French Leave Read online

“Hey, Garance! Hare Krishna! You going to a costume ball or something?”

  I smiled as best I could, and refrained from commenting on her poorly bleached mustache or her apple green suit from the Christine Laure chain in Besançon.

  No sooner had she moved on than it was my Aunt Geneviève who renewed the attack: “Good Lord, is that you, my little Clémence? Good God, what’s that metal thing in your bellybutton? It doesn’t hurt now, does it?”

  Okay, I thought, I’d better go and join Simon and Lola at the café . . .

  They were both out on the terrace—their beers within reach, their heads thrown back to the sun, their legs stretched out before them.

  I sat down to the sound of “cccrrrr” and ordered the same thing.

  Elated, at peace at last, our lips festooned with foam, we observed the good folk standing in their doorways observing the good folk outside the church. A feast for the eyes.

  “Hey, is that Olivier’s new wife—after the first one cheated on him?”

  “You mean the short brunette?”

  “Nah, the blonde next to the Larochaufées . . . ”

  “Help. God, she’s even uglier than the first one. Get a load of that handbag.”

  “A fake Gucci.”

  “Exactly. Even worse than the ones those street vendors in Italy sell. Fake Goo Chee from Beijing . . . ”

  “Disgraceful.”

  We could have gone on like that forever if Carine hadn’t come looking for us.

  “Are you coming? It’s about to start.”

  “We’re coming, we’re coming . . . ” said Simon, “let me finish my beer.”

  “But if we don’t go right away,” she insisted, “we’ll have lousy seats and I won’t see a thing.”

  “Go ahead, I said. I’ll catch up with you.”

  “Hurry, okay?”

  She was already sixty feet from us when she turned around to shout, “Stop in at that little grocery store on the other side of the square and buy some rice, okay?”

  And she turned around yet again.

  “Not the expensive kind, okay? Just some Uncle Ben’s, like last time! For all we use it for . . . ”

  “Yeah, yeah . . . ” he muttered, in his beard.

  We saw the bride off in the distance on her daddy’s arm. A girl who, soon enough, would have a whole string of little ones with big Mickey Mouse ears. We started counting how many people were arriving late, and cheered a choirboy who was streaking breathlessly across the square, tripping on his robe.

  When the bells had fallen silent and the locals had returned to their oilcloth-covered tables, Simon said, “I’d like to see Vincent.”

  “You know, even if we call him now,” said Lola, picking up her bag, “by the time he gets here . . . ”

  Just then a kid from the wedding party in flannel trousers and his hair parted on the side ran by. Simon called out to him.

  “Hey kid, you want to win five rounds on the pinball machine?”

  “Yeah!”

  “Then go back and sit through mass and come and get us at the end of the sermon.”

  “Will you give me the money right now?”

  Can you believe it. These kids nowadays are just too much.

  “Here you go, you little crook. And no cheating, okay? Come and get us?”

  “Do I have time for a round first?”

  “Yeah, go on,” sighed Simon, “but then after that head straight for the organ.”

  “Okay.”

  We sat on for a moment and then Simon said, “What if we go and see him?”

  “Who?”

  “Vincent, of course.”

  “But when?” I asked.

  “Now.”

  “Now?”

  “You mean: now?” echoed Lola.

  “Are you off your head? You want to take the car and go there now?”

  “My dear Garance, I think you have just perfectly summed up what I mean to say.”

  “Are you crazy?” said Lola. “We can’t just get up and leave like that.”

  “Why not?” (He was hunting around for change in his pocket.) “Right. Are you girls coming?”

  We didn’t react. He raised his arms to the sky: “We’re out of here, I said! Let’s go! Time to cut and run, make a break. Take French leave, as they say.”

  “And what about Carine?”

  He lowered his arms.

  He took a pen out of his jacket and turned the beer coaster over.

  We have gone to visit Vincent’s château. I leave Carine with you. Her things are in front of your car. Hugs.

  “Hey, kid! There’s been a change of program. You don’t need to go back to mass, just give this to the lady in gray with a pink hat, her name is Maud. Got it?”

  The kid nodded.

  “How you doing?”

  “Two extra balls.”

  “Repeat what I just said to you.”

  “I write my name up on the honor roll and after that I give your beer coaster to a lady with a pink hat called Maud.”

  “Keep an eye out, and give it to her when she leaves the church.”

  “Okay, but it’ll cost you more . . . ”

  He chuckled to himself.

  You forgot to leave the vanity case.”

  “Oops. Have to go back. She would never forgive me.”

  I left it out in full view on top of her bag and then we took off in a cloud of dust. As if we had just robbed a bank.

  At first, no one dared say a thing. But there was this nervous, happy excitement all the same, and Simon looked in his rear view mirror every ten seconds.

  Maybe we thought we’d hear the sirens of a police car hot on our heels—compliments of Carine, rabid and foaming at the mouth. But no, not a sound. Dead calm.

  Lola was sitting in front and I leaned forward on my elbows between the two of them. All waiting for someone to break the awkward silence.

  Simon switched on the radio; the Bee Gees were bleating, And we’re stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive. Ha ha ha ha . . . stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive . . .

