The Paramour's Daughter

by Wendy Hornsby

  For my first television job, reading the news at a local station in Topeka, Kansas, Margot Duchamps publicly became the perkier-sounding Maggie MacGowen—my new married name at the time—and Dad’s lovely, distinctive nose was amended to become perkier as well. I kept the name professionally even after divorce and remarriage, and was stuck with the nose as well, though I wouldn’t mind having my original one back.

  My initial qualms about meeting Grand-mère for the first time quickly gave way to a sense of familiarity as we talked. I found that she had a ready wit and was an excellent listener. During the meal, the conversation skirted the real questions as we got to know each other, feeling around the edges before plunging blindly into delicate areas.

  The food was wonderful. To start, a tall glass of very cold apple cider—from the estate, she told me—to accompany rich fish soup that was served with little pots of tomato mayonnaise and tiny croutons on the side. I followed her lead, dipping the end of my spoon into the red mayonnaise, topping that with a crouton before gliding the spoon into the soup. Crushing a handful of saltines into the soup bowl would give more or less the same effect, but involve none of the ceremony.

  Clara cleared the soup and set a casserole of cold ham pâté, a bowl of cornichons, and a basket with thin slices of baguette on the table, along with a pitcher of red wine. Vin ordinaire, Grand-mère said. After drinking the cider, I hesitated to risk more alcohol, but tasted the wine and found that it was far from ordinary. Next came roasted chicken breast served with a rice timbale studded with sautéed shellfish, and, finally, a platter of cheeses and a glass of port. More food and certainly more alcohol than I would ordinarily consume midday, but according to my body clock it was still the middle of the night, so why not?

  Through the entire meal, we talked: about Casey, my job, Mike, in a circumspect way about Isabelle and Freddy, the grandchildren, and about the estate in Normandy. The latter made her face light up.

  Grand-mère told me it had been in her late husband’s family for centuries. They had managed to hold on to it through the Hundred Years War, the French Revolution, and two world wars. Not a vast property, she said, but well-located and well-loved.

  Through hard work and a willingness to adapt to the vagaries of the ages, until fairly recently the family had been able to support not only their needs but also the needs of a few resident families. Like David, she did not refer to those residents as tenants, and I wondered if her own family had once been among them.

  For Grand-mère, “fairly recently” meant a hundred or more years ago. For a very long time, farm income was sufficient for the family to subsidize one scholar, priest, lawyer, or politician in every generation. But, since her father’s time, most members of the family worked at professional careers in the city in order to subsidize one farmer per generation. No matter where they lived or worked, in their hearts everyone in the family felt that the estate would always be home.

  Clara came in with a tray of coffee things and began to clear the table.

  “During the last war,” Grand-mère said, “when the Germans came, my husband and I joined the Resistance; we were very young.” She wagged a finger, a caution against assumptions or skepticism. “Yes, it is now difficult to find a French person of a certain age who does not claim to have fought with the Resistance. However, in our case it was true.”

  She accepted a cup of coffee from Clara. “Certainly, we wanted to get those horrid intruders, those Germans, out of France altogether. But for us, my Henri and I, the true mission was to reclaim our home in Normandy for our children not yet born.” Though she never raised her voice, there was a scary fierceness in her tone when she added, “We were prepared to die, as our ancestors were, to save our home; my brother-in-law was shot by the Germans when he resisted. We took extreme risks, and succeeded. We would do the same again, if necessary.”

  If there were ever a scrap, I decided right then and there, I’d want to be on her side. Safer that way.

  Oscar entered the room. He bent his balding head toward her and spoke very softly. Apparently Freddy, my half brother, had arrived unexpectedly and was waiting in the foyer. I set my napkin on the table and, feeling nervous about meeting him, rose as Grand-mère rose. If Freddy was in Paris, I wondered, why hadn’t he joined us for lunch?

  Oscar was given instructions to tell Freddy to wait. As he left the room, Grand-mère turned her attention on me.

