The Chateau (49 page)

After lunch they walked in the square, and Mme Straus pointed out that the fountain, which they had never really looked at before, was in commemoration of Bossuet, Fénelon,
Massillon, and Fléchier—the four great bishops who should have been but were not made cardinals. “How they must have hated each other!” she exclaimed merrily.

Barbara took a snapshot of Harold and Mme Straus standing in front of the fountain, and then they walked to their hotel. She approved of their room and of the view, and asked how much they paid. She considered seriously the possibility of taking a room here. She was in mortal terror lest the nuns raise the price of her small chamber among the roses, in which case she could no longer afford to stay there.

They left the hotel and wandered up the rue Vaugirard to the Luxembourg Gardens, and walked up and down looking at the flower beds, the people, the Medici fountain, the balloon man, the children sailing their boats in the shallow basin. A gas-filled balloon escaped, and they followed it with their eyes. Since we last saw her, Harold thought, there has been a change—if not in her then in her circumstances.

Mme Straus kept looking at her wrist watch, and at five o'clock she hurried them out of the Gardens and up the street to a tea shop, where she had arranged for her grandson Edouard to meet them. Edouard was seventeen and in school; he was studying to be an engineer, Mme Straus said, and he had only one desire—to come to America.

After so big a lunch, they had no appetite. Barbara crumbled but did not eat her cupcake. Harold slowly got his tea and three cakes down. Edouard did not appear. Mme Straus sat with her back to the wall and glanced frequently at the doorway. Conversation died a dull death. There was no one at the surrounding tables, and the air was lifeless. The tea made them feel too warm. Done in by so much walking and talking, or by Edouard's failure to show up for the tea party, Mme Straus reached out for her special talent, and for the first time in their experience it was not there. She sat, silent and apparently distracted by private thoughts. She roused herself and said how disappointed Edouard would be, not to make their acquaintance. Something must have happened, of a serious nature; nothing else would account for
his absence. And a few minutes later she considered the possibility that he had gone to the cinema with friends. Harold found himself wondering whether it is possible to read the mind of someone who is thinking in a language you don't understand. What he was thinking, and did not want Mme Straus to guess that he was thinking, was: Does Edouard exist? And if there really is an Edouard, does he regard his grandmother with the same impatience and undisguised contempt as the celebrated actress, her friend, to whom she is so devoted?

Mme Straus called for the check, and either misread the amount or absent-mindedly failed to put down enough to pay for the tea and cakes and
service
. The waitress pointed out the mistake, and while it was being rectified, Harold looked the other way, for fear he would see more than Mme Straus intended them to see.

They parted from her at dusk. She announced that she was coming to the boat train on Tuesday, to see them off. As they stood on a corner of the boulevard St. Germain, waiting for the bus, she pointed out the Cluny Museum to them, and was shocked that they hadn't heard of it.

The bus came and she got on it and went up the curving steps. Waving to them from the top of the bus, she was swept away.

“Do you think he forgot?” Barbara asked as they started on down the street.

“I don't even think he exists,” Harold said. “But does
she
, is the question. You don't think she is something we made up?”

“No, she exists.”

They crossed over, so that she could look in the window of a shoe shop.

“So courageous,” he said. “Always taking life at the flood.… But what is she going to do—Who or what can she turn to, now that the flood has become a trickle?”

T
HE LAST DAY
was very strange. He had hoped that there would be time to go to the Ile St. Louis in the morning, and instead he found himself on the top of a bus going down the rue Bonaparte with another suitcase to leave at the steamship office. The sun was shining, the air was cool, and there was a kind of brilliance over everything. The bus turned left and then right and went over the Pont du Carrousel, and as he looked up and down the river, the sadness that he had managed to hold at arm's length for the last four days took possession of him.

The bus went through the south gate of the Louvre and out into the sunshine again and stopped to take on passengers. The whole of the heart of Paris lay before him—the palace, the geometrical flower beds, the long perspective down the gardens, which had been green when he came and were now autumn-colored, the people walking or bicycling, the triumphal arch, the green statues, the white gravel, the grass, the clouds coming over from the Left Bank in a procession. Looking at it now, so hard that it made his eyes burn and ache, he knew in his heart that what he loved was here, and only for the people who lived here; it wasn't anywhere else.
I cannot leave!
he cried out silently to the old buildings and the brightness in the air, to the yellow leaves on the trees, and to the shine that was over everything.
I cannot bear it that all this will be here and I will not be
.…
I might as well die
.…

A
T NOON
they turned into the rue des Canettes for the last time. When Harold had finished ordering, he made a little farewell speech to Pierre and, after the waiter had gone off to the kitchen, thought: How foolish of me.… What does he care whether we love France or not?… But then, though they had asked for Perrier water, Pierre brought three wine glasses and a bottle of Mâcon rouge. First he assured them that the wine
would not be on their bill, and then he opened the bottle ceremoniously, filled their two glasses, and poured a little wine into his. They raised their glasses and drank to each other, and to the voyage, and to the future of France. Pierre went on about his work, but from time to time he returned, with their next course or merely to stand a moment talking to them. They dallied over lunch; they had a second and then a third cup of coffee. They were the last clients to leave the restaurant, and the wine had made them half drunk, as usual. They shook hands with Pierre and said good-by. They stopped to shake hands with the other waiter, Louis, and again, in the front room with Monsieur and Madame, who wished them bon voyage. As they stepped out into the street, they heard someone calling to them and turned around. It was Pierre. He had shed his waiter's coat and he drew them into the restaurant across the street, to have a cognac with him. Then they had another round, on Harold, and before he and Barbara could get away, Louis joined them, as jealous as a younger brother, insisting that they have a cognac with him. Harold said no, saw the look of hurt on both men's faces, and said: “Why not?”

