The Clasp (22 page)

He gulped, remembering his professor's crumpled face, feeling himself fall between the words.

He felt the prickle of something beyond coincidence. He checked the book out, along with a thick Maupassant biography.

“You have two weeks.” Conan stamped a card on the inside.

Victor nodded, a semblance of a plan forming. Surely two weeks was sufficient to scrounge together his life savings, swing by a remote château, find Johanna's necklace and figure out what to do with it.

He walked dreamily back onto the street, exhilarated by the same Manhattan air that had felt suffocating to him only yesterday. What would he do with it if he managed to find it? If Johanna's necklace and
the
necklace were the same object it would be major news. Keeping it for himself was out of the question, as was selling it. He could do some genealogical research, but it didn't seem like there were generations of Maupassants living in France. Felix didn't know about it, plus the idea of giving it to Caroline, of doing anything for Caroline, made him retch. He had a pocket-sized fantasy about giving it to a museum. He could just see it:
FORMER SEARCH ENGINE EMPLOYEE TURNS LITERARY SLEUTH, BECOMES HERO, FINDS PURPOSE
.

No matter what he chose to do, he was closer to solving the mystery of the necklace than Johanna or her aunt ever were. Because now he knew what Johanna didn't: The necklace was not just somewhere in the 600 by 600 miles calling itself France. It was at 76550 Tourville-sur-Arques.

T
he worst,” confessed Grey, “is that I actually think I'm becoming stupid. I get exhausted when I think. Because when I have occasion to speak, I speak in English, but I intrinsically use—”

“Instinctually,” said Nathaniel.

“—I intrastinctually use the same words in English that I understand in French. I think, what would I understand if I were me? Hello. How are you? I am going to the bank. Do you know where the toilet is? Your child is cute.”

“Is there anything left in that?” Kezia pointed at a bottle of wine, its dark glass withholding this valuable information.

They ate their meal on a white lace tablecloth. Grey lit candles in various stages of use. With the exception of the Bang & Olufsen speakers on the fireplace ledge, it felt like dining in a prewar Paris apartment.

Nathaniel lifted the bottle and it went zooming up into the air.

“Nope. Hey, Paul?”

“You're not getting stupid, sweetie. You just refuse to conjugate.”

“I would like a pen. I do not have need of an umbrella. How much for this?”

Nathaniel rubbed his eyes with his thumb and his forefinger. “Paul, is there more wine?”

“Grey,” Paul said, resting his hand on the side of her head, “what you think of as an atrophying of your vocabulary is just your brain making room for French. Trust me, it gets better.”

Satisfied with his diagnosis, he took back his hand and picked the last of the remoulade off her plate, rotating his jaw happily.

Kezia wouldn't trust him on this if she were Grey. They had arrived in Paris on the same second of the same hour of the same day. Paul had no authority when it came to things “getting better.” His wife, meanwhile, was living out her own version of
Lost
in Translation
, wandering around Shakespeare & Company, simultaneously hoping that customers assumed she was French while luxuriating in the sound of overheard English. On her darker days, she confided in Kezia, Grey was dousing herself in imported hand sanitizer and sneaking off to the Burger King at Saint-Lazare.

“The spoon is not here.” Grey tossed her spoon to the other end of the table. “Because the spoon is over there. I have syphilis.”

“You know how to say ‘syphilis' in French?” Paul beamed.

“I don't think that's what she's trying to tell you,” Nathaniel burped into his fist.

“They call it the French disease,
mon amour.
” Grey broke her own spell. “I'm taking an educated guess.”

“See? I told you you weren't getting stupid.”

Nathaniel creaked his chair at an angle until he could whisper in Kezia's ear.

“You know that scene in
Better Off Dead
with the Fraunch fries and the Fraunch dressing?”

“Shh.” She put her finger to her mouth.

“It's the international language of love, Ricky.”

“They must have more booze in the kitchen.”

“Damn, girl. Since when do you
drink
drink?”

“Since I found out I'd have to share a bed with you.”

“I told you I'd sleep on the couch. I could fall asleep standing up right now.”

Kezia gave him a look. The couch was not a couch, but a hard chaise covered in Louis XVI silk and intentionally hostile triangular pillows. Paul had purchased it at his favorite stall at Clignancourt along with some tintype photos of random dead Parisians.

“Like a horse,” Nathaniel said. “
Ne-e-e-e-eigh
. Or we can sleep head-to-toe if you want. I know you'd rather stick yourself in the eye with a hot poker than be in the same bed as my hot poker.”

“Why are you here, again?”

“I needed a vacation.”

“Weren't you just in Miami five seconds ago?”

“Did that feel like a vacation to you?”

“Point taken.”

“And maybe you're not the only one with a stressful job. L.A. has pressures you can't even imagine. I'm pulled in a thousand directions at once. I needed a break.”

“I'm amazed you were able to get away.”

“You don't believe me? That's okay. I don't need you to believe me.”

