The Other Story (32 page)

He is asked to repeat the name.

“I’m sorry, I’ve checked, Signor Kolt, but we do not have a guest here under that name.”

He is stymied. Is Dagmar Hunoldt registered under one of her husbands’ names? He tries to describe her to Carla. A lady in her sixties. White hair, tied back, a panama hat. A heavier version of the actress Glenn Close.

“No,” says Carla, “I’m afraid that does not ring a bell. I’ll ask my colleague Lodovico. Hold on.…
Un momento
 … Lodovico says maybe you mean Signora Jordaens? She was here with her husband, but she left this afternoon.”

Nicolas asks Carla for the correct spelling of the name, thanks her, and hangs up. He picks up the BlackBerry, looks up Jordaens on Google. He sees photos of people who have nothing to do with Dagmar Hunoldt. He is mystified. Was it her? Or a woman who looked like her? Was she staying at the hotel? Or just coming in for an early swim and breakfast from a nearby yacht? He feels like he has been conned. Was he playing up to a total stranger?

MOM
flashes on the screen.

“Hey!” he says, gasping with pleasure and relief.

Emma laughs. “You sound like you’ve missed me.”

“I have!” he says. “You’ll never know how much.”

He wonders if she is still on the boat with her boyfriend in Saint-Tropez.

“How’s Ed?” he asks cautiously.

“Fine. I suppose you’re curious about him now that you’ve spoken to him?”

“Very curious. But happy for you.”

“Are you having a lovely time in Italy, Nicolas? Are you working hard on your book?”

He looks around the beautiful room, noticing that Malvina has left the Rolex in the middle of the bed. It is lying there, useless and glittering, like a discarded toy. He picks it up and shoves it into his suitcase with a pang of anger.

“No,” he mutters. “I’m having the worst time ever.”

“What’s wrong?” She sounds worried.

A knock on the door. He asks his mother to hold on. It is one of the housekeepers, coming for the packing. He is embarrassed to watch the woman handle his things while he is still in the room. He tells her he will help her; then it will be done faster. While she folds his clothes, he’ll deal with the stuff in the bathroom.

Once he is in the bathroom, he resumes the call to his mother.

“Sorry about that. I’m in the middle of packing.”

“What’s wrong, Nicolas?”

“Malvina is pregnant. It wasn’t planned. At least not by me. And she wants to keep the baby.”

“I’m not surprised.” His mother’s voice is cold.

“What do you mean?”

“I never liked her. I never trusted her. Ever since the first time I saw her.”

He sighs. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What could I say? She was young, lovely. You thought she was soft and gentle, but I never saw that. I never saw that softness. I guess you were lonely, you were taken by her, and you were never over Delphine. That’s how it happened. That’s how these things happen.”

“Yes,” he says grimly, “and now I’m trapped. She left, earlier on, for reasons I don’t want to go into right now, and all of a sudden, she was someone else. It was dreadful. Another woman. A stranger. She wants compensation. She wants us to get married. To get married!”

The last words ring out in the salmon pink bathroom.

His mother’s tone is firm and strong, the teacher’s voice. He had often made fun of that voice, but today, listening to it does him good; it reassures him.

“Nicolas, no one is going to force you to do what you don’t want to do. Nothing, no one. You can get a lawyer onto this. You did not want this child. This is not your choice. You are not in love with this girl. Remember that.”

“Mom, there’s a baby on the way!”

“Perhaps. But you need to keep your calm; you have to stop panicking. She trapped you.”

“Did you feel trapped by Dad when you got pregnant?” he asks.

“No! Of course not. We wanted you. You were everything we always wanted. We were so proud when we found out I was pregnant.”

“But you were so young, both of you.”

“Old enough to know we wanted to be parents. You were our decision. This is not what is happening to you today. She is turning that baby into a hostage. You are going to have to put up a fight.”

