Philibert was nervous.
He was afraid of losing some of his prestige.
He said vous to his parents, his parents said vous to him and to each other.
“Hello, Father.”
“Ah, there you are, my son. Isabelle, kindly go inform your mother. Marie-Laurence, do you know where the bottle of whisky is kept? I cannot seem to find it . . .”
“Pray to Saint Anthony, my friend!”
At the beginning, such formality seemed strange to them but after a while they ceased to notice.
The dinner was laborious. The Marquis and Marquise asked them a host of questions but did not wait for their replies to judge them. Moreover, some of the questions were rather awkward, such as:
“And what does your father do?”
“He’s dead.”
“Ah, forgive me.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Oh . . . and yours?”
“I didn’t know him.”
“Ah, I see. You—would you like a bit more fruit salad, perhaps?”
“No, thank you.”
A sudden hush fell over the paneled dining room.
“And so you—are a chef, isn’t that right?”
“Uh, yes.”
“And you?”
Camille turned to Philibert.
“She’s an artist,” he answered for her.
“An artist? How quaint! And are you able to live from your art?”
“Yes. Well, I think so.”
“So very quaint. And you live in the same building, is that correct?”
“Yes. Just above.”
“Just above, just above.”
He made a mental search on the hard drive of his society directory.
“. . . So you must be a little Roulier de Mortemart!”
Camille panicked.
“Uh, my name is Camille Fauque.”
And she brought out the full artillery:
“Camille Marie Elisabeth Fauque.”
“Fauque? How quaint. I used to know a chap named Fauque . . . A fine man, I do recall. Charles, I believe it was. A relation of yours, perhaps?”
“Uh, no.”
Paulette did not open her mouth all evening. For over forty years she had been in service to people of this mold and she was too ill at ease to put her two cents’ worth on their embroidered tablecloth.
Even the coffee was laborious.
This time, it was Philou who was targeted:
“Well, son? Still in postcards?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Fascinating, isn’t it?”
“You said it!”
“Do not be ironic, I beg you. Irony is the defense of dunces, and it is not for lack of having repeated this to you, I believe.”
“Yes, Father. Citadel, by Saint-Ex . . .”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Saint-Exupéry.”
His father winced.
When at last they were able to leave the gloomy room where all the neighborhood animals had been stuffed and mounted above their heads—even a pheasant, for fuck’s sake, even Bambi—Franck carried Paulette up to her room. “Like a young bride,” he whispered in her ear, and he shook his head sadly when he realized that he would be sleeping light-years away from his princesses, two floors up.
He turned around and played with a latticework boar’s foot while Camille was undressing Paulette.
“Can you believe it? Did you see how badly we ate? What sort of crap was that? It was disgusting! I would never dare serve anything like that to my guests. You’d be better off making an omelet or boiling up some pasta!”
“Perhaps they can’t afford it?”
“Fuck, everyone can afford to make a good runny omelet, no? I just don’t get it. I really don’t. Eating shit with sterling silver cutlery and serving a revolting cheap wine in a crystal carafe: maybe I’m thick but there’s something here I just don’t get. If they sold even one of their umpteen chandeliers they’d have enough to eat properly for a year.”
“They don’t see things that way, I suppose. The idea of selling one single family toothpick must seem as strange to them as the idea of serving your guests canned Russian salad is to you.”
“Fuck, it wasn’t even the good stuff! I saw the empty can in the garbage, it was from Leader Price! Can you believe it? Live in a château like this with a moat and chandeliers and thousands of acres and all that and eat Leader Price! I really don’t get it, it’s beyond me. You’ve got the guard calling you Monsieur le Marquis and then you fucking put mayo from a tube on your poor-man’s vegetable salad, I swear, it doesn’t add up.”
“Come on, calm down. It’s no big deal.”
“Yes, it is a big deal, fuck! Yes, it is! What does it mean to hand on your legacy to your kids if you can’t even speak kindly to them? Did you see how he spoke to old Philou there? Did you see how his upper lip curled when he said, ‘Still in postcards, my son?’ meaning, ‘my stupid loser of a son’? Swear to God, I wanted to head-butt him. Philou’s like a god to me, he’s the most wonderful human being I’ve ever met in my life and then you get that cretin dumping on him like that.”
“Shit, Franck, stop swearing, dammit,” lamented Paulette.
Got you there, you plebeian.
“Shoot. On top of it I’m sleeping up in the boondocks. Hey, I warn you, I’m not going to mass tomorrow! Puh, to give thanks for what, anyway? Whether it’s you or Philou or me, we’d have been better off meeting in an orphanage.”
“Yeah, really! Along with Little Orphan Annie for example?”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Are you going to mass?”
“Yes, I like it.”
“And you, Grandma?”
Paulette didn’t answer.
“You stay here with me. We’ll show these hicks what a good meal is. Since they can’t afford better, well, we’ll feed them.”
“I’m not much good at anything anymore, you know.”
“Do you remember the recipe for your Easter pâté?”
