Whispers from the Garden . . .
In a fourth attempt to find tranquility beyond yet another fence, I, a small creature of many quills, had found a little slice of paradise. An unkempt garden, free of any animal larger than myself, except for those vicious Barkers that were always navigating an invasion beyond the chain link of the neighbor, and a slow-moving Shelled creature I’d seen day fifteen of my personal nightmare. Fewer bumbling Two-Leggeds intruded here, but they left revolting charred white sticks on the ground that one could and had mistaken for a delicious Slug in the middle of the night.
The other irritation was the Wing Beaters. Their incessant cooing during the day from the bower of gnarled together branches of strange trees would surely drive me mad. How was a fellow to take a decent lie-down with all the din? I suppose I could put up with the cooing and crapping if the nightly forage continued to prove so deliciously fruitful. But what were those incessant clanging sounds? It was enough to make one go in search of new lodgings.
It’s been a trying time since the last full moon. I’m not sure what happened still. For as long as I can remember, I lived in a small walled garden by day and a wire cage in a cottage by night. Oh, it had its advantages. My pet, a short Two-Legged with long brown hair that was sometimes tied back with little red ribbons, provided a never-ending source of very bland dry tidbit food. It was merely annoying that the Two-Leggeds had not a clue about the importance of keeping day and night hours. Why must there be light coming from those infernal switches at every hour of the night? Did they not know that the dark was to be savored as it swirled its inkiness throughout the land, leaving behind a trail of dew as it cringed and finally withdrew from the east? And all the while, the Call of the Slug wafted through the cottage’s windows. Yes, in my world, all things returned to the elusive, heavenly Slug.
But I digress. This nightmare began a fortnight ago when the little Two-Legged with a penchant for ordering my days and nights to her liking, took me on a long trip across a frightfully wide body of water and left me in a foreign garden. In her excitement, she failed to examine the fence for gaps. Of course, it was the first thing I did. Freedom from the light switches and the limpid vegetables whilst on the run was divine. I slinked and snuffled my way through rusting foreign borders and gardens until even I wasn’t sure how to return. I realized I’d possibly made a grave mistake when I saw the size of the mashers on those Barkers, and so settled into my new life in the wild on the non-canine side of the Maginot Line.
What? How do I know about the Maginot Line, you ask? Why everyone in my world knows history. It’s about the only thing we know apart from survival. But then isn’t history the ultimate survival guide? Our sole goal is to pass down history and survival tips from mother to offspring, very unlike the Two-Legged, who seem ridiculously preoccupied with turning night into day and day into night, as well as yapping and tapping on little devices. Not that I do much socializing, you understand. Not in my survival tips from Mum.
I snuffled the ivy at the base of this crumbling pile. Something was off today. There were far too many lights piercing the glass squares of the structure. And far too much noise. I blame the new intruder, who left two long grooves in the pea gravel with a wheeled monstrosity. This spelled change, which always spelled trouble. I’m very good at spelling by the by. It’s certain names of living, breathing creatures that complicate everything. Except the Slug. I was born knowing that word. Indeed, my brother, sister, and I used to fall asleep in rumbly-tumbly balls as Mum ignited our other inherent traits with Slugenly historical chants.
Ah, a delectable, plump little offspring, the size of a pearl, gleamed in the light of the waxing moon. And where there was one, there were certain to be more. This would take the edge off my—
Yurump! A swipe from behind knocked me over. Bloody hell. My drawstring muscle constricted, and I tucked my extra bits inside the ball of spines. If only I could see what hit me. Its scent was peculiar, not at all like the Barker.
It batted me about the garden until dizziness set in. But, crikey, its scent was heavenly—sweet and wild—and nearly had me letting down my defenses. And then, finally, the scent undid me. I unfurled myself. She was palest orange in the moonlight, with only the end of her tail twitching as she gazed at me with what looked like an evil grin framed by a pair of white whiskers that would surely intimidate the dead. I flexed my quills and stood my ground. It’s easy to be fearless when you are intoxicated. I would have even endured the promise of claws and worse if it meant imprinting that scent.
