Exposed (14 page)

Comtesse? Countess? Grandmama?

I wanted to drive over and shove this letter into my father’s face with my fist. But her hand was on my shoulder. “No,” she said, stern, but with a smile in her voice. “He is not important. You are important.”

I went upstairs to the tiny house’s bathroom, the one we shared when I lived there with her. I looked into the mirror and saw the wreck my face had become from all the crying. I looked at all the wonderful soaps on the counter, not one of which could be purchased in the local Thriftway. I had no idea where she got them.

I washed my skin as she had taught me, thoroughly but gently, until all traces of tears and dark makeup were gone. I put on some lotion that smelled of lavender, then pulled the oddly uneven strands of my last modern haircut to where I could cut them off with scissors I found in the top drawer.

I brushed my now short dark hair straight back from my face, where it was held with a gel from a jar labeled in French.

It was amazing how much I looked like her. And her mother, whose photograph was in a frame by the mirror. This is how I look to this day.

I’d not thought to bring funeral clothes and knew there was nothing for sale in my hometown I would wear. But in Grandmama’s closet were several suits and a few dresses, besides the house dresses she wore at home or in the garden but never outside her own gate.

“Better a few of the best quality rather than many of no quality,” she used to say. There was a black dress that fit me like it was tailored, though I didn’t think we were the same size. Her shoes, though, were too small. The black ankle boots I wore down from Seattle would do just fine.

That’s how I arrived at the funeral home the next day, just before noon.

“Oh, my dear!” said my mother, tears filling her eyes. “You are so beautiful. So much like her!”

My father looked at me, and then away, anger or shame darkening his eyes. I didn’t care which.

“Oh my God!” said my sister. “That’s incredible! Are those her clothes, too?”

The ceremony was as short as the funeral director said it would be. When all was done, he handed me the urn in a box crafted out of walnut. I still felt her warmth in the wood.

“She was right about you, all along,” he said, and I saw the love he had for her in his eyes. He gave me the small board on which they played backgammon every Sunday afternoon after church.

• • • •

I called the number in France that Grandmama had given me then booked a Royal Dutch Airways, KLM, Seattle to Paris. Not the cheapest flight, but it didn’t stop where I didn’t want to stay. I immediately found a train to Bordeaux from which I could absorb the countryside.

When I got off the train, a distinguished man walked up to me and held out his hand. “Mademoiselle Love?”

“Yes?”

“I am Marcel DuBois. Your uncle. Great uncle, actually.”

“You are, were… ”

“Your grandmother’s brother. We have a car waiting. Let me get your bag.”

We didn’t speak much as we walked through the crowd leaving the station. Eventually we got to his car, an immaculate Citroen C5.

“I didn’t know the French still made automobiles,” I said to start a conversation.

“Yes, but probably not much longer, unfortunately,” he said. “It is very hard to compete against the ruthless efficiency of the Germans and Japanese. When the Chinese start building cars, I think French cars will be only a memory.”

“How did you know it was me among all those people at the station?” I asked.

He looked over at me and smiled.

“I will show you when we get to the chateaux.”

As we drove northeast out of Bordeaux, then east along D243, Marcel DuBois pointed out various wineries, talked about the character of the wines and the families. I didn’t recognize many names until we passed through Saint-Emillion, but then we kept heading east.

“Your English is perfect,” I said.

“Thank you. My mother insisted. She went to school in England before the First World War, and loved the people and the language. She was even engaged to an Englishman, but he was killed fighting Germany.

“She eventually married a local boy but never lost her love for things English. There was no money, so she taught me at home. She was a very severe teacher.”

“My grandmother didn’t speak nearly as well as you do. S
he
never lost her accent even though she lived in the US.” I said.

“My sister put all her efforts in the kitchen instead of in her studies,” he said with a laugh. “But then again, this was what was expected, back then. And my mother knew, I think, it would be easier teaching me. My sister was very headstrong.”

“I’m looking forward to learning more about where Grandmama came from,” I said.

“Well, this is where she grew up,” he said as we pulled into a long, graveled drive. At the end was a lovely stone house, two stories. Not at all like my idea of a “chateaux” but very nice. It sat in the middle of a vineyard, but the house itself was surrounded by tall leafy trees.

“We’ll leave the car here for now,” Marcel said, putting on the parking brake.

A woman came out of the house wiping her hands on an apron as we got out of the car.

“You are Jessica!” she said, with an exclamation I didn’t understand.

“Yes…?”

“I am Genevieve, Marcel’s wife. I will NOT say I am your great aunt. Great aunt!? That makes me feel entirely too old!”

Her laugh had music in it. Her English didn’t flow like Uncle Marcel’s (as I had already decided to call him) but it was still quite good.

“So should I call you Aunt Genevieve?” I asked.

“Genevieve will do,” she said, but with a smile. “Please come in. Marcel, take Jessica’s bag up to her grandmother’s room. Everything is ready.”

Uncle Marcel looked at her, then looked at me. “But of course, my love,” he said in English. “Jessica, you see who is the real nobility here at Chateau DuBois.”

“Oh, Marcel,” said Genevieve, immediately taking his face in both of her hands and kissing him lightly on the lips. To me she said, “Men are so sensitive, and Marcel more than most.”

At that moment a feeling of familiarity washed over me like an embrace. I was suddenly and completely at home, in a way I could not remember having ever been.

“Would you like to rest or wash up?” Genevieve asked me.

