The Adventures of Mademoiselle Mac 2-Book Bundle

by Christopher Ward

  “What have you there, mademoiselle?” asked Magritte, shining his light on my find. I started to hand them to him, but he curled up his nose. “Non, merci. Ah, the tourists. No taste at all you know, present company excepted, of course.” He smiled at me. “How anyone could see through these, I don’t know. Although I suppose to reflect back the absurdity of our existence on this ...”

  Rudee coughed and said his goodbyes.

  “Ah, it’s adieu then, mes amis.” Magritte waved and went back to his ruminations.

  Back in the cab, Rudee looked at his watch. “Oh, mon dieu, we have to pick up Sashay; her show’s almost over. He who hesitates is late.”

  We zoomed through the streets, now emptying of people. When we arrived at the Moulin D’Or, couples were spilling into the street, arm in arm, laughing and leaning on one another. A lone figure was the last to emerge.

  “Rudee,” I asked, “isn’t that Blag LeBoeuf?” I hoped another encounter like the one outside CAFTA wasn’t about to happen.

  Rudee barely glanced. “No doubt, little one, he still comes to make eyelids at her after all this time, and the club ... his family ... well ...”

  He left the thought unfinished, concentrating on navigating through the less than sure-footed crowd; but it was then that I understood whom they had fought over years ago.

  We didn’t have to wait long at the stage door. In a whoosh of scarves and in a long cream-coloured cape, Sashay materialized and was in the back seat before Rudee could even open his door.

  “Let’s go. Leave now. Please.” She sank into the seat as we drove away. She didn’t seem to notice that Rudee had been too surprised to turn off the organ music that poured like mud from the speakers. I leaned forward and switched off the sound. Rudee did the same with the taxi radio, and we travelled in silence. The only accompaniment was the soft swish of the tires over the rain-soaked streets as we made our way to Sashay’s apartment. When we arrived and Rudee pulled up and parked, no one said anything for a minute.

  “There is something so very wrong, Rudee my dear. I’m sorry I doubted you, because now I believe there is a plan, a conspiracy of some sort involving these strange characters who have been showing up lately at the club. They have tables on the balcony that they occupy every night. They pay no attention to the show, they only smoke and laugh their strange laughs and are rude to everyone. Tonight as I passed their tables, they were raising their glasses in a toast, and one said, ‘The Sun King is dead. Lights out, Paris.’ They all laughed loudly and clinked glasses as they would at a celebration. Rudee, what could this mean?”

  “Sashay,” he replied seriously, “did you hear about Les Invalides?”

  She gave him a quizzical look, and he continued. “A symbol of the city that we love has been stolen — the cross from the Domed Church is gone and the dome has been painted black.”

  Sashay paled even more than usual as Rudee went on. “Mac, the domed church was built by Louis XIV, the ‘Sun King,’ and is one of the greatest monuments to a golden age.” His tone grew sadder and a silence followed. “We must find out more. I saw Magritte, and the police don’t take this seriously. They think it’s vandals, and they’re waiting for a handsome note or something.”

  “Ransom, Rudee, a ransom note.” Sashay’s voice sounded like it was coming out in little spurts. “Tomorrow night, they’ll all be there. It’s a party for the new owner.” She didn’t hide her disgust. “I can’t get too close. They all stop talking when I come by and say rude things under their breath, and I think it’s just a matter of time before they try to get rid of me anyway.”

  Rudee was shaking at this point, but before he could offer to defend Sashay’s honour, I jumped in. “Let me go. You can get me in ... somehow. They wouldn’t suspect me.” Rudee was shaking his head back and forth so hard, his comb-over hair was trying to catch up.

  “Your daddy would kill me, Mac, no-can-be.”

  Sashay was mulling over the idea, I could tell, and I knew that her opinion would win. I turned to her and tried to sound serious. “I’ll listen and try to find out something about their plans, and that’ll be it. Then we can go to Magritte with something concrete, okay?”

  “She’s right, Rudee,” Sashay interjected calmly, “and I know how to get her in to the club. Come to my place, ma cherie, an hour before Rudee picks me up tomorrow night.”

  When she smiled at me, I knew that there was a special understanding between us. The danger seemed far away.

