Parisian Promises (16 page)

Jean-Michel rubbed his prickly Che Guevara beard for good-luck. If Monica was still at Les Charmilles, he would take control of her again. He would make her feel guilty for having betrayed him. He would force her to suffocate in her guilt and denounce the little princeling who lived here, demanding that she remain eternally loyal to Jean-Michel. Once she was back under his control, he would set Monica loose in Paris and elsewhere; she would become his agent of terror. And he would start right here among these colossal architectural reminders of power and greed: the precious
châteaux
of the French aristocracy.

After riding their bicycles for seventeen kilometers away from the Château d'Ussé, Christophe and Monica dipped their toes in the cooling waters of the River Indre that surrounded the Château of Azay-le-Rideau. When Monica rolled a damp log closer to the edge of the river, a long salamander crawled from underneath.

“We don't get any salamanders in my ranch,” Monica told Christophe, trying to pick up the moist amphibian.

“Then you may not know that these creatures were considered to be magical and mythical. The ancient Greeks thought that salamanders could extinguish fires with their cold skin or with the white liquid they exude. Some even believed that their venom could strangle a tree. What do you think of that?”

Monica laughed. “Are you kidding me? I grew up with rattlesnakes behind every boulder, and their venom will definitely kill you. And that's no myth, it's a fact.”

Christophe hugged her. “But what if a salamander, perhaps even
that
salamander, has lived in this
château
for centuries and is said to appear magically from the logs in the fireplace?”

“Let's go inside and see,” challenged Monica. She led the way inside Azay-le-Rideau, struck by the coolness and magnificence of its grand foyer. As she climbed staircase after staircase, Monica noticed that each stone window pediment contained a carved stone salamander along with the Latin motto:
Nutrisco et extinguo.

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“It means: I nourish and I extinguish. As I said earlier, the salamander is said to feed on the fire and also to extinguish evil.” Christophe starting to tickle her, and she batted his hands away.

“Stop being silly. Seriously, why are there so many salamander carvings in this
château
?”

“They were in the coat-of-arms of Francis I, and
Nutrisco et extinguo
was his motto. That's all.”

“Phew! Don't scare me with any weird tales. That's all I've heard since I came to France. Our housemother keeps telling me bawdy war stories, and Lola is always going on about some courtesan called La Belle Otero and the men who committed suicide over her rejection of them. Then I heard about this lovelorn woman and her journey down the Amazon––”

“I can top that. In the Middle Ages, hundreds of soldiers were executed on this very spot and the
château
burned to the ground,” Christophe needled her.

“I'm out of here. Let's go back to the Sleeping Beauty castle. I prefer a love story.” Monica scampered down the stairs, and Christophe had to run to catch up with her.

“All right, no more frightening tales,” he said, clutching her arm. “Why don't you tell me your favorite story while we ride home?”

They picked up their bicycles near the damp log now crawling with more salamanders, but the shimmering river no longer reflected the white stone façade of the château. Only a mirror image of the carved salamanders on the exterior walls seemed to be swimming in the downhill current. Monica felt her ebullient mood sinking in the current's coiling depths, though Christophe didn't seem to notice her somber expression.

“So,” he asked, pulling his bicycle up alongside hers, “why was the woman from the Amazon so lovelorn?”

“She lived up in the Andes Mountains back in the late 1700s, and her French husband deserted her. He was living in French Guiana, I think. After many years without her, he commanded her to board a boat from the headwaters deep in the rainforest and cross the length of the Amazon River basin in order to meet him.”

“Surely she didn't go on this trip all by herself?” Christophe shook his head in disbelief.

“Isabel Casamayor de Godin, that was her name. She started out with a party of forty people, including her son, brothers, a nephew––but everyone died along the way. Eaten by crocodiles, poisoned by snakes, overcome with fever, or drowned. She was the sole survivor.”

“Stop, please. That is no love story––that is hell. Who told you this dreadful tale?” he asked.

