“I know.”
“Men and women throwing themselves out of windows.” She paused. “What you want is to know someone’s there; you also want them to leave you alone. I’ve got that with Don. But, I was shocked because I suddenly understood that the heart takes care of itself. We allow ourselves contentment; our heart brings us ease in its good time.”
“It’s a nice thought,” said Frances.
“You don’t agree?”
Frances flicked her cigarette away. “It hasn’t been my experience.”
34.
They found themselves on the border of the Tuileries garden. “Look where we are,” said Joan. “Do you want to go to the Louvre?”
“Fuck the Louvre.”
“D’Orsay?”
Frances nodded, though she didn’t much care to go. Taxiing back over the Seine, she felt a magnet pull in her stomach. It was as if the water wanted her, and she waited in dread for the feeling to pass, and it did pass once the taxi cleared the river. Joan paid the driver and then the museum admission. The Musée d’Orsay was nearly empty. From the moment they entered, Joan’s mood changed; she became sullen and withdrawn. Frances asked her what was the matter and after a stuttering start Joan expressed contempt for the suicide note, the idea of suicide from a woman such as Frances, the cliché of someone so bright and promising killing herself once the glamour has passed.
“Well, for one,” said Frances, “that’s an extremely shitty thing to say to me. Two, the glamour passed a long time ago, and you know very well that it did. And third, three, yes, my life is riddled by clichés, but do you know what a cliché is? It’s a story so fine and thrilling that it’s grown old in its hopeful retelling.”
Joan couldn’t help but smile at this.
“People tell it,” Frances said. “Not so many live it.”
35.
In the late afternoon the group assembled for cocktails. Without consorting about it they’d all dressed up, and the women’s perfumes fought for supremacy in the living room. The sun set, candles were lit; Mme Reynard found an English dictionary among the cookbooks and proposed they play the game called Dictionary, whereby a player assigns an incorrect definition to an unknown word in hopes of fooling the other players.
She claimed the secateur was the saboteur’s assistant, Malcolm that costalgia was a shared reminiscence, Susan that a remotion was a lateral promotion, Frances that polonaise was an outmoded British condiment fabricated from a horse’s bone marrow, Madeleine that a puncheon was a contentious luncheon, and Joan that a syrt was a Syrian breath mint. Julius, whose English was not fully matured, said that unbearing was the act of “removing a bear from a peopled premises.” Tom proposed that a raptorial was a lesson on forcible intercourse and was so roundly berated for this that he quit the game and sat to the side of the group in a sulk, muttering bitterly that language was for communication, not obfuscation. “I feel uneasy when things don’t make sense,” he admitted.
The game wound down and dinner was served, a roast, and a salad of watercress, rocket, and Roquefort, then dessert, a charlotte Malakoff au chocolat much admired by the partygoers, which brought Mme Reynard a flush of pleasure. “Say what you want about Julia. I know some will drag her through the mud, but in the end, what are they actually accomplishing with this? Defining their own limitations, defending a sparse arsenal. I give credit where it’s due, and I’ll thank you to do the same.”
“Who is Julia?” Tom whispered to Joan.
“Child.”
Tom misunderstood. He turned to Susan and asked, “Who is Julia?”
Frances surprised the group and herself by volunteering to wash the dishes. She had performed the chore perhaps six times in her life and so the movements were both familiar and faraway. It was such a simple action, yet it felt almost religious, a gesture acknowledging something larger, more enduring than oneself. Malcolm dried and stacked, working efficiently but without his mother’s enthusiasm. Actually he was bothered by Frances’s taking up the task. It was so far from her typical behavior as to indicate the approach of peril.
In leaving and then returning to the party, Frances and Malcolm sensed a shift in the air. All were drunk, as were they; all were continuing to drink with no thought to stop. Tom and Julius were quietly, earnestly arm wrestling at the dining room table. On the couch, Susan and Madeleine were trying to explain to Mme Reynard that there was no bad blood between them, a concept Mme Reynard couldn’t seem to grasp. “I can’t claim to know either of you well, or at all, but I can see you’re above such petty jealousies. Ugliness begets ugliness. I volunteer we strive for grace.”
