‘And didn’t you?’
Marcel washed the carcass and laid it with two others in the cast-iron casserole. Adding chopped garlic, some butter, thyme, and oregano, a liberal wash of the rough wine he preferred, he said, ‘I didn’t, and you know it. Lily, why must you hate me? Jules is my friend.’
‘Your benefactor. Hah! He couldn’t lend you any more money, could he? Are your things in hock? Has the concierge confiscated them in lieu of back rent?’
He dried his hands on one of the tea towels, left streaks of blood, struck a match on the stove, and lit that filthy stub. Again, he coughed. ‘You’re jealous of me, of the attention Jules pays to my paintings. Aren’t you curious to find out what I would do with that piece you made in wax?’
‘You?’
He tossed his head to one side, threw up his bushy black eyebrows, and became the Marseillais fisherman he ought to have remained. Short, swarthy, and with brawny arms, he had the gut that perpetual sponging brings.
‘Me, for sure,’ he said. ‘That piece, Lily. That gorgeous piece of ass. Janine.’
He had had no business finding it, but he and Jules must have been searching for the treasure. ‘You would melt it down.’
Sadly, he shook his head and began to cut leeks into the casserole. Some carrots, handfuls of quartered potatoes, the whole of a cauliflower followed, after which he laid strips of fatty bacon over everything.
Then he stuffed the casserole into the oven, burned a thumb, and swore as he slammed its door.
‘I would do no such thing. I may be a pig, I may even be a poor artist in your eyes, but I know good work when I see it.’
Apprehensive now, I asked, ‘What would you do with it?’
‘Me? Remember, madame, that it was me who suggested this. Me, I would take it to a foundry and have it cast in bronze. Even at a time of war, I would do this, paying a little extra, of course.’
‘You couldn’t pay a sou for anything.’
‘Then let’s leave it, eh? Let’s give it time. Then go to the Gallery Pascal on the rue la Boétie and see for yourself.’
That was a street of old mansions, many of them cut up into little hotels, galleries, and other things, and I couldn’t believe him. I never could anyway.
‘Why don’t you talk to your sister?’ he asked. ‘Perhaps if you told her how you felt, she would leave Jules alone.’
‘I can’t. It’s not her fault. She’s not a whore. It’s Jules.’
‘Men can want a lot of women, but women can’t want a lot of men, eh? You’re a purist, Lily.’
‘I didn’t take that jewellery.’
‘And neither did I.’
‘So?’
‘So now Jules trusts neither of us and we two hate each other a little more.’
‘Lily, I want it back.’
‘You’re afraid, my husband. Is it that you’re worried someone else might discover what’s in that box?’
‘Just what’s that supposed to mean?’
‘A certain tiara, I think. One that the Vuittons must know of. One with emeralds and diamonds.’
I thought he would hit me, but he held back, flashed a cruel smile, and said, ‘It’s a fake. Worthless paste!’
Had I been so wrong about it? ‘The box is in the cellar, under the barrel my sculpture’s on.’
He didn’t sigh or smile with relief. He simply looked through to the other room to where that bitch Nefertiti was sitting. ‘I’ll tell them it’s safe, and you’ll put it back in the attic where you found it, but after we’re gone. Even though they were worried about it, your little outburst last night had the desired effect. Vuitton and that wife of his have agreed to use us as a repository for some of the extra pieces from the Louvre. They’ll be arriving in a few days. Give the men a glass or two of wine. Nothing from the cellar, but make a big fuss over them. Everything depends on our being designated.’
Everything, even if they were worried about a fake.
3
At midweek, in the late afternoon, I took the children and walked down the road to see Georges and Tante Marie. The Morissettes had been retainers of the de St-Germains for years. Tante Marie had had a good deal to do with the raising of Jules. Childless, Georges looked up to him as he would to a son who had gone off to university and become a success.
The news I was bringing wouldn’t sit well, but what else could I have done? Someone had to tell them their services could no longer be afforded. Not that Jules ever paid them much. Five hundred francs every quarter, sometimes seven hundred. What they didn’t get in cash, they more than made up for in bread, cheese, apples, pears, vegetables, a few old boards, some wire and nails, tools now and then, an old coat, whatever they could manage to scrounge or borrow. I’d have done the same, of course. Still it wasn’t fair of Jules to have forgotten to pay them this past quarter nor to have asked me to let them know. It could only bring trouble for me.
Leaves blew about on the road or piled up in the ditches where Jean-Guy went to kick them. Marie-Christine kept stopping to examine something, an ant, a bug, a last butterfly that warmed itself. All about us the air was cool and full of the scent of autumn. The road went up and down over gentle rises and for a moment, one precious moment, there was nothing else but the three of us and the open road.
Then the cottage came in sight, laid against the woods, basking in the last of the sun. Georges was splitting firewood in the yard. Tante Marie was taking in some laundry. Stuccoed years and years ago, the cottage was in need of repair. One old horse, a gaggle of geese, a few scruffy chickens, and a pig kept them busy. They had little else to do now but live from day to day and gossip.
I knew that’s what they’d do once I’d told them the news. Straight off they’d hitch the horse to the wagon and go into Fontainebleau to see Tante Marie’s sister. Had they told her already of Tommy’s visit? Had Jules been informed of it and said nothing?
As Jean-Guy called out to them from the top of the last hill, they both stood still, rooted to their little plot of earth. Suspicion, a wariness of strangers, the sharp divide between the classes-all these and more ran through my mind.
Georges Morissette was seventy-two; Tante Marie, who knows? Some said sixty-five; she said sixty-one, but that couldn’t be. Some said eighty, and it was those who had felt the acid of her tongue.
Georges lowered the axe and ruffled Jean-Guy’s hair. Marie-Christine clung to me, intuitively understanding that her brother was the favoured even though she bore Tante Marie’s name.
‘Madame, is something the matter?’ he asked.
‘Ah, no. We’re just out for a walk. It’s so beautiful, isn’t it? All this?’
I indicated the last of the autumnal colours. He was mystified. Giving a shrug, Georges lifted a hand to scratch the grey stubble of a cheek, then got under the double chin and did the throat. ‘Beautiful … perhaps, but the winter, eh? That’ll be something with all this talk of war. You should be splitting wood like me and not strolling about.’
‘We’ve already done the wood. Today, we took up the last of the onions, didn’t we, Marie? Jean-Guy, he has come home from school at noon to tie them in perfect bunches. Together we have hung them from the beams in the storeroom.’
Georges clucked his tongue and slid his thumbs under the broad straps that held up the baggy, faded bleu de travail yet let his stomach move with ease. Squinting into the sun, he pushed back his black beret and rubbed his forehead until a glint of opportunity came into his dark brown eyes. ‘You mind the mice like I told you. That old place, it needs work, madame. My cousin’s boy, young Louis, the one who lost his foot in the train accident, he’s good with the hammer and saw, you understand. If Monsieur Jules would like the eaves fixed, Louis and me, we could …’
Grâce à Dieu, Tante Marie had gone indoors with Jean-Guy. I hoisted Marie into my arms. ‘There’s no money, Georges. Jules has asked me to tell you this.’