Second Chance (8 page)
“No, no, of course not. What happened here was so obviously an accident — and it is well documented by the head resident and by medical reports.” Roth stood. “Well, I just came by to see how everything was. Now I’ll move on. I promised my wife I’d be home by dinnertime. Goodbye, Bishou. I’ll see you on Friday.”
Bishou sighed. “I am in
so
much trouble.”
“How so?” asked Louis in surprise.
“They told me not to get personal about this job, and here I’ve got a whole bunch of you partying in my apartment,” she said unhappily.
“Maybe you’re being a bit straitlaced Yankee about this,” Sukey suggested.
“Yeah, well, maybe you don’t know academia. It’s worse than a small town. Gossip travels at the speed of sound, and they’re quite willing to believe the worst on no evidence at all.”
Louis, his hand resting against his cheek, smiled and said, “Maybe you should just have some chicken and deal with one problem at a time.” Then he struggled to raise himself from the couch — and slid to a pile on the floor. He growled something ugly and explosive.
“Okay if I don’t translate that one?” Bishou asked him, as the men helped lift him.
He growled again. Gray helped him navigate to the bathroom, and he came back to the couch by himself.
The chicken, mashed potatoes, baked beans, and coleslaw may not have been great art, but they filled the gap, washed down by iced tea and the last of the Chardonnay.
“I dunno, Louis,” Gray teased with a grin, as they got up to return to the afternoon sessions. “Leaving you here, helpless, at a woman’s mercy …”
Louis smiled up at him. “I think I am safe here,
mon ami
. Tomorrow morning, however, can someone pick me up at seven in the morning? I must go back to my room, shave, and change clothes.”
“Sure, I’ll arrange it,” Gray confirmed.
Sukey said, “We’ll be back this evening to see if you kids need anything.”
“All right,” said Bishou. “Thank you.” She showed her guests to the door, and closed it at last.
Louis stretched out again on the couch and wrapped the blanket around him. “How were you planning to spend the rest of your day? If you must leave me here alone, I promise I will not rob you.”
“No, I was planning to work on my dissertation. That’s why I had the papers out. Will the typing bother you?”
“No. What have you got to read in French?”
Bishou scooped a handful of paperbacks out of the bookshelf and piled them on the floor beside him. Louis went carefully through the pile, finally selecting a tired paperback. “Ah! I haven’t seen one of these since I was a child. Was this adventure story Bat’s or yours?”
“We both like them,” Bishou smiled, and sat at her desk to work. Soon, she was involved in the argument of her thesis, and he was quietly reading on the couch.
Bishou worked for well over an hour, satisfied that her notes were shaping up. Then she rolled three sheets of paper with carbon papers sandwiched between them into her typewriter to type a couple more precious pages in triplicate. She glanced at Louis, absorbed in the adventure story, a little smile on his lips.
He really is easy to please
, she thought.
She got up to find a reference or two, brought the books back to her desk, sat down, wrote a little more, and then typed more. It was slow going, but solid work — what a dissertation needed.
Bishou glanced at Louis again. She was surprised to find he was lying on his side, without a book, watching her. He closed his eyes quickly, as if he’d been caught out.
“
Quoi
?” Then she glanced down at herself. She hadn’t adjusted her clothing when she sat down again in the chair, and her skirt had shimmied up. She showed quite an expanse of leg and garter. Bishou snorted, and pulled down the skirt. “Monsieur Dessant.”
Louis opened his eyes, that same smile on his lips. “Well, I am a man. I could not help but look.”
She felt her face burn. His smile vanished.
In a different tone, he said, “While there is no one else around, let us discuss those papers.”
“All right.”
“Are you planning to document me in your thesis?”
“No,” she replied, honestly.
“Then why do you have those clippings? Why should my name be in some university binder forever?”
“It won’t be there, I swear it, Louis.”
“Then why have them? Why save those horrible things?” he insisted.
“I have them because the author refers to various books on the subject, and then draws references from life. I don’t draw references from life in my dissertation, not at all.”
“Pfah!” He turned his head in disbelief.
