?”
Stephanie thought about it. She wanted to see Lisa again; she wanted to be with children. Maybe I was a teacher. Or I did have children after all. No, Max said I didn’t. How strange this is. “Maybe I will,” she said. “I’ll call you when I decide.”
“My address and telephone . . .” Marie Frontenac wrote on a pad of paper and tore the top sheet off. “I look forward to it. Now I must leave. I thank you from my heart, Madame Lacoste—”
“Please. Call me Sabrina.”
“Ah, Sabrina. I thank you from my heart for returning Lisa to us. Lisa, come here; you of course wish to say goodbye to this good lady who rescued you.”
Stephanie bent down and Lisa kissed her on one cheek, then the other, then back to the first. “Thank you, madame. But could I ask you a question?”
“Of course.” Stephanie’s arms were around her and she was thinking of nothing but the good feeling of that slender body against hers.
“Why did you call me Penny?”
Stephanie pulled back. “I didn’t know I did. I called you Penny?”
“When you told me to hush. You said, ‘Hush, Penny.’ I think you were trying very hard to hear if my class was nearby. And it was.”
“Yes. I don’t know, Lisa. Perhaps you reminded me of someone named Penny. But I do know your name and I’m coming back to see you one day.”
“Oh, how lovely.” She looked at Stephanie searchingly. “And no one is going to tell . . .”
“It doesn’t seem at all necessary to tell Lisa’s parents, does it?” Stephanie asked Marie Frontenac. “If Lisa talks to the class as we discussed . . .”
“Well, no, I think this time it will not be necessary. Of course if Lisa makes a habit of running off whenever she feels like—”
“I didn’t run off!” Lisa cried. “I stopped to pet a puppy, but then I got lost and it was terrible!”
“Yes, that is what we are counting on.” Marie Frontenac held out her hand. “Thank you again, Sabrina. I hope, when you return, we will have time to get acquainted.”
“I’d like that very much.” Stephanie bent down and kissed Lisa’s forehead. “I’ll see you soon.” She turned and went back the way she had come, trying to remember the twists they had taken. Here and there, like guideposts, she saw a broken shutter, a strange pink door, a toppled flowerpot, and she followed them, thinking, I remember, I remember; I remember everything now.
But in a few minutes the silence of the narrow streets closed in upon her. No one was about; she turned and turned, but behind her and ahead of her the street was deserted. There were no clues in this part of the walk, nothing that looked familiar; she could have been ten miles from the square or a few feet from it. Fear built inside her. She felt alone and lost, and the square seemed strange to her like a world she didn’t know. Isn’t that punishment enough?
But I’m not being punished, she thought. I haven’t done anything wrong. Or have I? What did I do, in those years I can’t remember, that led me here?
She began to run, turning a corner, then turning another and another, looking for anything familiar, but by now all the buildings looked identical, and there were no guide-posts, and she wondered if perhaps she only thought she was running but in fact she was standing still. The thought made her dizzy and she leaned against a building. I don’t know where I am or where I’m going.
The fear grew inside her and she ran again, trailing one hand on the stucco buildings crammed together, leaning into the street. And then abruptly, as she turned another corner, she saw, framed by the buildings on all sides, the square opening before her, with the fountain, and Max standing beside it.
“Well? Did you have a satisfactory excursion?” he asked coldly.
“I’m glad to see you,” Stephanie said, her breathing beginning to slow with relief. She kissed him. “I took a lost child back to the group she’d been with. I hope you weren’t worried.”
“It occurred to me that you might not come back.”
She looked at him somberly. “Where would I go?”
“I have no idea. Do you stay with me only because you have nowhere else to go?”
She gave him a long look. “I don’t know.”
He took her hand and they walked toward the side street where he had parked the car. “I told you, you will love me. You did once; you will again.”
“Not if you treat me like a child.”
“I treat you like a woman. I do not talk about myself, Sabrina.”
“You told me about your mother, about Holland, about Spain—”
“And that should have been enough.”
As he unlocked the car, Stephanie asked, “Is it criminal? Is that it? You don’t tell me what you do because it’s illegal?”
“Would it make a difference?”
“And that explosion on the ship? Was that part of it?”
He sat behind the wheel, rubbing the car key with his thumb as Stephanie sat beside him. “I’ve told you that the explosion was an accident.”
“But you said, in the hospital, that you would keep me safe.”
“You remember that,” he said musingly. “You forgot so much else in those early days.”
“I remember your voice saying it. I thought about it every day I was there. That you said you would keep me safe.”
“And so I will.” He started the car. “In a world where people are cold and hungry and without the help of friends, I will make sure you are warm and fed and close to people who care for you.”
“And is it illegal, what you do?”
“Would it make a difference?”
“No. If I loved you, it would.”
“Brutal but honest. Well, you will love me, Sabrina, and someday I may tell you what I do, but not today. Tell me about the child you found.”
