Theory of Remainders (7 page)

“How are you?” she asked in French.

“I’m . . .” he began, finding himself confronted with too many contradictory and yet correct answers to this simple question. He blinked and looked over the table toward the others. “Well, for one thing, I’m
late
,” he said with a laugh. He struggled to formulate a sentence, but the French wasn’t flowing. “I’m sorry about missing the ceremony. But I suppose you’re used to my tardiness. Old dogs and new tricks, you know.”

“Old monkeys, you mean,” Roger called from his end of the table. “That’s the expression in French. We’ll just have to brush up your idioms.”

“Welcome back to Yvetot,” said Yvonne.

“It’s good to be here,” he said. Platitudes. He had a storehouse of those at the ready. He looked around the room. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

“And still such an excellent liar,” Roger proclaimed.

There was one person Philip hadn’t met yet—the short, rather dapper man on the other side of Yvonne. The new husband.

“You must be
Hair-vay
,” Philip said.

“
Er-vé
,” the fellow corrected with a broad smile, wagging his finger in the air. “Remember, my dear sir, the H is not pronounced in French.” He bowed his head to accept Philip’s unoffered thanks for the correction. “Dr. Hervé Legrand, at your service. Endocrinology. Infertility, mostly. Must say, I’m delighted to finally meet you. Awfully kind of you to make the trip.” Hervé clamped Philip’s hand in his own and shook. “I so look forward to speaking with you. Why don’t you sit over here by me?”

And before he could protest, Hervé had guided him away from Yvonne’s side, like a child being seated by the teacher’s desk. A first husband’s lot is ludicrous, just a hair’s breadth from that of the cuckold.

Roger beamed. “So good to have you back.”

“Is it?” Philip said.

“Of course! It was always so
useful
to have you in the family.” His eyes sparkled. “It kept their minds off me.”

Classic Roger. Part clown, part black sheep.

On the other side of Hervé, Yvonne leaned forward. “You had a good flight?” she wanted to know.

“Good enough.”

“And you’re staying . . . ?”

“At La Cauchoise.”

“That old
trou à rats?
” Roger interjected as he checked the thermal pot for coffee. “Run by our local fossil, Bécot?” He poured himself a cup.

Philip turned back to Yvonne. “How was the funeral?”

It was Hervé who answered. “A pity you slept through it. Jet lag, I suppose? The ceremony was quite tasteful.”

Roger nearly spat out his coffee. “Tasteful?” he retorted. “That old crock of a priest, Cabot, he got mixed up in the service. Part of it he did twice. Everything was out of order. We didn’t know if we were coming or going. I tell you, if mother hadn’t already been dead, this would have finished her off.”

“Roger,” Évelyne said, as if shushing a child. “That’s not appropriate.”

He ignored her. “The worst of it is that we’ll probably find she left everything to the church. Wouldn’t that just take the cake.”

“Roger!” cried Évelyne.

He turned to his sister. “You know, you don’t have to keep squawking my name like that. I’m as sorry as anyone that she died, but you have to admit, it was a pretty hilarious funeral.”

Évelyne clamped her beak shut, not willing to admit anything of the sort.

Flora’s face squeezed out a pained expression. “
Please
let’s try to get along,” she crooned.

The room roiled with tension, but when Philip exchanged a look with Yvonne, she let a flicker of humor show in her eyes. It was like old times. For Philip, an only child, initiation into the Aubert clan had been an introduction into wonderment.

There was a lull in the conversation. “So,” Philip said, “what exactly are we doing here?”

Various Auberts exchanged glances.

“Well,” Yvonne began. “It had to be today, I’m afraid. Flora and Pierre have to leave tomorrow.”

“
What
had to be today?”

Évelyne squinched her nose. “Didn’t you tell him?”

Yvonne shrugged. “I wanted to explain in person. But then he missed the ceremony. And didn’t call last night. And, anyway, it’s not the kind of thing you do over the phone.”

Évelyne rolled her eyes.

“You know, Philip,” Roger began, “it’s terribly nice of you to show up, considering we’ve only invited you so you can give away your money.”

“My money?”

“Don’t put it that way,” Yvonne snapped at her brother. She turned to Philip. “Let me explain. There’s a complication in Mother’s will . . .”

“That’s right,” Roger continued. “What she means is that you’ve walked into a disinheritance.”

“A what?”

“Not at all,” said Yvonne to Roger. “It’s just a formality.”

“It’s a scene straight from Balzac, that’s what it is,” Roger sang out.

Hervé stifled a grunt.

“Why do you
insist
on speaking like that?” Évelyne snapped at her brother.

“
Please
,” whined Flora to no one in particular.

The husbands were savvy enough to sit back and wait for Yvonne to intervene.

Philip smiled. The Auberts were like an improv group that had worked together too long, falling back on routine types and scenarios regardless of the subject handed to them, delivering new lines with the same worn-out intonations and gestures. And Philip knew the roles. Yvonne, the oldest, who always found herself in charge; Évelyne, who resented Yvonne’s leadership while not showing any aptitude for it herself; Flora, who fancied herself the mediator, but didn’t have the patience for it; and Roger, the clever brat of the family, but also the showman, the clown, the one who distracted them from their squabbling. Even the spouses played their bit parts.