Bishou understood, and it made her smile. “Let me explain about degree candidacy, Monsieur. A candidate for an advanced degree goes before an examination panel. The members of this panel may be drawn from anywhere in the world, depending on the subject matter. So — the material referred to in the dissertation must be equally available to all of them. That means not a television show, not a clipping, not an oral history, but printed matter. Mainly, books. Nothing may be involved that the professor from Guelph cannot research as easily as the professor from Lyon.”
“They are from all over the world, these inquisitors?”
She nodded. “I have no idea who they will be yet. They may not even tell me. But Dr. Roth will arrange for them all to be in a certain place at a certain time, to ask me questions so I can defend my thesis. They accept or deny my application for an advanced degree, and I either receive the degree or I start again.”
“And what do you get out of all this?” he asked intently.
“The title of Doctor Bishou Howard, and three stripes on my gown,” Bishou replied with a smile. “Pretty silly, isn’t it?”
“A man who is learning how to stuff cotton in the ends of cigarettes is not going to tell you three stripes on a gown are silly.”
“Thank you for taking such a fair view of it. You’ve spoken very decently to me during this entire conference, and I appreciate it. I know the others don’t mean anything by their comments, but sometimes, they make it difficult for me.”
“You have a dream and a purpose,” he said. “Do not lose either one. I know how — desolated — one can become, if one loses the dream. I had dreams once. At least I still have a purpose.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“My dreams — to marry, have a family, have a good life.” Louis stared toward the opposite wall introspectively. “That is all gone now, dust. But the purpose? Dessant Cigarettes, it keeps me going. To make a business that Etien can run when I am gone, and that will give a good life to his children after him.” He smiled at her, but the smile was sad. “That newspaper cannot tell it all. It cannot tell you what a good man Etien Campard is, how he saw the beginnings of my downfall, but knew I wouldn’t listen, how he tried to prevent my ruin. Nor how he gave me refuge and money when I was a criminal, and stood by me after my arrest. The newspaper cannot tell you all that Etien did to save me from my own passions, and failed. He pressed for my release from prison. He has always been my best friend. I owe him so much.”
“The newspaper never even mentions Etien,” she said.
“I am glad. It keeps him safe from the harpies. I tell you the truth, Bishou — I know whenever there is another article about Carola and me, because I get scores of letters from women who want to rehabilitate me. I will be a marked man all my life, the fallen one.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Bishou folded her arms. “I could show you the letters from men telling me to give up my foolishness about getting a PhD in literature, a real woman doesn’t need that.”
Again, that sad smile. “I suppose it is similar — give up the dream, it isn’t manly. Or maidenly. I am glad that you do not give up on your dreams, Bishou. Mine are gone. Etien says no, I must still dream, and I dare not tell him differently because he has been always right and I have been always wrong.”
“You loved Carola very much, Louis. That was real.”
One more sad smile. He reached into his pants pocket, pulled out a wallet, and handed a photograph to Bishou. An incredibly beautiful green-eyed woman wore a bridal veil over her blond hair and looked not quite at the camera, as if she didn’t really want her image captured forever.
Bishou took a very long look, then handed it back. “She’s beautiful, Louis.”
“Yes, she was. I lost my heart to her the first moment I saw her. Now Etien does not permit me to mention her name, and I must keep the photograph to myself. But this portrait has done its duty. When I showed it to the judges, they found extenuating circumstances for my crimes.”
Louis put the photo back in his wallet and slid the wallet back in his pocket. Then he lay down on the couch. Bishou realized that his mind was far from here.
She returned to her deskwork. For a long time, she just stared into space. Then, Bishou got a piece of paper, and started to write.
It was a long letter for a telegram, and was written in French. At the top were the date and the address: 7 Rue Calaincourt, F-1215 St. Denis, Ile de la Réunion. CONFIDENTIEL.
Cher M. Howard,
I am glad to receive your letter. I had a brief message from Louis, from Washington, saying he was on his way and the flight had been good. I suspect that you are correct, it is décalage and strain of the trip to America that have caused his collapse. I had not expected to hear from him, but I was worried about his health. As you have guessed, this is not the first time he has fallen from nervous exhaustion.
