Dom raised his palms, at a loss.
“All right.” Jean-Paul pushed his chair back and rose. And then he held out his hand to me. “Shall we, ma chérie?”
I pasted on a smile, folded my napkin next to my plate, and took the offered hand as I got up from my chair, in no hurry. “Is there a plan?”
“Only to say hello.”
Monsieur Fouchet still held the menu card in a death grip when Madame Fouchet ordered for them both. The waiter was just leaving their table when we walked up.
“Claire, Yvan, it is nice to see you out again.” Jean-Paul gave his cheeks to her, his hand to the husband. Though I had met them both earlier he said, “I want to introduce my fiancée, Maggie MacGowen.”
As she offered me her hand, and he did his, each for a brief and formal press, I smiled at her and said, “I was just telling Jean-Paul how much I admire your peonies.”
“My peonies?”
“Yes,” I said with a little nod I hoped looked sincere. Jean-Paul slid a chair behind me and I sat. He went to the opposite side of the table and did the same. “Peonies simply don’t thrive in the dry climate of Southern California where I lived before coming here. I see them all over this part of France. They are so beautiful that I hope to plant them in the garden for next spring. Any advice is welcome.”
“Peonies are the more beautiful because they last such a short time, don’t you agree?” As soon as I mentioned peonies, the change in Claire Fouchet was sudden, unexpected certainly. She relaxed, her hard lines softened. So far there was no mention that we had met before. Maybe her husband didn’t know that Dom and I had gone calling, so I did not bring it up. She reached across the table and covered her spouse’s shaking hand with her own steady one as if to hide his tremor, I thought, and not as a gesture of affection. Or, was she drawing our attention to his distressed state? “Some years peonies flourish, and some years they hide. I can coax them and bribe them, but they do what they decide to do. A mind of their own, just like people, oui?”
“Temperamental like all creatures of nature, I suppose,” I said.
She turned to Jean-Paul. “Thank you, my friend. Kind of you to come over. The way people keep their distance one would think we had something contagious. At first, everyone was around trying to help, but now—” She shrugged her elegant shoulders. “True friends still call, but I suspect that our situation has become tiresome even to them. Certainly it’s tiresome to us, yes Yvan?”
“Tiresome? I suppose. I have begun to wonder if we are ghosts,” he said. “Are we dead and don’t know it? We think we are still here, everything looks the same, but no one sees us. And if they do, they seem frightened.”
“I can’t imagine what you are going through,” I said.
Their waiter came with a bottle of wine and we fell into the sort of sudden silence that happens when people are caught sharing a dirty joke. Watching the server pull the cork, Claire changed the subject.
“Maggie, do you ride?”
“For fun,” I said. “I have a pair of rescued horses that enjoy eating wildflowers along the trails of the Santa Monica Mountains and will tolerate me in a saddle to get at them. I have no formal training. Do you ride?”
“Not in competition anymore, but yes. You must join us on club rides. We trailer the beasts and go somewhere we can set off across the countryside for a day or two. It’s lovely. Jean-Paul, I don’t see you at the stables anymore.”
“No time,” he said. “My houseguest, Ari Massarani, keeps my ponies in good shape.”
“We see him at the equestrian center,” Yvan said. “He has a wonderful seat, well-schooled.”
“He’s an Arab,” Claire said. “All Arabs ride.”
Their first course appeared so we excused ourselves to rejoin Dom.
On our way back to our own table, in a low voice I said, “Do you think all Arabs ride?”
“No more than all Americans wear fanny packs.” He bumped my shoulder with his. “Peonies? Where did you pull that from?”
My turn to shrug. “I know all sorts of things. For instance, I happen to know that she is past president of the Hauts-de-Seine Peony Society, and that you have a birthmark shaped like Paraguay on your butt.”
He craned his head around as if he could sneak a look back there. “I do?”
“I’ll show you later.”
“I’ll take that as a promise.”
When we rejoined Dom, he said, “Your food was getting cold, so Nathalie’s mother took your plates to the kitchen.”
“Think we’ll see them again?” Jean-Paul asked as he settled back into his chair, clearly unconcerned. “I was just getting acquainted with that nice piece of salmon.”
