The Seven Turns of the Snail's Shell: A Novel Page 14

  “Lucie, we are here to see my father. Is he upstairs?”

  Lucie’s eyes widened. She put her hand to her mouth. “Oh là là, Charlie, you didn’t know? He left here. After you didn’t come back again…” She hesitated, looking at Anna. “I am running the resto now, since he left.”

  C-C looked concerned. “But where did he go?”

  Lucie’s eyes darted toward Anna again.

  Sensing Lucie’s dilemma, C-C said, “Anna, would you excuse us, please?”

  Anna was confused also. What was all this about? She had understood enough of the conversation and the body language to catch on to the obvious—that C-C was not allowing Lucie to ask him any questions. She also saw a look of worry and concern on C-C’s face.

  “Of course. Point me to the cabinet.” They pointed down the hallway, and Anna left the room. As she headed to the restroom, the door to the dining room closed softly behind her.

  “Monsieur Charlie, I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to say. We were so worried about you. Your father thought you had been murdered. Diamanté didn’t know what happened to you, either. He said he thought that your nurse was killed. Your father was beside himself. He wanted to talk with you that day. He had something for you. Oh là là là là là là…” She trailed off in a string of oh là là là là’ing and cupped her hands to her cheeks again, tears glistening in her eyes.

  “It’s all right, Lucie. Sit down.” C-C motioned for her to have a seat at the dining room table and took a chair next to her. “I am all right.”

  “But the funeral…we saw it all on the television. She died? After all that?”

  “Lucie, I can’t tell you anything. It is the oath I took. You know that.”

  “Oh, Charlie, merci Dieu you are back safely.” She traced a large sign of the cross quickly in the air above her forehead. “Were you in danger? Are you still in danger?”

  C-C shrugged his shoulders and scratched his head. “I admit I don’t know. Tell me, is my father all right? Nothing has happened to him?”

  “He is sad, Monsieur Charlie, and the heart attack, it was bad for him, but now he is healthy as an old Norman cow again.”

  “The heart attack?”

  “Oui. After you didn’t come back, he began to have severe pains in his chest. One day, in late October, he just collapsed. We rushed him to the hospital. They said it was a mild attack and that he would recover quickly. It turned out that he was working too hard. That, combined with the stress of not knowing what happened to you.”

  “I…I didn’t know.”

  “He decided that he couldn’t stay in Rouen any longer. I agreed to take over the resto for him. I had been doing more and more of the management anyway. I hired the new staff myself.” She straightened up with pride as she said that. “And I transformed the menu. Updated it.”

  “That is good, Lucie. But where did my father go? You must realize that I need to find him? Oui?”

  “Oui, oui, oui. He left for the south. Provence. He is managing Diamanté’s restaurant in Castagniers for him.”

  “Where is Diamanté then? Do you know?” C-C knew he wasn’t the only one searching for Diamanté.

  “Your father thought that Diamanté probably went to Corsica. We didn’t know about Narbon…where he went anyway. We never heard from him. You know, there was always that bad blood between those two.”

  “No, actually I didn’t know that. Between Narbon and Diamanté?”

  “Yes. It was a long time ago, over Elise. They never forgave each other. At least, I don’t think Narbon ever got over it. It’s a long story. In the end, both of them lost to Diamanté’s brother, Ferdinand.”

  “Did Diamanté ask my father to manage his resto?”

  “Is possible. I don’t know. One day your father may have decided that Diamanté’s restaurant needed him, since it is a Corsican restaurant, you know, so he left. He calls once in a while to check up on us. I always tell him the same thing. We are doing a better job than he did.” She chuckled. “I will give you his phone number.” She thought for a minute and lowered her head, shaking it. “You would have laughed at the scene that day in the alley, Charlie. We all stood like soldiers, arm in arm. We didn’t let those paparazzi get away until they had had too much to eat and drink. By that time, they had forgotten who they were chasing.”

  C-C smiled at her kindly. “That’s good to know.” He got up and walked over to the door. “Maybe we had better let Anna back in now.” He opened it. Anna was standing in the hallway. “She’s an old friend who is not so patient as she used to be.”

