The Lost Carousel of Provence

by Juliet Blackwell

“That’s what strikes me as odd: From the stamp I would assume this photo was taken by the owner of the château, a Monsieur Yves Clement, who lived and worked around the turn of the twentieth century.”

  “Clement ran a photography studio?”

  “Oh no, of course not. He was a gentleman; he did not work for a living. But he was a passionate amateur photographer, and even included his stamp when he developed his photos, as you see here. Normally his work is quite refined, however. This one does not seem typical.”

  “Are his photographs well known?”

  Madame Martin’s pounded copper earrings reflected the overhead lights as she shook her head. “As I mentioned, I know of him through my husband. A distant cousin actually pulled together several of Yves Clement’s photos and approached the museum about the possibility of an exhibition, but since our focus is on the city of Paris I suggested he take them elsewhere.”

  “Is it possible . . . I mean, if Yves Clement was the one who took this photograph . . . and it was placed in the rabbit with a love note . . . ?”

  Madame Martin arched her eyebrow again. “Are you suggesting that the lord of the manor was in love with this young woman?”

  “I suppose that would be pretty far-fetched. But . . . how do you suppose he was connected to my rabbit in particular?”

  “I cannot help you resolve that mystery,” Madame Martin said as she picked up her phone and started scrolling through numbers. “But I know someone who might be able to assist you. His name is Jean-Paul Mirassou.”

  “John Paul? Isn’t that the name of a pope?”

  “It is,” Madame Martin said, as she started dialing. “But it is also the name of many Frenchmen.”

  She began speaking in a rapid-fire French, sounding almost angry. Cady did not even try to follow. Madame Martin nodded, then hung up the phone. “This afternoon, at three o’clock. He will meet you.”

  “Jean-Paul? He will? Why?”

  Madame Martin shrugged. “I asked him to share his knowledge of the château with you. He owes me a favor.”

  “I . . . Well, thank you again. Everyone says Parisians are rude.” Cady cringed as soon as the words slipped out; she wasn’t supposed to say things like that.

  But Madame Martin just smiled. “We are not rude. We are discriminating. Anyway, I can’t speak for all Parisians, obviously. I am from Nantes myself, and Jean-Paul is from Provence. But in my experience, the Provençal people do love a good mystery. Jean-Paul says he will meet you at the Café des Musées. It is not far from here.”

  * * *

  • • •

  The Café des Musées was classic Paris: the glossy red-paneled façade featured awnings and arched windows, and little chalkboards advertised the menu of the day, written in a fancy and distinctly French script. Though it was a chilly April afternoon, the small outdoor tables were occupied by smokers huddling under large patio heaters.

  Approaching the door, Cady realized she had no idea what Jean-Paul Mirassou looked like, how old he was, or anything about him, really. Inside the restaurant, half the tables were filled with women and men of all ages, many of whom sat alone.

  As she scanned the crowd, a man met her eyes, then stood. He appeared to be in his thirties, handsome, with shaggy light brown hair, sherry-colored eyes, and a heavy five o’clock shadow.

  “You are the American that Madame Martin told me about?” he asked in English. “Cady?”

  “Yes. Jean-Paul? Thank you so much for meeting me. This is very kind of you.”

  He leaned toward her and kissed her on one cheek, then the other. Jean-Paul smelled like fresh laundry with just a tiny whiff of tobacco, and his whiskers tickled her cheek. Having spent many hours working at the French-American school, Cady was familiar with the traditional French greeting, but still found it uncomfortably intimate.

  “How did you know I was Cady?” she asked in French as she sat down.

  “You are very . . . American.”

  “Is it the jeans?”

  “Not at all. Many Parisians also wear blue jeans, have you not noticed?”

  She hadn’t. “What, then?”

  “It is the way you walk,” he said in English, gesturing to the waiter.

  “Nous pouvons parler en Français, si vous preferez,” Cady offered.