“Of course.”
“Well, let’s not waste any time, okay? String up the aristocracy! Okay, I better get going, otherwise I’ll find myself in the dungeon.”
And the next day, imagine Marie-Laurence’s astonishment when she went down into her kitchen at eight o’clock and found that Franck had already come back from the market and was rallying his invisible flunkies.
She was flabbergasted:
“My God, but—”
“Everything’s fine, Madaaame la Marquise. Everything is hunky-dory, tip-top, right as rain!” he sang, opening all the cupboards. “Don’t worry about a thing, I’ll be taking care of lunch.”
“And . . . and my leg of lamb?”
“I put it in the freezer. Tell me, I don’t suppose you have a conical strainer by any chance?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“No, never mind. A sieve, then?”
“Uh, yes, in this cupboard.”
“Oh, this is fantastic!” he said ecstatically, picking up a device which was missing a foot. “What era does this date from? Late twelfth century, looks like, no?”
They arrived famished and cheerful. Jesus was back among them, and they all clustered around the table with their mouths watering. Oops, Franck and Camille sprang back to their feet. They had, once again, forgotten they must say grace.
The paterfamilias cleared his throat:
“Bless us, O Lord, bless this meal and those who have prepared it”—a wink from Philou to his kitchen boy—“and blah blah blah give bread to those who do not have it.”
“Amen,” replied the chorus line of adolescents, quivering.
“Since we’re doing things this way,” he added, “let us do honor to this marvelous meal. Louis, go and fetch two of Uncle Hubert’s bottles, please.”
“Oh, dear heart, are you sure?” said his lady wife tremulously.
“Absolutely. And you, Blanche, refrain from combing your
brother’s hair. We are not, as far as I know, at a salon.”
They were served asparagus in a mousseline sauce so delicious you could faint, then the Easter pâté à la Paulette Lestafier, then a roasted carré d’agneau accompanied by tians of tomatoes, and zucchini with thyme flowers, then a tart of strawberries and wild strawberries with homemade whipped cream.
“Whipped with pure elbow grease, I’ll have you know.”
Rarely had they been happier around that table with its twelve extension leaves, and never had they laughed so heartily. After a few glasses, the Marquis removed his cravat and told preposterous hunting tales which did not always show him in the best light . . . Franck was in and out of the kitchen and Philibert took care of the service: they were perfect.
“They should work together,” murmured Paulette to Camille, “my little grandson cooking away at his stove, and our tall courteous fellow waiting tables in the restaurant—it would be amazing.”
They had coffee out on the porch; Blanche brought out fresh petits fours, then settled again on Philibert’s lap.
Phew. Franck was done at last. After a service like this, he would have loved to roll a little—but, maybe better not . . . So he bummed a cigarette from Camille instead.
“What’s that?” she asked, indicating the basket everyone was eagerly dipping their hands into.
“Nun’s farts,” he laughed, “it was too much, I couldn’t resist.”
He went down a step and sat with his back against his sweetheart’s legs.
She put her notebook on his head.
“Doesn’t this feel good?” he asked.
“Very good.”
“Well, you should think about it, my chubby princess.”
“About what?”
“About this. How we feel here, now.”
“I’m not sure what you mean. You want me to look for lice?”
“Yeah. De-louse me and I’ll es-pouse you.”
“Franck,” she sighed.
“Naw, c’mon, it’s a symbolic thing! I’m resting against you, and you can work on me. Something like that, don’t you see?”
“You’re just too much.”
“Yeah. Well, I’d better go sharpen my knives; for once I have the time. I’m sure they have what I need here . . .”
They toured the property with the wheelchair, and parted without any inappropriate displays of emotion. Camille offered Philou’s family a watercolor of the château and to Philibert she gave Blanche’s profile.
“You’re forever giving your work away. You’ll never get rich.”
“So?”
At the end of the drive lined with poplars, Philibert struck his forehead: “Holy Moses! I forgot to tell them . . .”
No reaction among the passengers.
“Holy Moses! I forgot to tell them,” he said again, more loudly.
“Huh?”
“What?”
“Oh, nothing. Minor detail.”
Right.
Silence, again.
“Franck, Camille?”
“Yes, we know, you’re going to thank us because you saw your father laugh for the first time since the fall of the vase of Soissons.”
“No, no, not at all.”
“What is it?”
“Would you be w-w-wi-, w-w-willing to b-be my w-w-wi . . .”
“Your what? Your witches?”
“No, my wi-wi—”
“Your wimps?”
“N-no, my wi-wi—”
“What? Out with it, shit!”
“W-w-wi-tnesses, at my w-w-wedding?”
Franck slammed on the brakes and Paulette smashed into the headrest.
91
HE wouldn’t tell them any more than that.
“I’ll let you know when I know more myself.”
“Huh? But wait, put our minds at rest, at least . . . You do have a girlfriend, right?”
“A girlfriend,” he sniffed, “not on your life! A girlfriend . . . that’s vulgar. A fiancée, my dear.”
