French Lessons, page 10
Okay, this isn’t helping.
I stand up and busy myself with spreading the sheets over the mattress, putting fresh cases on the pillows and smoothing out the shimmery slate blue comforter. Honestly, I’m too tired to be turned on. I slide out of my jeans, wiggle my bra loose and take off my shirt. Then I slip under the covers wearing only my panties, the clean sheets cool and soft against my skin.
For a fleeting, sleepy moment, I fantasize about Renée sneaking back into the room, quiet as a swan gliding over a lake. She would draw back the blankets, ease her soft, warm body onto the bed, next to mine…
All right, strike that previous statement: I’m not too tired to be turned on.
I roll onto my side, groaning softly, and squeeze my eyes shut. Whenever I had a hard time falling asleep as a kid, my mom would come into my room and tell me the beginnings of stories—plots she made up as she went along. They were silly stories—about panda trapeze artists and little girls who wore shiny soup pots as hats. She never finished the stories, though. “Now it’s your turn,” she’d say mischievously, clicking off my bedside lamp and stepping out of my darkened room. And then, excited and eager, my mind would race, trying to come up with the best conclusion for her tale… Should the princess marry the cruel but rich prince or the poor but charming jester? How will the talking cat solve the dragon’s riddle? How will the poor little seamstress stitch up the tear in time to set the seasons right again?
Despite my determination, I never quite reached the end of any story: somehow, within minutes, I fell fast asleep, head dizzy with words and wonder. And I dreamed of fairy tales—myself the prince, vanquishing armies of dark knights to win the hand of a lost maiden, locked in a maze by a curse...
Thanks to my mother, stories have always held an intangible magic for me. I escaped into them—books written by long-dead dreamers, along with the stories I wrote between classes, crouching with a notebook on my lap on quiet hallway stairs, delighting over the scratch of pen on paper. I still have those notebooks, packed away in a box that I labeled, in a fit of uncharacteristic whimsy, Once upon a time.
Once upon a time…
I open my eyes. Pale starlight gleams through the windowpanes, casting ghostly, blue-white beams upon the floor, lending a cool, eerie atmosphere to the room. I remember Renée’s ghost story at the dinner table and grin, feeling that old sensation of childhood wonder bubble up inside of me after decades of stagnation.
Once upon a time, there was a woman who fell from the sky, I begin, smiling drowsily to myself, nestling my head into the feather-stuffed pillow. She landed in a strange land, and a beautiful native greeted her, taking her for an exhilarating ride on a reckless, shining steed…
Chapter Six
“The chateau feels different without Renée here, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, it does,” I agree, gazing at Effie over the rim of my coffee mug. Thank God I had the foresight to buy coffee beans in town yesterday. Otherwise I’d be a husk of a person this morning—considering how much I tossed and turned last night. Sometime around five a.m., I was woken from an uncomfortable, Tower-of-Babel-esque dream when I heard Renée moving over the hallway floorboards and then showering in the bathroom she and I share. She sang in the shower, though I couldn’t make out any of the words of her low, melodic song. It sounded like a lullaby; the lyrics were probably in French.
“This house was dead before she arrived.” Effie, scrubbing at the countertop with a rough towel, pauses to fix her clear blue eyes on me. “Well…your aunt Josephine was dead before Renée arrived. She’s like a doctor herself, Renée—breathing life into the people she meets.”
I muse on this thoughtfully as I sip my coffee. “How long will she be in Paris?”
“I don’t know. She’ll call later.” Effie offers me another warm croissant from the plate on the table, but I wave my hand, smiling.
“I’ve already had two—”
“Bah, two! Two is not enough to feed a brain such as yours, Doctor. Here.” Effie insists that I take the croissant, shoving it into my open palm.
I laugh, resigned, holding the buttery pastry between my fingers. “Well, one more couldn’t hurt.”
