He looked hard at me. Everything about him—a certain ease; a slightly self-satisfied smile; a metallic, authoritative voice—suggested that he knew he was a dark, handsome man. But his charm evaporated quickly, very quickly, in his utterly graceless gestures, entirely in harmony with the large chain bracelet around his wrist.
“Maman is telling you all her old stories. Once she gets started, she never stops.”
“This young man is interested in hearing them,” Madame Villecourt said. “He’s writing a book about La Varenne.”
“Well, you can believe whatever Maman says. She’s a fountain of knowledge for everything that has to do with La Varenne.”
Sylvia looked down, embarrassed. She had put a hand on her knee and was thoughtfully rubbing its back with one finger.
“I hope we’re eating soon,” Frédéric Villecourt said. “I’m hungry as a dog!”
She glanced nervously at me as if sorry to have dragged me into this house and inflicted the company of this woman and her son on me.
“We’ll be eating outside,” Madame Villecourt said.
“That is an excellent idea you have there, Maman,” he said, using the formal vous.
His using vous and his affected tone surprised me. They seemed to go with his giant bracelet too.
The man in the white jacket was waiting in the living room doorway.
“Lunch is served, Madame.”
“Coming, Julien,” Villecourt shouted.
“Did you put up the canopy?” Madame Villecourt asked.
“Yes, Madame.”
We crossed the large lawn, Sylvia and I walking slightly behind the others. She gave me a questioning look and seemed afraid I was going to ditch them.
“I’m glad you invited me for lunch,” I said to her. “Very glad.”
She didn’t seem entirely reassured. Maybe she was afraid of her husband’s reaction. She was looking at him in a slightly contemptuous way.
“Sylvia told me you’re a photographer,” Villecourt said, opening the garden gate and holding it for his mother. “I could give you some work, if you want.” He smiled broadly. “Me and a friend are putting together some important business, and we’ll need some publicity photos and a brochure.”
While he spoke like someone wanting to do a subordinate a favor, I couldn’t take my eyes off the bracelet hanging from his wrist—if this “important business” of his was along the lines of that bracelet with its big, fat chain links, then it must be something to do with trafficking in American cars.
“He doesn’t need you to give him a job,” Sylvia said drily.
Right on the other side of the street from the house, on the water, Villecourt pushed open a white barrier on which was written: “Villa Frédéric, Private Deck, 14 Promenade des Anglais.”
His mother turned toward me: “You’ll have a lovely view of the Marne . . . I’m sure you’ll want to take pictures.”
We went down a few steps dug into the rock, which was so red it looked fake. Then we stepped out onto a large floating deck with a green and white striped canvas canopy. The table was set for four.
“Please, sit here,” Madame Villecourt said, indicating the place with a view of the Marne and the opposite shore. She sat to my left and Sylvia and her husband sat at the ends of the table, Sylvia next to me and Frédéric Villecourt next to his mother.
It took two trips from the villa to the deck for the man in the white jacket to bring us plates of crudités and a large cold fish. He was sweating in the heat. Each time, Villecourt said: “Don’t get run over crossing the Promenade des Anglais, Julien!” Julien totally ignored this advice as he moved off, shuffling his feet.
I looked around. The canopy blocked the sun, but the light was reflected by the green, stagnant water of the Marne, making it transparent, like the other day, when we were leaving Le Beach. The Chennevières hillside across from us, with the big buhrstone houses at its base, rose up above the trees. Attractive modern houses all along the water. I pictured them occupied by retired brokers from Les Halles.
The Villa Frédéric’s deck where we were having lunch protected from the sun was the biggest and fanciest in sight, by far. Even the restaurant less than a hundred feet away to the right, Le Pavillon Bleu, had a landing that seemed downright modest next to this one. It stood in curious contrast with the landscape of the Marne here—willows, stagnant water, riverbanks for fishermen.
“Do you like the view?” Madame Villecourt asked.
“Very much.”
