L'Affaire (44 page)

At her French teacher’s insistance, she had been reading (in English) Stendhal,
The Red and the Black,
one of their seminal texts, she had been told. She found it slow going, and didn’t really like reading novels anyway, but she had been struck by one of the characters, Madame de Renal, saying something like ‘Poor me, I am rich, but what good does it do me?’ At first Amy had thought Mademoiselle de Renal stupid and selfish not to be happy when she had so much to be happy about, and inwardly directed her to perform charitable activities. But was it so easy? Here she, Amy, was, living her dream and not happy, and not knowing why.

Other things gave Amy the feeling she was living in Stendhal’s novel. For instance, Géraldine, beside her at the play, had been unhappy earlier for a reason that had seemed to Amy very French, though she could not have said why. Just as in the novel, where the heroine Mathilde
had made her mother go to the opera ‘despite the unsuitable position of the box which a humble hanger-on of the family had offered them,’ so a friend of Géraldine’s, the director of the play, was to have left tickets for them at the box office, but when they got there, no tickets had been laid aside for them. Géraldine expostulated, and Tammy and Wendi didn’t seem to think she was making a scene, though Amy shrank.

‘There must be a mistake. Look again. “Madame Chastine…” Go, then, and find Mr Elias. I talked with him only this morning…’ But Mr Elias could not be found. There were no seats left, except perhaps in the distant
balcon
.

‘It is not possible to sit in the
balcon,
’ Géraldine fumed. ‘Someone might see us.’

Literature was a guide to life. In the end they did sit in the balcony, but Amy could still sense the warmth of Géraldine’s indignation radiating around her, and since anyone would be embarrassed at having invited friends and then not having tickets, there was nothing specifically French about this that she could put her finger on… But she herself would not have chosen such an issue, seating arrangements, to focus unhappiness on. Her own incipient misery was more intrinsic.

After the play, at supper, Géraldine partly apologized for having put them through a scene and given them bad seats to boot. She explained that the reason for her unusual testiness had been, as usual, Victoire. Tammy and Wendi nodded, from long experience of hearing about Victoire’s woes. The separation of Victoire and Emile was apparently not going to be complicated either by Emile or
Victoire with any of those discussions, second thoughts, and outbursts of emotion that usually characterize breakups. Fait accompli, it seemed.

‘Perhaps it is some idea of kismet in Emile’s North African background,’ Géraldine said. She was exasperated with both of them for not trying harder to stay together. ‘In America you have marriage counselors. I hope the idea will catch on here. I would pay for them to see someone like that, but both of them, separately, refuse. He comes by, he telephones, he takes the children out, but he makes no effort to patch things up, and neither does Victoire. If she knows he’s coming over, she leaves. And now I think he’s back in their apartment, so she won’t go home.’

‘It’s the money,’ Wendi guessed. ‘She feels more independent since her inheritance. She knows she doesn’t have to put up with what she had to before.’

‘She hasn’t got the money! Not until the chalet is sold, and she owes more than three hundred thousand euros into the bargain, and rather soon. The government is
impitoyable
. I fear that she just can’t deal with his condescending attitude anymore. Even I, who adore him, can see he treats her as if she were the dumbest girl walking. To say nothing of his womanizing… he is a
cavaleur impénitant
.’

Amy was alert to these revelations. Géraldine described Emile as an unrepentant
cavaleur,
which Amy at first supposed to be a reference to his horsemanship, a strange objection for Victoire to hold. But she quickly understood that this was not what was meant, and made a mental note to look it up, though as a metaphor it was rather obvious.

‘Victoire is far too romantic, and she understands
nothing about men. But I think that’s only part of it,’ Géraldine went on. ‘She is in love with the idea of living in Provence with these English people, her new brother and sister, in Adrian Venn’s château. She talks of it as her real home, as if she had never been happy with Eric and me. After all Eric has meant to her. He feels it keenly…’

Wendi and Tammy, being American, tended to side with Victoire. They, too, maintained that a modern woman should not have to bear such provocations as Emile offered her; Victoire – so principled, so adorable, so contrary – was right to stick up for herself at last, and to maintain her self-respect. Emile, incorrigible womanizer even though a rising figure in the French pantheon, was no one to be married to. ‘Better to have him as a “friend” than a husband,’ Wendi said. ‘Victoire is simply in the wrong position.’

