The Grandfather Clock (11 page)

We sat down and Marianne ordered an
inexpensive bottle of red wine. The only food choice was steak.
Servers roamed and refilled our plate as needed.

“
This place would go out
of business in the United States,” I laughed.

“
Try the sauce,” she said.
“This food reminds me of coming here as a child.”

“
Well, Marianne. Let me
start by saying thank you,” I said raising my glass. “I love your
sister, like family. I just hope I can help.”

“
Let’s talk about the
gun,” she said.

“
Absolutely.”

“
I’ve seen the photos,”
she said pouring us both another glass of wine. “Any item connected
to the Napoleonic Army is of interest to us, but your piece is more
ornate. Not a typical weapon. Certainly collectible. A lot of
things disappeared during the war.”

“
So, you think it was in a
museum before?”

“
Of course. Yes, if it is
authentic.”

“
Then what
happened?”

“
The Nazis took it,
perhaps.”

I was struck by how casually she
mentioned the Nazis. “Then how did it end up in my family’s
clock?”

“
That is a question that I
thought you might have an answer to. Did your grandfather fight in
the war? Perhaps he collected it somewhere along the
way.”

“
No. He was a hemophiliac.
And I think he was a bit too young. He was born in
1927.”

“
No one else? An
uncle?”

“
He had a cousin, but I
never heard anything about him fighting.”

“
You are having it
shipped?”

“
It should be here by
Monday,” I said. It was a Tuesday night. “My grandfather did travel
to Europe, once that I know of. It had to be around 1950. He went
around the world, hopping freighters. But, this is all a mystery to
me, and my mother doesn’t seem to know anything.”

“
When we see the gun, we
might know more.”

“
It’s exciting,” I said.
“Isn’t it?” I added, less sure of myself.

“
Michael,” she said,
choosing her words, “That gun may be very valuable, as you know.
Its history may be complicated. We need to be thorough so we don’t
bring trouble.”

“
What kind of
trouble?”

“
People may not like its
story. Someone may claim to own it. Someone may not believe that
you found it in a clock in America.”

“
But... you believe
me.”

“
I have no reason not
to.”

“
So you think it’s
authentic,” I said, trying to change the direction of the
conversation.

“
I like to believe in
these things,” she smiled.

“
Celeste thinks it’s a
fake.”

“
Celeste is cynical. She
gets it from her father.”

I wasn’t sure whether to take the bait
on that one. “So I assume that he isn’t around anymore.”

“
Ha! He’s a Londoner. I
met him there. I got pregnant with Celeste. We tried. London is not
for me. It didn’t work.”

“
I didn’t mean to
pry.”

“
All I asked was that he
give up his London women!” she chuckled. “Celeste loved him, and
then despised him. She had her phase where she wanted to be like an
English girl. Thank god the pendulum went the other way. Now she’s
too French!”

“
And her boyfriend is
Spanish?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Marco?
Argentine. He came here to play small time football. I’m waiting
for him to go back. She’s been interning at a state bank since she
finished school. It’s nothing.”

“
Jobs are hard to come by,
aren’t they?” I asked.

“
Good ones,” she
said.

I took a gulp of wine and decided to
tread on the topic that had me nervous. “So you think I can help
the museum?”

She smiled, like she knew a secret.
“Think about it. A tall dark American, with a good handle on
French, meeting with the elite who can make something happen for
the museum. And the gun could be the story to sell the
idea.”

I didn’t want to betray my
uncertainty, but I couldn’t pretend to be so confident. “I will do
everything I can. I think I’ll need some help.”

“
You’ll do fine. Relax.
We’ll get to work next Monday. Take some time to get acquainted
with the city.”

And I did. I rode the Metro all over
the city. I hit the must-sees: Louvre, Orsay, the Latin Quarter,
Notre Dame, and Luxembourg Gardens. I walked some of the
neighborhoods in between the sights. I went to the business
district looking at the names of the major corporations. I took the
plunge and got an iPhone. As I wandered, the thought of putting on
a suit and setting a meeting with some corporate foundation officer
was beyond intimidating. It was not like anything I had done
before.

I emailed Sam and asked him if he had
any French connections. I used my new technology to send updates to
my parents and Claudette. I ended each day exhausted and slept on
that tiny futon like it was a king bed. On Friday I decided to go
to the Shakespeare and Company bookstore for some English reading.
I picked up Catch-22, a book I’d tried and failed to finish
multiple times. I thought that my exile in Paris might give me the
motivation to finish it.

Around the corner was a tea shop that
had a few open tables inside. I’m not a tea drinker, but the
setting was perfect for a couple of hours of reading. I ordered an
Earl Gray because most of the descriptions were baffling, and “Earl
Gray” stood out on the menu. I opened Catch-22. A few pages in, a
booming voice said, “You must be staying a while.”

I looked up to see a heavyset man in
his sixties. He wore dark rimmed glasses and had a stray clump of
hair that had given up on hiding his baldness. He wore a plain
gray, button-up shirt and black pants. He was easy not to notice,
but his slight New York accent stood out to me.

“
What do you
mean?”

“
Catch-22? That isn’t
vacation reading.”

“
Well, you’re right. I
just got in this week and it looks like I’m staying for a little
while.”

“
Work? School?”

“
Work.”

“
What kind?”

“
Um. Museum project. It’s
a long story,” I said. “I take it that you’re here a
while?”

“
Four years, going on
five.”

“
Wow, that’s excellent.
What are you doing here?”

“
Photographer. Freelance.
Fashion stuff.”