“Oui! Good food must never go to waste, and I have already eaten four croissants myself. That leaves two for tea later—or coffee, if you prefer it to tea. But now…” She gazes about the room, hands on her hips, distracted. She’s dressed handsomely in a short-sleeved white button-down tucked into pale brown trousers with a wide leather belt. Effie has a long, lean elegance about her that makes me feel shabby by comparison, in my black t-shirt, skinny jeans and sneakers. Hospital scrubs spoiled me, really. During my non-doctoring hours, I tended to dress for comfort, so I don’t have a lot of impressive-but-irritating-to-wear clothes in my wardrobe, aside from some suits that I was obligated to own for speaking engagements and conferences.
Now that I’m in France, the land of Coco Chanel and haute couture, perhaps I should expand my style parameters to include a few pieces of expensive, uncomfortable, stylish clothes.
Or at least some outlandishly priced pairs of jeans.
“I promised you letters, didn’t I?” Effie asks all of the sudden, eyes focused on the cold fireplace, lips slightly parted. “Last night. I said I would bring you some of your mother’s things…”
I nod slightly. “Yes. I could help you find them—”
“Oh, no, I won’t permit you to rummage in the dust and cobwebs of this ancient house. Allow me to gather the mementoes for you, Vida, and in the meantime, perhaps you could roam the hallways, the grounds? I don’t think you’ve ventured into the woods yet, or seen more than half of the chateau.”
Funny, but a wave of loneliness crashes over me at the thought of walking the creaking floorboards and forest paths by myself, with only my shadow for company. But I’ve learned that Effie is not a woman to be argued with.
I stretch my arms over my head and stand up, carrying my coffee cup to the sink. “That sounds like a good plan. I should familiarize myself with the place—but do you want me to wash the dishes first?”
Effie gives her silver head a decisive shake; thin wisps of hair float around her face. “Off you go, Vida. I’m selfish: I don’t like sharing my kitchen, except during meals. Besides, it’s a beautiful morning. Did you hear the birds singing when you woke up?”
I heard Renée singing when I woke up, but I think back and realize that there was some background birdsong while I washed and dressed.
“Spring is here, ma chére, and I would hate for you to spend even one more minute cooped up in this musty place. Go out for a walk. Do some exploring. When you’re through, at teatime, come find me. I’ll have things to show you then, I’m sure.”
I duck my head, smiling. “All right. But, well, when is teatime?” I gesture to myself wryly. “Sorry—uncouth American.”
Effie gives me an indulgent grin; then she tilts her head, considering. “Let’s meet at 2:00, oui?”
“Oui.” I jam my thumbs into my pockets and rock back on my heels a little, feeling like a child annoying her harried mother, being shooed to the backyard. “I’ll just…go outside, then.”
“The sunshine will favor you. You are far too pale, Vida.” With that, Effie begins to hum to herself as she faces the sink and turns on the water, taking up a sudsy sponge in her hand. “Be sure to visit the woods. It’s Renée’s favorite place, you know. She spent much of her teenage years beneath those trees.”
My mouth slides easily to one side as I step out of the kitchen door and into the bright yellow rays, musing on a teenage Renée. I can’t imagine what she must have been like as a teenager; she’s so vibrant and alive now at, perhaps, thirty-five years of age. I stare up at the white circle of sun, squinting. Could her intensity have been even hotter, brighter when she was a young, new-burning star? She would have terrified my private, serious, bookworm teenage self. And, if I’m honest, she terrifies me now—in the way that the sight of an unexpected lightning bolt shocks and thrills you…
Well, by all accounts, Renée and my aunt were as thick as thieves. I wonder: was Aunt Josephine simply charmed by the inarguably charming Renée, or was there another reason for their affinity? Did she see something of herself in the brash younger girl?
I wish I had had the chance to know my aunt, if only for a little while. I feel her loss deeply—and, if I’m honest, selfishly, I suppose. The knowledge that I had a living family member and missed the opportunity to spend time with her makes my heart ache in an irreparable way.
Sighing, I trail my fingers over the black brick of the chateau. I’ve never seen bricks like this before, so dark and irregularly shaped. They lend the house such a somber, gothic appearance; the exterior is draped with shadows, like a mourning veil.
