Authors: Diane Johnson
‘Oui,’
said Amy. ‘It was very nice – I hope there weren’t a lot of dishes, I should have stayed… it was a lovely party.’ How stupid she sounded, of course Géraldine had had helpers, she wasn’t doing dishes, what a banal remark.
‘No, she enjoys giving parties.’ A silence extended itself.
‘Oh, good.’
He suddenly took her elbow. ‘Why are you out here? Come and have a cognac, or some eggs.’ It seemed an odd conjunction. Amy stepped passively along, walking toward St Germain on the rue des Saints-Pères, wondering why she was going with him. What was he doing here, for that matter?
‘She knows a lot of Americans,’ Amy said. ‘I suppose she was making me feel at home.’
‘Here, the Flore.’ They walked into the café, still crowded at midnight, and sat on the terrace under the warmers. He ordered two cognacs, without asking what she wanted. Amy wondered why she should even sit here, having unwisely broached the subject of Americans, which would invite more criticism and involve having to defend her country yet again, even if she half agreed with many of the things he would probably say. There were lots of Americans in the Flore tonight, but also some old French women staring into their
pastis,
as in a painting Amy had seen of a greenish woman staring into her absinthe. She and Emile stared at each other, he perhaps wondering, as she was, why they were here, or what to say now? Yet she was not unhappy to find herself sitting with a handsome Frenchman at midnight in a café – surely that fitted somewhere into her dream of Europe? Why were her feelings always so contradictory? Was contradiction after all more conducive to growth than certitude would be?
‘Are you familiar with the works of Prince Kropotkin?’ she asked presently, for lack of any other topic.
‘
Oui,
yes, why?’
She was startled. Though she had often tried to bring
up Kropotkin, this was the first time anyone had ever heard of him.
‘I find him an interesting figure.’ She heard herself telling him about her belief that Kropotkin’s ideas should be promulgated.
‘You are an anarchist, then. I had taken you for a capitalist,’ he said. Was he speaking of her personal situation, or of the American way of life in general? Her wariness grew. ‘Naturally mutual aid is a good idea, cooperation is a good, but principles are needed also,’ he added.
‘Oh, naturally,’ she agreed, thinking in confusion that cooperation was a principle. What did he mean? ‘It was so beautiful on the bridge, I was trying to remember what he said about beauty.’
‘I can tell you. He said beauty was an “idea thought out in detail.”’ How surprising that Emile knew this! ‘I can even illustrate. You looked very beautiful at Géraldine’s – I’ve been told one doesn’t say such things to Americans, they think you are insulting their seriousness. But what I mean is, when Kip told me about your kindness to him, I began to see your beauty. My idea had impeded my eye. It was a strange corrective to realize that. But why were you thinking about that particular abstract idea?’
‘I was thinking that there is an idea behind the French treatment of the riverbanks and bridges, or maybe an assumption is a better word, that it should be beautiful, an idea we don’t have at home. Usually we have factories along rivers.’
Emile evidently restrained himself from making some cultural slur. ‘I should apologize to you. I didn’t appreciate
the extent of the help you’ve given to Kip. I heard that it is you sending him to the school in Versailles.’
‘Yes, why?’
‘That is very generous too.’
‘Oh, I’m sure they’ll pay me back,’ said Amy. ‘If not, I’ll make him mow my lawn or something.’ Mr Osworthy had not been sure how things in America had been left for Kip, or whether Kerry even had custody of her brother.
‘They say Americans have a somewhat careless attitude to money.’
‘Not me, I’m quite careful,’ she said. ‘Some things are just important, like school.’
‘I didn’t mean it as a criticism.’
‘Really? Then that’s the first thing you’ve ever said to me that wasn’t… Why is Kip avoiding me? He hardly spoke to me.’
‘I imagine he’s embarrassed at the way his sister is acting.’
But she didn’t know how Kerry was acting; to her shame, she had not yet been to see her. She thought again of how she had misguidedly helped them move Mr Venn, to his death.
‘Anyway, I should apologize to
you
. I’m sorry about the way it turned out for your wife’s father. I feel it was my fault.’
‘The mysteries of culture. A French person would say, “It’s not my fault.”’
