L'Affaire (37 page)

Even now, as he moved around the salon, he was delivering one of his diatribes on the subject in answer to someone’s question: ‘You think Americans are bad now?
One can think as far back as the Algerian War – that war was really the Americans’ fault. After the invasion of 1942, they distributed leaflets calling for the freedom of colonized people. Not that
un peuple colonisé
should not be liberated, but it was innopportune, and stirred up factions, and encouraged political developments Algeria wasn’t ready for. Plus it was another blow at the French army, ostensibly an ally of the U.S.’ Amy would have liked to stick up for America, but she didn’t know anything about the Algerian War; had never heard of one.

‘
Tiens,
I didn’t know you were Algerian,’ said someone else to Emile, at which he frowned.

‘I’m not, actually.’

Amy could imagine that Victoire would be a perfect political wife, self-controlled and cultivated, and not interested in Algeria or medals. Amy could imagine being wife to a politician. In fact, anything less than such a challenge would hardly be worth the trouble of wifedom. It was suddenly what she most wanted in the world; did Victoire know how lucky she was to have this role?

She had not expected the baron Otto von Schteussel, who apparently was one of the large acquaintance of the amazing Géraldine. She was startled to see his familiar face, with its embarrassing associations, yet here he was, kissing her hand and clicking his heels. ‘I’ll see you home,’ he whispered, with an imperceptible nod at the door. ‘As soon as you can leave.’

‘Oh, please don’t bother, I’ll have to be one of the last,’ Amy quickly reminded him, but he said he would wait for her. She recognized that in some perverse way she was a
little glad to see him; their intimacy, however regretted, was unlike anything she was likely to experience with anyone else present, which made him at least a friend. Her essential isolation struck her anew, a feeling of being alone in a crowd. Given neither to introspection nor self-pity, nonetheless she felt a stab of the notion that, favored by fortune though she was, there was something that was going to elude her, maybe, she just wasn’t sure what.

Collectively, Géraldine’s friends seemed the essence of France: animated, slender people in suits, the perfumed women carrying perfect handbags, the men in ties that gave meaning, Amy remarked, to the word
cravate,
though, since men in Palo Alto didn’t wear ties at all, maybe any ties would impress her as ineffably European and elegant. Many of the men wore little badges or had tiny red lines in their lapels. The room had a sound in a different key than a roomful of American people would give off, different even from the international buzz of the Valméri guests as they gathered in the bar in a dozen languages.

A Frenchman kissed her hand. That this was still done! The rules of French mutual aid dictated a large place for politeness, which seemed to ooze out of the pores of Géraldine’s friends. Amy recognized the French lawyer whom she had tried to talk to in Valméri – Antoine de Persand – who had in some capacity an interest in the Venn children and had been so unhelpful about Kip and Kerry. She caught him glancing at her, rather startled, not being able to place her as Géraldine’s guest of honor, and not appearing to associate her with the intrusive meddler of Valméri. Now, however, he bowed over her hand. Of course, in her devastating dress, she felt quite unlike the
woman in ski clothes he had seen. With him was a woman of his own age whom Amy had not seen before.

‘Did his wife have her baby?’ Amy wondered to Géraldine. ‘In Valméri she was about ready to pop.’

Géraldine paused. ‘Mmm, you must mean Clara. I did hear she was pregnant. She’s the mistress. Whether the baby is Antoine’s or her husband’s… is not spoken of.’

Amy noticed that at one moment Victoire would be gazing with tightened lips at Emile, who was deep in talk with Antoine de Persand, or surrounded by the smart ladies, or if he extricated himself, he could be seen looking pensive, or talking intensely to his mother-in-law, Géraldine. It was plain that Géraldine’s mind was half on her party but half, or in some other proportion, on something else, perhaps related to the new job taken by her son-in-law. Perhaps the family was not in agreement about it and that was the origin of the strains Amy had observed. These were only her fleeting impressions as Emile made his way around the salon. Like a political team, Victoire and Emile seemed to work opposite parts of the room, the one moving off to fresh territory as the other neared. Amy noticed that Emile and Victoire had not spoken to each other even once, like a perfect team in silent harmony.