“Don't you, though?” She raised her glass to her lips, momentarily forgetting there was nothing in it.

“Maybe I just like spending time with you in cities where neither of us live.”

This was the closest he had come to mentioning her disastrous last trip to L.A. when he had spoiled her long-held impression of
him, and she, in turn, had let him drive home drunk. Were there apologies to be exchanged? Not right now, apparently.

“You're pretty cranky for someone who got laid last weekend.”

“Why, whatever do you mean?”

“Don't play coy with me, young lady. Felix's friend, Judson.”

Nathaniel knew his name. He must have torn himself away from his phone and his screenplays just long enough to watch Judson hit on Kezia, to ask: Who is that guy?

“Huh. Doesn't ring a bell.”

“Then you should get your bell fixed, baby.”

“Judson already fixed it.”

“Ah-HA!” Nathaniel leaned his chair back too much and had to grip the table to keep from falling.

She burst out laughing but Paul and Grey noticed nothing.

“. . . and let me tell you about my office.” Paul's voice was rising, assuming Kezia and Nathaniel still wanted in on this. “Everyone gets to work around ten but because everyone knows that's the base time, it's more like ten twenty. Then they socialize and drink coffee for about two hours. And then, well, it's about lunchtime and you have to take a two-hour lunch. If you don't, people assume that you're not getting the most out of life, the most out of whatever deal you're working on, or the most out of who you're fucking.”

“I always knew I was meant to live here.” Nathaniel shut his eyes and inhaled.

That's why there was no wine left. Because Paul was drinking for two and now the fissures in his one-man tourism board were beginning to show.

“Magically,” he continued, “the French do get work done. They're not lazy. They're not the Spanish.”

“Jesus, Paul.” Grey crammed her finger into a mushy drip of hot wax.

Kezia and Nathaniel began taking turns yawning. They started to clear plates and escort them into the kitchen.

“You don't have to do that,” Grey muttered, not moving.

Nathaniel put his hand on her shoulder. “Grey, we're going to go to bed.”

“Oh.” She perked up. “There's towels in your nightstand. And extra blankets on top of the closet.”

Paul waved. “Good night, kids.”

Paul meant nothing by it, Kezia knew that, but only last week she and Victor had been horrified on Paul and Grey's behalf, imagining the two of them stuck in the backseat of a car behind Caroline and Felix, demoted to children. But now she and Nathaniel were the odd men out, the ones living out of suitcases while their married and pregnant friends slept soundly and smugly in the other room. Now they were the ones astray, the ones who would make a moat of pillows between their bodies. Though Nathaniel was more jet-lagged than she, so it must have been he who kicked all the pillows to the floor at three in the morning, falling back asleep with his calf flopped over hers.

V
ictor slung his duffel, still sandy at the bottom, over his shoulder and knocked on the metal door. He could hear the sound of a television, turned up a few bars too high, followed by the banging gavel of a courtroom reality show. He knocked again, hard, and heard the more immediate sound of feet shuffling closer, followed by an annoyed “
¡Anda el diablo!
” Victor stepped back from the peephole and stood, expressionless, as if having his picture taken for an ID badge.

Matejo flung open his door. He was wearing a Brooklyn Nets jersey and holding a paring knife.

“I'm making egg salad.”

“I have a favor to ask you.”

Matejo stiffened, ready to shut the door. Behind him the apartment was dark. All the blinds were shut.

“Don't worry, it's nothing big. I'm leaving town for a little bit. Probably a week. And I was hoping you could check in on my place occasionally. Oh, and my mail. The little one is the mailbox key.”

Victor held out a set of keys. Matejo looked stunned and skeptical.

“Why me? You got an animal up there that needs feeding? No pets in the building.”

Victor reached the keys out a little farther and dropped them over the pointy end of the knife.

They slid down an inch and stopped.

“Matejo, please.” Victor pressed his phone to check the time. “I gotta go. But it makes me feel safe to know that you'll be looking after the place. Just checking in on it.”

Matejo turned the knife upside down and caught the keys in his hand.

“I know that you know this building better than anyone.” Matejo softened. “True.”

“And that you know what it is to have a sense of responsibility.”

“That's true.” Matejo nodded at the undeniability of these words.

“And that you know, better than anyone, that I have pretty much nothing up there. But I'd like to keep what little I do have. It would be so unfortunate to learn anyone was going through my stuff while I was away.”

“What you getting at?”

“You ever hear from the cops, Matejo?”

“You're saying you been communicating with the cops?”

He retreated slightly into the apartment.

“I'm saying I haven't gone to the cops myself. Yet. But maybe you had a change of heart? Maybe a detective gave you his card or something? Even if the cops are busy addressing homicides, it's a little unusual that they wouldn't interview people who got robbed in the same building.”

“I . . . listen, listen,
pana
. . . that kid took my safe. Swear to God, he did.”

