I
grabbed a pack of Lucky Strikes from my stash in the dresser and went back to
Le Carre Rouge. Parisians always stick to the same café. I had one with Liana, where
I never go. This place was more fitting. It was strictly bottom shelf. The regulars
rolled their own cigarettes and there was always a table with a view of the
traffic circle.
I
knew what JP wanted. I remembered how I felt that first year. Living on hate,
living for vengeance. When I wasn’t drunk, I was bothering the police, calling
in favors with the French services. I had been with the Sûreté when they
questioned suspects. I skulked around Communist meetings, trying to pass myself
off as an American comrade. But I was always suspect, and nobody opened up to
me more than the usual propaganda line. I followed the men the Sûreté took in
for questioning. Some for weeks at a time. Nothing out of the ordinary. No
hatchet men. They were family men, working men, functionaries of the party.
Rallies, meetings, strikes, canvassing, campaigning. Nothing violent. No one
told any stories over drinks. They were dedicated to their cause but did
nothing to make me think they had killed one of the opposition and my wife.
There
had been no doubt about what I would do when I figured out who had killed Liana.
Unintended bystander or not, they would pay with their own life. I had my Colt 1911 wrapped in an oiled cloth in the
closet.
The
fire that burned inside me never went out, but after that first year of
disappointment and false leads, after fellow attachés reported to me that they
figured it for the work of Russian agents on orders from the Kremlin, my blood
lust began to seep away, like rain on a bridge drying in the sun.
Liana
became one of the many senseless deaths. She might have been in a car accident,
she might have choked or fallen down the stairs. Undignified. Unlucky. Like so
many GIs, she had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And
now — had JP found a string to pull?
Even
if he had it probably didn’t matter. I’d be
shipped back to the States and debriefed any day now.
But
maybe there was a way I could stay on, at least long enough to settle this.
I
found JP at the same bar where he used to hang out when I was married to his
daughter. He was sitting at a table playing la belote with friends or
maybe enemies. I didn’t know. They looked like mechanics. The bar was in the
Eleventh, not far from Pere Lachaise, a working-class neighborhood. No
professors here. Or immigrants. Natives only. Some Algerians had been beaten on
the street only a week ago. Where were all those loyal colonized subjects of
France supposed to go?
When
he saw me he got up and went to the bar. He ordered Suze. The barman poured two
cloudy glasses of the yellow liquor. Besides being one of the cheapest drinks,
it was disgusting. I sometimes ordered it despite the taste of bitter orange
peels.
“What
do you want?”
“To
kill someone,” I said.
He
looked into my eyes. His were red and puffy. “I don’t believe you,” he said,
taking a drink. “But I’m going to need you. This time we finish it.”
I
took a drink and waited for him to tell me what he had found out.
“Philippe
— that is his name — is a professor at the Sorbonne and also a communist. And,
it seems, so was Liana.”
I
scoffed. “Don’t you think I’d know that?”
“No,”
he replied bluntly. “I don’t. As an American there are things you couldn’t
understand. The motives of a French woman are not the same as in your country.
She couldn’t sacrifice who she was for promises.”
“She
wasn’t like that.”
“But
she was, wasn’t she? You’ll need to accept that. Accept she was not the perfect
wife you thought she was. She was independent, she had a life she didn’t share
with you. Maybe she would have…” He stopped.
This
was more than he’d said to me all at once the whole time I’d been his
son-in-law.
He
went back to his table and recovered his cigarette from the ashtray.
“Osval
had a 15-year-old daughter. The police report has nothing about her.”
“Police
report?”
“I
have a friend on the force. She’ll be seventeen now, an adult. Maybe she knows
something.”
“And
if she doesn’t?” I asked. “Do we break her arm?”
JP
smiled. “We’ll see.”
“Let
me do it. Just stay in the car with your tool kit.”
JP
shrugged. “The downstairs neighbor in her building knows me anyways. I’ll pick
you up at noon. I’ve watched her. She never leaves the apartment before two.
She’s a dancer at Le Coq Gaulois, or maybe a putain.”
I
nodded and finished my drink without coughing.
“She
should be alone, the mother leaves with the husband, or whatever he is, around
ten. They part ways at the corner. I think she works for the post.”
“And
him?”
“I
don’t know. Wears a cheap suit and hangs around Les Halles market.”
“Maybe
it would be better to talk to the daughter at work.”
“Who
knows who’ll be watching there. Better alone.”
I
left the bar and walked toward the metro. It was the kind of day I might have
strolled through the flea market at Porte de Clignancourt, or the bookstalls
along the Seine on the Left Bank. Maybe afterwards a drink with Liana on St.
Germain or over the bridge to the Ile Saint Louis for a café. Someone at the Embassy
said they’d seen Picasso and Hemingway there. What it must have been like in
Paris before the war.
When
I got to the metro stairs I changed my mind and headed toward the Sorbonne. I
hadn’t been there in a long time. It was a lively part of Paris. Busy with
students, those born just before the war.
I
walked into the building where Liana had her classroom. I hadn’t spent much
time here. Occasionally I came in to meet her after class. It was always so bustling,
so alive. Maybe it had too much, too much temptation. It occurred to me that I
might find him here. The professor Liana
found more exciting than me, who fit her academic mind better. Maybe she even loved
him more. I pushed the thought away.
I
found her old classroom and cracked the door. It was full of kids listening to
a lecture. I went in and took a seat at the back.
