by Ted Mooney
“I don’t know,” replied Gabriella. “I’ll tell you when I find a translation.”
After she’d retired to the basement storage rooms to begin cataloging the netsuke, Turner set an auction date for the flags, on the second Thursday in June—as late in the season as he dared push it. International buyers would by then already have begun touring the summer art festivals and could reasonably be expected to make a stop in Paris, while French buyers, if any, would not yet have left. The flags would be exhibited a full week prior to the sale, and the catalog, lavishly illustrated and annotated, would go out three weeks before that. Turner had nearly finished writing the copy.
He took lunch alone at a nearby bistro, and as he lingered over coffee his thoughts returned to Odile. He hadn’t seen her since the afternoon at Céleste’s studio, but that image—her sitting nearly naked for the portrait, the green dress open like a robe, her features defiant, even imperious—remained vivid to him still. It was like a taunt, and he recalled how casually he’d brushed aside her worries about the men who were harassing her, with what certainty he’d told her the problem had been taken care of. Now he was certain of nothing.
Through Céleste, Turner had been able to fill in many of the blanks. He knew about her filmmaker husband, their money problems, her American friend Rachel, the houseboat. He knew Odile had lived in New York at about the same time as he had and that she’d met her husband there. He knew about her father, the charismatic geographer and Trotskyite. He even knew she’d recently given up eating meat. All this he had learned, yet far from laying his questions to rest this new knowledge seemed only to underscore the incompleteness of his understanding, not just of Odile but of the events now unfolding around him, events in which she might or might not be playing a part. I’m half obsessed with her, he thought. And though he waited for other, less drastic formulations to offer themselves, though he knew better than to personalize what was at bottom no more than a set of circumstances, the notion remained uncontradicted in his mind and he was forced to wonder what it might portend. He sat a second longer with the thought, then roused himself and signaled the waiter for his check.
BILLIE HOLIDAY WAS SINGING “All of Me.” Amber sunlight bathed the sofa on which Odile sat half dressed, and the air smelled of oil paint, turpentine, and cigarette smoke.
“So he has only the one daughter?” asked Céleste, pausing to squeeze another measure of cadmium red onto her palette plate.
“Yes. And Allegra’s very well brought up for an American kid—respectful, well spoken, not at all spoiled. But at the same time she’s thirteen years old and the child of divorce; one cannot expect her to be unaffected.”
“No, of course not. In which case one must ask whom she blames the most: you, him, her mother, or herself?”
“Herself, certainly. But she takes it out on Max, which in itself wouldn’t be so bad if he just didn’t respond so helplessly. It’s painful to watch, you know? For a serious man to learn doubt and guilt at the exact moment when real success has come to him … Ah, but life is cruel and stupid. Why complain?”
“One complains because one is human,” said Céleste. “Now turn your head a bit to the right. Not so far. Good.” She drew thoughtfully on her cigarette and contemplated Odile. “Yes, I’m beginning to see how this painting must go. Only now do I see what I’m up against.”
“Really?”
“You have the face of a maenad in repose. I look at you and think, here is someone who may be capable of anything. Murder, even. And yet there’s also a kind of control.”
“You flatter me,” Odile said with a small laugh.
“Not at all. I simply tell you what I see.” She resumed painting, her brow furrowed, her eyes darting from Odile to the canvas and back again. “Keep looking out the window. Good. This will be difficult, perhaps impossible, but I must try. There’s an opening, at least that. You’ll work with me?”
“Yes.”
“It will take longer than I thought. But just maybe …”
Two buildings away, near the middle of Odile’s rooftop vista, a woman appeared bare-breasted at a window, flung it open, and dropped an armload of clothes to the tar-paper surface of the roof just below. Immediately after, a man in his undershorts climbed out, landing likewise on the tar paper, while above him the woman slammed the window closed again and shut the curtains so violently that they shimmied back and forth for a few seconds. The man began to dress, taking his time. When he was done, he straightened his jacket, lit a cigarette, and sauntered out of sight past the chimney.
“Have you seen Turner lately?” Odile asked.
“Yes, yes. He comes by often. Sometimes I think I must have married him in another life. But I do enjoy him, you know. So charming for an American.”
“Maybe. Yet I get the impression that in his personal affairs he isn’t so happy. Does he have anyone?”
“There are girls. Nothing serious.”
“And I suppose he prefers it like that?”
“I don’t think he likes it or dislikes it. This is simply how life has turned out for him at the moment.” She stepped back from the canvas and scrutinized it briefly before changing brushes and addressing it anew. “When he lived in New York, though, things were different.”
“Really? You mean he was in love? It’s hard to imagine.”
“I don’t know much about her, except that she was also involved in the art business. ‘Brilliant eye’ was how he once described her to me. They were together two, maybe three years, I think. She died in a car accident.”
“Is that why he moved to Paris, then? To make a fresh start?”
For some seconds Céleste painted in silence. “It was definitely an incentive,” she said.