“Maggie, my father always says that it helps to know people. He’s not the only one in the family who has connections.” Dom looked across the dining room and gave someone a signal with a flick of his chin. Right away, freshly prepared meals were set in front of us. After thanking the waiter, Dom raised his glass. “Thank you, Papa, for sacrificing your salmon to comfort the Fouchets. And, Maggie, I hope you understand what you’re in for with this man.”
“You egged him on,” I said. “It’s you I’m keeping a watchful eye on.”
Dom’s friend Nathalie, who I suspect was responsible for ordering fresh entrées to be prepared for us, served the cheese and coffee when we finished. Dom told us there was a movie showing at the Cinéma Normandie, the multiplex down the boulevard, that they both wanted to see. After we finished the meal, Nathalie handed her apron to her mother, the young people bid us good night, and went happily on their way.
“The evening is ours,” Jean-Paul said as we watched them go. “Would you like to take a walk?”
“Where to?”
“It’s Friday.” He glanced at his watch. “Approaching the hour that two other young people happened to be out loose in town one week ago. Shall we begin at the train station car park?”
I took his arm. “I like the way you think, sir. Allons-y. Lead on.”
It was a dry, clear, warm spring evening with only a sliver of moon. Perfect for a stroll with a lover. We drove to the train station and started to walk from there, following Ophelia’s footsteps the week before. Through the dark alley, and out onto a main street, past shops, to the last place the CCTV captured her before she merged with the night. We were mid-block. Immediately around us there were more professional offices than shops, and nothing was open. A dentist next door to Fabienne Simon’s family law practice, an insurance agency, a frame shop, and so on. At the next intersection we could see Bertholds, the bistro where Sam Lambert and his friends jammed on Fridays, only a few doors down on the cross street. It was nine-twenty when we walked inside.
Sam spotted us right away and waved us over to join him at the bar. Joel Gold was also there, without his bow tie.
“So, friends,” Sam said. “You’ve come to hear some hot geriatric jazz, have you?”
“We thought we might,” Jean-Paul said. “We were out for a walk and stopped in to say hello.”
We ordered drinks and joined Sam and Joel and their bandmates at a long table in back. The last of the diners in the restaurant seemed to be finishing up. Several couples drifted into the bar after eating. Other guests began to arrive, regulars, it seemed, by the way they were greeted. In all, counting musicians, there were about thirty people filling chairs and leaning on the bar. The conversations hovered around music, jazz specifically, and I was lost. I love jazz, but as a listener, not a musician. Those worlds overlap, but they are far from the same place. It didn’t really matter, though, because everyone was having fun, and so were we. After a couple of beers, Sam went off to the toilets and Joel Gold slid over into the seat next to me.
“Sam is happy you’re here. But tell me the truth, did you come to hear some pretty good jazz, or are you out looking for a ghost?”
“A ghost?” I said. That’s what Yvan Fouchet had said about himself, a ghost haunting a world that was no longer familiar.
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“Odds are,” Gold said; he’d had more than one drink, too. “It’s been a week.”
“I still want to know what happened to her,” I said.
“Fair enough.” He stood and whistled to get everyone’s attention. “Friends, Vaucressonais, countrymen, lend me your ears. One week ago tonight, at about this very time, a teenage girl named Ophelia Fouchet disappeared. Sam tells me that at around nine-fifty Friday night she was seen in this very neighborhood. So, I’m asking you, on your way over here last week did any of you notice a young girl carrying a damn good cello in a hard-shell red case?”
There was a murmur of conversation and then a woman stood up. “We saw her, Joel. I mean, hard to miss a kid lugging a cello that’s nearly as big as she is.”
Jean-Paul rose to face the woman. “Where did you see her, Madame?”
“Near here, at the corner, right Bennie?” she asked the man beside her. “The girl was just standing there looking up and down the street like she was waiting for someone. It’s not something you see every night, is it? A girl out alone at night with a cello.”
“Have you seen posters about a missing girl?” I asked.
