Authors: Diane Johnson
‘Come home, Amy. With the changing world situation, we’d all feel better if you just came home.’
However she decided about that, perhaps she should accede to Géraldine’s suggestions and cut her hair. She had not cut it since high school, since she had learned to braid it by looking behind her in a mirror. Her long pigtail suited her, she had always thought, and people had always affirmed. She had done other things Géraldine had hinted must be done to achieve a soignée perfection – for instance a sort of sandpaper massage,
gommage,
so like their word for damage:
dommage
. Géraldine was usually right about everything, so maybe Amy should listen to her about her hair.
She didn’t think her plans were working. She didn’t feel more cultivated and wise, though her skiing had improved in Valméri. She could make cream soups but would never speak French. The thought of home continued to draw her, and the negatives of staying outweighed the positives. A. in little more than a month she had found herself in legal jeopardy, B. she had contributed to a death, C. her heart was broken, or soon would be, D. she had no one to talk to, really, and was not making progress in those skills that had formerly seemed so desirable, or at least these were turning out to be nothing she couldn’t learn at home. She herself was the same! She didn’t feel herself to have changed. Still, would you know if you had changed, or was change a more insidious process imperceptible to the subject of it? She hoped she might have changed a
tiny bit… Yes, she would go home. And she would go see Kerry.
Once these courses of action were definitively decided, her heart lifted with an almost jubilant sense of relief. She would have a huge party – let Géraldine figure out how to do it – throw around a lot of money and leave, and never have to think about
grisaille
and
gouache
again, or, better yet, would have permanently acquired these useful art terms and lots of other terms and upgraded her skiing by quite a lot, and these would stand her in good stead forever. Nothing was a waste! Yet she knew that underneath her happiness at having taken a decision lay a core of misery, perhaps the most intense – and nearly the only – misery that she had experienced, life till now having given her little to complain of. Was she at last in the crucible of pain that would forge for her a fine, perceptive character, an infinite understanding – maturity? Well, she hoped so – she hoped this misery, this feeling of being close to tears at any minute, would net some benefit.
For Posy it was a time of heady delight. Days ago, after the scene with Rupert and Mr Osworthy, Posy and Robin had crept off for a few days in a slightly dingy hotel near the Gare du Nord until they could take up an invitation from Bette Maricheval at her country place. After Bette’s, they had spent a few days at a sweet, ivy-covered auberge in Normandy. Now they were back in Paris, fulfilling an oath Posy had taken to perform a reverence at the tomb of Napoleon. Maisie de Contelanne, off to the country, had loaned them her apartment for the rest of the week, a luxurious place in the sixteenth arrondissement, where the
maid was circumspect and let them sleep late – and nap impulsively. Otherwise it was a little desultory sightseeing or a social engagement in the evening. Robin’s French acquaintance was nearly as wide as his English one, and he rather enjoyed the reactions when he turned up with a Miss Venn. It had begun to dawn on him that the hostesses weren’t entirely pleased at the addition of Posy, but at least he had the fun of astonishing them.
‘I have been coming to Paris since my schooldays, and yet I’ve never been here,’ he remarked now, his face pensive, looking at Posy. How beautiful she is, he was thinking, so fresh and high-colored, so blooming, the epitome of the girl to tumble between the hedgerows, if hedgerows there had been in the seventh arrondissement of Paris. If he could not quite separate her from his notion of her family’s château, it was because his idea of her as châtelaine was so stirring. She would know about gardens, about roses – two subjects he had already worked on with distinction. His lines on the rose were widely quoted. He and Posy of course would not live in a castle but in a cottage, and also in his flat off Kensington Road. He saw her warming milk, arranging flowers in a simple blue jug, the scene presenting itself to his imagination as if painted by Matisse in primary blues, reds, and yellows. So much younger! Eventually, her appetites would exceed his, if they didn’t already. Never mind, it was possible that by blooming late, desire would last longer, like autumn chrysanthemums or asters.