‘She should just tell him to shove it,’ Tammy summed it up. ‘She’s so beautiful, she’ll find someone else right away, just like you did, don’t forget.’ Amy could see that Géraldine did not like to be reminded of the unpleasant episode in her past, the conception of Victoire.

As the women nattered philosophically on, Amy saw one thing clearly, to her great discredit: She could see that she had been actively hoping for the interesting, handsome Emile and the romantic Victoire to split up. Just now, she had been holding her breath listening to Géraldine talk about it, because of the way she herself was horribly drawn to him. It was wrong to ill-wish his marriage, of course. She felt torn between self-reproach and wanting to enter the discussion, to go on talking
about him, to make a kind of claim on him by pronouncing his name.

‘Emile has his defects, but he is amusing,’ went on Géraldine, ‘and I’m sure in private, very amusing. Of course Victoire does not say. I so wish Victoire would be more, I don’t know, more calculating.’

Did women have a right to expect men to be amusing? The idea had never before occurred to Amy. Was this a French idea? American men were expected to be strong, responsible, and solvent, certainly, and sensitivity had been urged on them in recent years, and the ability to talk about their feelings, something Amy had reservations about. When people talked about their feelings, others were bored. Such talk also encouraged egotism and violated the tenets of mutual aid in some way she had not examined. No, she preferred men to talk about subjects, not subjectivity, and she preferred to talk about subjects herself. Amy blamed women for the gap that seemed to exist between male and female conversation. It was women’s fault, she had always believed, that men usually reserved their talk about interesting subjects for other men. Still, these women were talking about a very interesting subject, Emile.

‘I know one thing,’ said Géraldine, when Tammy and Wendi had said good-night. ‘Anglo-Saxons are very
complexée
about being female. We all feel the superiority of women to men,
bien sûr
– what heroines we are really – but, why worry so much about it? All that agony about motherhood, and whether to work or stay home – not you, Amy. But Americans in general, et
les Anglaises aussi
. Not so much the Swedes… I have seen it time and again.
Luckily Tammy and Wendi have been here long enough to overcome most of their role conflicts, but it is amazing how their reflexes have stayed
américaine
.’

As Amy walked home across the Louvre with Géraldine, she brought up the subject of the château, at first saying she might know someone who wanted to buy some property in the French countryside, would Victoire’s be suitable?

‘I told my friends I could go down and look at it. Where is it? Is there a train?’ asked Amy.

‘I’ll find out,’ Géraldine said, not taken in by Amy’s talk of the American friend.

‘In fact, it’s me,’ Amy added, recognizing Géraldine’s comprehension, and anyway not given to lies. ‘It makes a certain sense – I would love to have some French property, I could come stay in the summers. And the Venns could run their press there, all the things they wanted to do.’ She outlined to Géraldine the nature of her thoughts on this.

‘You should certainly see it, but it might be a bit more than you want to chew off. Is that the American expression?’ Géraldine did not seem overcome with pleasure. Amy had thought she would be pleased.

‘Yes, we bite off more than we can chew,’ Amy said.

‘Yes,’ said Géraldine. ‘These leaky old places…’ Her heart speeded up with anxiety as she realized how Amy’s plan would mean that Victoire would have even less reason to reconcile with Emile. She weighed the duty of a loyal mother – was it to help Victoire, or to impede Victoire? – according to Géraldine’s idea of Victoire’s own good, and decided her higher duty was to discourage
Victoire from any harebrained scheme involving the Venns, the château, anglophone play-groups, and the rest. But of course this meant that Amy must not get involved. And for Amy’s own good too. These leaky old places, shaky collaborations with basically unknowable English people, and even if she booted the Venns and the press out, she’d be stuck with a drafty ruin, no doubt in bad repair, much too large and so on. Géraldine didn’t know Venn’s château but had experience with the general category. She ventured a couple of these ideas, but Amy was carried away with the reasonableness, even brilliance, of it all.

