by Vanda Writer
“No. You can’t do this. I know you think that working on your career isn’t much compared to what Christophe’s done, but I’ve got to tell you, Jule, I’ve worked too damn hard for you to throw it all down the sewer now. Is that what you want to do? Give up everything we’ve ever worked for for some cause? What cause? A French cause? You’re an American.”
“Not completely. I’m French too. Maybe not by citizenship, but I was educated here, I have family here.”
“And you left here when you were sixteen for the opportunities America offered you.”
“I came back and forth. I didn’t only stay in the States. You don’t know what it is to belong to two countries.”
“I can’t believe you’re talking like this about the United States. What did he do to you out there? Brainwash you? You are a citizen of the greatest country in the world. Are you now going to give that and everything else up for France? Do you want to go to prison?”
“Oh, dear God, no.”
“Then don’t give him one damn dime of your money. Not one damn dime.” I was shaking. “I have to get to my appointment. I’ll see you tonight.” I walked out still shaking.
Chapter Twenty
“Richard!” I choked out as I hurried into the hotel lobby to get the directions I’d forgotten on the desk in my room. “What on earth are you—?”
“Surprise! So, where’s Julie?”
“A radio show, then rehearsal. A long one.”
“We can go meet her. Where’s she rehearsing? I can only stay a few days. My sister’s looking after Mother as my birthday gift, but she can’t stay long because of the kids. Take me to my wife.” He smiled, slapping his hands together and marching toward the door; he stopped, seeing I wasn’t beside him. “Al?” I was stuck to the lobby’s highly polished, black-and-white checked floor. “Oh, Al, how thoughtless of me.” He threw his arms around my shoulders, hugging me. “It’s good to see you.”
He left me standing there and hurried out the door. What’s he doing here? I have to see Schuyler today.
“Well?” He came back inside. “Let’s go. We’ll surprise her. Then I thought you could take me to meet Dan Schuyler.”
“No!” I screeched.
“What’s the matter?” He fixed his fedora to his head.
“Well, uh, it’s a closed rehearsal. You know how Juliana likes privacy when she’s working.” I could have added ‘remember how she banned you from all the New York rehearsals?’.
“I guess it’s just you and me until tonight. Let’s go somewhere. We can talk about that script and then go to Dan Schuyler’s place.”
“Out of town.”
“But I thought he said—”
“Nope. Out of town, unexpected, out of luck. Thoughtless guy. Let’s go see Paris.” I rushed ahead of him, my stomach turning and everything inside me sloshing around like lime Jell-O. I hated lime Jell-O.
“You know what I’ve always wanted to do?” Richard said, catching up with me. “I’ve always wanted to go boating on the Lac Daumesnil. I promised myself I’d do that the next time I came to Paris. And it’s the perfect day. Sunny and warm.”
* * *
“Nice here,” Richard said, pulling the two oars toward his chest.
“Yes,” I said, lying back in the boat making gruesome Schuyler pictures out of the clouds above. The one I liked best was the one with Schuyler’s nose growing out of his forehead. “Are you sure you don’t want me to take one of those oars?”
“No, I’m fine,” he puffed, loosening his tie and continuing to huff-puff us through the water. His jacket looked a little tight, like he may have gained a few pounds since I last saw him. He was well into his forties now and some gray streaked the sides of his head. “I don’t let the girl row my boat for me. When do you think Schuyler will be back?”
“Never!”
“What?”
We were surrounded by the beginnings of fall; the green foliage that floated overhead was beginning to be streaked with the slightest touches of orange and red, and the air was cool. It was a delight to be away from the heat that usually pressed in on me in the center of the city. I should have been enjoying it. “Look, Richard, I want you to stay away from Schuyler. The last thing we need is for you to ruin this deal. Juliana will never forgive you.”
“I know you mean well, Al, but Schuyler and I hit it off on the phone and he understands the scope of Juliana’s talent. I think he might rather talk business with me. You know, a man. That’s how he sounded on the phone.”
Schuyler was sure tightening those screws he had dug into my head.
“Getting together with Dan, you know, two men over a beer . . .”
Oh, brother, now he sounded like they both belonged to the Princeton club.
“We could come up with a plan to convince Julie what’s best for her.”
I wanted to jump out of my skin and smash something. I should be sitting with Schuyler now, but instead I was in this boat talking nonsense with this fool. “Richard, can we get out of this thing? I need to walk.”
“Sure,” Richard said, rowing the boat to the dock.
Always the gentlemen, he leant me his arm to help me from the boat. “May I say you look lovely in that dress? Much nicer than those dark suits you usually wear at the club.”
I wore a simple, cotton, yellow shirtwaist decorated with little blue lollipops and a blue cardigan around my shoulders. “Thank you,” I said as I stepped onto the dock.
We walked through skinny medieval roads sprinkled with odd shops and small cafes. “So, Richard, when were you last here?” I asked, desperate to keep him off the topic of Schuyler.
“Julie and I came here in ‘48. Kind of a second honeymoon to make up for the one we couldn’t have in ‘40 when we first married. Europe was at war, as you know, so it was impossible to go abroad. Our first anniversary was in Niagara Falls. Quite a comedown from Europe. Not a proper honeymoon for a woman like Juliana. So, in ‘48 I wanted to give her something special for our anniversary, and she was missing her family. I guess you know her mother was—”
“Yes.”
