Parisian Promises (7 page)

Charles wanted to believe this flirtatious redhead, but he feared Jean-Michel's draconian retaliation. Bertrand had witnessed first-hand Jean-Michel's ruthlessness when he disposed of a German woman he believed had overstepped her jurisdiction and not obeyed his instructions. Bertrand had told Charles the whole story, describing in vivid detail how, on a picture-perfect azure day sailing in a yacht off the coast of Capri, Jean-Michel cold-bloodedly sank her lifeless body with one hand, while in the other hand he held a sparkling glass of champagne.

After today's accidental explosion, apparently caused by Bertrand's oversized enthusiasm and his inversely undersized caution, Jean-Michel would be out to divide blame among the other squad members. It was even possible that he had disposed of Xavier, but it was more likely that Xavier made himself invisible––not a difficult task in light of his bland, unimposing appearance and his tight-lipped disposition.

These three were the only other guerilla warriors that Charles had met in person. Jean-Michel jealously guarded any facts about the extent of the larger group of combatants––not only their identities and whereabouts, but also their sheer existence. Jean-Michel had the affected habit of proposing a toast to himself every time the media covered a terrorist act by any number of insurgent groups causing havoc in Europe. It was this callous display that had disgusted Bertrand just a week ago.

“
Compañero
, it's time to go home––back to our mothers,” Bertrand had muttered to Charles. “What the hell are we really doing here? Who cares if we live or die in this gray drizzle? We need the sunshine of home.”

Remembering this conversation, Charles felt even more nervous. Perhaps today's explosion was an accident, or perhaps Jean-Michel had discovered Bertrand's desire to abandon the squad and had taken his revenge. There were two things that Charles knew for certain: that he was now under suspicion and surveillance, and that if Monica had not contacted her friends by now, she was under Jean-Michel's spell. As long as Jean-Michel wanted to use Monica, he would. It had happened before, with the German student and then with the religious Spanish woman–– and it would happen again.

The Charles of old forced himself to resurface. He ran his hands through Lola's hair and kissed her with bottled-up passion.

“I will take you to Jean-Michel's apartment later,” he lied. “But first, shall we dance until sunrise?”

To his relief, Lola nodded and smiled, and stopped her annoying demands. Charles refilled her glass, and then glanced at his watch. This lie had bought him some time, either to assist in the squad's original plan or to come up with a way to leave this dangerous Parisian life behind––hopefully, in one breathing piece.

T
he opulence of Jean-Michel's apartment overwhelmed Monica's far more modest sensibilities. In total contrast to the weathered reins, dented helmets, and nearly forgotten dreams that hung together on rusty nails in the ranch house back in California, Jean-Michel's lair overflowed with a sophisticated, bohemian
mélange
of prized paintings and sculptures, antique furniture, and
boiserie
walls lined with ancient tomes. As she tiptoed across the Persian rugs, Monica resembled a new hatchling that had fled from a meager three-twig nest into the engulfing luxury of a beckoning roost.

When she first arrived at this grand high-ceilinged apartment, shivering in her new diaphanous blue dress, Monica had peeked from the library to the dining room with awe, and lingered open-jawed at the virtual aviary inhabiting Jean-Michel's bedroom. Monica had read about collectors who cherished their
cabinets de curiosités
, but Jean-Michel's room was a taxidermist's dream. She inched her way in, agog at the incredible display of stuffed miniature birds, fossils and shells, and flinched when she glimpsed, hanging from the corniced ceiling, a falcon with its wings extended menacingly. It was all very strange but quite spectacular. Instead of feeling repulsion toward a colony of shiny bats hanging upside down above Jean-Michel's bed, forming a canopy of eerie mystery, Monica found herself yearning to lie beneath their fangled grimaces and to absorb their dark cloud of silent threats. When she looked up at the bats, her body tingled with fear and excitement.

Monica leaned her aquiline nose up to the oversized hooked bill of an Ecuadorian toucan sitting near the tall window. She ran her index finger along its stiff, glistening feathers of bright yellow and scarlet––and wondered where these creatures came from and why they inhabited Jean-Michel's bedroom. She felt a particular kinship with this glorious creature, as if they'd both blown in from afar on the same turbulent air current, finding themselves strangely at home in this opulent cage on the banks of the Seine.

Jean-Michel leaned on the bedroom door, watching Monica intently. He set down the tray of snacks on the nightstand, and walked over to her.

“That loyal lady is named Isabel,” he said, “and she's my favorite among the birds that share my home.”