‘Of course there will be terms. For example, Rupert would buy into the press, I’d be the partner. The vineyard – I’ll have to see. I’m a good businesswoman, this isn’t philanthropy. I’d make it pay.’

Géraldine agreed, against her heart, to telephone Antoine de Persand and find out what Amy must do next. She made haste to call Persand the next morning, and was given the name of the
notaire,
a Maître Lepage, and of Monsieur Delamer, the man who ran the vineyard, who would make arrangments for Amy’s visit. Persand thought it all sounded like a perfect example of American acquisitiveness and fecklessness, qualities he didn’t totally object to, but was wary of. He had a more serious objection.

‘I’ll organize it, but frankly, I’m sorry to see all these fine old places pass into the hands of foreigners. Especially anglophones. The English already own half of southern France, and now the Americans coming in droves. These disastrous tax policies…’ Géraldine
listened patiently while he ranted a bit on dissuasive French tax policies that obliged legitimate heirs to sell to foreign opportunists, and pointed out that he might himself soon be in a position to influence positively some aspect of the tax situation he deplored. He hoped he would.

Amy would go down on Wednesday; Maître Lepage would make a hotel reservation if she wished to stay the night, since the château was not heated at the moment and the water turned off, so there was no question of staying there.

Now in a flurry of meddlesome anxiety (the adjective was her own), Géraldine made other phone calls seeking support for her general belief that Amy should not buy Venn’s château. She had some misgivings about obstructing Victoire’s hopes, and in some ways believed that her daughter would find a happy way of life beyond marriage, if that was how it was to be. She could not entirely judge the depth of Victoire’s rage at her husband, but she could see that Victoire was not happy staying at home with her and Eric – had regressed, was dependent, fretful, and restless, so unlike her.

Nor had Victoire revealed to her mother what the final straw had been that broke her patience with Emile. Géraldine assumed it was infidelity, maybe one too many infidelities, which Victoire’s pride would not let her mention.

‘It was so many things, Maman. Today’s woman is not like your generation…’ For Victoire to begin in this irritating way with a reference to her age would vex Géraldine and blight whatever confidential mood she had
hoped for. Yet she was sure that Victoire loved Emile, and, if things could be ironed out, would return to him. He remained inscrutable, didn’t appear to have found a new partner or to be looking, was infallibly sunny when he came to see the girls, and in general seemed a little more uxorious than when they had been together. She was sure this was his way of demonstrating his hope that all would be well between him and Victoire eventually.

First she telephoned Pamela Venn. Was Pamela in favor of Amy’s scheme? She was disappointed in Pamela’s passive acceptance: ‘Oh, Americans are always dreaming of castles, their own country is quite poor in them. English castles are always being dismantled and carted off. But when it comes to the financing, and the actual disadvantages of the plumbing, most have second thoughts. On the whole, I think it’s wonderful that there’s a buyer for the place,’ Pam said. ‘Is something wrong with it?’

‘She doesn’t plan on evicting the children. She’d lease it back to them on good terms, or let them use it if they take care of it. Or they make some business arrangement by which they are part owners… I’m not sure. My own fear is that having the money will make it easier for Victoire to leave Paris, she will never see the folly of leaving her husband, the children fatherless… but I suppose that is not to look at the big picture.’

‘How generous! I think it’s a quite remarkable chance.’

‘She sees herself as a sort of savior, Joan of Arc or something…’ Géraldine’s voice could not conceal her disapproval and concern.

‘I know that Posy just wants the money. Rupert? I
don’t really see him as a publisher, but I would never tell him he shouldn’t try, if she offers to let him. That would be wonderful.’ Pam thought Rupert very well situated in the City, and realized the contradiction of hating to lose him to the same life in southern France she had found pleasant enough when she was married to Adrian.

Others had other observations. Tammi and Wendy thought it was a lot for a woman alone to take on, Amy would come to see it that way, and so on, but in the face of what was mostly mild approval of Amy’s plan, Géraldine felt isolated in her disapproval, and, after some reflection, made two further phone calls, first to Emile.