  Nine

  I was glad to be back on my curved wooden bed in my room in the Église Russe after all that had happened on my first day in Paris. I wondered if my class had seen the church before it was vandalized and hoped that Penelope was being inventive with her explanations for my absence, knowing I wasn’t going to be rejoining them any time soon. I opened the hunk of a book I’d been looking at the night before, but it wasn’t long before my eyes were swimming over pictures of beautiful old buildings, ancient churches with gleaming spires, golden domes, and crosses melting in the sun.

  I thought someone with very bony fingers was rapping on my door the next morning, but as the cobwebs lifted from my brain, I realized it was rain on the dome above my room. It sounded like handful after handful of pebbles being tossed down on the roof as the wind wrapped around the windows with a comforting hush. Soon all comfort departed as my nose was attacked by the pungent odour of beets boiling below, beets with leeks or onions. Yech! My hunger was more powerful than my revulsion as I climbed down the stairs to Rudee’s room. It occurred to me that he was trying to find a new way to drive me back to my classmates. Humming along to some intense organ music, he was contentedly stirring the awful concoction. I sniffed around for a morsel of bread or even some stinky cheese.

  “Bonjour, Miss Mac,” Rudee grinned, “hungry?” He read my expression and laughed. “Oh, don’t fret. I know girls, and some women, don’t like beets, especially for breakfast, but where I come from, it’s the vegetable of kings.”

  Before I could ask where exactly that was, he closed his eyes and raised his head in happy concentration. “Listen, Mac, listen and savour genius. Vladimir Ughoman, the famous composer. Ahhh.”

  Then abruptly, he said, “Okay, let’s go,” as he snapped off his record player, grabbed his coat, and tossed me my duck’s head umbrella. We raced through the downpour across the churchyard. “What do you say to a croissant and some fruit juice at CAFTA?”

  The café was as busy as it had been the night before. Groups of cabbies were drinking out of steaming cups, checking their lottery tickets, and talking. I saw Blag arm-wrestling some helpless victim at a table near the kitchen.

  “Hey Rudee, Mac,” a voice called across the room, and Dizzy waved us over to a table he was sharing with another driver. After a round of backslapping and secret handshakes, Dizzy said, “Mac, I want you to meet Mink Maynard.”

  A small, dark-haired man with a furry beatnik beard greeted me with a sleepy smile and a low, rumbling voice. “Mon plaisir, m’dear, what brings you here?”

  I glanced at Rudee. “My dad’s a friend of Rudee’s. I’m visiting from Upper Mandeville in California.”

  “Très cool, but I’m no fool,” purred Mink, “you must be King Daddy’s girl from halfway round the world.”

  Rudee and Dizzy laughed, and Dizzy explained, “Mink’s the drummer in the Hacks. King Daddy’s an old nickname for your dad. Mink also writes the lyrics for our songs.” Turning to Mink, he added, “You don’t have to prove it. We know you can rhyme.”

  “And keep time,” Mink said to groans from his friends.

  Breakfast arrived and filled the table, but it was soon just dishes and crumbs. Pushing back their chairs, Rudee and the boys did their secret handshake again, which by now was no secret to me.

  “Practice Saturday? The usual?” said Rudee to nods from the others.

  Dizzy nodded. “Ten-four.”.

  “And out the door,” rhymed Mink as he headed for the exit.

  Rudee
said it was time for me to see a bit of Paris, even if it was raining. I persuaded him to drop me off at the student residence so I could check in and suggested we meet at the Pont Neuf taxi stand. This time the sidewalk was empty, so I waited until my group emerged with Penelope in the lead. She was wearing a Coco Chanel–inspired blue-and-white striped top and white capris, along with a severely pouty expression.

  “Ah, ma chère Mac, we meet again.”

  “Penelope, I’m sorry. There’s a lot going on. I’ll have to tell you later.”

  “I assume this means you’d like to be excused from our visit to La Tour Eiffel, which will be followed by tea and macaroons at Ladurée,” she responded petulantly.

  I shrugged sheepishly.

  “Okay,” she said, assuming a take-charge tone, “take your shoe off and rub your ankle. Quickly, s’il vous plait.”

  Mademoiselle Lesage swept into the street behind my classmates, who eyed me suspiciously. “Mac, Penelope told me about your parachuting accident in California.”