This time, when he brushed aside her questions, there was nowhere to run; nor did she want to. She did not want to be alone, in Aix or anywhere else. Max was her anchor and the center of her life. He took care of her and was a good companion; they had a marriage even if she did not love him. At least for now, she thought. At least for now.
“Max, did I ever mention someone named Penny?”
“No.” He drove around the main square and headed out of town. “Do you know someone named Penny?”
“I think I did. And I’m sure she was a child. Someone I taught, perhaps, or . . . perhaps my daughter.”
“You told me you had no children. And you never mentioned being a teacher.”
Stephanie sighed. “I don’t know.”
“What was the name of the child you found?”
“Lisa.” She told him about the class of children holding on to a red rope, and about Lisa Vernet and Marie Frontenac, and the invitation to speak to their class. “Marie Frontenac said children can’t comprehend the past; it seems strange that I would be asked to talk about it, when I don’t have one.”
“
She didn’t ask for a personal history; she asked for a discussion of how the past comes to us in antiques.”
“She said, ‘how it still lives and comes to us.’ It does still live, doesn’t it? It’s there somewhere, like another floor in a house, but closed off. If I could find the way to it . . .”
They were silent. They were driving through a misty landscape, the distant colors muted but the nearby fields bright green beside vineyards of rich black earth, where skeletal grape plants stood like sentinels in perfect rows. Along the road, the plane trees were sending out new shoots, the first irises were blooming along stone walls, and the genêt bushes were just beginning to bloom, pale yellow but already hinting at the deep canary they would become, with a pungent fragrance that would fill the air for miles.
“I’ve collected art and antiques for thirty years,” Max said casually. “The pieces in our house are mine.”
“Oh.” Stephanie nodded, as if to herself. That was the way she would learn about him, in small bits of information that came out almost incidentally. Except, she thought, that Max never does anything incidentally. “You could help me, then. I don’t know how to talk about antiques.”
They discussed paintings and furniture, silver, porcelain, old lace and cut glass, as Max took back roads, extending their drive. Stephanie was astonished by the extent of his knowledge; it was as if he had spent a lifetime studying these things. “There are a number of books in the library that will help you,” he said. “I’ll give you a list.”
The late afternoon sun broke through the clouds, spilling over the houses of Roussillon, nestled high in the hills, intensifying their color: vivid orange, pink, red, ocher climbing the slope like a construction of children’s playing blocks. “Robert’s son lives there,” she murmured. “I’d like to meet him someday.”
“Don’t count on it. Robert keeps his lives carefully separated.”
Stephanie smiled. “How many does he have?”
“A few that I know of.”
More secrets, she thought. What is the matter with these men?
But she could not be angry, not with so much beauty all around her: the sun-burnished houses of Roussillon and the tree-covered hills where it perched, the fields and gardens bursting with new life, the clouds pulling apart like curtains on a stage to reveal blue sky and a pale crescent moon. Her earlier anger was gone as well, wiped out by the adventure with Lisa and Marie Frontenac. As they approached Cavaillon, she was feeling lighthearted, all her fears gone. Everything would be all right; everything she wanted could truly come to pass.
And Max was beside her: she was safe and protected, enclosed in his car as if she were in his arms. As if she were that crescent moon, shining because of the light from the sun, she felt herself absorb and reflect his confidence and power, and make it her own.
But I don’t want to be a reflection of Max. I want to be myself.
And what if he is a criminal?
Oh, of course he’s not, she thought, without pause. He likes to be dramatic and he was angry at me for walking out on him, and so he hints and pretends and tries to make me nervous. But Robert wouldn’t be his friend if he were a criminal.
But still she could not give Max the trust he wanted. She could not brush aside the feeling that even though he was exciting and passionate and seemed truly to love her, there was something dangerous about him. Today was the first time she had thought he might be doing something criminal, but every day something about him made her think that he lived with danger or put others in danger, or perhaps both.
And every day she thought he lied to her about what he knew of her past.
And so she did not trust him or love him. She reserved the small self she had—the few months of experience that were her entire history—for herself.
I don’t even know if I can really love anyone until I’m a whole person again, she thought. And who would it be, even if I could? I don’t know anyone. I’d like to, though; I want so much to know what love feels like.
She remembered greeting Max after his first trip away from her. She had been sure she loved him and wanted him and was happy to be his wife. But that was the only time; she hadn’t been able to feel that way again.
So if I did love him and trust him once—and I must have if I married him—if’s gone.
“You’re very quiet,” Max said as he drove up the hill to their house.
“There’s so much to think about,” she said vaguely.
“Well, right now let’s think about dinner. Would you like to go to Goult? You liked La Bartavelle last time we were there.”
“Oh, I loved it. Yes, that would be wonderful. But we shouldn’t go if Madame Besset has already begun dinner.”
