“Antoine told me that Gérard is already so far underwater with his scheme that it’s a dead issue, right?”
“Perhaps. There is always the possibility he will find a miracle with deep pockets. But the miracle will need to appear very soon.”
Gérard must be fairly desperate by now, I thought. I wondered if he was desperate enough to appeal to Sergei Ludanov, Senior or Junior, for a bailout. That notion was scary enough by itself, but coupled with what Jean-Paul Bernard had told me about how easy it is to arrange for a hitman—mentioning Russian mobsters, among others—if one has the contacts, I felt my chest constrict.
Last question: Was Gérard desperate enough for money to pimp his own daughter to Junior? Was Gillian?
I checked six, as Rich would say: I turned around to make sure we weren’t being followed. No white van, but Dauvin was there, creeping along the road in his plain blue car.
We turned down a gravel side road and suddenly I saw the ocean, surprised how close it was to the estate.
The long tide of the English Channel was rising, its approach refloating small fishing boats that had motored in during the morning’s high tide and been tied to posts driven higgledy-piggledy into the ground. When the tide receded, the boats were left mired in the mud until the tide returned.
The scene was beautiful: brightly painted boats lying at odd angles; green, red, yellow, blue, contrasting with black mud, dull pewter water, dark gray skies. I took out my phone and snapped a few pictures, regretting not having a better camera.
When we eventually made a film here, it would be gorgeous. I began to see images filling a screen as the structure of that theoretical film as well as its topic began to emerge and become insistent, a story that needed to be told, a place that should be captured and shared.
Damn Guido, I thought again. We have been making films together for a very long time. He knew this moment would happen to me, the film asserting itself, becoming an imperative.
The road came to a dead end above the tide line and we paused there before venturing onto the sand. A look of contentment washed the deep stress lines from Freddy’s face as he watched the sea slowly march toward us.
“What do you think, sister?”
“Could be heaven,” I said. “Is there a swimming beach around here?”
“Yes.” He gestured toward the south. “There are several nearby.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“Imagine living in a house built right here, just above the high tide line.”
“The view would be fantastic, but you’d need to wear waders whenever you left the house.”
“The marsh can be filled,” he said. “Much of the farmland beyond here is fill. Right here, along the seaboard, salt infiltration ruins the soil for farming. However, building in this place is another issue, and one that is fairly easily fixed.”
I puzzled that over. I looked around us, saw carrot fields behind us, the Martin orchards beyond them, knew where the fromagerie was, and Grand-mère’s compound. I turned to Freddy, “Who owns this land?”
“We do,” he said. “This is verge land that accretes—builds up—out of the sea. We have a very old charter that deeds to us access to the sea at this place, even as the shape of the land changes over time.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I have to give Uncle Gérard credit for one thing,” he said. “His idea about building housing to accommodate retired people is a good one, but his plan is too big, and all wrong. However, even in this rotten economy there are still plenty of people with good pensions who are selling their large family homes and looking for a retirement place. The right place.”
“Please,” I said, “don’t tell me you want to build a wall of high-rise condos on this beautiful shore.”
“Not at all. Leave that to the Côte d’Azur.” He smiled. “Tell me, what is it that people want when they retire?”
I thought about that for a moment before I offered, “Financial security, comfort, safety, an interesting way to pass the time, medical care nearby.”
“Exactly.”
I must have looked skeptical, though. All of my life I have watched subdivisions multiply and sprawl across the California landscape, both in the San Francisco Bay Area where I grew up and in Southern California where I moved to be with Mike. I never found any charm in the endless canyons of stucco boxes cleaved by asphalt rivers. It would be a crime to sully Normandy with an infestation of that sort.
A blast of icy wind that was full of the perfume of the sea hit me full in the face. Cold as it was, it felt wonderful to be outdoors. I covered my head and ears with my Pashmina, tucked it in over my chest, and buttoned up my coat as I walked over to join Freddy, who had walked over to a marsh grass-covered knoll to look out at the sea.
Dauvin watched us from his car. I waved, he raised a hand in return.
“Is that Pierre?” Freddy asked, turning. “What does he want?”
“He’s just being cautious,” I said. I didn’t add, after this morning he stays close. Thinking about the questions Dauvin asked me at the church, I wasn’t sure if he was keeping an eye on a possible suspect or protecting a possible target. But I was glad he was there.
I looked up at Freddy and asked, “What would you do here?”
“Imagine,” Freddy said, spreading out his arms, embracing the scene. His embrace encompassed the village about a quarter mile further down, the tower of its abbey visible above the naked trees. The convent where we interred Isabelle that afternoon was directly behind the abbey. “Along here, low-profile seaside cottages built on lanes that run into the village. Each will have a small private garden and all will be single-story—think of Grand-mère Marie and her sore hips.”
I nodded my understanding. “My mother has arthritic knees; stairs are a problem.”
“Maman?” he said, a furrow between his brows as he questioned me. “I didn’t know.”
“I meant the woman who raised me.”