  “Oh, it’s just a little flare-up, Mademoiselle Lesage. I’m sure with rest, it’ll be fine.”

  “But today we are to climb the one thousand six hundred and sixty-five steps of the Eiffel Tower, just as Gustav Eiffel, its creator, did as he ascended to his office with its view of the exquisite Champs des Mars and the neoclassical Trocadero across the Seine....”

  I got to my feet unsteadily. “I suppose I’ll unfortunately have to miss today’s activities.”

  Penelope mimed playing a violin behind Mademoiselle Lesage, and the others stifled giggles. I hobbled into the lobby and checked out the front page of Le Devoir, which featured a shot of the domed church surrounded by police cars.

  In my spotless room with the bed still made, I quickly changed clothes, then headed for the Pont Neuf, grabbing baguettes and brie for Rudee and myself on the way.

  We drove up the hill to Montmartre and sat on the steps of the Sacre Coeur church, looking over the magnificent city while an organ grinder pumped furiously on an ancient wooden box and a monkey dressed as a gendarme dashed through the crowd striking poses and collecting contributions in his little policeman’s hat. Rudee dropped in a handful of change, then we headed down into the city.

  “The financial section,” said Rudee. “The wheelers and stealers,” he added as we passed men and women in suits walking faster than anyone I’d seen yet in Paris. Caressing their portable phones like hand warmers, lugging shiny briefcases, eating hunks of gooey pastry as they walked, they seemed careful not to look at each other.

  It was then that we noticed a big commotion at the Place St. Augustin. A jovial crowd was forming around a truck labelled “Fruits Fantastique” that had driven right into a sign painter’s ladder. The driver and the painter were nose to nose. The driver was claiming that he hadn’t seen the traffic light at all, never mind the colour. There were oranges, kiwis, and lichees covered in red paint rolling all over the square being squished by the cars trying to avoid the scene. The flics, as Rudee called the police, seemed to agree with the truck driver that the light was too hard to see and were preparing to let him go. This upset the sign painter so much that he climbed up the traffic pole and painted all three lights red as the crowd cheered him from below. When he climbed down, they carried him off on their shoulders to a bar down the street while the cars in the Place St. Augustin got more and more tangled. We sat on the hood of Rudee’s cab and watched it all unfold.

  “Rudee, that’s the silliest thing I’ve ever seen,” I said, laughing at the cars slipping and sliding, splashing fruit juice and red paint on the business people in their perfect suits.

  Rudee nodded. “Oui, ridiculous, Mac, but to me it also is one more sign of something strange with the light in Paris. It’s getting darker all the time.” I saw what he meant. “I hope this traffic clears up soon. We’ve got to get you to Sashay’s.”

  On the way we passed a tractor-trailer full of sand for a fake beach at the Tuileries Gardens pond, another “Lighten Up” project. A picture of a grinning Luc Fiat in his white suit filled the side of the truck.

  “Hey, Rudee, look, a cup of California.”

  “Excusez-moi, Miss Mac?”

  “Looks like Luc Fiat’s been busy again,” I said, pointing at the moving beach.

  “We can use all the warm thoughts we can get right now, little one. It only shines on the sunny side of the street, you know,” Rudee replied.

  His odd expressions sometimes made it hard to respond, although I was starting to understand him better and kind of liked the Rudeeisms. Fiat’s work, however, held a dark side for me. “Unless his bodyguards are keeping it from shining.” I explained by telling him what I’d seen the day of the rally on the Champs Élysées.

  “You’re too suspicious,” he laughed and handed me a tiny box wrapped in silver. “Give this to Sashay for me, will you? I’ll be back in an hour, and I hope I will still recognize your little Yankee self.”

  He deposited me on the sidewalk outside Sashay’s place and drove off.

  Ten

  I rang the bell at the side door and heard it echo from above. The door clicked open, so I started upstairs. The same foggy music that I’d heard in Rudee’s cab oozed down the hallway on a fragrant cinnamon and lavender breeze. Sashay welcomed me to her “chambers,” as she called her apartment, into a room that to me resembled a Christmas tree, without the tree. The room was lit by red candles. The light flickered off of a series of crystal ornaments hung at different lengths from a ceiling that was covered in waves of lacy white material that resembled frosting.

