Paris Is Always a Good Idea Page 10

  Remarkable how the things you experience as a child influence you even many years later, thought Robert. Even today, as a man in his late thirties he still automatically looked out for shooting stars on clear summer nights. However, in Manhattan they were very hard to find—or rather you never found them, because the city lights and the exhaust fumes so polluted the sky that there were hardly ever any clear, starry nights.

  Robert took a sip from the thick white cup that the graceful girl with the ponytail who served him had put on the little round table with a friendly smile and a glass of water, and he had automatically smiled back.

  Not all Frenchwomen were bitches, he corrected himself, as he leaned back in his chair, raising his face to the sun.

  He looked at the book, suddenly remembering how, as a young boy, he had asked one evening if the story of the blue tiger was a book as well. But his mother had shaken her head and said that this story belonged just to the two of them, and that she would give it to him. And that was what she had done, many years later.

  Robert had a lump in his throat as he remembered how, in the thick brown envelope the lawyer had handed over to him after her death, he had found the manuscript, in a blue binding, among all kinds of papers, documents, and old photographs.

  On the flyleaf were the words The Blue Tiger. And beneath them, For R. His mother had attached a note to the manuscript. In her familiar round handwriting with the oversize up and down strokes she had written:

  For my dear Robert in memory of the many evenings we spent with our friend the tiger. They were infinitely precious to me.

  He was no longer a little boy when he found the story in the envelope, but at the sight of the manuscript, which was like a final farewell from his mother, his eyes filled with tears.

  The time had come when he was too old for bedtime stories. That was when she had probably written it all down for him, every detail. Moved, he’d leafed through the pages, which had been written on an old-fashioned typewriter, and read the story once again after such a long time. It had been pleasant and sad, just as it is always pleasant and sad when you return to a place that you once loved very much and discover that nothing stays the way it once was.

  It reminded him of what his mother had said in her last moments. “I’m going to a country that is so far away that you can’t get there by plane,” she had said. But it was only when he had the manuscript in his hand that it became clear to him that the words referred to part of the story.

  And then he’d stood in front of a stationer’s window a few hours ago, in a foreign city, on a foreign continent, and suddenly seen this book. This book that couldn’t actually exist, because only two people knew the story and the only manuscript was in a brown envelope almost four thousand miles away.

  It had left him speechless.

  Confused, he’d first carried on for a few paces, then turned around to make sure.

  When he asked to see the book, written by the famous children’s author, an elderly man with a beard and gray, neatly combed hair, as he could see from the big poster for the reading in the stationery store, he’d still thought that it must be a totally different story that just happened to have the same title. But then he’d begun to read, and after just a few sentences he knew it was the story his mother had left him.

  He felt he’d been robbed—yes, robbed was the right word! Like someone who comes home to find that his apartment has been burgled. Powerless and furious at the same time.

  Someone had taken possession of his precious memory and thrown it on the marketplace to make a profit out of it. Robert could not as yet explain how that could have come about, but he’d find out. He would defend his rights. You didn’t have to be an expert in copyright law to recognize immediately that the whole affair stank to high heaven.

  He picked the book up again and leafed through it. He actually found the brightly colored illustrations painted by the young woman with the braid who had abused him so insolently pleasing, but that didn’t make it any better. However this supposedly so-honest French author had gotten hold of the story of the blue tiger, he had brazenly copied it. Unfortunately that was how it was these days. People had no respect for intellectual property. At least you learned in college that you should always identify your sources. All the rest was copy and paste, and most people seemed to find that perfectly normal. But in this case they were definitely taking it too far. “You don’t have to put up with everything,” his father had often said. And he had been right.

  For the first time in his life Robert Sherman was glad that he came from a family of lawyers. He knew his way around. He sat in the sun for a while longer, feeling his body giving in to exhaustion and getting heavier and heavier. All at once he was seized by such weariness that he almost fell asleep there on the wooden chair. Jet lag and the aggravations of the day were taking their toll.

  He finished his café crème, which had already gone cold, took a few coins out of his pocket, put them on the table, and decided to return to his hotel. On the way he’d have a meal somewhere.

  It was five thirty when he set off, actually too early to dine in Paris, but all the hassle had made him hungry. What he needed now was a good steak and a glass of red wine. He’d go to bed early and let Rachel know that he’d arrived safely. And the next day he’d check that Marchais guy out much more thoroughly. He wouldn’t expect much help from Mademoiselle Laurent in that respect.

  As he strolled along the rue Saint-Benoît, a little street leading to the rue Jacob where his hotel was, he noticed some people standing chatting outside a restaurant—from inside came the tempting smell of well-grilled meat. Without much thought, he joined the line.

  * * *

  LE RELAIS DE L’ENTRECÔTE was a classic steak-frites restaurant. To be more precise, they only had steak and fries, but they were excellent. Robert found that the lemony sauce they served with the meat took a little getting used to at first, but then it grew on him; the pommes frites were crisp and fried a golden brown and the meat was well seasoned and tender. The first part of the evening—if you ignored the fact that an overzealous waiter whipped his plate away from under his nose as soon as Robert intimated that he didn’t want any dessert—could be regarded as a success. He’d drunk two glasses of red wine that had rolled strong and smooth over his tongue, he’d eaten well, and he was now looking forward to his bed. But that was when the second part of the evening began. With a check that was quite affordable—and yet not affordable, at least not for someone whose wallet had vanished.

