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Authors: Alexander Campion

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Béatrice took a deep breath and sat down. “Some cheese?” she asked Capucine with forced sweetness.
Capucine nodded, feeling a rush of sympathy. How many times had she fought to master her own irritation and frustration? How often had she been tempted to shake an officer by the scruff of his neck?
“The table in the middle of the kitchen might not be the best idea, after all, right?” Béatrice asked.
Capucine squeezed her hand. “Maybe in good time. Or maybe not.” Capucine smiled at her. “You know, the genius of your cooking really doesn't need support from any gimmicks.”
Capucine smiled and then burst into laughter.
“What's so funny?” Béatrice asked with a hint of irritation.
“I was thinking about my mother. I once got spanked for saying something we had been served at dinner was
dégueulasse.”
“Spanked? You got off lightly. I was deprived of dessert for a week for saying that!”
In the midst of their laughter Capucine crossed over a watershed.
“You know,” she said.
“The Dîner en Blanc
is next week. We're setting up a table for six. Just a few close friends and my cousin, but it would be totally fabulous if you could join us.”
“The Dîner en Blanc?
What's that?”
“It's this silly tradition—actually kind of fun, though—that's been going on for years. It started when about twenty or thirty people dressed up in white outfits and had a picnic in some public place in Paris. You know, like the courtyard of the Louvre or someplace like that. They'd arrive, throw a big white tablecloth on the ground, and gobble up their picnic before the police arrived. Over the years it just got bigger and bigger, and now it's a huge production with rented buses and thousands of people. The location is still kept secret even though it's officially ‘tolerated.' ”
“So how do you know where to go?”
“They announce a meeting place—usually somewhere in the Bois de Boulogne—where the buses are lined up. Last year five thousand people showed up. You bring folding bridge tables and dress as extravagantly as you want, but it has to be all in white. And, of course, you bring fabulous food and wine.”
“How did I miss this?”
“Probably because you were in the South, but you won't miss it this year.”
Béatrice looked crestfallen. “I'd love to go, but there's just no way I can leave the restaurant. You've seen the way the cooks get. One disastrous dinner and I'm toast. But ... wait. Let me cook dinner for you guys. How about that?”
“Béatrice, I can't let you do that.”
“Of course you can. I'll give you my molecular foie gras as an appetizer. It will impress Alexandre. Maybe some of his restaurant critic pals will stop by, and you can give them a taste. I need all the press I can get. Every little bit helps.”
Capucine squeezed her hand. “Béatrice, that would be absolutely fabulous. I can't thank you enough.”
“Do you have any idea where it's going to be held this year?”
“Of course. The press always knows beforehand. Alexandre told me. It's going to be at the Arc de Triomphe. The tables will spill all the way down the Champs-Elysées.”
“Is Alexandre going to review the event?”
“No. He never does human interest pieces. But there are always loads of reporters.
Le Figaro
always sends a fashion reporter, and some photographers take pictures of all the kooky white outfits for their ‘Living' section. And most of the other papers send food critics and photo teams.”
“Perfect. Then I'll definitely get the right kind of publicity.”
CHAPTER 18
E
ven though it had changed almost beyond recognition over the years, Capucine still delighted in the annual
Dîner en Blanc.
While still in university she had seen the event as something mildly countercultural, meaningful in its derision of bourgeois convention and its flirtation with lawlessness. Now, even though the dinner had become an established event on the Paris social calendar, the closing item on the eleven o'clock news, it still gave her a frisson.
In recent years the event was organized by professionals, who announced the “secret” staging ground by e-mail, rather than whispered word of mouth, which had been the rule in earlier years. An e-mail had announced they were to board the buses at precisely seven o'clock the next evening at an intersection deep in the Bois de Boulogne.
The evening air was still hot and the sun still far from setting as Capucine and Alexandre lugged Béatrice's two surprisingly heavy plastic containers in search of bus D-24. Alexandre wore white linen slacks, a white shirt opened down to the third button, and an enormous Panama hat with the brim turned down all around. With a cigar in his mouth he fully achieved the intended look of a Cuban roué.
Capucine was glowingly summery in a daringly short, pleated frock made from white cotton tulle as light as tissue paper. She felt deliciously naughty in her outfit. It wasn't just the brevity of her dress. She had finally summoned the courage to break free from the
Police Judiciaire
rule requiring officers to carry a regulation sidearm even when off duty. The directive made dresses impossible for women, an irritating sartorial constraint for Capucine.
Determined to wear what she wanted on her own time, she had purchased a quick-draw holster that could be attached to her inner thigh with a strap of soft foam rubber and had fitted it with a Beretta 21A pocket-sized pistol so tiny it looked like a child's toy. True, it was not an officially sanctioned weapon and fired a derisory .22 caliber bullet, universally deemed useless for police work but still she was armed as required. She had never had the need for a side arm when off duty anyway and most important, it was finally at long last truly summer so what difference did it really make? And the best part was that Alexandre had told her the thigh holster was the sexiest thing he had ever seen her wear. It had been a miracle they made it to the buses on time.
