French Fried (22 page)

The outside of the Palais des Papes is a veritable fortress. The inside, which includes the old palace built by Benedict XII and the “new” palace by Clement VI, is as amazing as the outside. We saw the frescoed chapel of Saint Jean, and the Consistory, where the pontiff and his cardinals met, with its portraits of all the Avignon popes. The Grand Tinel, where we would banquet tonight, had a paneled vault and the most gorgeous Gobelin tapestries, one scene of which was Attila halted at the gates of Rome by a persuasive pope. The St. Martial Chapel, again full of frescoes, led off eastward from the Grand Tinel. What a lovely banquet it would be. I could hardly wait.

Charles had to be dragged from the banqueting hall to visit the pope’s dressing room and bedroom, both huge, both be-tapestried and be-muraled. Benedict probably never had a moment alone if he had to dress and sleep in rooms so large.

Then we entered the palace of Clement VI, where we looked at sacristies, the very large Grand Chapel and the Grand Audience, a hall of justice with vaults and pillars, and wonderful stairways that made for hard climbing—not to mention more frescoes and statues. One was of Emperor Charles IV, who evidently lived there for a time. I think he was the Bohemian Holy Roman Emperor, and Charles de Gaulle evidently thought he was dangerous because the dog barked at the statue.

I had to scratch his ears to shut him up before a guard arrived to throw us all out, but then Sylvie and her dog arrived, and Winston Churchill again tried to attack Charles de Gaulle. What a fuss. I had thought we would go on to the Cathedral of Notre-Dame des Doms with its huge gold statue of the Virgin, but that evidently wasn’t on the agenda. Maybe they’d dropped it to make room for the poster session.

So the wives and their dogs emerged from the palais, and the professors and their students went off for more chemistry. Jason barely waved good-bye to me, which Albertine noticed. “Now I know that I have made the correct decision,” she said when her husband, who
had
accompanied us, left. “I have reserved an appointment for you with the best hairdresser in Avignon.”

“Oh, Albertine, I hate beauty shops. And what’s wrong with my hair?”

“The hair itself is quite nice, but the styling is so very boring. You will do as I say, and tonight your husband won’t even see that Mexican girl when he catches the first glimpse of his remodeled wife.”

I didn’t much care for her insistence that I be remodeled, and what would the best hairdresser in Avignon cost? Not that I was given any choice. I had to hold the leash while Albertine studied the directions she had written down. Then, although I was tired after climbing up and down long staircases and walking on marble and stone floors, we walked to the salon. A man almost as bossy as Albertine sat me down in a chair that was
not
facing one of the gilded mirrors and began to discuss my hair with Albertine. Obviously they both disapproved. When he combed my side and top hair forward, I cried, “I don’t want my hair cut off.”

“Only the front,” Albertine assured me. “You may have a chignon in back, but the front must be more flattering.” She translated this for Jean-Marc, who agreed and gave me a command, after which he chopped off a hunk of my hair. By then it was too late, so I concentrated on not bursting into tears.

I think, after the shampoo, which was administered by a lady, and some glop rubbed in and heated, that the man cut every separate hair a different length while I pictured myself as a scarecrow with straw sticking out of my head in all directions. The traumatic cutting over, Jean-Marc combed and brushed and blow-dried and sprayed and pinned until I was numb and half asleep.

“Voila!” he cried, waking me up and whirling my chair round to face the mirror.

Was that me? With those wispy bangs and pretty waves falling down over my ears to curl around to the chignon, which looked almost fluffy when he handed me a mirror so that I could see it. In a daze I paid the awful bill with the last of my euros.

“You must bathe, not shower, so that you do not ruin the effect,” said Albertine, as we walked back to the hotel, “and I expect to see you wearing the dress
and
the shoes
and
the hose, not to mention suitable jewelry. I hope you have some. And I hope you realize how truly beautiful you look. I shall not let you near my husband for fear that you will enchant him.”