  “Hermès, lovely. May I?” She reached up and untied my scarf, gave it a twist and tied it into an intricate knot that was interesting, elegant, but left the stain on my shoulder exposed. She saw it, said, “Oh, of course,” and retied the scarf so that it was both elegant and covered the stain. The gesture was entirely affectionate, and it touched me. Again, it struck me that she did not feel like a stranger to me. Even the room felt somehow familiar, and I felt welcome there.

  Perhaps, when I was an infant, I had been in this room with her. If I were, I would have been too young to remember. But is it possible that some emotional connection remains with us, the ghosts of comfort, fear, or love, long after actual memory dies?

  Clara came in with a tray to clear away the coffee cups. Grand-mère instructed her to show me where I could freshen up, and then she stretched up and kissed my cheek, just one. “Please excuse me, my dear.” She walked purposefully out of the room. Alone.

  I was not to meet Freddy yet, it appeared. I wondered if anyone had told him that I was in the house. How big an issue was I for Freddy?

  Clara showed me to a powder room down the hall and left when I assured her, in my imperfect French, that I did not need David to fetch my bag from the car.

  The powder room was large and well-appointed without being ostentatious. From the slope of the high ceiling it was apparent that this room with modern plumbing had been fitted into an under-stair space some time after the house was built, when running water and flush toilets became available; always willing to adapt, Grand-mère had said.

  I did what I could, washed my hands, combed my hair, powdered my nose using the powder and beribboned puff from a box on the marble-topped vanity, fluffed the ends of my scarf. When I couldn’t think of anything else that would make me fresher or more presentable for the drive to the estate, I opened the door and peered tentatively into the hall.

  Raised voices came from the front of the house, a man and Grand-mère, something about equity or fairness and too many cars. And a baby? I knew from experience that a noisy discussion among French people did not necessarily mean discord, but the tone of the man’s voice chilled me.

  Quietly, I made my way back to the salon where we had eaten lunch, stood in the windows of the oriel overlooking the winter garden, turned on my mobile and checked messages while I waited for Grand-mère to return.

  During my flight, Casey, Guido, Rich Longshore, Uncle Max, and my neighbor Early Drummond had called. All asked for a call back. It would be early evening in France, after we arrived at the estate in Normandy, before I expected to have time and privacy to return calls. The time difference could be problematic.

  * * *

  Grand-mère and I settled comfortably in the back seat of the big Mercedes. David drove us out of Paris headed west on an autoroute, a toll highway, flouting the speed limit right along with everyone else on the road. Towns and countryside sped past the windows, a blur of bare, ghostly trees, villages and church spires, modern suburbs infected with stucco tract housing à la San Fernando Valley sprawl, harvested fields, tiny cottages too near the highway and huge châteaux in the distance.

  “Beautiful,” I said.

  Grand-mère, looking out her side of the car, nodded. She had seemed distracted since her conversation with Freddy. Was her silence grief or fatigue, or family issues? She was eighty-something, and for all of her composure, I had to remember that she had just lost her daughter and had made very intricate plans to bring the remains home. And then, there was me and all the issues attached simply to my being, as well as my being there.

&n
bsp; I ventured to ask, “How is Freddy taking my sudden appearance?”

  She shrugged, this time the gesture connoting, who can fathom the mysteries at the depths of a man’s heart? She turned her gaze toward me. “He knew his mother’s purpose in going to California; she made no secret of it. It is a shock for him, certainly, that she is gone from us in this way, but that she found you is not.” She added, “He will join us for dinner tonight.”

  “If you don’t mind talking about Isabelle,” I said, “may I ask, why did she come looking for me after so many years?”

  “She did not tell you?”

  I cringed. I hadn’t told Grand-mère, of course, about the messiness of my encounter with Isabelle. I equivocated. “Our meeting was very brief.”

  “I see.” Delicately, she dabbed the corners of her pale eyes with a lacy handkerchief, thereby taking a little time to compose her answer. “She wanted to speak with you because there was much to settle and she knew there was very little time.”

