The Mystery of the Lost Cezanne (3 page)

“Did you see the queue at Michaud's?” Mme Joubert said as she walked in, blowing on her hands, wishing she had not left her apartment on the rue Cardinale without gloves.

“I bought my galette this morning,” Dr. Pitavy said, smirking.

“I made my own,” Philomène Joubert said, glaring at the doctor.
What a pretentious bore
, she thought to herself.

Pierre Millot turned to the young couple, Françoise and Eric Legendre, who had just moved to Aix, and explained. “Michaud's is an institution,” he said. “Cézanne even bought his pastries there.”

“Let's go upstairs to the meeting room, now that everyone is here,” Mme Chazeau said. She turned the door's lock and left a large set of keys dangling in it.

“
Et le Belge?
” René Rouquet asked as they mounted the stairs.

“
M. Staelens
,” Mme Chazeau slowly said, “called me this afternoon. He's at home in Brussels and sends his best wishes.”

Mme Chazeau closed the conference room's door, out of habit, once everyone sat down. She went to the head of the table and opened a red file. “Pierre, why don't you introduce the new owners of your former apartment?” she asked, sitting down. She didn't add that she thought it odd that Pierre Millot was present that evening, as he no longer owned an apartment at number 23. But she had seen it before—some people had a hard time letting go, even once all the documents had been signed. One seller, years ago, had such remorse that he drove every evening to his former house and parked in the street, looking at the grounds that he had lovingly tended for thirty years. When he began to wander around the yard, the new owners had to get a restraining order.

Pierre straightened his back and began. “I'd like to introduce Eric and Françoise Legendre, who moved into my former apartment six days ago. They are returning to France after spending over ten years in New York.”

“New York?” Mme Chazeau asked. “How was that?”

“Expensive,” Eric Legendre flatly replied.

“So I've heard,” Mme Chazeau replied. “Welcome to Aix. If you have any questions about the city, I'm always available.”

“Thank you,” Françoise Legendre quietly replied, looking at her husband and smiling.

Mme Chazeau picked up a pen. She would act as secretary that night. “First on the agenda is the hall and stairway cleaning. The price is going up fifteen euros a month. Does everyone approve this?”

“What choice do we have?” Dr. Pitavy asked.

“Change companies,” Mme Chazeau said. “Which means interviewing them. And I've already looked into it. The one we're using is still the cheapest, even if they raise the fee.”

“In that case, I approve,” Mme Joubert said, raising her hand.

“So does M. Staelens,” Mme Chazeau said. “We went over this evening's agenda on the telephone.” She looked at the Legendres and explained, “Jan Staelens owns a large apartment on the third floor. He uses it for vacations. What do you think about the cleaning fees?”

Eric Legendre looked at his wife and shrugged. “We approve, I guess.”

“So do I,” Dr. Pitavy said, sighing.

“M. Rouquet?” Mme Chazeau asked.

René Rouquet looked up. He had been twirling his hat in his hands, thinking of other things. More important things.

“We were voting on the fee increase for cleaning the building's common areas,” Mme Chazeau reminded him. “Everyone has approved it.”

“Oh, okay, then,” Rouquet said.

Mme Chazeau tapped her pen on the table.

“I approve,” René said.

“Thank you,” Mme Chazeau replied, taking notes. She had expected more of a fight from René Rouquet, who was
notoriously cheap. He usually paid more attention. “Second on the agenda—”

“The mysterious storage room,” Dr. Pitavy interjected.

“Yes—”

“I'm willing to pay rent for its use,” Dr. Pitavy went on. “It's right across the hall from my office. I have equipment I need to store, and paperwork that the tax man and medical fraternity insist we keep for ten years. If I don't have somewhere to put all of that I'll have to move my office. And, as you all know, it's quite nice having a quiet podiatrist downstairs, instead of a dentist, who's drilling, or—horror of horrors—a snack shop, frying meats . . .”

“Who
is
using the
débarras
?” Philomène Joubert asked. “One of my students, the one who's renting the smaller flat, asked if she could put her bicycle in it.” Mme Joubert loved renting her two apartments on rue Boulegon to students—always female—and she treated them like family (especially the ones who went to Mass). She no longer had to list the apartments at the university; they passed down through friends, sisters, and cousins by word of mouth.

“The clothing store at 21 Boulegon,” Dr. Pitavy answered.

