Whispering in French

by Sophia Nash

“Minnou, minnou, minnou!”

  “Have you searched behind the villa?”

  She looked up at me and shaded her eyes with one hand. “Of course. I ’ave walked all five hectares. Three times. Nothing. But sometimes I ’ear her. And something is eating all the cat food I leave out each night.”

  I heard the crunch of footsteps on pea gravel before Russ Nation, wearing a half-peeled Billabong wetsuit and carrying a surfboard under his arm, came ’round the side of the villa. “I thought I heard you. Hey, we finished checking the tarps. They are completely secure, so no need to worry yourself on that score.”

  “Thanks, Russ.”

  “The guys and I are heading out to surf, but I’ll be back to collect you for tonight, Kate.”

  “Great,” I said with as much enthusiasm as I could muster.

  “And, madame, I think I know where your cat is. I sometimes hear a cat mewling and a dog barking when I take the shortcut down the cliff. I’ll take another look-see right now.”

  “Hein? Qu’est-ce qu’un ‘look-see’?”

  “He’s going to try and find her for you,” I called down.

  Russ looked up at me, gave two thumbs up, and winked. “See you later, Katie.”

  It was getting harder and harder not to like Russ Nation. If he could just be less jovial, a decade older, and . . . oh, who was I kidding? He was just the nicest, easiest-going guy I’d met in forever and a day. But I wasn’t ready. I just wasn’t. I sighed.

  “Didn’t you once tell me to fake it until I make it?”

  I swung around to see Edward studying me.

  “Really? This the voice of experience in faking telling me what to do?”

  “Yep.”

  “It’s a total waste of time,” I said quietly.

  “Maybe not,” he replied. “Or maybe it is. You won’t know until you try.”

  “He’s more than a decade younger than me.”

  “How old was your husband?”

  “A decade older.”

  “So age doesn’t seem to matter. Wankers come in all shapes and ages.”

  I walked over to him.

  “Kate, you’re still young, attractive, plenty of life left in you.”

  “Oh my God. Did you just say something nice to me? You’re not dying are you?”

  “Are you going to just work like a fiend here all day? Go out there and live a little. If I can’t, you should. Come back and tell me all about it. On second thought, I don’t want to hear. Oh, and . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Carry condoms.”

  “I would hit you if you weren’t so pathetic lying there.”

  “Finally a chastisement. No one dares anymore. I think that’s the worst part of this.”

  I sat in the chair and looked toward his notes.

  “Okay, then. My buddy James is going to get back to me. He’ll do a little research for us. Until then, sit tight.”

  “But, what should I—”

  There was a knock on the door.

  We both said, “Come in.”

  Laden with fresh sheets and towels, Magdali entered with Youssef on her heels.

  “Sir, are you ready for us?” Youssef’s blindingly white smile overspread his dark face.

  “I am.”

  Magdali was already in the bathroom collecting towels and Youssef joined her.

  “By the way,” I said quietly.

  “Now what?”

  “I’ve noticed you’re not drinking. Magdali confirmed it.” “You just haven’t discovered my stash.”

  “In case no one else knows, I just wanted to say I’m impressed you’re sticking to your word. If anyone had cause not to, it’s you.”

  “Have I ever not kept my word with you, Kate?”

  I shook my head and only the sounds of Magdali and Youssef in the bathroom could be heard.

  “Your wife still cares about you, Edward. No, don’t ask. I just know. And I think, in the end, she’s willing to work to save your marriage. Have you decided if you’re going to move back into your house in England when you return?”

  “I am.”

  “Good. I think—”

  “Leave it. I said I’d go. I am not sure I’ll stay. We shall see.”

  I was about to speak when he stopped me.

  “For a therapist, you don’t know how to quit when you’re ahead.” He reached forward and tugged a strand of my hair before breaking into the first genuine smile I’d seen since the disaster.

