French Exit

  “No, I only like the sound it makes,” she said, lightly panting, the vein on her forehead plumped. “How was your time with Susan?”

  Malcolm murmured indistinctly.

  “What’s that, Mr. Mumbles? I can’t understand you. Well, my news trumps yours. Are you ready for this? We’re insolvent. We’ve nothing left. Nothing in the world!” She laughed dementedly, cutting at the air with the knife. It came away from her hand, clattering down the length of the island and onto the floor. Malcolm was unnerved, and went away from her. Alone again, Frances collected the knife and resumed her work of sharpening the blade, but more slowly than before.

  5.

  There came a busy phase. Mr. Baker put Frances in touch with a man named Ralph Rudy, who would act as the go-between in charge of liquidating the remnants of the estate. “His pedigree is murky, but he’s hungry, and he knows his stuff,” Mr. Baker said. “Stay out of his way, Frances. He’ll do the work, all right.”

  Mr. Rudy did not exude prosperity. Also, he was not friendly. During the tour of the house he spoke almost not at all and was disinterested in Frances’s descriptions of her possessions, the anecdotes surrounding their purchase. He scratched out his notes in a warped spiral pad with a pencil stub so small it was not visible in his fleshy hand. He made a show of shielding the notes from Frances, who, unaccustomed to indignity of any kind, experienced a sort of emotional vertigo, a loathsome chill running down her arms and to the tips of her fingers. After the tour they sat in the kitchen.

  “Do you understand the nature of my situation?” she asked. “The delicacy of it, I mean?”

  Mr. Rudy nodded. He had no thought to put Frances at ease. “My fee,” he said.

  “Yes?” said Frances.

  “It’s a straight thirty percent. And that’s nonnegotiable.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “No.”

  “Mightn’t it be? Well, it’s going to have to be if you want to work with me.”

  Ralph Rudy flinched. He hadn’t looked Frances in the eye until now; in doing so he recognized his underestimation. She recognized his recognition, her expression explaining, You are a bland, stupid man, and I will give you no quarter. “Twenty-seven percent,” he found himself saying.

  “I will give you fifteen percent or I’ll thank you for your time.”

  “Twenty-five percent.”

  Frances clasped her hands together. Now came the moment she most appreciated. She said, “If you name another figure that is not fifteen percent, I will go to fourteen percent. Name another, I go to thirteen, and on down the line until your payment, and your sole function in regard to my own life, disappears altogether.”

  Mr. Rudy scowled. “That’s no way to negotiate.”

  “It’s the only way.”

  “This is a tricky job. There’s a risk you’re not accounting for.”

  “The risk is my own.”

  “But this could be detrimental to my reputation.”

  “Reputation.” Frances smiled. “That’s humorous.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “And why?”

  “Because,” she said, “I saw the state of your rattling vehicle when you pulled up. Because the vehicle wore New Jersey license plates. Because your socks, while coming close, don’t quite match. Because a cursory investigation turned up that you were recently fired from Sotheby’s for blatant misrepresentation and only narrowly avoided going to prison for this. And because, and because, and because. There’s no need for us to insult each other, Mr. Rudy. I have a somewhat dirty job that needs doing, and you are a somewhat dirty person. You seem to think you have me over a barrel, but I’ve other options you’re not taking into consideration.”

  “There’s no one in North America with my contacts,” Mr. Rudy said sharply.

  “I don’t doubt that. But you miss my point.” She looked away, over his head. “Have you heard any rumors with respect to my mental health?”

  “No.” He paused. “I’ve heard you’re odd.”

  “Odd.”

  “Odd, yes. Difficult.”

  “Difficult.”

  Mr. Rudy cleared his throat. “There’s the story of your husband, too.”

  Frances looked confused. “I’m sorry, which story is that?” she asked.

  “You know. About you finding him.”

  “Yes?” she said.

  “You know,” Mr. Rudy said. He was uncomfortable.

  Frances raised a finger, as though she’d stumbled across the answer herself. “I found him, but then I left him awhile, didn’t I?”

  Mr. Rudy nodded.

  “And people still talk about that?” asked Frances amusedly.

