Goodbye, Janette (9 page)

He slipped the top sheet under the others and began to read the second report.

He reached for a cigarette, lit it and turned to the last report.

He closed the folder and stared thoughtfully out the window at the passing traffic. In many ways none of the companies were operated in the typically French manner. For one thing, no French company, large or small, ever paid its bills on time. And no French company ever maintained a cash balance so far in excess of its annual needs. It had to be Tanya. Maurice would never do it. He did some rapid mental calculation. Of course, it was Tanya. The money was there because she was holding it for von Brenner. In that balance was his 50 percent share of the profits.

The taxi pulled to the curb and he got out. He looked at his watch. Five minutes to nine. He paid the driver and hurried upstairs to the lawyer’s office. His hunch had been right. He was glad that he had asked her to call him there. He had a feeling he should see her before he met with Maurice.

***

He opened the door in answer to the soft knock, then stepped aside to let her walk into the living room of the hotel suite. Slowly he closed the door behind him and turned to look at her. For a long moment they looked silently at each other; then he cleared his throat. “Old friends should not meet each other in restaurants or in attorneys’ offices.”

She nodded without speaking. He could see the tears welling into her eyes and felt a choking in his own throat. He held out his hand. She ignored it. Her voice was husky. “Old friends do not merely shake hands.”

He threw open his arms and she came into them. He kissed her cheek, tasting the salt of her tears. She rested her head against his chest. “Dear Johann,” she murmured. “Dear kind good friend.”

He raised her chin to look into her eyes. “Anna—” He hesitated. “Tanya.”

“Tanya.” She smiled.

“I am glad to see you,” he said, nodding his head.

“It’s been too long,” she said. “Ten years and no word. I thought we’d be in touch long before this.”

He looked at her, strangely puzzled. He really didn’t understand why she had thought that. “Come,” he said. “Let me get you something to drink.”

She followed him to the couch and sat down. “I really don’t want anything, thank you.”

“I’ll order some coffee,” he said, pressing the signal for the room-service waiter. A few minutes later, a cup of coffee in his hand, he nodded, pleased. “Now, tell me about Janette. She must be a big girl now.”

Tanya smiled. “Sixteen. And she just left for school in Switzerland this morning.”

“I’m sorry I missed her,” he said. “I would have liked to see her. If she takes after her mother, she has to be beautiful.”

“She is,” Tanya said. “But in her own fashion, not in mine.”

“I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here?” Johann asked.

“Only why it took you so long,” she said. “You’ll find the books in order. And the money in a separate account.”

“What for? There’s no money owed to the von Brenner
Gesellschaft
.” Then it all came together in his head. He stared at her with suddenly dawning comprehension. “Wolfgang—” he began, but his voice failed him.

“That’s it,” she smiled. “I put half the profits in a special account for Wolfgang just as I promised him.”

His voice was strained and strangely tortured. “You didn’t know?”

“Know what?” Something in the expression in his eyes reached into her heart with a cold chill. Then she knew. Her clenched fist went to her mouth so that she wouldn’t cry. “Wolfgang is dead. When?”

He put down the coffee cup with shaking hands. “Ten years. I thought you knew.”

“I didn’t know.” Her voice reached for control. “How did it happen?”

“He was killed by the Russians when they came to arrest him. He always said that he would not allow himself to be taken alive and tried as a war criminal. He was never a member of the Nazi party.”

“He was supposed to be safe in the French sector. How did the Russians get him?”

“Nobody really knows,” he said. “Apparently he went to a meeting in the Soviet zone.”

She was silent for a moment. “Maurice knew,” she said. “He knew it all along.”

“I don’t know,” he said.

She met his eyes. “I do. He knew that if I learned Wolfgang was dead I wouldn’t stay married to him.”

“And now?”

“It’s over. I’ll divorce him.”

“But the companies? Aren’t they in the Beauville estate?”

She shook her head. “No. I kept them in my name. I had the feeling that if I ever did transfer them, Wolfgang would be the first to be cheated.”

“That was lucky,” he said. He smiled suddenly. “You’re a rich woman now. Everything. It all belongs to you. You don’t owe anything to anybody. And I think that was what Wolfgang really wanted.”

“Yes.” She remembered the gold louis in the vault in Switzerland. Even after they had lived there together, he had never asked her to give them to him. Or even place his name on the vault card. He had meant for her to have it all along. She felt the moisture in her eyes. Poor Wolfgang.

“Are you all right?” Johann asked anxiously.

She held up her hand. “I’m fine now.” No wonder Maurice was upset at Johann’s call. It was as if the day of reckoning had come. “You started to tell me why you wanted to see me.”

He nodded. “I know of a company that is interested in buying the wine company for a lot of money. They want to take the company into retail sales.”

“Should I sell it to them?” she asked.

“Of course, it’s up to you. But I wouldn’t.”

“What would you do then?”

“What they plan to do. And make ten times as much money as the company is making now.”

“But we deliberately stayed out of the public eye. We thought that the less attention we called to ourselves the better.”

“That was ten years ago. But now nobody gives a damn.”

She met his eyes. “I’m pregnant. In March, I’m going to have a baby.”

Surprise echoed in his voice. “Then you can’t divorce until afterwards.”

Her voice was strong. “I’m divorcing now. I won’t let a child of mine bear his name. After the divorce I’m going to America to have the baby. The father is American.”

“Will you marry him?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “But I won’t be able to run the businesses myself. I still need a man in there.”

He was silent.

“What about you, Johann?” she asked. “That’s what you did for Wolfgang. And it would not be just a job, you would be a partner.”

“I don’t know,” he said doubtfully. “I might not be the right man for you. Basically I’m an accountant. You need someone more than that.”