‘Oh, Robin,’ Bette Maricheval had rebuked him at her drinks party on the Wednesday. ‘I knew in my heart you’d choose an English rose eventually. As a
française
and as a
hostess, I cannot but be disappointed with you. In fact I had already made a cross over you. He is lost, I told myself.’ She smiled at Posy to show she didn’t mean to be rude to her. ‘I didn’t even think of you for the Longchamps party you used to love so much…’
Robin too clearly had seen that his French circle was going to dwindle; for an instant he weighed the relative merits of
la vie mondaine
on the Continent and the domestic comforts of England, and had no question but that the latter were preferable, but anyway why should the French not also love his comely girl in her charming flowered dress, and – he knew, if they didn’t – underneath, her red lace bra and suspenders?
So handsome, though thin, Posy was saying to herself. He’s got to gain weight, needs some taking care of. They say he has a good chance of being poet laureate next time round. Posy loved to look at Robin thinking. She had been surprised by the transformative power of love, no matter whom you loved, evidently, since she could just barely remember being in love with Emile a few days ago. By love itself she was transformed, and the transformation in her perception of Robin had been sudden, too, almost like one of those electronically generated images on a police screen, his face morphing from thin and a bit older to handsome, sensitive, and in his prime. Never mind about Emile. Perhaps being in love with one man makes you more receptive to the next? Perhaps love is just a state of vulnerability, or receptivity, as in newborn ducklings. Is receptivity the same as ‘the rebound’? No matter, she could see the healthy side of it, for the feeling was the
same, of intense joy at being with the loved one, and unreserved admiration. By means of this emotion, she would be suddenly transformed into a good person, joined to a man whose work commanded admiration, and in English, thank heavens. Whatever the role of desire in her now almost forgotten feeling for Emile, her feeling for Robin included desire and was more intellectually involving. So there.
She was performing a promised pilgrimage to Napoleon’s tomb, Napoleon, wise author of the law that had provided for her over Father’s wishes. Gazing down on the
tombeau
of the emperor, she could not but think of Father’s ashes, back at that hotel, and of how she had shirked the unpleasant, sad task of delivering them to his wife. She knew she was dilatory but so much had intervened, and Rupert could jolly well do it. Besides, ashes weren’t Father, they were just matter, inert powder, the very enemy and opposite of life and memory.
There was a similarity in some ways, Posy was thinking, between Father and Napoleon. They were probably the same height, and Father had had a rather Napoleonic optimism, daring and restless. Maybe that sort of character wasn’t such a bad thing. She felt a surge of forgiveness for Father, a feeling of love, along with the realization that she took after him. Had they cremated Napoleon or was he actually buried here? She thought idly of how suitable it would be to sprinkle Father’s ashes here, on Napoleon’s tomb, if only she hadn’t left them for Rupert.
Amy, lost in thought, was also making her way to the Musée de l’Armée. Having decided to go back to
California, she felt an urgent need to see all the things she should, as if they were to be denied her forever, and she had arranged to meet a friend of Géraldine’s for a special guided visit through the historic cannons, and the Thursday lecture on Austerlitz.
Paradoxically, her new interest in French history had been animated by a rising interest in American history. It was as if, having decided to go home, something told her she’d better learn where it was she was going. She had gone to see the grave of Lafayette, and the small version of the Statue of Liberty, for she had never seen the big one in New York. She had gone to two American museums, and gazed at rather limp displays of tarnished Revolutionary uniforms, three-cornered hats, small purses worn by the ladies of Jefferson’s time, battered flags, and canteens carried by the soldiers of the First World War. These items didn’t stir her very much, but she did feel a surge of patriotism that such a mighty country should have bloomed from such meager ingredients.
‘Bunjer,’ said someone next to her as she stopped at the corner at a red light.
She looked over to see embarrassingly dressed people, their fat bodies, plaid pants, and sneakers marking them unmistakably as Americans. But the strange iteration, bunjer, might be some other language altogether.
‘Bunjer. Bunjer Bunjer.’ They were looking at her. Why? She resolutely refused eye contact in case they were Americans after all. When they had moved on, she heard the woman say, ‘See, they are so arrogant and rude, she can’t be bothered. It’s like everybody says. They hate Americans, as if they didn’t have a stupid little socialist
country here where lots of people don’t even have cars.’