He thinks of what lies ahead: the lawyers, the endless battle, the registered mail with recorded delivery, the mediators, and the child, the faceless child. He knows he will not shy away from being that father’s child. He will legally recognize it as his own, if the DNA tests prove he is indeed the father. It is Malvina he will have to reckon with for the rest of his life, even if he now knows he will leave her. He will refuse to get married. But she will still be linked to him forever, as his child’s mother. A fierce thought comes, and he does not fight it. What if she has a miscarriage? Those things happen; women lose babies in the early stages. Is it wrong for him to hope with all his heart that she might naturally miscarry?

“I miss you, Mom.”

“I miss you, too, Nicolas.”

“We have some catching up to do, don’t we?”

“We do.”

He says good-bye to his mother and returns to the bedroom. His suitcase is ready, and a bellboy is summoned. He thanks the housekeeper, tips her, and follows the bellboy to the new room. It is smaller, but just as comfortable. The sea view is perhaps even lovelier from here. He tips the bellboy and pulls the door shut. A strange, lonely peace comes over him. He lies on the bed and peruses his e-mails (no answer yet from Alice Dor), checks the social networks. He skims through. Nothing retains his attention. He puts the BlackBerry away. He might as well go down to the party for the newlywed friends of Dr. Gheza. But instead, he stays on the bed, hands crossed behind his neck. He thinks of Malvina taking off on a plane back to Paris. Her determination. The new assurance she now flaunts. The Rolex lying in the middle of the bed. He thinks of Delphine, and he wonders whether one day he will have the courage to tell her he still loves her. Would she laugh at him? Would she give him another chance? He thinks of Dagmar Hunoldt. Was it truly her? He would never know, unless he did meet her, one day. Mercury Retrograde … Epicure … And him, hanging on to every word. What a complete idiot! Roxane, François, and the sting of their words. Savannah, the luscious lips he nearly kissed. Cassia Carper, her legs, her shoes, and her tongue in his mouth. Sabina, her husband, and the e-mails, the photographs. He doesn’t know why, but he smiles. He thinks of Laurence Taillefer writing her articles and stops smiling. Nelson Novézan. His leer. His tobacco-stained yellow fingers. His ego.

Alice Dor. Her tears. Her voice on the phone. Winning her trust back. Winning her esteem back. Writing at last. He is reminded of that unforgettable moment in her office when she said to him, four years ago, “Have you thought of publishing this book under another name? Or do you want to stick to Nicolas Duhamel?” He had replied immediately. “No,” he said. “I want to sign it Nicolas Kolt.” She had held out her hand to shake his and said, smiling, “Good. I hope to publish many other books by Nicolas Kolt.”

It is only a shiver, a shudder, but he feels it: heady, intoxicating energy.

And he sees it: a tendril of blue haze unfurling in front of his eyes.

W
HEN NICOLAS RETURNED FROM
Saint Petersburg in November 2006 with a heavy cold, he sent an e-mail to Lisaveta Sapounova the morning after his arrival.

Dear Lisa,

Thank you for your precious help. There is one final question I need you to answer for me. You are the only person who can help. It’s going to sound strange, but here it is.

I need to know how Alexeï Koltchine died. He was only fifty-three when he passed away, and I must know how. It’s important for me. Is there any way you can find this out? I’m sorry for the trouble.

I often think of you in your room overlooking the blue Fontanka.

Maybe one day, I will come back. I would like that very much.

Thank you again,

Nicolas Duhamel

Lisaveta Sapounova did not respond for a few days, but when she did, Nicolas had to print the e-mail and then read it on paper over and over again.

Dear Nicolaï,

It was a pleasure to hear from you. And it is a pleasure to help you. I am presently sitting in my room, a trifle cold and damp today, drinking tea and translating. The Fontanka is still as blue and lovely, and we have had some snow already.

I found the information you wanted rather quickly. Another friend of mine works for a newspaper and she has access to that sort of data, which I don’t.

However, I must warn you, Nicolaï, that what you are going to read is not happy news. I feel I must tell you. You are still very young. And now that I know you a little, I can guess you are a sensitive person.

I have taken the liberty of translating the short article that was published in the local newspaper in late July 1993. Please find it herewith. I hope that reading it will not be too distressing for you.

