The Fury of Rachel Monette (25 page)

“Don't start on me.”

Their voices rose, buffeting each other like clubs. “Stop it,” Rachel said. She turned to the old woman. “You must remember approximately when she left.”

Closing both eyes she raised her hands to her face and gently rubbed the maroon pits with the tips of her fingers. “It must have been in the spring of 1948. April, I think, or May.”

“Was it after Madame Monette died?”

“Yes.” The old woman opened her eyes. They seemed wearier than they were before she closed them. “It was a great tragedy. Monsieur Monette cried like a baby. And poor Mademoiselle Gris. She was so upset they had to take her to the hospital.”

“Is that why she left here?”

“No. She left to get married.”

“To whom?”

“A friend of Monsieur Monette's. I can't remember his name. It was a long time ago.” She took the painting from her son. “Now are you going to make an offer or not? I haven't got the whole day to waste.”

“I'll give you two hundred and fifty francs for the painting.”

“It's not enough,” the man said angrily.

“You stay out of this,” his mother told him. “I'll handle it.” She turned to Rachel. “It's not enough.”

“I'll give you two hundred and fifty more if you remember Lily Gris's married name.”

The old woman's head hunched forward aggressively. “If her paintings made her famous like you said why don't you know her married name already?”

Rachel sighed. “I lied to you. She's not famous. But her paintings are good and I'm interested in them.” As she said it she realized the painting was very good indeed.

“You mean there's no market for it?” Disappointment reduced the old woman's voice to a monotone.

“Not yet.”

“Then we'll hang on to it until there is one,” the man said defiantly.

“It may be twenty years.”

“You'll be sixty-two,” the old woman sneered at him.

“And you'll be worms.”

“Sometimes I can hardly wait.” Tears welled up in the old woman's eyes but they didn't overflow. “Give me the money,” she said to Rachel.

Rachel handed her two hundred and fifty francs and took the painting. The woman counted the money twice. “And what about Lily Gris's married name?” Rachel asked.

“I told you I can't remember. It's no use asking me over and over like that.”

“Is there anyone else living in the building who was here then?”

She shook her head. “They've all gone away. Didn't I tell you that, too? You've got your painting. Why don't you go away and stop bothering us?”

Rachel moved toward the door. “Wait,” the man said. He turned to his mother. “What about Monsieur Tremblay?”

She shrugged. “It's possible.”

“Who is Monsieur Tremblay?”

“He's a clerk at the post office,” the man explained. “He's been there forever. She might have left him a forwarding address in her new name.”

“Let's go talk to him.”

“We can't. He's on his holiday.”

“Where?”

“I'm not sure. I think he goes to Italy. He takes a bus from one camping spot to another, and sleeps in a little tent.” He lifted his hands palm up: there was no accounting for the man's eccentricity.

“When does he return?” Rachel asked. Mother and son conferred. They appeared to know the precise amount of holiday time the clerk had coming to him. They counted on their fingers.

“Thursday,” the old woman said.

“Good. Ask him Thursday morning.” Rachel took more money from her handbag. “Here are fifty francs. I'll telephone you Thursday afternoon. If you've found out the name I'll give you two hundred more.”

“You said two hundred and fifty before.”

“That's right,” the man backed her up.

“Two hundred and fifty includes the fifty I just gave you,” Rachel said sharply. “Now tell me your name and telephone number so I can reach you.”

The old woman told her. Rachel opened her notebook to a new page and wrote April 1,
P.M
., and under that the name and phone number.

“How can we get in touch with you, if we have to?” the son asked.

“Don't worry. I'll call.”

“But we don't even know your name,” he pressed her. He put his hand on her forearm and moved it very slightly across the skin. She thought of the social workers.

“That didn't keep you from taking my three hundred francs.”

The old woman cackled at him. He dropped his hand from Rachel's arm and left the room.

Outside Rachel walked slowly through the streets where the market had been. She thought of Margaret Monette, and felt a sudden hunger for onion soup.