  THE OUTING—NO, I refused to think of it as a date—with Russ was everything I knew it would be. He was funny, and had a master’s degree in business from the London School of Economics, and more importantly, a PhD in emotional intelligence.

  And halfway through the quintessential surfer movie, he put his arm around the back of my seat as if he was working on a doctorate of romantic moves. For the rest of the movie I tried to remember the last time someone other than my ex had kissed me. Had it really been almost twenty years ago? Did people even kiss the same way? He had better not try in the movie theater. And he’d better not try to French kiss me at all. I shifted in my seat. This was just insane. I was not going to kiss an Aussie surfer in his thirties.

  Oh, but I did.

  Here’s how it went:

  We were walking down the main avenue in Saint-Jean-de-Luz after the movie, and hundreds of people were all around us, celebrating some sort of weekend festival. Everyone was wearing white with red sashes and red berets and espadrilles. Confetti and the salty tang of the port filled the air. And suddenly, Russ tugged me into the shadowed, protected entrance to St. Jean-Baptiste Church to avoid collision with a rowdy group. His eyes were twinkling just like in some cheesy romantic comedy, and he said, “You’re not going to slap me if I kiss you, are you?”

  I guess I must have laughed, which he took as permission. The next thing I knew, his lips were caressing mine with a softness I hadn’t been prepared for.

  And then it was over. I looked over my shoulder to see if anyone had seen us. I’d been divorced for a long while but it still felt like I was doing something wrong.

  “Come on. Let’s ride back to Biarritz and get a drink at Le Royalty. You look like you could use one.” He laughed.

  Thank God he didn’t seem to take anything personally.

  “By the way, I found your neighbor’s cat. And also someone’s dog. But it’s going to take a seriously large jack hammer to get them out.”

  “Where are they?”

  “In some sort of fortified concrete bunker on the cliff face right in front of the villa. It’s got an extremely narrow horizontal opening covered with heavy vines. God knows how they squeezed themselves through that opening. No one would guess it was there.”

  “It must be one of the old Nazi bunkers built during World War II. We just need to figure out how they got in to get them out.”

  He scratched his head. “Yeah, well I searched as much of the cliff face as I could. Any side entrance is gone. And I searched the villa’s courtyard. Nothing. Except an air hole the size of a large fist. I told the lady and threw in a lot of dog and cat chow for them. I promised her I’d get them out tomorrow.”

  I looked at his ridiculously handsome face shadowed by a streetlamp and pulled him down to kiss me again. Nothing. I felt nothing. But at least I was back in the game again. Maybe with practice, something would come back.

  The problem was I wasn’t sure I could remember what something felt like. Maybe I never had.

  Chapter Twenty

  It was late when we got back. We kissed one long last time just inside the front vestibule. And I bade him goodnight, using the excuse that I had to see to something in the kitchen. He grinned and nodded before darting up the stairs to his room. There was just no way I was going up to the bedroom level of the house with him.

  The kitchen door was ajar, and I went in to find Magdali sitting at the table, writing out a list. Youssef, grinning, crouched behind her, his large hands massaging her shoulders while he pressed a
kiss on her head.

  Magdali looked up and they both froze.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” I said, not sorry at all. I looked first at my sister and then to Youssef, who had discreetly stood up, returned his hands to his sides and then taken a step to the side. Did they really think I hadn’t noticed? I refused to pretend I hadn’t. I opened my mouth, unsure what would come out of it only to have—

  “I’ve asked Magdali to be my wife, and she has finally agreed,” Youssef said, his grin returning.

  “Finally?” I whispered.

  “I only had to ask five times,” he replied.

  Magdali had yet to meet my eyes. At least she had set aside the pen. “Magdali?” I rushed to the other side of the table and dropped down to hug her awkwardly.

  She finally looked at me; her large eyes were filled with emotion, something I hadn’t seen in them since childhood. And in that instant I realized that my eyes, my face, were probably very much like hers. We, neither of us, shared our true emotions with others. I tugged on her arm, and she stood as I pulled her into an embrace. We both began to cry.