  I puzzled that over for a moment. Little time for what? The answer, when it came, shamed me beyond logic; how could I have known?

  “Your mother was not well,” Grand-mère said. “A progressive dysfunction of her bone marrow. She might have seemed well enough to look at, to speak with, but her health was very fragile. It was only a matter of time. But the accident happened first.”

  “Was it myelodysplasia syndrome?”

  She showed her surprise at my question by a small lift of her eyebrows. “If she did not tell you, how do you know this?”

  “A guess. A couple of my father’s colleagues in nuclear research contracted MDS. There are no studies that prove a link, but Dad thought exposure to radiation was possibly a cause.”

  “That occurred to me, of course. Because of her work, I expected it would be cancer that would take her, as it took Marie Curie and so many who followed her. But Isabelle was so confident about her safety, she would not hear my concerns.”

  I hesitated before I asked, “Was she hoping I could give her a bone marrow transplant?”

  “No, no. It was too late for that. My son, Gérard, went through the tests to be a donor, but her disease had already progressed to a leukemia-like stage by that time. There was no cure for her.” She dropped her head, looked down at the tightly clasped hands on her lap. “I thought I was prepared for the day I would make this journey. But I find I am not.”

  “I am so sorry,” I said putting a hand over hers. Her hands were like ice, the skin as smooth and dry as fine silk.

  She slipped one hand free and placed it on top of mine, a stack of hands, and forced a game smile. “But now I have you, my granddaughter, come back to me. And, I have the comfort of knowing that your mother saw you again before the end.”

  Yes, but only literally saw me. I asked, “Why did she go all the way to California to speak with me? Why not write a letter? If she couldn’t find where I live, information that is protected because of the work I do and that my husband Mike did, she knew where I work. She could have written or telephoned. You have my mother’s number.”

  She shook her head. “There was an agreement made all those years ago. Isabelle was not to contact you, or your American family.”

  “But she decided that it was all right now?”

  “You understand. Good.”

  No, I did not understand. When I was a minor, of course my family would have wanted to keep Isabelle from showing up. What a disruption her appearance, the mere fact of her, would have been to my life. But I haven’t been a minor for a very long time. My child wasn’t even a minor anymore.

  Something wasn’t adding up here. But the big question was: Why bother to murder a dying woman?

  Grand-mère took her hand off mine and laid it against my cheek. “You must be exhausted, my dear. I admit, I am a little tired, myself. If you don’t mind, I will close my eyes and rest for a moment.”

  She fell immediately into a sepulchral sleep, head cradled against the plush leather headrest, face a mask, slender hands as still and stone-like as the effigies at St-Denis. In the cold, pale afternoon light I saw the grief that lined her face and felt a profound sympathy and compassion for her. The depth of my feelings for her surprised me.

  I wanted to talk with David, but also did not want to disturb her. So, I leaned my head back and drifted off as well as we drove under the pale, dappled light filtered through the bare branches of trees lining the road.

  Crazy dreams full of strangers supposedly speaking French, but a French that I could not understand at all except for someone yelling out in anger, “Petite merdeuse,” that, unaccountably, I knew meant “little shit,” while wild drums beat and strobe lights flashed. Where in high school or college French had we covered the vocabulary of excoriating children?

  In the dream, there were tables laden with food no one ate. Mom walked through with another version of my birth certificate and an official told me that my passport was invalid and that I had to give back the entry stamp. I was relieved when David’s voice broke through the veil of sleep.

  “Mesdames, we approach.”

  8

  “What’s it like there?” Casey asked, eager to hear about the estate. “Tell me that it’s a magnificent château surrounded by vineyards, with cadres of loyal retainers to wait on you, and swans swimming in a moat.”