She yowled and then licked a paw, obviously injured by a quill. Then she stared, almost as transfixed by me as I was with her. I think. What in bloody hell? Finally she turned, and slunk away, favoring her left paw.
Clawing Yowler—0. Me—1.
And then her scent hit me again. It was coming from my quills, where she’d had the audacity to swipe me. I felt saliva rising on my tongue and was helpless to fight the urge to self-anoint with the perfume left behind by this damned creature.
How ridiculous. I do not like Yowlers. I do not like anyone really. And now I am sure I especially don’t like this new land. It was enough to make me want to find the red-ribboned, short Two-Legged, and become partial to switches in cottages.
Almost.
There’s a saying here. If you can see the Pyrenees in the distance, it’s going to rain. And if you can’t see them, it’s raining already.
Today, it hailed.
The baker pushed out his lower lip and shrugged his shoulders, a Gallic reflex instilled at birth. “C’est normal.”
Normal? Everyone else in the northern hemisphere was surfing a late spring heat wave; AC cranked to the max.
He refused to meet my gaze as he twisted the ends of the paper around three baguettes. A beribboned box of biscuits sat beside the flour-dusted register plastered with advertisements for everything from babysitting and lodgings for rent to surfboards and guided yoga—all in French, Spanish, and Euskara, the Basque language of which there were many different dialects, with almost no similarities. Of course.
This from a mysterious people who counted seven provinces in a nation they’d been trying to wrest from France and Spain since the Paleolithic period. No one knew where they’d come from. Even they didn’t know. Or maybe they did, but refused to tell anyone. The ETA tended to let their bombs speak for themselves. If the code-loving Nazis had just promised them a Basque sovereign nation in exchange for the secrets of their dialects (which as far as I could see had as many x’s and z’s as there is butter in croissants), we’d all be speaking German. It’s said that the devil tried to learn Basque for seven years and gave up.
The baker scratched his ear and appeared embarrassed to bring up the subject of the family’s debt. “Et ben, madame . . .”
And so . . . The heavy Basque accent poured over my senses and warmed me as much as the heat from the ovens. “Alors, M. Gaina,” I replied, “this should settle the account.” I handed over three hundred euros.
He studied me in the way a thief examines a gull. And then he scratched his hairy ear again and broke into a broad smile. “Et ben, merci, madame.” He reluctantly handed over the change, obviously doubtful of ever seeing another euro from the family.
The shop door’s bells jangled and an elegant, birdlike old woman queued behind me. Madame la Comtesse de Bergerac with the same pinched, haughty expression she’d worn two decades ago. It was the quarter hour before shops closed for a civilized little three-hour lunch. The lure of earning more money would never make a Frenchman forgo déjeuner. That would just be unpatriotic.
But the way M. Gaina blushed and stole glances at the aging countess behind me, I would have bet my last sou he was trying to work up the nerve to butter a baguette with her as soon as I left. He didn’t stand a chance. Class and station were as impenetrable here as they were not in the States.
Turning to leave, I darted a glance at the countess.
Well. Clearly the countess had a sweet tooth that was blind to social standing.
Four hours later, I learned Mr. Soames did, indeed, like chocolate biscuits. His relative did not. Major Soames did not like tea either. But there was something he disliked even more than the former and latter.
Me.
It was ridiculous. Everybody liked me. Except me, of course. If there was one thing I knew how to do with strangers—albeit obviously not strangers on planes—it was to be likeable. It was the most important requirement of the job: gain trust. It was the great perk of active listening, my favorite oxymoron. Become fake friends or a pseudo good parent. Whatever. It was easy to do with a little practice and it came in handy in forced social situations. Except, apparently, when taking tea with a recalcitrant British major.
“So what is it you do, Mrs. Hamilton?” Boredom wafted off him like the scent of mothballs in wool. While he was younger than my forty-two years, the parched gray of his expression made him seem far older.
A spidery feeling always curled up my neck when I came across someone who had flirted with the stickiness of malevolence. Narcissists, psychopaths, sociopaths, and the like oozed a morass of charm glue over everyone in their path before they went for blood. Major Soames exuded nothing. And yet, my neck was clammy. “What I do? Why, like everyone else, major, I exist.” When kindness fails, go for the unexpected.