  “Oh, Magdali,” I continued when I got a grip. “Oh, I am so happy for you, and for Youssef. When did this happen? And when will you marry?”

  “As soon as possible,” Youssef interrupted, with a laugh. “Before she changes her mind.”

  “I will not change my mind. I never change my mind,” she retorted, standing tall. “And we will marry when it is most convenient for all. Perhaps two or three years from now.”

  Youssef stopped laughing.

  “Magdali, you don’t need to wait that long. You marry exactly when you want. You’re my sister and I don’t want you to wait for happiness.”

  She looked between the two of us. “You’re taking his side on this. Not at all like a sister of the Himba tribe. I knew you’d take his side.”

  He held up his hands. “I should check on M. du Roque and Major Soames.” He started backing out of the room and just before he disappeared, he winked at me and said, “Thank you, madame.”

  “Kate. You will call me Kate if you’re to be my brother-in-law.”

  “Yes, madame.”

  I grasped Magdali’s arm and nodded to the kitchen door and we walked out arm in arm to stare at the night sky.

  “Why did you say two or three years from now?” I asked gently.

  “There’s no reason to rush.”

  “You’re right.”

  “There really isn’t,” she insisted.

  “I agree with you.”

  “Youssef wants us to marry right away.”

  “I see.”

  “But like I said, there’s no reason to rush.”

  “If you like I can keep saying ‘you’re right’ and ‘I see’ if it will make you feel better.”

  She leaned down and picked a tiny white hydrangea blossom from a massive cluster.

  “Why are you scared?”

  “How can I not be?” She turned to face me. “It almost always ends badly. Your grandfather had three marriages. Your father had two. You had one. Your mother had two. Even Major Soames is unhappy. And my mother was perfectly happy with no husband and so was I. I refused to marry my daughter’s father. I knew he wouldn’t be a good husband and I didn’t need him to raise Solange. There’s no reason to do this.”

  “Then why did you agree to marry him?”

  “Because he wouldn’t stop asking.”

  “And?”

  “And . . . and . . . I like him.”

  “Magdali, perhaps it’s a little more than that. You love him.”

  “Just because someone loves you today, it doesn’t mean they will love you tomorrow. People in the Western world place so much importance on romantic love. My mother always told me that family and village come before anything else. And I believe it. Look at you, Kate. You’re here. You must see it, feel it. Love comes from family, from your friends and neighbors. It doesn’t come from a man.”

  “But it all starts with two people.”

  She shook her head and sighed.

  “Magdali, you’re right and I am too. I would never tell you what to do, but I will say this. Of course there are no guarantees. But, you have chosen well. There is no question that Youssef is a man of excellent character, is there?”

  She shook her head.

  “And if anything goes wrong, you won’t stay in the marriage. You are my sister and I will always be here for you. You have nothing to fear except him breaking your heart, but that could happen if you marry or not. And I will be here to carry you either way.”

  And for the first time ever, it was Magdali who opened her arms and I went into her embrace. “You’re right, Kate. I will do it. I want Solange to have a brother or sister. I don’t want her to be alone like we were.”

  I nodded and rested my cheek on her thin shoulder. “And like Lily is.”

  “Do you want more children, Kate?”

  “I don’t think I could even if I wanted too. I didn’t conceive easily.”

  “I know I shouldn’t say it,” Magdali said quietly, “but I wish you would find someone like the major.”

  “Don’t, Magdali.”

  “All right, I won’t. How was the movie with Russ Nation?”

  “Long. Three hours of surfing was even too long for me.”

  She laughed and tugged my arm to take a walk around the front of the villa. We continued in silence until we stood on the cliff road. The winking lights of Hondarribia, Spain, shone far away into the night.

  “He’s a good man too,” she finally said. “He supervised all his friends for two straight days to make sure the tarps were attached properly with sandbags he poured himself from the beach. And I showed him how to run the old sewing machine to make the bags. Do you know how many people have come here asking him to do the same thing for them?”

