Mazarine

by Grimshaw, Charlotte

  ‘I don’t think I know who you are,’ I said dreamily. I turned and gripped her arm. ‘Mazarine …’

  We booked Economy seats on a non-stop Air France flight leaving Charles de Gaulle at night. Flying non-stop was hugely expensive, even though it was an off-peak rate, since it was winter in South America, but the alternative was multiple stops and a journey of more than twenty-four hours. We didn’t need visas, as we both held New Zealand passports, the travel document of greatest reciprocity, coveted by itinerants and foreign agents, since it allows so much freedom of movement.

  I didn’t want to reserve an onward flight to Auckland but Mazarine did, saying she needed to return to her law practice; this sounded cold-blooded to me and we argued back and forth, I wondering how she could even think of the practice and she stolidly repeating it doesn’t grow on trees and someone has to pay the bills, and I felt torn all over again; I wasn’t sure I wanted to return to Auckland; perhaps I would move back to London and try to find work, since Maya was there, or should be, but what about my feelings for Mazarine?

  She said not to book an onward flight would cost me a fortune, to which I replied, deciding on the spot, that I was going to dip into the savings fund I’d kept in reserve, since I wanted to make sure I could go whichever way I needed to; once I said this I felt I’d crossed some kind of mental Rubicon, had bought myself time, and could postpone my anxiety about money.

  Even as we argued, reality zoomed away from me, and at moments I hung onto the thinnest sense of the here and now. Did that happen, did that just happen? She was right: I didn’t know who I was. I wasn’t necessarily gay, or at least I didn’t seem to measure up to her mysterious standard of gayness, but had fallen in love with her contradictions, which appeared to me kaleidoscopically: softness and toughness, solemnity and humour, femininity and its opposite. And all the other oddities that made up the yin and the yang of Mazarine: her sharp mind, her anger and proud poverty, her comical qualities. When the most mundane items assume pathos — even her battered suitcase and broken sandals moved me — you know you’re trapped. I loved her, but everything around us seemed unreal.

  After we’d booked the flights, for which she insisted she would pay, ignoring my refusals (she seemed to have some kind of financial revenge on Jasmine in mind), we both dozed, exhausted by the tension, and when we woke later the studio was stuffy, the light through the closed shutters casting stripes across the bed.

  She quelled my protests using her best weapon, touch: every time I raised another objection to leaving Europe she would start with her expert stroking and kneading and massage, which eventually led to sex; perhaps she was trying to subdue her own tension and anxiety.

  My mind reeled with images of her, she was all curves, thighs and breasts, a soft weight and presence so erotic and so unlike anything I’d experienced before that I had to keep asking myself, Did that happen, did that really happen? Yet I didn’t feel awkward, and at times I wondered idly about those inner selves of mine. Did I find it easy to love Mazarine, not because I was gay, but because somewhere inside me there lived a hidden personality that was male? The idea did no more than emerge a few times, as an odd thought, a curiosity, and I didn’t dismiss it altogether. I filed it alongside innumerable, fragmented impressions of her mouth and eyes, her beautiful sprawl of rounded limbs, as if she were one of Picasso’s monumental nudes, those Cubist portraits of blonde Marie-Thérèse.

  Outside the window the city was indistinct, lost in a filmy heat haze, the sky washed with gauzy blues and delicate greys. After a while we went out seeking relief from the heat, the streets half in shade as the sun lowered.

  Scent triggers memories: in the narrow alleys below the apartment building where I walked with Mazarine, the waft of ancient drains reminded me of the old town in Menton, that long-ago trip, my parents having taken a detour from our European holiday to meet a man who might, Inez told me, give a clue to who I was. She hoped at least he would explain a few things. She wanted to know why I was such a difficult, nay impossible, child.

  Inez had a stock anecdote: she’d always been highly strung, and when I was five, she went through a phase where she couldn’t look at knives, for fear she would stab someone. Every time she told me the story, I took her to mean that someone was me. Who else annoyed her as much?

