French Rhapsody Read online

  Since he left, I have not stopped thinking about the grey-haired doctor who lives in a road that reminds me of Russia. Sometimes weed makes things foggy; everything becomes hazy and vague and faces don’t stay in my head, but other times the drug has the power to fix them in my memory – the image is printed there like a photo.

  I ask myself what I’m doing on this sofa, in this room, with this maniac I don’t really know any better than the guys who ride me during a video shoot or a night in their hotel suite. I ask myself what I’m doing here and if, in the end, this isn’t all just a dream: I’m going to wake up in my childhood bedroom and my father will take me out on his boat, then we’ll come back for lunch and my mother will have made a piping-hot meal in the copper pot. Nothing happened; no casting director came to the village; no girl agreed to a photo shoot; Yuleva doesn’t have a scar on her cheek, and I never lit my first joint with Sergei in Moscow. That night never turned into an orgy; no one filmed it and showed it to a Russian porn producer; I never said, ‘OK, fine, let’s do it,’ to acting in films for three times what I was getting as a hostess; I never met the Frenchman looking for girls to film in France. I never left Russia for Paris and then this place called ‘Yvelines’ – to begin with I thought it was a girl’s name. Nothing happened. Only one thing came about in my dream: I met the doctor with the grey hair who lives on Rue de Moscou.

  I look at Lepelle; he’s still ranting to himself about the meeting he missed. He can’t stop; he’s gone all red in the face. He turns to me and shouts, ‘We had it; we would have made it as a rock band, and I wouldn’t be sitting here making giant shoe studs for Qatar!’ I watch him pick up the poker – I’m afraid he’ll actually go mad and hit me with it, but instead he runs off towards his studio. I get up and walk towards the bay window. The big cast for the shoe stud is in pieces and there is loads of plaster dust floating in the air. Now I see him attacking his paint pots with the poker; the paint is splashing everywhere and he’s covered in colours up to his hair. I tell myself, ‘Ivana, my girl, that’s enough now; it’s time for you to go.’ I will go, now, right away. I’ll go up to my room and pack my bags. In a brown envelope hidden in my underwear drawer, I have more than twelve thousand euros; I can pay for all the hotel rooms I want, and plane tickets too. As for the songs he’s going crazy over, that he won’t even copy for his old friend, he can keep them and imagine they’re his secret – I’ve already downloaded them onto my iPod.

  Le Relais de la Clef

  Two hours later, the taxi was pulling up outside Le Relais de la Clef. JBM paid the fare and got out first. He went up to the entrance, where there was an arbour and a courtyard leading in from the road, with a well in the middle of it.

  ‘I’ll leave you here,’ said Aurore. ‘I’ll wait for you in that café.’

  And she walked off with their laptop cases slung over her shoulders, towards the PMU sports bar on the corner.

  ‘Yes, thanks, Aurore,’ murmured JBM.

  He stayed where he was, lost in memories of the past. He had not set foot here since the summer of 1983. Nothing had changed, not the arbour, courtyard, or well. It was totally surreal to be there. The round white cast-iron table was still in the same place, and he felt as if he might see the two of them sitting there, having a coffee before going for a walk among the vines. Actually physically being back in a place he had sometimes returned to in his mind made him feel as if the space-time continuum had suddenly been squeezed. As if it had all happened just now, or no more than a month ago, and not thirty-three years earlier.

  He walked through the courtyard and opened the door to the hotel. The bell rang; he had forgotten about that. The entrance hall, with its tiled floor and oak-beamed ceiling, was exactly as it had been, as was the reception desk, if you didn’t count the flat-screen computer that now had pride of place. There was the same smell of furniture polish in the air. The fabric lining the walls must have been replaced; it was more beige than terracotta in his memory of it. There was no one around. JBM stepped towards a wall-mounted display case, which showed off Bérengère’s father’s collection of mechanical corkscrews, carefully laid out top to tail. Then he went into the lounge – silent but for the crackling of logs on the fire. Nothing, or almost nothing, had changed in here either: the beautiful round table with the inlaid chessboard in the middle still stood between the two windows which looked out over the vineyard; there was even a game in progress. How many matches had been played on it since he was last here – hundreds? Thousands? Maybe fewer – some games could go on for ages. JBM thought back to the time he had been to see the famous lawyer Jacques Vergès at his mansion on Rue de Vintimille in Paris. There were lots of chess games laid out on different tables in his office-cum-library. The lawyer had games going with several ‘penfriends’, mostly based abroad, who would send instructions by fax or email for their next move, playing across borders. According to the master of the house, some of the matches had been going on for several years.