Mme Chazeau sighed and set down her pen. It seemed that the podiatrist had taken over the meeting.

“They use it to store extra stock,” Dr. Pitavy continued. “And they won't say who they're renting it from!”

“M. Rouquet,” Mme Chazeau carefully said, looking at René. “Since the subject of the ground-floor storage room has never before been an issue, only today did I look at the deeds, and I discovered that it belongs to you. Would you be willing to rent it out to Dr. Pitavy?”

René Rouquet looked at her, surprised, and then glared at
Pierre. He grabbed his coat and got up, knocking over a chair in the process, mumbling as he opened the door. Eric and Françoise Legendre looked at Mme Chazeau, bewildered. Philomène Joubert took out her wool and needles and began knitting.

“Please don't leave, René,” Mme Chazeau called after the ex-postman.

“I'll talk to him,” Pierre Millot said, getting up and quickly putting on his coat. “René's just being—”

“René,” replied Mme Chazeau, as she heard the front door open and close, its little bell ringing. She stood up and walked to the large window that overlooked the Cours Mirabeau. There was still a queue at Michaud's, and René and Pierre had stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. René was gesturing wildly and Pierre reached up to the old man's shoulders, only to have his hands brushed away. “Where were we?” Mme Chazeau asked as she turned back around to the now-smaller group.

Y
ou know you look foolish wearing a gold paper crown while driving a Porsche,” Marine said, glancing over at her boyfriend.

“Really?” Verlaque asked, feigning surprise. “Do you mean to say that if I was driving a different vehicle, say, a newer-model Peugeot, or a battered pickup truck, I'd look better with the crown?”

Marine laughed out loud. “You had fun, didn't you?”

“I always have fun with the Pauliks,” Verlaque answered. “And as much as I dislike the cake, I do get a kick out of the youngest person in the room sitting under the table, calling out names. It was always Sébastien who got to do it at our place.”

“And it was always me at ours,” Marine replied. Marine Bonnet, a law professor, was an only child, born to a family doctor and his theologian wife. She went on, “Léa was tickled pink you were served the slice with the bean.”

“My loyal subject.”

“I think she was more excited to see how ridiculous you'd look wearing the crown.”

“You'll be sent to the tower for that remark.”

Marine smiled and looked out of the car's window; even when it was dark out, they both insisted on taking the narrow, winding Route de Cézanne instead of the straighter Route Nationale. The Porsche's lights lit up the shimmering silver leaves of the olive trees as they passed. Every time she was on this road she thought of Aix's famous son Paul Cézanne, and how he would walk this road daily, his easel strapped to his back. He died on this road, too, caught in a sudden storm and contracting pneumonia, dying a few days later at the age of sixty-seven.

“It's amazing when Léa sings for us, isn't it?” Verlaque asked, smiling as he drove.

“Mmm,” Marine said, frowning. “But I worry about the amount of time the music conservatory takes out of a young person's life.”

“Didn't you see her face?”

“Yes,” Marine slowly replied. “Of course she was happy singing. She had a captivated audience.”

“So you think her happiness wasn't genuine?” Verlaque asked, glancing at Marine.

“She's the kind of little girl who'll do anything to please her elders.”

Verlaque geared down to first gear and swung his 1961 Porsche around a hairpin turn. “How do you know?”

Marine tried to smile. “Because I was that kind of little girl.”

“And look at you now.”

“Exactly. Careful, there's a sleeping policeman coming up.”

Verlaque slowed the car down to slowly pass over the speed bump. “Thank you,” he said. He had been happy listening to Léa sing, and so he was frustrated that Marine was putting a black cloud over the evening. They entered the outskirts of Aix, and the olive orchards gave way to small houses and low-rise apartment blocks. This was Aix's quiet La Torse neighborhood, almost as expensive as the Route de Cézanne itself. Every time he met people from La Torse they bragged that they could walk downtown and yet were only a three-minute drive from the highway,
plus
they could park their cars right in front of their houses or apartments. He hated La Torse.

“Let's get back to Léa,” Verlaque said. “Don't you think that Bruno and Hélène would stop her from all of the music lessons if they saw that she was suffering?”

Marine bit her bottom lip. “I don't know them well enough to say.”

“But you claim to know their daughter.”

“Oh just forget it, Antoine.”