  Anna gave him a quick, flat grin and walked into the room.

  “Will you two stay for dinner then?” Lucie was up from her seat.

  Anna looked inquisitively at C-C.

  “Lucie, it would be wonderful to have dinner in the resto. I wonder if we might see the old apartment before we dine?”

  “But of course. It is not locked; go on up. I’ll see to the duck. Oh, Monsieur Charlie, there is one other thing. Your dear mother left a box for you. It’s sitting on the bookshelf where your father put it. He said that if you ever showed up, I should be sure and give it to you.”

  Anna and C-C climbed the back stairs to the family apartment.

  C-C’s face was somber. “My father is not here, Anna. We have missed him today.”

  “What was all that secretiveness about? Silencing her, I mean, and closing the door. What happened?”

  “It is nothing…”

  But Anna’s antenna was up. Something told her that there was more to this story.

  Anna and C-C entered the apartment via a doorway that opened into a small, square hall painted in a light blue color with a black-and-white checkerboard-style tiled floor. An antique windowed wooden hutch held crystal and china. Two clean, white aprons hung on a metal coat rack next to the hutch. There were two doors off the hall. One opened into a bright kitchen, also tiled in black-and-white, with white painted cupboards and white tiled countertops. Well-used copper pots and pans hung from hooks on the ceiling. An alcove held an outsized wine rack filled with bottles.

  C-C led Anna through the second door, which opened into the main sitting room of the apartment. The room was furnished in overstuffed, blue, brocaded Louis XIV—style chairs and matching sofa. A single, antique brass lamp stood on a round pedestal table between the chairs, and two tall bookcases piled and stacked with books lined one wall. In a corner, by the lace-curtained window, stood a bust of Napoleon on a pedestal. Above the fireplace hung a painting of a couple in bridal attire standing in front of a town hall, and on the mantel stood a single, framed photo. Anna recognized it. It was the same one that was on Guy de Noailles’ mantel: a sepiatoned picture of Guy holding a small boy’s, C-C’s, hand in front of the Strasbourg Cathedral.

  C-C motioned to Anna to have a seat on the sofa. He glanced briefly into a room to the immediate right, then walked down the hallway and disappeared into the room at the far end.

  Nothing had changed in the entire apartment. It was just as it had been when C-C’s mother was alive. Standing in the middle of his old bedroom, he noted the warm, red plaid comforter laid over his bed, his childhood books on the small bookshelf. The carved wooden pull-toy with red wheels that had been made for him by his grand-père in Strasbourg sat on the woven rug, and the faded poster of Johnny Hallyday still hung on the wall where he had placed it as a teen. He stood in the room for a few minutes, allowing himself to be the young boy again for just an instant. So much had happened to him since he had left that room.

  Anna was examining the books on the bookshelves when he returned to the sitting room. C-C came up behind her. The box Lucie had mentioned was sitting on top of a large world atlas. He lifted it off the shelf and held it in his hands. It was a square, tin box, ornately decorated with gold and silver, a biscuit tin that had probably originally held galettes. A note in stylishly feminine handwriting was taped to the cover: “Pour Charles-Christian, un jour quand je suis partie.” C-C pointed
to the color reproduction of one of Monet’s paintings of the Rouen Cathedral in the center of the cover. “That was her favorite painting. It’s the cathedral where she and my father were married. She hung a framed print of it in their bedroom over the bed. It’s still there.”

  “What do you think is in the box?”

  “Oh, probably just some old photos and mementos of my mother’s.”

  C-C placed the box on the pedestal table. He carefully broke the taped seal and opened the lid. The two of them hovered over it, peering together at the contents, which smelled strongly of perfume. C-C began carefully picking out items. First, there were several old frayed and bent black-and-white photos. Family photos. He placed them carefully on the table. Next, he picked out a small, black velvet pouch. Inside it was a red cord necklace with a square-shaped gold locket. The inscription on the locket in gold on bright red enamel read “Je t’aime, Maman.”