  As he gazed at the chessboard, JBM realised one of the kings was in check – but no one had yet played or noticed the move. He went back out to the entrance hall. Bérengère was standing behind the desk, and she looked up at him.

  Now they were sitting opposite one another at the big kitchen table. JBM had not touched his wine. The cookers were all switched off and the staff would not be back for several hours. It was the calmest point of the afternoon; in any case, there were very few guests at this time of year.

  ‘You said there was something you wanted to ask me …’

  ‘Yes, I have a question,’ said JBM, staring into his glass.

  Then he retreated into silence, and all that could be heard was the sound of the pendulum marking the seconds ticking by. JBM felt he could stay like this for hours, cradled by the sound of the clock, with a glass of wine in front of him and Bérengère looking at him.

  ‘I can’t …’ he eventually said.

  ‘Why not?’ Bérengère asked gently, but got no reply. ‘Jean …’ she murmured, and it occurred to JBM that nobody called him that any more. His brother had been the only one, and he was gone.

  ‘Bérengère,’ he finally said, fixing his gaze on hers, ‘did we have a child together?’

  Bérengère stared back at him before lowering her head and letting her eyes fall distractedly on the breadcrumbs she was rolling into balls between her fingers.

  ‘I don’t think I can do this,’ she said, shaking her head.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Lie … I can manage not to tell the truth, but I just can’t bring myself to lie. I don’t know how to do it. I couldn’t lie to her either,’ she murmured. Then she looked up at him. ‘You see, Jean, I’m not scared any more. No, that’s not it,’ she corrected herself. ‘Actually you could say I’m so scared that I’ve stopped being scared. So, yes, the answer is yes. We had a child together, a daughter.’

  With shining eyes, she sniffed briefly, smiled and shook her head, as if to say she was sorry for the tears that came and would not fall. JBM placed his hand over hers, but she pulled it away, apologising.

  ‘Would it be possible … for me to get to know her? To see her one day?’ asked JBM.

  Bérengère smiled, closed her eyes as if nothing mattered any more, and breathed in.

  ‘You see, the thing is, Jean,’ she said, looking up at him, ‘you already know her; you see her every day. Our daughter’s name is Aurore.’

  Le Train Bleu (2)

  The anxiety had begun to build that morning, low-level at first. The night before, Aurore had had dinner with her mother, as she usually did when she was in town. Domitile Kavanski and this Gare de Lyon photo-shoot business had come at the worst possible time: Bérengère’s train to Dijon would be leaving while the PR team and JBM were at the station. She had kept on looking at her watch while the shots were being set up. When Bérengère’s scheduled departure time finally arrived, she began to relax. Nothing had happened – the twisted quirk of fate that might have caused JBM and
Bérengère to bump into one another had not come about.