He swooped-up Monica off her feet and laid her down gently on the eiderdown comforter. Monica reached up to him, her arms wide open, and pulled Jean-Michel towards her. She held her breath as Jean-Michel undressed her and pressed himself against her with a firmness and control that reminded her of the way she trained Rocky. During their long trail rides into the Santa Rosa Plateau, Rocky would follow the directions given with just the slightest pressure of her legs. Tonight Jean-Michel dominated her with a similar tender determination, and it made Monica feel that here, in this baroque, exotic apartment, overlooking the comings and goings of the Seine, she had finally landed in her own natural habitat. She let herself go, panting and almost braying with abandon at the satisfaction Jean-Michel gave her.

Afterwards, Jean-Michel poured her a glass of still-cold champagne.

“Why did you name her Isabel?” Monica asked him, propping herself up on one elbow and gazing over at the stuffed toucan.

“She's named after Isabel Casamayor de Godin, the heroine of the most romantic story you will ever hear. Shall I tell you?”

“Of course! I love romantic stories.”

Jean-Michel kissed the length of her leg and bit her inner thigh––just a little bite, but enough to cause pain. He would have loved to draw blood to get her attention––and to jump-start her on her mission––but he couldn't risk failing yet another assignment, particularly after the fiasco with Bertrand. The giant fool had not only blundered and set off an explosion; he'd left behind his leg as evidence. Jean-Michel took a swig of champagne, trying to push that ghastly image out of his head. He set down his glass and pulled several plump pillows towards Monica, so she could make herself comfortable.

“Before I tell you the tale,” he asked her, “tell
me
something. What is it about love stories that you love so much?”

Monica gave him a shy smile, stretching her naked body languorously towards the pillows and closing her eyes.

“Don't move a centimeter,” said Jean-Michel, jumping off the bed. “I must draw you in that pose!”

On his way to the door, he grabbed her blue dress and shoes from the floor, bundling them out of the room unobserved.

“Why didn't you didn't tell me that you're an artist as well?” Monica called. In the next room she could hear drawers being opened and shut. “Well, I mean, I'm trying to be an artist, I guess.”

Jean-Michel returned, sketch pad in hand, and stood over the bed. For a few minutes he sketched Monica feverishly, saying nothing, and then he tore the page out.

“No, I'm not doing you justice,” he said, crumpling the paper and flinging it to the floor. He started sketching on a new page. “Only Manet could have painted you and your remarkable beauty. Do you know that you remind me of his Olympia?”

“I think we saw that painting at the Jeu de Paume. You mean the one of a naked woman resting on pillows, with a black cat at the end of the bed?” Monica readjusted herself in the same position as Manet's Olympia in repose. “Wasn't she a prostitute? Isn't that what the black cat represents?”

“No, no. Manet's composition was inspired by a reclining nude by Titian.” Jean-Michel bent over to kiss Monica. “What I'm saying is that you are a classic beauty. And here is my tribute.”

He produced a small pale-green Ladurée box and handed it to her.

Monica pulled the delicate green ribbon from the box, and smiled with delight at its contents: delicate, pastel-colored
macarons
.

“You asked me what I like about love stories,” she said, nibbling on one of the sweet and airy
macarons
. “Well, I suppose that all love stories are about a profound passion, right?”

Jean-Michel nodded, frowning down at his sketch.

“And many of them are about forbidden love, like in
Romeo and Juliet
, where both families and society were against them.” Monica paused while Jean-Michel licked the colorful crumbs that had dropped onto her breasts. “And lots of times the ending is really tragic, like in
Tristan and Isolde
or
Anna Karenina
. I really admire Anna's love for Count Vronsky. But can you believe that she killed herself over that guy? He was such a cad.”

She licked her lips, and Jean-Michel handed her another
macaron
in order to stifle any more rambling about her favorite love stories. He wanted Monica to realize that in a heroic love story, the people who fall in love fall hard. Sometimes they even mix up their love with a bit of hate, and above all they face immense conflict. It was this type of torrid love affair that Jean-Michel wanted to manufacture in a hurry––one that would make Monica fall off a cliff for him––but in her ignorance, she was resisting him, gushing on and displaying her girlish, superficial understanding.

“My favorite stories are the ones about desperate love,” she told him, “where the lovers overcome all the odds, like in
Jane Eyre
. You know how she––”

Jean-Michel threw his pad to the floor and kissed her fiercely, just to shut her up. Right now he wanted a break from Monica's infantile rendition of great love stories, but he had to rest assured that he understood her true character, especially her weaknesses, before he would allow her to become his carrier pigeon of death. As far as Jean-Michel was concerned, the only love story he wanted filling Monica's brain was the one where the heroine renounces everything for her lover.

