CHAPTER 2
Jacqueline
Today was shaping up to be a glorious day. Didier De Mees-mecker’s interview of me and his rave review of our company’s production of La Bohème just came out in this week’s Télémoustique; it was Monday, so no performance, and I was planning to create a beautiful dinner for my family. It was warm enough so I could leave my Burberry raincoat open, a rare and welcome occurrence this time of year. A pale October sun was shining, making the wet cobblestones in my Brussels neighborhood sparkle, and best of all, I was three days late.
Through the thick wooden door, I could hear the phone ringing as I struggled to turn the oversized key in the ancient lock, juggling my bag, this morning’s mail, and a straw shopping basket spilling over with what would become tonight’s dinner, as well as two copies of Télémoustique—one for my father. It would have hurt the show if I’d sounded inane or didn’t come off as the consummate professional who had it all: the golden voice, the golden home, the golden husband who adored her. Everything but the golden womb. But even that was about to change.
The key finally turned in the lock as the baguette slid to the floor. I picked up the bread and jammed it under my arm, hygiene be damned, and ran for the phone, which naturally stopped and went to voice mail the instant I reached it. Merde! I had forgotten to empty my mailbox, which was full. Again.
I hung up my raincoat, then turned back toward the door and closed it firmly, not bothering to lock it. We should really see about upgrading our security, but our leafy Brussels neighborhood was the picture of tranquility, right out of a gentler time. And I loved our home with the single-minded purity of first love.
The instant I’d stepped through the open doors and into the garden, I knew I’d found my home. Never mind that it was wild and overgrown. To make up for its gray skies and pouring rain, Mother Nature had given Belgium a green even emeralds would envy. The garden was walled with ancient bricks that went from gray to ochre, to a pink so pale it was almost too shy to be called a color. A huge chestnut tree dwarfed a weeping willow. Toward the back—the clincher—two cherry trees and a peach tree, both in need of serious pruning, sheltered a carved stone bench and a small pond, stagnant and choked with weeds and rotting leaves.
I’d made my way to the wall, glad I’d worn boots and had remembered to waterproof them. At the time, I wore a lot of jeans and boots and sweaters, topped with my one good Hermès scarf—a legacy from my mother—and outrageous earrings: l’américaine, they called me. I ran my fingers lightly over the rough surface of the bricks and soft moss that had taken hold of the wall here and there. A niche, onetime home of a saint or the Virgin Mary, was built into the wall. My baby sister, Colette, had made me a statue of Sainte Cécile, the patron saint of musicians. She would be at home in this garden.
So, we’d steamed off layer upon layer of faded wallpaper and painted the walls, we’d scraped the woodwork and sanded floors. A vitrier came to fix the windows, a marbrier came to restore the cracked marble fireplaces. We’d break to eat, either in the garden, when it wasn’t raining, or in the salle de séjour—the family room—on a makeshift table. We’d had many picnics of bread, wine, and cheese, or sometimes we’d bring back frites and cervelas sausage, doused in golden Leffe or Trappiste beer. Then Laurent would tug off my paint-splattered jeans and we’d make love. All that food, work, and love had given me better muscle tone and skin than I’d ever had before.
I dropped the mail on the Louis Philippe bureau and walked through the formal living room, the baby grand piano gleaming in the light from the windows, through the dining room, and back to the séjour, where we spent most of our time. Two paned curved doors led into the room, and their twins out to the garden. An empty swing hung from one of the branches of the chestnut. The lawn was dew-covered and sparkled in the pale lemon sun.
I was living the life my mother should have had, had she not been carted off to the States by my father. Family lore had it that she’d wanted to leave as much as he did, but I didn’t buy it.
All that was missing was a child. But not for long. Whoever said you couldn’t have it all just lacked focus and determination.
Singing softly, I carried my bag to the kitchen, dropped the baguette, and started unloading fish, leeks, parsley, Bintje potatoes, a head of lettuce, eggs, crisp apples, the last of the good grapes, and five golden pears that had to be eaten today. I’d poach them in wine and sugar, then top them off with sweetened crème fraîche for dessert. There would be potage de poireaux—leek soup—followed by the lotte en papillote and gratin dauphinois. Then salad, cheese, and dessert. And wine, of course. It was my day off, after all. Laurent would pick up my grandmother, Mamy Elise, after work—long ago he’d fixed his schedule so he would finish early on Mondays. Being an interpreter at the EC Parliament not only paid well, but, ever since he took and passed the exam to become a fonctionnaire, it gave him a lot of freedom. Even if it was becoming a bit boring. Tante Charlotte and her husband, Gérard, would stroll over around six, in time for an apéritif.
La Bohème would run for three more weeks, then a few weeks off before rehearsals started for the holiday show. This year I would sing Gounod’s “Ave Maria.” Only one number, but clearly the choice piece for a Christmas concert. It was funny, working for the opera company. I was a bit like a fonctionnaire myself. I received a monthly salary with paid vacations, benefits, health care, the whole package. It wasn’t really la vie d’artiste that everyone imagined. But it enabled me to live here where I belonged.
I sank down into the couch with my copy of the Télémoustique and was about to turn to the page with my interview when the phone rang again. Annoyed, I jumped up to get the cordless extension on the desk. And just in case it was another journalist calling for an interview, I made my voice as low and sultry as possible: think Brigitte Bardot meets Marlene Dietrich.
“Allo.”
“Jackie? Is that you? What’s wrong with your voice?”
