Paris Is Always a Good Idea Page 16

  BE NOT INHOSPITABLE TO STRANGERS LEST THEY BE ANGELS IN DISGUISE

  All at once Robert felt totally welcome in the bookshop. And in Paris.

  Lost in thought, he went back downstairs and stepped over to a shelf at the back of the shop where the drama section was to be found.

  He was just looking for an edition of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew when his cell phone rang.

  It was Rosalie Laurent. She sounded very excited. And she had sensational news.

  Twenty-one

  Paris flew past him. After the seemingly interminable dark tunnel, a few really ugly apartment towers came into view in Nanterre, between them gray concrete walls sprayed with graffiti—a touching attempt to defy the dreariness of the Parisian suburbs. It was only on the last stretch that the landscape gradually grew greener, and the train tracks that led to Saint-Germain-en-Laye were lined with old houses and enchanted gardens.

  Robert Sherman was sitting in an RER train heading for Le Vésinet Centre and looking out of the window. In his lap he held his leather briefcase with the manuscript and, following an uncontrollable compulsion, kept continually checking that the envelope with its pages was still there. It was hard to imagine what would happen if he were to lose the manuscript now that Rosalie Laurent had found its counterpart. Or rather its carbon copy.

  “I don’t understand it,” she kept on saying as she told him about her discovery, her voice trembling with her confusion. “So Max did actually lie to me. But before I confront him with it, I’d like us to compare the manuscripts. Perhaps the whole affair has another explanation.”

  The way she kept on defending the old scoundrel was really touching. After a short discussion they had come to the conclusion that it would be best for Robert to take the train to Le Vésinet—the journey was only thirty minutes—while Rosalie drove to the hospital and delivered the things Marchais wanted. She would then return to Le Vésinet.

  The key to the house was a problem. She could hardly keep it without giving a reason. And she vehemently refused to ask the old man for an explanation yet.

  “Oh, do you know what? I’ll just leave the terrace door open a crack,” she said finally. “It’s easy to slide the big French window to the side, and then we can get into the house unseen from the garden side.”

  Although Robert had never doubted that he was in the right, he could feel the excitement rising up in his stomach like a snail as he got out of the train a little later in Le Vésinet and saw Rosalie Laurent standing on the platform in her brightly colored dress. She was paler than usual, and her deep blue eyes had an expression that was difficult to interpret. She shook his hand hesitantly.

  “My car’s over there,” she said.

  They drove through the quiet streets of the little town in silence. After the excited telephone conversation that afternoon there was a strange embarrassment in the air. Rosalie glared determinedly to the front, chewing her lower lip. There was not much room inside the car for a tall man with long legs, and Robert could feel the nervousness of his silent driver like a series of pinpricks. Once, as Rosalie changed gear, her hand brushed his knee briefly, and she hastily apologized. He shook his head.

  “No worries,” he said, smiling to lighten the tense atmosphere.

  The sun was already low in the sky as they crept though the bushes in the garden of the old villa with the red-tiled roof to get to the rear terrace door. Rosalie looked back to make sure there were no undesired observers, then she pushed the frame of the sliding door with all her strength, and the huge pane of glass slid silently aside.

  “We must be very quiet,” she warned, totally superfluously.

  “Don’t worry. I have no intention of playing a trumpet solo,” said Robert in a muffled voice.

  They both started as the tune of “Fly Me to the Moon” suddenly burst out in the evening silence.

  Rosalie turned around. “What’s that?” she hissed.

  “‘Fly Me to the Moon,’” answered Robert automatically.

  “Comment?!” She looked at him as if he’d lost his mind as the melody trilled on interminably. “Switch your cell phone off, now! You’ll alert the whole neighborhood!”

  “Yes. Sure. At once.” He reached into his pocket, and in his confusion pressed the Accept button.

  “Robert?” Rachel’s clear voice sounded metallic as he held the phone at hip level. “Hello … Robert … can you hear me?”

  He raised the phone and pressed it to his lips. “I can’t talk to you now, Rachel, it’s not a good time,” he muttered. “I’ll call you back later.”

