A Bouquet of Rue

by Wendy Hornsby

  “You told Roni Pascal that Ophelia Fouchet is missing. That’s the only reason I’m here.”

  “Do you know Ophelia?”

  She hesitated. “We’ve met.”

  “Through her father?”

  She nodded. “I’m impressed you made the connection.”

  A clump of wrestling, tickling tweeners who were generally oblivious to anything except each other progressed in a generally downward trajectory toward us. We had to separate and press ourselves against the wall to let them pass. When the kids were gone except for a trail of voices reverberating in the enclosed stairwell, she walked up two steps to rejoin me.

  Voice kept low, she said, “The only notice I found about Ophelia was a runaway teen post on an Interpol sex trafficking site. Is she a runaway?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “She has run before, but never gone far and never for this long. It’s been over a week now and there has been no sign of her. Some of her things were found in the woods in the haras in Vaucresson. No more than a hundred and twenty yards from where they were found, a vagrant who’d had his throat slashed was pulled out of a pond; he went into the water roughly the same time she went away.”

  “A dead man?” she said, seeming not to believe me.

  “Very dead.”

  “And Ophelia is involved in some way?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know who he was, and I am only beginning to get some idea about who she is. More importantly, I don’t know where she is or why she is gone.”

  “I downloaded some of your films to get an idea who you are, Maggie. Are you doing a film on runaways?”

  “Not specifically. Generally, I’m interested in harcèlement ­scolaire—schoolyard harassment. The deeper I look, the further I’m led.”

  “And somehow your inquiry into schoolyard bullies led you to me?” She smiled. “I promise, I never beat up a kid in my life, though I was sorely tempted to have strong words with that pack of pre-teens in the stairwell just now.”

  “Hormones run amok,” I said, walking with her to the huge wall of windows that ran the width of the gallery at the top of the stairway. The centerpiece was a massive, floor-to-ceiling see-through clock. Paris was spread out below us as far as the eye could see; dazzling. We stood in front of the windows like any tourists and gawked. I asked her, “Do you have a name other than Déchaînée?”

  “Lara,” she said. “For now, just Lara.”

  “Lara,” I repeated. “I confess that coming to you for information about Ophelia Fouchet is a long shot, but worth a try. Ophelia’s disappearance is part of a larger story, and I think that harassment is at the core. Something happened about a year ago that turned her apparently orderly life on its ear. My snooping around led, circuitously, to you through the series Roni Pascal’s magazine published last year about workplace harassment, but Roni probably told you that.”

  “Yes, well, I can see how revealing some unsavory truth about a man would upset a family’s equilibrium,” she said. “The last thing I wanted to do was hurt Ophelia and Claire. My name is nowhere in the article, nor was his; I was adamant about that. But anyone who was at all familiar with my story would know exactly who Roni was writing about.”

  “How did Roni find you?”

  “We have been good friends for years. A big part of her motivation for writing the series on workplace harassment was watching the hell I went through with Yvan unfold. She begged me for almost a year to let her use what happened to me because it was a good example of how manipulative and vindictive the harasser can be, and how little power his victim has.”

  “You were victimized by Yvan Fouchet?”

  She raised her palms: yes, of course, isn’t it too obvious? “Was I naïve, too ambitious, just stupid to fall into a relationship with a man of his stature at work? Of course. When I was hired by the firm, fresh from university with a first-rate engineering degree, he was a mentor, a guide, a protector. I rose through the company—on merit—and we became closer, traveled to meetings together, worked on projects together. He was, at first, paternal. But over time the relationship progressed as they often do until we shared a bed. I thought we were in love, even though he made it clear that because of Ophelia he could never divorce Claire; I know, I am a fool. After a while, of course, the secrets and lying, and him, wore thin, or maybe finally I saw our relationship for what it was, a cheap affair. I told him I wanted to break it off. He refused, and that’s when the harassment began. If I quit him or tried to expose him, he promised that I would be fired, and he would make sure I was blackballed so that I would never work in our industry again. After that, you can forget any thought that this was a consensual relationship. Sex on demand, whatever, whenever. I was trapped unless I wanted to abandon my career, the life I had built. My pride. You have to understand that when you’re in the middle of such a situation you have precious little pride left. Save myself? What self?”

