The Rake (14 page)

Grand Forks, September 1991

Eric Monsanto woke up at midnight, restless. His mind trained on the young man who had visited him that evening. Justin Durban.

“Duhrbahn,” he had pronounced his surname—French style. Monsanto wondered what the French connection was. He could hardly supply such details, having no knowledge of his own about the visitor. He had agreed to speak with the kid—acting instinctively. He would agree, as a matter of course, to meet with any young man or woman who was on a journalistic assignment. Why should he know more about his visitor than just that—that he was a student journalist at Notre Dame? That hardly made Eric Monsanto an expert on young Justin Durban. Without even pausing in his thought stream, he said to himself out loud, tapping his middle finger adamantly on his head, “
That boy is the son of Reuben Castle.
”

Could he be mistaken?

No. Not possible. The looks, the build, the blondness, the smile—even the manner. Though Reuben was more aggressive. Reuben Castle simply wanted—always—to win; prevail; get in there first. This kid was less direct than his father would have
been, engaging at age twenty-one in an interview with a stranger. But the intense focus was the same.

Reuben Castle.
Mix in Henrietta Leborcier—so pretty, blue-eyed, tall, appealing, adoring—and you had Justin Durban.

Rico Monsanto had spent a fair amount of time worrying about Henri, back in senior year at UND. He had had that ugly—and revealing—scene with Reuben at the Hop See. It was then that the estrangement came. Not formally—they continued to work together on the
Dakota Student
, and Eric continued to serve on the Student Council, of which Reuben was chairman. No, not formally, but essentially.

Eric had at first been disappointed and hurt that Henrietta hadn't written to him again from Paris. There had been only the solitary letter from her, professing concern for Reuben, which had led to the confrontation at the Hop See. That night, back at home, he wrote to Henri, giving her the news, that Reuben had decided…to step away, to abandon Henri and, of course, the child.

But when he thought about it, Eric could understand Henri's decision to sever ties with everyone at the university, even—maybe especially—Reuben's closest friend, himself. He could understand her finding it embarrassing to stay in touch with him, the single person who knew the whole story of the romance. Eric Monsanto was the only other person in Grand Forks who knew, when she pulled away and went to Paris, that Henri was pregnant.

Eric knew almost nothing about young Justin Durban—only that he was evidently a student at Notre Dame and an editor on the student paper. Whatever that paper was called—he forgot. Eric closed his eyes and thought back to the fall of 1969. More than twenty years ago. The grown-up kid who had called on him this evening was
surely
the child of the duck-blind liaison. The child, Rico reflected, that Henri had refused to abort. He forced his memory back to the details of that harried week in late October and early November. He—good old Rico—had been conscripted to carry messages back and forth. It was he, at Reuben's urgent request, who sped off to Minneapolis to interview the kind, efficient doctor who would perform the operation discreetly, and then returned to Grand Forks and described the procedure to Henrietta. For his pains Henrietta had professed shock that Rico would even suggest so obscene an idea: she would not even discuss the matter. It was to Rico that Henri then confided that what
she
wished was to be married—by a priest. By her family priest. It was Rico who had done the legal research. In Manitoba, he told her, the application for a marriage license had to be filed at least twenty-four hours before the license could be issued.

That flurry had gone on for a week, culminating in the dinner the three undergraduates shared, a bottle of wine discreetly concealed by a napkin. Eric remembered Reuben telling Henri, his voice low but easily heard, how much he loved her. She had replied that she loved him deeply and wanted a lifetime with him. The appropriate plan immediately suggested itself: she would go to Paris, continue her college work, have the child there, and stay with her father until Reuben had graduated. She
said she had an idea or two and would talk to both of them about it in just a few days.

But she didn't do so.

One week later, after a few beers, Reuben said something about having gone with Henri to Letellier, but he clammed up when Rico started to ask questions.

Now, twenty-two years later, this…young man comes to Grand Forks. What was he up to?

At his office early, Eric set out to confirm, or dispel, his suspicions.

His resources for finding people were considerable. He had spent professional time tracking down elusive boys and girls, men and women, grandfathers and grandmothers, establishing whether they were alive or dead, verifying true identities. Sometimes he was acting as a defense attorney, shielding his client from misidentification. More often his responsibility was to establish which of several claimants was entitled to a bequest in a will.

His leads in today's investigation would be enough—provided the young man had told the truth about his name and where he was going to school.

Eric telephoned one of the sleuths he frequently used. He found Nick Finlay at his office in Chicago.