“I know.” Victor rapped on the doorframe. “So thanks for making sure nothing further happens to my place.”

Victor hugged him and patted him on the back. Matejo stiffened and spread his arms out, holding the knife in the air.

“Hey.” He padded out of his apartment, calling after Victor as he walked down the stairs. “You okay, man?”

“Do I not seem okay?”

“You seem different. Like upbeat but in a distinctly crazy way.”

“I guess I'm okay then.”

Matejo waved at him dismissively and went back to his courtroom show.

Once outside on his stoop, the smell of hot garbage hit Victor square in the nose. He paused to consider his impending journey. He had “The Necklace” (bound) and the other necklace (on loose paper). He had the Ardurats' address. He had sample toothpaste from a trip to the dentist. He had a nose-hair trimmer from his mall-pillaging days. He had decongestant, deodorant, and a passport. He was aware, down to the dollar, how much he had in his bank account. But most important, he had something he hadn't had in a long time: a plan.

He had purchased one round-trip flight that would depart from New Jersey and connect twice—first through Philadelphia and then through Porto, Portugal, before arriving in Paris. After the subtraction of airport cab fare, he would have roughly $2,000 in his checking account. From there he would be in a dangerous euro zone where a baguette could bankrupt him. He would not rent a car. He would not stay the night in Paris. He would go directly to the château and not tell anyone where he was.

He took a deep garbagey breath. The trip itself didn't start off as secret. He would have told anyone who asked him. If Kezia's texts and calls had showed even the slightest benefit of the doubt, that maybe Victor had not, in fact, hung himself by his shower curtain rod but was out having a life, he would have even told her. But he didn't need to stoke her pity fire. Best to ignore it, deprive it of oxygen, let it burn out on its own.

He hadn't slept on the plane (adrenaline combined with the recent relieving of his noise-canceling headphones) but now it was 7:30 a.m. and he didn't want to start his day by passing out beneath the Porto arrivals boards. He purchased a coffee (€2), a pollo sandwich (€4.25), and a soda with a cartoon of a torpedo on the can (€0.80), and settled into a nailed-to-the-ground plastic chair. He read the Guy de Maupassant biography, along with a book of Guy's letters he had purchased at the Strand before leaving New York. He liked Maupassant. He wished that he had spent more time learning about him during college.

Every happy man who wishes to preserve his integrity of thought
and independence of judgment
, Guy wrote,
to see life
,
humanity and the world as a free observer, above all prejudice, all preconceived belief and all religion, must absolutely keep himself removed from what is called Society; for universal stupidity is so contagious that he cannot frequent his fellow-creatures without, despite his best efforts, being carried along by their convictions, their ideas and their imbecilic morality.

Victor couldn't help but feel a kinship with this man.

And he was basically unemployed, too.

I wake at 8. I take a stroll around the garden, pay a visit to the
goldfish, bathe
,
smoke tobacco
,
write until 11, take another bath
,
lunch,
take my pistol and fire forty bullets at thirty, twenty and ten paces, until I am satisfied with my shooting. Then I take the yacht out.

Alas, smoking and eating was where their commonalities ended. Guy was a ladies' man (which Victor was not), he was athletic (which Victor was not), successful during his lifetime (which Victor was, thus far, not), owned a parrot named Jacquot (Victor owned no parrots), and often claimed he could summon a full erection with his mind (which Victor could not but, then again, he had never really tried). Guy was a war hero who rowed fifty miles a day on the Seine and hung out with Alexandre Dumas and Émile Zola and the Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev, who, by all accounts, was a total fucking teddy bear. At fifteen years old, Guy saved a man from drowning. At fifteen, Victor was getting his ass kicked in a suburban locker room. At twenty-one, Guy rescued his neighbor's baby from a grease fire. At twenty-one, Victor pocketed his first jump drive.

After Guy's parents separated, he found a father figure in his mother's childhood best friend, who happened to be Gustave Flaubert. Flaubert, who was all “you really should quit your soulless day job and devote your time to writing, eating, and drinking.” What a mentor! Victor imagined what would happen to him if his parents split. His mother, a creature of habit, would have remarried some Celtics fanatic named Stan.

But it was the endless recounting of Guy-as-ladies'-man that Victor couldn't get over. About his master, Guy's valet journaled:
He knows how to please, being a very handsome fellow, with splendid black hair, a perfectly defined dark mustache, a mouth as red as a girl's,
a slightly pointed chin, well and freshly shaven. He has great success with
the ladies. Their eyes never leave him. Women surround him, crowding close: he is taken by siege.

By
siege
. Perhaps this was Nathaniel's day-to-day but it was
not Victor's. Even the official biography noted that “Guy de Maupassant was a sexomaniac. His appetite for copulation was enormous.”

Of course, then he contracted syphilis, had to be admitted to a mental institution, and tried to kill himself by slitting his own throat. His valet, François, found him.

Oh well
, thought Victor,
you can't win 'em all.