“Neither of us is bothered, Mme Reynard,” Susan said.
“You say that, but you obviously don’t mean it.”
“But I’m not in love with Malcolm,” Madeleine said. “To be honest, I don’t even like him very much.”
“I’m comfortable not talking about it,” Malcolm said, pulling up a chair.
“Oh, why can’t we all be friends?” Mme Reynard asked. Her lips began to quiver and she burst into tears.
“We’ve upset Mme Reynard,” Susan told Madeleine.
Madeleine patted Mme Reynard on the back. “Please don’t cry. Your makeup’s going to run—and there’s so much of it.”
There came a thud in the background as Tom defeated Julius. Now he challenged Malcolm, who had had enough to drink that it seemed a sound idea. He moved to sit at the dining room table; Julius declared himself officiator: “Ready? Steady? Go!” he said, and Tom slammed Malcolm’s hand down on the tabletop. Malcolm had offered not the slightest resistance. “You win,” he said.
“Come on,” said Tom. “Do it right.”
Malcolm nodded and they clasped hands. Julius set them off, and again Tom won effortlessly. “You’re the big winner,” Malcolm told him.
“It’s not winning if you win like that,” Tom complained. “He’s not even trying.”
The women drifted over. Joan and Frances walked side by side, linked at the arm; Mme Reynard was dabbing her eyes and giving thanks for Madeleine and Susan’s heartening encouragements. Malcolm looked up at Susan’s pretty, drunk face. He felt he loved her very much and told Tom, “If I win, you take your bag and leave—alone.” Tom’s expression grew steely, and for the third time the men joined hands. Julius set them off and Tom let out a war cry as he brought Malcolm’s hand crashing down on the tabletop. Malcolm hadn’t tried at all; Tom, panting, asked, “Wait a minute. What do I win?”
“Nothing,” said Malcolm. “Everything is exactly the same as before.”
Mme Reynard said, “This reminds me of the performance artist I saw on the television. She walked the length of the Great Wall of China, then broke up with her boyfriend, then everyone paid good money to watch her go to the bathroom in a bucket in a museum.”
Malcolm was absently rubbing his smarting knuckles. Susan knelt beside him and took up his hand in hers. She drew his hand to her mouth and kissed it. Tom stood apart from the group and said, “I don’t like you people.” He turned to Susan. “I don’t like these people. They’re not normal people.”
Mme Reynard took hold of Tom by his shoulders. “Tom, I speak for the group when I say that I’ve enjoyed, so very much, meeting and talking with you. Couldn’t you please find it in your heart to like us just a little bit?”
“No.”
Mme Reynard sat on the sofa. “I tried and failed—but tried.”
Now Julius faced Tom. Swaying, he opened, then closed his mouth. He stood breathing from his nose awhile. “I’m not used to drinking this much,” he said, and also sat down on the sofa.
Malcolm stood before Tom. “Tom,” he said, and Tom drew back and punched him in the nose. Malcolm fell-sat back down, hand covering his face and nodding, as though the violence against him was just, even commonsensible.
Frances slapped Tom in the face, then sat down herself.
Tom stood there looking woebegone. “I’m leaving,” he told Susan. “Are you co
ming with me or not?”
“I’m not,” she said, smiling at Malcolm, who wore a jaunty mustache of blood.
“This is your last chance.”
“I’m not coming.”
“It’s now or never, Susan.”
“Never, please, thank you.”
Tom collected his baggage and left the apartment in a state of mortification and bafflement. Mme Reynard took this as a cue to refresh everyone’s drinks. “Well,” she said, “we’re down a man; one of our group has defected. But perhaps the lack will bring those remaining nearer together?” They raised their glasses and drank to the thought.
Malcolm led Susan away from the group and to his bedroom, closing the door behind them. He drew back his sleeve to remove his watch, which Susan recognized as her father’s, and which she hadn’t known he still possessed. He put it on her wrist and began tightening the band for her. “I asked you to come and you came,” he said. He was attentive to the act of putting on the watch. Susan laid her free hand on his face. “You’re dripping blood on my sweater, honey.”