  “There must be a handbook somewhere these guys use.”

  “I know that mine is an ordinary story. And I was an ordinary idiot.”

  “When Roni’s article came out, you were fired?”

  “Oh, no, I was fired months before that. What happened was, I got a very large industry-wide award. Name and picture in all the professional journals, interviews, a big raise in salary, a new office, a new title. I decided that I was now powerful enough to break away from him. I sent out résumés, I set up interviews. Word got back to him. People called him for references even though I did not list him because that industry is, after all, a small world of its own. And he kept his promise. I was fired. One day I walked in the front door and Security walked me right back out. No explanation—none needed, of course—only the required severance, no references. I demanded an explanation, I got none. That’s when I first went public.

  “Because I was given no cause, I challenged the company. It seemed more likely to me that they would back down before Yvan would. But I was wrong. When the only business news reporter I could interest in my situation went to the company, the answer he got was that employee issues are confidential and there would be no comment. I persisted, not about the sex or the harassment, that was too shameful, but about the way I was fired. I wanted to force the company to explain why I was terminated. Yvan parried my thrust by planting horrible rumors about me throughout the industry; he is a powerful man in our little corner of enterprise. No one would hire me after that. I was poison. Now I sell scarves at Galeries Lafayette and sleep on my sister’s couch.”

  “That’s when Roni came to you.”

  She nodded. “She was angry. As a journalist she thought she could do something important by bringing situations like mine into the light of day. What happened to me happens to people, men and women, all the time. I made Roni promise that if Yvan sued, because I knew he would, the magazine would pick up my legal fees.”

  “And he did sue,” I said.

  “He sued the magazine, but not me. He didn’t want my name to appear anywhere near his after that article came out. I knew his family, I knew many of his friends because he trotted me out even when Claire was around. I think it turned him on to have the wife and the mistress in the same room. The grounds for the suit was invasion of privacy because it is such an easy suit to bring and it is so quickly resolved. The magazine’s offense, according to Yvan, was interfering with his business life, not snooping into his sex life. Roni never mentioned his name in the article, but he argued that there were references that would logically lead people in his industry to assume it was about him and therefor the magazine breached his privacy. The judge agreed.”

  “And awarded him one euro.”

  “And an apology. Don’t forget the apology. That second part felt like daggers to me.”

  “So, you called his wife as a last resort,” I said.

  “Said who?” she snapped.

  “A woman who signed herself Déchaînée in a letter to the editor.”

  She relaxed, laughed softly. “I forgot. Of
course. That’s how I signed myself whenever I contacted Roni on her work server. That’s how I thought of myself during the entire mess.”

  “The tiger unchained, looking for fresh meat?” I said. “What did Claire have to say?”

  “She knew. I think she always knew. We met, and I told her everything only because she insisted.”

  “In the letter, you said the wife, meaning Claire of course, acted when no one else would. Your last word was schadenfreude. What did she do that gave you the cold pleasure of seeing Yvan’s comeuppance?”

  She narrowed her eyes and studied me as I asked that question. She said, “Does anything escape you, Maggie?”

  “Not if I do my homework.”

  Nodding at that, she said, “Claire went to a notaire and filed for divorce on the grounds of fault. Yvan’s fault, of course, because of our affair. I promised that I would give testimony in support; what do I have left to lose? If she won, and she would, she would retain primary custody of Ophelia and he would pay significant damages. What gave me satisfaction was knowing that Yvan would have no control over the course of things.”

  “But Claire hasn’t gone through with a divorce,” I said. “They’re still together. Do you think he forced her to back down?”