“I told you, Edward,” his great-uncle said. “Mrs. Hamilton does social work. Well known, indeed. Excellent article in Psychology Today last month. Something about self-sabotage?”
“Self-doubt in children of narcissists,” I said.
He turned to Jean. “You must be very proud.”
Jean concerned himself with a chocolate biscuit.
“You are a psychologist,” the major clipped.
“I prefer life coach. Less stigma.” I popped a chocolate petit beurre in my mouth.
“But she also does social work for the poor,” Mr. Soames almost pleaded.
The major flexed his fingers and leaned back in the dilapidated pale yellow chair in the salon overlooking the sea. “I see.”
“And what do you do, Major Soames?” I couldn’t help myself.
“Construct infrastructure. In sand.” He paused. “But mostly kill and maim.”
“Edward—” his relative said sharply.
“No,” I stopped him. “It’s all right. We’re among friends. I understand—”
“I’m sure you do,” the major interrupted. Abruptly, he unfolded himself from the cramped quarters of the chair and stood up. “Must go. Thank you for tea, M. du Roque, madame.”
“Edward,” his great-uncle said. “Don’t go. We’ve just arrived.”
But he was already at the door, pressing the brass lever. “Excellent tea. Thank you so much.” And then he was gone.
I gazed at his untouched teacup.
Grandfather absently tapped his cane.
“I don’t know what to do.” The ridges in Soames’s forehead were deep with worry.
My grandfather stopped the comment on his lips when he looked at me.
“I think he’s going to kill himself. Eventually.” The older man said it so quietly, I almost missed it.
“Arrêtez, Phillip. Stop,” Grandfather said.
I stood up and went to the window. The major bypassed his family’s brand-spanking-new black Range Rover parked on the pea gravel and strode through the dark enameled gates to turn left on the road perched on the sea cliff.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Hamilton,” Soames continued. “My great-nephew was impossibly rude—the opposite of how he used to be. I’m certain you have no desire . . . I wouldn’t dream of imposing on your time, and surely you wouldn’t consider helping him . . .” His words trailed to a stop. Grandfather had the decency to remain silent.
I turned from the window. “I can only help someone who wants to be helped.”
“But perhaps you could just work on him a little,” Grandfather said. “Drop by Phillip’s house from time to time. Become friends. The villa is not far.”
There was such forlorn desperation in Soames’s eyes.
“I’ve never worked with someone in the military.”
Soames clenched his hands. “His wife, Claire, has gone back to London. Taken the children.”
“Children?”
“Yes, he has a daughter, Winnie, who is eight. The light of his life—just like him really. And a son, Charles, seven.” The rest of the story gushed from the old man like tea through a broken strainer. Five tours in Bosnia or the Middle East, a leave of absence, threats of divorce, late-night pacing, drinking alone, silence. The full panoply of denial and depression.
I looked back through the window. The wind had picked up and the sea was roiling, playing havoc with the surfers, most of whom were paddling toward the shore. Only the stand-up paddleboarders were hanging tough. “Mr. Soames?”
“Yes?”
“My grandfather tells me you’re a betting man.”
“Indeed. I like whist very—”
Grandfather cleared his throat and I turned to observe the two elderly friends.
“Oh, all right. I play a bit of vingt-un at Le Casino in Biarritz from time to time.”
“From time to time,” Grandfather said with a straight face.
“Well, I would not bet on my ability to lure your nephew into therapy. And I won’t be here for more than a few weeks myself. I’d have to refer him if, by a long shot, he agrees to see someone. How long is he staying with you?”
“Indefinitely. He will not discuss why he is on leave. No idea of the why or the how of it.” He rushed on. “He’s very dear to me, Kate—I may call you that, may I? He and his sister are my only relations in this world apart from their parents. He is a good man. A very good man. I can’t imagine him ever doing anything wrong intentionally.”
Oh, the innocence of those who had never faced down a weakness lurking in the soul and lost.
“Of course he did not,” Jean said.
“I would pay for your—”
“No, Mr. Soames—”
“Phillip.”