The turnout at the
Dîner en Blanc
seemed even larger this year. A throng of thousands swarmed joyously. The bois was punctuated with shrieks, laughter, and whoops of greeting. The outfits seemed more extravagant: hats were bigger and floppier, dresses were either skimpier or more billowing, and costume jewelry cascaded more copiously. The event had turned into a fashion parade.
After an interminable search—made all the longer by the need to stop and greet and air kiss every few seconds—Capucine and Alexandre finally found bus D-24. Jacques, sans companion—immaculately turned out in a white linen suit that could have been made only by a Milanese tailor—detached himself from a group happily shouting gossip at each other and latched on to Capucine, theatrically ravishing her with caricature Lothario eyes. He stroked her thigh with an index finger, hiked up the hem of her dress, and hooked a finger under the strap of her holster.
“Freud would have had a great deal to say about this,” he murmured in her ear, giving the strap a gentle tug.
Capucine broke free and struck a coquettish pose, showing off her shapely leg. From behind she could hear Alexandre grinding his teeth.
Capucine's friend Cécile, in an ankle-length, high-necked, almost diaphanous dress, clearly inspired by a Victorian nightgown, reclined languidly on the steps of the bus side by side with her husband, her arm limply through his. She looked more comfortable in her skin than she had been in months. Théophile sat stiffly upright, a proprietary foot on a large wicker hamper. Despite his reputation as something rather less than an intellectual luminary, he prospered effortlessly at The Société Générale, selling stocks and bonds to his family's connections. His only interest in life, other than his wife, was wine, a subject in which his expertise—as even Alexandre readily acknowledged—was beyond question.
Alexandre conferred with Théophile earnestly about his choices for the evening, selected from Théophile's extensive
cave
and now secure under his foot. Alexandre clapped Théophile warmly on the back. The oenological success of the dinner was assured.
Béatrice's bins and Théophile's hamper safely loaded in the belly of the bus, the dinner party clambered aboard, cresting on a wave of joviality. The noise level in the bus rose. Even though Capucine didn't actually know anyone, they all looked like they must have been guests in common at a dinner party or two over the years. Someone passed plastic flutes of champagne. The hilarity escalated.
As the long line of buses emerged from the Bois and cruised majestically up the avenue de la Grande Armée, pedestrians stopped to gawk and were waved at and toasted jovially by the occupants. Champagne corks popped continually. The buses circled the place de l'Etoile, parking in two circular rows, like covered wagons preparing to stave off an Indian attack. The immense horde of white-clad revelers was disgorged. Organizers appeared and consulted clipboards, orchestrating the placing of tables.
Not a single blue uniform was in sight, but Capucine knew that the event had been coordinated with the Paris police and a contingent of black-clad CRS riot police, vastly larger than necessary, was tucked into buses on a side street, a knee-jerk official reaction whenever large crowds assembled that had persisted from the somber days of the Revolution.
Following the instructions of the organizers, Capucine's party toted their containers, hampers, bridge tables, and folding chairs a hundred feet down the Champs-Elysées to a spot directly in front of the glass façade that had been installed to spruce up the aging Publicis building like a layer of too-thick pancake makeup on the face of a dowager. While they set up camp, the laden, white-uniformed army soldiered cheerfully on in front of them, making its way down the length of the Champs-Elysées. Capucine suspected Alexandre had somehow pulled culinary rank to obtain a spot so close to the Arc de Triomphe. The location turned out to be a mixed blessing. The endless white tide contained legions of friends and acquaintances, a good number of whom stopped for a chat and a sip of champagne.
Théophile was incensed when the first bottle of champagne he opened was depleted in less than a minute. He had an excited, whispered discussion with Alexandre. Capucine could hear only snatches.
“Voyons!” ...” “Deutz Rserve de Famille ...”
“A truly extraordinary
millésime ...”
“... Far worse than throwing pearls before swine ...
”
With the gesture of an oriental sage, Alexandre extended his arm, pointing, sending a beaming Théophile off into the Publicis building. Théophile reemerged ten minutes later with two heavy orange shopping bags decorated with bright yellow suns.
“What a blessing Le Drugstore is. Anything you need available twenty-four hours a day,” Théophile said happily as he pulled ten frosty bottles of Cordon Rouge from his bags and set them in a row on the table. He kissed Cécile on the cheek and breathed a sigh of relief. “Crisis resolved,
chérie,
” he said to her. “The Deutz must be sipped with concentration. Cherished. Adulated. The Mumm will be just the thing to restore our thirsty
copains.