Shame shot through her. Oh, my God, Amy thought, they are talking to me, they are saying
bonjour
. They think I’m French and that I’ve been a typical rude French person! ‘Oh, excuse me,’ she ran after them to say. It wouldn’t be fair to let them think ill of the French on account of her own behavior! ‘I was just so lost in thought, I didn’t hear you speak to me.’
They stared, embarrassed in their turn to have been overheard by this French person who obviously spoke English perfectly well, almost like an American, and who – it was dawning on them – actually
was
another American.
‘Can I help you?’ Amy asked. ‘I live around here…’
When they had chatted a few minutes and she had oriented them, Amy went on her way, only by chance seeing Emile Abboud stepping into a taxi outside the Invalides. He saw her see him, and gave a little wave. Her heart lurched. Probably he had observed the whole encounter and thought these fat people were her best friends. One’s countrymen are always a humiliation for the traveler, whatever the country, but this was especially bad. It appeared there was to be no end to her mortifications. If only she knew what her crime had been. Ah, but that was American for sure, not to know your crime.
She was used to the fact that tourists in Paris, congregating at a handful of monuments, are apt to run into each other, so she was not too surprised to find herself facing Robin Crumley and Posy Venn across the round pit where the poor emperor was entombed, like her
gazing down on his nested coffins. She was somewhat surprised, though, to see them together. Like Emile, they waved, and after a few minutes she walked around to where they were. They had been holding hands, she noted, but unlaced their hands and embraced her joyfully, and asked for an account of her week.
‘We’ve been in Normandy. I’m sorry I didn’t go to the party at Victoire’s mother’s, but I didn’t feel like it,’ Posy said. ‘Wasn’t feeling well, I mean.’
‘It was very nice, of course,’ Amy said. ‘Lots of French people, but since I can’t speak a word, practically…’ They agreed on the charm of being Anglo-Saxons with no French people present, the three of them now chattering on in English with no feeling of shame.
Posy’s eyes fell on the book Amy carried. She carried it everywhere, to read on buses. ‘I see you are reading
The Red and the Black,
’ said Posy. ‘It’s so unbelievably French, don’t you think? Even reading it in English. An absolute celebration of hypocrisy.’
‘I was always afraid it was an American specialty,’ Amy admitted. She was above feeling stung by Posy’s noticing she wasn’t reading in French.
Amy noticed that Posy and Robin seemed on very good terms. Posy tugged on Robin’s arm and looked up at him to affirm this or that statement. They all exchanged cell phone numbers.
When Robin and Posy had gone, Amy stayed awhile to meditate at the tomb of Napoleon on the themes of history, and whether it was wise to be too mindful of it. Were you indeed condemned to repeat horrible mistakes if you didn’t keep history in mind? At the moment,
she felt that whatever her country was involved in now, and her ancestors had done back then, made no difference, for they had no power to lighten her feeling of isolation and self pity, emotions so new to her that she had no reflexes for dealing with them – unlike people who were used to them, and might take brisk walks. Though both Napoleon’s own history and the apparent conjunction of Robin and Posy pointed to fortune’s tendency to change rapidly, either for the good or the bad, Amy derived no intimation from the inert bronzes entombing forever the once vital emperor, that hers would change any further and that she would not remain forever just shy of personal happiness.
Robin and Posy were invited to the de Ditraisons’ for a cocktail buffet. Madame de Ditraison had mentioned to Robin how pleased they would all be if he read a few of his poems aloud before dinner, preferably some of his translations from the French. Robin was accustomed, as he said, to singing for his supper, and would be happy to oblige. He was no more unwilling than any other poet to read aloud.
Now, in the drawing room, all gilt and white paint – rather overdone, in her view – Posy listened, her mood a confusion of affection, admiration for Robin, and a deep wish to escape, though there would be no escape, there would be dinner.
She was oppressed by how patronizingly the French ladies had praised her flowered dress, saying, ‘How English!’ ‘How like a garden!’ ‘
J’adore
Laura Ashley,’ ‘How original,’ and several other such comments.