“What's bothering you? Why are you in such a gloomy mood? You've been acting weird lately.”

“I'm okay,” she said quietly.

Verlaque turned right onto
le périph
—the ring road that surrounded Aix's old town—and then quickly turned left and drove down the steep and narrow rue Emeric David, which almost dead-ended into the great white neoclassical Palais de Justice.

“You don't sound convinced,” he said, glancing over at her again.

“I don't like sounding whiny,” she anwswered. “I know that I should be happy: I have a good academic job that challenges me and that I enjoy—well, except for the numerous pointless
meetings. My parents are both alive, and healthy. I bought my apartment before the new TGV station brought trainloads of Parisians to Aix, flooding our real estate market. And,” she said, reaching over and rubbing Verlaque's shoulder, “I'm in love with a wonderful man. But tonight I have the blues, and I don't know why. I'm almost ashamed—”

“Are you mad at me?”

Marine sighed. “Honestly, Antoine.” She almost added “not everything revolves around you,” but she kept that thought to herself. Antoine wanted an explanation—words, and answers. But despite being surrounded by words and arguments all day at school, tonight Marine couldn't describe her feelings. She could only describe what she saw: the Pauliks in their three-hundred-year-old farmhouse, laughing about the leaking roof in the dining room; Léa singing, her brown eyes lighting up when she looked at Antoine; and Antoine, despite being one of the moodiest people she had ever met, laughing like he hadn't a care in the world. She didn't understand it, and she hated being emotional over something she couldn't explain. She had overheard Antoine, while washing the wineglasses with Hélène Paulik, tell Hélène of his parents in Paris. He'd said, “I think they pass each other in the hallway once a week.” But he had said it in a light enough way—imitating his mother's permanent frown—that Hélène had laughed. It had taken a year of dating before Antoine had even told Marine his parents' names.

“The city is more beautiful at night,” Marine said, looking out the passenger window. “At least in the winter. At night the buildings are more than just gold; they're luminous.”

“Wow,” Verlaque said. “What a way to change the subject.” He slowed the car down to pass over another sleeping policeman
on the rue d'Italie. “We're almost at your place, and you're not getting out until you tell me what's wrong.” He turned right on the rue Fernand Dol and stopped in front of Marine's green door.

“Please don't tell me what to do, Antoine.”

“What?” he asked, turning on his hazard lights. A Volkswagen Polo blaring loud, thumping music pulled up behind him. Verlaque winced and said, “Marine, I'm trying to understand how this conversation about a happy little girl turned into you admitting that
you're
not happy.”

The Polo beeped its horn. Marine opened her door and quickly got out. Verlaque got out of his side and ran to her.

“It's late, Antoine,” Marine said, fishing for her keys at the bottom of her purse. “We can talk about things tomorrow.”

“What things?” he asked. “What's wrong?” The Polo beeped again and Verlaque swore and walked over to the car, motioning for the driver to roll down his window. “Hold your horses for two seconds,” Verlaque said to the driver, a young man with diamond earrings and neck tattoos. The driver looked up at Verlaque and laughed.

“I spent a few hours this morning putting someone who looks just like you behind bars,” Verlaque told him. “Twenty years.”

The Polo driver shrugged, still smiling, and Verlaque heard a door thump closed. He swung around and saw that Marine had gone. “
Putain de merde!
” he shouted, resisting the temptation to bang his fist on the VW's roof. He walked back to his car and got in, putting it into first gear, and slowly drove away. The cigar club was to be at Jean-Marc and Pierre's apartment, not far away, on the rue Papassaudi. There was no point in going back to Marine's. He'd sleep across town at his place
tonight, and tomorrow, when he had gone over every detail of the evening, he'd try to figure out what was wrong. Had he said something at the Pauliks' to anger Marine? Did he pay too much attention to Léa? It was true, he loved Fauré's hymns, and Léa sang them beautifully. Marine liked jazz, especially Brazilian, and so didn't take part in their classical-music conversations. Had she felt left out? Verlaque realized that he had also spoken a lot to Hélène, who, as a winemaker, did something that he had always secretly wished was his profession. Perhaps working with grapes would have been an easier
métier
, and possibly more rewarding, than prosecuting all the Kévin Malongos of Aix. He looked in his rearview mirror and saw that the Polo was no longer behind him.