Géraldine stuck to Amy and presented her relentlessly to every guest, like a Victorian mother, or so it seemed to Amy, who longed to hide in a corner and talk to Kip. She disliked being the focus of the party. She was aware that the rich American girl was a stock character in the
French imagination, or possibly in French experience, her boisterous vulgarity offset by her good nature and money, and Amy was vaguely afraid of fitting the bill. But each French person was more gracious than the last, and several proffered invitations to their châteaux, country houses, and favorite scenic expeditions. Amy, who had no wish to leave Paris, was obliged to accept several of these invitations, not that she didn’t want to, but a future of visits extended uneasily before her. All French people wanted to visit Las Vegas – what luck she didn’t live there! – but none expressed a wish to visit Palo Alto, though
Stanford
and
Silicon Valley
had for them a dim resonance.

Amy noticed that Géraldine prefaced each introduction of an English person by referring to
‘nos amis les Anglais,’
our friends the English, in a tone that suggested that the English were even less beloved than Americans. But Géraldine seemed genuinely delighted to be able to present to each other such great literary figures as Estelle d’Argel and Robin Crumley, the latter of whose fame was known to her from her rententive memory of the names that appeared under small photos of guests at Paris parties, usually to do with fashion, in the front pages of
Vogue
or
L’Officiel
. Amy had found it strange that well-dressed French people seemed to attend a tireless circuit of commercial perfume parties to launch ‘Mystère,
le nouveau parfum de
…’ Or they flocked to buy diamonds! She had been to one such party at the Place Vendôme. Amy was amazed that Géraldine could think that she, Amy, would plan to buy a diamond, but the $250 donation went to preserving old windmills, a mildly good cause you could not regret.

Estelle and Mr Crumley might easily have met in the great world of letters, but had not. Neither of these writers showed the least awareness of the other, though they smiled warmly. ‘Of course, I’ve never read a word of him,’ Estelle said later. ‘
Un Anglais et un poet?’
Robin, though he said, ‘What an honor, madame,’ seemed irredeemably vague too. They were separated by the enormous gaps of nationality, of genre, and of sex, for male writers rarely read their female counterparts, poor creatures condemned to struggle in the wakes of the men racing to greatness like sailing yachts, and poets never read fiction, or vice versa. It went without saying that Estelle’s novels had never been translated into English, though an ardent disciple of Robin’s did produce translations of his poems into French and send them to French papers, which published them from time to time.

Emile and Robin Crumley were delighted to see each other. They exchanged cheek kisses and pounded each other’s shoulders, which Amy thought very odd for men to do, and certainly un-English, whatever the French custom, or in Italian films where she had seen men kissing each other.

‘Emile, my dear! How nice to see you, all of us in our city clothes,
alors,
as you say, and Amy has metamorphosed from an Alpine sprite into this
mondaine
creature we see here! Hello – so wonderful to be
en ville,
frankly – remember our snowy calamity – I see now we could have been killed – people are in droves during winter, driving off roads, freezing, exposure – what a near thing!’

‘Crumley, you look very well. When did you get here?’

‘Yesterday. Yes, yes, I am very well indeed. The warmer climate of Paris suits me,’ Robin agreed. He seemed to radiate genial Francophilia and urbane goodwill. ‘Look at Amy, doesn’t she look citified?’

Emile had noticed this. Haloed by the soft lamps of Géraldine’s salon, Amy did seem aglow, radiant in a way he had not noticed before, reflecting the attention, perhaps respect, implied by his mother-in-law’s interest, and the presence of her most important friends. Perhaps a ski station has a levelling effect that dissipates in the ruthless inegalitarian light of the City of Lights. Here she shone with beauty, even glamor. He wished she wouldn’t talk, but even there she seemed instinctively to know she was to say very little. She smiled, spoke a few shy words to each and every guest. It was not a bad performance. Really, Crumley – where was he? – was a clever creature, for an Englishman. How astute of him to recognize in the American a ton of money, with its peculiar reifying effect. Despite himself, he was a little dazzled too.

