Lessons in French (14 page)

twent
y
-ei
g
ht

Late in the afternoon of Thanksgiving day, Christie called me at Lydia’s to say that Bastien’s parents had told him, out of the blue, that they were getting divorced. “Bastien’s devastated. His father is almost definitely having an affair. But that’s usually not enough to break up a marriage in this country. The affair isn’t what Bastien’s upset about. He thinks they should stay together for him, which makes some sense until you realize that he’s twenty-five.”

“That’s terrible.” I wanted to get off the phone. Clarence was getting ready to serve
l’apéritif
in the living room and I felt sure that Joshua would finally make an appearance. The guests would be arriving soon.

Madame Fidelio was helping Lydia in the kitchen. There were rich smells and much clanging of dishes. A big flower delivery had arrived, masses of roses from Salman Rushdie’s French publishers filling the kitchen sink. Well-brought-up people apparently sent flowers ahead of time rather than foisting last-minute bouquets on their hosts. (“
Savoir vivre
is so refreshing, isn’t it? Doesn’t it drive your mother crazy, when people show up and throw loose flowers at her in the middle of a party?”) I might be expected to arrange the roses. I wanted a drink. This was not a good time to talk.

“Christie, I should probably go. Can I call you back later tonight?”

“Sure, but let me tell you what the upshot is.”

“The upshot?” I have to go.

“Bastien is so upset. He honestly had no idea about his parents. He thought they were in love. He keeps crying and playing the same piano piece over and over.”

As she started to hum a bit of the
Moonlight
Sonata, Bastien’s sorrow, no matter how silly his life might seem, became flesh for me. I had seen his mother once. She had hair like cotton candy, but he adored her. I began to picture him in his vulgar beige
salon
crying at his piano beneath the orchid painting. It was terrible.

Portia’s voice from the kitchen yanked me back into the Schell orbit.

“Mother, why are all these flowers just sitting in the sink? They look so depressing.”

“Don’t ask me. I have no idea where people have put my vases. Is your father opening the Sancerre yet? Do we need to send him a note? Where’s Katherine?”

Christie was still humming into the receiver.

“So, what
is
the upshot, Christie? I’m sorry but I should hang up. Things are heating up around here.”

“He’s so upset that he’s blowing off both his parents for Christmas and he wants us to go to his house in Deauville with him for a
Noël de réfugiés
. He says the casino will be open and that winter is the best time for oysters.”

To be a refugee in Deauville at Christmastime. I certainly didn’t have the money to go back to the States, and Lydia and Clarence planned to be in New York, where they “did” Christmas better. Paris was somewhat depressing over the holidays, Lydia said. Deauville was tempting. But I had promised Jacques and Solange.

“I was going to spend Christmas in Orléans with my cousins.”

Christmas Eve was the one night of the year when Solange splurged on scallops. She arranged them in a buttery tarragon sauce in their giant shells. It was a big deal. But if Bastien was really suffering, and I could somehow help, and have oysters and champagne in a seaside casino, maybe this was the moment to choose the new over the old. I couldn’t turn my back on either picture.

“I’ll have to think about it, Christie.”

•   •   •

As I came into the living room, Clarence handed me a glass of peach-blushed wine.

None of the guests had arrived yet. We were
en famille.

Joshua, sitting on the ottoman, had what looked like an old magazine open in his lap. He was bent over a picture of a pair of scissors. There were pimples on the back of his neck and a premature slackness to his shoulders. He squirmed in his button-down collar and burrowed his gaze into the pages.

Clarence walked behind him, peering into the magazine. “A revolutionary invention, the scissor.”

“Clarence,” said Lydia with high-pitched weariness, “must you go slapping down interpretations all over the place?”

“I thought I was making conversation with my son, my dear.”

Joshua flipped slowly to a photograph of a wrench, then blinked up at me. He was stoned.

“Hi, I’m Joshua,” he said, holding out his hand for me to reach. When he failed to stand up, I was faintly disgusted. It seemed the manners of the French
BCBG
boys were leaving their impression after all. I was beginning to expect certain things.

Joshua had his father’s full lips and generally overripe features, so that Portia, in a silk shirt dress, high heels, red lipstick and blush with pale powder foundation, looked chiseled beside him. They were both strangely old, but she wore it better.

Madame Fidelio came in with a vase of red roses, tightly arranged. She shot an irritated glance at my wineglass, then turned to Lydia.
“Ça vous plait, madame?”

“C’est magnifique, Madame Fidelio.
Put them right here, on the
table basse.”

Madame Fidelio obliged, putting the flowers on the coffee table, then rushed off, muttering insinuations in my direction about how many more flowers were still in the kitchen sink waiting to be arranged.

I gulped my Kir.

“Portia,” said Joshua, “what’s with the lipstick? You don’t need that shit. Does Olivier make you feel like you need that shit?”

“You’ve all misjudged him!” Tears appeared, gathering powder as they streaked down Portia’s face, swelling into pearls. “He doesn’t take everything for granted like we all do. He has to work and think so hard. He understands how much work it takes to make something beautiful. He’s so pure that way, so honest.”