“Phillip,” I continued. “I won’t accept anything unless your nephew agrees to seek help. And like I said, it would end up being someone other than me. Please remember, the chances are slim.”
“But there must be something . . . I’m a businessman by trade. Now retired, of course. I’ve never found that people give their best effort without a check.”
Curiosity reared its tail. “What was your profession?”
“Headhunting. Soames Headhunters of London?”
And of USA, and every major city in the world. I reined in the smile. “Why, Mr. Soames, it’s said that your company is responsible for the success of half the industries in the Western world.”
“No. Not at all. It’s the people who make those companies successful.”
“Phillip is far too modest,” Jean added. “His specialties were in the oil, mineral, and communication industries.”
Phillip Soames smiled. “I had the best job in the world because most of the business was conducted on the golf course or in the club afterward.”
“I see. Well, would you agree to a barter? I’ll attempt to talk to your nephew if you attempt to find a caretaker for my grandfather. Agreed or—”
“I don’t need another damned nursemaid feeding me gruel and wiping my derriere. Merci but no,” Grandfather interrupted.
“I think he means hiding the wine and helping him with his bath,” I explained.
“Done,” Phillip said, smelling a deal and knowing when to close it. “It will be my pleasure.”
TWO STEPS FORWARD. Three steps back. I had forgotten the bureaucracy of the French government. French bureaucrats in notary offices, post offices, banks, and, worst of all, mayors’ offices had all (I was convinced) taken a secret oath to demand documents from innocent citizens and noncitizens (especially) that would and did destroy entire rainforests every year. In triplicate and embossed with meaningless but impressive-looking stamps. Particularly unimportant documents were additionally adorned with tricolor ribbons. Yes, the Dark Ages were back, and nowhere did they seem more officially documented than here in the Land of the Beret Basque.
On this third Monday in May, the fifth attempt to get into the bank after one of the two hundred–plus saint’s day closings, lunch closings, and someone being sick, and the funeral of someone’s eighth cousin seven times removed, I was ushered past the faded-burgundy-velvet-roped lines to the hushed, carpeted confines where real money loitered. M. Landuran gave me a pinched look, shook my hand, and motioned toward a hard-backed chic white leather chair that swiveled with the slightest provocation.
“Enchanté, madame,” he said, smoothing his copiously oiled gray hair. He picked up a Montblanc fountain pen and carefully unscrewed the cap.
“Thank you for seeing me,” I said, attempting to keep the sarcasm at bay. My grandfather’s finances were in a shambles and yet they hadn’t thrown him in the French pokey, where likely they’d serve rations of brie, baguettes, and Brouilly during two-hour lunches, followed by a solid afternoon of watching le foot (soccer to you and me) on the télé. At least, after my visit to Orange, the French version of AT&T, I was certain they’d be denied Internet. But after five months of good behavior they’d probably qualify for la cure, that epic stay at a thermal spa, for which French health insurance pays with gusto so the French can simmer in mud baths just like their Roman conquerors. That and the thirty-five-hour workweek were perks most diehard workaholic Americans could learn to love. Obviously, the socialist government found it more financially prudent to keep people out of jail than in. It almost made one want to explore criminality for a living. And perhaps Grandfather, or rather, Jean, could be talked into a little thievery if he continued to be averse to the nunnery.
As if he could read my wayward thoughts, the banker cleared his throat. “Mais, madame, la famille du Roque ’as been a client of ours for almost cent ans.”
A hundred years. You would think they would at least give a toaster for that kind of loyalty even if we were in the red.
“It’s only natural I should—how you say in America?—make time for such an important client.” He perched a pair of thin wire glasses on the end of his long Gallic nose and in his elegant hand scratched out a notation on a Rhodia pad of lined paper. His handwriting looked like a daddy longlegs crawling over the page.
“So—” I crossed my legs and inelegantly jerked forward when the chair began to twirl. “Pardon me, M. Landuran, but may I be blunt? What is the state of my family’s, or rather, my grandfather’s, finances? I’d like to ensure all is in order before I return to America shortly.”
He peered over the top of his glasses, glanced at me, and returned to his spidery notations, which no doubt was nothing more than a love note to his mistress, or the draft of a new holiday he was cooking up for the bank. “I would have thought, madame, that there are the same rules of privacy in America than here in la France.”