It
took me a few minutes to figure out the subject. Someone’s textbook read Abstract
Expressionism. Liana was part of this. Part of the new wave of art. The
museums were full of Jackson Pollock and Helen Frankenthaler now. Liana painted
and sculpted in experimental ways; the work resembled nothing of the subject.
This was the future. I had encouraged her to turn tradition on its head, even
if I preferred the old stuff. Giant paintings of battles, dogs with pheasants
in their teeth and stags hung for dressing. I didn’t understand the canvases of
colorful blotches. It was lost on me. But Liana was passionate about it. The
old stuff was overdone, belonged to the past, she’d say. Maybe that’s what I
was.
If
she hadn’t been killed, would we still be together? Or would she have left
me? How long would I have played the
sap? Maybe she would have come back to me on her own. Maybe I would never have
needed to know about Philippe.
I
left the class. Her office was in another building, a half block away. I took
the stairs to the fourth floor. They had given me the little name plaque with
her things. There had also been a memorial for her at the school’s graduation
that year. All the students had stood, there was a chorus who sang La Mer. The
professors all shook my hand afterwards. Including, I supposed, Philippe. I
didn’t remember. Maybe he’d had the decency not to. I doubted it, the fucking
douche.
I
knocked on the door. Her office was occupied by “Prof. Alois Courtemanche” now.
An
older gentlemen answered in a tweed jacket. How stereotypical.
“I’m
sorry to disrupt you.”
“Come
in, come in,” he said. “You are Liana’s husband.”
“Yes.”
“I
remember seeing you now and then. I was so sorry,” he said shaking my
hand. “Someone with so much vitality, so
much energy. And the way she understood art. What it could do, could mean.”
I
just looked down, nodding.
“She
is missed here,” he went on. “By everyone. It is an honor to have her office.”
“Thank
you. I feel like I didn’t know this part of her very well.”
“Please,
sit down.”
I
sat and he pulled out a bottle of schnapps from his desk drawer and took down
two teacups from the shelf behind him. After pouring in a dash, he handed me
one.
“This
place, to me, was just where I lost her every day,” I started. “I should have
been… I wish I had been a bigger part of her art.”
Alois
watched me over his teacup, a strange look on his face. His eyes were blue and
a little watery.
“But
I think you were. I think you were a big part of her art. The school has a permanent
collection you know. Can I show you something? Do you have time?”
“Yes,
of course.”
He
finished his drink and smacked his lips. I set my cup on the desk and noticed a
small bronze sculpture of a man sitting with a book. The sculpture had been there
when this was Liana’s desk.
“That
sculpture...”
“Done
by a professor who died during the war. It kind of lives here. This was also
his office.”
“What
happened?”
“A
dark chapter for France. The Gestapo came and took him one day. He was never
seen again. I understand you were in the army?”
“The
Tenth. The occupying force her father
used to say.”
The
man chuckled. “Yes, we French are very patriotic. And for some, even when it
was Vichy.”
We
took the stairs to a courtyard and crossed it to another gray stone building.
In the basement he unlocked a room and flipped on the lights. It was a gallery
of sorts. Objects under glass or freestanding and an array of paintings. I
followed him to the far wall.
“Did
Liana ever show this to you?”
“No,”
I said, mesmerized.
On
a white table stood a glass tree, maybe three or four feet tall, on a wooden
base with a drawer. I was sure it was meant to be a Black Walnut. They were Liana’s
favorite. Something to do with a place her parents had taken her as a child and
the tree had become her solace.
There
were two trunks at the base that twisted into one. The branches were hollow,
with the tips of each branch open, like the end of a straw. The glass reflected
different colors, muted but noticeable, hints of green, rust, light blue and
beige. They felt familiar somehow.
Alois
pulled out the drawer. Inside was a flat reel-to-reel recorder. He pressed a
button and the tapes turned. Liana’s voice came out of the speakers. At first I
thought she may have been reading a book. But the sentences didn’t make sense.
It was a jumble of words.
“What
is she reading?” I asked.
Alois
just shook his head slightly.
I
recognized the words somehow. The intonation of her voice. She wasn’t reading
random words. They came from somewhere else, someplace meaningful to her.
He
pushed the drawer in and the words became a hum, echoes, musical almost,
escaping through the branches.
Alois
said nothing but looked at the piece with me another minute. I was awestruck.
“I
wanted you to see it,” he said, opening the drawer and turning off the tape.
I
followed him out and he locked the door.
“Thank
you,” I said. “I’m really at a loss for words.”
“Come
back anytime,” he said, shaking my hand.
I
had the feeling he didn’t want to talk anymore. Something had changed and he
was uncomfortable now.
At the front
steps he gave me another tight-lipped smile and walked away.
What
didn’t he want to say? What, I wondered, was he doing during the war? Probably
teaching here. Life went on in Paris despite shortages and hardships.
At
the corner of the building, I turned and walked deeper into campus. I used to
feel out of place here. It was such a different world. Everyone was young and
hopelessly pessimistic.
Now
I felt like everyone’s father. Not jealous anymore. They didn’t have Liana.
None of us did. Instead, I could look at them for what they were. Hadn’t I
brought the light back into the world for them? That’s what they told us
anyways. Our sacrifice was for their generation. And here they were.
I
sat down on a bench and watched the students. I smoked a cigarette and pictured
Liana’s glass sculpture and the sound it made. What did it mean? Why had she
never shown me?
I
finished the cigarette but didn’t get up. To move from this spot was to rejoin
the world outside. To get back to the black tunnel leading… where?