Letting her eyes go fractionally out of focus, Odile sorted through the mental images she had of Turner, searching for one that might match the man Céleste had just summoned up for her, a man in love, a man driven by grief to change his life. But no such image presented itself, and her curiosity about him segued, for lack of concrete information, into a kind of waking dream in which he repeatedly displayed his passport to her, explaining himself in a voice that only occasionally penetrated her understanding. He seemed to be asking a favor.
She sat for Céleste until the afternoon light began to fade and color gave way to shades of silver and gray. A delicious melancholy settled over the studio. Shedding the green dress, Odile danced a few improvised steps across the floor to shake the numbness from her limbs, then retrieved her street clothes from the bedroom and put them on. Céleste was examining the canvas in the dying light.
“Progress?” asked Odile, who by now knew better than to ask to see the painting.
“Yes, progress of a kind. But it’s strange. I’ve found the maenad and lost the other thing.”
“What other thing?”
“I don’t know.” Céleste shrugged. “But never mind. We’re sure to do better next time.” She offered Odile her cheek. “Until then, sweet.”
They embraced, then Odile hurried down the stairs, through the courtyard, and out into the street. The spring temperatures and lengthening twilight had brought the local student population out in force, and as she passed the Place de la Sorbonne, the mingled sounds of laughter, giddy conversation, and a lone street violinist sent a shiver of unexpected feeling up her spine. Her own days at university, which she hardly ever thought about, had been a blur of violent discovery and relief.
She took the bus from Val-de-Grâce, sitting in the rear beside a nattily dressed blind man who from time to time would ask her what street was next. When he got off, two skinheads in motorcycle jackets boarded the bus and immediately set about harassing anyone with whom they could make eye contact. Odile signaled for the driver to stop, then went to the front and demanded that he eject them. When he equivocated, she marched back down the aisle and, using arm motions completely new to her, shooed them out the back door herself. Her heart was still pounding three stops later when, at Arago, she agai
n pressed the red stop button and stepped out into the gathering darkness.
At the corner market, a modest but immaculate establishment run by a wizened Chinese couple, Odile picked up the ingredients for an asparagus risotto she planned to make for dinner. Paying with a crisp hundred-franc note, she watched with interest as the shopkeeper’s wife ran it under a small ultraviolet light newly installed by the register. The bill fluoresced. Odile thanked the couple and, waving off their apologies, left with her change and purchases.
There were no lights on in Max’s studio when she arrived at the gate of the mews. She punched in the entry code, walked the length of the courtyard to their apartment, also dark, and, setting the groceries down outside, fumbled through her purse for the keys. When at last she had hold of them, just as she was about to unlock the door, she sensed someone approaching from behind. Whirling to face him, she made a swipe at the intruder with her keys, but he caught her wrist and held it.
“It’s me,” Turner said.
She saw that it was. “Let me go.”
He did. “We have to talk,” he said.
“Don’t ever do that to me again,” she said, opening the door and switching on the lights.
“Sorry.” He followed her in.
She closed the door behind him. “Are you crazy?” she demanded.
“That could be it,” he said.
They stared at each other.
Turning away, she saw her dressmaker’s dummy, layered in muslin pattern pieces, in the center of the studio. She snatched a cotton sheet from her worktable and threw it on top. “We’d better go upstairs,” she said, gathering up the groceries.
In the kitchen she put away her purchases, then took a bottle of pomegranate juice from the refrigerator and poured them each a glass.
“Where’s your husband?” Turner asked.
“Max? Finishing up work. He’ll be here any minute.” She set two small bowls on a platter, filled one with ripe olives, the other with almonds, and took the whole unnecessary ensemble into the living room. Turner followed with their glasses.
“If this is trouble,” said Odile, taking her drink from him and settling at one end of the sofa, “I don’t want it.”
He put his own glass down on the coffee table and sat down beside her. “Not trouble, exactly. A situation.”
Contemplating him—a large-eyed, hungry-looking man in an olive cotton suit, his shirt striped black and tan, his raw-boned hands clasped between his knees—Odile was not comforted. “I’m listening,” she said.
“Three nights ago the man who recommended Thierry Colin to me—his cousin, in fact—was shot dead in the street. I was there when it happened. The guys who did it, I think they might be the same two who’ve been bothering you and your houseboat friend.”
Odile sniffed. “You mean those Russian idiots?”
“Right. Them.” A muscle in his jaw began to twitch. “The unfortunate thing is, they work for someone I know, a Russian banker with connections.”
“I remember,” said Odile. “The guy people don’t like to cross.”
“Well, he warned me about the shooting right before it happened, but he also made certain it happened where I could see it and draw the appropriate conclusions.”
“Which were what?”
“I think it’s safe to say that he’s not very happy with Thierry Colin.” Turner took a sip of his juice and grimaced. “Are you sure you don’t know where he is?”
“Of course I’m sure. I told you. He just disappeared.”
“Right.” Turner massaged the twitching facial muscle with his thumb. “Do you have any tranquilizers, something like that?”
She shook her head. “I can give you whiskey.”
“Would you mind?” He handed her his glass. “It’s been a stressful week.”