I clasped my hands together and placed them between my legs. “Of course,” I replied. “But I’m more worried about the laws that might compromise my relative’s ability to continue in his house.”
“May I ask after your mother?”
What? “Umm, Antoinette’s fine.” Likely planning a trip to Capri or Martha’s Vineyard, given the cyclical nature of her set.
His gaze traveled from the top of my head down to the hands in my lap.
“You are not like her,” he said. “Yet very beautiful.”
That was the thing in France. Everyone thought it their right to comment on everyone else, especially their appearance. Gossip and flirting were noun and verb one. And extra points if you could do it to their face. I smiled against my will. God, I hated to descend to their level. “Monsieur, my mother has always spoken so highly of you. Said you were a man of distinction and would be the only one to see in this matter.” Liar, liar, pants on fire. I pulled out my Bank of America checkbook to lure him. “Will two thousand suffice for the immediate shortage?”
“That is not la question, madame.”
“Five?” My roller ball was poised over the pale blue check.
“The question is when will your family sell the house, madame. And to whom.”
Well, at least he’d be an ally in my goal to sell. “We shall see, monsieur. How much is it worth, do you think?”
“Bien, madame, that is not for me to say. I can refer you to an excellent agence, but you must get the approval to sell from your grandfather first.”
“And you don’t think he’ll agree.”
“Non.”
“Why?”
He studied me with narrowed eyes like a school principal sizing up a truant. Blowing his nose with an actual cloth handkerchief, he handed down his verdict. “Your uncle is an esteemed client here as well, you must know. And I keep all confidences. But I suppose I may tell you that your grandfather fully intends to honor the tradition of handing down the villa to the eldest son as has been done for centuries. Your grandfather, madame, will never sell. Even if the walls or roof collapse—something that may happen soon from what M. Colas informed me.”
“M. Colas?”
“The best carpenter and mason in Biarritz. A good friend.”
“I see.”
“But that is if the pipes don’t fail first, according to M. Matxinbordakorbidea.”
“I’m sorry, but was that a name?”
“But of course, madame. The best plombier in the Pays Basque. Everyone knows him. You will too. Soon.”
“Plumber?”
“Exactement.”
“Could you please write his name and number down?” I inhaled deeply. “Anything else?”
“Well, of course there is the matter of la falaise . . .”
“The cliff?”
“Oui, madame.”
“What is wrong with the cliff?”
“Why, it is always falling a little here, a little there. Surely you’ve noticed. Mme Jaragoltxe, a master engineer, of course, says the cliff must be reinforced, or else.”
“Or else?”
“It will collapse one day. Taking Madeleine Marie with it, bien sûr.”
Of course. “When?”
He shrugged. “Maybe today, maybe next month, maybe in ten years. Who knows, madame? The situation is delicate and complicated, non?”
“Indeed. I’ll need the spelling of the engineer’s name too.”
He shook his head and carefully wrote out all the contact information.
Well, the bank may close to celebrate every saint’s day but I had to give it to them. They kept an eye on the choice property of their clients.
“And if I may be so bold?”
“Yes?” Lord, there was more?
“Do take care with your neighbors.” He leaned forward as if plotting a takeover. “Pierrot and Maïte Etcheterry are Basque, and do not take kindly to foreigners taking up residence on land that Basque separatists believe they own.”
“What? Are they going to bomb a villa that’s been in my grandfather’s family for over three centuries just because his granddaughter is visiting?”
He chuckled and extracted a Dunhill cigarette from its elegant pack and tapped one end on his desk. “Of course not, madame. But an American, who might convince her grandfather to sell to a foreigner or somehow”—he glanced at my checkbook—“appropriate the property herself—”
“I assure you I have absolutely no intention of staying or living in France whatsoever.”
He shrugged in almost a feminine way and lit the long, thin cigarette with a heavy gold lighter. Clearly the tobacco industry was alive and still partying in this part of the world. He blew a long stream of smoke discretely to one side and finally relaxed his mouth into a smile that had never seen an American orthodontist. “Ah, but you must not worry so, madame. You will find a solution.” He paused and glanced toward a bookcase housing tomes that had likely never seen the light of day. “And if you don’t, your uncle will take possession and sell it for you. Yes, that might be the best solution.”