  Fragments of memory: high summer in Menton, we walked past the old town and the marina to a flat in a grand white building by the olive grove in Garavan, a sunny room, a frail, elderly bald man, his face gaunt with age and illness, Inez and the Judge at the side of his armchair, a middle-aged woman with dyed black hair translating, I and Frank and Natasha hesitating by the door, my discomfort as the woman seized my wrist and drew me closer to the old man, the scent of gumnuts lined up on the windowsill behind him.

  He spoke mostly to the adults, in a halting whisper, but turned to me when I stepped forward and obediently offered him the wrapped present Inez had pushed into my hands. He screwed up one side of his face in what must have been a smile, and said a few words, only one of which I remembered—

  TWENTY

  It wasn’t until I was wedged against Mazarine’s arm in the very back of the Economy section, drunkenly squinting at the TV screen as the plane climbed above Paris, that she confirmed she still had the flash drive Sophie Greenaway had given me. When I’d asked her previously, she’d either shrugged ambiguously or ignored me altogether, until I said I wasn’t going anywhere unless she promised she still had it. She swore she did, but maddeningly wouldn’t produce it; now, relaxed by the two-hour delay we’d spent in an airport bar, subduing our nerves with wine, she was holding it up between finger and thumb.

  ‘Sophie actually gave it to me,’ I pointed out, almost ready to swipe it out of her hand. ‘She assumed it was a manuscript. A life story. She wanted Maya to have it.’

  ‘I’m keeping it safe.’

  ‘Where? On your person?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to know.’

  ‘I would actually. It’s sort of mine?’ We lurched together, the plane seeming to plunge before rallying and climbing again, the turbulence felt strongly back here, in the cramped tail of the plane.

  She put a limp hand to her forehead. ‘I should never drink.’

  ‘You didn’t mention the flash drive to Emin?’

  ‘I didn’t tell him I had it.’

  A pause. ‘So, does that mean it was mentioned?’

  ‘Not specifically.’

  ‘What does that mean? That he confirmed it’s the information Mikail handed over?’

  She frowned and put a finger to her lips.

  The hostess had arrived with the tongs and the hot towels, while behind her a very large man was squeezing his way out of the toilet. When I looked back at Mazarine, the flash drive was no longer in her hand.

  All night the abrupt roar of the flush and the banging toilet door would jolt me out of fitful sleep as Mazarine writhed beside me, trying to find a comfortable position, the plane bouncing so hard it seemed that every strut and rivet must be strained to breaking. I began to repeat, as my mantra, the opening of my favourite Dickens novel, and as I whispered the words in the dark, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way — in short, the period was so far like the present period … I reflected that my tale of two was about to become a tale of three cities, and I wondered whether it was possible to stretch a narrative that had begun as a meditation on disconnection and turned into a tale of touch, into something that would retain the shape of a conventional novel.

  I slept with my face against Mazarine’s arm, and woke later to find her gone, her bag at my feet. I thought of searching for the flash drive, but she came swiftly along the aisle in the darkness, bringing cups of tea and biscuits, which seemed an achievement in Economy, the frazzled staff having turned off the lights and made themselves scarce. I struggled upright and reached grat
efully for the hot drink.

  She snapped on a face mask and slept while I remained awake, mindlessly watching television, until the lights came on and the stewards began assembling the breakfast trolleys, the pilot informing us over the intercom that we’d had to avoid a weather system during the crossing, which had caused us a further delay. In Buenos Aires, we could expect a fine day, he added, with a high of sixteen degrees. I felt a twinge of regret at leaving the European heat behind. I have always hated winter.

  I tried to see the city as we circled over it. My view was obscured, but I caught glimpses of urban sprawl and at one point a vast stretch of water. I pointed out the sea to Mazarine, who corrected me in her pedagogical tone: this was not sea but river, the Río de la Plata. My mistake was understandable, since the area of water was so large, but notice the colour, brown rather than blue; this was actually a giant estuary, two hundred and twenty kilometres across, formed by the confluence of the Uruguay and Paraná rivers. I felt again how much she enjoyed imparting information and I nodded along, taking an affectionate, amused pleasure in her solemn tone.

  ‘Brown rather than blue, like the Mazarine butterfly,’ I said, like a dull pupil.