“I would like to take off my shoes and wash my face,” I said. I’d also worn the same pair of black slacks since I left Seattle, which now seemed a gazillion miles and a lifetime away. I wanted to be in the long, loose dress in my bag and a pair of sandals that would let my toes feel the sun.

“Of course. I’ll take you up.”

The stairs were very narrow, with a landing half way that let them double back. At the top we turned left.

“We’ve upgraded a couple of times, but not since our own children left to their own lives. It may be somewhat old-fashioned from what you’re used to,” said Genevieve.

“I love every inch of it!” I said, and with no exaggeration.

“This was my daughter’s room,” said Genevieve, opening a door at the end of the hall, “and your grandmother’s before that. And yours, for as long as you will stay,” she said, stopping and putting a hand on my shoulder.

How could these people I’d never met be so generous to me?

“I don’t know what to say,” I said.

“Welcome to your family,” she smiled, walking into the room. The bathroom is right here,” she said as she opened the door to a huge bathroom in the corner of the building. It didn’t have a door into the hall, its only entrances from the bedrooms that shared it.

“We’ll be out on the veranda when you want to come down. Take your time. A glass of wine will be waiting for you.”

I took a quick shower to wash off the grime of travel, changed, and grabbed the small wooden box of my grandmother’s and went downstairs. I heard voices and followed them out to a warm veranda by the front door.

“Hello, dear. May I pour you a glass of wine?” said Genevieve.

“Thank you,” I said. But before I sat down, I walked over to where Uncle Marcel was settling back into his chair and handed him the wooden box. “What’s this?” he asked.

“Grandmama left me a note that I was to give this to you, or your son or daughter if you had passed away,” I said.

He looked at me, and at the wooden box. “Did she tell you what it was? Have you looked?”

“No,” I said in answer to both.

He pulled up on the lid, which stuck just a bit as he opened the box. Inside was an envelope and underneath it, something that I couldn’t see but that seemed to startle him. He opened the envelope and took out the two sheets of paper inside. I could see my grandmother’s handwriting and could tell it was written in French.

Uncle Marcel had not read for more than five seconds when tears began to run down his cheeks.

“Marcel?” said Genevieve.

“C’est bien,”
he said softly.

When he was through reading, he handed the letter to Genevieve. Unlike Uncle Marcel, her eyes stayed dry, but very softly she said in English, looking at me, “How beautiful, how sad.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Genevieve… ” Uncle Marcel cautioned.

“Marcel, I make these decisions for myself,” said Genevieve, firmly but with kindness.

“We shall talk after I have thought about this,” she said to me, and got up and went to the kitchen where something incredibly good was cooking and sending aromas into the kitchen and out to the veranda. I sipped my wine and enjoyed the golden warmth of sun on my face.

“What do you know about your grandmother?” Uncle Marcel asked at last.

“She was very hard to know,” I said. “She was very private. She didn’t talk much about what she was feeling.”

Uncle Marcel smiled. “That was always the case,” he said, “even when she was young Your grandmother and my mother had a difficult relationship. They were very much the same.

“During the war, my mother wanted us to stay very far away from the fighting. She said nobody knew who would win, and it was best not to be identified with either side.” He paused, taking a sip of wine.

“I still remember the argument. It was in the kitchen of this very house. The Nazis were in Paris. Your grandmother, who knew I was in the Resistance, told our mother there was such a thing as right and wrong, and she would not let others fight and die without doing what she could to help good defeat evil.

“My mother said Renée was naive. That war did not know the difference between good and evil, only the strong and the weak, and that Renée’s duty was to her family, not to some idealistic
merde
. Renée stormed out and joined the Resistance. I still remember hearing my mother cry deep into the night.

“Our family goes back many generations, hundreds of years before the founding of your country. In fact, this very farm was bestowed on the family for exploration and the securing of French holdings in the New World. And this… ”

Uncle Marcel reached into the box and pulled out a large ring. In the center was a deep red ruby, surrounded by diamonds.

“During the chaos of 1792, this was looted from the crown jewels. It found its way to our family, who returned it to Paris. But then it was bequeathed to our family for “safekeeping by one who did not want it to fall into the hands of the Corsican.” It was always said that a family who would return such a thing to its rightful owner could be trusted forever.”

“May I?” I asked, reaching for the ring.

“May you? Of course you may. It’s yours,” said Uncle Marcel, looking at me.

“Mine?”

“Our family tradition has been that the holder of the ring hands the ring to one she feels would protect it, in honor of our tradition. My mother was the holder, but never told us where the ring was before she died, and we assumed it was lost.

“I did not know until now it went to my sister. I’d hoped as much, but it was not right to ask. Which explains other things they said that night. I remember my mother demanding something be returned, and my sister saying there was no giveback demand in the tradition.”

“But why does that make it mine?” I asked.

“Your grandmother gave this ring to you.”

“No, she asked that I return it to you,” I said.

“Non.”
He held up the two-page letter. “She gave the ring to you. This is what she says here, quite plainly.” He handed the ring to me and the letter, which I hated being unable to read.

I looked into the ruby depths and tried to understand everything that had happened since my grandmother died. Changes I had no ability to anticipate.

“But why? I’m hardly an heir of the DuBois name or lineage.”

“She felt you were.” Uncle Marcel said this simply, as if there were nothing else to say, and stood up to pour me a bit more wine.

“No, thank you. I’ve had enough. May I walk through the vineyard?”

“Of course. Would you like a guide?”

“That is kind of you, but
I
’ll find my way back. How long before dinner?”