“Bien sûr. Everyone has. But the girl they are looking for is a little blond girl, and the girl I saw was very dark. Algerian maybe? Or a gypsy, all dressed in black.”
“It’s the same girl,” I said. “Did you speak with her?”
“No. We drove on by. Funny though, because someone called and asked Bennie the same thing. Who called, Bennie?”
“Une poulet.”
I turned to Jean-Paul for a translation. He asked Bennie, “A woman cop? Detective Delisle?”
“That’s right.” Bennie lifted his glass and drained it. “Don’t know how she knew where we were Friday. Gave us a jolt; Big Brother, oui?”
Jean-Paul and I exchanged knowing looks. Vehicle registration identified the cars picked up by the CCTV and gave the report to Delisle. Our friend Bennie and his partner were a dead end as far as new information, though for a moment I’d had hope.
“Hey, Joel,” a man at the far end of the room called out. “What time are we talking about?”
“Any time,” Jean-Paul answered. “Did you see her?”
“Ouais. Like Sylvie said, you don’t see many kids out at night lugging a cello. But it was later, and not right around here. After the boys riffed on ‘Blue Train’ I had to go home.”
A voice near my elbow: “Sam, you’re no John Coltrane, but that was sweet.”
Sam was back, leaning against the wall near the end of the bar, listening.
Jean-Paul exchanged nods with him before addressing the man who spoke up. “Where did you see the girl?”
“Let me think.” He tapped the table, eyes in a squint. “You know that drive-through coffee bar on boulevard de la République? I take the shortcut through the haras some mornings and stop by for a coffee. She was near there. I wondered about it because the coffee bar was closed and nothing else is nearby. Where was she going with a cello at that time of night?”
“What time was it?” I asked.
“Sam, what time did you finish trying to be Coltrane?”
Sam shrugged. It was Bennie who answered. “Ten-thirty, maybe ten-forty-five. ‘Blue Train’ was at the end of the first set before the break.”
“So, add ten or fifteen to whenever that was, and that’s when I saw her.”
Sam, still leaning against the wall, asked, “Anyone else?”
When there was no answer he pushed himself upright and said, “Then let’s have some music. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”
We listened through the first set, enjoying the people around us as much as the music. The combo was an eclectic collection of musicians and instruments, something like a weekend pick-up game at a community park with all levels of skill and equipment. What the players all had in common was sheer joy in what they were doing for an openly appreciative audience. They started with an old standard, “Take the ‘A’ Train,” and segued somehow into “L’air de Toréador” from Bizet’s Carmen. While Joel Gold on clarinet was very good, it was Sam Lambert’s saxophone that rocked the piece. He truly gave himself over to the music. By the time the last of the toreadors marched out of the bullring, he was exhausted. But happy.
After the applause, whistles, and back-slapping were done with, and fresh drinks ordered, we said our good-byes to Joel and Sam and walked back out into the night.
“Zowie,” I said. “The math teacher and the principal. Quelle surprise.”
“As you say, people are full of surprises.” Jean-Paul took my arm as we retraced our steps back to the train station.
“I found it odd at the restaurant earlier,” I said, “the way that Claire Fouchet shifted gears so quickly. The first time I spoke with her, she was a stick. But tonight in the restaurant as soon as I mentioned her flowers she was entirely different. It was as if a mask fell off, and boom, there was relaxed Claire underneath. You know what else was odd? She never mentioned the visit I paid to her Tuesday night. Did she not recognize me?”
“I can’t say. Yvan had met you, or at least seen you before, and he said nothing either.”
“With Yvan, I just happened to be there when he wanted to talk to you. He was in such a sorry state when he waylaid us in the driveway Tuesday that I doubt he even knew I was there.”
“That might be true,” he said. “We can’t expect the Fouchets to be normal when their lives have become so very abnormal. And, by the way, before we left the bistro, I saw you go speak with the man who thought he saw Ophelia near the haras.”
“He gave me his contact information and I texted it to Delisle.”
“You don’t think she’s so distracted by one Guido Patrini that she won’t follow up?”
“I happen to know that tonight he is out with his downstairs neighbor and she is on call in Vaucresson. She already texted back.”