“Oh, Gali, it’s you.” I cleared my throat. “Nothing, Monet’s frog, you know.” It was an old joke between us when we were growing up. The idea of a frog in your throat was just altogether too gross and slimy so we decided it would be Monet’s frog. Impressionistic.
“Ooh! I haven’t had frog’s legs in forever,” said Gali.
“Come on out: frog’s legs and mussels in white wine, pommes frites, and Côte d’Or chocolate . . . all these earthly delights waiting just for you. Not to mention a gorgeous, talented sister, a doting grandmother, aunts, uncles, cousins, you name it, we got it. And don’t forget me!”
“You already mentioned you.”
“Never too much of a good thing. More is more, haven’t you heard?” I felt so good, I wanted to fling golden handfuls of joy everywhere.
“I’d love to, you know. Maybe after the holidays? For Epiphany? Or Chandeleur? We could make crêpes, like we used to.”
I ran a finger over the top of the desk, checking for dust, but my fingers came away clean. “You know I can’t wait to see you. Not to mention my nieces. Comment vont les petites puces?” My heartbeat slurred a little. I looked out in the garden at the swing Laurent had hung on a branch of the chestnut tree, now covered in green-gray mold. I headed for the kitchen.
“The fleas are fine. Jacqueline? I need to tell you something.”
“Anything, my Gali. You know I am here to listen.” I tucked the phone between my ear and my shoulder and started putting the groceries away.
“Yeah, well. It would be nice if you were here to listen,” she said.
Guilt, guilt, guilt. Fuck, fuck, fuck. My family could give Woody Allen lessons in guilt. I took the phone to the sitting room and flung myself on the couch, its deep red fabric holding me, like a gigantic heart. This whole room was intended to coddle and please, to comfort. The south-facing windows let every scrap of light in, a huge ficus benjamina thrived in the corner. The sunlight grazed the fallen leaves. We should rake them but I love the loamy smell of rotting leaves in the fall. Reminded me of home. As did this. The guilt. I couldn’t go back with you, dammit! I’d lost my voice, remember? I was dying, my mind screamed silently at my sister.
“Maybe someday.” I fought the urge to sigh.
“Right, anyway, have you talked to Daddy recently?”
“No.” I crossed my legs, tucking my skirt more neatly under me with my spare hand. Why was she asking me this? She knew I hardly ever talked to him. And when we did, our conversation was always stilted, like two polite people at a cocktail party who didn’t know what to say to each other. It was exhausting. “I did send him a note a few weeks back with this season’s program.”
“Well, he called, about the holidays. He wants to have it at our old house.”
“You’re joking. You poor thing.” I couldn’t think of a worse way to spend Christmas. I shivered.
“He wants us all to be there.”
I stood. “That’s out of the question, I’m working.”
“It was a summons, Jacqueline. I haven’t heard that tone since before . . . since we were kids.”
I paced around the room. “Impossible. Again, I’m singing.” Not technically true since the final performance of the winter concert was on the twenty-third of December and after, there was a comedy starting on Christmas Day that would run till after the New Year.
“What, no comedy this year?”
Hell. Gali knew just how much Belgians enjoyed a good laugh during the holidays. I was the one who told her, extolling the sensibility of a population that preferred laughter in the face of almost any single thing. Besides I needed to see the tree in the Grand’Place during the holidays, and I always visited with friends, and Tante Charlotte . . . I had it! “But who will be with Mamy Elise? We can’t leave her here alone for Christmas.”
I’d sworn to myself that I would not go home again without a baby in my arms. And if, as I suspected, I was really pregnant this time, I would want a perfectly serene pregnancy. Which excluded Christmas with my father.
“He’s invited her, too. And she accepted.”
“How do you know?”
“He called me today and told me. Look, Jacqueline, don’t make this harder on me than it already is, okay? He wants everyone there.”
I heard a gulp at the other end. “Are you drinking?” I straightened up an already straight pile of magazines on the coffee table.
“Do you want to make something of it?”
I made a mental calculation, nine-fifteen here, that made it a quarter past three in the morning in Pennsylvania.
“Gali, it’s—”
“Oh, don’t freakin’ tell me what time it is! All of a sudden you want to play big sister? I’ll tell you what time it is! Time to book your fu—your flight home!”
“Are you alone?” Red flashing lights popped in my brain. Drinking, fine. Wine, even better. But alone?
“No. I mean yes. I mean the children, well, asleep. And so’s Leo. Anyway, Daddy apparently has something to tell us. Some big secret.” Her voice went quiet on the last word.
My heart shuddered. “Can’t he tell us when he comes in November?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him.”
“Right.” I was glad no one else was around to read the lack of enthusiasm on my face at the prospect of Daddy’s yearly visit. Gali’s voice brought me back, her voice and a strange strangling noise at the other end of the line.
“Are you crying?” I asked.
“Ana’s retiring, and I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“Oh no. What happened?” Part of me listened to my sister while my brain searched for a plausible excuse to get out of this. Nothing. Yet.
“Gali, listen to me. Put the bottle away. Rinse out your glass. Drink water and go to bed next to that wonderful sexy husband of yours. We’ll talk later but right now, you need to rest.”
“Okay.” Gali sighed and the sound made me tired. I stood and looked out the window. Try as I might, I couldn’t recapture my earlier joy.
I got out the chamois cloth and a bucket of warm water with vinegar and cleaned the bay windows until they sparkled. When I was finished, I put on a sweater and went out to the garden to rake the leaves. Then I did something I hadn’t done in years. I went into the kitchen and methodically, piece by piece, devoured the entire baguette slathered in butter. After throwing up in the bathroom, I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and redid my makeup. Then I went out to buy more bread.