  When she had pushed open the door of Le Train Bleu to join him, something had shifted in the very order of things. The sky had come at least ten metres closer to the earth. She spotted him straight away, sitting with his back to her, opposite Bérengère. They were talking. The maitre d’ had come towards her and asked her a question she didn’t hear. She rushed back out of the brasserie. As she emerged from the revolving doors, the noise hit her. The station, people, trains. A fast-paced life run to timetables, meetings, projects – a life that carried on, when as far as she was concerned everything had just stopped. She leant against the wall and tried to think things through clearly. Bérengère had missed her train. That’s what it had taken – for her to miss her train and go to Le Train Bleu for a coffee while she waited for the next one. For him to take a break from the damned photo shoot that seemed never-ending and also make his way to Le Train Bleu, to choose a table not far from hers and for the eyes of one to settle on the other. Aurore fought back a sob of rage and childishly stamped her heels twice. Then she took out her phone and sent her mother a text: ‘Don’t talk to him!’ She realised straight away she was losing it; it was ridiculous, they were already talking. She followed up swiftly with another text to clarify things: ‘Don’t tell him anything!’ adding, ‘Call me afterwards!’ But Bérengère had not called. What on earth had she said or done to make JBM decide to drop everything and head to Burgundy? He had worked something out, something significant enough to throw out all of his plans for the rest of the day.

  What could a man and woman who hadn’t seen each other for thirty years have talked about? Their lives and their children, obviously. She must have said something to give herself away, a date, or maybe her name. But no, he wouldn’t have brought her with him if he had understood; he’d have gone alone. So he hadn’t worked it out. Aurore felt as if her head might explode.

  ‘Hi, sweetie, you all right?’ asked the café owner, leaning down to kiss her on both cheeks. ‘Here for a few days, are you?’

  ‘No, just passing through. I thought I’d stop for a coffee.’

  ‘I’ll bring it over. Don’t you want it inside? It’s a bit cold out here.’

  ‘No, I’m fine; it’s nice to get some fresh air,’ she replied, forcing a smile.

  It was when he had asked Max how long it would take to get to Dijon that she knew something was afoot. As usual, Aurore had reserved a group of four seats to give them some peace and quiet. But the journey would be anything but peaceful. Not having wanted to leave the leather bag containing Pierre’s ashes with the driver, JBM had placed it on the seat next to him and they had opened their laptops and started to work on the report of the calls Aurore had made to England and Russia during the shoot. Aurore wasn’t following what JBM was saying; while he was speaking, she had tried to text her mother but couldn’t get any reception. There was nothing more she could do, no influence she could have on the course of events.

  After making JBM repeat a figure twice in a row, she asked to take a break and went and shut herself in the toilet, realising she was shaking. She forced herself to close her eyes and take deep breaths, but nothing helped. Was this what they called a panic attack? She had read on the internet that at the peak of a panic attack, you might experience a ‘sense of impending death’. She couldn’t stop shaking; the speed of the train was making it worse, and the confined space, in addition to a sudden loss of hearing, heightened her anxiety still further. Aurore carried on trying to breathe calmly while avoiding her reflection in the mirror; the image she had briefly caught was of a young blonde woman with a crazed look in her eyes and an unhealthily pale colour. Someone knocked loudly at the door, grumbling, ‘There’s a queue!’ ‘Shut up! Go away!’ she shouted back before a wave of dizziness made her clutch the hand-drier to stop herself from falling. ‘I need sugar,’ she told herself out loud, ‘that’s it, sugar, and fast …’ She yanked open the door and marched off in the direction of the buffet car. She made her way up through the carriages, struggling against the train’s momentum which threw her off balance and forced her several times to hold on to the nearest headrest. She pushed her way authoritatively to the front of the queue and interrupted the barman while he was taking someone else’s order.

  ‘I need sugar, please, right now; I’m having a hypo; I’m going to faint.’

  The barman immediately abandoned his other customer, ran Aurore a glass of water, tore open several sachets of sugar and tipped their contents into the glass, stirred the liquid with a spoon and handed it to her. He didn’t take his eyes off her until she had drained the glass. It was unthinkable that a passenger should fall ill in his bar; he had long prayed he would never have to open the defibrillator attached to the wall in case someone suffered a heart attack; he had been shown how to use it on a training course months before, but knew there was no way he would be able to put the theory into practice in a real emergency.

  ‘You’re very pale,’ JBM said on her return.

  Aurore told him she was fine; it must have been a ‘spasm’.

  ‘A spasm?’ mumbled JBM. Neither of them seemed very convinced of this, nor quite sure what a spasm was.