A curious contrast. It felt like we were eating in a slice of the Riviera transported to the outskirts of Paris, like the medieval castles that California millionaires brought to America stone by stone. The rock face leading down to the deck reminded me of one of the rocky inlets near Cassis. The canopy above us had a Monacan majesty and could easily have appeared in one of W. Vennemann’s pictures. It recalled the Lido of Venice, too. My impression was only reinforced when I noticed a Chris-Craft powerboat moored to the deck.
“Is that yours?” I asked Madame Villecourt.
“No, no. It’s my son’s. This idiot likes to ride it around on the Marne even though that’s not allowed.”
“Don’t be nasty, Maman.”
“Anyway,” Sylvia said, “the boat can’t go because of the silt in the river.”
“That’s not true, Sylvia,” Villecourt said.
“It’s a real swamp. If you try to water-ski, the skis get caught in the sludge, it’s like molasses, and you’re stuck in the middle of the Marne.” She said this sentence in a cutting voice, staring straight at Villecourt.
“Nonsense, Sylvia. You can drive a Chris-Craft or go water-skiing just fine in the Marne.”
He was cut to the quick. The Chris-Craft was clearly a very important matter to him. He turned toward me: “She prefers that crummy Le Beach, which is falling apart . . .”
“No it isn’t,” I said. “Le Beach isn’t falling apart, and I think it’s very charming.”
“Really?” He stared back and forth at Sylvia and me as if trying to catch us plotting.
“Yes, it’s completely stupid, that boat,” Madame Villecourt said. “You need to get rid of it.”
Villecourt didn’t answer. He had lit a cigarette. He was sulking.
“So, what riverside beaches have you found in the area?” Madame Villecourt asked me.
The sunlight reflected from the water made her squint; she put on a large pair of dark sunglasses.
“That’s what you’re looking for, for your photographs, isn’t it? Riverside beaches?”
Her lioness face, her dark glasses, the whiskey she was drinking during lunch, all made her look like an American on vacation at Eden Roc. But there was a difference between her and the Riviera accessories all around us: the rock face, the Chris-Craft, the canopied deck. Madame Villecourt was in harmony with the landscape along the Marne; she resembled it. Maybe it was her husky voice?
“That’s right, I’m looking for riverside beaches,” I said.
“When I was young I went swimming down there, near Chelles. The Gournay-sur-Marne beach. They called it ‘Little Deauville.’ There was sand, and canvas tents . . .”
So she grew up here?
“But that’s not there anymore, Maman,” Villecourt said with a shrug.
“Have you gone to see it?” Madame Villecourt asked me, ignoring her son.
“Not yet.”
“I’m sure it’s still there,” Madame Villecourt said.
“I am too,” Sylvia said haughtily, keeping her eyes on her husband.
“There’s also Berretrot beach, in Joinville,” Madame Villecourt said. She thought for a moment, and started counting on her fingers. “And Duchet, the restaurant at the Saint-Maurice beach. There’s the Île-Rouge sandbar in Saint-Maurice too, and Île aux Corbeaux . . .” One by one she tapped the fingers of her right hand with the index finger of her left.
“The hotel and restaurant at the Maisons-Alfort beach . . . The beach at Champigny,
on Quai Gallieni . . . The Palm Beach and the Lido in Chennevières . . . I know them all by heart. I was born in the area.”
She took off her sunglasses for a moment and looked at me kindly.
“You see, you have a lot on your plate. It’s a real Côte d’Azur here.”
“But all those places are gone, Maman,” Villecourt repeated, with the hostility of someone who isn’t being listened to.
“So? A person can dream, can’t she?”
This abrupt way of answering her son surprised me.
“That’s right, a person can dream,” Sylvia repeated in a bright, clear voice, whose slightly drawling intonation went with the banks of the Marne and all the beaches Madame Villecourt had evoked.
“You should take a look at that diamond tomorrow, Maman,” Villecourt said. “It’s truly exceptional. It would be stupid to pass it up. It’s called the Southern Cross.”
