Cooking for Picasso (31 page)

B
Y
J
ULIE'S FIFTEENTH BIRTHDAY,
C
HEZ
Ondine
was so profitable that Ondine and Luc were able to enroll their daughter in a private well-regarded girls' high school. Ondine's little family had long since moved out of the room above the florist's shop, and they now rented a nice Victorian house with a wraparound porch, in an enclave by the sea called
Sans Souci
, where mute swans glided majestically along the shores with their fuzzy babies, hoping for tossed pieces of old bread.

In the summertime on their day off, Luc would take Ondine and Julie out in a little rowboat. They'd paddle across to Glen Island Park, an elegant public resort with nineteenth-century beachhouses, a colonnade and a casino. They'd picnic on the crescent-shaped beach and splash about in Long Island Sound until the sun went down. Then they'd sit on the seawall to hear big-band music wafting out from the casino, with Julie and Ondine watching to see what gowns the women wore.

One evening, on Ondine's thirty-third birthday, Luc surprised her by booking a table for two at the casino. They dined on “lobster casino with saffron rice” and sole
amandine
. Then they went into the enormous second-floor ballroom with French doors that opened onto private balconies overlooking the sea and sky, where a golden moon gazed down at its own rippling reflection in the darkened waves.

“See? Our stars are still there,” Luc said, pointing, and taking her into his arms. She pressed her cheek against his as they listened to “Moonlight Sonata” and “Walkin' My Baby Back Home.” Humming to each other they danced late into the night to their swing-time favorites.

“Where'd you learn these steps?” Luc demanded when Ondine tried a slightly new variation.

“Julie taught me,” she said. “The girls do our dances a little differently now.”

“Someday we'll go back to France with her, and show her to your parents,” Luc promised.

It was a dream of theirs, even a plan, for although Ondine's letters home still went unanswered, Luc felt sure that Ondine's parents wouldn't be able to resist welcoming their only grandchild.

Julie was pretty, but she was still diminutive which made her seem younger than her age. Like other children of immigrants, she'd grown up speaking English in school but her parents' language at home—never quite knowing which language to think her own private thoughts in. Although her parents were full of love, they were secretive and given to certain dark and worried moods. She knew that their stress had to do with business, yet they never told her exactly why, so even on good days there was still a persistent, uneasy undercurrent, a lurking, unspeakable anxiety, beneath all their success.

But at school, as Julie gradually overcame her innate shyness and began making friends, her confidence grew. She began acting more like an American girl, imitating the optimistic exuberance of her friends. Ondine liked hearing Julie chattering with other girls her age when they came home from school in their identical wool blazers and pleated skirts, their arms full of books, their hair pulled back with bright ribbons or sparkling clips.

One Sunday afternoon when Luc was out at a card game, and Julie was in the backyard with her friends looking at fashion magazines, a well-dressed man in a suit came into the yard bearing a box of chocolates for Julie and a bouquet of flowers for her mother. He wore cologne and had a silky, elegant demeanor as he patted Julie's cheek and then went inside to speak to Ondine.

After he left, Julie asked, “Who was that nice man with the good manners?”

“He's not nice, and don't ever speak to him again. If you see him, tell your father immediately,” Ondine retorted sharply. She'd been unnerved by the visitor, who had noiselessly let himself in the unlocked back door, walked through the house and appeared at the threshold of her parlor, like a phantom. His voice was so soft that at first, Ondine could not believe she'd heard him properly. She would never tell Julie what that man had said:

You have a lovely daughter. If you want her to live to see her own wedding, you'll pay what my men have been asking your husband for. If you don't, she might have a terrible accident and you'll find her bones scattered all over town.

“Tell your friends to go home,” Ondine told Julie in a low voice. “And come inside at once.”

“I can't just chase them away!” Julie objected.

“Find a nice way to do it, but do it,” Ondine said more sharply than usual. Julie sighed, aggrieved, but obeyed. Once Julie was safely inside, Ondine locked all the doors and windows.

When Luc came home he was beaming with self-confidence, announcing, “I've found us a new fish supplier! He's just like the man I worked for in Juan-les-Pins—honest, no-nonsense, salt-of-the-earth. We can trust him.” Ondine managed an encouraging nod before she described her visitor. Luc instantly knew who it was; the boss behind the men who came to collect the protection money.

Luc was furious. “That bastard actually came to our
house
?” he exclaimed, scowling. “He threatened our
child
? By God, I'll handle him!” He jutted out his chin with that dangerous look of pride and fearlessness, which Ondine had first seen at the train station with Monsieur Renard the day they left France, and which, lately, she was seeing more frequently. Luc had, as people here said, “a long fuse”, but once aroused he could be a hothead. Yet he listened to Ondine whenever she intervened.

“What exactly does this man want from us?” she asked quietly as they went into their kitchen.

Luc shook his head with a dark look in his eyes. “That's just it. He says ‘more'—always, ‘more'! But he'll never really be satisfied until he gets it all. He runs a string of greasy diners and he's losing customers to people like us. He offered to buy us out for an insulting amount.”