  “I gave this to her for Mother’s Day one year,” he said, “when I was about nine. I remember that I got it free when my father and I bought her some lingerie.”

  Another pouch made of white satin held a crystal and silver rosary. The box contained numerous other small objects, memories of his childhood: a blue rubber ball, a well-loved stuffed animal with one button eye missing, a miniature wooden replica of the astronomical clock in Strasbourg. He had just about emptied the contents of the box when he noticed something at the bottom, hidden under a white lace handkerchief embroidered with his mother’s initials. He lifted the handkerchief and turned pale. Anna turned pale herself as the two of them fixed their eyes in disbelief on a pile of unopened letters, all addressed to C-C, all postmarked from California.

  C-C picked the brittle, dry, and yellowed tissue-thin par avion envelopes one by one out of the bottom of the box and spread them on the table. There were twenty-two in all. Some had been sent to the apartment address in Paris and forwarded by Elise to Rouen. Some had been sent directly to Le Canard à la Rouennaise.

  “Voilà.” He sighed. “Alors, I guess this solves our great mystery.”

  Anna sat down on the sofa. “Why do you think she saved them? What purpose? If she didn’t intend for you to have them until after she died?”

  “One can only speculate…it’s possible she retrieved them from the trash after they had been thrown out.”

  “Every time I tried to call, your father answered. When he heard my voice, he would hang up. Do you suspect it was your father who threw out my letters?”

  C-C nodded. “Who else wanted us apart so badly?”

  “Is he that vicious?”

  He nodded again. “He is an intense man, a ferocious man when he wants to be. He has a bad temper. My mother loved him, but she knew to rarely cross him. He was good to her. Saving the letters…” he swallowed hard, “it was her message to me…that she hadn’t agreed with his decision.”

  “You mean he actually cut off relations with you because of me?”

  “Not exactly because of you. I stood up to him over you. I declared my independence. That’s what got it going. Then everything exploded…I mean everything. All the old arguments we had came back. We couldn’t stand to be around each other. I stopped coming to Rouen to visit them. It probably broke my mother’s heart to see that happen. I didn’t see her for years, but she called me when she could…when he was out of the apartment. She knew you and I were still together, but she kept our secret. It never occurred to me until now that she knew you had left France…of course, she had to have known…because that’s when the letters started to arrive. I know I didn’t tell her you were gone. She never asked me about you after that. I was gone a lot…out of the country…for long periods. Then, all of a sudden two years ago she was very, very sick, and there was nothing that could be done to save her.” His chin was quivering. He sat down on the sofa beside Anna and buried his face in his hands. Anna put her hand on his arm. For the next few minutes, the only sound that could be heard in the apartment was the solemn ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway.

  CHAPTER 34

  Downstairs, Lucie’s kitchen was a flurry of activity. Sunday dinner guests were arriving in the restaurant, and she wanted to make an extra special meal for C-C and Anna. There was something else she wanted to do.

  “Allô?”

  “Salut, Léo.”

  “Ah, Lucie. Ça va?”

  “Oui, oui, oui, bien sûr. Écoute, Léo, are you coming to the resto for Sunday dinner, by any chance?”

  “But of course, ma chère, do I ever miss your Sunday spécialités? What are we having today, may I ask?”

  “Duck. Can you come early? I have a surprise for you. And bring Pierre with you, too. We will be dining in the family dining room.”

  “Has Jacques returned?”

  “Non, better than that. Charlie is here, with a young lady.”

  “Oh là là, but this is great news! We’ll be there. Salut.” Léo La Bergère put down the receiver and rubbed his gnarled old hands together. “Such great news. He is all right after all.”

  Lucie punched the call button again and dialed a long number. It was several rings before there was an answer on the other end.

  “Allô, Jacques?”

  “Salut, Lucie. Don’t tell me you have blown up my beautiful kitchen already.”

  “Non, non, et non. Everything is just fine here. The duck will be superbe today.”

  “Eh bien, congratulations! Are we just having a friendly Sunday chat, then?”

  “You are in a jovial mood. Are you enjoying Provence?”

  “Beh oui. The rain has quit for the time being. It’s going to be a nice day.”