  Well what do you know. It was too good to be true. It was a sign! The hand of God! (No. It was from Pattie to Danny to celebrate the anniversary of the day they met at the dance in Treignac in 1978, but we only found that out afterwards.) We all started wailing in unison, “HA HA HA HA! STAYIN’ ALIIIIIII-VVVE!” while Simon zigzagged along the D114, yanking his tie off.

  I put my jeans back on and Lola handed me her hat to put next to me on the seat.

  Given what she’d paid for it, she was a bit disappointed.

  “Hey . . . ” I said, to try and console her, “you can wear it at my wedding . . . ”

  Peals of laughter resonating through the little car.

  We’d rescued our good mood. We’d managed to eject the alien from our spacecraft.

  All we needed now was to pick up the last crew member.

  I hunted on the map for the hole where Vincent was living, and Lola played DJ. We could choose between France Bleu Creuse and Radio Gélinotte. Hardly the greatest sounds in the world but what did it matter? We were yakking away like crazy.

  “I would never have dreamt you were capable of doing something like this,” she said at last, turning to our chauffeur.

  “As you get older you get wiser,” he smiled, taking the cigarette I held out to him.

  We’d been driving for two hours and I was telling them about my stay in Lisbon when I—

  “What is it?” said Lola anxiously.

  “Did you see that?”

  “See what?”

  “The dog.”

  “What dog?”

  “On the side of the road . . . ”

  “Dead?”

  “No. Abandoned.”

  “Hey, don’t go getting so worked up about it.”

  “No, it’s the way he looked at me, don’t you see?”

  They didn’t see.

  I am sure that dog was looking at me.

  It made me sad as hell, and then Lola said somet
hing about our escape and she howled the music from Mission Impossible at the top of her lungs and I stopped thinking about the dog.

  I sat there holding the map and daydreaming, thinking about those poker games from last night. I had really stuck my neck out, that last round with my four loser deuces, but what do you know . . . I had won all the same.

  And now it all made sense.

  When we got there, the last tour of the day had just started.

  A young guy, white as an aspirin and pretty scruffy-looking, his gaze that of a cow in aspic, suggested we join the group up on the second floor.

  There were a few wayward tourists, women with flabby thighs, indifferent families, grouchy kids, a pair of meditative schoolteachers in their Birkenstocks, and a handful of Hollanders. They all turned around and stared when we joined the group.

  As for Vincent, he hadn’t seen us yet. He had his back to us and was waffling on about his machicolations with a zeal we didn’t know he had in him.

  Initial shock: he was wearing a threadbare blazer, a striped shirt, cuff links, a little ascot in his collar, and a sketchy pair of pants, but with cuffs all the same. He was close-shaven and his hair was combed back.

  Second shock: the complete and utter bullshit coming out of his mouth.

  This château had been in the family for several generations. Nowadays, he lived there on his own while waiting to start a family and restore the moats.

  The place had a curse on it because it had been built in secret for the mistress of François I’s third bastard, a certain Isaure de Haut-Brébant who had gone mad with jealousy, so the legend went, and who dabbled in witchcraft when the fancy took her.

  “ . . . And even today, ladies and gentlemen, on nights when the moon is orange, during the first decan, you can hear very strange sounds, a sort of groaning, coming from the cellars, the very cellars that were used as a prison once upon a time . . .

  “When my grandfather was in the process of remodeling the present-day kitchens, which you will see shortly, he discovered bones dating from the time of the Hundred Years’ War, and a few écus stamped with the seal of Saint Louis. On your left is a tapestry from the twelfth century, and on your right, a portrait of the famous courtesan. Notice the beauty spot beneath her left eye, irrefutable proof of some sort of divine curse . . .

  “Whatever you do don’t miss the magnificent view from the terrace. On very windy days, you can just make out the towers of Saint-Roch . . .

  “This way, please. Mind the step.”

  Pinch me, I must be dreaming.

  The tourists stared attentively at the witch’s beauty spot, and asked him whether he was ever afraid at night.

  “By Jove, I have all I need to defend myself!”

  With a broad swoop of his arm he took in armor, halberds, crossbows and other assorted clubs and bludgeons hanging in the stairway.

  The visitors nodded gravely and cameras were raised.

  What on earth was this utter lunacy?

  When we walked by him as we left the room, his face lit up. Very discreetly, mind, a nod at most. The complicity of blood and long-standing affiliation.

  The emblem of true nobility.

  Amidst helmets and harquebuses we collapsed in laughter, while he went on to enumerate the difficulties inherent in the maintenance of such a demesne . . . Four hundred square meters of roofing, two kilometers of gutters, thirty rooms, fifty-two windows and twenty-five fireplaces, but—no heating. Or electricity for that matter. And no running water, now that you mention it. Whence the difficulty, for your humble servant, in finding a fiancée . . .

  The visitors were laughing.

  “ . . . Here you have a very rare portrait of the Comte de Dunois. Notice the coat of arms, which you will also find sculpted on the pediment of the grand stairway in the northwest corner of the courtyard.