Also as you have guessed, yes, he is the notorious Louis Dessant. I think and hope most of that bad publicity has died down. What you said in your transmission makes me think, as well, that no one remembers it. That is a good thing and a great relief to me, for he is one of the best men I have ever known.
As his own physician would attest, Louis pushes himself to exhaustion, and then has nerve-storms. Sometimes, as I suspect happened here, it is triggered off by some event — no doubt, as you said, seeing that damnable Paris Gazette article. In a perfect world, I wish I could say that a rest cure will rehabilitate him — but as you may also know, it was during his rest cure in Lyons that he discovered the location of the woman who betrayed him, and met her again!
That was the beginning of the end for him, for she ensnared him once more and he murdered another man for her sake, sold his half of our business to me, lost the money, and went on the run with her. It ended badly, but how else could it have ended? Louis took his punishment like a man, and there were many besides myself who pushed for his release. The blame was solely Carola’s — I will never call her
Mme.
Dessant, although Louis does — and may her sins rest on her head for all eternity. She befouled a good man, in my opinion, although Louis does not see it that way at all. He loved her passionately.
Louis is a fine man. Make no mistake in that. I am a coward by comparison. He is the brave entrepreneur, with new ideas, pushing to make the business work. I am the housewife who stays behind to mind the store. I am a family man, not a businessman. Buying him out, and running the entire business myself, was my idea of hell. I was very glad that the Sûreté recovered his sales money as evidence, and I was eventually able to reclaim it and press him to take back his half of our business. Such a relief for me!
I hope that, out of sight of his friends and neighbors of the island, he can work his way through his troubles and come back to us. I was hoping he would come back refreshed, but perhaps that is too much to hope. Perhaps, as you suggested in your transmission, I did see symptoms of something and hoped that a change of venue would make a difference to him. I hadn’t expected this, I promise you.
The physician says, a mild tranquilizer to help him sleep, or a simple headache pill, is all he should need. (Dr. Ferenc is also our family physician.) Louis doesn’t take many drugs, and not even more than a drink or two in the evenings. Cool compresses if he wants them, perhaps a neck massage if you have a masseur available, but it is not necessary. The best thing for him, Ferenc says, is to get him home and back into his old routine. But first we must get him here. There’s no other man I would be afraid of losing on two straight airplane trips, Washington to Paris and Paris to Saint-Denis, except him. I will not relax until I see him crossing the tarmac at Garros. Please do everything you can to make sure he is on that first leg of the flight, short of bolting him to the seat! I may come to Paris myself, to make sure he is on the second leg.
I know I have asked you to keep this letter confidential, but please, tell him Dr. Ferenc’s instructions and tell him I will be looking for him at Orly.
Thank you for your help in this matter.
Sincerely, Etien Campard
• • •
The tobacco crowd, an enlarged group of North Carolinians and curious Texans, came to Bishou’s apartment that evening with pizza (or as they called it, pizza pie), chips, and “pop.” Louis had never had pizza before, so they had great fun with him. He was obviously getting his strength back, barely touching furniture in passing as he made his way to the bathroom or the kitchen. They would not allow him to pitch in and dry dishes, however; Sukey sent him back to the couch with the menfolk around him, while the women — Bishou, Sukey, Isabel, and Sondra — stayed in the kitchen.
“How’d you spend your afternoon?” Sukey asked Bishou.
“I worked on my dissertation, and Louis read old French paperbacks that I had kicking around,” Bishou replied.
“I see at least he’s ‘Louis’ now,” Sukey observed.
“Tomorrow morning he’ll be Monsieur Dessant again, and I’ll be Mademoiselle Howard. But he did spend the afternoon camped on my couch.”
“His color looks better,” Sukey agreed.
Bishou nodded. “It does. Maybe an afternoon lying on a couch, reading trashy French novels, was just what he needed.”
“You nervous about having him here for the night?”
“A little. Then I think of having three brothers camped out in my dorm room half this size, and realize this is the height of luxury by comparison.”