Babayaga: A Novel (53 page)

Will shook his head. “It’s none of those, Guizot. It’s a woman. A woman left me.”

For the first time since he entered the apartment, the little man paused. “A woman, eh?”

“Yes,” Will said. “A woman.”

“So, you like her? You miss her? That’s what this is all about?”

“Yes. I gave her my heart and she walked out.”

“Oh.” Guizot sat down on the kitchen stool and for a moment he was quiet. “What is her name?”

“Zoya.”

“Oh, that is a beautiful name.” It looked as though tears were welling up in Guizot’s eyes. Neither of them spoke; the soft electric buzz of the kitchen clock was the only sound in the room. Then Guizot smiled and snapped his fingers. “Okay, I have a brilliant idea. A spectacular idea. A big, colossal, amazing idea. You know where we can get a band?”

Will sighed. “Yes, I think I know where we can get a band.”

Guizot smiled. “Well then, let’s go.”

Three hours later, Guizot and Will were sitting behind the glass with the engineer at the Studio Pathé-Magellan watching as Kelly, Flats, and Red fleshed out the tune Guizot had written in the cab driving over. The engineer finessed the levels as the little man ran in and out of the booth, barking instructions at the players in between takes. The band took his comments in stride, seeming bemused by Guizot’s antics—probably because he was paying them such good money. (When Will had tracked the jazz boys down, the three had been wary of the offer. As Kelly put it, “Singing jingles ain’t gonna do much for our sterling reputations.” But Guizot had waved enough francs in their faces to convince them, even throwing in a case of perfumed bath soap for Flats to seal the deal.)

As the session slid into the afternoon, Will’s faith in their enterprise slowly faded. “This isn’t going to work,” he said.

“Ah, but of course it is. My guys are back in the warehouse right now scraping the old Parfait d’ Amour labels off and sticking on the new Eglantine labels. My trucks will distribute them before dawn all across the city. By the time we get this to the radio station tomorrow, Eglantine will already be on the shelves. I’ll have France covered by the end of the week, then Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Milan—boom, boom, boom.”

“That’s not what I meant,” said Will. “The song won’t work.”

“Ah, of course it will, listen to that background. Nobody will hear it but her. “
Zoya, Zoya, Zoya
.” Ha ha, she’s going to love it.”

Will leaned back in the studio couch and listened as the little man sang and danced along with the recording, bouncing around like the ball in the sing-along films.

They kept working on the jingle, repeating it take after take; the music was better than a lot of the tunes Guizot had written. Still, Will realized, his funny little client had been right, days before, in his passionate diatribe against his industry. It wasn’t only the ads, it was the whole cultural mechanism of manufactured emotion: it had torn down, abused, and then reconstructed the way people lived. Before movie romances, he wondered, how did people kiss? How did they caress before they saw Bogart and Bergman embrace? Before pop songs told them to dance and twist and hold hands, how did they discover their passions, improvising and fumbling and finding their way blindly behind all those closed doors? But now, movies, television shows, radio programs, billboards, and advertisements all swamped, swarmed, and buzzed about them, blinding their eyes and drowning their ears, telling them what to feel and how to act.

The band took a break and came out of the booth. Red lit a cigarette. “Okay now, we can only do this for another hour or so, we’ve got a gig tonight.”

Will nodded.

“How do you fellows like the tune?” Guizot asked, beaming.

Kelly leaned back against the wall. “Well I don’t know now. Some music takes you to a nicer place, lifts your spirits up, or maybe only says good luck. Then there’s the music that just gets you paid.”

Guizot laughed and patted Kelly on the back. “That’s good. Now maybe try a little flamenco style?”

The jazz boys went back into the booth and the engineer started rolling the tape. As the rhythm picked back up and Red sang the tune, Guizot became blissfully engrossed in the band’s every gesture and beat. Will wasn’t listening anymore, he knew none of this mattered now. These canned tricks might work well for Guizot as he flew from one wife to the next, but it wouldn’t work on Zoya. She was a woman who knew the weight, measure, and meaning of things. Will could imagine exactly what she would look like when she heard the tune; it would be that same expression she had given him back in the bar when she had asked, “What happens after these victims of yours buy your product and the spell is broken? When they awaken to find their life is as empty and sad as it was before, only now a little poorer too?”