22

Ed Joyce's voice, a voice she knew to be deep and rumbling, sounded weak and thin as if the weight of the ocean pressing on the cable were squeezing the life out of it.

“Hello,” he said to the long distance operator. “Ed Joyce here.”

“Mr. Ed Joyce?” she said in her Parisian accent. “You have an overseas call from Paris.”

“Paris?” But the operator had already left the line.

“It's Rachel Monette, Mr. Joyce.”

“Oh. I thought you went to Morocco.” He didn't sound thrilled to hear from her.

“I did.” She heard noises like pounding surf and shrieking winds, far away.

“What are you doing in Paris?”

“Looking for Adam.” In the pause that followed the storm grew louder. “Is there anything new?”

“No.”

“What about the FBI?”

“Nothing new there either, apparently. I'm sorry.”

“Are you still working on it?”

“We never close a case like this, Mrs. Monette.”

“That's not what I asked you.” Suddenly the storm abated, reduced in a moment to a faint hiss on the edge of her hearing. Ed Joyce's voice, too, became very faint.

“We're doing our best,” came Joyce's reply, smothered as though he held his hand over his mouth. “But nothing has happened to change our original analysis.”

“That's what you think.”

“What? I can't hear you very well, Mrs. Monette. You'll have to speak up.”

“I'll be in Bristol next Thursday,” an aristocratic English voice said very distinctly. A rush of blended conversations followed. Rachel pressed her mouth to the perforated disc and shouted through the babble:

“What about the document I left you? Has anyone asked about it?”

“I can't hear you.” His tiny cry cut through the din.

“The document,” she yelled at the top of her lungs. Her free ear heard a knock at the door. Her other ear listened in on an anarchists' convention.

“Still in the safe,” she thought she heard Ed Joyce say.

“Has anyone asked you about it?” she screamed. The knock was repeated, more loudly.

“Negative,” he said, and then something else she didn't catch.

“Wednesday's no good at all,” the Englishman said with annoyance.

“Goodbye, Mr. Joyce.”

“What?”

She hung up the phone. The door opened and a worried chambermaid peeked into the room. “Is something wrong, madame?”

“No.” The chambermaid didn't believe her but she withdrew and closed the door anyway.

Rachel reached again for the receiver. She noticed the sweaty imprint left on the black plastic by her palm, and wiped it dry on the bedspread. The hotel operator connected her to the information operator in Orange. The number for Xavier Monette was unlisted.

Rachel caught the night train to Lyon. The couchettes were all taken. Rachel bought a first-class ticket which entitled her to share a compartment with a gray-robed nun, whose sharp nose and cold blue eyes forestalled any conversation. After the conductor inspected their tickets they lay full length on the padded seats that faced each other across the compartment.

The train drummed its way south. As sleep closed slowly around Rachel's mind she heard the door slide open. She looked up quickly and saw by the light in the corridor two girls dressed like hikers. They carried large backpacks on aluminum frames and each had a wineskin slung around her neck. Rachel and the nun sat up. The two girls hoisted their packs onto the luggage rack and took places on either side of Rachel. The nun remained sitting. One of the girls leaned across Rachel and said in English to the other:

“I told you it was easy, didn't I?”

“You were right, Mindy,” replied the other. Their accents were Californian. They laughed together at the easiness of it, and the one who wasn't Mindy unslung her wineskin, and tilted it to her mouth. The nun rose and left the compartment, closing the door after her.

“Do you think she's coming back?” the drinking girl asked. “I'd sure like to lie down.”

“Go ahead.” The drinking girl took a last swallow and crossed to the opposite seat. As she lay down the conductor opened the door and stepped inside.

“Tickets, please,” he said to the two girls in French.

“No speak French,” Mindy said, shrugging in apparent hopelessness.

“Your tickets, please,” the conductor said in English. The girls retrieved their packs and took a long time searching through little zippered compartments before they found their tickets.

“These are second-class tickets. You must leave this compartment.”

Mindy opened her eyes wide and gestured around the room. “But look at all the space there is,” she said. “And it's so crowded in second class. Can't you make an exception just this once?”