He had his elbows on the table and was trying harder and harder to persuade her. But she, with her eyes hidden behind her sunglasses, stayed stone-faced and seemed to be staring at a fixed point somewhere on the shady green Chennevières hillside.
Sylvia watched me out of the corner of her eye.
“I’ll show it to you,” Villecourt said. “It has a long pedigree. A unique piece . . .”
This boy with his bracelet and his powerboat stuck in the Marne—was he a diamond dealer or gemstone broker? Having observed him closely, I couldn’t believe in these professional capacities.
“The seller came to see me here, about a week ago,” Villecourt said. “If we don’t move fast the deal will slip through our fingers.”
“What would I do with a diamond?” Madame Villecourt said. “I’m no longer the age when I can wear diamonds.”
Villecourt laughed. He looked at Sylvia and me as though to make sure he had witnesses.
“But Maman, I’m not talking about wearing it. All we need to do is buy it at a very good price and then sell it for twice as much.”
This time, Madame Villecourt did turn to face her son, slowly raising her sunglasses. “That’s ridiculous. Buildings and jewels are always sold at a loss. My dear boy, I’m afraid you’re not cut out to be a businessman.” She had taken on a tone that was affectionate and contemptuous at the same time.
“Sylvia, don’t you think Frédéric would do better not to concern himself with precious stones? It’s a difficult line of work, you know, my dear . . .”
Villecourt stiffened and had trouble keeping his composure. He even looked away. As for me, I was no longer looking at the bracelet on his wrist but the sparkling powerboat, gone astray in the turgid, dead waters of the Marne due to a mistake of its driver’s. I thought to myself that everything he was involved in, every gesture he made, every last action he tried to undertake would inevitably end in a similar mess. And he was Sylvia’s husband.
I heard footsteps behind me, and a man Villecourt’s age appeared on the deck. Medium height, in a beige linen suit and suede shoes, with beady little eyes and a skull as thick as a ram’s.
“Maman, this is René Jourdan.”
Villecourt introduced him to his mother with a mix of respect and emphasis, as though this René Jourdan, with his suede shoes, bull’s head, and empty eyes, was a very important person.
“Who?” Madame Villecourt said without moving a muscle.
“René Jourdan, Maman.”
The man held out his hand to Madame Villecourt. “Good afternoon, ma’am.” But she didn’t shake hands with him. In her dark sunglasses, she was as indifferent to him as a blind person.
So he held out his hand to Sylvia instead, who half-heartedly shook it with a bad-tempered look on her face. Then he nodded a greeting to me.
“René Jourdan,” Villecourt said to me. “A friend.” He gestured to the empty chair next to mine, and the man took a seat.
“Guess what, René, I was just talking about the diamond. It’s a superb piece, don’t you think?”
“Superb,” the other man said, with a hint of a smile as empty as his gaze.
Villecourt leaned toward his mother. “The man selling the diamond is a friend of René’s.” He said it like a character reference, or a mention in the Gotha.
“I was just telling my son that I’m no longer of an age to wear diamonds.”
“That’s too bad, ma’am. I’m sure you’d be thrilled with this diamond. It’s a historical piece. We have a whole dossier about it. It’s called the Southern Cross.”
“Trust me, Maman, if you put up the money, I promise you I can resell it and make double the price.”
“My poor Frédéric . . . And where is it from, this diamond? A burglary?”
A sour laugh escaped the bull-headed man. “Not at all, ma’am. An inheritance. My friend is looking to get rid of it because he needs some liquidity. He runs a construction company in Nice. I can give you full references.”
“We can show you the stone, Maman . . . You have to see it with your own eyes before you decide.”
“All right,” Madame Villecourt said in a weary voice. “Show me this Southern Cross.”
“Tomorrow, Maman?”
“Tomorrow, yes,” she said with a pensive nod.
“You coming, René?” Villecourt said. “We should see how the work is coming along.”