  ‘Unfortunately the Río de la Plata is very polluted at Buenos Aires, Frances, however—’ She cleared her throat responsibly.

  ‘Gosh, your eyes,’ I said, noticing.

  ‘Yes. Planes sometimes do this to me.’

  Both eyes were bloodshot from the wine and the canned air, but the right one had a patch of blood in it. I looked for the flaw, the coloboma; it was obscured.

  I put a sympathetic hand to her face and she clasped my wrist with a grim little smile of suffering; unfortunately, at that moment the plane, now in rapid descent through cloud, gave a tremendous lurch, sending the heel of my hand into her nose.

  She forgave me, ignoring my apologies and ineffectual search for a tissue as we juddered and bumped our way down. She staunched the trickle of blood from her nose, and I, looking away, suppressed a brief wince of hilarity so sharp it was almost despair, my nerves were stretched so tight.

  We went through the weary ritual that airlines call ‘deplaning’, with its stops and starts, its queues and formalities, and emerged finally into air that was startlingly cold. The pilot had been optimistic with his sixteen degrees Celsius, I thought, it was more like five, although Mazarine disagreed, saying I just needed to adjust. I’d associated Argentina with rain forests and jungle heat, and the frigid air was a shock, although I’d known it was going to be winter. I followed Mazarine thinking I’d have to buy a warm jacket: more expense.

  As we queued for a cab at the Radio Taxi stand she said, ‘Take off your jewellery.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘There’s a lot of street robbery. And kidnappings.’

  I took off the gold necklace and bracelet, birthday presents Patrick had given me, stowing them in my bag and looking about warily.

  ‘Turn your rings around or take them off,’ she ordered. She smiled at me, squinting with her poor, sore eyes. ‘Even the cab drivers can be kidnappers.’

  I sat with my face against the glass as we flew at crazy speed down the highway, our taxi driven by a silent, gaunt man. Here Buenos Aires was shabby, the highway strewn with litter and bordered by poor housing and slums. Electricity cables ran from the rooftops of the decrepit high rises all the way to the ground, an alarmingly primitive arrangement that made the buildings look like they’d been tied down against a high wind. The parks were dotted with shacks and curtained vans, strung tarpaulins and rickety wooden outhouses, around which children played and dogs were tethered, and groups of youths stood on corners, or played football amid piles of bricks and dirt and tumbledown walls. At one point, we slowed past a small shantytown, a couple of acres crammed with dwellings made of corrugated iron and planks. The tower blocks were a haphazard jumble of rusty balconies, satellite dishes, washing strung on rooftops, frayed black cables running down the outside walls or hanging in odd loops between blocks. In the tree-lined streets below the highway the neighbourhoods were crowded and bustling, with rows of shabby shops and ramshackle tenements, the streets crammed with old cars.

  I was noticing the city’s absolute flatness; as an Aucklander, used to living in a mountainous volcanic field, I always found lack of hills a surprise, and faintly oppressive, too; a city without vantage points struck me as both overwhelming and monotonous. The slums, poverty and squalor in the outlying suburbs depressed me and made me wish we were back in Paris or London, cities so beautifully safe and plush in comparison. I felt a lurch of disbelief; it was such a short time since I’d surprised Nick in my house, and now I was here, doubly, trebly disorientated, with no evidence I’d got any closer to Maya — here came unreality again, swooping down out of the cold blue sky. I watched the electricity cables looping and unspooling as we sped past.

  We’d been in the cab so long I wondered if we’d actually been kidnapped, but our skeletal chauffeur did as Mazarine had asked him, driving into an upscale area and dropping us on a street that was quite beautiful, with graceful trees lining the pavements, stately apartment buildings guarded by uniformed doormen and, I noted as I towed my suitcase behind Mazarine, armed policemen stationed at each intersection who eyed us with sharp, professional interest. There was a single beggar at the corner, a trim lady with white hair, tidy rags and a neat cardboard sign, as though the residents would allow only one beggar in the area, and only if she were fittingly chic.

  Mazarine nodded at the armed police. ‘They’re to ward off the bandits.’

