Parisian Promises (10 page)

 

B
y the time the train left the Gare d'Austerlitz station and headed south to the Loire Valley, Monica's mind was throbbing with conflicting memories of the lust and fear she'd experienced at the hands of Jean-Michel. She couldn't figure out how to untangle the serpentine wires short-circuiting all her thoughts. Distracted and anxious, she peeled the scabs that had formed around her cuticles overnight, and was almost pleased to revive the pain–– a piercing pain that ran from her jumbled gray matter and through her weak heart, ultimately releasing itself through the drops of blood spitting from her fingertips. Had she really been struck by a dual bolt of lust and love? Is this what the Romantic French authors meant by a
coup de foudre
, a thunderbolt of love at first sight? And if so, why was she so riddled with doubts about Jean-Michel, while simultaneously yearning to jump back in his arms?

Monica's already erratic thoughts grew increasingly aggravated by the quivering walls of the second-class coach and the jolts from the stiff wooden bench where she sat morosely. As the train left Paris behind, the city giving way to a countryside blurred by the train's dirty windows, Monica couldn't believe that her Paris sojourn had gone haywire before it really ever started. She planned to use this time in the Loire Valley to gather her thoughts––if she could harness them––and to maintain a distance from Jean-Michel.

Monica and her housemates had promised to look out for one another as they ventured off in search of their Parisian fantasies, but each woman had bolted at the first chance of chasing her own dream––and had forsaken the others. Perhaps Annie had found a sublime love with her lascivious professor. By now she might be following the romantic tracks of her nineteenth-century idol, George Sand, the writer who long ago donned a man's suit and tie, left her country home not far from the Loire Valley, and committed herself to a serious life of letters in a man's literary world of Paris. Ironically, Sand also promoted an idealized and romantic notion of love––a feminine ideal, a love-at-all-costs ethos––that damaged her own personal life. One after the other, all of Sands' numerous lovers broke her heart.

Annie, Lola, and Monica all admired Sand, though for different reasons. Annie liked Sand's idea that love contained the power to elevate the soul. Lola praised Sand for being ahead of time and amassing all the lovers she wanted, including Frédéric Chopin. (“Now
that
was bitchin', bitch,” Lola had shouted when Annie told them Sand's life story.) But Monica was simply enamored with Sand's famous quote: There is only one happiness in life––to love and to be loved. It echoed her exact sentiments about experiencing a lasting love in Paris. Monica believed that despite all the cynicism about love and commitment, Sand was onto some universal truth: that it was still possible to expect, pursue, and attain a pure love.

Although the surreal experience of the last three days had thrown Monica off-kilter, a part of her did not want to succumb to this churning malaise. It was threatening to ruin her year in France, and she really didn't want to let that happen. Jean-Michel had shaken her emotional and rational foundations; his intensity had brought to the surface dark depths Monica didn't even know she possessed. Now, in the wake of Jean-Michel's strange and frightening behavior, her mind was whirling in a cyclone of confusion.

Monica closed her eyes, lulled to sleep by the rhythm of the train and the sight of placid fields and a featureless sky. But even sleep wasn't peaceful. Daliesque images invaded her dreams: instead of soft melting clocks, Monica saw a collage of melting toucan bills peeling at her skin, bats screeching words in Latin, and Jean-Michel's fangs biting into her inner thigh as he held two eggs in oversized hands.

She woke up, unsure if she'd cried out in the dream or in the train, the image of Jean-Michel's leering face imprinted in her memory. These visions were not quite identical to Dalí's
Metamorphisis of Narcissus
or his
Persistence of Memory
, two paintings she'd studied in her art history back at Cal State. In that class, the paintings had stumped her, and she hadn't been able to interpret them at all. But on this train ride, her own surreal dream seemed to make sense. It revealed that she was at a crossroads, Monica decided; it was telling her to wake up from her childish dreams about finding the perfect love, to be conscious about her actions––and relentless about getting everything out of life. After all, even the bats in her dream had cried out their advice:
carpe diem, carpe diem!

As the train approached the city of Tours, Monica stood up to get her bag. She stared out the dusty window, expecting to see the famed
châteaux
at a distance. Instead all she saw were dapple-gray horses trotting past a slate-roofed farm house. A pang of homesickness struck her. She was so far away from Rocky and from her mother. But instead of crumbling into tears, longing to brush Rocky's coat and to comfort her mother, Monica felt a surge of energy ripple through her body. She owed it to herself and to her long-suffering mother – and perhaps even to the heroic efforts of Madame during World War II––to make the most of her year in Paris. This was her chance to be happy-go-lucky and young, her chance to change the trajectory of her life.

The horses frolicked in the pasture, and Monica gazed at them with a rueful smile. She'd worked too hard at the stables and at Cal State to pay for this one year of study in France, and she had to make the most of it, as Madame was always urging her. That zany old lady had lived a full life of heroism, glamour, danger, love, and wealth. Today, because of a single commanding phone call from Madame, a chauffeur would be waiting for Monica at the train station in Tours and driving her to the
château
belonging to the Vicomtesse Agnès Challant de la Guerche. Monica resolved to follow Madame's advice: be joyful and get a boyfriend––or better yet, snatch two, as Madame insisted, “and play one against the other.”