  “We are now entering a bedroom with an alcove that was furnished in the eighteenth century by my ancestor the marquise de La Lariotine, who came fox hunting in the region. Not only for foxes, alas . . . And my poor uncle, the marquis, had no cause to be jealous of the magnificent stag antlers I am sure you paused to admire in the dining room earlier on the tour . . . Do be careful, Madame, that is fragile. Now, I recommend you have a look in the little bathroom just here . . . The brushes, salt boxes and jars of ointment are all original . . . No, mademoiselle, that chamber pot is from the second half of the twentieth century and that is a container for absorbing humidity . . .

  “ . . . Now we are coming to the most beautiful part of the château, the spiral staircase of the north wing with its superb annular barrel vault. A pure Renaissance masterpiece . . .

  “Please don’t touch—time is hard at work, and a thousand fingertips, I am sorry to say, can do all the damage of one tiny miner’s hammer . . . ”

  I could not believe my ears.

  “Unfortunately I cannot show you the chapel, which is presently under restoration, but I beg you not to leave my modest dwelling until you have had a stroll through the grounds, where you cannot help but feel the strange vibrations coming from all these stones which, may I remind you, were brought here for the purpose of providing a refuge for the love of a man who was but a mere heartbeat from the throne, and who had been cruelly caught in the net of a wicked enchantress . . . ”

  Murmurs in the audience.

  “ . . . For those of you who are interested, near the exit to the grounds you can have your picture taken in a suit of armor, and that is also where you will find postcards and the restrooms.

  “I wish you all a pleasant day. May I remind you, ladies and gentlemen, please do not forget your guide. What am I saying—guide! A poor man indentured to his estate! A privileged slave, who asks not for alms but merely a means of subsistence, until the Comte de Paris is restored to his rightful throne . . .

  “Thank you.

  “Thank you, Mesdames.

  “Dank u wel, Meneer . . . ”

  We followed the group; he disappeared through a secret door.

  The yokels were beguiled.

  We smoked a cigarette while we waited.

  A guy at the entrance rigged the kids up in a dented suit of armor and took pictures of them while they brandished their weapon of choice.

  Two Euros per Polaroid.

  “Jordan, do be careful! You’re going to poke your sister’s eye out!”

  Either this guy was way zen, or way stoned, or way retarded. He moved around very slowly and deliberately and seemed to have no nerves at all. With a super strong Gitane dangling from his lips and a Chicago Bulls baseball cap on backwards: it was disconcerting to watch him. Fantasia meets Forrest Gump, sort of.

  “Jordan! Put that thing down!!”

  Once everyone had left, Way Retarded took a rake and shuffled off, munching on his smoke.

  We were beginning to wonder whether the little baron de La Lariotine would ever condescend to grace us with his presence . . .

  I could not stop saying, “Pinch me . . . Can you believe this? . . . What the . . . ” and shaking my head.

  Simon became very engrossed in the mechanism of the drawbridge, and Lola set about rearranging a rambling rose.

  Vincent emerged at last, with a smile. He was wearing a worn pair of jeans and a Sundyata T-shirt.

  “Hey! What the fuck are you guys doing here?”

  “We missed you . . . ”

  “Really? Awesome.”

  “How’re things?”

  “Great. Aren’t you supposed to be at Hubert’s wedding?”

  “Yeah, but we got lost on the way.”

  “I see . . . cool.”

  That was him all over. Calm, kind. Not making a big deal out of seeing us there, but really happy all the same.

  A moonstruck Pierrot, a Martian, our little brother, our very own Vincent.

  It was cool.

  “So,” he said, spreading his arms, “what do you think of my little campground?”

  “Yeah, what the hell do you mean bullshitting e
veryone like that?”

  “What? You mean the stuff I tell people? Oh . . . it’s not all bullshit. She really existed, this Isaure, it’s just that . . . Well, I can’t be sure she came through here . . . According to the archives, she’s actually from the dump down the road but since their château burned down, down the road . . . We had to find her somewhere to live, no?”

  “Yeah, but what about all that palaver, about ancestors and dressing up like an impoverished toff, and all the fairy tales you were telling them just now?”

  “Oh, that? Put yourselves in my place. I got here beginning of May to work the season. The old biddy told me she was going off on her spa treatment and she’d pay me the first month when she got back. Since then, not a word. She’s vanished. It’s already August and I haven’t seen a shekel. No lady of the manor, no pay stub or money order, nada. I’ve got to live off something, no? That’s why I had to make up that whole shtick. All I’ve got to live on is the tips, and you can’t get tips just like that. People want their money’s worth and as you can see it’s not exactly Disneyland, here . . . So I get out the blazer and the signet ring, and head straight for the battlements.”

  “Unbelievable.”

  “Ah, my good woman, you gotta do what you gotta do.”

  “And who’s the other guy?”

  “That’s Nono. He gets paid by the village council.”

  “And uh, isn’t he—does he have all his marbles?”

  Vincent finished rolling his cigarette, then said, “I don’t really know. All I know is that he’s Nono. If you understand Nono, that’s fine, otherwise, it’s hard going.”

  “But what do you do all day?”