“I’ll be lucky to enchant my own husband, and if you hear that I’m dead, you’ll know that he killed me because of all the money I’ve spent, but I do thank you, Albertine. I’ll probably feel like a princess.”

“Every woman is a princess, my dear, if she only takes the trouble. We’ll see you at seven-thirty.”

I was still bemused when I got to my room. Instead of falling onto the bed, I got out the shoes and practiced. Then I went to sleep in the wicker chair lest sleeping on the bed ruin my hair. What a wonderful time I was going to have tonight, banqueting in a papal palace with an astonished, adoring husband at my side. I felt like Cinderella.

I had to
stay for the whole poster session because Mercedes had been so nervous she talked to me throughout the tour. What should she say if they asked her this? Or that? What if no one stopped to look at her poster? I’d never known her to be so insecure. Of course she did beautifully, as I knew she would, but I returned to the hotel with very little time to dress for the banquet. Carolyn was asleep in one of those chairs, and her hair! When she opened her eyes and smiled at me, I said, “What in God’s name did you do to your hair?” Her smile disappeared.

“Albertine talked me into having it styled. Don’t you like it?”

“I like it long,” I mumbled, sorry to have spoiled what she’d evidently meant to be a nice surprise.

“I’ve got a chignon in back.”

“That’s good, I guess, but it’s still fussy up front. Anyway, I’ve got to shower and dress.” I rushed into the bathroom to escape Carolyn’s disappointment. I couldn’t seem to do anything right lately.

When I came out wearing the toweling robe provided by the hotel, Carolyn had discarded her robe and was now wearing—good lord! The most ridiculous shoes I’d ever seen. “Did Albertine talk you into those shoes, too? You’ll be limping before we reach the banquet.”

She burst into tears, ran into the bathroom, and didn’t come out until the telephone rang announcing the arrival of the Guillots. I had to tie my aggravating bow tie without a mirror and put in my own cuff links. However, she had calmed down. Both Albertine and Adrien told her how beautiful she looked, which made me feel like a lout as we walked to the car. The two of us sat stiffly in the backseat, perfectly silent, all the way to the palace, where Adrien dropped us off and drove away to park.

Carolyn’s new hairstyle was caught in the wind, which was blowing out of an ominous sky, so she and Albertine rushed off to make repairs, leaving me to find my way to the Grand Tinel. There I was caught by my exuberant graduate student, who was bubbling over about what a success we had been, me yesterday, her today.

I looked into the mirror in despair. “I’ll never be able to resurrect Jean-Marc’s creation.”

“Nonsense,” Albertine replied, as she began to fix her own windblown hair. “So, how did he like the new Carolyn? Was he absolutely delighted and overwhelmed?”

“He thought I’d cut the back and said the front was fussy. And when he saw the shoes, he said they’d cripple me.”

“But the dress—surely he loved—”

“He didn’t even mention it,” I replied dolefully and burst into tears.

“The man is a fool. And don’t cry. You’ll ruin your makeup.” Albertine ran a tissue under my eyes to make sure my mascara hadn’t run and then went to work on my hair. In no time, she had me looking presentable. “I think plan two is in order. I’ll introduce you to every handsome bachelor in the hall. We’ll table hop. He’ll be so jealous by dessert that he’ll have to drag you away from all your new admirers.”

I tried to believe her, and also to get to the Grand Tinel without breaking an ankle. The hall was so beautiful when we arrived—three rows of tables with white clothes, red seats, flickering lamps on each table, waiters straightening place settings, conferees in tuxes and ladies in evening gowns, beautiful tapestries glowing on the walls. It had been the pope’s banqueting hall. Again I felt excited and full of anticipation—until I spotted my husband, further down the hall, several men in his group, and Mercedes with her arms thrown around his neck, his hand on her waist.

Catherine stopped beside us and said, “There’s that Mexican girl who’s been clinging to your husband, Carolyn. No woman should put up with a man who can’t carry on an affair with discretion, who actually throws his sexual forays into her face. It’s quite shocking. Don’t you agree, Albertine?”