In the kitchen she tossed his juice down the drain and poured four fingers of scotch into a fresh glass. For whatever reason—his evident anxiety, their overlapping predicaments, a rogue maternal impulse—she felt marginally more sympathetic toward him. When she returned with the whiskey, she found him standing just inside the bedroom door, peering at the discreetly framed and matted Giacometti drawing that hung there.
“It looks genuine,” he said, accepting the glass.
She turned on the picture light. “It is. You’re the one who keeps fakes, remember?”
The drawing was of an upright female nude, gaunt and haunted-eyed, rendered in a storm of pencil strokes from which she seemed only partly to emerge. In places the density of line was built up almost to blackness—along the inside of the thighs, across the abdomen, under the breasts—while elsewhere it thinned to a faint, negligent scribble. The effect was uncanny, as if the figure were shimmering into being of its own accord. Odile had always found it bewitching and troubling in equal measure.
“Do you like it?” she asked.
“Yes, it’s good. Very good.”
They looked awhile longer, then went back to the living room. Odile settled into the corner of the sofa with her legs tucked under her.
Turner eased down next to her. “Understand my position,” he said. “Whatever Thierry Colin did to upset my banker friend, people are being held accountable. It would be a pity if you or I were needlessly misjudged.”
She studied him curiously. “So what do you propose to do about it?”
“I thought we might start by pooling our information. Did Thierry say anything to you about being in debt?”
“We were on a debtor’s errand,” she replied. “That was a given.”
“Yes. But maybe he let something slip about, I don’t know, how he liked to spend his money. Does he have a girlfriend, for example?”
“He didn’t mention anyone,” she said carefully. She was wearing a necklace of many finely wrought silver chains bunched together, a gift from Max, and as her fingers toyed with it now she thought of Gabriella parading up and down before the mirror in Thierry’s apartment, wearing the dark rose underwear that was also a gift, and she was again as dismayed as she had been then. “Not that he would have,” she added.
“You mean he came on to you?”
“He tried, the first night on the train. But I quickly put a stop to that.”
Turner nodded. “What about drugs?”
“No. I would’ve noticed.”
“What else?”
She hesitated. “I think he had gambling debts.”
Turner put down his glass in surprise. “Gambling? Really?”
“We didn’t talk about it. But he kept this notebook, journal, whatever. I got a look at it, just a few pages. He was trying to work off what he owed.” Hearing herself speak these words, she grew alarmed. Her mind raced, and she imagined a swift cascade of events in which her presence in Thierry’s apartment had somehow become known to Gabriella after all, with consequences to match. “But all that was before Moscow,” she added quickly. “I’m surprised you didn’t know.”
Turner shook his head in annoyance. “And you?” he asked after a moment. “What do you think happened to him?”
“I have no idea. But I can tell you what one of those Russian half-wits told me. He said that Thierry smuggled a group of Belarussians into the country for prostitution and forced labor.”
“I don’t believe it,” Turner said. “Do you?”
“Stranger things have happened.”
Turner reached for his glass again and drank the last of the whiskey. When he looked at her, his lips were parted in an odd half smile.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“No, really.”
He set his glass down. “How’s it going with Céleste?”
“Very well. We’re becoming friends, I think. But she must have told you that.” He had moved closer to her, and she could feel his warm whiskey-breath against her face.
“More or less,” he said. “So I guess by now you know the story of my life.”
“Your life?” Odile snorted in exaspera
tion. “Look, Turner. You said you’d make this problem—this very tedious and stupid Thierry Colin problem—go away. Fine. But still I’m being harassed, and now you tell me someone has been killed. Excuse my naïveté, but isn’t it time to turn this whole infuriating mess over to, for example, the police?”
He sighed. “I’m afraid not. You see, my banker friend …” Waving a hand vaguely in the air, he seemed to suggest complications too numerous or disagreeable to articulate. “No, now the only thing is for us to find Colin ourselves.”
“What?”
“You and I together. Us.”
Odile looked away. She’d left the light on over the kitchen counter, its soft yellow incandescence spilling over the wooden cutting board and the asparagus she’d placed there, so that from where she sat, with darkness intervening and the twin pools of light cast by the sofa-side lamps making everything near her visible and ordinary; the small kitchen tableau glowed like a distant stage. The sight transfixed her, filling her with a strange expectancy to which she could attach no object.
“I doubt it’s worth anything,” she said, “but one of those Russian thugs told me Thierry would soon be contacting me about his fee for the Moscow trip. Why me and not you, I don’t know, but I have a number I’m supposed to call when he does.”
“They gave you a number?” Turner’s dark eyes appeared to dilate, and for the first time Odile understood the extent of his fear. It enveloped him with a dreadful magnetism that embarrassed her.
“Those guys are such buffoons,” she told him. “Most of what they say, they make it up on the spot. Or they have to write it down to keep it straight. Thierry has no reason to contact me.”
“But if he does,” said Turner, “would you call me first?”
She couldn’t help staring at him. “Yes. All right.”
He started to say more, but then, as if belatedly acknowledging a fact long known to both of them, he brought his hands up under her breasts and, leaning into her, pressed his lips to her neck, breathing into her hair until she shivered.