  With increasing nervousness Robert had felt in all the pockets in his pants and jacket while the waiter stood beside the table demonstrating an exquisite combination of impatience and arrogance and the next guests were already waiting to be seated.

  “I don’t believe it!” Robert flushed at the thought that it wasn’t just his money that was in his wallet, but also all his cards. After all the problems with his room that morning, followed by the problems with the elevator—had it only been that same morning?!—he’d completely forgotten to put some of his valuables and some cash in the safe in his room as he usually did. Where was his bloody wallet?

  It was normally in the inside pocket of his jacket, but there was nothing there. All of a sudden he was completely awake and alert. This was the day for adrenaline rushes, that much was clear. He tried to explain to the irritated waiter that he was not a conman who was trying to eat out for nothing, but an American tourist who’d had quite a lot of hassle on his first day in Paris.

  “My wallet’s gone!” he explained with a look of panic.

  The waiter showed little sympathy. He simply responded, “Alors, monsieur!” shrugged his shoulders and seemed still to be expecting monsieur to conjure his wallet out of thin air.

  With some effort he managed to scrape together a ten-euro bill and a few coins that he had loose in his pockets. The total came to nineteen euros and fifty cents.

  “C’est tout!” he declared. “I don’t have any more.”

&
nbsp; The waiter remained stony faced. Robert was just about to offer him his watch—it was, after all, his father’s old TAG Heuer—when it suddenly came to him where he had lost his wallet.

  He jumped up, grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair, and shouted to the nonplussed waiter:

  “Wait! I’ll be right back. Je reviens!”

  When he arrived, totally breathless, outside the little postcard store in the rue du Dragon, it was a quarter past seven. The wide-mesh steel shutters had been let down in front of the display window and the entrance, but there was still a light burning in the store.

  Robert saw a slim form in a flowery summer dress with a long braid leaning over the cash register, and he leaned his forehead against the shutter for a moment in relief. Thank God, she was still there. He hammered at the door like a madman.

  “Mademoiselle Laurent! Mademoiselle Laurent! Open up! I forgot something!”

  She looked up, started, and came to the door. He felt something almost like a wave of happiness as she swept toward him and looked at him through the glass with her big eyes.

  When she saw that it was him, she narrowed her eyes like a cat and shook her head energetically.

  “Hey, mademoiselle, you have to let me in, it’s important!”

  She raised her eyebrows. Then, with a triumphant smile, she turned the sign that was hanging inside the door.

  It said FERMÉ. Closed. She shrugged her shoulders like a mime and pointed to the sign.

  Adrenaline rush!

  “Dammit, I can see that you’re closed, I’m not stupid,” he shouted, rattling the shutter. With a cold smile, the silly cow then actually left him standing outside the door. He watched as she went back to the counter in perfect calm.

  “Hey! Open up! Dammit, my wallet is still in the store. I want my wallet—now, do you hear?”

  It was quite obvious that Rosalie Laurent didn’t have the slightest desire to hear him. She turned round briefly and showed Robert Sherman her middle finger with a malicious smile, then turned out the light and disappeared up the little spiral staircase.

  * * *

  THAT NIGHT ROBERT SHERMAN slept like a dead man. After going straight back to the Hôtel des Marronniers and dragging himself with heavy tread up the stairs to his little room on the fourth floor (the elevator was still out of order; they’d offered him a free breakfast the next morning as compensation), he’d only had enough energy for a text to Rachel.

  Hi, Rachel, I’ve arrived safely. Paris is full of surprises, puzzles, and arrogant people. I lost my wallet and made the acquaintance of a real French bitch. More tomorrow. Dead tired, love Robert

  It was stifling in the room. Robert opened the window wide and turned out the light. In the darkness the stone wall, looming pale gray a couple of yards from his window, looked like an outsize cinema screen.

  Eleven

  That evening Rosalie sat for a long time beneath her window on the roof, with her legs folded under her and a glass of red wine, and thought over her strange day. The night was mild and a pale moon was hiding behind a delicate dark-gray cloud.

  René had already gone to bed.

  “Don’t worry about it, that crazy American will soon come to his senses. He’s completely off his head. But if it gets to you, then just call Marchais and ask him.” He’d ruffled her hair with his hand. “Come to bed soon, chérie, okay?”

  Rosalie had nodded, slid a little farther down the wall, and leaned her head against it. It would have been the perfect moment for a cigarette, but under René’s good influence she’d given up smoking. Or at least tried, which meant that she rarely had cigarettes in the house.

  She sighed and gazed up at the night sky. It was astonishing, the turn the day had taken, a day that had begun so well. Her elation of the morning had given way to utter confusion.

  That dreadful American had actually returned shortly after seven and raged and shouted up and down outside her store. She’d hardly understood a word, but she realized that he wanted to get into the store at all costs. And clearly not to apologize to her. Perhaps he already had his statement of claim with him!