“We can hire anyone else we might need,” she said. “But you can’t buy trust. That only comes with time.”

***

“No!” Maurice’s voice was shrill. He was near hysteria. “I won’t give you a divorce! I worked just as hard to make those companies as you did. You’re not just going to pay me off and throw me out! Just because you know you can keep it all for yourself.”

“You make me sick,” she said, her voice cold with contempt. She rose from her chair. “Divorce or not, you’re out of the companies.”

He stared up at her from behind his desk. His voice was quieter now. “It won’t be that easy for you. Under French law a wife’s property automatically comes under her husband’s control. I’ll hang you in court for twenty years. By that time the companies will be worth nothing.”

“The hell with them! I don’t need them.”

“You have a lifestyle you’ve become used to,” he said shrewdly. “You won’t be able to afford it anymore. And you’re not as young as you used to be. There are younger, fresher girls around. You’ll still be able to find a man to fuck with you, but you won’t find a man to keep you. When it comes to that, Tanya, you’re over the hill.”

She looked down at him. “What are you trying to say?”

“I’m saying we can approach this reasonably, calmly. Like two sensible adults, without flying off the handle and destroying ourselves in the process.”

“And what’s your idea of working this out reasonably?” He took a deep breath. “First, no divorce. We stay married. There’s nothing wrong in that. It works for both of us. Money alone won’t keep you in the world in which you live if you relinquish the title. Tanya, Marquise de la Beauville goes a lot further than Tanya Pojarska, even if you should decide to use your former husband’s title, which at the moment is being used by at least three other people. Polish titles aren’t worth a sou for a dozen in Paris. Do you think that school in Switzerland would have even accepted Janette if it weren’t for the Beauville name?”

She was silent. He pressed on. “You were prepared to give me twenty-five percent of the total net worth of all the companies in cash. That has to be somewhere between one hundred and one hundred twenty-five million francs. Instead of cash, you quit-claim one company to me; in exchange I will quit-claim the other two to you. That way our property rights will be clear and incontestable. And to show you that I am not greedy, I’ll accept the smallest company of them all. The mineral-water company. Its net worth is far less than the amount you would give me in cash.”

She stared at him. “What makes you so generous?” she asked skeptically.

“I’m not generous. Just practical. I need something to work at and something to save face. And I can live comfortably on the company’s earnings. Once that is done, we separate. I go my way, you go yours. And it becomes what it always has been. A marriage of convenience.”

“Let me think about it,” she said.

“What is there to think about?” He was more confident now. “At this moment, you’re angry. About many things. Wolfgang. Allowing yourself to become stupidly pregnant.”

Surprise was in her voice. “How do you know about that?”

“There are no secrets older than twenty-four hours in Paris,” he said. “So you’re angry and lashing out at the only one available to you. Me. What you don’t see is that in the process you are also hurting your own children. Janette and the unborn baby.”

Again she was silent. He got to his feet. “Tanya,” he said quietly, “wouldn’t it make more sense for your child to be born de la Beauville than a fatherless bastard?”

She was still silent. He managed a faint smile and a Gallic shrug of his shoulders. “Who knows? If you have a son, he automatically becomes the next Marquis de la Beauville.”

***

For the first time since Janette had begun going away to school, her mother was not at the train station to greet her when she returned to Paris. René, the chauffeur, was waiting for her on the platform, his coat collar turned up against the Christmas-holiday cold.

“Where’s Mother?” she asked as she came down the steps from the train.

He reached for her valise. “She’s not feeling well, Mademoiselle Janette,” he said. “She is waiting for you at home.”

“What’s the matter with her?” she asked, falling into step with him.

He shot her a curious glance. “It’s nothing serious,” he said evasively. She followed him through the station outside to where the black Rolls-Royce limousine was parked in a No Parking zone confident that no mere mortal gendarme would dare disgrace it with a contravention. He opened the door for her. She got into the car and he placed the valise in the front seat beside him and pulled the car away from the curb.

It was rush hour and the streets were busy with people going home from work, and as usual traffic was backed up at every corner. He glanced into the rearview mirror and saw her sitting forward in her seat, looking at the shop windows as they moved past. “The Christmas shopping rush is on,” he said.

“Yes,” she answered.

“The
météo
says we might have snow.”

“It’s been snowing in Switzerland since the last week in October.”

“Have you been skiing?” he asked.

“Of course,” she said. “There’s not much else to do.”

Then he ran out of conversation and they were silent until he stopped the car in front of the house. Before he had a chance to open the door for her she was out of the car and up the steps, pressing the doorbell. Henri opened the door and she ran past him with a quick “
Bon jour
,” up the steps to her mother’s room. Outside the closed door, she stopped and knocked.

Her mother’s voice answered. “
Entrez.
”

She opened the door and ran into the room. “
Maman!
” she exclaimed. Then stopped suddenly, her mouth partly open in amazement.

Tanya saw the expression on her face. She tried to treat it lightly. “I’m really not that big yet. Only six months.”

There was a shocked note in Janette’s voice. “But you never said anything to me.”

“What was there to say?” Tanya asked. “These things do happen.”

Janette’s voice was suddenly angry. “I’m not a child. You could have told me.”

Tanya was silent, surprised at Janette’s anger.

Janette searched her mother’s eyes. “He raped you. That’s why you didn’t tell me. You were ashamed.”

“No, Janette,” Tanya said. “It wasn’t like that at all.”

A note of repulsion came into Janette’s voice. “You mean you let him do that to you?”

Tanya was silent. For the first time she really didn’t know what to say to her daughter. She found her voice. “Maybe you’d better go to your room and have a quiet relaxing bath. We’ll talk afterwards.”