‘I’ve noticed that,’ said Amy. ‘They often say
ce n’est pas ma faute,
’ where we would think it polite to say, “It’s my fault,” even when we don’t think it is. But I do think it was my fault.’
‘
En fait,
it was the fault of the English lawyer. You yourself were generous and altruistic.’
She had no reply to this. ‘You have a new job,’ she came up with finally.
‘Well, an additional job; I’ve kept my other jobs too.’ But since she didn’t know what his jobs were exactly, this also went nowhere.
‘
En fait,
I find much to my surprise I am sometimes wrong about things,’ he said. Looking at him, Amy didn’t believe he often had to admit to being wrong. People would always indulge him. She would not, though. She saw that he was trying to be nice; she could not explain her growing discomfort with this conversation, banal and good natured as it was.
‘I think I am too determined to think the worse of Americans in general,’ he went on.
‘Yes, I’ve noticed that. Do you actually know many?’
‘You are almost the only one.’ He laughed. ‘Apart from Géraldine’s voracious friends, the
décoratrices
and
facilatrices
… They do reinforce my low opinion of Americans. You go some way to redeeming them.’
‘But not all the way,’ Amy said, remembering the many things he had said in Valméri.
‘In general, yes. That is what I am trying to tell you, that I have seen that you are not like the others, that you are something more.’
‘Not at all,’ said Amy, with a twinge of indignation for her countrymen. ‘There’s where you’re wrong. I’m just a regular American, I’m totally typical. Maybe you should reexamine your ideas about us. You should examine your ideas about categorizing people. But I suppose you
want to be congratulated for your marvelous flexibility, changing your mind about me…’
She heard herself say much more in this vein, delivering herself of a longer, pent-up patriotic outburst, and observed his look of astonishment, and his polite manner of rising, as she made her escape from this horrible, though handsome, man.
Emile watched her go, wondering if, at last, he could be in some danger.
35
Amy tossed in the night, slept fitfully, and woke still feeling strangely shaken by the events of yesterday, all on their surface so agreeable – a party, lots of interesting new French acquaintances, even friendliness from the distant and formerly hostile Emile Abboud. There was the wounding episode with the baron, to be sure, but Amy realized it had not been chagrin that had colored her restless dreams; that little episode had been a small blow to her self-regard, not more. No, it had been Emile Abboud and the peculiar encounter of late last night that had disturbed her. She ought not to have been so rude to Emile; he was after all Géraldine’s son-in-law, and she owed it Géraldine to be civil.
It hadn’t been entirely fair to attack him, he had a point about Americans. Thinking about Elaine and Dolly, and Tammy and Wendi, she could see where he might have got his bad impressions of her countrymen, unfair as this was, and he had been trying to be complimentary to her, even friendly. But his view that she was not like other Americans, if sincere, was insulting to typical Americans like herself. Perhaps he had been an emissary from the whole Venn family, to say that she was forgiven for the sad way Venn’s trip to London had turned out.
But it wasn’t the Venns, it was Emile himself she kept thinking about. She had not forgotten her own frisson
when she had first met him – and the feeling she had whenever she had seen him since. And he could quote from memory the words of Prince Kropotkin – the only other human being in the world to share her enthusiasm. How bitter that such intelligence should be embodied in a man who hated such people as herself. How she longed to redeem herself.
Despite her declaration, of course Posy was obliged to see her siblings again, to discuss the château, a discussion she had been dreading. Though Trevor Osworthy had proposed the offices of the Paris branch of his firm, Osworthy, Park, and George, the French, with their propensity for having things their own way, insisted that this meeting was to be held at the
bureau
of Antoine de Persand, who was now an underminister of the economy, with an office in a government palace on the rue Solferino, remarkably luxurious for a public servant, with a Chagall and a Corot borrowed from the public collections, and serious furniture by Meisner.
‘Only in France,’ said Osworthy, as he often did about other social phenomena in this country, ‘only in France would the functionaries be able to loot the national heritage for their own uses. The French are a docile race, despite their revolution. No doubt the energy, the spark, was guillotined away, no wonder they didn’t resist the German occupation. Priest-ridden, to boot.’