“I think missing her mother and the guilt she constantly carries around with her because she wasn’t here to protect her and, well, the guilt she has over not fulfilling her mother’s dreams—you know her mother wanted her to be a great opera diva—I think that guilt is something that kept Juliana from being the full-throttled singer she could be. Until you, of course. You seemed to get out of her what I couldn’t.”
We stood in front of the stone steps of a small church. “Sometimes I’m jealous of you, you know?” he said.
I think I stopped breathing then.
“Shall we go in?” he asked.
“Uh, yeah, okay.”
“Do you have something to cover your head?”
“My head? Oh, yeah, sure. I think I have a clean handkerchief in my handbag.” I pulled it out. “Will this do?”
“Fine. I know you’re not Catholic, but it’s only respectful, don’t you think? Of course, it seems a little silly that I have to take my hat off and you have to put one on. Where in the world did these rules come from?” He chuckled as we passed through the heavy doors.
It was dark inside, light coming only from the dusty stained-glass windows that lined the walls on the side and behind the altar. A large stone statue of the Virgin Mary stood on the altar with her arms outstretched like she was welcoming me into her. Well, that’s nuts. I was raised to believe that making a big deal out of Mary was some kind of sin, but for Juliana, she was the Holy Mother. There was something soft about that, something to lie your head on. It would’ve been nice to have a Holy Mother to take the place of the mother who didn’t work out so hot.
I waited as Richard genuflected toward the altar. Then we both slid into a pew
. He bowed his head with his hands clasped in prayer. His shoulders shook; he hid his head in his tightly interwoven hands as his shoulders shook more. I saw that he was trying to hide that he was crying.
“Richard?” I whispered, not sure if I should do or say something. He didn’t respond. Perhaps I should ignore it, I thought, make believe I didn’t see what I was seeing.
After a few long, uncomfortable minutes, he wiped his eyes with his handkerchief and looked up at the altar and sighed. “I think she may be seeing someone else?”
I froze and stared at the Holy Mother, afraid to look at Richard. I prayed some message would float down on me, that maybe she’d overlook I wasn’t Catholic and tell me what to say. He was crying again, and I felt sorry for him. He was in such pain. I wanted to comfort to him. I wanted to comfort him? Me. Could anything be more ridiculous?
“You want to get a glass of wine?” he whispered.
“Uh, yeah, sure.”
We pushed through the heavy door. A burst of light as we stood on the stone steps again. Hard to see. “She’s given me no reason to distrust her. It’s my silly fear. You won’t tell her what I said. I feel foolish. I know I can trust you.”
We walked back over the cobblestones looking for the café we had passed a while back. We strolled by old women standing behind large wagons selling flowers, artists with easels wanting to paint our portraits, secondhand junk shops and a fortune-teller’s trailer. The whole time we walked, my heart quaked with terror that he was about to tell me he knew about Juliana and me.
“Here, okay?” he asked when we reached the small café with a couple of inside tables and a couple outside. Colored leaves from the trees above us covered the ground and swished under our feet. Strange for it be so warm while surrounded by the beginnings of autumn. Some omen from the gods?
We sat outside at a small round table. A few feet from us there was a couple holding hands and speaking in a quiet French. Le garçon brought us two glasses of house wine. Richard lit a Marlboro. “I thought maybe if Juliana saw some of her relatives in France, you know when I brought her here for her anniversary . . . Well, maybe they’d know something about what happened to her mother that could soothe her feelings or maybe by reconnecting with these people, you know, maybe she’d feel less guilty. It didn’t work. The relatives were cold to her. Except for her grandmother. She was a pleasant old coot. French, you know. Never approved of Julie’s mother marrying that English earl or duke or—”
“Lord,” I said.
“Oh, is that what Julie’s father is? I can’t keep that royalty nonsense straight. Anyway, Grandma never approved of her daughter, her ways. The way I’ve heard it, her mother was, well, she tended to like the gentlemen a little too much. I guess that’s why I worry about Julie running off with some handsome . . .” His eyes looked into mine with intensity. “Is that sort of thing hereditary?”
“Uh . . . I don’t think so.”
“She’d never betray me. Would she?”
Sweat gathered around my neck as I tried not to look away from him. “No. Of course not.”
He smiled and took a deep breath, “Well, you would be the one to know, wouldn’t you?”
“Huh?”
“It’s obvious that you’re more to her than a manager.”
“It is?” Had Schuyler told him? Is that what this was about?
“Anyway, the old woman doted on Julie. Let Julie do whatever she wanted. Bought her expensive gifts. And the way I heard it, Grannie had been quite the looker in her time and had lots of beaux herself. I guess that’s where Julie’s mother got it from. But once Grandma got married, she dropped the beaux and was loyal to her husband, whereas her daughter wasn’t. That was the source of their conflict.