“Of course.” He thought that over. “How is she, your other mother?”
“She seems to be taking everything with grace, but I know that the reappearance of Isabelle in our lives has stirred up some old pain.”
“One day, maybe we’ll meet.”
I looked at his gray eyes, so like mine, so like my father’s, and hoped that never happened. I said, “You were saying?”
“There are currently two demographic trends, a growing population of retired people struggling on fixed incomes as prices rise, and a declining rural population,” he said. “Farming is not as attractive to young people as it might have been for their parents.”
“Like your family. Only Antoine is still here.”
“Exactly,” he said. “So, as the local population declines, consumption of course declines, and so does employment. Local producers and tradesmen suffer.
“But, if we bring in retired people with their pension incomes we can reverse that trend. It is far cheaper for them to live here than in the city. People of a certain age can enjoy the village life that perhaps they left when they were young to find work in the city. Or perhaps the village life they always imagined, where there is a genuine community and all the support that way of life offers.”
“Jobs created, jobs preserved,” I said. “An elevated standard of living. A win-win scenario?”
He looked across the landscape as if he could already see the newcomers heading into town to shop and nodded.
“I like your plan much better than Gérard’s,” I said. “How would you capitalize it?”
“It shouldn’t be too onerous,” he said. “First, the infrastructure is already here, and all of the necessary conveniences: the village has an exceptional baker, a fine butcher, a general store, a library, two pharmacies, several cafés, a state-of-the-art clinic, a community recreation facility, a small inn for visitors, and on Saturdays a market.
“We have a good chance for regional development assistance from the government, and the tradesmen’s associ
ations will be enthusiastic. But for seed money, we put up Maman’s Paris apartment and other assets as collateral; there is a fair amount of value there. If we need more, then of course we issue an investment offering.”
He turned to me, an expectant look on his face. “What do you think?”
“You’ve done your homework.”
“Homework?”
“Studied the various possibilities.”
He smiled almost shyly. “Remember, I am an investment banker. I have studied a great number of project proposals over the years. I hope I am able to sort the good from the doomed.”
“Can you be objective about your own proposal?”
“Hah!” A quick outburst followed by a chuckle and a shake of his head. “Of course not. This would be an affair of the heart.”
I asked, “What does the rest of the family say?”
“Grand-mère is supportive. She worries that after she dies the estate will break up and disappear. If Uncle Gérard has his way that is exactly what will happen. But if we succeed, there will be Calvados and Camembert made here for a long time into the future, local people will not be displaced, and our home place remains for us to enjoy.”
“What about Antoine and Bébé?”
“Antoine calculated the additional gallons of cider and pounds of cheese he could sell, and he seems favorable. Bébé, who visits only occasionally, wants the estate to remain as it is, forever. He will not hear that sometimes we have to make changes in order to preserve what we have.”
“That’s why he joined with Isabelle and Antoine to bail out Uncle Gérard?” I said. “To preserve the estate?”
“In part. It was a good investment for many reasons.” Freddy brought up his palms with a shrug. “Also, Bébé would do anything to embarrass his father and Gillian. He is very bitter about what they did to his mother.”
“Will he come around?”
“If we can get backing, probably. The best revenge for him would be to share in a great success that excludes his father.” Freddy leaned over and plucked a pebble from the sand. Rubbing it clean between his palms, he said, “For Bébé there is one hitch. If Gérard defaults on the loan we made to him, he is obligated to relinquish his right to inherit the estate—an irrevocable relinquishment. His rights will fall to his children.”
“Including Jemima?”
“Exactly.” He tossed the pebble in a long arc toward the incoming tide. “For Bébé, that’s the rub.”
“What will Gillian get?”
“Here? Nothing.”
“What does Lena say about your idea?”
“Lena?” He seemed to fold in upon himself at the mention of his wife, as if the balloon of his optimism had been punctured. “As usual, my beloved wife thinks I am a fucking idiot.”
I heard a distant clap of thunder and looked up, searched the clouds for lightning, tried to breathe normally, fists clenched into hard balls stuffed into my pockets. I felt the sting of sleet on my face.
Freddy took me by the elbow. “We should get back. It’s nearly dark.”
As we approached Dauvin’s car, he got out, opened the passenger side doors. He said, “The weather is turning. Get in.” More an order than an invitation.
Freddy climbed in back, I took the front, shotgun to Dauvin; we were grateful for the car’s heater.
The road was already slick with ice by the time we turned off the beach access lane. Icicle flags built up on the car’s antenna as we drove. A confetti of sleet and raindrops danced in the headlights.
Night fell. Everything beyond the black ribbon of asphalt unreeling in front of the headlights was lost in the dark. But in my head, the synapses were firing brightly. If Isabelle had never contacted me, if I never met Grand-mère and the others, never saw the estate, and then one day a letter came from a lawyer informing me that a stranger had bequeathed to me property that was six thousand miles and a continent away, what would I have done?