  “Sure they do. I mean, you know. Of course.”

  Frances shook her head. She leaned in, close enough that Mr. Rudy felt her breath on his face as she spoke: “I’m going to tell you a private truth, now: I’m more than odd. There’s a goodly part of me that wants to set this building afire, with myself and my son locked in. What do you think of that?”

  Mr. Rudy appeared adrift. “That’s none of my business.”

  “I say it is. Because if I don’t get my price, this goodly part may well become ever more goodly. It’s important, Mr. Rudy, that you understand my point of view, and appreciate both the fact and scope of my nihilism. Now, you and I know that many of the objects in this house are of an uncommon quality. My effects represent a small fortune. Fifteen percent of that, even in a hushed, rushed sale? Think of how many socks that would buy.” Mr. Rudy’s eyelids dropped, and he became pensive. Frances said, “Now let’s walk together, not speaking, to the front door.”

  They did this, shaking hands in the vestibule, and Mr. Rudy surprised himself by agreeing to the 15 percent commission. He knew he should dislike this woman, but he didn’t or couldn’t. As a man who disliked most everyone, himself especially, it was an exotic, heady feeling. “Call me Ralph,” he said.

  “I will call you Mr. Rudy.”

  She shut the door in his face and retired to the library, ringing the maid for an old-fashioned. The winter sun was radiant in the windows and her blood thrilled at life’s gruesome pageant. She rang Malcolm’s room; he answered but didn’t speak, he only sat there breathing. “Come on down, pal,” she said. “Let’s consider the bright sides together.” She hung up the phone and drank and waited.

  6.

  Liquidation under way, Frances and Malcolm returned to their suites at the Four Seasons. They saw nothing of each other during this time.

  Malcolm read. His momentary focus of study was the memoir recollections of disastrous voyages into uninhabitable regions of the world. He lived in his robe, with curtains drawn, the television on but muted. He never changed the channel; it was something he would glance at from time to time, as one looking out the window to check the weather. He ordered six full meals per day: breakfasts at nine and eleven; lunches at two and four; and dinners at seven and eleven. He was eating not with anger, not with desperation or sorrow, but with rigor, as though this gorging were part of a strict training. In the afternoon he pulled on his trunks and visited the pool but otherwise he never left his room. By the fourth day he couldn’t manage the small talk that came with receiving his meals, and so he had them left outside his door. He knew from experience that he was suffering from the hotel unwellness.

  Frances became involved with a number of reality-based TV shows. Anything having to do with incarceration and she was helpless to look away. The clang of a prison gate, the echoing, menacing chatter of distant unseen inmates, the rattle of keys on a polyester-clad guard: it was catnip for Frances. It wasn’t that she relished the misfortune of others, or that she took solace in her own freedom. She and Malcolm both were moved, in their respective areas of interest, by a sheer experience described in such detail that it achieved palpability. They were drinking steadily, if not heavily.

  Joan was often in touch with Frances, sending notes and leaving messages with the
concierge. Frances had been avoiding Joan but increasingly she wished to unburden herself. They met for brunch one Sunday morning in early December.

  “Are they saying I’m broke?”

  “They are.” Joan chomped a piece of celery. “Are you? Talk to old Joan.”

  “I am.”

  “And what does the word mean: broke?”

  “It means that I have nothing.”

  “And when you say: nothing?”

  Frances explained. Joan listened with perfect seriousness. “And what,” she said, “what if I were to bring up the topic of a loan?”

  “Oh, but you mustn’t do that.”

  “What about a gift? Would that be better, or worse?”

  “Either one would be the same ugly thing.”

  “Won’t you please bend on this?”

  “No.”

  Joan said, “A plan is coming to me.”

  Frances waited, watching.

  “Possibly it’s idiotic,” Joan continued. “But it’s an option, and the more of those you have the better, isn’t that right?”

  Frances waited still.

  “My Paris apartment. I haven’t been in, what, a year and a half? And it’s just sitting there.”

  Frances was nodding. She understood the proposition, and was wondering whether or not to bother hiding her shame. Joan took up her friend’s hand. “Don’t rush to think of it in any one light, darling. It’s only sensible.”