The band was still swinging, and Flats was blowing his horn, as Will quietly rose, put on his coat, picked up his hat, and slipped out of the room without saying goodbye. And that was the last day of Will Van Wyck’s once promising career in advertising.

VIII

When Adèle walked into her apartment, she screamed. Vidot sprang up from where he had been sitting on the couch. “Oh no! There is no need to be frightened, my dear. I am not a ghost, I am simply here, I am home.”

She looked thin and pale. He knew that no matter what emotions she held for him in her heart, his absence must have been a source of great stress. But though he wanted to, he did not reach out to embrace her. He simply stood smiling at her, a little awkward and formal, feeling stiff in his newly tailored light wool suit. The main room of their apartment felt very small and empty, he had never been more aware that they were the only two living things it contained. Seeming unsure of what to do, she merely stood there too. She straightened her skirt with her hands. “Where have you been? What happened to you?” she asked.

“I honestly do not know where to begin.” He shrugged. “I have been working, investigating, solving a crime, tying up loose ends. But I am home now, and I will not be going back in to work for a little while.” His smile felt awkward on his face, his stomach churned with worry. “Oh here, look, I brought home a present for you.” He pulled a large frame wrapped in butcher paper out from beside the table. He bent over and tore the paper away, trying not to shake from all the emotion he was working to contain. He stepped to the side so she could see the painting.

It was rough and Impressionistic. Done mostly in shades of blue—cornflower, Persian, and cobalt—it showed an older woman with melancholy eyes gazing out a garret window. She looked as if she might be recalling better days, or watching her beloved depart down the avenue. “I introduced a dealer I know to the artist today. He liked the work, picked up a dozen or so of this fellow’s pieces. Interesting artist, he mostly does portraits of his wife. He’s been painting her for years now,” said Vidot. “The dealer, Christof, owed me a favor. He’s going to cobble together a show of the work and get them a bit of press as well. I picked this one out to keep, I thought you might like it.”

“Oh,” Adèle said, studying the painting. “I’m not sure it’s very good.”

“No?” Vidot came and stood by her side. “Why don’t we let it stay a few days and try it out? If we still don’t like it, I can return it to Christof.” He looked down at her, trying to look calm and serene. “It is good to be home, Adèle.”

“I am glad you are home too,” she said, looking up at Vidot, her expression unfathomable.

He stood there, trying to guess what she felt. Relief? Guilt? Absolution? The mantel clock’s ticking was the only sound in the apartment. Vidot felt torn, his whole soul exhaling with relief at having made it, finally, here to his own apartment. But his heart was twisted and unsure whether, despite both his words and hers, he truly was at a place he could call home.

He reminded himself that he was a Frenchman, he was expected to understand these wanderings of the heart. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to ignore the whole thing and simply find a lover of his own. Perhaps she expected him to, or perhaps she thought he already had. But that had never been his style. He was not moralistic, he was simply a man in love with his wife.

For the past few days he had done all he could to resolve the many complex facets of this case, as well as coming to terms with the parts he would never solve. He had considered paying a visit to her lover, Alberto, repeatedly imagined walking up to him on the street and popping the man in the nose or socking him in the eye, but after he had turned it over in his mind he decided that he did not want or need that kind of justice.

His only desire was to know if this apartment could hold any possibility of being a home for him. If it did, then he could begin again, letting the past grow faint and weak and vanish in that way it naturally does. But this was it, the final riddle of his journey. He did not feel the urge to smile. The emotions he was going through and whatever she might be feeling seemed more unfathomable to him than the secrets of any crime, more mysterious than any mystical spell. Over the past few days he had gone through an incredible, inconceivable metamorphosis and somehow, miraculously, had survived. Along the way he had accomplished amazing feats and overcome grave threats of a scale he could have never imagined, and yet here he was, in the end, standing in a smartly tailored suit, fumbling, awkward, wordless and shy, faced with nothing more than the eyes of the woman he loved. Like an ancient blind weaver who has run out of thread, he felt quite empty-handed.