He rose to his feet and stood in front of me. “It might interest you . . . I’m currently redoing a little island in the Marne, past Chennevières. The land belongs to my mother. We’re building a pool and a nightclub. But Sylvia must have told you about it, since she seems to have no secrets at all from you.”
He had suddenly turned hostile. I didn’t respond. The thought of his bulging fingers on Sylvia’s body was so repellent that I couldn’t bear to be touched by them, it might make us come to blows.
He climbed down the ladder from the deck, followed by the man with the suede shoes and bull’s head. They sat next to each other in the Chris-Craft, and Villecourt started it, moving nervously. The powerboat quickly disappeared around the Chennevières bend in the river, but the water was too thick for it to leave a wake of foam behind it.
Madame Villecourt said nothing for a long moment, then turned to Sylvia: “Darling, go tell him we’re ready for coffee?”
“Of course.”
Sylvia stood up and, as she walked behind me, furtively squeezed my shoulders with both hands. I was wondering whether she would come back or just leave me alone with her mother-in-law for the rest of the day.
“Maybe we could sit in the sun,” Madame Villecourt said.
We moved to the edge of the deck and sat down in two large blue canvas chairs. She didn’t say anything, staring fixedly at the water of the Marne from behind her dark sunglasses. What was she thinking about? Children who never give you the satisfaction you hoped for?
“So, your photographs of La Varenne?” she asked me, politely trying to break the silence.
“I’m taking them in black and white,” I said.
“That’s the right choice,” she said, and her categorical tone surprised me. “If you made them all black, that would be even better. Let me tell you something.”
She paused for a moment.
“All along the Marne here, these are sad places. Of course they don’t look it, in the sun. But when you get to know them . . . They’re poison. My husband was killed in a mysterious car accident on the banks of the Marne. My son was born and grew up here and has turned out a hoodlum. As for me, I’ve grown old alone in this dreary landscape . . .”
She stayed calm as she was confiding all these things to me. If anything, her voice was detached.
“You’re not painting too dark a picture of things?” I said.
“Not at all. I can tell that you are a sensitive young man who picks up on the atmosphere of a place, and that you understand what I’m saying. Make your photographs as black as possible.”
“I’ll try,” I said.
“There has always been something foul and black along the banks of the
Marne here . . . Do you know whose money built all these villas in La Varenne? It was money the girls made working in the houses. This was where the pimps and madams retired to. I know what I’m talking about . . .”
She abruptly fell silent, and seemed to be thinking about something.
“Bad people have always come here to the banks of the Marne. Especially during the war. I told you about poor Aimos. My husband liked him very much. Aimos lived in Chennevières. He died on the barricades during the liberation of Paris.” She kept looking straight ahead, maybe at the Chennevières hillside where this Aimos had lived. “They said he was hit by a stray bullet. It’s not true. Someone was settling a score. It was about certain people who used to come to Champigny and La Varenne, during the war. He knew them. He knew things about them. He had heard them talking, in the bars and hotels around here . . .”
Sylvia served us coffee. Then Madame Villecourt, seeming sorry to do it, stood up and shook my hand.
“It was very nice to meet you.”
She kissed Sylvia on the forehead. “I’m off to my siesta now, darling.”
I walked her over to the foot of the stairs cut into the red rock. “Thank you for everything you told me about the Marne,” I said.
“If you want more details, come and see me again. But I’m sure you have a good sense of the atmosphere now . . . Take really black photos. Shadowy.”
She stressed the syllables, sha-dow-y, with her accent from the area around Paris.
“Unusual woman,” I said to Sylvia.
We were sitting on the boards of the deck, our feet hanging over the side, and she had put her head on my shoulder.
“Me too? Do you think I’m an unusual woman?” She used the familiar tu with me for the first time.
We stayed there on the landing, watching a canoe glide down the middle of the Marne, the same one as the other day. The water, no longer stagnant, flowed in little shudders.
It was this current that carried the canoe, making it so light, giving its impetus to the long, rhythmic movements of the oars, the current whose rushing we could hear beneath the sun.
Sundays in August Page 10
