The Grandfather Clock (9 page)

On her third visit, Claudette
confirmed what I had suspected. She was divorced from her husband.
She still used the term, “my husband,” but there was a distance to
it. I had learned to listen and not pry. I never asked too many
questions, but I knew Claudette was my friend when she started
showing up when Robert wasn’t playing.

Every visit was a process of
formalities. First, she would order her drink, as if she’d never
been there before. She would taste it, to make sure it was to her
liking, and then she’d light a cigarette. Then, as the smoke
drifted into the air, she became my friend. She usually arrived in
the mid to late afternoon, and stayed for two or three drinks. She
always left when the rowdier crowd began to arrive.

It was probably a month after I first
saw her, and the second visit she’d made that Robert wasn’t playing
that I realized she was there to talk to me. So I asked her the
question I usually avoided.

“
What do you
do?”

“
What? Besides drink a dry
martini and smoke?”

I laughed. “No. You aren’t a tourist.
You’re French. What are you doing here?”

She put out her cigarette, I think to
be polite, and explained, “I teach French. U.N.O. and Dillard. Some
of my students even learn French.”

I nodded. “I took three semesters of
French in college, and I can order a beer and find a
bathroom.”

“
You have to use it,” she
said. “You have to need something. Or you’ll never learn
anything.”

As I learned Claudette’s story, she
learned mine. I told her about how a grandfather clock had led me
to New Orleans. I hadn’t told many people about the clock, because
it was just this odd thing. Every once in a while, when someone
would have something interesting happen in their life, whether it
was a new girlfriend, or leaving town for another job, she’d say
something like, “They have a grandfather clock too.” It was like
she was reminding me, or reassuring me, that I was there for a
reason.

With Claudette at the bar, I began
brushing up on my French. There were plenty of opportunities to use
French in New Orleans, although, it isn’t as widely spoken as
Spanish. Everywhere you went, there were French place-names, and
French foods, and French visitors. I was genuinely interested in
learning more French, but mostly I just liked her eager attempts to
teach me. I could tell Claudette was lonely, and maybe she didn’t
know it. Maybe she did. When I thought about that, I wondered if I
was lonely. I didn’t feel lonely.

By October, the weather was getting
cooler and the sun was going down earlier. It was a welcome change.
I’d been sweating since February. Sam came to visit. He arrived off
the plane and came straight to the bar. It was a Friday so I was
getting off work around the same time Claudette was closing out her
tab. It was happenstance that Sam and I were walking with Claudette
toward Canal Street. I felt it necessary to tell Sam that I didn’t
plan on bartending forever.

“
You should not fear time,
Michael,” she said. “In French we have a saying. ‘Le temps est un
grant maitre.’ ‘Time is a great teacher.’”

“
Wow,” said Sam, taken
aback by the impromptu wisdom. “That’s deep.”

She continued, “Dit-on, le malheur est
qu’il tue ses eleves.”

I laughed. Catching most of the
meaning.

“
What’s that?” Sam
asked.

“
Time is a great teacher.
It’s too bad it also kills all of its students,” she
smiled.

“
Damn,” Sam
sighed.

“
The clock is a lesson for
Michael,” she said.

“
If the clock is a lesson,
what’s the gun?” Sam laughed.

“
Gun?” Claudette
asked.

I had almost forgotten about the
gun.

I explained, “When we were moving the
clock, we found an old gun that had been stored inside the clock.
It’s like an old muzzleloader. I haven’t had a chance to really
look at it, honestly.”

“
All these old things,”
she said motioning to the window of an antique shop, “they have
stories they want to tell.”

“
So the clock has a story
to tell,” I said.

“
Michael, you are part of
its story now.”

She stopped at a Canal Street bus
stop. “Au revoir, Michael. Sam.”

As we got into the holiday season, I
settled into a routine. Monday through Wednesday, I worked and
slept. I picked up day shifts on Thursday and Friday. On the
weekend, I got out of the quarter. I rode my bike. I read. And when
I did stick around, I listened to music. Brian had formed a band
and I supported them by attending their first gigs. Listening to
music in a bar gave it purpose. After spending all of my waking
hours at Ol’ Toons, just about the only thing that would get me
into a bar was good live music.

Claudette continued to come in. She
brought me a French textbook and started quizzing me. We got to the
point where we attempted to conduct all, or at least most, of our
interactions in French. It was basic French. As long as we were
talking about houses and bus stations and food, I was doing pretty
well. As soon as the topics became more abstract, I got
lost.

One day in late November, I was
particularly excited to see her. After finishing a book on the
Battle of New Orleans, I got curious and had a look at the gun for
the first time since Brian and I stumbled upon it.

Claudette didn’t arrive alone, which
was unusual, but not unheard of. I practically ignored the young
woman with bobbed black hair who sat down with her.

“
Claudette, I’ve got to
tell you...,” I started.

“
En Francaise, Michael!”
she interrupted,

I paused to shift gears. “Perdon.
L’arme a une inscription en français.”

“
C’est
intéressant!”

“
Oui,” I said.

She stopped me again to introduce her
niece. Celeste Demers was visiting her aunt from Paris. I know
Claudette had mentioned this, but I had assumed she was talking
about a child. The fact that Celeste was beautiful and in her
twenties was a deliberate omission. The kind she would make for the
sheer sport of watching my reaction.

I teased Claudette in English, “You
didn’t tell me your niece was a beautiful woman. You’re
evil.”

“
Did I not mention it? I’m
sure I did. Should I tell her that you think she’s
pretty?”

“
Why don’t you ask her
what she wants to drink?”

“
I’ll have a Stoli and
tonic,” Celeste said clearly, with a French accent.