I would have believed almost anything
else. This big guy had an Ernest Hemingway vibe going, and fashion
photographer didn’t fit.

“
Part time,” he added.
“I’ve got a commission to do a book. My editor has been trying to
find me for a year. Not really.”

I extended my hand. “Michael
Chance.”

“
Howard Nixon.”

We drank tea and talked for an hour. I
told him that I had some work to do with a museum, but didn’t tell
him about the gun. I told him about Claudette and the surprise of
being sent to Paris. He told me about coming to Paris to do a shoot
for Vogue. He had met a younger Frenchman and stayed. They’d broken
up a year ago but he had no interest in going back to New York. We
exchanged email addresses and promised to meet again.

It was late afternoon when I got back
to the apartment. Celeste was there. I hadn’t seen her since she
departed with Marco on my first day. She was standing in the
kitchen opening a bottled water, “avec gas.”

“
Oh, hello!” she said,
with the most cheer I’d seen her exhibit.

“
Bonjour!” I said. So far,
aside from café workers, everyone was speaking English to
me.

Celeste responded by rattling off
something that I had no hope of catching. But I knew it involved a
“dinner” and “tonight.” But I didn’t want to assume that she was
asking me to dinner.

“
Perdon?” I
asked.

“
Do you want to go to have
drinks and dinner with me and one of my friends? If you haven’t
already made friends.”

“
That would be
great.”

“
She only speaks French,
so you better keep up.”

I was treated to a very different
Paris experience. We never made it within sight of the Eiffel
Tower. We started at a crowded suburban bar full of people who had
just gotten off work. It was in an old two-story house. People
brought dogs, carried in their own food, and made themselves at
home. We were there for a few hours without even thinking about
dinner. Celeste was more animated than I had seen her. At
Thanksgiving she was reserved. Now I was on her turf, and she
seemed to let her guard down a little. She introduced me to four or
five friends who stopped by to chat.

Her friend, Klara, indeed didn’t speak
much English. She dressed in a bohemian style and wore her sandy
blond hair in a loose bun. We ordered carafes of wine. While
Celeste was distracted, my conversation with Klara was at the
limits of my French. I could hold my own when I knew what the topic
of conversation would be. Without more clues, I struggled in the
noisy room. We established that she was a teacher, that I grew up
in California near Mickey Mouse, and we both liked the beach. Klara
and I agreed to get together again. At least I thought so. I tried
to joke that the last school teacher I had met had run off at the
last minute, but I think the humor was completely lost in the
translation.

It was getting late and we hadn’t
eaten. I’d had three or four glasses of wine. I didn’t have a care
in the world. Celeste was the dark haired modern French girl, and
Klara had the natural bohemian beauty. They were both interested in
everything I had to say about America. They wanted to know all
about California. They laughed and corrected the mistakes in my
French, and I appreciated the help.

We were about to go someplace for
dinner when Celeste took a call outside. Klara swirled her wine and
asked, “So, you don’t have a girlfriend?” At least, I picked up the
word for “girlfriend,” replayed the rest of the sentence in my head
and quickly figured it out.

“
No,” I said. “I had one,
but it was over.”

“
I’m sorry.”

“
It’s okay. She was not
good for me.”

“
When?”

“
Last summer.”

“
How long are you in
Paris?” asked.

“
I don’t know. We will
see,” I said. I wanted to explain more, but I was still struggling
with nuanced thoughts.

“
You will love it
here.”

Celeste returned. “There’s a taxi
waiting. Let’s show him Paris.”

I woke up the next morning, it was
nearly noon. My head was a cinder block that I could barely lift. I
could smell coffee. I stumbled toward the kitchen and Celeste was
sitting on the living room couch, with a cup of coffee, reading Le
Monde, eating a croissant. It was hard to be more typical. I nodded
and walked to the bathroom and washed my face under icy
water.

Images of the previous night trickled
in. We’d taken a cab to a restaurant called Aux Trois Mailletz. It
was a good thing I ate a hearty meal, because our next move was
down a set of stairs into a cavernous room where a variety show of
jazz, pop music, and belly dancing went until three in the morning.
Next was a twenty-four-hour café that I wouldn’t recognize if you
put me back in it. We drank, danced, and laughed until we were all
asleep in the cab home.

I tried to mentally suppress my
hangover and emerged from the bathroom. Celeste was refilling her
coffee. She handed me a cup.

“
Bonjour, my dancing
friend,” she said.

“
Bonjour,” I said. “Do you
feel as bad as I do?”

“
I didn’t drink as much as
you did. Klara might not wake up today.”

“
Did we drop her off?” I
asked.

“
She’s in my bed. Still
passed out.”

“
I haven’t had that much
to drink in a long time.”

“
I thought a New Orleans
bartender would be used to it.”

“
When you tend bar, you
don’t start drinking at 7:00 and then go until dawn. You start at
two in the morning!”

“
I see your point,” she
smiled.

“
I hope I didn’t do
anything...”

“
Like what? Try to make
out with us?”

“
No way,” I said. That was
not like me.

“
Hmmmm.”

Celeste disappeared and came back
dressed. “I’m late to meet Marco at the farmer’s market.
Ciao!”

I took a very hot shower and shaved. I
got dressed and stared at Catch-22. I was getting hungry for a
large meal. I didn’t now whether I should just leave Klara there. I
picked up my phone. I had an email from Sam – a response to an
email from me that included two photos. One of me in the middle of
the act of dancing. It looked like I had been tasered. The other
picture was Klara putting a big kiss on Celeste’s cheek. Sam’s
response was, “Looks like you are making yourself at home. Which
one is mine when I come to visit?”