“Like an artist,” I said helpfully.

“Like an asshole,” said Joshua, staring at me as though he couldn’t believe I could be so disconnected from reality.

“Please, Joshua,” said Lydia.

“No, Lydia, let him talk,” said Clarence. “He’s only voicing his concern. It’s his way of telling his sister she’s beautiful, naturally so, and that she doesn’t need all this rubbish on her face.”

“Yeah,” said Joshua, and flipped his bloodshot gaze back to the magazine, which I saw was the
Fortune
from 1955 that Lydia had recently bought at an auction. It had a famous photo essay in it by Walker Evans called “Beauties of the Common Tool.” I supposed she had put it out today for the Thanksgiving guests to admire.

Portia did not stop crying. I went to get her a tissue, for which she looked disproportionately grateful. I finished my drink. I said the flowers were beautiful and everyone agreed except Joshua, who was tracing the wrench on the page with his index finger.

“Joshua darling, be careful of that Walker Evans. It’s a treasure,” said Lydia. “And it wasn’t cheap.”

“Don’t you want your peach Kir?” Clarence motioned to Joshua’s untouched glass.

Joshua looked up from “Beauties of the Common Tool.” “You’re right, Mom, this is a very nice essay. You should do something like this. Let’s see, what would your common tools be? Fax machine. Credit card. Diet pills. Different-color diet pills. Papaya diet powders. Straws. I can see it now, all elegance and purity.”

Clarence picked up Joshua’s glass and thrust it outward, sloshing pink wine all over his hand. “Please let’s not start off this way. Your mother’s been cooking for two days. Have your drink, Joshua.”

Joshua waved his father away. “Can I at least have a real drink?”

Trembling now, Clarence turned the bronze key in the red lacquer cabinet full of bottles and glasses. I recognized the Armagnac and the lead crystal from Prague. “Be my guest, son.”

“Got any scotch?” Joshua stood and went to look. I saw his eyes skid along the shelves and recognized his confusion. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for. He didn’t know his stuff.

Clarence, as if to give him privacy in his embarrassment, turned his back to Joshua and blocked him from our view.

“Lydia, don’t take it wrong. He’s merely showing his appreciation for what you can achieve when you’re true to yourself as an artist.”

“Well, this is no fun.” Lydia grabbed her glass and went to the door. “I’m going to baste the turkey if no one here needs me. Clarence, give Joshua the single malt that Harry Mathews brought over last month. Harry always knows what he’s doing.”

“Enabler,” Portia muttered. “You’re always getting Joshua drunk. It’s so irresponsible.”

“Listen, you.” Lydia put her hands on her hips. “I know a lot more than any of you about responsibility. I helped end the Vietnam War and I will not be called irresponsible in my own house.”

Joshua gulped his scotch and addressed me. “Mom just missed being World Press Photo of the Year in 1968. She was there when that guy took that
really
famous shot of the soldier shooting the prisoner, the one that
was
photo of the year.”

Lydia went out and slammed the door.

“Joshua, that was perfectly beastly of you.” Clarence motioned us to sit down. “Don’t worry though. She won’t disappear. She might have”—he shook a scolding finger at his son—“were it not for the guests. She’ll pull herself together for them. But let’s talk about something else, shall we?”

Joshua poured himself a second scotch. “Okay, let’s. Let’s talk about Muslim fundamentalists.”

“Oh, please,” Clarence moaned.

“No,” Portia sniffled, “this is interesting. I want to hear what my brother has to say.”

“All I have to say is there’s some weird shit going down and Mom’s back in the old fatigues.”

“Your mother gave up war photography when she had you two. That was our pact.”

“Some pact,” Joshua laughed. “She’s headed to England on Saturday for some big ‘Death to Rushdie’ demonstration.”

“Nonsense. There’s no war in England, and your mother isn’t going anywhere.”

“Oh yes she is. She’s leaving before our vacation is over, leaving us here in Paris with you to try to get herself a photo-op. Fuck that, right?”

“Don’t be disrespectful of your mother’s career. And she’s not going to England on Saturday.”

“Fuck she isn’t. And fuck her dinner.” Carrying his drink, he stormed out of the room.

In his wake, pale Portia looked positively angelic.

twent
y
-nine

I woke up with a headache. Lydia had sent Harry Mathews, and not Sally Meeks, into the cellar to pick a Margaux worthy of the Rushdie publishers, who turned out to be as pretty and as overwhelming as their flowers. They had not spoken a word to me all night. Harry, though, kept saying he promised to look out for me in this crowd if I swore I would buy an umbrella soon, reminding me of the promise he had exacted the night of dinner with Umberto Eco. He also kept refilling my glass because this Margaux wasn’t the kind of stuff you came across often. This morning, I was suffering from his generosity.

Hangovers were suffused with shame for me, which I attributed to the sense, lingering from college, that I was wasting Mom’s hard-earned money by killing brain cells with alcohol and lying around uselessly for hours, eating toast and not going to class. So, I was sheepish when I came into Lydia’s office at ten o’clock, and I thought she was too.