Pierre went off, and came back a few minutes later with his wife, who worked in a nearby department store. The two women talked to each other, in English. They had one last round, and shook hands, and said good-by, and the Americans promised to come back soon.

They got into a taxi and went to the bank. With the floor tilting dangerously under him, Harold stood in line and grinned foolishly at the teller who counted out his money.

To clear their heads, they rode to the Place Redouté on the top of a bus, and they were able to walk straight by the time they stopped to shake hands with Mme Emile, on their way into the building.

“Are you all right?” Barbara asked as they stepped into the elevator.

“Yes. How about you?”

“I'm all right,” she said. “But we probably smell to high heaven of all that we've been drinking.”

“It can't be helped,” he said, and pressed the button.

Alix was just the same, and they were very happy to see her, but the apartment was different. With the shutters thrown back in the drawing room, it was much lighter and brighter and more cheerful.

Shortly after they arrived, Mme Viénot came in, with Sabine, and took possession of the conversation. While she sat listening, Barbara had a question uppermost in her mind, and it was why didn't Mme Viénot or Alix or Mme Cestre mention the soap? Didn't it ever arrive? Or weren't they as pleased with it as she had thought they would be?

Harold was telling how they couldn't find the Simone Martinis in Siena and finally gave up and climbed the bell tower of the very building the paintings were in, without knowing it. When he finishes I'll ask them, she thought, but she didn't because by that time she had another worry on her mind: what if Françoise should show Alix the stockings she had given her, which were the same kind that Barbara had presented to Alix and Mme Cestre and Mme Viénot in the country, and that they had been so pleased with. She wished now the stockings had been of a better quality. She had economized on them, but she could not explain this without bringing in the fact that they were to give to the chambermaids in hotels in place of a tip.

“You must excuse me,” Alix said. “I am going to get the tea things.”

“Can I help?” Barbara asked, but Alix did not hear her, and so she sat back in her chair. The thing she had hoped was that she would have one last look at the kitchen. It was very queer, having to act like a guest in a place where they were so much at home. Neither Alix nor Mme Cestre made any reference to the fact that she and Harold had spent ten days in this apartment. One would almost have thought that they didn't know it. Or that it hadn't really happened.

Speaking very distinctly, Harold said to Mme Cestre: “In Italy I saw with my own eyes how fast the earth is turning. We went to hear
Traviata
. It was out of doors—it was in the Baths of Caracalla—and during the second act the moon came up so fast that it was almost alarming to watch. Within five minutes from the time it appeared above the ruins it was high up in the sky.”

“You saw St. Peter's? And the Vatican?” Mme Viénot asked.

Right after she had finished her tea, she rose and shook hands with her sister, and then with Barbara and Harold. In the hall she presented her cheek to Alix to be kissed, and said: “Good-by, my dear. I'll call you tomorrow afternoon, before I leave for the country.… I won't say good-by now, M. Rhodes. I am seeing someone off on the boat train tomorrow—a cousin who is going to America on the
Mauretania
with you.”

“You think the boat train will be running?” he asked.

“For your sake, I hope it is,” Mme Viénot said. “You must be quite anxious.”

“I have a present for you,” Sabine said as she was shaking hands with them. “I am making you a drawing, but it isn't quite finished.”

“We'd love to have one of your drawings,” Barbara said.

“Maman will bring it to the train tomorrow.”

When she and Mme Viénot had left, the others sat down again, and the Americans waited until a polite interval had passed before they too got up to go.

Mme Cestre told them that she had been at Le Bourget when Lindbergh's plane appeared out of the sky.

“You were in that vast crowd?” Harold said.

“Yes. It was very thrilling,” she said. “I will never forget it. I was quite close to him as they carried him from the field.”

Harold thought he heard someone moving around in the study, and looked at Alix, to see if she too had heard it. She said: “I also have a present for you.” She opened a door of the secretary and took out a small flat package wrapped in tissue paper
and tied with a white ribbon. This present gave Barbara a chance to ask about the soap.

“I should have thanked you,” Alix said. “Oh dear, you will think we are not very grateful. We thought it might be from you. But there are also some other people, cousins who are now traveling in America, who could have sent it, and so I was afraid to speak about it.… Mummy, you were right. It was Barbara—that is, it was Barbara's mother who sent us the beautiful package of soap!”