“Please do not make difficulties.” He beckoned them toward the door. The girls picked up their packs.

“This sure is a dumb way to act for a country that depends on tourists,” the drinking girl said loudly to her companion as they went out. His face impassive, the conductor led them away.

“You bet it is,” Rachel heard Mindy reply before the steel door at the end of the corridor slammed shut. She lay down. Once again the door slid open. The nun entered.

A nifty bit of work, Rachel thought. The cold blue eyes rested on her face for a moment: they seemed disappointed that the conductor hadn't removed her as well. The nun lay down. Rachel closed her eyes and tried to remember the story of the Spanish Inquisition. The train played its percussive symphony through the night.

When the music came to an end Rachel awoke. The train stood motionless at the station in Lyon. She heard the air brakes venting steam. On the floor of the compartment, facing the window, the nun knelt in prayer. Outside the steam rose into the night air in little white clouds, sure to beat prayers to heaven in any race Rachel could imagine. She changed trains.

Dawn of Tuesday March thirtieth cast a warm clear light on Provence. Blue mist nestled in the hollows of the eastern slopes, safe for an hour or two from the rays of the sun. Most of the brown sheaths had fallen from the buds on the vines, and the first tender shoots, which would become leaves and grapes and strong Provencale wine were green speckles on the moist red earth of the vineyards. A few of the higher slopes were topped by stone ruins of old forts, forts which had once made the farmers believe in the feudal system. Now they made the photo-processors rich, and their mortgages were enough to make the farmers believers in the system.

At Orange, Rachel was the only passenger who got off the train. She left her suitcase with the clerk at the baggage claim counter and crossed the square to the Hotel Terminus. The manager unfolded a map of the town. Handling his gold pen with pride he drew arrows pointing to the Roman triumphal arch, the Roman theatre which he assured her was not only the best preserved in France, but in the whole world, and finally rue de St. Jean-Baptiste, which was what she had asked for. Rachel ran her finger along the almost straight line that marked the course of the street from the center of town to the outskirts where it became a minor departmental highway.

“Can you show me where Xavier Monette lives?”

The gold pen wavered above the map like a bird unsure of its landing spot. “Are you a friend of his?”

“Family.”

“I didn't know he had any family,” the manager said. The tip of the pen settled gently on a point beyond the outskirts of town. “We don't see him very often.”

“Why not?”

“He's retired. He likes to stay at home and tend his vines.” The pen made a little circle around the point in the road. “He makes good wine. You will see.” He gave her directions to the house. It was less than three kilometers from the hotel. She asked the manager to send a taxi for her in an hour, and set off on foot.

A high stone wall enclosed the house and grounds, and some of the fields in the distance. The iron gates were closed. Through them Rachel saw the house set far back from the road in a grove of peach trees. It was a big solid house, white with black trim, and an orange tile roof. Several outbuildings were scattered nearby. One of these seemed to be a miniature Greek temple. It had broad marble steps leading to a shallow portico. The undecorated pediment was supported by four columns which any ancient Greek architect would have rejected for their squatness. A faded sign tacked to the trunk of a tall cypress near the gate warned of a bad dog. Rachel's eyes were still searching the grounds for it when a rifle shot cracked behind her.

She whirled about and saw Xavier Monette striding toward her through the vineyards on the far side of the road. He held a rifle in one hand; a small reddish animal dangled by its tail from the other. The clothing he wore, a faded pink shirt and white duck pants, accented his deep tan. The soft breezes ruffled his pure white hair in the way that hair ruffles when it has just been cleaned. Stepping onto the road he looked as healthy as a senior citizen in a yogurt commercial.

“I finally got the little vandal,” he said to her cheerfully in French. And then he seemed to notice who she was. The walnut brown eyes, so like Dan's in appearance yet so different in effect, opened wide in surprise. The jaw, finer than Dan's and not quite as strong, dropped slightly before the mouth settled into a smile. “What an unexpected pleasure,” he said in English. The little fox dripped blood from the hole where its head used to be. It made a red puddle on the road.