  Palms and shoulders rose, meaning the answer was a mystery, but she said, “Don’t underestimate Claire. She’s tougher than you might think. She’s had to be.”

  “What she did certainly explains the open war chez Fouchet over the last year. Poor Ophelia is collateral damage.”

  “I feel sorry for her. She has a good heart, and like her mother, she always found little ways to challenge Yvan.”

  “Out of the goodness of her heart, last fall she took a Muslim refugee boy under her wing and protected him from school bullies. She also let her parents think he was her boyfriend.”

  “Good for her. A Muslim boyfriend would not sit well with Yvan.” Her gaze shifted back to the panoramic view of the Right Bank. “Yvan is brilliant in his field, and he can come off as charming. But he is a despicable human being.”

  “He isn’t doing very well at the moment.”

  “I’m sure he isn’t. He likes to be in control.” She turned to me. “Odd, isn’t it, the way we feel better after sharing secrets we thought needed to stay hidden? I still feel guilty about letting Yvan Fouchet into a position to manipulate me the way he did, but I am not ashamed anymore. It’s he who should feel guilt and shame. Do you think he does?”

  “If he feels guilty about anything, I would think it’s that he drove his daughter away.”

  “I am very, very sorry about Ophelia, wherever she is, whatever has happened. She deserves better.”

  Jean-Paul wandered out of the stairwell, his eyes, like everyone else, on the view. He knew Lara was skittish about meeting me, so when he noticed we were there, he turned around to head back down.

  “Jean-Paul?” Lara called out, a happy look on her face as she started off toward him. He hesitated, but, being who he was he put on a smile, changed direction, and came our way.

  “Suzanne,” he said as they exchanged les bises. “What a nice surprise.”

  “I didn’t know you were back from America. I am so glad I’ve run into you.”

  As they went through the usual long-time-no-see questions and answers—I’m fine, you’re fine—Jean-Paul was drawing her over to me. He took my arm and, facing her, said, “I didn’t know you’d met my Maggie.”

  “Suzanne?” I said.

  She dropped her head to show chagrin, and with a shamefaced hint of a smile when she looked up again, she said, “I thought Lara was an appropriate name to use, the beloved mistress Doctor Zhivago dumped in favor of his less-loved wife. Except I have a strong feeling that my Doctor Zhivago did not love either of us as much as he loved having us both under his thumb.”

  She took a breath and smiled at Jean-Paul. “I’m sorry, that must sound very mysterious to you. Disregard it, dear Jean-Paul. We were having a bit of girl talk, weren’t we Maggie? Affairs always end badly for someone, don’t they?”

  “And perhaps the recovery takes time,” he said.

  She took a breath. “You two know each other? What a small world. Except, Jean-Paul seems to know everyone. Do you still ride?” she asked him.

  “Not recently,” he said. “And you?”

  “No.” A sad sort of chuckle. “Horses require a great deal of time and money. I miss the club rides very much, but not the feed bills.”

  “I understand that very well,” he said with a gracious nod.

  “I didn’t realize it was so late,” she said with a glance up at the giant clock. She put a hand on my arm and leaned in, offering her cheeks to me first, and then to Jean-Paul. With a last glance at me, she said, “We’ll talk again, yes?”

  “I look forward to it,” I said.

  “Let me know what you hear about Ophelia.” She gave my arm a squeeze, turned and hurried down the stairs.

  Jean-Paul waited for a moment before walking over and peering down the stairwell to make sure she actually was gone. When I joined him, he said, “Suzanne is Déchaînée?”

  “That’s how she signed herself.” We crossed the upper gallery and went down the stairs on the opposite side to lessen the chance of running into her. “You knew her through the equestrian center?”

  “Yes. She helped coach the younger riders and came out on some of the group rides in the countryside. As I think about it, she and Ophelia seemed to get along very well.”

  “For a while,” I said, “she also got along very well with Ophelia’s father.”

  “I heard rumors,” he said.