My thoughts and prayers are with you,

LS

The body of a drowned man was found floating yesterday morning at dawn in the Griboedov canal, just across from the Kazan Cathedral. The man has been identified as Alexeï Vladimirovitch Koltchine, fifty-three years old, an office clerk, unmarried, no children, living near Sennaya Square. His neighbors describe him as a gentle, timid man, with few friends, who led a quiet life. He had no problems at work, where he was employed for the past fifteen years. Forensic tests reveal a large quantity of liquor in the bloodstream. The body does not show signs of batter or foul play. There was a letter in Alexeï Vladimirovitch Koltchine’s pocket, but the long moments spent in the water diluted the ink, and thus the writing was no longer readable. The police are pursuing their inquiries, but at this stage it has been impossible to determine whether Alexeï Vladimirovitch Koltchine stumbled and fell into the canal, or whether he decided to take his own life. He will be buried in his parents’ grave at Volkovo.

A
LEXEÏ. ZINAÏDA. FIODOR.

His Russian blood.

What had happened behind those walls in that old building on Pisareva Street where his father was born?

The brother. The sister. Five-year difference between them. The small, cramped apartment.

Had it been a hideous, forceful act? Had it been a secret, doomed, impossible love? What had Natacha and Vladimir known?

When Alexeï wrote to his sister in July 1993, some thirty years later, was he asking for her forgiveness? Or had Alexeï written to say he could not live without Zinaïda? That he was going to put an end to it all?

The letter retained all its mystery. Nicolas could see it perfectly, the envelope, dingy from its long trip from Saint Petersburg to Paris, made of plain white paper. The careful, curly handwriting. “Madame Lionel Duhamel. Boulevard Saint-Germain.” Or had it been forwarded to the villa near Nice? Nicolas imagined the breakfast tray, toast, coffee, the pot of milk, jam, honey, the morning papers. She must have stared at that Russian stamp when the letter arrived. The leap of her heart when she understood her brother had written it.

How had the envelope found its way into Théodore’s hands? Who had shown him that letter? Had Alexeï written a similar one to Théodore?

Suddenly, the novel was mapped out in front of Nicolas, like a runway lights up for a plane arriving by night. He had only to follow the lights, pinpricked in his head. The book formed around the mystery of a father. Mysterious in every way. The father’s birth. The father’s death. No one could tell. No one knew. People who did know were no longer alive to tell the truth, to reveal it in its entirety.

Nicolas never wished to be in his book. The choice was clear from the start. He needed to turn away from his own story to spin another tale. Yet what he invented had solid roots sprouting from deep within him. Roots seeped with his emotions. His turmoil. His questions. His searching. His quest.

Nicolas did not have all the answers. He had only possibilities. Choices. Exploring them the way he did in the novel both shielded him and offered him a form of protection, a manner of dealing with what the truth could be. Whatever that truth could be.

In his book, Margaux discovered the letter hidden behind a loose floorboard in the ancient Zeccherio household, near the small piazza. A letter lying there for years, waiting to be read. A letter from a brother to a sister. A farewell letter. A letter that said the unthinkable. Margaux had to sit down. Her knees gave way. She clutched the envelope to her heart and cried. Somehow, her father had read that letter, the one she was holding in her trembling hands, and her father knew what she now knew, that he had been born of the impossible love between a brother and a sister. The avalanche had been no accident. Her father had taken his own life.

“How dare you suggest something so hideous?” Elvire Duhamel had screamed two years later, when she read
The Envelope
after it was published in 2008. “Have you lost your mind, Nicolas? You have no proof, no proof at all! All I can say is, thank God you are signing this book Nicolas Kolt and not Nicolas Duhamel. And thank God my poor father passed away last year, so he can never read this rubbish.”

But Nicolas’s mother, Emma, had been so moved by the novel that she had not been able to speak; she only held his hands and squeezed them. Later, she wrote him a note, which he kept.

Nico,

I understand what you have tried to do. I see how you have filled in the blanks, your way. No one has the answers, but you have opened up doors, courageously; you have looked at truth in the face. You have done what none of us would have dared do. I am proud of what you have written. Bravo, Nicolas Kolt. My son.

Lisaveta Sapounova sent him a handwritten card made of thick pale green paper. He also kept this one, preciously.

Dear Nikolaï,