I’d like to think that I would have investigated. But, times are tough. If the letter arrived on a bad day, say, the day the studio bosses announced cuts to my production unit, I might have simply accepted a cash offer and been grateful. Question next: cash offered by whom?
I turned in my seat to ask Freddy, “You knew Isabelle was coming to see me, right?”
“I knew she was going over,” he said. “I didn’t know she decided to speak with you.”
“Did she tell you what she hoped to accomplish?”
He shrugged, eyes out the side window, watching the treacherous road fly past. It took him a moment to decide on a response. What he said was a surprise.
“When you were a little girl, did you have a horse?”
“Hardly a horse,” I said. “I had a pony, a little cob.”
“And did you have to beg your parents endlessly before they gave you that pony?”
I shook my head. “I never occurred to me to even ask for such a thing. No one around us had horses.”
“But?”
“But one day a truck with a horse trailer pulled up to the house and delivered a pony.” I smiled, remembering the excitement of that day. All of the kids in the neighborhood, and many of their parents, converged at our house when word got out that there was a pony. My mother was so furious with my father that I assumed the pony was his idea and that she had not been consulted about it.
Not long before that singular day, my brother Mark was killed in Vietnam. The entire family was still walking around under a shroud of grief and disbelief when the pony showed up. I thought she was my consolation prize after losing my much-loved big brother.
“One day a truck pulled up,” he echoed. “Just like that?”
“Just like that. I was a little girl. Kids believe in miracles.”
Hell, I was so happy to have a pony that I wasn’t going to ask questions. I remember thinking that it must be a mistake and that the rightful owner would appear and take her away as suddenly as she arrived. But Dad put up a fence at the back of the yard to keep her out of Mom’s flower beds and we kept her there, in violation of several local zoning laws, and with the complicity of the neighbors, until I went away to high school.
“What did you call her?”
“Amy,” I said.
“Why?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I took one look at her and knew that should be her name. My Amy.”
“Maggie, I should tell you something about Maman.” We turned into the drive and approached the compound. Lights showed from the windows of all three houses. Most of the visitors’ cars were gone, including Max’s little rental. “No, better that I show you something.”
15
“Where is your father?” I asked when Freddy led me to Isabelle’s front door.
“Sulking, probably,” Freddy said. “Don’t worry about him.”
Before we went inside I took out my mobile and called Max to tell him where I was. He and Casey were at his friend’s house in Créances having a long talk, he told me. He insisted that he was coming to fetch me as well, but I put him off by promising to call again within the hour, and to keep my phone turned on and within reach.
Inside, we shed our wet shoes. Freddy slid a pair of soft, Sherpa-lined mules toward me. Obviously they were Isabelle’s. I hesitated before I put them on, but my shoes were wet and my feet were cold. The slippers fit perfectly. Truly, it was an odd feeling to walk in Isabelle’s shoes. Forget the Native American exhortation about walking a mile in another man’s moccasins before you judge him. What was remarkable to me was that another person’s well-worn shoes conformed to my feet. How rare is that?
Claude was in the salon, slouched down on a sofa with a drink in his hands, watching the evening news on television. When he saw me walk in with his son his eyes grew wide, his cheeks freshened, and he started to rise. But Freddy told him, in a very firm tone, to stay put. And then Freddy took me upstairs.
“This was Maman’s room,” he said, opening a door and ushering me inside. “Later, you and I wil
l have a conversation about what should be done with her personal things. There is a little jewelry, a few small treasures.”
I looked around, thoroughly curious, wondering what this room would reveal about Isabelle, but also feeling like an intruder in a stranger’s very private place. I saw a very standard room, a double bed covered by a puffy duvet, an easy chair, a wardrobe, a dresser. On top of the dresser, in front of a round mirror, were a single bottle of perfume, Lancôme’s Trésor on a small silver tray, and a wooden jewel chest that looked very old. The room was immaculate, could have belonged to anyone, except for towers of precariously stacked books and papers that entirely covered an upholstered window seat.
I said, “She read.”
He nodded, an understatement, as he crossed to the wardrobe. Obviously he knew exactly what he was looking for and where to find it, because he reached right in and brought out a large yellow, silk-covered candy box, the fancy sort of thing that is found in expensive European chocolate shops and are perfect for keepsakes when the candy is finished. Freddy set the box on Isabelle’s flowered duvet, climbed onto the bed beside it, folded his legs under him, and removed the candy box lid.
“Sit,” he said, reaching across the box and patting the bed. I perched on the edge, tentatively, as he began to remove letters and photos from the box. There were cards and notes from Freddy, some handmade obviously when he was very young, the sorts of things only a mother would keep. He put them aside, and set a bundle of letters tied together with a blue velvet ribbon next to them.
I recognized the handwriting on the top envelope of the bundle—my dad’s—and felt a little sick. It wasn’t a thick bundle, not many more than half a dozen letters in all. I picked them up and fanned through them, confirming that all of the letters had been sent by Dad. The return address was his faculty office at the university, not our house. I checked the postmarks. The most recent letter was nearly twenty-five years old.
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