“The guy I want looked into, he has to have been born in Paris. I mean, if he is who I think he is. Because we know the mother went to Paris to stay with her father when the child came. And he would have been born in June 1970.”

“Is that a date you're assuming?”

“Well, I have a pretty good idea of it, Nick, unless the mother decided to establish a new birth cycle. I mean, I know—like for sure—when the pregnancy began, which was September 1969. Add nine months, and you get June 1970.”

“And the kid—”

“We don't have to call him that, Nick. He told me his name. Justin. Justin Durban. If he lied about that, then we have a real investigation ahead of us. But say he
is
Justin Durban. And say he is at Notre Dame. And say he's on the staff of the student newspaper—those leads should get you started.”

“Right. I'll get back to you when I have something.”

The fall semester at Notre Dame hadn't yet begun, and members of the university administration were hard to reach. So it was the following week before Finlay accomplished his search of the admissions data and called back.

“Yep. That's him. Born in Paris, May 6, 1970. He lives with his mother in Boulder, Colorado. She's a librarian—her name is Henrietta Leborcier Durban. The student's home address is the same as his mother's, 7 Allenton Place, Apartment 7A.”

What would he do now? Eric asked himself.

Boulder, September 1991

Amy Parrish dropped by her own house to change clothes and then drove to Henrietta's apartment for dinner. “Sorry about the delay,” she said. “John has the new issue of
Auto News
, and the new Buick is on the cover, and dear John is transported.”

“Well,” Henri said, “I'm glad you haven't transported John here tonight. My interest in Buick cars is limited. I told you that Justin wound up choosing a Chevrolet?”

“You told me that once, maybe twice. Justin told me about ten times. He was crestfallen that he couldn't buy a Buick.”

“You mean John was crestfallen.” Henri flipped open the current issue of
Time
magazine to an ad for General Motors. “Justin couldn't buy much of a Buick for two thousand dollars.”

“That was his limit?”

“Yes. And, Amy, did he tell you he earned half of that himself? The hard way—hard labor on a construction site. If he ends up as a librarian lugging books, maybe he'll figure he had good training while earning the money to buy the car.”

As Henri went into the kitchen, Amy fiddled with the television dial and sipped from her glass of wine. After a few minutes she called out, “You weren't supposed to come up with anything fancy for dinner.”

“I haven't. But I'm not going to give you a tuna-fish sandwich.”

“Oh? I like tuna fish. Especially cheap tuna fish. Or is all tuna fish cheap?”

Henrietta came back to join her while the oven did its work. She approached her own assignment. “Amy, you knew that I was born in Canada?”

“Sûrement, madame.”

“In a little town in southern Manitoba, Letellier. My mother married and conceived her baby—conceived me—there, in Letellier. She was a graduate of Saint Joseph's, the convent school in Letellier, and she sent me there for my early schooling. The mother superior at Saint Joseph's had been like a mother to her.”

“Well,” said Amy with feigned zest. “Next time I'm in Manitoba I'll make sure to visit Letellier.” She stopped suddenly. The subject being skirted was obviously no laughing matter for Henrietta.

“You know that Justin drove off ten days ago?”

“Yes, dear Henri. And I've missed him sorely. Since age fifteen, whenever he would come to visit Allan, he'd make sure to say hello to me. Often he'd seek me out to tell me a risqué joke.”

Henri attempted a smile. “He told me he was leaving early in order to go fishing with a friend for a week before the term began.”

“That sounds pretty innocent. Has he sent you a fish?”

“No. But he sent me this.” She lifted it from the tray. “A postcard mailed from Letellier.”

Amy began to take careful interest. “What does he say?”

“He wrote, ‘Joli village, Maman, tu devrais le connaître!' Do you understand that?”

“Yes…. So he was sightseeing in what used to be your part of the world. I mean, your mother's part of the world—”

“Actually, my part of the world, too. I grew up there until my mother died and my father took me to France. And I went back to Letellier once when I was in college. I went there in 1969 to be married.”

Amy spoke slowly now. “You never told me about your marriage with—I don't even know what Lieutenant Durban's first name was.”

“Lieutenant Durban never existed. I made up that name when I reached Paris. It was easier to handle Father doing it that way. So of course the child was named Durban. The story I gave out, on which I never elaborated, was that the hypothetical Lieutenant Durban—‘Stephen' Durban, by the way—was killed in Vietnam in late April 1970, just before Justin was born.”

“Henri. You are telling me that you married someone
else
in Letellier?”

“Hardly ‘someone else.' There was only him. Lui seulement.”