Monica didn't reply. She pedaled rapidly past the tall dense trees, aware of the river splashing angrily against its now-shadowy banks. Each lap of murky river water became a drumbeat calling her back. The harder she pedaled, the more she understood Isabel's obsessive love for her husband. Isabel had given herself entirely to her husband, despite his serious flaws, and when he needed her back in his arms, she had crossed hell and high water to meet him. “Could you love me that much?” Jean-Michel had asked Monica repeatedly as he penetrated her feverishly under his bat canopy. The more Monica tried to out-pedal Jean-Michel's memory, the louder she heard his constant question–– “Could you love me that much?”––and the more her upper thigh ached with biting desire for his rough love.

Monica looked behind her shoulder and saw a puzzled Christophe gazing at her.

“But what has frightened you,
ma petite?
Please slow down,” he cooed like a gentleman, a devoted knight in shining armor. Christophe, she thought, was a prince of a man who would brave the brambles and thorns to come to the aid of his princess, a knight who would prevent anyone from harming her.

But Monica could feel Jean-Michel's fire igniting within, a coiling and demanding salamander––and there was nothing she could do to extinguish it. She had to pedal right back to his flame.

At dusk, Madame la Vicomtesse finally left the horse arena at Les Charmilles where she had been practicing her dressage movements for an upcoming competition. Rather than dismount her Selle Français horse, she decided to ride him around her property. It was something her late husband did not approve of, since anything could startle the horses at this twilight hour, but Madame la Vicomtesse continued to be a contrarian, even to his memory. As she approached the bench close to one of the arbors, she saw Serge talking to an unknown man. From high above them on her horse she truly reined supreme, startling them with her loud command from a distance.

“Serge, we were not expecting any visitors. Who is the man with you?”

Serge scrambled to his feet. “This gentleman is a friend of the younger Marquis Tremblay de Lambert, and––”

“And he came here unannounced?” Her practiced haughtiness was evident in her curt question.

Jean-Michel walked up to her, smiling. “Madame la Vicomtesse, please accept my apologies for showing up unannounced, but I––”

“Who are you? And what do you want?”

Serge still felt warmth towards Jean-Michel, because of the interest the young gentleman had shown in his life, so he attempted to intercede.

“But Madame la Vicomtesse,” he said, “this young sir is also a friend of Madame Caron de Pichet. He is a … a well-known author.”

“I'm not much of a reader, though I did inherit an exquisite library. If I were to read, I would not read a contemporary author. So, what does Marcelle want now?”

“She sends her regards, and––”

Madame la Vicomtesse laughed. “You are no friend of Marcelle, just a simple acquaintance. Otherwise you would know that she would never send me her regards. Again, what is it that she wants? My late husband is dead and she can't blackmail him any longer.”

She directed her horse to approach the uninvited guest until she hovered above him, uncomfortably close and intimidating. Jean-Michel's hands tightened into closed fists, but he attempted to reply in a casual voice.

“I am writing a book on the French
Résistance
, and Madame Caron de Pichet has been instrumental in providing me with valuable insight––”

“Enough, please!” She burst out laughing. “Marcelle has been peddling her tales and her ass for centuries. I've had enough of her blackmail, her insinuation that my late husband was a collaborator or that they had an affair.” She nudged her horse even closer to Jean-Michel, forcing him to step back.

Jean-Michel heard the silent cry of a woman scorned. He said softly, “She has been most discreet about your late husband. May I speak with you about––”

“Get the hell off my property,” she hissed.

Serge threw himself in front of her horse. “Please, Madame la Vicomtesse, this young sir is a friend of the young Marquis, and he is also a––”

Madame held her riding crop up high. “You will escort this intruder off my land. I never forget a face. And I can tell that this man is an ordinary
flâneur
who idles the entire day from café to café in Paris.” She snorted as if she had just smelled manure. “I've seen him and his cohorts under the red awning, drinking all day long, attended by the same insolent waiter who tried to ingratiate himself to me by lifting my suitcases at the train station. Stay away from me and my land!”