  “Same here. But cold. Écoute, Jacques, I have some good news. Charlie is here.”

  The phone was soundless on the other end. Finally, Jacques coughed. “He is alive, then. How does he look, Lucie?”

  “He looks tired, Jacques, older, but he is okay. I couldn’t get any information about what happened. He brought a young lady, a pretty one, with him. He didn’t want to talk in front of her. They are upstairs in the apartment. They wanted to see you. I invited them to have dinner. Léo and Pierre will join us.”

  “Ah bon. Take two bottles of that vintage Château Haut-Brion from the back of the wine cellar, and make sure you set the table with the best china and crystal goblets from the hutch upstairs. Now, can you pass the phone to my apartment? I want to talk to Charlie. Oh, Lucie, remember about Nathalie’s biscuit tin. Make sure he gets it.”

  Anna and C-C were still sitting on the sofa, staring in silence at the contents of the biscuit tin on the table, when the phone rang three short rings. C-C recognized the rings.

  “That’s the kitchen. It’s probably Lucie wanting us to descend.” He got up and answered it.

  “Allô, Lucie, we’ll be right down.”

  “It’s not Lucie.” The familiar voice was his father’s. “Salut, Charlie. Lucie just told me that you are in Rouen. Are you all right? I was afraid…” the normally deep, growling voice sounded suddenly fragile and trailed off.

  “Oui, Papa. I am all right. And you?”

  “I decided to take a holiday. Running Diamanté’s resto is a lot simpler than running the Rouen restaurant. We don’t have the Sunday crowds—not yet anyway.” His familiar, gravelly chuckle came through the receiver.

  “Papa, I have someone with me who is looking for Diamanté, coincidentally. Have you heard from him?”

  “Non. But I would not worry yet. He’ll turn up. That’s what I told Guy yesterday. He was calling for the same reason. He’s worried about him since he always hears from him at Christmas.” Jacques’ voice changed. “Charlie,” he inquired cautiously, “who is this person who is looking for Diamanté?”

  C-C was reluctant to tell Jacques that it was Anna. “It’s merely someone who wants to meet him.”

  “Ah bon.”

  “Are you coming back to Rouen for Christmas?”

  “I hadn’t made plans. I thought you were…” again the silen
ce, then a cough. “Are you back at the hospital in Paris?”

  “Yes. Everything is normale, mostly. I’m working long hours…in the trauma center again.”

  “Are you afraid?”

  “Yes. Sometimes. We best not talk.”

  “Oui, bien sûr.”

  “I was thinking that maybe we should…would it be possible to get together? I would like to see you, Papa.”

  “Do you want to come down here for Christmas? Take a little vacation?”

  C-C looked over at the contents of his mother’s box strewn on the table. Resolve this before I lose him, too, he thought.

  “I can request it. But the holidays are bad times for the ER.”

  “Charlie, I’m sorry…about everything. We are, after all, Corsican. For your mother’s sake, let’s…” His father’s voice trailed off. The rest of the sentence wasn’t audible. Then there was silence, except for the sound of his breathing.

  “Papa?” C-C turned around to look at Anna who was staring at him, her eyes wide.

  “Oui?”

  “Nothing.” C-C bid his father au revoir and put down the receiver.

  “That was your father? Where is he?”

  C-C returned to the sofa. “In the south of France. He’s running Diamanté’s restaurant for him. No one knows where Diamanté is. Grand-père apparently called again yesterday asking about him. They’ve known each other for a long time. They keep saying not to worry. He’ll show up.”

  “I know. I mostly worry about what happens if he does.” Anna smiled. “What is he going to think? Will he even believe my story?”

  The phone rang again three rings.

  “That’s Lucie for sure this time.” C-C got up to answer it.

  “Oui. Oui. Tout de suite.” He put down the receiver. “We are wanted downstairs. Apparently there are visitors.”

  They quickly put the items on the table back into the tin box. C-C placed it under his arm. “Do you want me to read the letters?”

  “If you wish. It’s all old news now, though. Maybe you should just toss them into the trash…for once and for all.”