36.
Now came strangenesses. After Malcolm and Susan reemerged, Mme Reynard announced it was time for a talent show, and though none much wished to take part, her enthusiasm outweighed their disinclination. She began, by reciting a number of Emily Dickinson poems she knew by heart: “How happy is the little stone, that rambles in the road alone.” She spoke from her deeper self and all were impressed by her memory, and how the words affected her. She was near tears when she said,
“I sing to use the waiting
“My bonnet but to tie
“And shut the door unto my house;
“No more to do have I,
“Till, his best step approaching,
“We journey to the day,
“And tell each other how we sang
“To keep the dark away.”
There was lively applause as Mme Reynard sat, mildly quaking, eyes gleaming with the gratification of the performer in triumph.
Joan elected to go next. She fetched a sheaf of loose paper and pencil. “Name something and I’ll draw it.”
Mme Reynard said, “Draw me.”
Joan quickly and expertly drew Mme Reynard. In the portrait she was as in life, sitting on the sofa with a drink in her hand, forward leaning, an affable yet mildly psychotic look in her eye. But it was not an unflattering likeness, and as the drawing was passed from hand to hand, a great many compliments were afforded Joan. Mme Reynard set the drawing safely to the side, saying she would cherish it always. She was straining to hold her head upright.
Julius stood to address the group. He said, “I’ve been sitting here wondering what I can share with you, but I can’t think of a single thing. This is embarrassing for me, as you can imagine, but I want you to know how much I’ve been enjoying myself here. Thank you for allowing me to sit in your company. I hope that I may continue to do so. That’s all.” He bowed and sat, and there was among the guests a heartening chatter, statements of fondness for the reticent PI. Julius translated the mood and was moved by it. Though he had not entertained anyone, he’d gone through the same emotional transfiguration as the entertainer, and he experienced an uncommon sense of fulfillment.
Frances stood, drink in hand. She was going to tell a story, she said.
“Is it a happy story?” Mme Reynard asked.
“No,” Frances said.
“What’s it about?”
“It’s about the time I set my parents’ house on fire.”
“Well,” said Mme Reynard.
“I’ve heard this before,” Joan said. “It’s a good one.”
The group waited. Frances sipped her gin and began. “My mother one day decided she hated me, and she was not adept at hiding this; in fact she had no thought to hide it; in further fact, she wished to share it. Her method was to ignore me, to such an extent that I now can only wonder at her sanity. I’m not saying she was averse to me—that she would avoid me. I’m saying she began to live her life as though I did not and had never existed. I would greet her and she would pretend I wasn’t there at all. She looked not at but through me. If I persisted in speaking to her she would leave the room, or the house.
“This went on for many months, and had what I believe was the desired result, which was for me to doubt the truth of my own existence. I was ten years old, eleven. Once I overheard my father pleading with her to address me, and she said sadly, ‘I’m sorry, darling, but I can’t do that, and I won’t.’ She couldn’t reconcile herself to aging and she disliked that I was favored by my father. I outshone her. That’s really all there was to it. She wanted to send me away but Father wouldn’t allow it, so her ignoring me was her revenge, and it was brilliant in its effectiveness.” Frances took another drink. “There were bright spots in my life. My governess, Olivia, and I were close, then, and Father was always kind, and sympathetic. But Olivia could only do so much, and Father was gone half the time, more than half the time; at some point each day I would see my mother but she wouldn’t see me and it began to damage me.
“Well, a birthday of mine occurred, and of course my mother did not bring me a gift, or attend my party, which was at our own house. Late that night I lay in my bed, surrounded by my presents and cards, and I was taken up by the most unpleasant, the most violent desperation. It was too great a feeling to bury; I had to act. I decided to set the house on fire. I should say I had no wish for Mother to burn, but I knew she would react, and this was my dream.