  “What’s wrong with you, Robert—you sound as if you were in a confessional. Why are you whispering like that?”

  He sensed Rosalie’s look of exasperation and raised his hand apologetically.

  “We’re in the process of breaking into a house,” he whispered as loudly as he could. “It’s about the manuscript. I’ve got to go, Rachel. Sorry.”

  “What?!” Rachel seemed to be losing her cool. “You’re breaking into a house? Tell me, have you completely lost it? And who is we? Robert? Robert?!”

  Ignoring the protests from the other side of the Atlantic, Robert ended the call as Rosalie dragged him in to the library.

  “We made it,” she said with relief and quickly pushed the door to. “Mon Dieu, who was that hysterical woman?”

  “Oh … that was just … Rachel. Someone I know!” he said quickly, and immediately wondered a little guiltily why he was disowning his girlfriend. On the other hand—wasn’t it Rachel who’d threatened to break up with him if he took the job in Paris? So you could say that their relationship was hanging in the balance, and a girlfriend who was possibly soon to be an ex-girlfriend might very well be described as “someone I know,” he thought rather casuistically.

  “Robert?”

  Rosalie had obviously asked him something.

  “Er … yes?”

  “The manuscript!”

  He hastily opened his briefcase and took out the brown envelope. “Here.” He held the pages out to her. “Rachel … that is, the woman who just called, sent it to me.”

  She glanced at it, leafed through a few of the pages, and then shook her head. “I don’t believe it,” she said. “Wait down here, I’ll be right back.”

  Robert sank down on one of the sofas and listened as Rosalie ran up the stairs.

  Shortly afterward she was back with her own sheaf of paper in her hands. She sat down next to him on the sofa, out of breath.

  “Here,” she said, taking a deep breath and putting her manuscript down on the coffee table beside his. “It looks as if both versions are completely identical.”

  Robert leaned forward and excitedly studied the individual pages. “No doubt about it,” he said and picked up two sheets to compare them. “The same alignment, even the same typeface. And look here”—he pointed to some places in the text—“the lowercase ‘o’ always has the same little smudge in the upper-left part of the curve.” He looked at her. “And where exactly did you say you found the manuscript?”

  “Upstairs in the bedroom,” said Rosalie, red faced. “A cardboard box full of old photos and letters fell off the wardrobe, and among other things there was also this manuscript.” She joined her hands and put them to her lips. “I still don’t understand it,” she said. “How does your mother come to be in possession of a manuscript belonging to Max Marchais?”

  Robert shrugged his shoulders and looked at her knowingly. “In fact, a better question would be: How does Marchais come to be in possession of my mother’s manuscript?” He watched Rosalie as she played uncomfortably with her braid. “I don’t wish to offend you, but it is perfectly obvious which is the original and which the carbon copy.”

  She nodded and cleared her throat. “I’m afraid you’re right.” Then she gave him a sideways glance and her eyes sparkled. “I bet that pleases you, doesn’t it?”

  He grinned. “Of course it pleases me. I’m the son of a famous lawyer, remember?�
� He saw that she was trying to suppress a smile and was glad that he’d been able to make her laugh. Then his look became more thoughtful. “No, to be perfectly honest, it’s not a matter of being right. At least, not just a matter of being right. Of course it’s disgraceful that old Marchais tried to pass my mother’s story off as his own in any case. Whether you like it or not,” he added, as Rosalie shook her head energetically. “But of course I’m beginning to wonder what the story behind the story is. How did Marchais get hold of the carbon? Did he know my mother? New York isn’t exactly just around the corner.”

  “Didn’t you tell me that your mother has French relatives? And that she was in Paris once herself?”

  “Could be, but that was long before I was born. The story of the blue tiger didn’t exist then. After all, Mom made it up for me.”

  They were both silent for a moment, each lost in their own thoughts, and failed to notice that the sky outside the big living-room window was gradually turning all sorts of shades of lavender.

  Suddenly Rosalie broke the silence. “Don’t you find it a bit unusual that your mother wrote the whole story in French?”