  She giggled with satisfaction as she recalled how dumbfounded Robert Sherman had looked when he realized that she didn’t intend to open the store again for him.

  After Sherman had given the shutters a final shake and then retreated in a shower of wild imprecations, which had fortunately only reached her in muffled form upstairs in her little apartment, it had become clear to her that the man was a choleric and obviously right out of control. Well, that wasn’t going to be her problem.

  “A pity I hadn’t come back by then,” René had said as Rosalie told him at dinner that evening about the American psychopath who, in his state of perpetual agitation, had harassed her twice already that day, after first accusing her of plagiarism and then knocking the postcard stand over in a fit of rage. “I would have shown the guy what’s what. I’d have enjoyed it.”

  Yeah, pity, thought Rosalie, taking a gulp of red wine. A rumble between René—strong, athletic, and fitness trained, and Sherman—tall, lanky, and not looking exactly as if he played for the legendary New York Yankees, would definitely have calmed things down very quickly. Still, it was all very strange. Either the guy really had a screw loose, or … The “or” was making her uncomfortable. It could, after all, no matter how unlikely it seemed, have been deeply felt indignation, righteous anger, so to speak, that had driven the stranger so crazy. At first sight he hadn’t looked at all like a lunatic, she had to admit. He’d actually seemed more astonished than anything else.

  Either way, the accusation was outrageous. Not to mention the tone of voice it was delivered in.

  Try as she might, Rosalie could not imagine Max Marchais copying someone else’s story. She still clearly remembered the evening in Le Jules Verne when he’d given her the first copy of The Blue Tiger, and how proud and moved she’d been by the “For R.” And his embarrassment as she thanked him for the dedication.

  She shook her head. No one could be so deceitful. She thought of the old author’s eyes, how they had suddenly lit up. No one dishonest could look like that.

  Then she sat bolt upright, because something had struck her. Hadn’t that Sherman guy said that he’d known the story for years—“since I was five, to be exact”? She guessed he was about thirty. Yet Max Marchais had sent her a very modern computer printout, which could only mean that the story was not one that anyone could have known since he was five. And what exactly did he mean by saying that the story was his? Had the arrogant attorney written the story himself when he was five? None of it made any sense.

  She leaned forward, wrapping her arms round her knees. Unless … unless there was a common source they had both had access to. It was always possible that there was an old fable about a blue tiger. She nodded pensively, then wrinkled her brow again. Even if that was the case, the stories could not have been, as that arrogant New Yorker insisted, identical word for word.

  Rosalie felt her thoughts beginning to get muddled. She was probably racking her brains for no good reason at all. René was right. First thing the next morning she would call Max Marchais to sort the matter out. But she’d have to approach it very sensitively—after all, she didn’t want to antagonize the old man.

  There was probably very little likelihood that the madman would turn up at the store again, but you never knew. She finished her red wine and climbed back through the window into the apartment.

  By the time she closed her eyes to sleep, the following entry was in her blue notebook:

  The worst moment of the day:

  The number of strange men who come into the store and knock over the postcard stands is increasing alarmingly. Today there was a horrible American who was rude to me and is going to sue me because The Blue Tiger has apparently been plagiarized.

  The best moment of the day:

  Monsieur Montsignac called and asked me if I would illustrate a book of fairy tales for his company. A really big con
tract. I said yes.

  Twelve

  Marie-Hélène had been in the house all morning, making a hell of a din. Her excessive bustling derived from a certain basic nervousness that was itself based on the fact that she was intending to go away for two weeks. She and her husband wanted to go to Plan-d’Orgon, their home village near Les Baux, where the rest of her family lived—especially her eldest daughter, who had just had a baby.

  “Just think—I’m going to be a grandma, Monsieur Marchais!”

  Max couldn’t remember how many times he’d heard those words over the last few months, coupled with reports on the current state of mother and child. Three days previously, the daughter had actually given birth to little Claire (“she weighs seven pounds twelve ounces, monsieur, and she can already smile”), and Marie-Hélène Bonnier was beside herself with delight and announced to him that she was going to Plan-d’Orgon that weekend and that he would unfortunately have to look after himself for two weeks.

  “You will be all right, won’t you, Monsieur Marchais?” she had asked with concern, wiping her hands on her apron. Over the years, Madame Bonnier had developed the illusion that he would be completely at a loss if she didn’t shop, cook, and clean for him three times a week.

  “Of course I’ll be all right, Marie-Hélène; after all, I’m not in my dotage yet—am I?”

  “That may well be, but you’re a man, Monsieur Marchais, and it simply isn’t good when a man is left alone in the house, everyone knows that. He doesn’t eat properly, the papers pile up, the dishes are left in the sink, and everything goes to pot.”

  “You’re exaggerating as usual, Marie-Hélène,” said Max, burying himself in his newspaper. “I can assure you that the house will still be standing in two weeks’ time.”

  Even so the housekeeper had insisted on coming again the Friday before her departure and going over the rooms, doing the washing and freezing some meals that he would only need to thaw and heat up. On the counter there were at least fifteen Tupperware containers that she’d filled so that he wouldn’t starve during her two weeks away.