He drew away at last and poured a dazed-looking Monica a third glass of champagne.

“But don't you think that a lasting love story requires considerable sacrifice?” he asked her.

“Um––give me an example.”

“How about
Antony and Cleopatra
or Odysseus and Penelope?”

Monica looked perplexed, her eyes hazy with ignorance.

“Uh, well, I've never even read those stories. Give me another example.”

Her birdbrain frustrated Jean-Michel, and he was struggling to remain engaging and tender.

“Surely you must admire the story of
Abelard and Heloise
,” he demanded, unable to resist the intellectual jab. “It takes place right here in Paris, the very city of your dreams. Are you in Abelard's camp? After all, the lascivious priest lost his testicles on account of Heloise.”

Jean-Michel glanced down on his own impressive endowment. Monica looked even more confused.

“Or are you a feminist and pro-Heloise?” he continued. “Are you in the camp of the nun who cried out for more of his lovemaking, though Abelard had nothing left to give her? Please enlighten me on this matter.”

Monica bit her lip and fluttered her eyes, playing for time.

“I seem to have forgotten that story,” she said at last. “But in the movie
Love Story
, they both sacrificed a lot, don't you think?”

Monica was embarrassed at her skin-deep cultural knowledge and lack of sophistication. Why did she open her mouth and reveal her miniscule knowledge of literature and art history? She resolved to allow Jean-Michel to be her teacher, to elevate her understanding, to guide her. At this moment she wanted nothing more than to succumb to him, and learn everything he had to teach her.

“Won't you tell me about the toucan and the best love story you've ever heard?” she pleaded. “I won't interrupt you again.”

Jean-Michel erased a section of the charcoal drawing and returned to his sketch, satisfied that Monica was a quick study and had acquiesced to him quickly. “Isabel is part of a love story of immense sacrifice. Could you ever see yourself waiting twenty years to see the love of your life again?”

“I––I think so.”

“Would you be willing to travel nearly 5,000 kilometers along the Amazon Basin, alone and frightened, in order to connect with him?”

“Is this a real love story? I don't believe it,” Monica said, confused again. Everything about being here––in this apartment, this bedroom, this city––was disorienting her.

Jean-Michel walked over to the bedroom window and stared out at the river. “You don't believe it? What exactly do you believe in? You say you would do anything for love, yet you deny that a woman could travel through black-caiman-infected waters to be reunited with the man she loves. You're frivolous!”

He rapped against the window and Monica jumped, surprised by the harshness of his words. She bit her lip and remained motionless, wondering what he would do or say next. Jean-Michel took advantage of her confusion and continued his verbal attack.

“Didn't you just tell me, right over there,” he pointed to the quais of the Seine, “that you've never wanted anyone as much as me? Now, three hours later, you doubt the veracity of my love story.”

He opened the window and allowed the breeze to further chill the room. Monica, finally moved to action, tumbled off the bed and rushed towards him. When she tried to hug Jean-Michel, he pushed her off.

“Do you ever stop and think about your actions and your words?” he demanded.

“I didn't mean to hurt you!” Monica looked as though she was about to cry. “It just seemed like such a preposterous story. I, I couldn't make the connection between this stuffed toucan and a woman who made a solo journey along the Amazon. You have to admit, it's––”

Jean-Michel grabbed her shoulders, his fingers digging into her soft skin.

“You don't know anything about love or sacrifice, do you? How can you make any connections about the risks one takes in life?” He let Monica go and turned his attention to the toucan, stroking its luminous feathers. “You come from California, where everything is new and shallow and insincere. And now you attempt to judge the depth of the love of Isabel Casamayor de Godin, an eighteenth-century Ecuadorian woman who loved her French husband with such devotion and intensity that she never gave up on seeing him again. After their reunion in French Guiana, they spent their last years together, here in France. You don't have a clue about love.”

He yanked a feather from the toucan's wing and tossed it at her.

“Featherbrain,” he said with contempt, and walked out of the room.

Monica retreated to the bed and sat down, her mind as tangled as the messy sheets stained with spilled champagne and the rubble of crumbs and charcoal flakes. She felt as if she were completely alone, back in the tack room suffocating with the weight of leather saddles, and she longed for Jean-Michel to hold her again, to love and caress her the way he did earlier.

“Please come back, Jean-Michel,” she cried out, but he didn't reply. Of course he was right: what did she know about anything, other than mucking out manure and cleaning hoofs? The sophisticated Jean-Michel had selected her from all the beautiful women in Paris, and Monica had botched it with her small-town mentality and lack of finesse. She didn't deserve to be with such a cultured, generous man.