  He looked at her in surprise. “No, not at all. In fact, she spoke French fluently. Quite the contrary, when I found the manuscript among her papers, I had the feeling that it was meant to remind me of Paris. After all, she had made sure that I’d be able to read the story in French, hadn’t she?” He smiled wryly and ran his hands brusquely through his hair.

  Rosalie had stood up and gone over to the cabinet near the door with its two dark-red lamps. She switched on the light.

  “And if we just let the whole thing rest?” she asked, running her fingers hesitantly over the keyboard of the old black typewriter that was also on the cabinet. “To be honest, Robert, I have a very strange feeling. Perhaps we’ll be waking sleeping dogs. Perhaps we’ll conjure up ghosts—”

  “Utter nonsense,” he interrupted her, sitting up straight. “You can’t seriously ask that of me, Rosalie. No, I must find out the truth. I owe it to my mother. I’m sorry, but if you don’t speak to Marchais then I’ll do it myself.”

  Her shoulders slumped. “Why did he never tell me that it’s an old story?” she said unhappily. “It always sounded as if the idea had just come to him.”

  Robert pushed himself up out of the soft cushions with both hands and went over to her. “It’s not your fault, Rosalie. But no matter how much sympathy you feel for your old friend and author, you have to understand me, too.”

  She nodded imperceptibly, and stood there lost in thought, her fingers continuing to stroke the keyboard of the old Remington as if it could, like Aladdin’s lamp, produce a genie that would fulfill all her wishes. Then she turned and strode decisively over to the desk in front of the window near the library. She took a blank sheet from a ream of paper and came back.

  “Wait a moment,” she said, and loaded the paper into the old machine. Robert watched her in some surprise as she now began to peck a short text on the machine with two fingers. She looked carefully at the page, and then let out a little cry of triumph.

  “I knew it,” she said with relief, nodded a couple of times, and then pointed to the page on which he recognized the first lines of the tiger story.

  “What’s this supposed to be?” he asked, somewhat puzzled. “Are you going to produce a third version of The Blue Tiger?”

  “Look at it carefully,” she said excitedly. “What do you see?” Her eyes shone.

  The girl was a bit worked up, but okay! Robert sighed resignedly, and took a closer look at the page again. A guessing game, why not? Everything was quite complicated enough already.

  So, Robert, he thought to himself, what can you see? Concentrate, please. He felt an impulse to laugh.

  A moment later he frowned. Again and again his gaze ran over the few lines that stood out in pale blue from the white paper.

  “Now you can see it, too, can’t you?” Rosalie had come over to him.

  Robert nodded. “Yes, now I can see it,” he repeated in amazement.

  He could see it all: the old typeface, the blue ribbon, the letter o with its smudge in the upper left.

  The text on the paper that stuck in the typewriter was exactly the same as his mother’s manuscript. Or to put it another way: the story of the blue tiger had been written on the old Remington he was standing beside. He shook his head slowly as it became clear to him what that meant.

  Rosalie raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips. “That rather blows your theory out of the water, doesn’t it, Robert?” she asked.

  “But … the original … was in Mount Kisco,” he objected.

  “Oh please!” Rosalie’s eyes shone with indignation. “You’re not going to suggest that Max Marchais didn’t just steal the story from your mother, but the typewriter as well? C’est ridicule!”

  Robert said nothing. He was totally at a loss.

  “This is Max Marchais’s old Remington. There can be no argument about that. I’ve even seen it in one of the old photos. Whoever wrote the story, one thing is certain: it was written on this typewriter. And that can only mean…”

  She fell silent, a little embarrassed.

  Robert tried to finish her sentence. What, yes, what could it mean? His mother had written that story for him when he was a little boy—on a typewriter that was in Paris at the time and belonged to a Frenchman? Ludicrous. He thought very hard. Or that the story hadn’t been written by his mother, but by Marchais, who was after all the author of numerous children’s books? And yet … the story seemed so clearly designed for him, Robert, and his mother had always said that the story was just for the two of them. She’d loved the story of the blue tiger as much as he did. So why had she lied to him about it?

  But on the other hand—had his mother ever said that she had written the story? That she had made it up? He thought awhile, but could not remember—only that she had said she was giving him the story as a gift. And apart from the question of its authorship, the real and more interesting question was how it had come about that this Marchais and his mother had the same manuscript if they had never met. Had they never met?