Yet you heard that these heiresses were always restive, unhappy souls, not to be satisfied, so it was as well, for his own sake, that Crumley had not persevered. Looking at her, Emile didn’t detect restlessness, however. He shook himself out of his reverie, as he had other things to think about: the tiresome behavior of Victoire – which he assumed she’d get over – and the beginnings of an international incident that would have to be handled in the press. But there was a moment when politeness dictated he speak to the heiress herself.

‘Are you enjoying Paris? How are you spending your time?’

She gave a demure smile. ‘Monday Wednesday Friday French lessons, Tuesday Thursday cooking,
visite guidée
each afternoon,
musées
– assorted
musées
each afternoon but Tuesday, exercise between five and six… I’m hoping to add piano,’ she said, only half facetiously.

‘Your life is like an opera, in the first act, when the
jeune fille
is coiffed, receives her music lesson, learns a few words of French – the young woman people are trying to marry off.’

‘Unlike me,’ Amy said.

‘What is the goal of all this effort?’

Amy was startled. Wasn’t self-improvement an evident virtue? ‘Well – to be better. Every day in every way. It’s an American obsession.’ She deliberately threw in the dreaded
A
word, which she had observed before to have the effect on him of garlic on a vampire. But he didn’t flinch.

‘Isn’t your project of personal perfection rather self-indulgent? You don’t need to have perfect stomach muscles and a complete working knowledge of
pâtisserie
. Most people have to learn to live with their own imperfections, or just work on them at the weekend.’

‘Abs.’

‘What?’

‘Stomach muscles are “abs” to us.’

‘Yes. It’s an American self-indulgence. And it misses the point somehow.’

‘Oh, well, we Americans always miss the point. I’ve come to understand that.’ Her tone, ironic, didn’t convince him she believed this. ‘I’m not doing it for myself, anyway,’ she added. Was she?

‘Oh, for whom, then?’

‘For others. It’s a gesture of cooperation to the world, to be as informed and as fit as you can.’

‘It is simple vanity disguised as Protestant virtue.’

‘Many religions incorporate physical feats – fasting, standing on your head, the plow,’ said Amy. ‘Crunches, in my religion.’

‘The religion of the self.’

He was really unendurably sententious, but this time she felt, at least, that he was making an effort to be friendly, he just didn’t know how to be.

Robin Crumley was presented to Pamela Venn. The woman was in truth closer to his age than her daughter was, though he didn’t dwell on that. A good-looking woman, a prediction of what Posy would look like. ‘Of course I had the pleasure of meeting Posy and Rupert in Valméri,’ he said. ‘She’s a clever girl, most impressive.’

‘It was a hard thing for them. I am very proud of them both,’ said Pamela. Robin had an instant of blankness before remembering what she could mean – the long coma of the father, the swine who had treated Posy so badly. ‘I’m so pleased to meet you,’ Pamela went on. ‘I think we have a friend in common, Drusilla Able, the head of the North West London Reader’s Society – I know you gave a wonderful reading at the Regents Park Mechanics Hall recently…’

‘Mmm, oh yes indeed,’ Rupert agreed, though he had no specific memory of that occasion and hadn’t a clue about Drusilla Able.

*

Kip was going on to Emile about his school at more length than Emile actually wanted to hear. ‘It’s not so bad here, though. There are a lot of Americans. I’d like to go back to Oregon next year, though. I’m on the ski team. If I went back now, there’s only another month of the season, and I think I should stay here with Kerry. She’s getting better, but not that fast…’ and many more details of Kerry’s recovery and even of her mental state, described as very preoccupied with her supernatural vision.

Emile was puzzled to hear from Kip that the clinic found for Kerry was the well-known Clinique Marianne, an alcohol rehab and psychiatric facility made famous in the days of Cocteau. Was there more to her malady than had been acknowledged? Or was it simply that there was comfort (even luxury for rich clients), and space for baby Harry and his nurse? Emile could easily picture the private quarters and expensively cheerful staff of this legendary clinic, and it occurred to him to wonder if the American was paying for this, too, or whether it was coming out of the estate. He didn’t care enough to raise this issue himself, but someone would, probably the English family, soon enough. Kip went on speaking to Emile, but seemed to be avoiding Amy Hawkins, his supposed benefactress. Emile noticed that when Amy would glance around for Kip, the boy would look down or away. Amy noticed this too.