  “Sensible,” said Frances.

  “Sensible.”

  “Sensible.” Frances was experiencing the phenomenon of a familiar word losing its meaning. “Sensible.”

  Joan felt outraged; she pinched Frances’s arm, hard. Frances mouthed an Ow! but made no sound. She rapped the top of Joan’s hand with the scoop of her spoon. “Ow!” said Joan, and they sat back in their chairs, Frances rubbing her arm, Joan her hand, each watching the other with a sober expression.

  The waiter appeared and they ordered their lunch and a bottle of wine. They ate their lunch and drank their wine and then came a second bottle, which they also drank. Paris was not decided, but it began to look rosier, for it was viable, and as a plan it possessed at least a measure of style. They spoke of the city in youthful, romantic terms. They’d both been in love, and both had been loved in Paris, France. Joan expressed jealousy at the thought of Frances’s moving there permanently or semipermanently and Frances accepted this at the start, but when it went on too long she said it was beneath them, this banter, and that they should approach the event for what it was.

  “Which is what?” said Joan. “What are we calling it?”

  “Annihilation.”

  The waiter appeared. “How was everything today, ladies?”

  “Perfection.”

  When the check came, Frances and Joan reached for it simultaneously. There was a seated tussle and the bill soon was ripped to pieces by their clawing hands, the both of them trilling with laughter. The waiter brought them a new bill and Frances ceremoniously passed it to Joan. They were holding hands as they exited the restaurant, and Frances looked to be near tears. Later, smoking in the alley, the waiter was made contemplative by the memory of her. Her beauty had not been diminished by her sadness; he had held his breath as he watched her move from his sight line.

  She said goodbye to Joan and returned to her home to find it empty. The staff had been let go, but Mr. Rudy was pacing the property and clucking with self-satisfaction. He’d made many shrewd sales, and so Frances sought to endure his attitude; but then he began acting strangely, calling her Francey, touching her bare wrist. He was wearing a new suit and an abundant, musky scent. When he suggested they celebrate their successes over dinner, she laid a cool hand upon his ample face and said, “Mr. Rudy, I’d sooner fuck an eel.” After this he affected a high-road attitude, which she also endured. As they went over the figures she felt certain he’d massaged the payout in his favor but she didn’t pursue it, she merely took her cut with thanks and sent him on his oily way. The check denoted a fair amount, but not enough to represent anything besides a provisional pardon, and she studied the zeroes with a sadness that felt treacherous. She couriered the check to Mr. Baker and asked him to have the funds transferred to euros as quickly as he was able.

  7.

  Malcolm was yet in his suite. He was speaking to Susan on the phone.

  “Let’s eat food, for lunch,” she said.

  “Can’t do that.”

  “Let’s drink a drink in a bar.”

  “No.”

  Recalling certain past behaviors, she deduced he was in the grips of the hotel unwellness. In a patient tone, she said, “I want to see you, Malcolm. Tell me, how should I achieve this?”

  “I think I could swim,” he said.

  Ninety minutes later he was standing beside the pool in trunks, while Susan trod water before him. He crouched into a squatting ball, toes hanging over the pool’s edge. Tipping slowly forward, he flopped into the water. His body rose to the surface, facedown, lifeless. A long while passed; Susan watched, smiling. They had swum together many times and she expected a performance. Malcolm breached, gasping. “We called that one Dead Man’s Float,” he said.

  “Who’s ‘we’?”

  “My school friends and I.”

  “You never had a friend.”

  “I had four friends.”

  “What were they like?”

  “Rich brats, like me. One was sex obsessed, one was sporty, one was gay, I guess. One was weirdly content.”

  “Who were you?”

  He wondered how he should put it. “A lump of heartbroken clay.”

  “Why were you heartbroken?”

  “Well,” he said. “It was before Frances came around. I’ve told you all this.”

  “Not really you haven’t.” They were facing each other, swimming in place. “Tell me now,” she said.

  He took in a mouthful of water and spit it upward in a thick stream. “Who knows where to start.”

  “Start at the end.”