So, in a gesture that held uncertainty, curiosity, and more than a little fear, he gently reached out to take his wife’s small, soft hand into his own. She did not resist, yet her acquiescence did not reassure him. He was uncertain if her heart held any ardor for him or if she was merely giving the appearance of obedience and acceptance. He knew he had the strength to seize, slap, shake, even beat her to wrest a confession, but that was the last thing he wanted. He simply longed for a hint of her small, perfect smile and pined for a sparkling glint of happiness in her eyes. He had come so far to reach this moment, and this was all he wanted, her hand in his, with full trust, steady until the morning. He thought to himself that in these tenuous times, this was perhaps the most he could hope for. He felt the warmth of her skin on his and looked down at both their hands. A riddle’s truth lay here, how absolutely large and great one very small thing can be, and how, with sweet, tender vigilance, one can take these small, fleeting moments and build them into something eternal. This is all we are at our best, he thought, tiny instances accumulating up into a greater whole. There is nothing magnificent in this world, he thought, that is not born from an act so slight as to go wholly unnoticed. We must be especially attentive to see them, and to remember to perform them, he thought, yes, that is the crux: we must simply pay attention. He squeezed her hand softly, as if to say, I am here, I am right here for you. Then, with barely a pause, he felt Adèle gently squeeze his hand back. He took this as a good sign.

That night the two of them did not make love, they did not even kiss more than to say good night, but as they lay in bed, their arms draped around one another, their toes tentatively touching, Adèle finally shifted, pulling him close and burying her nose into his nightshirt. Then they both slept, soundly, their breath rising and falling, slipping in and out of unison.

IX

It was late in the afternoon and Oliver had a black eye. He dropped a sugar cube into his coffee and stirred. “Of course I meant to call earlier, but it’s been so busy. The embassy had a lot of questions, but it all was manageable, at least for a while. Then French intelligence showed up and insisted on asking their own questions. It became less of a friendly debriefing and more of an interrogation, but I held up well until, out of pride, I suppose, I shared my theory that the French resistance was a bit of a mythical beast. Of course one of my interrogators turned out to be an actual hero of the resistance, and, well…” He exhaled his cigarette and sipped his coffee before continuing. “That was only a minor side note, really, the rest of it’s all cleared up or shut up by now. I did manage to get my hands on a good amount of cash to pay Red and the rest of the jazz boys, and I’m pleased to say they were happy with that unexpected bonus. They said you got them some money too. Speaking of cash, you ever meet Philip Strong?”

“No,” said Will.

“Thought Brandon might have introduced you. Phil’s a big honcho, runs the whole theater for the agency, one terrible son of a bitch. Anyway, word is he had to pay an astronomical sum to the Paris police to keep them from poking around Bendix’s lab, and then, only hours later, the damn place caught fire and burned to the ground with Bendix trapped inside. Dunno who was behind it, Phil’s people or the police or whomever, though it seems rather messy for company work.” Oliver paused for a drag of his smoke. “You know, I almost pity that Bendix, the good doctor had such grandiose plans. Imagine, finding the means to bond the world into one shared consciousness. Incredible stuff, really. If only he had aimed that power in a slightly more peaceful direction, he might have enlightened us all. He could have been a Buddha, but he turned out to be a pest, ha ha. Sounds like something right out of Cole Porter.”

He had been rambling on like this ever since he arrived at the station. Earlier, waiting by the small café stand, Will had been unsure if Oliver would even show. When he did arrive, Oliver had seemed listless at first. But then he had settled into his chair, lit his cigarette, and starting talking. Apart from Oliver’s rambling monologue, the station was quiet, an off-season calm before the holiday storm, with only a handful of travelers waiting. Porters pulled their carts by, and station agents wandered about, occasionally checking their watches. Will’s own train was scheduled to leave on the quarter hour.

“I did want to ask you one question,” Will said.

“Really? Okay.” Oliver winced, butting out his cigarette. “Though I have to tell you, I am deathly tired of questions.”

“I know, but seriously, tell me this, what was the knife for?”