“She has not; I called her from Aix.”
“Oh. This was planned in advance?”
“I wanted to make sure we did something special. I’m leaving tomorrow, for a week.”
“Where are you going?”
“Marseilles and Nice.”
“Why can’t I come with you? I haven’t really been to either one.”
“I’d like to have you with me; I hate the idea of a week away from you. But we couldn’t be together; I have meetings day and night. And I want to show you those cities in my own way, when we have plenty of time. We’ll go soon, when I have only you to think about.” In the garage, he turned off the engine and took her in his arms. “Sabrina, you know I love you. If I could change my life to be with you all the time I would.” He kissed her, his hand on her breast, his arm enclosing her so that she felt submerged within him. Stephanie let herself respond; it was easier than debating with herself whether she really wanted to make love to him, and it was much, much easier than telling him she wanted to think about it. So her body warmed and opened to him even as her thoughts were cool and separate, and as they walked upstairs to his room she told herself that she was his wife and he took care of her and she owed this to him. She knew there was something wrong with that, but she let it go; she could think about it when he was gone.
* * *
Max watched the shore recede as Carlos Figueros raced his small motorboat out to sea, past sailboats, past other motorboats, past yachts moving with stately grace through the choppy water. “Now we have absolute privacy,” Figueros said, cutting the motor. He leaned forward. “What do you have for me?”
“A list of shipments.” Max took from inside his slicker a sheaf of papers clipped together. “And you have for me . . .”
“Payment for the last load of counterfeit we shipped. And a record of what has been donated.” He searched in his pocket and brought out a business envelope and a small notebook, no larger than his palm. He gave the envelope to Max. “Eighty-five thousand francs.”
“How much was donated?”
“Max.” Figueros pouted. “You think I am not honest? We donated eight thousand five hundred. Ten percent. Were not those your orders? Ten percent of your share for the priest’s people, the rest to you.”
Max held out his hand and Figueros put the notebook in it. He leafed through the small pages, squinting to read the tiny handwriting. “Guatemala, Haiti, Chile. Nothing in Africa this time?”
“No, nor in Russia or Eastern Europe or the Middle East or China. Father Chalon said he didn’t want us to spread the money too thin; he says that would be almost the same as giving them nothing at all. Do you want us to do it a different way?”
“No, it’s Father Chalon’s game; you’ll do whatever he says.” He pocketed the money without counting it, as well as the page he had been reading, and gave Figueros the sheaf of papers. “The schedule. It begins next month, the first of May, and runs through the end of July. You should be able to handle that.”
Figueros turned the pages slowly, reading each line. Max watched a nearby sailboat with four young people practicing raising the spinnaker. He was impatient to get back to shore, but he kept it well hidden; Carlos Figueros was valuable to him.
“There is no figure for the shipment t
o England,” Figueros said at last.
Max took the sheaf. “It should be here. My secretary was supposed to get it before she typed this. I’ll talk to her when we get to shore.”
“She is not there.”
“In her office? You checked?”
“I stopped in to say good morning before I met you. The office was locked.”
“That doesn’t mean she isn’t there now. She’s never missed a day. Well, let’s go back and find out. If she’s ill we can call her or go to her home.”
“Good.” Figueros started the motor. The boat vibrated beneath them, then shot forward, making a wide arc as he pointed it toward shore. They wove through other boats, and Max recalled the last time he had been in a motorboat, speeding from Monte Carlo to Nice with Sabrina bleeding and unconscious and the sunken remains of his yacht behind them. No more danger from there, he thought; they think we’re dead.
On shore, he and Figueros went to the Lacoste et fils warehouse at the end of the dock. The office was in a small building attached to one side. Max turned the knob, but the door was locked. “Peculiar,” he muttered and took out his key. Inside, the room was damp and still; the desk empty, the files locked, telephone directories and atlases and maps neatly lined up on the bookshelves. Max looked at the calendar on the desk. “Saturday, four days ago. We talked that day; it was the day I left for Nice. Where the hell is she? I don’t remember any talk about a vacation.”
He picked up the telephone and dialed her home number and heard her voice on her answering machine. Without leaving a message, he hung up. “She lives not far from here; I think I’ll run over there.” Figueros nodded. “I’ll come with you.” There was no answer when they knocked on the door of the apartment in a tall concrete building a few blocks from the harbor. But as Max knocked again, the door across the hall opened. “It will do no good, monsieur,” said the small man standing there. His eyes looked up at them with sadness. “The police were here; the young lady was in an automobile accident, she and her young man, and they are both dead.”
* * *
“These are Valdrôme,” Jacqueline said, unwrapping a package of quilted place mats. “Excellent quality, as is this . . .” She tore open another wrapping from the shipment that had arrived that morning. “Martine Nourissat: some of the finest tablecloths I have found.”
A Tangled Web Page 20
