Missing Person (7 page)

A feeling of desolation swept over me: I was, perhaps, standing before the château where I had spent my childhood. I pushed the iron gate and it opened without difficulty. How long had it been since I had crossed its threshold? To the right, I noticed a brick building which had to be the stables.

The grass reached to mid-calf and I crossed the lawn as quickly as I could, walking toward the château. This silent structure intrigued me. I was afraid I would find that behind the façade there was nothing but tall grass and sections of crumbling masonry.

Someone called to me. I turned around. Over by the stable buildings, a man was waving his arm. He walked toward me and I stood still, in the middle of the lawn which looked like a jungle, watching him. A rather tall, heavily built man, dressed in green velvet.

"What do you want?"

He had stopped a few paces from me. Dark-haired, with a moustache.

"I would like some information about Mr. Howard de Luz."

I stepped forward. Perhaps he would recognize me? Each time, I have the same hope, and each time I am disappointed.

"Which Mr. Howard de Luz?"

"Freddie."

I said "Freddie" in a different tone of voice, as if it was my own name I was throwing out, after years of having forgotten it.

He stared.

"Freddie..."

At that moment, I really believed he was addressing me by my first name.

"Freddie? But he's no longer here ..."

No, he had not recognized me. No one recognized me.

"What is it that you want exactly?"

"I'd like to know what became of Freddie Howard de Luz..."

He stared at me suspiciously and thrust a hand into his trouser pocket. He was going to bring out a gun and threaten me. No. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow.

"Who are you?"

"I knew Freddie in America a long time ago, and I'd like some news of him."

His face brightened up suddenly at this lie.

"In America? You knew Freddie in America?"

The word "America" seemed to send him into a reverie. He was so grateful to me for having known Freddie "in America," he seemed ready to embrace me.

"In America? So, you knew him when he was, when he was..."

"John Gilbert's confidant."

All his suspicions melted away.

He even took me by the hand.

"Come this way."

He led me to the left, skirting the surrounding wall, where the grass was less tall and one could just make out an old path.

"I've had no news of Freddie for a long time," he said in a solemn voice.

His green velvet suit was worn right down in places, and pieces of leather had been sewn on to the shoulders, elbows and knees.

"Are you American?"

"Yes."

"Freddie sent me several postcards from America."

"Did you keep them?"

"Of course."

We walked toward the château.

"You've never been here?" he asked me.

"Never."

"But how did you get the address?"

"Through a cousin of Freddie's, Claude Howard de Luz..."

"I don't know him."

We approached one of the cupola-topped pavilions I had noticed at either end of the château's façade. We skirted it. He pointed to a small door:

"It's the only door you can get in by."

He turned a key in the lock. We entered. He led me through a dark, empty room, then along a corridor. We came out into another room, with stained glass windows which made it look like a chapel or a winter garden.

"This was the summer dining-room," he said.

No furniture, except for an old divan, covered in worn red velvet upholstery on which we sat. He took a pipe from his pocket and lit it calmly. The stained glass windows gave the daylight that filtered through a pale blue tint.

I lifted my head and noticed that the ceiling, too, was pale blue, with brighter patches - clouds. He had followed my gaze.

"Freddie painted the ceiling and wall."

The only wall in the room was painted green and one could see a palm-tree that had almost faded away. I tried to imagine this room as it had been, when we used to have our meals here. The ceiling where I had painted the sky. The green wall, with its palm-tree, by which I had hoped to lend the room a tropical air. The stained glass windows through which blue-tinted daylight fell on our faces. But whose faces?

"This is the only room one can still get into," he said. "All the others are under seal."

"Why?"

"The house is under foreclosure."

These words sent a chill through me.

"They've impounded everything, but they've left me here. How long, I don't know."

He pulled on his pipe and shook his head.

"From time to time, some fellow from the Estate takes a look around. They don't seem to be able to make up their minds."

"Who?"

"The Estate."

I did not quite understand what he meant, but I remembered the rotting wooden signboard: "Estate Management."

"Have you been here long?"

"Oh, yes ... I came when Mr. Howard de Luz died ... Freddie's grandfather... I looked after the grounds and was the mistress's chauffeur ... Freddie's grandmother ..."

"And Freddie's parents?"

"I think they died very young. He was raised by his grandparents."

So, I had been raised by my grandparents. After the death of my grandfather, I lived here alone, with my grandmother, born Mabel Donahue, and this man.

"What's your name?" I asked him.

"Robert."

"What did Freddie call you?"

"His grandmother called me Bob. She was American. Freddie called me Bob too."

The name Bob meant nothing to me. But, then, he did not recognize me either.

"Then, the grandmother died. Things weren't going too well financially by then... Freddie's grandfather had squandered his wife's fortune... A very big American fortune..."

He pulled sedately on his pipe and thin streams of blue smoke rose to the ceiling. This room with its large stained glass windows and Freddie's - my? - decorations on the wall and ceiling was obviously a haven for him.

"Then Freddie disappeared ... Without any warning... I don't know what happened. But the lot was impounded."

Again the term "impounded," like a door slamming in my face just as I was about to cross its threshold.

"And since then, I've been waiting ... I wonder what they intend doing about me . . . They can't throw me out after all."

"Where do you live?"

"In the old stables. Freddie's grandfather had them converted."

He studied me, his pipe clenched between his teeth.

"And how about you? Tell me how you got to know Freddie in America."

"Oh ... It's a long story..."

"Would you like to take a walk? I'll show you the grounds on that side."

"With pleasure."

He opened the french windows and we went down some stone steps. We were standing before a lawn like the one I had tried to cross to reach the château, but here, the grass was not nearly so high. To my astonishment, the back of the château did not conform at all with its façade: it was built of gray stone. The roof was not the same either: on this side it was more elaborate, with cut off corners and gables, so that a house which at first sight looked like a Louis XIII château, from the back looked like one of those late-nineteenth-century seaside resort mansions, a few rare specimens of which still survive in Biarritz.