  “If you don’t mind, I would rather speak in English,” he said. “It is good for me to practice. Otherwise, my English becomes, how you say it, roosty.”

  “Rusty. Are you saying I walk weird?”

  He looked rather alarmed at her response. “No, just in a very American way. It is hard to describe. It is . . . rather like a man.”

  “Huh.”

  “But of course, I meant this in the best possible way.”

  Cady wasn’t the only one upholding cultural stereotypes. Jean-Paul was wearing a scarf and what appeared to be a cashmere jacket. He had been writing in a notebook with a fountain pen, and a beat-up leather courier bag lay at his feet. He was simultaneously scruffy and very well put together, exhibiting what Cady decided must be an innate—and unique—French talent. The only thing missing from the tableau was a cigarette.

  The waiter appeared. Cady, unsure of what to order, asked for whatever Jean-Paul was having. In his glass was a pretty, bright orangey-pink liquid.

  “It is Campari. Do you know it? It is an aperitif,” Jean-Paul said, holding his glass out to her. “Would you like to taste it?”

  “Oh, no,” she declined. “It’s fine.”

  “Les deux,” Jean-Paul said, and the waiter left.

  “So, Madame Martin tells me you are an expert in early photography,” Cady said. Privately, she couldn’t help thinking that, like Mr. Scott Ripley, the expert who had destroyed her dreams of cashing in on Gus, Jean-Paul did not look the part. She had always imagined appraisers as one might see them in a Hollywood movie: old men with great shocks of white hair, beetled brows, and thick spectacles, harboring a lifetime of accumulated knowledge.

  Instead, Jean-Paul looked more like a poet—a European poet—who spent his days drinking coffee, chain-smoking, and writing in his journal until the sun went down and it was time to move onto drinking absinthe.

  “I am no expert.”

  “But Madame Martin said—”

  He waved it off and gave her a half-smile. “Madame Martin likes to play—what is the word? Matchmaker.”

  The waiter arrived and set a glass of Campari garnished with a wedge of lime in front of her. Cady feared her cheeks were as pink as the aperitif.

  “Um . . . then why did you agree to meet with me?”

  Jean-Paul grinned. “Perhaps I was looking for a date.”

  “That’s . . . that makes no sense.” As an adult, Cady had come to peace with her features. She had pronounced cheekbones, demanding dark brown eyes, and straight nearly black hair. Though she had always yearned to be lithe and delicate like the heroines in the books she devoured, she was anything but; she had wide shoulders and broad, capable hands. Olivia had once described her as having a “strong” look, “more Meryl Streep than ingénue.” All Cady knew was that she was not the type to bowl men over.

  “Anyway,” Jean-Paul continued, his gaze not leaving hers, “Madame Martin is like my mother. And one must do as one’s mother asks, yes? Do you like the Campari?”

  Cady took a sip, holding the liquid in her mouth for a moment. It was surprising: from its color she had expected the drink to be sweet, but it was bitter at the same time. She looked up to find Jean-Paul watching her carefully.

  “What?” she asked, running a finger across her lips in case she had something on her mouth.

  “Nothing,” he said with a slight smile, his gaze not moving from her face. “You like it?”

  She nodded.

  “So,” said Jean-Paul, “Madame Martin mentioned you are interested in my great-uncle’s phot
ographs.”

  “Wait—Yves Clement was your great-uncle?”

  “He was the brother of my grandfather’s grandfather—I am not a genealogist, so I’m not sure of the exact term. Does it matter?”

  “No. I just didn’t realize you were a relative. Madame Martin said only that you come from a village located near Château Clement.”

  “It is a small village, you see, so many of us are all related in one fashion or another. The family has been in that area a very long time, and my great-grandfather had ten children with two different wives, so there are many descendants.”

  “The village is near Avignon, right?”

  “Yes. It is called Saint-Véran, for the man who is said to have slayed a dragon from a nearby well.”

  “When was this?”

  “Long enough ago for there to have been dragons.”