  “My father died and Frances showed up unannounced at the academy.”

  “And you didn’t know her very well at this point, right?”

  “Hardly.”

  “Had you known your father?”

  “Almost not at all.”

  “But you were heartbroken about his dying?”

  “No, I was ashamed of that.”

  “Because of the way it happened,” she said.

  “Of course. It was in all the papers, you know. Fragrant Frank Price. My father had made so many enemies, and they were having a lot of fun with the details. And my mother was made out to be some sort of monster.”

  “Did the other kids know about it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And were they terrible?”

  “Yes.”

  A moment passed. Susan said, “Tell me why you were heartbroken, Malcolm.”

  “I was heartbroken because Frances and my father never made the pretense of having even a passing interest in me. Most of us at the academy felt this to one degree or another but my parents were extreme. Not a word on my birthday. Not a card. Ten months had passed without my seeing either one of them, then my father died and Frances showed up in a fur coat, tipsy at eleven o’clock in the morning. ‘How are you, pal?’ she asked me.”

  “Were you angry with her?”

  “I was in awe of her.”

  “And she took you away from the academy.”

  “She asked me what I wanted to do and I said I didn’t know. She said, ‘Do you want to come away with me?’ and I said that I did.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Twelve years old.”

  Susan’s arms were starting to burn but she continued swimming. There was no one around but them; the air was warm, the pool cool, the light dim, and all sounds were softened, doubled. Malcolm’s face had gone blank. It was rumored that after Frances took him out of school he’d never gone back, and she asked him if this was true.

&n
bsp; “I never set foot in a classroom again,” he said. “But, there was Ms. Mackey.”

  Ms. Mackey was Malcolm’s tutor. She came to the apartment each weekday for two years. In the beginning she taught him French; here was the reason Frances had hired her. Once this was accomplished, Frances did not dismiss her but asked that she stay and teach Malcolm “other things.” She asked Frances what this meant and Frances replied, “Things that are fascinating.” Ms. Mackey took this to mean she could teach Malcolm whatever she wished, and she did this.

  She was a slender, melancholic woman of thirty-five with a gap in her front teeth and aching, pale blue eyes. Certain of their days were devoted to her unanswerable auto-queries relating to the mean stupidity of existence, the fallibility of romantic love, her suspicion that dissatisfaction and shortcoming were constants of the human condition. Once she said, “I keep trying to march in time but the drummer’s out to get me.” Occasionally she would fail to show up and Malcolm would call her at home. Her explanations ran to naked admissions; she was bowing to pressures larger than she could address. “But tomorrow I’ll be there, Malcolm, I promise. Are you missing me very much? I like it when you sit there scratching your belly at me, you little gentleman.” By the end of their first year together Malcolm was in love with her, and she knew it, and treated his love with care and caution. She was pleased to wield this power over him but she neither abused it nor cultivated it.

  They worked mornings in the library, then would eat lunch together in a restaurant or café. Frances wanted Malcolm to eat out daily because, as she told Ms. Mackey, “Waiters know more about life than anyone else in the world.” Malcolm felt grand when they dined; he began to settle the bills himself and he respected currency for the role it allowed him. If a waiter flirted with Ms. Mackey, Malcolm would not tip him a penny. If he treated Malcolm as an equal, the man was richly rewarded. Ms. Mackey lamented this behavior, pointing out that money was too often used in lieu of verbal communication. But she couldn’t deny that she was charmed by Malcolm, and she told him as much.

  On his fourteenth birthday, Ms. Mackey did not arrive for their lessons, didn’t answer his calls or return his messages. The next day it was the same, and in the afternoon he took the subway, for the first time in his life, to her apartment. Malcolm described the scenario to Susan: “She answered the door in a robe with a stain down the front. She seemed scared; she pulled me in like I was late to meet her. Her apartment was dismal: a mattress on the floor, bedsheet tacked to the window, and her fridge was leaking water across the kitchen. The realization that she was poor was very shocking to me. I hadn’t seen anything like that before, and I was actually frightened by it. She was speaking English; she wouldn’t respond to me in French. She sat me down and asked, strangely cheery, ‘What can I do for you?’