  “Drafty stone farmhouse, apple orchard, carrot fields, cows—I can smell them when the wind shifts—and lots of mud.” I peered out the window of my upstairs bedroom in Grand-mère’s Normandy house as I talked to Casey on my mobile. Various fields and farm attributes had been pointed out to me as we drove past them, but it was already dark by the time we arrived so I had seen very little beyond the low stone wall that surrounded the three houses in Grand-mère’s compound, except outlines and amorphous shapes against the sky.

  “No polo ponies in paddocks?”

  “I’m told there are horses, but I haven’t seen them,” I said. “Percherons, huge plow horses. It’s a working farm. Wish I’d brought rubber boots.”

  “Ah well, fantasy crushed.” She laughed. “How’s the weather?”

  “Cold and gray today. Cold, gray and foggy forecast for tomorrow with a possibility of rain and ice.”

  “What did you wear on the plane?” Nineteen is still a teenager, but a wardrobe question? Not what I expected from Casey.

  “Woolen slacks and a sweater,” I said.

  “Which slacks?”

  “Navy pinstripes.”

  “Nice. I like those. Did you take your camel hair coat?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “What are you wearing to the funeral?”

  “The gray dress you and Gran bought me to wear to Mike’s funeral.”

  “Good choice.”

  I was reminded of the offer David extended from Grand-mère for me to shop for something especially smart to wear to the funeral. Should not funeral attire call no attention to the mourner? My gray dress was just fine. I had worn it to two funerals since Mike’s, and it had been perfectly serviceable: good cut, good fabric, unadorned.

  “What else did you pack?” Casey asked.

  “Why do you ask?” Something was up, I could hear it in her voice.

  “In case I ever get over there,” she said.

  “You can borrow my pinstripes.”

  “Mom.” In this case the word conveyed disdain for a lame idea.

  “From what I’ve seen,” I said, “jeans are still the uniform for people your age. Make sure they fit; I’ve never seen a French girl with a muffin top bulging over her low-riders. Leather boots, leather jacket, skinny shirts, long wool scarves, throw in a skirt to wear for dinner, and you’re set.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Good to know.”

  “And something appropriate for a funeral?” I waited through a long moment of silence on the other end before I asked, “Casey, did you buy a plane ticket?”

  “Élodie Martin bought me one. First class, Mom. It was supposed to be a surpris
e for you.”

  I worked through a tumble of emotions at once. At the forefront, remembering the raised voices I’d heard coming from Grand-mère’s foyer that afternoon, I felt a buzz of concern for my daughter’s well-being should she be suddenly tossed into this family pool, the depths and hazards of which I had yet to chart; still or stormy waters, who knew? Next I felt dismay at Grand-mère’s presumption. She should have told me what she had done. Sneaky, manipulative—I would have to watch Grand-mère carefully. But in the end, I felt a selfish happiness that Casey would be with me during the weekend. Adrift, alone among strangers, I needed an ally I could trust. Maybe Grand-mère had sent for Casey as a gesture of support for me. Whatever her motives, she was a tricky one.

  I asked, “When do you arrive?”

  “Tomorrow morning. Tonight I’m taking the same overnight flight you took yesterday. Zia’s driving me to the airport.”

  “Who’s picking you up at de Gaulle?”

  “Someone named Bébé Martin. I have his mobile number if you want it.”

  “I do.” I wrote the number on a pad on the bedside table. I told her, “You won’t be able to use your phone over here because it doesn’t have international access, and it takes your carrier at least twenty-four hours to establish service. Not to mention, it’s expensive if you send data, like texts. Get this Bébé person to stop at a telephone store so you can buy a cheap phone with a French SIM card and a local phone number. Load on a few prepaid hours. Maybe you can pick one up at the airport—look around. When you get the phone, call me first thing and give me the number.”

  “All right.”

  “Do you need pocket money?”

  “No, I’m okay.”

  “I’ll know that when I see your sweet face. Where’s your passport?”

  “Such a fuss, Mom,” she said, laughing again.

  “Casey,” I said, “don’t be dazzled by a first class plane ticket. These people are strangers to us. We don’t know anything about their issues.”