  He felt Rosalie’s eyes on him and looked up.

  “I’m still trying to work out what the ‘R’ means,” she said thoughtfully.

  He didn’t understand immediately. “What?”

  “Well—the dedication! I thought the ‘R’ stood for ‘Rosalie.’ You thought it stood for ‘Robert.’ The way things look, it can’t be either, can it?”

  He pressed his lips together and nodded. She was right, absolutely right. The dedication was not for him, even if it filled his heart with sadness.

  Then he felt a gentle touch. Rosalie had put her hand on his arm, and her eyes seemed to him to be bigger than ever before.

  “Robert,” she said. “What was your mother’s name?” It took a moment for him to see what the question meant. Then he slapped his forehead.

  “Ruth,” he said. “My mother’s name was Ruth.”

  Twenty-two

  It was always astounding how blindly and carelessly you could overlook the obvious, thought Rosalie, as she watched Robert Sherman blanching beside her. Although they had so frequently talked about the dedication, attempting to find someone to fit the mysterious initial, it had obviously never ever occurred to him that his mother’s first name began with the letter R.

  Robert was so perplexed that he was unable to speak for a moment. And then when he was finally about to say something, they heard the noise.

  It sounded like a key turning in a lock. Seconds later the front door opened, and then swung shut with a soft click.

  Heavy footsteps crossed the hall. A rustling noise. A closet was being opened. Clothes hangers rattled against each other.

  They stood frozen on the spot beside the cabinet and looked at each other. The steps approached the library, and Rosalie felt her heart beginning to race. Who was it, there in the hall? For one mad moment she thought it was not impossible
that it could be Max returning—and that he would catch them red-handed. Then she heard a sniff, and the muttering of a deep but clearly female voice. The steps passed the living-room door and went into the kitchen, where something was put down.

  In a panic, she reached for Robert’s hand.

  “Come on!” she hissed. “Upstairs!”

  They heard clattering from the kitchen and hastily grabbed the two manuscripts, crept out of the library, and went up the staircase that led upward from the hall. “This way!” She led Robert into the bedroom where the cardboard box of letters and photographs was still standing in the middle of the floor. They listened in silence to the noises that came up to them from downstairs.

  Who would come into Max Marchais’s house in the evening? wondered Rosalie. A neighbor? The gardener? As far as she knew, the housekeeper was the only one who had a key, and she was far away in Provence with her daughter.

  “Let’s wait a moment. Whoever it is, they’re sure to go away soon,” she whispered to Robert. He nodded, clutching the two manuscripts tightly.

  “I can’t understand why I didn’t work it out for myself,” he said softly. “The ‘R’ stands for ‘Ruth.’ Ruth Sherman. How could I be so dumb?”

  “You just couldn’t see the forest for the trees,” she whispered back. “These things happen. And anyway, I’m sure you didn’t call your mother Ruth.”

  He nodded and then put his finger to his lips. “Damn! She’s coming upstairs.”

  They listened carefully to the creaking of the wooden stairs as they were trodden by a person of some weight. Rosalie looked around. In the open bedroom there were no real places where they could conceal themselves, and they would no longer be able to reach the little storeroom next to the bathroom. “Under the bed!” she hissed, dragging a surprised Sherman to the floor.

  By the time the bedroom door opened and Madame Bonnier—Rosalie had no difficulty in recognizing the housekeeper—came panting in, they had disappeared from view. Hidden under a big, old, wooden bed, whose dark and dusty depths offered them a kindly refuge. Holding their breath and pressed so tightly together that barely a single manuscript page could be slipped between them, they looked into each other’s eyes like a couple of conspirators, each listening to the other’s heartbeat, which they were sure could be heard in this seemingly endless moment of suspended motion, danger, and intimacy. They listened to the housekeeper’s footsteps and saw her flat-heeled sandals and meaty calves moving up and down beside the bed, as she began to smooth out the sheets and blankets and shake out the scatter cushions and pile them up at the head of the bed, grumbling as she did so.