"I try to keep up the whole of this side of the park a bit," he said. "But it's not easy for a man on his own."

We were following a gravel path which skirted the lawn. The bushes on our left, head-high, were carefully trimmed. He motioned toward them:

"The maze. It was planted by Freddie's grandfather. I do the best I can with it. After all, something ought to stay the way it was."

We entered the "maze" by one of its side-entrances, stooping because of an archway of greenery. Several of the paths intersected, there were crossroads, roundabouts, circular and right-angle bends, dead-ends, an arbor with a green bench ... As a child, I must have played games of hide-and-seek here with my grandfather or with friends of my own age. In this enchanted place, which smelt of privet and pine, I must surely have known the best moments of my life. When we left the maze, I could not resist saying to my guide:

"It's odd ... It reminds me of something ..."

But he did not seem to hear me.

At the edge of the lawn, a rusty old frame from which hung two swings.

"Would you mind if we ..."

He sat down on one of the swings and lit his pipe again.

I seated myself on the other. The sun was setting and bathed the lawn and bushes of the maze in a delicate orange glow. And the gray stone of the château was speckled in the same way.

I chose this moment to hand him the photo of Gay Orlov, old Giorgiadze and myself.

"Do you know these people?"

He studied the photo for a long time, without taking the pipe from his mouth.

"I knew that one, all right..."

He put his forefinger over Gay Orlov's face.

"The Russian woman ..."

He said this in a dreamy tone, smiling.

"Yes, I certainly knew the Russian woman ..

He gave a short laugh.

"Freddie often brought her here in the last few years ... Some girl... A blonde ... She really knew how to drink, I can tell you ... Did you know her?"

"Yes," I said. "I met her with Freddie in America."

"He knew the Russian woman in America, did he?"

"Yes."

"She could tell you where Freddie is right now ... You should ask her ..."

"And this dark-haired fellow, here, next to the Russian?"

He leaned a bit closer to the photo and scrutinized it. My heart was thumping.

"Yes ... I knew him too ... Just a moment ... Yes, of course ... He was a friend of Freddie's ... He used to come here with Freddie, the Russian woman and another girl... I think he was a South American or something like that..."

"Don't you think he looks like me?"

"Yes ... Could be," he said without conviction.

So, it was clear my name was not Freddie Howard de Luz. I looked at the lawn with its high grass whose borders caught the last rays of the setting sun. I had never walked this lawn, arm in arm with an American grandmother. I had never played, as a child, in this "maze." The frame, with its swings, had not been put up for me. Pity.

"You say, South American?"

"Yes ... But he spoke French like you and me ..."

"And you often saw him here?"

"A few times."

"How did you know he was South American?"

"Because one day I went to Paris to fetch him by car and bring him back here. He'd told me to pick him up at the place where he worked ... A South American embassy..."

"Which embassy?"

"There you're asking too much ..."

The change in my circumstances took some getting used to. I was no longer the scion of a family whose name appeared in a number of old social directories and even in the year-book, but a South American whose trail would be infinitely harder to pick up.

"I think he was a childhood friend of Freddie's ..."

"He came here with a woman?"

"Yes. Two or three times. A Frenchwoman. The four of them used to come here together... After the grandmother's death..."

He rose.

"Shall we go in? It's getting cold ..."

Night had almost fallen and once again we found ourselves in the "summer dining-room."

"This was Freddie's favorite room ... All four of them, Freddie, the Russian woman, the South American and the other girl, used to sit up here very late in the evening ..."

The divan was no more than a soft blur and a lattice work of shadows danced on the ceiling in diamond shapes. I tried in vain to recapture the echoes of our evenings together.

"They put a billiard table in here ... The South American's girlfriend was the one who particularly liked billiards ... She won every time ... I can tell you because I played her several times ... The table's still here, by the way..."

He led me into a dark corridor, switching on a flashlight, and we emerged into a tiled hall with a majestic staircase sweeping up from it.

"The main entrance ..."

Under the stairs, there was, indeed, a billiard table. He shone his flashlight on it. A white ball, in the center, as though the game had been interrupted and would start again at any moment. And as though Gay Orlov, or I, or Freddie, or the mysterious Frenchwoman who accompanied me here, or Bob, were already leaning forward, to take aim.

"You see, the billiard table's still there ..."

He swept the majestic staircase with his flashlight.

"It's no use going up to the other floors ... The whole mess is under seal..."

I thought - Freddie had a room up there. A child's room, then a young man's room with bookshelves, photographs on the wall, and - who knows? - perhaps one of them showing all four of us, or the two of us, Freddie and me, arm in arm. He leaned against the billiard table to relight his pipe. I, for my part, could not help staring at this great staircase which it was no use climbing, because up there, everything was "under seal."

We left by the small side door, which he closed, turning the key twice in the lock. It was dark.

"I've got to catch the train to Paris," I told him.

"Come with me."

He gripped my arm and we followed the surrounding wall until we reached the old stables. He opened a glass- fronted door and lit an oil lamp.

"They cut off the electricity ages ago ... But they forgot to cut the water ..."

We were in a room, in the middle of which was a dark, wooden table and some wicker chairs. On the walls, earthenware plates and some copper dishes. A stuffed boar's head over the window.

"I'm going to give you something."

He crossed the room to a cupboard at the other end, and opened it. He took out a box which he placed on the table, with the words "Biscuits Lefebvre Utile - Nantes" on its lid. Then he stood in front of me.

"You were a friend of Freddie's, weren't you?" he said in a voice full of feeling.