Posy wouldn’t have minded bumping into Emile, who had already taken up his duties with the ministry. She wondered if he could work his old magic, now that Robin had entered her life. But Emile had been aware that his
wife and Posy would both be in the building and had stayed away in his office at Sciences Po for the day, so both Posy and Victoire were disappointed. Both women wanted to put themselves to the test of seeing him, to relish the feeling of indifference they were sure to have, and to enjoy the sensation of Providence being on their side, of things working out for the best. It was almost worth having had a bout of misery for the pleasure of knowing one had got over a destructive emotion. In addition, Victoire dreaded seeing Posy, though Posy didn’t dread seeing Victoire.
Osworthy had convoked Posy, Rupert, and Victoire, and he himself was representing little Harry and the widow Venn, who was still too frail to venture out of the Clinique Marianne, a pleasant-enough place, he could verify. Mr Delamer, Venn’s man of business, and the French
notaire,
a Monsieur Lepage from Saint-Gond, were also there. Rupert and Mr Osworthy were glad to see Posy turn up. She had managed to avoid them all week, and they had been worried about her.
Osworthy told them he had finally come to an understanding with the French tax people, to the effect that, most of the property being in France, most of the taxes were due in France, but other taxes were due in England on property there, which included, to his horror, Pamela Venn’s house, which had never been properly signed over to her. France agreed to look the other way when it came to the English estate.
‘She was very badly represented, poor thing, a result I myself was somewhat responsible for. As Adrian’s solicitor against her, I was not overly concerned about her
affairs. Of course her own solicitor was at fault.’ He was sorry now, but there was nothing to be done, unless he could convince the Inland Revenue that it was a mere error of registration and the house was not part of Venn’s estate. No fraud had been intended, God knew.
‘One good deed I can take credit for. I have managed to prove that the Bonnard was bought in London, and there we might get an exemption on the condition it return to and not leave England. The French, of course, wanted it in lieu of death duties.’
Rupert and Monsieur Delamer stared. Even the suave Monsieur de Persand appeared startled. ‘You told them about the Bonnard?’
‘
Mon Dieu,
are you a fool, man?’ cried Delamer. They had become abusive – that was the only word for it – at Mr Osworthy’s declaration that he had listed it, for they had spirited it away out of sight of the French tax authorities, they thought safely. However, he wanted no part of chicanery.
‘I remember when Adrian bought it,’ said Monsieur Delamer. ‘How he loved it, how he would want his little boy –’
‘I believe it’s called hiding assets,’ Mr Osworthy said. ‘Often done by people planning to divorce. Mind you, it’s illegal. I’m not sure what Pamela Venn’s claims could be against the estate, if any, if it came out he had these things at the time of the divorce.’
‘There are two issues, then,’ said Persand, quickly, not wishing to ignite any simmering divorce recriminations, ‘now that the inventory and appraisals are finished. A valuation of the château at two million eight hundred
thousand euros is conveniently low; it would fetch a bit more than that at sale; though not as much as if it were smaller, prettier, and in better repair. But the lower evaluation helps you reduce the tax basis.
‘It has value to Harry as his home, and as a seat of the business Icarus Press, and for the vineyard enterprise. These two
affaires
have also been appraised, the press at a loss, which will diminish the tax liability of the entire estate, the vineyard at a profit, after the deduction for depreciation of the capital equipment. In France, by the way, it is the heirs who pay. You are individually liable. I believe it is otherwise in England.’
‘Yes, in England the estate would pay the taxes, the heirs get what’s left over,’ said Osworthy, his tone leaving no doubt about which system he thought more reasonable.
‘The upshot is that if the estate were liquidated, each of the heirs would receive about six hundred fifty thousand euros, and after taxes around three hundred eighty thousand – that is, each of you will owe around three hundred thousand in taxes, regardless of whether you sell or keep the building and businesses. Madame Abboud, your share is a little less because of the illegitimacy penalty. It was the philosophy of the French Revolution, and its triumph, that children conceived in free affection should not be penalized, love should not be constrained by the dead hand of the Church or the State, parental love should not be legislated, girls and boys be treated equally…’ The listeners were a little startled by a passionate tremor that had entered his voice. Of course they had noticed in Valméri that he was or was about to be a new father.