“Olivia was sleeping, and Mother was, and Father was out of town. I took a stick of kindling from the firebox in my room and stuck it in the glowing ashes of the hearth until it caught fire. I touched the flame to the curtains. Once they were alight, I went to tell Mother. I still had the smoldering kindling in my hand; I held it near her face and she woke up hacking. Her face was very frightful and ugly and when she sat up I told her, ‘Mother I’ve set my room on fire.’ She said nothing. ‘My room’s on fire, Mother,’ I said. Still she said nothing to me, but after a moment she rose from bed, rang the fire department, dressed, and quickly left the house. I watched from her window as she drove off into the night.
“Olivia was screaming, now. Her room was just to the side of mine, and the smoke woke her up. I returned to my room and found her batting at the wall of fire with my duvet cover. Poor Olivia, she was so frightened. I could hear the sirens, but they were a long way off, like a mosquito near your ear.
“The first thing the firemen did was kick down the front door, which was unlocked, and nowhere near the fire upstairs. Then they kicked down all the other doors, took axes to the house, and coated every inch of the interior with their fire hoses. Oil paintings blasted from the walls; statues toppled from the pedestals. It was the most thorough act of vandalism I’ll ever witness, I’m certain of it. Standing amid the hissing wreckage, the commissioner later explained that fire was the most insistent and insidious of the four elements, and that you could show it no mercy—which was fine, but the estate was destroyed, more or less. It took the whole summer and into the fall to restore it to its former state and it was years before it lost its smoky scent.
“I can remember listening to Olivia speaking with my mother on the telephone. Mother had driven to the airport and was waiting to board a flight for the Bahamas. Olivia said, ‘It’s one thing to care for a child, quite another to sleep across the hall from an arsonist. I’m not saying I won’t do it, but we’re going to need to discuss my wage.’ She listened awhile, then hung up, clapped her hands, and told me we were going to stay in a hotel, and that food would be brought to our rooms, and the television would be bright and loud, and there would be a pool for swimming and pastries with tea every afternoon. All these things were true.”
“But what happened to you?” asked Mme Reynard.
“Just that. We moved into a suite at the Four Seasons. I had the time of my life. There were no repercussions that I can recall. My mother remained in the Bahamas for the season. My father se
nt a psychiatrist to the hotel to speak with me. He asked why I’d done it and I told him and he said he understood and went away. That’s the story of my setting my childhood home on fire.”
Frances sat, and the group discussed the story. Mme Reynard said she enjoyed the tale as it provided an insight into Frances’s character, but it was ultimately unfulfilling in that there was no punishment rendered for what was a very serious, even an evil deed. Julius said it reminded him of Gone with the Wind, though he had never seen Gone with the Wind, but he had a sense that there was a narrative sameness occurring. Mme Reynard told him that beyond the fact of each story featuring a house fire he was wrong, but that Julius should see Gone with the Wind the first chance he got, as it was a classic that withstood what she called the very terrible test of time.
Now came Madeleine’s turn, only she, like Julius, had no talent to share, she claimed; she asked if she could be excused from the exercise and was told she could not. “Can’t we count the séance as my turn?” she said. The answer: no. “Well, can I just tell a story, too?” she asked, and it was granted she could, and she decided she would explain how it was she’d come to her line of work.
She said, “When I was eight years old I was sitting in the kitchen eating a bowl of cereal and my grandma walked into the room, and she was lime green. It clung to her skin but bled away when she moved, like a mist coming off her. I asked her what was the matter and she said, ‘Nothing, why?’ In a little while she said she was tired, and she went to lie down, and she closed her eyes and died. I didn’t tell anyone about it. A year later I saw a green man at the supermarket. I broke away from my mom to follow him at a distance, up and down the aisles. I followed him through the checkout and to the parking lot. He sat in his truck, turned it on, then off. He started jerking around in his seat. Foam was coming out of his mouth. I watched him die in his truck. A cop came, and I told him and my mom about the man’s greenness, and my grandma’s. The cop told my mom to take me to a hospital and she did, and a doctor heard me out, then put me under observation—three days and nights in a padded room. After that I pretended I couldn’t see the greenness anymore.”
French Exit: A Novel Page 14