  “Please be at home, little one,” she said, indicating a velvet chair as she sat in its identical twin. It was my first real look at Sashay D’Or. She wore a serene expression with quietly intense eyes. Her face, with its beautiful and timeless porcelain features, was topped with a golden hairdo that had that whipped, baked, and glazed look of pure confection. A permanent pout suggested a “pooh pooh” to all in sight. She sighed as she spoke, and her narrow hands fanned and fussed through the lavender cloud around her.

  “Rudee asked me to give this to you.” I handed her the gift.

  She took the tiny box with an even tinier smile and sighed. “Rudee, forever the same,” as she opened it, revealing a pin in the shape of a silver peacock with its feathers about to unfold, hinting at the rainbow of colours to follow. “Ah, so elegant. He knew one of mine broke.”

  She paused and arched a painted lid at me. “You know about Rudee and me, I suppose.” I nodded but wasn’t sure I knew anything, really.

  “It was ... l’amour at first, as it always is; and then it just was, oh ... je ne sais quoi.” At this point I felt like I knew even less than before. “Rudee was, and still is, the most loyal man I know. He fought for me. He protected me and he made me crazy. Maybe I’m not meant for love.”

  Her voice trailed off, a mixture of regret and resignation, then she seemed struck by a powerful memory. Irritation crept into her tone.

  “He smells of beets!” I tried to swallow a laugh by coughing, but I don’t think it worked. “He sleeps with his gloves on, so the music never escapes his fingers, he says. This man stands on his head every morning. He claims it promotes hair growth. Has it worked? Non, of course not.”

  This time I couldn’t disguise the laugh that escaped me. Sashay seemed to be gathering steam as she went on. “And the music, mon dieu, always the organ, always those mournful minor keys. And those melancholic composers — Gruntz, Langosteen, and worst of all, Vladimir Ughoman.” Her lip curled beyond its usual pout as I recalled my own encounter with the Churlish Concerto that morning. One was definitely a full helping. She paused, sighed, and added quietly, “But Rudee loves me ... and I love him. It’s just better for me if he’s on the other side of Paris, you know. He calls me every day and tells me I’m the loveliest of all and that no one can dance like I can. Ah, maybe twenty years ago it was true, but now I get by on craftiness, some mysterious music, and the audience’s de
sire to be entranced. What used to be all me is now mostly lighting, dry ice, and a three-drink minimum at work.”

  She stood up to pour some tea from a swan-shaped teapot.

  “Sashay, I wish I could have seen you then,” I said. “I’m sure Rudee’s right.”

  Her smile made me feel like such a child. She slipped through a beaded curtain and returned with a long silver tube, from which she extracted a yellowed poster of a woman who looked part cloud, part whipped cream, her eyes glowing through all this motion and flashing like little jolts of amber lightning. The image of a young Sashay was magical, and underneath in ornate script was written:

  Sashay D’Or. La Reine Des Rêves

  The Queen of Dreams

  One Show Nightly at the Lido De Paris

  The same eyes looked at me as she rolled up the poster. “To work, we’ve both got a show tonight!”

  From a gigantic shipping trunk, she pulled out miles of assorted fabrics and tossed them here and there. She draped me with each one then stood back, shaking her head, pouting, murmuring little “mmms” and “ouis” and “nons” as she worked.

  “It’s all scarf, Mademoiselle Mac, it has nothing to do with buttering your little cheeks with blush or balancing you on a pair of pumps with heels like La Tour Eiffel. It’s not the scarf with the perfect little origami folds. And none of that awful whiplash look, wrapped around your neck like a maypole. Mon dieu, non.”

  I agreed with everything, trying to stand still as she wrapped and unwrapped me in layers of satin, silk, cashmere, and chenille till I thought my neck would break out in hives. If my mom could see me now....

  “And you don’t want to look cold. One doesn’t buy a watch for its ability to tell time, oui? We must drape, casually, elegantly, with that certain ‘oh I don’t really know how it fell like this’ look. Once over each shoulder, a little toss to one side then the other. A little pouffe in the front, et voila! Oh yes, and let your hair fall in your eyes. It says ‘so what.’”