But some of the characters had gone missing. Not the least of which was Anne-Madeleine herself. And, in the more distant past, Guillaume, the white-mustachioed patriarch who used to preside over events like this. But the absence of the parents hadn’t reassigned any roles.

There was another gap: as Philip surveyed the table his eyes stopped on the unoccupied chair next to Roger. “So where’s Élisabeth?” he said, asking after Roger’s wife.

Évelyne’s jaw clenched, Flora looked down at the table, Yvonne brought her hand to her temple, and Hervé turned away. Even Roger looked pained, his jocularity waning. “Ah, Philip,” he said, “I see you haven’t lost your knack for finding the most embarrassing thing to say.”

Which was true. Philip was as guilty as everyone else of playing old roles. As the therapist, his part had always been to produce the obvious questions that no one else would ask.

Before any more conversation could misfire, the door opened and the notary marched into the room. Maître Caumartin was a snappily dressed young man, junior to all those in attendance. In his hands he clutched a thick dossier with elastic bands closing the corners.

“Good morning,” he called out to the group, gracing them with a smile that looked freshly applied. “I understand we’re all present?”

When no one contradicted him he assumed his seat at the head of the table. Maître Caumartin arranged his forms and pens and stamps like theatrical props. He engaged in small talk with Yvonne and Hervé, warming up his audience. Finally he turned to the group at large, his eyes twinkling. Professing concern for
their
busy schedules and
their
presumable desire to move through the meeting quickly, he offered to get the process underway, and since no one objected during the instant he left for that eventuality, he flipped open the dossier and perused the first page of notes. “Ah, yes,” he muttered in a stage whisper to himself. Then, looking at the assembled participants over the tops of his glasses, he asked, “Is Monsieur Adler here?”

“Present,” Philip said, raising a finger.

“You are American, if I’m not mistaken?”

“That’s right.”

“Yes, I can hear it,” he smiled. “Do you believe your French is sufficient for following these proceedings?”

“I think so,” he replied. “My grammar’s not perfect, but I understand pretty well.”

Maître Caumartin leaned forward. “
Beecawz,
” he said in heavily accented English. “
Eef you wan, eye-uh can trance-late foe you.
” He grinned broadly at this accomplishment.

Roger sniggered.

“I think I’ll be all right,” Philip said.

The notary’s shoulders sagged. “Very well.” He fluttered his fingers over the papers like a pianist preparing to play. “Shall we begin?”

What Maître Caumartin had before him, Philip realized, was Anne-Madeleine Aubert’s will, a long document that the law apparently required him to read out loud from start to finish. Philip’s presence at the event made no sense to him. After all, he and Yvonne had been divorced for an eternity.

While the notary droned through the reading, pausing at the end of each section to see if there were questions, Philip stole glances at Yvonne. Age, he thought, that great illusionist. It plays so many tricks on us. Some people vanish entirely into the folds and creases of their advancing years, while others resist the tectonics of time. Yvonne was of the second sort.

She caught him spying on her and hunched her shoulders in a shrug of apology. Sorry for what, Philip wondered. For not explaining the nature of today’s visit? For making him come back at all? For something else?

As Maître Caumartin wound through the convoluted syntax and the legal terminology, certain topics recurred, and a vague idea began to form in Philip’s mind, fueled by what Roger had said.

“I’m sorry,” he said, interrupting halfway through. “Do I understand correctly that I have some sort of claim here?”

Maître Caumartin was taken aback to find himself cut off, especially by the person least connected to the family. He turned to Yvonne. “Did you not explain?” he inquired.

“I’m afraid we didn’t have time, Maître.”

The notary nodded and stroked his chin, then undertook to answer Philip’s question, putting it in layman’s terms. Because his marriage to Yvonne had been under the settlement of joint assets, the
régime de la communauté de biens
, he still held some right to a portion of the inheritance. He cited two passages of the civil legal code as proof.

Even after the explanation Philip couldn’t fathom it. If a divorced husband ended up owning some fraction of his ex-wife’s mother’s estate, he suspected he had ancient traditions or the Napoleonic Code to thank for it—laws that privileged the place of men, making it hard even today for a woman to squeeze a man out of her life. Or perhaps it was simply an error. Who knew for sure? He had always found the French legal system mind-boggling.

“But I have nothing to do with this,” he objected.

“Of course he doesn’t,” Évelyne chimed in.

“Music to our ears,” added Roger.

But it turned out not to be so easy to give away a legacy. After all, sometimes there were debts to be paid, and those, too, became the responsibility of the heirs. As the notary explained, for one to disavow an inheritance it was necessary for all the parties to agree, for everyone to sign, and for all the signatures to be certified.

When Philip prepared to ask another question, Maître Caumartin planted his elbows on the table and pressed his fingertips together, forming a tent over the papers. “Might we take questions later?” he said in a tone that made a lie of his smile.

Forty-five minutes later, the recital came to an end. There was property to be distributed among the heirs, not least of which was the large house at the edge of town. And what was to be done with Anne-Madeleine’s car, which had been quarantined in the garage for the past two years? Could any of the old paintings be used to pay off taxes? Who had the authority to make which decisions? The crisscrossing voices rose in a clamor.