“What did she say?”
“She sent a thumbs-up emoji.”
He laughed. “The new international language, emojis.”
At the train station, we were panhandled by a young and filthy man. From the look and smell of him he hadn’t bathed or eaten regularly for a very long time. Odd the way young homeless men all seem to look alike after a while. The young women seemed to take more pains with hygiene and weren’t as easily recognizable as people living in the rough as the men were. Out of pride, or as a way to remain invisible, I wondered?
Jean-Paul asked the panhandler his name and when he had last eaten. The answers were Yegor and yesterday. Jean-Paul asked if he wanted a meal and a bed for the night and when Yegor said yes, I steeled myself, expecting one more joining our growing household. Instead, Jean-Paul made a phone call. When he put the phone back into his pocket, he told Yegor, “A man named René is on his way to give you a lift to a shelter. It’s a decent enough place, trust me. He will be here in five or ten minutes, driving a pale green van. He already has two other passengers.”
“Is he a cop? Immigration?”
“No, he’s a monk. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether you will get into René’s van, or not. And now, I wish you luck, and good night.”
With that, we continued to the car and drove home.
“Like Paraguay?” Jean-Paul asked as we waited for the garage door to open.
“Like Paraguay,” I said. “I’ll show you when we get upstairs.”
“Hmm,” he said, smiling to himself.
“Thank you for not bringing Yegor home,” I said as we walked through the kitchen.”
“Our house isn’t big enough for all the Yegors out there, ma chérie. And there aren’t enough beds or hot meals in all of France, or anywhere else I know, to take care of half of them. I’m surprised you didn’t ask him whether he had seen Ophelia.”
“I thought about it,” I said. “But I have a feeling he wouldn’t talk to me about it, or the police for that matter. If he saw something, maybe when his tummy is full again he’ll talk to yo
ur friend Friar René if you plant the right questions in René’s ear.”
“Une bonne idée, chérie. Une très bonne idée.”
] Eleven
Saturday morning, after we returned from a foray through the village farmers’ market, Jean-Paul took Ari to buy a new suit to wear during his upcoming job interviews. Ari had argued that he could probably find something adequate at a brocante—a swap meet—or at a second-hand shop in the banlieues, the less-than-prosperous outer suburbs north of Paris. But Jean-Paul vetoed the idea. It was going to be difficult enough for Ari as a foreigner to get a position in a medical practice or hospital anywhere except some rural French village where there was a terrible doctor shortage unless he could impress the interviewers with a combination of impressive résumé, French language skills, and impeccable French tailoring. Ari had taken care of the first two requirements, and now it was time for the third, a good suit, non? So off they went.
Nabi, excused from work that weekend because his boss, Marco, was afraid his battered face would scare off sausage customers, left early to make up the violin lesson he had missed on Wednesday after he was beaten and displaced by his grandmother’s employer. Diba, in an interesting development, was next door baby-sitting for the Porters so they could attend a company day cruise up the Seine to Giverny for lunch; they wouldn’t be home until dinner. Dom had gone somewhere for the day with Nathalie and various other friends.
By ten o’clock they had all scattered and I was blessedly alone with the quiet house all to myself, except for the painter who showed up just as Dom was leaving. On Friday the painter had covered the graffiti on the backside of the garden gate with a coat of primer paint. He left it to dry overnight, and now he was back to apply a top coat. He was a nice enough older man, happy to be left to his work without wanting a lot of chitchat. With headphones on, he set right to work lightly sanding the primer in preparation for the finish coat.
There was still some unpacking I could do, but I felt unusually tired. Or maybe I was simply on overload; being a foreigner was hard work. I thought about taking a run, a swim, or even saddling one of Jean-Paul’s ponies and trying not to disgrace the Bernard family name as I bounced along the equestrian trails in the haras. Instead, I pulled a chaise into a far shady corner of the back garden and curled up with my laptop. I spent some time just woolgathering while watching a mother bird fly back and forth to her nest in the tree over my head, something different and squirmy dangling from her beak every time she returned. Mothering the young can be exhausting. I knew that from experience, and marveled at the bird’s stamina.
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