  “So did Claire. Suzanne told me that when she tried to break it off with Yvan, he had her fired, and then he blackballed her in the industry. She went from upper level executive to selling scarves; she’s bitter.”

  Looking at me sidelong he asked, “How bitter?”

  “She called Claire. She also gave an interview to a magazine. He sued the magazine. The public record of the judgment led me through some wormholes to Suzanne. I keep hearing that Yvan needs to be in control of things. If he had done nothing about the article, I wonder how many people who matter in his life would have seen it, much less recognized him as the sleazy workplace abuser; no one was outed by name. I think he couldn’t let it rest. The great war chez Fouchet, and the alienation of the daughter, began at just about the same time that he won the lawsuit.”

  “Hoist by his own petard,” Jean-Paul said in English. We had stopped in the Allée centrale des Sculptures that filled the center of the museum’s ground floor to admire a sculpture by Camille Claudel, Rodin’s rejected mistress. The piece depicted a young woman on her knees, Camille, desperately trying to pull back an old man, Rodin. The title is L’Age mûr, Maturity. Gazing at the agonized face of the woman, Jean-Paul said, “Do you know the word pétard?”

  “I don’t.”

  “It means fart. But it also means little bomb, the sort that was used to blow open gates and doors. I like the expression because it could mean Yvan farted on his own plan, or he blew it up. Nice, yes?”

  “Not as versatile as merde, but nice, yes.”

  “Are you familiar with the tragedy of Camille Claudel?”

  “A bit. Rodin left her for another mistress. She died in an asylum during the German Occupation.”

  He nodded toward the sculpture. “This piece made him so angry he denounced her publicly.”

  “The moral is?”

  “Unzipping the fly can open a Pandora’s box,” he said.

  “It can also open a gateway to heaven. One just has to be careful.”

  He laughed and wrapped an arm around me and we walked outside. Rue Jacob was only a few blocks away, so I texted Guido to see what he was up to. His answer was, “Date night!” Almost immediately after, Delisle sent a text. The car that seemed to follow Ophelia Friday night was, indeed, an Audi.

  ] Twelve

  Jean-Paul cried out in the night, waking me. His
nightmares about bombs started in February when he and a colleague were injured in a blast, but by May they had tapered off. Until the car bomb on Wednesday. During every one of the last four nights since then, explosions had invaded his dreams.

  Unable to go back to sleep, and not wanting to wake him by turning on a light, I crept downstairs with a book, hoping to fall asleep reading on the couch. But it was hopeless. I kept going back over the little pieces I had gathered, looking for answers, adding questions. When Suzanne told me that Claire filed for divorce, which clearly she hadn’t gone through with, I thought I understood why Ophelia went to the juge des enfants last fall and filed charges of abuse against one or both of her parents. She was filing for the divorce her mother dropped. When that failed, she changed her appearance because, as she told Joel Gold, her calculus teacher, she felt dark inside and could not bear looking like a princess anymore. That’s also when she began running away. To get her parents’ attention? To punish them? Schadenfreude, Suzanne said in her letter to the magazine. The cold pleasure of seeing the enemy suffer. Was that Ophelia’s motive?

  I was stretched out on the sofa, unopened book hugged to my chest, watching petals drop from a vase of Claire’s wilting peonies as I finally began to doze off, when I was struck by a random thought. I sat right up again.

  On Monday afternoon, when Dom showed us the missing children flyer that Claire and her friends were passing out in the village, he said, “If they want to find Ophelia, they need to use a different photo.” That wasn’t the last time I heard some version of the same thing.

  While Yvan Fouchet ran around in a frenzied search for his daughter, Claire did not. Was it possible she knew where Ophelia went and had not told him? Did she find satisfaction of some kind watching him deteriorate? Schadenfreude, Suzanne said, a cold satisfaction.

  Jean-Paul woke up and found me missing from the bed, so he wandered downstairs to check on me.

  “Ça va?” he asked, planting himself at the far end of the sofa and weaving his legs among mine as he stretched out.