“But, uh, is she aware of this?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“That you’re engaged?”
“Not yet,” he confessed, looking down.
Franck sighed: “Uh-oh, I sense work ahead. Pure unadulterated Philou, this one. Okay, then. Don’t wait till the day before to invite us, right? So I’ll have time to buy myself a nice suit?”
“And a dress for me!” added Camille.
“And a hat . . . ,” said Paulette.
92
THE Kesslers came to dinner one evening. They walked around the apartment in silence. They couldn’t get over it. It was a very gratifying spectacle indeed.
Franck wasn’t there and Philibert was exquisite.
Camille showed them her studio. Paulette was present in every pose, every technique and every format. It was a temple to her joyfulness and sweetness, to the memories and regrets which sometimes furrowed her face.
Mathilde was moved, and Pierre was confident: “This is all wonderful! Really good! With last summer’s heat wave, the elderly have become very trendy, did you know that? These will take off, I’m sure they will.”
Camille was devastated.
Absolutely devastated.
“Don’t mind him,” said Mathilde, “he’s just provoking you. The old man finds it all rather moving . . .”
“Oh, and this, isn’t this sublime?”
“It’s not finished . . .”
“You’ll keep it for me, won’t you? You’ll put it aside for me?”
Camille agreed.
No. She would never give it to him because it would never be finished, and it would never be finished because her model would never come back. She knew it.
Never mind.
So much the better.
This sketch would stay with her, then. It wasn’t finished. It would be on hold forever. Like their impossible friendship. Like everything which separated them here on earth.
One Saturday morning, a few weeks back . . . Camille was working. She hadn’t even heard the chime of the doorbell when Philibert knocked on her door:
“Camille?”
“Yes?”
“The . . . the Queen of Sheba is here. In my sitting room.”
Mamadou was magnificent. She was wearing her finest African cloth and all her jewels. Her hair had been shaved from over two-thirds of her skull and she was wearing a little scarf that matched her tribal garment.
“I told you I would drop by but you better be quick because I’m going to a family wedding at four o’clock. So this is where you live, huh? This is where you’re working?”
“I’m so happy to see you again!”
“Come on . . . Let’s not waste any time!”
Camille settled her in comfortably.
“There. Sit up straight.”
“I always sit up straight!”
After she had done a few quick sketches, Camille put her pencil down on her pad: “I can’t draw you if I don’t know your name.”
Mamadou raised her head and stared at her with magnificent disdain: “My name is Marie-Anastasie Bamundela M’Bayé.”
Marie-Anastasie Bamundela M’Bayé would never come back to this neighborhood dressed like a queen from Diouloulou, her childhood village, Camille was sure of that. Her portrait would never be finished, and it would never be for Pierre Kessler either, and he would never have the eyes to see Bouli the little goat in the arms of this “beautiful Negress.”
Other than these two visits, and a party where all three of them went to celebrate the thirtieth birthday of one of Franck’s co-workers and where Camille went wild and shouted, “I have more appetite than a barra-cuda, a bar-ra-cu-da,” nothing worthy of notice occurred.
The days were getting longer, the Sunrise wheelchair had been broken in, Philibert went to his rehearsals, Camille worked and Franck lost a bit more self-confidence with each passing day. Camille liked him but she didn’t love him; she offered herself to him but did not give herself; tho
ugh she tried, she just didn’t believe in it.
One night he didn’t come home. Just to see.
She made no comment.
Then a second night, and a third. To get drunk.
He slept at Kermadec’s place. Alone most of the time; with a girl one night on a binge of Sudden Death beer.
He made her come, then turned his back.
“Well?”
“Leave me alone.”
93
PAULETTE could hardly walk anymore and Camille avoided asking her about it. She found other ways to draw her back from the edge. In the daylight, or beneath the halo of the lamps. There were days when she was absent, and other days when she was a real live wire. It was exhausting.
Where did respect for others end and the notion of not assisting a person in danger begin? This question tormented Camille, and every time she got up during the night, resolving to make an appointment at the doctor’s, the old lady would show up the next morning bright and fresh as a rose.
And Franck could no longer persuade one of his former conquests, a lab worker, to provide them with medication without a prescription.
Paulette hadn’t been taking anything for weeks.
The evening of Philibert’s performance, for example, she wasn’t up to it and they had to ask Madame Perreira to keep her company.
“No problem! I had my mother-in-law at home for twelve years . . . I know all about old people!”
The performance was held in a rec center at the very end of the A line of the RER regional express train.
They took the “Zeus” at 7:34, sat across from each other and worked out their differences in silence.
Camille looked at Franck with a smile.
Keep your shitty little smile, I don’t want it. That’s all you know how to give. Little smiles to lead people astray. Keep it, why don’t you. You’ll end up all alone in your ivory tower with your colored pencils, and it will serve you bloody right. I can tell I’m running out of steam now. The earthworm in love with a star—that’s gone on long enough.