  Cady took another sip, and felt herself relaxing. She wondered if it was the Campari or if Jean-Paul had a way of making her feel at ease. It was . . . nice.

  “I can’t get over you French,” she said, “what with your bread and your aperitifs and your . . . history.”

  Jean-Paul chuckled. “Your people have no history?”

  “Oh sure. Just not as much of it, and definitely no dragons. I’m from California, and a lot of our history centers on people stealing other people’s land, and searching for gold or building semiconductors. Whereas here, someone changes a road name four hundred years ago, and it’s still worthy of note.”

  “Well, trust me,” Jean-Paul said, “a long memory isn’t always a good thing. I admire the innovation of the Americans.”

  “That counts me out. I’m an old-style photographer. The basic technology of cameras and photo development hasn’t changed much over the last century.”

  “Ah, yes, back to Yves Clement. What can I tell you about him?”

  Cady brought out the sepia photograph of the woman and laid it in front of him. He raised an eyebrow, then leaned forward and picked it up.

  “That is Yves Clement’s stamp, certainly,” he said. “Where did you find this?”

  “Inside my rabbit.”

  “Pardon?”

  “My rabbit. Not a real one, of course. A carousel figure. There was a box hidden inside it.”

  “A carousel figure? In the United States?”

  She nodded. His gaze remained on her for a long moment, puzzled, before turning back to the woman in the photograph.

  “This would be an unusual photo for Yves Clement to have taken.”

  “Why?”

  “It looks rather amateurish, slightly crooked. Also, he rarely took posed portraits—the only ones I’ve seen were of his wife, Josephine, and their son when he was a baby. This is why he is so interesting from a sociological point of view: His photographs focus on nature and architecture, and candid shots of people at work.”

  “What kind of work?”

  “Châteaux were not just fancy houses. The owners were landholders, with vast orchards and farms. Clement took photographs of people tending the olive orchards, pruning the pear trees, gathering lavender; men with huge baskets on their backs, bringing in the harvest. He also took a series of photographs of the artisans who assembled the carousel for Château Clement. He—”

  “Wait, there’s a carousel at Château Clement?”

  “Yes. I assumed you knew that.”

  “How would I know that?”

  “Because you just told me you had a carousel figure, and you have a photo of a woman standing in front of a carousel, and because you spoke to Madame Martin about carousels.”

  She blinked.

  “In any case,” continued Jean-Paul, dropping the photograph onto the table as though he had lost interest in it, “I assume this photo was one of his series of carousel construction photos.”

  Cady slipped the picture back into its protective plastic sleeve, beside the love note. She pondered sharing the note with Jean-Paul but decided against it; it was her obsession, not his.

  “So what can you tell me about the Château Clement carousel?” Cady asked.

  “Yves and Josephine Clement commissioned the machine around the turn of the century. They had hopes for many children, but had only a single son, Marc-Antoine.”

  “Who made the carousel, do you know?”

  “Gustave Bayol. He had a factory in Angers.”

  Cady sat back and blew out a frustrated breath. “I know who Bayol is. In fact, my whole life, I was told my rabbit had been carved by Bayol. That was what fostered my interest in French carousels in the first place. But Madame Martin, and another carving expert, assure me that he isn’t a true Bayol.”

  “I would take their word for it.”

  “Yes, but then why would this photo by Yves Clement end up inside a carousel figure that was not carved by Bayol when there was a Bayol carousel on the property? Just how many carousel carvers were at the château?”

  He shrugged and glanced around the room.

  Cady persisted, asking,“Could I see the photos you have from Yves Clement?”

  “I donated them to the Archives Nationales.” He scribbled something on a piece of paper and passed it across the table to her. “This was the department I dealt with. You would have to apply to see them, and I should warn you: We French invented bureaucracy. They’re not online yet. My mother has copies, but she’s in Provence.”

  “I just wish I could find out where my rabbit came from. One of my goals for this trip was to reunite him with his carousel.” Cady took a thick folder out of her bag and held it up. “This is Gus, my rabbit.”