She rode away, leaving a cloud of dust, disappointment, and the hunger for revenge in her wake.

T
he bile churning inside Jean-Michel turned increasingly toxic as he lurked behind the trees across the narrow country road from Les Charmilles. He was hiding in a thicket of trees, waiting for Monica to return with Christophe––he'd been able to extract information about their whereabouts from the sealed lips of old Serge. The bitter green poison of jealousy and revenge clouded Jean-Michel's thoughts, and he stomped on the delicate yellow wildflowers carpeting the berm. One minute he envisioned himself stabbing both lovers as they frolicked back home; the next minute he wanted to strangle Madame La Vicomtesse for summarily dismissing him like some common trespasser who had wandered aimlessly onto her property. From her high perch on her champion horse, she had looked down her nose at him as if he were not her peer, not her social equal, but a sneaky horse thief trying to pass himself off as an acquaintance.

Jean-Michel had not yet ascertained whether Madame Caron de Pichet and Madame La Vicomtesse were long-term adversaries, but he was gravely disappointed that his fact-finding abilities had led him to the erroneous conclusion that the women were long-time friends. He was tired of these bumbling mistakes––the accidental bomb in the Bordeaux wine cellar, the obvious evidence left behind in the form of Bertrand's foot, and now Madame La Vicomtesse recognizing him as an associate of the waiter. He could not afford any more mistakes. Otherwise he would never have the opportunity to make his mark, to take a bite out of the rapidly evolving world of first-generation European terrorist groups. He would be brushed off by the other clandestine groups now launching their ball-of-fire attacks. Just recently, the Baader-Meinhof gang had continued its anti-imperialist struggle by raising money through bank robberies––and received the support of every armchair liberal in Germany in the process. In contrast to Baader-Meinhof's calculated and well-executed acts, Jean-Michel's weak and ineffective actions thus far would make him a laughingstock, not only to the groups he was trying to impress but also to the ruling class he was trying to destroy.

Jean-Michel slumped against the trunk of a tree. Anger and envy crawled on his skin, like thousands of fire ants, at the thought of so many of the European militant groups attributing their revolutionary techniques to the actions of Che Guevara and the Uruguayan Tupumaros movement. This new wave of revolutionary leaders were
his
people––or, at the very least, they were fellow South Americans––and he'd wanted his own subversive group to be the first to employ Latin American maneuvers in the European arena.

But instead it was Italy's
Brigate Rosse
that openly acknowledged the influence of the Tupumaros on its own actions, particularly bank robberies and kidnappings. Instead of Jean-Michel's squad being the first militant group to rob banks, Robin Hood style, and give a portion of the money to the poor, the Italians had beaten him to the punch. And now, here he was––hiding and waiting to recapture Monica once again, to fine-tune his “California Girl” mind-control method, and then to release her to do his bidding.

What Jean-Michel could not admit to himself was that he lacked a compelling reason for his supposed revolutionary zeal. No government had forced him to forget his mother tongue; no fascist tyrant had shut him up with the butt of a rifle; and his inherited wealth cancelled out any complaints about economic imperialism. Yet he and his ever-diminishing squad were self-described revolutionaries, and their minor gun-running and document-forging expertise gave them some credibility. As Jean-Michel lay in wait along the country road, he decided that he had to be a trailblazer. He would be a hired gun, not quite in the style of a mercenary, but a silent and mysterious hatchet man who would use his frail-but-obedient agents of terror. And he would start with Monica, whose mind he once controlled, albeit briefly––and who he was determined to dominate again.

In the darkness among the trees, Jean-Michel felt for the handle of his German stainless steel switchblade, which he kept tucked in the pocket of his corduroy pants. He imagined slashing Madame La Vicomtesse's prize horse or, better yet, surprising her with a midnight attack. He would slash her throat in the style of a Colombian gangster necktie, pulling her long vicious tongue straight through the open wound. That wagging tongue would no longer insult anyone.