Amy put down her glass, got up from her chair, and sat down on the sofa next to Henri. “Do you want to tell me all about it, darling?”

“I think so. It's got to be that Justin now knows. He wouldn't have written a message like that otherwise—about Letellier, and how I should go see it. He obviously knows.”

“And now I'm to know. Trust me, Henri.”

“I do.” She picked up her handkerchief.

Washington, September 1991

Reuben sat alone in his office. The letter on his desk was open. It was quaintly direct, almost informal. It sounded like the Rico Monsanto of old, not like Eric Monsanto, JD, counselor at law.

Reuben always greeted Eric amicably when they came upon each other. But such encounters were infrequent, usually at meetings of solid North Dakotans pursuing nonpartisan goals. Eric was on the Northeast Regional Environmental Committee, and Reuben was a member of it, ex officio. There were thirty members, and they had convened in Fargo as recently as last spring. He searched his memory for any personal exchanges he might have had with Rico then, but couldn't come up with anything of interest.

Not quite right, he corrected himself. He had asked after the health of Eric's mother. He couldn't remember what Eric had replied, but he did remember that the conversation was brief, as they filed off for duty at their preassigned seats around the table.

But this. All of a sudden this letter.

He picked it up again.

Reuben stared at the tips of his fingers. What, actually, had he done at that old-fashioned rectory, other than try to appease Henri? Henri was truly adorable.
We lost together our cherry / So be merry, dear Henri, be merry.
He remembered murmuring that, nestled in the bedroll, the candle in the corner, sheathed by its glass cylinder, giving out dim illumination, the music from Eric's portable cassette player seeping its melodies through the partition. Above all, he remembered the smile on her face. He'd have consented, that night, to be Henri's slave for ten lifetimes.

He didn't know then that his ejaculate had burrowed down into her ovum. Or had it? Perhaps it was the load from the second engagement—was that at two in the morning? Or conceivably the conception had taken place at the third spasm, at five in the morning, when there was nothing, no candlelight, no daylight, no music from Eric, just her soft flesh and her kisses and her hands stroking his manhood, which came quickly alive.

But now he needed to act. He could delay a few days in replying to Eric, but not much longer. The envelope was marked “Personal from Rico,” and Beatrice had dutifully passed it along, un
opened. He would not want to dictate a reply, even in Aesopian language. The best thing to do was nothing. That was often the best thing for a senator to do—not to reply until ready. But he knew he had to get ready. He had eventually to reply. And there were things he needed to do first.

How would he put it?

Carefully. To which end he invited Bill Rode for a “working supper.”

“Bring your notebook,” he said in the presence of Susan.

They met at the little bistro on M Street. They shared a bottle of wine. The junior staff addressed him as “Senator Castle,” but he had told Rode to call him Reuben when outside the office, as the senior staff did. Rode said he would be happy to “try to do it” but couldn't guarantee success. “You've been Senator Castle ever since I met you senior year, when you talked at UVA—a hell of a talk…Reuben.”

This evening, once they had placed their orders, Reuben started right in: “I've got a personal problem. There was a girl. One of those…things that happen at college. But this girl got carried away and talked me into driving to Canada with her and going through some session with a priest there. The problem is, some people, if they got wind of it, would say that there was a marriage performed. Of course there was no such thing. But what I need to know—Bill, I trust you, and this is in great confidence—is what the parish records show about this, about me and the girl.”

Bill nodded gravely. “You want me to go find out?”

“Yes. Fly to Grand Forks, via Minneapolis. Rent a car. Drive
to a town called Letellier, a dozen miles north of the Canadian border. Call on the parish priest—there's only one Catholic church there, I'm sure. It's a very small town. Give your name as Bill Thomas. You're doing research for a thesis and you need to look at the parish records. Parish records are generally available to the public, as far as I can figure out. The priest is not going to say they're private. Look to see if there is any record of a marriage ceremony in mid-November 1969.”

“Just look for your name?”

Reuben paused.
Might he have been foresighted enough to use a different name?

“My name. Or the name Henrietta Leborcier.”

Bill Rode wrote the name in his notebook. “Should I call you long-distance from there, Reuben?”

“Yes. Use my private line”—he scratched a number on a paper napkin. “If I don't answer, try again at three
P.M.
I'll make it a point—we're talking about day after tomorrow”—he made a note in his appointment book—“I'll make it a point to be there. No credit cards.” He removed $300 from his wallet. “Almost certainly a wild-goose chase. Priscilla is the only girl I ever married. But you never know what they'll come up with. Bastards!”

They finished the wine.