  Jean-Paul looked amused. “Not a fan of digital photos? Aren’t all you Californians high-tech?”

  “I told you, I’m old-school.”

  “So I see.” Once again, his eyes lingered on her just a beat too long. It made her uncomfortable, and yet . . . connected to him, in some strange way. Whatever it was, she did not look away.

  “I mean” —Cady felt compelled to clarify—“I take plenty of snapshots on my phone, but those are mostly for reference. True photographic beauty, to me, is captured by a genuine camera lens.”

  Jean-Paul held up his hand in a subtle wave, motioning to the waiter to clear the café table and bring a fresh tablecloth.

  “May I see the photographs, please?”

  Cady handed him the folder.

  He studied the prints—one after the other—for so long that Cady started to get nervous. She reminded herself to relish this moment: sitting in a Parisian café, sipping an aperitif just like she belonged. With a handsome Frenchman sitting across the table, no less.

  But when he looked back up at her, something seemed to have shifted. It was subtle, but his formerly open—and occasionally bored—expression now seemed guarded.

  “Anyway,” Cady said, “I’m searching for the provenance of my rabbit. If it’s not a Bayol, perhaps it was carved by one of his apprentices. If I could find a paper trail of some kind . . .”

  “Then what? How would it change the figure to know who carved it?”

  Cady wondered how to respond. She wanted to know Gus’s background, where he came from, whose hands had carved the figure she had cherished for so long. But would she sound ridiculous if she uttered those feelings aloud? Finally she simply said, “There’s always been something so . . . sweet about Gus. It’s hard to describe—I have tried, and failed, for years to capture that quality in photographs. I would like to know more about him.”

  “I will buy it from you, as is.”

  “Why would you do that? You can see he’s in bad shape.” Cady had wondered why Madame Martin, and now Jean-Paul Mirassou, would go out of their way for a total stranger. Did they suspect something about Gus that she wasn’t aware of?

  Jean-Paul stuck out his chin and shrugged again, in what Cady was coming to learn was a class
ic French gesture. She was fairly sure it was meant as a non-response response.

  “Madame Martin mentioned that Château Clement is run-down,” Cady continued. “I was thinking maybe I could get in touch with the owner, see if there are other figures, or more information—”

  Jean-Paul interrupted her. “The owner will not speak with you. He is a recluse. He doesn’t like interlopers—or Americans, for that matter.”

  “You know him?”

  “He is Fabrice Clement, the grandson of Yves Clement.”

  “So he’s a cousin of yours.”

  “A distant one, yes. It’s a moot point, in any case. Fabrice is—how do you say?—dédaigneux? Ah, ‘disdainful’ of family history. The only reason I had access to the photos was because they were in a package of effects left with my grandfather.”

  “And Fabrice Clement still lives at the château? Madame Martin made it sound like the place was a ruin.”

  “It’s pretty close to that. Fabrice was once a well-known novelist. He retreated there decades ago, supposedly to write his next great novel. I believe he’s still working on it.”

  “Have you seen the carousel?”

  He shook his head. “It was said to be destroyed in a fire. Would you like another drink? Or perhaps you are hungry?”

  “No, thank you. The carousel burned down?”

  “It was powered by a steam engine, which used a type of kerosene. If the pressure wasn’t carefully monitored . . .”

  “It would blow up.” She sat back in her chair with a sigh.

  “You look disappointed.”

  “I am, of course.”

  “There are a couple of Bayol carousels here in Paris. Have you seen them?”

  “Not yet.”

  “You must. After all, that is why you are here, no? To photograph the famous carousels of Paris?” He gestured to the waiter for the check. “Come, I will show you.”

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Show a lovely American tourist the highlights of Paris? Why would I not?”

  The waiter brought the check, and Cady earned a disdainful—dédaigneux, she recalled—glance from the waiter when she dove for it.