Verlaque slowed down, spotting a parking spot up ahead; he didn't have time to drive to the other side of the old town, where, unlike the La Torse folks, he rented a parking spot. He drove slowly toward the rare empty spot, but just as he was about to signal to pull in, a Mini turned left from a cross street just in front of him. He slammed on the brakes and cursed. The Mini—a car he particularly hated, and this one had red and white racing stripes up its sides—pulled quickly into the spot.

“Son of a—” Verlaque exclaimed in English. He turned around to try to make eye contact with the driver but couldn't see him or her. He drove on, past the Collège Mignet, which had been Cézanne's and Zola's high school when they had still been friends and dreamed of changing the world. “
Salut, les gars
,” he whispered to their ghosts. He was about to give up and head for his parking garage when he saw a spot, the last one before the road curved and the parking spots ended. He signaled and quickly pulled in, turning off the car and grabbing his travel cigar case out of the glove compartment. He locked the car and walked quickly up the rue Laroque, past the cinema,
and alongside Michaud's, where he half expected to still see a lineup. The bakery was closed for the evening, but the smell of butter still permeated the street.

The Cours Mirabeau was quiet on a winter's evening, and despite his rush, Verlaque dipped his hand into the steaming La Moussue fountain, feeling the warm, thermal-fed water run through his fingers. He turned up the rue Clemenceau, which would eventually lead him to the cigar club. His fellow Aixois smiled as he passed. He found himself smiling back.

He buzzed at Jean-Marc and Pierre's building at number 19, and the heavy wooden door made a thudding noise, opening about an inch. He pushed against it and walked into the foyer, making sure the door closed well behind him; thefts in the old town were rampant. He skipped up the building's worn stone steps two at a time, past the architects' offices on the first floor, on up to the second floor that Jean-Marc and Pierre shared with their neighbor, a retired tax inspector who listened to his television too loudly—despite several pleas from the other tenants—and never seemed to leave.

The apartment door—still sporting a small Christmas wreath—was ajar and Verlaque walked in to a cloud of cigar smoke. He breathed in and said, “Good evening, my friends. What a lovely smell.”

Jean-Marc Sauvat stared at Antoine Verlaque with an open mouth, and his partner, Pierre, began to laugh. Gaspard Baille, a law student and the club's youngest member, put his hand on his heart and knelt before the judge. The club's president, Fabrice, who owned a string of plumbing stores across southern France, was the first to speak. “
Mon roi
,” Fabrice said, bowing slightly and shaking some ash off his generously proportioned stomach. “We are your humble servants.”

Antoine Verlaque immediately realized what had happened.
“So that's why people kept smiling at me,” he said, reaching up to his head.

A flash from a cell phone temporarily blinded Verlaque, and he quickly removed his prize, folding the paper crown and putting it in his coat pocket.

“What's it worth to you for me
not
to send this photo to the newspapers?” asked Julien, slipping his iPhone back into his pocket.

Verlaque looked at Julien—a gregarious,
très
gourmand
luxury-used-car salesman whom he would trust with his life—and laughed. “My firstborn?” Verlaque asked.

“Deal,” replied Julien. “But I think your beautiful Dr. Bonnet might have issues with that promise.”

The group laughed and Jean-Marc glanced nervously at his good friend the judge. Never had Antoine Verlaque mentioned marriage, or children, with Marine Bonnet, nor with anyone else for that matter.

“Did you eat dinner, Antoine?” Jean-Marc asked.

“Yes,” Verlaque said, rubbing his stomach, which in turn reminded him of his New Year's resolution. “Thanks.”

“Would you like a whiskey?” Jean-Marc then asked, taking his friend by the arm. “We have some very good Johnnie Walker.”

Verlaque looked at Jean-Marc and was about to decline when the lawyer, who was also an old friend of Marine's, began to smile. “Just kidding,” Jean-Marc said. “We have a bit of Ardbeg, if Julien and Fabrice haven't finished it yet.”

“I hid the rest of it,” Pierre said, appearing beside them.

“Good call,” Verlaque said. He watched Pierre quickly put his arm through Jean-Marc's, but then draw it away. The couple had just moved in together and only very recently made their
relationship public to the cigar club. “If you can sneak me some Ardbeg, that would be great,” Verlaque whispered. “I was in court most of the morning, then spent the rest of my day having to eat galettes des rois.”