The damned banker was shifting loyalties as fast as a Vichy collaborator.
“At least you are here, as any proper granddaughter would be, to take care of your grandfather. Most importantly, please give your lovely mother my very best regards.” He paused for a moment, darting a glance at my checkbook. “Six thousand two hundred fifty-seven US dollars and twenty-three cents should balance the account in euros, madame. And do not worry. The bank has canceled M. du Roque’s carte de crédit so there will be no further factures.”
Well.
I filled out the check, thanked the elegant banker for his time, and walked through the cobblestone streets of Biarritz, toward the Grande Plage. I wondered if I would ever see a euro of repayment from someone in the du Roque family. Antoinette would likely repay me, I knew, if I could not recoup the money from the sale of the villa. So much for that week in London I’d been plotting on the way home to get the Francophile taste out of my mouth. Oh, who was I kidding? There was nowhere on this big green planet that was far enough away for me to leave behind my life.
Settling into a metal and wicker chair in front of Dodin, my favorite childhood pastry shop, I ordered pain grillée et beurrée— grilled, buttered toast—as well as a hot chocolate, brimming with the unforgettably potent and molten flavors I’d savored as a child.
For the hundredth time that week, I pushed back thoughts of Lily, always swirling in the outermost reaches of my mind. There was nothing more I could do for my sixteen-year-old daughter that I hadn’t already done. She was safe, or as safe as she could be given the situation. Miss Chesterfield’s was one of the best boarding schools on the East Coast and had even traded in its old stodgy ways since the year I’d been imprisoned there. The current teachers and headmaster appeared, in my jaded view, to actually care and help students find their potential. Lily wanted nothing more to do with me. I’d failed her and she knew it. I’d been the last line of defense, and I’d not been there when she most needed me.
And now, once again, I was in an impossible family situation, where no good solution presented itself. Someone was going to end up in tears. My grandfather, my uncle, a hundred dead, wailing ancestors . . . yes, all of them would hate me before I was finished.
Then again, I was perfect for the job. I’d make all of them face the brutal financial facts, be brave little du Roque soldiers, and get on with disposing of the relic. And I was the best person to do this because I just didn’t care about any of it. I was the antisavior, who excelled at cold, hard failure by looking disaster and bullies in the eye and trusting diplomacy instead of a big stick. My recent swing in the opposite direction was, at best, ineffective.
But the damned villa was nothing more than a mildewed, disintegrating millstone around all the family’s necks. It was only a matter of holding good old Jean’s feet to the fire until he capitulated and sold Madeleine Marie to the highest bidder so they could all retire to a small modern house in the country to live out their lives modestly in peace—if I couldn’t reconcile him to a life with the nuns with a nice sum to Magdali to start a new life.
Almost four hundred years of passing the relic from father to son would stop here. Now. My uncle’s inheritance be damned.
Something I knew all about.
From my little café table under the shade of the red parasol, I glanced to the right of the Grande Plage, toward the pink-and-white Hôtel du Palais, a formidable five-star hotel originally built by Napoleon III for his Princess Eugénie, who had spent her childhood summers here. The court had followed the royal couple and erected magnificent houses up and down the coast. Each and every one of these buildings had evolved, passed from one family to another, to host hordes of different families, royal and not.
Madeleine Marie would do the same, and would likely receive a much-needed facelift by new owners. The only question was if I could withstand the childhood memories that lay coiled in every mossy corner of this epicenter of familial disharmony until I managed to sell it. Or were these memories so well buried, and I so far removed from caring, that I’d remain immune to all? Only the whispers of my ancestors who had entrenched themselves behind the limestone walls and endured the battering weather of history taunted me.
A gust of the prevailing southwest wind, which had gathered force as it wound through the Pyrenees beyond, fluttered the edges of the parasol. The chocolate high dissipating fast, I glanced at la note, and slipped a few euros onto the small silver tray.
I motioned to the waiter and stood up.
What was the point of remembering the past? It would change nothing.