Just as Madame had promised, someone was waiting to pick her up––a hunched-over driver with gnarled hands. He lifted his soiled cap and said, “Mademoiselle, I am here to drive you to Les Charmilles, but Madame la Vicomtesse is unable to entertain you today. She said I was to set up an easel anywhere on the grounds and for you to paint in
plein air
.”

He grabbed Monica's overnight bag and threw it onto the back seat of a scruffy Citroën Deux Chevaux. When he told her that his name was Serge, he lifted his cap again, something he did every time they drove through a village en route to the
château
. Whenever he saw someone he knew, he honked the car horn and tipped his cap.

“We will soon be there,” Serge told her when they passed the Indre River, shimmering with reflections of the spires and turrets of the
château
of Azay-le-Rideau. A petite gray-haired woman began crossing the road and Serge stopped the car, tipping his cap. He ignored the impatient honks of drivers waiting behind him, and didn't drive on until the woman reached the other side of the road.

“Oh,
Mon Dieu
, how I love that woman!” he said. “I still feel the stab of when she left me for Loïc.”

Monica felt sorry for the lovelorn Serge. “
Je suis desolée
,” she murmured in hesitant French. “Was it a long time ago?”

“Oh, on the contrary, Mademoiselle, it was just two years ago,” Serge replied, “but you are also right. The first time she left me for Olivier was thirty years ago.” He wiped his eyes with one frayed shirt cuff. “You think I am a fool, and you are right. I am a fool in love with Victoire. I will never get her out of my mind or my heart.”

He took one hand off the wheel to pound his chest and then started driving faster than ever, shifting the gears of the Deux Chevaux like a madman.

“Don't ever fall in love, Mademoiselle,” he told Monica. “It is better to have a heart like an artichoke. That's the way Victoire always was and still is––a tasty artichoke with a heart for every man. Did she look sad to you for breaking my heart, so many hearts?” Serge ground the clutch and Monica winced. “
Mais, non
! She gloats after each and every one of her conquests and what do I do? I, I cry myself to sleep…like a lost child.”

The Deux Chevaux sputtered up a long gravel driveway, and old Serge let out a guttural sigh that rivaled the noisy motor. “I'll tell you the truth, Mademoiselle. I'm in pain. Yes, this is true.”

He stopped the car outside what looked like an old stable block, and clambered out to fetch Monica's bag from the backseat. Monica stepped onto the driveway and stared up towards the house looming at the end of the gravel drive. She wondered if she was still dreaming. The grand manor house was a classic Loire Valley
château
, with pale Touraine stone walls and a slate mansard roof punctuated by dormer windows. It was so beautiful, so vast, that Monica felt short of breath.

Serge stroked the side of the car as if he were caressing the curves of Victoire's lean torso.

“As they say,” he continued, “it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Yes, despite my pain, Mademoiselle, I would still recommend that you feast on the insanity that is
l'amour
.”

Serge set up a vintage wooden easel next to the arbors, the namesake of Les Charmilles, and left a pitcher of water next to a chipped glass on a side table. He tipped his cap at Monica and disappeared into the dense foliage.

Monica took in the vistas from the arbors: a pond with floating swans, distant vineyards, the grand and serene
château
, and extensive classical gardens. She felt like a princess in a fairy tale. In fact, she remembered a professor commenting that the nearby Château d'Ussé had been the model for Charles Perrault's castle in
Sleeping Beauty.
But she shouldn't keep constantly referencing the novels and art history facts she had studied, Monica told herself. She had to learn to
live
all her experiences and not just spout what she read in books or heard in class.

From now on, Monica decided, she would live in the moment. She picked up a brush and mixed a little water with a chalky blue paint, determined to store her apprehensions about Jean-Michel in the deepest corner of her mind. This was a magical place, and she had to enjoy every second of her time here, making the most, right now, of this dreamy afternoon light. She began painting the reflections in the pond.

When Monica was finished, she sat on a folding stool under the arbor, evaluating her painting with a harsh eye. It wasn't quite
Autumn Reflections
, Monet's masterpiece painted in his garden in Giverny, but, she thought, it was a start. At least she was making something, and not just moping around.

“A beautiful homage to Monet,” a man's voice said, and Monica almost tumbled off her stool. “Madame la Vicomtesse will love it. Sometimes she can be a traditionalist, other times she is
avant garde
. But she's always one tough bird. I am Christophe, by the way. You are Monica, who is here to paint for a few days,
n'est-ce pas?
”

He walked over to her easel and grinned. Monica gazed up him, nodding when he said her name. He was young, this Christophe, with tousled brown hair and a disarmingly wide smile.

“I've been out working the horses,” he went on. His English was impeccable. “They've grown so sluggish while I was away.”

“Oh––so you work here?” Monica managed to squeak.

“Like a dog. But Serge tells me that Madame la Vicomtesse is gone for two days, so I'm going to finish now. Serge is taking the horses back to the paddock. Would you like to go for a swim?”

“I don't see a swimming pool.”

“Come, I'll show you.”

She followed Christophe across the side gardens and through more arbors to a fragrant herb garden. Christophe pointed to a cottage, and told her it was the pool house.