  ‘Let’s stop working,’ he said. ‘Have a rest, have a nap.’

  Aurore tried to protest but soon gave in. She settled into her seat, leaning towards the window; JBM lay his coat over her and she fell fast asleep.

  Above the vines, the sky, scattered with the mauve clouds that mean fog in the morning, was taking on the orangey glow of the end of the day. Aurore knew there was no way her mother could do it. She would never manage to keep the truth from JBM when he was standing in front of her. It was a question of minutes, she told herself as she stared over at the entrance to Le Relais de la Clef. She had watched him go inside; he would have found Bérengère by now. Soon he would know everything. The secret that had been kept nearly all her life would come crashing down in a matter of seconds, like shares in decades-old companies that seemed solid as a rock and then vanish into thin air in the space of a morning of panic on the stock markets. The waiter brought her coffee and Aurore poured in the sugar and slowly turned the spoon.

  Aurore

  It all happened at Clos Vougeot, the legendary Burgundy chateau that’s like a ship sailing through the vines: that’s where my parents met at a ‘chapter’ of the Chevaliers du Tastevin and where, fifteen years later, at another chapter, all was revealed. What a fitting word, chapter: the story of my life is written in them, and that of the gatherings of the association of Burgundy wine lovers that go by the same name, during which new members are sworn in at a ceremony with masonic undertones and then hundreds of guests of all nationalities sit down to a banquet to celebrate.

  In the first chapter, my mother met François Delfer, Asia sales manager of the Bouchard winery. In the second, I had a brief conversation with an elderly man – a chevalier emeritus of the Confrérie, he wore a silver tastevin cup on a yellow and red ribbon around his neck. He motioned for me to come over to where he stood in the courtyard of the chateau.

  ‘I’m told you’re Bérengère Leroy’s daughter.’

  ‘That’s me,’ I replied.

  ‘Remind me, what’s your name?’

  ‘Aurore.’

  ‘That’s right, Aurore … Aurore,’ he said proudly, raising his finger. ‘You were my last child.’

  I still remember my surprise, how I replied with a polite ‘Pardon?’ that must have betrayed my astonishment.

  ‘I’m Dr Lessart. I delivered you shortly before I retired. Where is your mother? I’d very much like to see her. I was a regular at Le Relais de la Clef, way back when – the restaurant, I mean, of course; my wife and I used to go there quite a lot, and I knew your grandparents well too.’

  I turned round and scoured the little groups of people gathered about the courtyard, waiters weaving between them holding silver trays laden with glasses of crémant, but I couldn’t see Maman.

  ‘I
’m not sure. She must be around here somewhere … I was premature, wasn’t I?’ I said in order to keep up the conversation with a man old enough to be my grandfather.

  ‘Oh, no.’ The doctor shook his head. ‘You were born right on cue, my dear.’

  He drained his glass of crémant and added, ‘It’s hard to remember every single child, but the first and the last do stick in the mind.’

  I was about to reply when a group dressed in traditional hunting gear started playing the undulating tune known as ‘Le Vol ce l’est’ on their horns. Someone called Dr Lessart over. Before walking away, he placed his hand affectionately on my head and said, loudly over the sound of the brass instruments, ‘Tell your mother I’m here, Aurore.’ The resounding melody that can often be heard echoing through the forests, and that had until then always made me think of the animals that were about to die, went on, rousing and solemn in the chateau’s courtyard. From then on, I would always associate the sound with that moment in my life.

  ‘Was I a premature baby?’ I asked my mother the next day, while we were folding the sheets together in one of the bedrooms.

  ‘Yes,’ Bérengère replied matter-of-factly.

  ‘How premature?’

  ‘Three weeks.’

  ‘The doctor who delivered me said I wasn’t born prematurely but exactly when I was due.’

  ‘Dr Lessart? Where did you see Dr Lessart?’

  ‘At Vougeot last night. He came over to talk to me.’

  ‘And you didn’t say anything?’

  ‘I couldn’t find you, and then I lost him. There were six hundred people there.’