I turned red, and shook my head. “You
also didn’t tell me she speaks English.” I extended my hand. “Nice
to meet you Celeste.”

“
Michael, all young French
women speak English. Celeste will be celebrating her first
Thanksgiving,” Claudette announced.

“
Wonderful,” I said,
making Celeste’s drink. “Are you making a turkey, stuffing, the
whole setup?”

“
Oh, I think we’ll do a
ham,” she said.

“
Ham? You can’t have ham
on her first Thanksgiving! You might was well order Chinese
food.”

She dismissed the idea. “I’ve never
made a turkey.”

“
It’s the easiest thing. I
mean, you can literally just stick the thing in the oven and it
will come out fine. I mean, you can throw some seasoning on it, and
baste it, but it’s hard to mess up.”

“
I’ll think about it,” she
said. “Are you having turkey?”

“
The Hilton serves a
traditional turkey dinner. I know a big group of people going
there. Fellow pillars of the service industry.”

“
You aren’t going to see
your family?”

“
Next month,” I said.
“Christmas.”

“
Well, I won’t have you
eating your Thanksgiving in a hotel restaurant. You’ll join us,”
she said emphatically. “And you’ll make the turkey since it’s so
easy.”

And with that, it was settled.
Suddenly the idea of making a turkey didn’t seem so
easy.

Claudette lived in a tiny house in the
Garden District. She usually rode the trolley, so I decided to use
the trolley to get to her house on Thanksgiving. I carried a deep
disposable aluminum pan with a medium sized turkey that I’d put in
the oven at five in the morning, before going to sleep. Over my
shoulder I carried a duffel bag, with a bottle of red wine, a
bottle of Stoli, tonic, and a musket.

The weather had turned cold and her
house was charming and warm. I knew Claudette had had some
difficult times. She had been divorced for more than five years,
and she had once lived a more luxurious life. She had friends, but
seemed a little lonely. With Celeste visiting, she was animated.
Celeste lived just outside Paris. This was her fourth trip to
America. She’d been to New York twice and visited Claudette once
before.

I attempted to explain American
football as Claudette set a small table. The house smelled like
Thanksgiving.

“
Michael is the son I
never had,” Claudette said. “He is how I would have raised a
son.”

“
Vous voulez soulever un
barman américain?” Celeste asked.

It was a biting remark and I knew
she’d forgotten I understood some French. I picked up on “barman
américain” and smiled.

“
J’avais l’habitude de
travailler pour une banque,” I said, pointing out that I had been
working for a bank.

She blushed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it
that way,” she said. “It was a poor attempt at humor.”

“
No problem.”

“
Michael is just in
transition. He had the courage to change his life. He seized the
chance to be happy,” Claudette said, coming to my
defense.

“
Happy isn’t the same as
content,” I said. “After the holidays, I’ll be looking for an
opportunity.”

“
You’ll visit me,”
Claudette said.

“
D’accord,” I
said.

Standing over my duffel bag, Celeste
had an odd look. “Do all Americans carry weapons wherever they
go?”

“
Oh, that’s the musket. It
has an inscription. Some is in French.”

“
Let’s see,” Celeste said,
reaching into the bag. “If you don’t mind.”

“
No, please. I don’t
actually carry weapons with me, usually. That’s why I brought
it.”

She lifted the gun. “Whoa, heavier
than it looks.”

“
It’s beautiful!”
Claudette said. “If it’s French, maybe your mother can tell us
something about it!”

“
My mother doesn’t know
anything,” Celeste deadpanned.

“
Nonsense. She runs a
museum.”

“
She curates a rotting old
house,” Celeste responded.

On the stock, just behind the trigger,
was a silver colored plate. The writing was so ornate, and the
words unfamiliar, I hadn’t really given the translation much of a
try.

Celeste squinted and tilted the gun
back and forth slightly to catch the light. She read slowly.
“Armurerie de l’Empereur. Armory of the Emporer,” she repeated in
English. “Then it looks like, ‘Honneur, Patrie.’ Honor. Home or
homeland.”

“
Interesting,” said
Claudette.

“
This isn’t all in
French,” Celeste said. “Veni. Vidi. Vici. Whatever that
is.”

“
Latin,” Claudette said
without hesitation. “Julius Caesar. Didn’t you both go to
university? ‘I came. I saw. I conquered.’”

“
So it’s an old gun,”
Celeste said.

“
Let me see that,”
Claudette said. “Amory of the Emperor. This was used by Napoleon’s
army. Where did your grandfather get this?”

“
I have no clue,” I
said.

“
It’s really
interesting.”

“
If it’s real,” said
Celeste. “Look, on the other side.”

Claudette turned it over. “Maybe a
replica souvenir. It has Napoleon’s mark.”

On the opposite side of the gun was
the engraving of an “N” inside a wreath.

Celeste explained, “You can buy all
sorts of things with the ‘N’ on it. Plates, silverware, stationery.
I saw one etched on the back of an iPhone. The gift shop my mother
runs is full of that stuff.”

“
Take a picture and send
it to your mother,” Claudette said. “Let’s eat.”

The Wednesday before I left town to
visit Santa Fe for Christmas, Claudette intervened in my
life.

“
Michael, I need to tell
you something that I have done,” she said with hesitation. “You
must not be angry with me.”

“
What?” I asked
nervously.

“
I spoke to my sister,
Marianne, in Paris. She is Celeste’s mother. The one who runs the
museum.”

“
Okay.”

“
I told her about the gun
you have.”

“
Why would I be angry
about that?” I asked.

“
Well, her museum has been
struggling. I told her that you were a man from the financial
world. I told her you might help her. That maybe you could display
the gun, to help them raise funds.”