  The apartment was on an attractive side street that included a park, a hotel and an upmarket shopping centre. Ancient couples in sunglasses tottered arm in arm; fashionable women came and went from the mall; a dog walker leading six pooches rang the bell at the door opposite, and when a maid emerged and thrust a miniature poodle at him he paused to chat, the animal tucked under his arm. It was wearing a dashing little jacket with buttons that caught the sunlight, and red shoes.

  Mazarine had rung the bell and was talking to someone on an intercom; she was able to throw together some respectable Spanish, it seemed, and soon a man appeared and opened the door. He and Mazarine disappeared into his apartment, after which she came out with a set of keys, grabbed my arm and hustled me to the lift.

  When the doors closed on us she took an excited breath and said, ‘Frances. Nestor said Joe’s been in the flat.’

  ‘Nestor?’

  ‘The concierge.’

  I leaned against the wall, winded. ‘What about Maya?’

  She didn’t answer, only led the way to a door at the end of the hall.

  I was anxious, struggling against exhaustion. ‘Did he say Maya was here too?’

  She unlocked the door and pushed her bag inside, grabbed mine and did the same, shoving them so they shot across the wooden floor on their wheels.

  ‘Frances, listen. Come in.’ She pulled me inside and shut the door.

  The hall led to a huge living room, the far wall, all glass, opening onto a balcony decorated with plants. Light poured into the room, which was richly furnished with sofas, armchairs, standing lights, knick-knacks.

  ‘Before you say anything, wait. Sit down.’ She pushed me into a chair. I immediately stood up, furious at her stalling.

  ‘He only saw Joe,’ she said.

  ‘What?’ I stared.

  She slowed her words, emphasising. ‘He said Joe came for the key, and he didn’t see anyone with him. As far as I could tell — this was all in Spanish — he said there could have been someone with Joe, but if there was, he never saw. He’s meant to be stationed at the desk at the door, but he stays in his flat downstairs most of the time.’

  ‘Is Joe still here?’

  ‘He gave the key back five days ago. Nestor hasn’t seen him since. I think that’s what he was saying. My Spanish is—’

  ‘Why would he give the key to Joe?’

  ‘Oh, he knows him. I’ve brought the boys here
before.’

  ‘Is there another doorman?’

  She shook her head. ‘Nestor’s it. He’s perfectly sensible and honest, but not very vigilant.’

  ‘What about cameras? CCTV.’

  She pulled open the glass door to the terrace, letting in the buzz of the street below. ‘It’s a primitive system. They’re wiped after three days.’

  ‘You mean you actually already asked him that?’ I was infuriated by her calm tone; well, she would be feeling good, since Joe had turned up.

  ‘So where is he now?’ I looked around and added, sarcastic, ‘He’s been uncharacteristically tidy.’

  She poked around the room, considering. ‘I don’t know. All I know is Emin wanted to separate them from Mikail.’

  I watched her in silence as she searched the living room, lifting cushions, opening blinds, sweeping back a curtain, letting more light come in.

  ‘So now you’re saying Emin was deliberately getting them away from Mikail. That’s a bit more than you told me before.’

  ‘Is it? I can’t remember. Look, can’t you just trust me, Frances?’

  ‘How can I trust you when you won’t tell me what’s going on? You keep adding explanations to suit your story. You’re making it up as you go along.’

  I went to the terrace and looked at the view, not knowing what to say or what on earth I should do next, or how I could live if I couldn’t find Maya.

  ‘Frances, I’m not making this up.’

  I elbowed past her, barging around the grand, cluttered apartment until I found a bathroom, and disappeared into it, slamming the door and refusing to respond to her soft knocking, her whispered entreaties. I sat on the edge of the bath until she gave up and went away down the hall, her shoes squeaking softly on the polished floor.

  We searched the empty rooms, opening drawers and cupboards, looking under beds, moving furniture. I kept picturing myself straightening up in triumph with one of Maya’s earrings in my hand, but there was nothing, not even a hair clip; it seemed unlikely she’d been here, given the state she used to leave our place in, a trail of socks, crumbs, hair ties and other odd pieces of detritus that I automatically cleared away; perhaps, over the years, a little bit of my brother’s obsessive compulsive tidiness had rubbed off on me.