Tears of humiliation welled in my eyes. I couldn’t stay here a minute longer. Albertine was rebuking Catherine for her insensitivity, so I grasped the chance to slip away. By the time I got out the door, my cheeks were wet, so I turned away from the incoming people, thus getting hopelessly lost. I’m not sure how long I wandered, managing only to get to the first floor, when a man in a uniform asked me something in French. “Anglaise,” I mumbled.

“Can I assist?”

“I’m trying to find the street.”

“Which street, madam?”

“Any street.” I didn’t care. I just wanted to get away, back to the hotel. Once I escaped from the palais, I’d know the way, although walking so far in these shoes would cripple me, as Jason had said. But it would be his fault.

The guard took my arm and led me through a courtyard, a corridor, and finally outside. “Voila! A street, madam.”

It was, but I didn’t recognize it. Somehow I’d thought all the entrances were in front. This was a roughly paved alley with stray blocks of stone standing near walls that towered over me, straggly greenery sprouting here and there from the stones, a steep slope, and hardly any light. I had no idea where to go and saw no one to ask, so I chose to walk down, perhaps not the best decision, because walking downhill in high heels is worse than walking up.

I stayed close to the walls for balance and inched along, but the slope made my toes slip forward in the sandals until they scraped on the pavement and tore my stockings. More tears blinded me, making it necessary to feel my way along the wall, and then one of the stiletto heels caught in a crack I couldn’t even see, and my foot twisted. A terrible pain flashed through my ankle as I fell. Almost immediately it climbed my leg to the knee like a fire. Crumpled awkwardly on the stones, I stayed as still as I could, hoping the pain would ease. It didn’t. I couldn’t move at all without causing more agony.

What if I lay here all night? It was cold. The wind swooped down the alley, making me shiver. A mistral, as I had thought last night, but not from Africa, according to Albertine. At least I had pain pills in my purse. I managed to free the arm trapped beneath me and fumble the pills from the purse in my other hand. After trying to dry swallow two, I gagged, coughed them up, and started to chew. They tasted terrible, and I was a miserable fool. For wearing these shoes, which my husband hated. For leaving him in the clutches of Mercedes, when I should have dragged him away. And my poor head now hurt as much as my ankle, bringing on hiccupping sobs that didn’t make me feel better in the least.

Then I made my way around until I could reenter the Grand Tinel with the last of the banqueters. Imagine my disgust when I saw that I’d hit the wrong person. Still, my mistake might have a happy ending. The wife, probably eaten up with jealousy, had not returned. It might be thought that she had shot the Mexican girl. What grief
that
would cause.

I was standing with my back to our table, Mercedes embarrassing me by clinging to my arm. While I made a point about my research to a chemist from Rouen, I scanned the hall for Carolyn, who had been at the back with Catherine and Albertine.

Then, in a move that was even more embarrassing, Mercedes whirled in front of me, grasped both my arms, and exclaimed, “Oh, Professor, that is so brilliant.” I had just said something quite ordinary about aflatoxins. “No one but you could have realized that.” Whatever else she had to say was cut off by a bang, after which she fell, forcing me to catch her. Her behavior was highly improper, so I grasped her arms, preparing to push her away, only to realize she was bleeding on me. A hullabaloo in foreign tongues ensued, and the professor from Rouen said, “I believe your student has been shot.”

“Shot?” How had she managed to get shot in the Grand Tinel? “Could someone call nine-one-one?” The people surrounding us looked blank. “An ambulance,” I added, and several people pulled out cell phones while more people crowded around us. “Perhaps we’d better—” Actually, I had no idea what to do, but a professor from Paris had taken a medical degree before his doctorate in chemistry. He directed the placing of Mercedes on a banquet table after the hasty removal of place settings. Then he packed the wound. She was still conscious, moaning and insisting that I hold her hand, which I didn’t want to do. The professor said that he did not think the wound life threatening, that it seemed to have missed the vital organs.