  “We’re lucky he’s staying here.”

  “We’re lucky he likes you,” Magdali said with a coyness I’d never heard in her voice.

  “You’re better at changing the subject than my clients. So then, what kind of wedding do you want? Are you going to let me have the reception here?”

  “No! There is no need. That is too much and I don’t like crowds. We’ll go to the mairie and be married.”

  “Um. That would be here then.”

  She laughed again. “True. But no crowds. Just a little lunch en famille after would be nice.”

  This from the woman who had invited half the people of the village to come to meet my daughter when she arrived. Two could play at that game. “And will you and Youssef and Solange stay here? Or will you want to move to your own house or apartment somewhere else?” I tried very hard to sound neutral, but I had no clue if I was successful. What would I do without them?

  “I just told you family and friends and village are everything important to me. I want to stay in the only home I’ve ever known, if that is okay.”

  I let out my breath. “Don’t worry. I think I might have gotten down on my knees and begged you to stay if you had suggested something different.”

  She caressed my cheek. “I am so glad you finally know the truth. I think I always knew you were my sister when we were growing up. You liked to play the same silly games I did and we could be in a room together for hours and not say a word to each other and be perfectly content.”

  “I know,” I replied. “You were the only one with whom I could be myself as a child.”

  “But when you became an adult, you put aside the masks, yes?”

  I thought about it a long time as we returned our gazes to the Spanish coast in the distance. A bank of fog was rolling off the coast and the sea was almost perfectly flat, with only the wavelets reflecting the now hazy lights in the distance.

  “No. The reverse was true. I built an impressive false front. Perhaps it’s what introverts like us do, Magdali.”

  “I didn’t know we were introverts.”

  “But, you know now, here? I’ve finally forgotten to be an
ything else but myself,” I realized it as I said it, unvarnished by any of my past filters. Despite all the financial issues weighing on me, I felt lighter and freer than I’d ever felt in my life.

  Magdali turned away from the vista to look at me. Her beautiful smile glowed in the darkness. “That’s because you’re among people who love you without question, without condition. My mother always said that in Africa your entire village is your family, so there’s no use trying to hide anything because the truth will always come out.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. God, I wished I could afford to send them both somewhere fabulous on their much-deserved honeymoon. And I knew where. I wanted to send them to Africa so my sister could see the places she’d heard about her entire life. “Speaking of family and truth, will you go on a honeymoon right away?” I inhaled deeply.

  “Absolument pas. No!”

  “We shall see,” I whispered.

  “Youssef and I have very simple needs, and we don’t need much to be happy. Perhaps a little weekend away will suffice when there is less work to be done.”

  “There’s still time to think about it. Well then . . . shall we plan the wedding for three weeks from today?”

  “Quoi?!”

  What, indeed.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The next afternoon a cool wind blew from the Pyrenees, and Russ, true to his word, had assembled his mates above the cliff face with a massive amount of rope, pulleys, and an impressive jackhammer he’d wrangled from one of the construction crews that had swarmed into the region immediately after the disaster.

  That I hadn’t been able to line up a crew myself was beyond frustrating. And even Jojo hadn’t been able to get past the answering service of our supposed insurance company. I tried not to think that they were not returning our calls because we were no longer their customers, possibly. But even if we were, I was still going to have to front the money to a roofer. Money I didn’t have. Thank God Russ Nation knew how to lay tarp.

  And thank God for three mothers who had jointly showed up at Madeleine Marie this morning to ask if I would counsel their children as they were having nightmares every night— fallout from the storm. They also said the headmistress of their school had asked if I would stop in to discuss issues with many of the children. No one seemed to mind that I didn’t have a French medical license. They said no other therapist could see them; they were all booked up. This would never really work. I knew that. But maybe just for the short term and for donations for the villa instead of a medical fee.