“Let her in.”
“What if there’s a machine gun in the case and she wants to assassinate Shymanski?”
“Shymanski’s not here and he’s not coming back.”
“He always says that.”
“This time it’s for real. The sons are selling the house. New owners on the first of September. Everything changes.”
“I didn’t know that,” Claude said, visibly sinking. You could see it in his face.
“Maybe they’ll keep you on.”
“If they don’t I’ll go on strike.”
“You’re in a union?”
“No.”
“There’s probably enough time to form a gardeners’ union if you start today. Meanwhile, tell the woman, the female, to come in.”
“Does she know where to go? Has she been here before?”
“Point to my door. And, Claude ….”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell her anything about me?”
“No. Why would I?”
“Although what I have in mind doesn’t apply to her, that’s good. If anyone else comes to me from now on, please tell him nothing about me.”
“Him? Who is he?”
“No, if any people come – them.”
“What would I tell them?”
“Nothing. That’s why I said tell them nothing. And, after this, for everyone who comes to visit me, if you’re discrete, I’ll give you twenty Euros.” It was part of the plan.
“Twenty Euros? Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. Go. Don’t let her stand in the …” – he looked up – “snow.”
THE DRIZZLE HAD become a snow squall when the wind picked up from the west. It drove dark clouds at great speed eastward over the palisade of trees in the park, across the sunken cut of the Seine, toward the tense, ugly walls of La Défense, and then over Paris, which in the thick of the snow was as relaxed as Manet’s Olympia reclining on her divan. Large flakes sped nearly sideways in almost parallel lines and were frequently seized by whirlwinds that made them knock about in captured circles, rising, falling, jerking left and right, and sometimes just holding position in the air, like confetti in a photograph. It was almost night, and sometimes the squall was violent enough to obscure the gatehouse.
Coming through alterations of light and dark was the tall, slim figure of a woman. And as Claude had said, she was carrying a massive brown case behind and at her side. In the islands of the squall, color came through like a sunburst – yellow, white, gold, and some black. And as she got closer, Jules thought he had gone mad. For the slim, young figure approaching seemed in appearance exactly the same as the woman in the hotel in Beverly Hills. At first, because of what his eyes told him, he thought it was she.
It was élodi, dressed in a yellow print silk dress that if not of precisely the same pattern as the dress in California was very close. élodi’s hair, which had been straight, was now buoyant and wavy. Jules didn’t really know what women did to their hair – his was cut every month for ten Euros and that was all, except that in the summer the sun lightened it by many shades – but now élodi’s hair, previously a white gold, was richer, almost the color of brass. The silk dress was tight on her body. She wasn’t wearing a coat and seemed not to mind the cold. The dress clung to her abdomen as if it were her skin, the silk firm against her breasts.
She walked straight to him, stopped, and paused. Other than that she was carrying a cello, he had no idea what she might be doing there, although just that she was there separated him momentarily from all his concerns. The snow fell for some seconds of silence and accumulated on her hair and on the silk covering her shoulders. A light air of perfume clung to her as a remnant of a formal occasion. Although dressed exquisitely, because she was focused on work she seemed more beautiful than if she had been dressed primarily for show. When she saw him she asked, “Are you going running?”
“I was.”
Inside, as the door closed behind them, she said, “In the snow?”
“When I was a young soldier in the mountains of North Africa, I would stay out all night in the snow. You get used to it, and it becomes a point of pride. You don’t have a coat.”
“I’m not cold. What mountains?”
“In Algeria.”
“The snow there must be less snowy, I would think.”
“Mostly it disappears the next day with the sun.”
“I shouldn’t interrupt you,” she said, the cello still suspended from her shoulder and not touching the floor.
“That’s all right. I can be done for the day.”
“Doing what?”
“I run five kilometers and swim one, twice daily.”
“Why?”
“I have to pass a very important physical.”
“You won’t pass if you’re dead.”
“That’s what they always say, but what do they know? You can put that down.”
She carried the cello into the expansive room with the piano. As she put it down she looked about, and through the portes fenêtres that led to the terrace. Having taken note of the gatehouse, the address, the grounds, and the Chateau itself, she said, “I didn’t know you were a billionaire.”
“I didn’t know either,” he replied, “because I’m not. You’ve heard of Henri Shymanski?”
She shook her head to indicate that she hadn’t. Had she been older, she would have. Jules thought this was both charming and frightening.
“Pharmaceuticals, jet engines, hotels, ships … banks. The house belonged to him, and now it’s his sons’. I ran it, watched it, and gave lessons to his Brazilian spawn.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“His wife is Brazilian, and the boys are like animals. It’s made him perpetually sad. He wanted them to play the piano, to be physicists or artists, to be upright, dignified, honest, and deliberative.”
“And they’re not?”
“No. They look and speak like drug kingpins, go around with a retinue of bimbos and strumpets, play music in their cars that cracks foundation walls as they pass, beat people up in bars and pay them to shut up, and they sleep until three o’clock in the afternoon.”
“Not my type,” she said, sitting down on the sofa. “Where were you?”
“Where was I?” he repeated. “When?”
“You didn’t show up.”
“For what?”
“Two lessons. I waited through, the whole time. They don’t know,” she said, meaning the administration, “so I have credit, but no instruction.”
“What lessons? I have nothing until spring.”
“No, you’re on the calendar, for me.”
Jules went to his computer and called up the schedule. She was right. “No one told me.”
“How often do you look at your email?”
“I don’t, really. If I don’t expect anything.”
Incredulous, she said, “You don’t look at it unless you’re expecting something?”
“No.”
“Okay, but, on average, how often?”
“Maybe once every two or three weeks. I prefer the telephone or the mail.”
élodi found this funny enough to laugh. Laughter changed her, and, because he really loved it, he found it as upsetting as it was wonderful.
“You’re my student now?”
“Yes. I told you I would be.”
He read her name in the computer: “élodi de Challant,” he said. It was the first time he had seen it. “Very aristocratic.”