“You didn't tell me that,” Ondine reproached him. Lately it had been difficult to tell the difference between Luc's allies and his foes; they were all tough men. Luc shrugged and sat down.

“I didn't want to worry you; it seemed like just big talk. But now that he sees he can't own us, he only wants to put us out of business. Well, there are bigger fish than him, in the Bronx. I met one today who can protect us from these puny local sharks. Enough is enough. I'll have to deal with this tonight.”

Ondine gave Luc his dinner, which he ate calmly and methodically at their table that overlooked the tranquil Long Island Sound. “What will you do?” she asked, sitting beside him.

“We'll have to take on this Bronx boss as an ‘investor' in our place; but that's okay,” Luc said, as if he'd already been considering this for some time. “Because he's a real businessman. He can provide us with better suppliers for everything but the fish, and as I've said, I've got that taken care of now.”

Ondine put a hand on his arm. “Don't go out tonight,” she urged. “Wait until morning. It's safer to do things in the light of day.” Luc's tense expression abated, and he nodded. When they went to bed she pressed close against his warm chest and he fell asleep quickly, exhausted. Ondine slept fitfully.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
Luc left early, first to see Julie safely off to school, and then he headed out for the Bronx. Ondine handled the lunchtime service, but when Luc didn't return in time to pick up Julie, she went to the schoolyard herself. Luc had told her to meet Julie if he was delayed.

“Oh,
Maman,
what is
wrong
with you and Papa today, escorting me to and fro like a child?” Julie groaned. “You're both embarrassing me in front of my friends.”

Ondine and Luc had agreed not to frighten the girl by telling her of the kidnapping threat. So Ondine said only, “
Chère fille,
take your schoolbooks to Mrs. O'Malley's house and stay there, do your homework, until I come for you.” Mrs. O'Malley was a kindly neighbor whose husband was a retired baseball coach. Ondine had told them about the threat to Julie and they'd agreed to keep a protective eye on her when Ondine was at work. The O'Malleys had two handsome sons, so Julie didn't object.

When Ondine returned to the restaurant to prepare for the dinner service, the telephone was ringing as she walked in. The caller was one of the waiters from the restaurant who often accompanied Luc to the freight yard to pick up fresh food supplies. And for the rest of her life Ondine would remember, word for word, what that man said: “Ondine, I'm so sorry. There's been a fight down here by the railroad tracks. A lotta men injured. But Luc…Luc is dead.”

“No,” Ondine said vehemently. “Not Luc. You must be mistaken. He didn't go down there today—he went to the Bronx.”

“Yes, I know that. But then they all came here to a big meeting down by the railroad cars. I wasn't around when it happened, but I've talked to people who were. The rival gangs were supposed to come to terms, but there was a showdown of some kind and a fight broke out. I don't know if the bosses here were planning to kill your husband all along, or if he just got caught in the crossfire,” the man said in a rush, as if to get it over with as quickly as he could. “They called a doctor who says that in Luc's case—it was a blow to the head.”

“I'm coming there. I have to see him,” Ondine said immediately, taking off her apron, still hoping it was all a mistake, as in Juan-les-Pins when everyone insisted that Luc was gone for good.

“Don't do that, Madame,” the man warned with such conviction that she froze. “This is an ugly scene today, no place for a lady. Believe it or not, some people are trying to say the whole thing was just a terrible accident—that a tower of pallets packed with heavy boxes fell on the men standing below it. And the cops, well, some of them are in the pockets of the bosses. I'm handling it for you, believe me. You may get a call anyway from the police, but just tell them the truth—that you know nothing.”

“I want to see Luc!” Ondine cried passionately.

“I know. I called the undertaker. The body is already on its way to the funeral parlor.”

The telephone receiver slipped from Ondine's hands and clattered to the floor. She felt her body sag against the doorway. And even to her own ears, the cry that came from her throat sounded so much like a wounded animal that she pressed both hands to her mouth for fear of hearing it again.

T
HE UNDERTAKER SOLICITOUSLY
ushered Ondine into the dimly lit room in the funeral parlor where Luc lay on a table. When the assistant pulled back the cloth, it was obvious that they'd worked carefully to make the body presentable. Luc's beautiful hair was combed perfectly with pomade—something he never used. And it was parted differently because, she later found out, they'd had to clip away the hair that was matted with blood from the mortal wound on his head. His face, strangely, betrayed no sign of duress; it was pale, but he still wore that determined expression which was so familiar—as if he'd been waiting for her and was about to speak in an ordinary way on an ordinary day.

“Luc,” Ondine whispered, sinking into the chair beside him. “Don't leave me.” She couldn't stop herself from thinking what she always did when faced with a problem:
I'll ask Luc about it when he comes home.
Her mind could not give up believing that they could overcome this difficulty as they always did—together, giving each other strength. She wanted to tell him what happened this awful afternoon after she got the phone call.

A police officer had indeed come to the restaurant and asked his perfunctory questions. How old was Luc? What business was he in? Was he a citizen? Ondine answered automatically. After he left she moved about like a sleepwalker and put up the
Closed
sign, turned off the lights, locked the doors.