“Listen,” she said. “Why don’t you have the day off today. I’m going to take Portia shopping with Sally and her discount. Journalists can get thirty percent off almost everything here and of course Sally milks it.

“But poor Portia could use some cheering up. So, I don’t feel too guilty cheating the French government. She’s still wearing that awful makeup that she thinks Olivier likes, because it reminds him of his perfect mother somehow, and I heard her sobbing in her room last night. I think it would mean a lot to her if I had a day with her, shopping and lunch, a real mother-daughter day. You understand.”

“Of course.” What was all this about Olivier and the awful makeup? Was the girl in his sketch reading his letters on the Place des Vosges wearing foundation and blush along with her pink toenail polish? I would have to take it out tonight and look more closely.

“Has she said anything else to you about Olivier? She won’t talk to me, you know. I can’t understand why, but I have to assume it’s developmental.”

“She’s said she’s heartbroken.”

“Poor girl. This is terrible. Why is he doing this to her? He should love her, don’t you think? You’ll see when you’re a mother. Nothing is more upsetting than seeing your child suffer. Who on Earth is he to reject her?”

I stiffened inside. Olivier was not simply someone who had rejected Lydia Schell’s daughter, he was my fantasy. How dare she? But, then again, how dare I?

When I moved to escape, she called me back. I braced myself for a new errand.

“Katherine, I saw you with a sketchbook the other day. It got me thinking that I never hear about your drawing or painting or whatever it is you do. It’s fine if you want to be quiet about it, but make sure you make some progress. Time flies, even at your age. You’d be surprised. And if you ever want to show me anything, of any kind, I don’t have such a bad eye, you know. I’d be interested. Don’t feel embarrassed.”

“You have time?” Her curiosity was too thrilling to process. I could only blush.

“Of course I have time,” she said. “Well, maybe not before I leave on Saturday. But after this England trip I’ll have some time.”

“Thanks.”

She looked at me sideways. “Katherine, if you want to do something creative, life won’t wait.”

“I’m going to do some sketching in the city this afternoon.”

“That’s wonderful, but before you go, take this to Clarence in his study, will you?” She handed me a folded note. “It’s something about dinner tonight. Oh and you don’t mind taking Orlando with you, do you? The poor beast could use some exercise and we’re all awfully tied up around here.”

Bristling, I said that of course I would take Orlando. Was that the price I had to pay for the glimmer of interest she had just bestowed on my artistic development?

I smiled a crushing smile, buried my defiance, gathered the note, the leash, and a new sketchbook, which had been a present from Claudia after my disastrous portrait attempt. It was the expensive, marbled Italian kind. She had said that she wanted me to use it to start copying the Old Masters and at the same time sketching the people I met and the things I saw. She said I should also take notes.

“Alternate these things and you will see all kinds of hazarded connections. You don’t have to show me. Although I would be very interested. And I admit that I would be curious to see how you draw Clarence’s family, if you ever decide to draw them. I will want to ask about them, but I should not. I hate the term ‘self-control,’ and I despise the term ‘exercise.’ ” She laughed. “But, I will exercise self-control and ask you no questions. And seriously, it is time for you to begin your own work, not just doing studies to calm yourself. You must start admitting that you make your own art. Otherwise, you will drown in that house.”

Leaving Lydia now, I recalled the sketchbook in Claudia’s small hands, those colorful gloves. I couldn’t quite believe she was gone for good. It would have been right for her and Lydia to have known one another. I had a powerless urge to bring them together.

•   •   •

On my way to Clarence’s office with the note, I bumped into Joshua with a bag of croissants, chewing loudly down the hallway. The sweet odor of yeast mingled with patchouli.

“Hey, thanks for picking out my Indian bedspread. Dad told me it was your idea. It’s cool.”

“Sure.”

“So, how was dinner? Unbearable?”

“Oh, it was fine. Really, everyone had a good time. Your mom’s an incredible cook when she puts her mind to it. How was your pumpkin?”

After the blowup last evening, Lydia had asked me to knock on his bedroom door with a plate because she hadn’t slaved over his special stuffing for nothing and he was always hungry what with growing so fast and all the dope he smoked, and he wouldn’t dare slam the door in your face, Katherine.

“The pumpkin was all right.”

“Cool.”

•   •   •

I knocked on Clarence’s study door. I said I had a note from Lydia.

He was right in the middle of something. Could I slip it under?

I did. I turned to go. He called me back, opened the door a crack and returned the paper. Could I take this back to Lydia? Across her question, “Cherche-Midi for dinner tonight?’’ he had scrawled, “Absolutely not. No point in eating Italian in Paris.”

I called Étienne, woke him up, asked him to meet me in a couple of hours in the sculpture garden of the Rodin Museum.

•   •   •

Almost free, snug in my down jacket, I ran into Portia in the courtyard. She was walking very slowly, her face strained by the weight of her giant eyes. I wondered if she had taken one of her Valium pills in order to be able to face a day of “bonding” with her mother. She looked long and hard at Orlando and me, as if we were scrambled and she were waiting for our features to fall into place. Then, with strange dips in her voice, she said she would love to take me out for a drink later and did I want to sneak off maybe around five?