These cruel visions agitated him, and he paced back and forth across the damp ground, crushed flowers sticking in a muddy mess to his shoes and pant legs. Only the constant sound of the river placated him, reminding him of the demands of the Amazon River. He thought of how one Frenchman had compelled his petite Ecuadorian wife, Isabel, to sail its hazardous currents simply because after twenty years of neglect, he'd commanded her to join him in French Guiana. Isabel had complied, a solitary figure among the boas and jaguars. She'd trudged forward––despite the flesh-eating insects and jagged-tooth caimans of its muddy waters––with only one goal: to obey her husband's wishes and be back in his arms again. Similarly, Jean-Michel's mission in Europe was of immense importance to him. It was certainly bigger than one deceitful girl, her simpering, entitled boyfriend, and his fire-breathing dragon of a mother.

The gravel driveway rasped with the weight of the rolling bicycle tires, but Serge did not come out to investigate who was arriving at Les Charmilles. He was liquored up at the village café, complaining to no one in particular about how Madame La Vicomtesse threw out a well-known author who had come to interview
him
for a book about the war.

“She's turned quite evil as of late, wouldn't you agree?” Serge asked, and no one answered. He raised his voice. “Let her face intruders to her property all by herself!”

But the bicycles entering noisily weren't those of new intruders: they belonged to Christophe and Monica.

“Let me put the bicycles away, while you go and rest in the pool house.” Christophe kissed Monica on the cheek and took control of her bike. Monica didn't answer, and this worried Christophe. The last thing he wanted to do was to upset her again. “I'll check on Mother in the main house and then I'll bring us a light supper. Will that be fine with you,
ma petite
? Will you be alright alone for a half-hour or so?”

“I'll take a bath,” Monica told him, and she scampered towards the pool house before he could kiss her again.

Jean-Michel took advantage of the ruckus by the gravel driveway to run onto Les Charmilles. He circled the main house once he saw Monica enter the pool house, and waited in the shadows by the windows. After he saw the lights turn on in one room and then another in the main house, he tapped on the pool house shutters and whistled the same three-note musical code with which he'd tormented Monica that night at his late great-uncles' apartment in Paris.

He could hear Monica turning off the bathtub faucet and letting out a lost-puppy whimper. Jean-Michel snorted with satisfaction at her predictable tremulous reaction. His version of Pavlovian conditioning was working its fearful and hypnotic magic. After a couple of minutes, he moved to the other side of the pool house, tapped once again on the wooden shutter, and whistled the eerie three-note code. Monica turned off the lights in the pool house and remained silent for a few seconds, and he heard another of her plaintive whimpers.

When Jean-Michel opened the pool house door, he didn't immediately see her. He locked the door behind him and gazed around the apparently empty room. But when he opened the door of the huge Louis XV-style mirrored
armoire
, he discovered Monica sitting naked and shivering in the corner, partially hidden by hanging clothes.

“I've been looking everywhere for you, my love,” Jean-Michel cried, tears in his eyes. “I can't live without you.”

Monica sat gazing up at him from the corner of the armoire, unable to budge. She was totally mystified as to how Jean-Michel could sense that she longed for him, and how he'd been able to find her in this minute corner of the world. She'd known ranch dogs that had been given away who subsequently traveled long distances back to their former owners, their return not always welcome. But every time these dogs were left at another home, their profound allegiance to their owners compelled them to return time and time again.

Monica's relationship with Jean-Michel had been a sixth-sense journey. She allowed him to draw her out of the armoire, reacting with animal instinct to his every touch. Jean-Michel kissed and nibbled her chest, then moved his lips down her stomach, lowering her to the floor. When he parted her legs he said, “But you've already erased my mark. We must rectify that!”

Monica moaned and bit down on his palm, and as she climaxed she felt his piercing bite on her inner thigh. Jean-Michel lifted her off the floor and set her down on the bed.

“Please meet me tomorrow morning––eight a.m. mass at St. Martin in Tours,” he whispered. “It's not far. Promise me you'll be there. You
are
mine, aren't you?”

Monica nodded and Jean-Michel slunk away.