incredible. Don’t they remember World War I? Don’t they remember Chamberlain? How can they let this go on?”
Of course this line of thinking was influenced by the public pronouncements of Oncle Edgar. He was always denouncing his country’s policy in the pages of Le Figaro or on TV. Suzanne would call us whenever he was going to be on. Even without speaking French, I could easily grasp the essentials of his discourse: horreur, scandale, honneur, honte .
I could see that Roxy, ordinarily not a pretentious person, thought of her situation as something doomed on the Bosnian scale, and I could see that her self-pitying mood was mixed with malice, the imagined satisfaction of seeing Charles-Henri’s lifeless abandoned corpse in a no-man’s-land.
Still she didn’t confront him or confide in me. I thought shemust be preparing her moves, or else it was some lethargy of pregnancy. Once there was a scare when her ankles began to swell. I can still see her, sitting on the sofa ( canapé ) sobbing, “These are not my legs, these are piano posts, I can’t even feel them.” The doctors worried that it could presage a condition called preeclampsia and made her stop eating salt and go every two weeks for a checkup. When she was put into elastic stockings she felt better, but even when it seemed her condition could be grave, she would not let anyone tell Charles-Henri.
Eventually, I resolved to talk to Charles-Henri myself. I had found out where he was, because I had run into Charlotte de Persand Saxe, Charles-Henri’s sister. Mrs. Pace had suggested I go to an exposition of the painters who called themselves Nabis. These turned out to be Vuillard and Bonnard, and some others I’d never heard of. My favorite was the one named Vallottan, because each of his gray street scenes and rainy landscapes featured a bright spot of red, in a scarf or umbrella, for me symbolizing the arrival of unexpected and sometimes felicitous events in life. And just as I was thinking this, there, felicitously at the same exposition, was Charlotte, wearing a red dress and smelling delightful. Charlotte is one of those Frenchwomen who are permeated with perfume from head to toe. I made a mental note to ask Roxy’s friend Janet, the one who is writing a book about French women, how they do this.
Charlotte was with an Englishman she introduced as Giles Wheating, a name I had vaguely heard. British journalist? The “liaison” her mother had mentioned? But there was nothing of embarrassment or furtive surprise in their manner. I simply asked her where Charles-Henri was and she told me, and gave me a phone number in the country near Illiers. There’s a sort of trailer there belonging to the Persand family, where he painted and gardened. “We will have to have a coffee sometime soon and talk more about it,” she added.
Later the same day, I called up Charles-Henri, who was perfectly civil on the phone, with only the slightest apprehensiveness in his tone, and he seemed delighted to make a rendezvous for the following day.
Though the Cafe Vues de Notre Dame is near theirapartment, it is so big and touristy that it could be considered neutral and safe to meet in, not unduly Roxy’s turf or provocative of memories. I sat at the back of the sidewalk terrace, a little sheltered but still open against the smoke. Charles-Henri turned up a second after I had got there and ordered myself a coffee. He had a new scar on his chin, but was otherwise unchanged from the attractive man I had met in California, rather pale, a slight blue undertone to his skin, as if his beard, if it grew out, would be black, at odds with his fair eyelashes. He had the same engaging smile, replaced instantly with a frown of sincerity, and gave me three cheek kisses, familially.
“La petite Isabel! Ça va?” I am tall, but in France anything is petite if you want it to seem negligible, like a petit problem, or a petite invoice. “It’s so nice of you to meet. I know how angry
Of course this line of thinking was influenced by the public pronouncements of Oncle Edgar. He was always denouncing his country’s policy in the pages of Le Figaro or on TV. Suzanne would call us whenever he was going to be on. Even without speaking French, I could easily grasp the essentials of his discourse: horreur, scandale, honneur, honte .
I could see that Roxy, ordinarily not a pretentious person, thought of her situation as something doomed on the Bosnian scale, and I could see that her self-pitying mood was mixed with malice, the imagined satisfaction of seeing Charles-Henri’s lifeless abandoned corpse in a no-man’s-land.
Still she didn’t confront him or confide in me. I thought shemust be preparing her moves, or else it was some lethargy of pregnancy. Once there was a scare when her ankles began to swell. I can still see her, sitting on the sofa ( canapé ) sobbing, “These are not my legs, these are piano posts, I can’t even feel them.” The doctors worried that it could presage a condition called preeclampsia and made her stop eating salt and go every two weeks for a checkup. When she was put into elastic stockings she felt better, but even when it seemed her condition could be grave, she would not let anyone tell Charles-Henri.
Eventually, I resolved to talk to Charles-Henri myself. I had found out where he was, because I had run into Charlotte de Persand Saxe, Charles-Henri’s sister. Mrs. Pace had suggested I go to an exposition of the painters who called themselves Nabis. These turned out to be Vuillard and Bonnard, and some others I’d never heard of. My favorite was the one named Vallottan, because each of his gray street scenes and rainy landscapes featured a bright spot of red, in a scarf or umbrella, for me symbolizing the arrival of unexpected and sometimes felicitous events in life. And just as I was thinking this, there, felicitously at the same exposition, was Charlotte, wearing a red dress and smelling delightful. Charlotte is one of those Frenchwomen who are permeated with perfume from head to toe. I made a mental note to ask Roxy’s friend Janet, the one who is writing a book about French women, how they do this.
Charlotte was with an Englishman she introduced as Giles Wheating, a name I had vaguely heard. British journalist? The “liaison” her mother had mentioned? But there was nothing of embarrassment or furtive surprise in their manner. I simply asked her where Charles-Henri was and she told me, and gave me a phone number in the country near Illiers. There’s a sort of trailer there belonging to the Persand family, where he painted and gardened. “We will have to have a coffee sometime soon and talk more about it,” she added.
Later the same day, I called up Charles-Henri, who was perfectly civil on the phone, with only the slightest apprehensiveness in his tone, and he seemed delighted to make a rendezvous for the following day.
Though the Cafe Vues de Notre Dame is near theirapartment, it is so big and touristy that it could be considered neutral and safe to meet in, not unduly Roxy’s turf or provocative of memories. I sat at the back of the sidewalk terrace, a little sheltered but still open against the smoke. Charles-Henri turned up a second after I had got there and ordered myself a coffee. He had a new scar on his chin, but was otherwise unchanged from the attractive man I had met in California, rather pale, a slight blue undertone to his skin, as if his beard, if it grew out, would be black, at odds with his fair eyelashes. He had the same engaging smile, replaced instantly with a frown of sincerity, and gave me three cheek kisses, familially.
“La petite Isabel! Ça va?” I am tall, but in France anything is petite if you want it to seem negligible, like a petit problem, or a petite invoice. “It’s so nice of you to meet. I know how angry
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