”
For another half an hour the shimmering procession continued past their table in full force. Théophile disappeared into Le Drugstore twice more. A small clutch that seemed to consist mainly of Alexandre's cronies—mainly food critics and journalists—clustered around their table, drinking far more than their fair share of Théophile's
Cordon Rouge.
Capucine had only a limited tolerance for congregations of the gentlemen of the press. Their preening and pretentious flaunting of bons mots rankled.
One of the swarm—a man well into his sixties, with the sad, knowing eyes and the loose facial folds of a shar-pei puppy—greeted Capucine with a kiss on each cheek. Arsène Peroché, the senior food critic for the
Nouvel Observateur,
a left-leaning weekly that was the darling of the liberal intelligentsia, was one of the handful of Alexandre's professional colleagues she genuinely appreciated.
“I must apologize for our little crowd's intrusion. But don't worry, I'm about to lead them off into the wilderness and let you get to your dinner. After all, we're here to work and not to get soused on your champagne,” Peroché said with an endearing lopsided smile.
Capucine put her hand on his arm. “Please, you're all more than welcome. You know, you must come to us for dinner very soon. I haven't seen you in ages. Are you writing a human interest piece tonight, or are you rooting for culinary treasures?”
“I'm afraid it's to be a snide human interest piece,” Peroché said with his sad look. “I don't know how I let myself get roped into these things. The editor wants the theme to be something along the lines of ‘BoBo Two-Dot-Oh—The Second Generation Of Bohemian Bourgeois At Play.' Makes you cringe, doesn't it?”
Capucine laughed.
“Off I go. I'm going to lead them back to the Etoile. I had so much champagne on the bus, I forgot my camera bag in the overhead rack. Then right down to the Rond Point at the bottom of the avenue, and then back up again on the other side so we don't miss a single precious morsel of human interest.”
As Peroché marshaled his colleagues, Alexandre announced to Capucine that he was going to walk with his cronies up to the Etoile but would be back well before they got to the fabled foie gras. Capucine was untroubled by this announcement. Alexandre could always be counted on not to be late for dinner, particularly if it had been prepared by an up-and-coming chef.
After the clutch of journalists left, the river of humanity flowing past Capucine's table gradually thinned to a trickle. Most of the tables were now filled, and there was a long, thin line of immaculate white tablecloths and gleaming white outfits on both sides of the Champs-Elysées, stretching all the way down the one and a half miles from the Etoile to the Rond Point.
A group of late arrivals, three couples in their early twenties, struggled timidly down the avenue with their bridge tables and baskets of food. It was a group that might have emerged from some doctoral class in cybernetics at the Sorbonne. Almost without exception, their eyes were vague behind oversized wire-rim glasses, their hair was badly cut and in need of a generous application of shampoo, and their clothes baggy over ungainly, rangy frames.
Recognizing Cécile, the group stopped and greeted her cheerfully. Cécile whooped joyfully. “They're associates from the firm,” she said to no one in particular and ordered Théophile to give them champagne.
As they approached, one of them—a young-looking, slight blonde with small, almond-shaped, rimless glasses and two large adolescent acne pimples glowing volcanically from her neck and cheek—hung back from her friends.
Catching sight of her, Cécile exclaimed, “Honorine. What a surprise! You're the last person I expected to see here.”
For a split second Capucine didn't place the name, even though the face looked vaguely familiar. Then it hit her. This was Cécile's paramour, or lover, or
amante,
or whatever the damn word was. She prepared herself for a scene.
Honorine looked like she might bolt. Cécile grabbed her by the elbow and led her up to Théophile, who automatically handed her a glass of champagne. “Look who's here, Théo chéri,” Cécile said. “Do you remember Honorine Lecanu? You know, she's the star at the firm I'm always telling you about.”
Théophile, immersed in the process of meticulously opening three bottles of Bordeaux so they could breathe, barely glanced up, quickly returning his attention to the underside of a cork. Honorine shuffled her feet, hurt by the imagined rebuff, and looked at Cécile for support. Cécile glanced hopefully at Capucine, as if she could somehow smooth over the situation. For a long moment there was complete silence at the table, punctuated twice by the gentle popping of corks. A sense of inexplicable awkwardness spread through the group like a thick green gas. Only Théophile was spared.
It took the cool breeze of Alexandre's exuberant return to blow the mood away and restore joviality.
As Honorine and her friends resumed their trek down the Champs-Elysées, Capucine felt another stab of frustration. Here was an important witness—even, technically, a possible suspect—and Capucine was being held at such length from the case that not only had she never interviewed Honorine, but even recognizing her was a rusty process.
“What an eventful little sortie that turned into!” Alexandre said. “You'll never guess what we saw.” He gratefully accepted a flute of Deutz from Théophile.
“Well, there we were, walking past the buses, and in one of them the most beautiful pair of legs began waving rhythmically in the window. Of course, we stopped to admire. In a few seconds the waving stopped and Sybille Charbonnier—it really was her—appeared in the window.”

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