“Granny didn’t know anything about the details of Juliana’s mother’s, well, uh, her demise as far as I could tell with my broken French and her highly damaged English. But, those other relatives? Those aunts, uncles, cousins, whatever, I think they knew something, but they weren’t talking. I guess you’ve met that brother of hers.”
“Well, I don’t know if ‘met’ is the correct word, but I saw him from a distance.”
“Yes, he’s a difficult boy.” Richard took a few puffs from his cigarette. “She sends him money, you know? Hoping he’ll open some type of business and make a productive life. But those relatives . . . they talk like he doesn’t even exist or that he shouldn’t exist. They talk like that right in front of him. And they talk as if Juliana’s mother never had all those affairs and the boy just magically popped into existence. I don’t even want to think about that woman, her mother, but I can tell you I don’t blame her father one bit from separating from her. I’ll tell you if Juliana ever . . . with another. . .”
“What would you do?”
“Do? Well, I’d . . . Juliana would never do that. She’s a good Catholic girl. But I still feel bad for her brother. I mean, it wasn’t the kid’s fault he was born . . . well, into that situation, uh, fatherless. Christ did teach forgiveness and non-judgment, but to hear them talk you’d think they were the holy apostles putting a curse on the poor kid’s head. They acted like he planned his birth all by himself.”
A man and woman in orange, red, and green shirts and pants stopped near our table to play their accordions. Their fingers sped along the keys making music that was bright, but desperate too.
“They never solved the case,” Richard continued. “But I still think those relatives know something. I came back here in ’52. By myself. Juliana doesn’t know that. I’d appreciate you not telling her.”
“No . . .”
“I was going to solve the case for her. I thought that might give her peace. Sometimes she seems filled with such a restlessness. Have you noticed that?”
“Yes.”
“She’s restless like she needs something. Something I can’t give her. Do you have any idea what that could be?”
“No.” Keep breathing, Al.
“I told her I had to go on another one of my business trips when I came here in ‘52. I hired a private detective.”
“You did?”
“I was limited in who I could choose. I needed someone who spoke some amount of English. My French is pathetic. I studied it in prep school, but I was a poor language student. I stayed here a month hoping the guy would come up with something, anything, but . . .” He sighed deeply. “I think those relatives, well . . . I didn’t know the culture, the shorthand communications between people. They could’ve paid him off or threatened him away from the trail or—maybe he was just a bad detective.” He laughed and took a sip of his wine.
“Did you ever meet Juliana’s Aunt Sally?”
“Yes, I did. Wonderful woman. Terribly British. I took the boat across the Channel and she met me on the English side. We had a pleasant luncheon in a fine restaurant. I had a feeling she didn’t want Juliana’s father knowing she was talking to me and that’s why we didn’t meet at her home. She has a place on Juliana’s father’s estate. She practically raised Juliana until she was six or seven. The parents were still married then, but Grace Masden, Julie’s mother, was rarely there. You’ve met Julie’s father?”
“Yes. Stiff.”
“That’s a polite way of putting it. I gather he farmed off his parental duties onto Aunt Sally, but Aunt Sally loved the job. Unfortunately, her mother showed up one day and whisked Julie away from Aunt Sally. That’s when all the lessons began in earnest. Before that, I take it, Aunt Sally saw Julie’s innate musical talent and was helping her to develop it, but in a fun, game-like way. When her mother took over, she had her practicing night and day: dancing, piano, singing. A grueling schedule according to Aunt Sally, and Aunt Sally was powerless to stop it. If she lectured Grace about the needs of children, Grace would become enraged and threaten to never let Julie visit her again. That pretty much sh
ut up both Juliana and Aunt Sally. From Aunt Sally’s point of view, Julie’s mother was a tyrant when she wasn’t bedding every man in Paris and New York. I don’t think that woman ever gave Julie the kind of love she deserved, so I try to make up for it, but I . . .”
“Gosh, to hear Jule talk about her mother, it sounds like she was some kind of saint, but from what you’re reporting . . .”
“A different story. I know. I think Julie remembers the mother she wishes she had. But Aunt Sally knew nothing about the murder. When the murder happened, she had long ago lost touch with Grace Masden and Julie was already in New York. I had reached another dead-end. I came home with nothing.”
“I’m sorry, Richard. That must’ve been disappointing for you. You tried so hard. You must . . . love her very much.”
He lit a cigarette and smiled as he released a stream of smoke. There was a sweet sadness in his eyes. “There are not enough words in the English language or in French, to express how much I . . .” He puffed on his cigarette. “I know what we should do. There’s an old candy store not far from here. Julie loves Bourges Forestines, not that I’m pronouncing it correctly. Let’s get her some. The sweet chocolate smell of the place will put us both in heaven.” He threw some francs on the table and a few more in the accordion players’ cup and we were off again.
Chapter Twenty-One
I sat on a bus headed toward a Paris district called Belleville. Paris buses were the same color as New York buses—green and yellow—but some of them were open air, no glass in the windows to hold out the breezes of the moving bus. I wished New York had those kinds of buses. I loved whizzing through the streets with nothing obstructing my view as we passed cafes and Chez this and Chez that and bicyclists carrying long obscene-looking baguettes under their arms. With the heat wave still hanging on, the breeze coming in through the windows was a welcome respite.