Taking long, loping steps, I bypass the rear of the chateau and move directly into the woods—the same thick copse of trees that I can see from my bedroom window, the same view my mother must have looked upon when she occupied my sleeping quarters. The temperature drops around me, cooling by degrees. There’s no path that I can find, so I weave around the trunks, resting my right hand upon grey-brown bark as my feet pad softly over dead, winter-shed leaves and needles.
The ground is dry, so after walking for several minutes, I find a spongy patch of moss grown over a large, concave rock—a natural chair—and seat myself upon it, leaning back against a rotted stump. Little shoots of green poke up from the earth here and there—unborn violets, maybe. I know so little about plants; most of my scientific knowledge is confined to the human body, and as a city dweller, I had minimal contact with Mother Nature: short-cropped parks, skipping sparrows and nosy pigeons, the wind and the rats.
In Chicago, I thought of the outdoors as a useful but uninteresting between-space—the real estate I must traverse in order to reach my next destination. Work to home, home to work. Save for the picnics I shared with my mother, it was never a place to linger.
But something inside of me quiets as I gaze into the haze of green above my head.
Effie was right. I needed this walk, these woods.
I don’t know how much time passes as I sit there, thinking about nothing or, at least, very little. In the States, I rarely had such a luxury—to sit, to not think, to lose track of the minutes and the hours and only be. I’m so relaxed and unfocused that I stare at the engraved trunk across from me, two or three yards away, for several moments before the sight truly registers, triggering my brain, causing me to sit up straight, then stand and stare, though I can’t seem to move any further. My arms and legs are ice, frozen in place.
HT + GL
HT… Helene Toujours.
Helene Toujours. My mother.
A chill passes over me. I feel as if I’ve just glimpsed a ghost.
My mother carved her initials into the bark of that tree. My mother came here, perhaps with a boy—GL—and carved proof of her presence with a sharp rock or a knife or a hairpin. She was here, truly here. And it was she who chiseled the bark; I can tell by the swooping lines of the H, by the trailing curl of the T. Her handwriting, her hand. Her heart.
Who was GL?
I swallow and, flexing my fingers, stride forward until I’m standing in front of the trunk. I press my palm to the letters, close my eyes, and imagine my mother as a young girl, standing here, too. Was her heart beating as quickly as mine is now? Quicker? Did GL give her a kiss after she finished her gouging? Or was he elsewhere, unaware of her forest vandalism and, perhaps, of her schoolgirl crush?
A tear courses down my cheek before I become aware of its formation. I swipe it away, dry-mouthed, a little woozy, wobbling on my feet. My arms are covered in goosebumps.
I want to run. I want to tear back toward the chateau and assault Effie with questions about my mother, about GL and my aunt, but, instead, I sit down again on the moss-covered rock and lean back against the stump and simply stare at the initials on the tree, trying to return to that place of quiet, unthinking calm. Because I need to grow accustomed to my mother’s presence. She’s all around me here, in Ville Etoile—not her ghost but the ghost of her past. And I can’t allow it to startle me every time I turn a corner and feel its company.
My mother wasn’t religious, but she believed in fate. She believed human beings were predestined to do certain things, meet certain people, follow certain life paths. When I was younger, she and I had arguments on the topic, because I couldn’t bear the idea of a world in which I am bound, in which I have no true choices, in which I can’t blaze my own way. But this moment—me, sitting in a natural-made chair before my mother’s childhood tree carving—feels preordained.
I was meant to find this, to see this. Maybe it’s why I’ve, truly, come to France: to discover the clues Mom left for me in her past to discover in my present. Of course, GL might be anyone—a friend, a neighbor boy that my mother played with when she was small, a schoolmate, a boyfriend.
He might be my father.
A trill of excitement pings my nerves as I rest my head back against the shattered stump, forcing myself to breathe in and out slowly. If only Renée were here… She would say something soft and soothing, and then something witty, and then something sultry, and soon enough I’d be so entertained and distracted that I’d only half-remember why I was overcome with emotion to begin with. I close my eyes and imagine her ravishing head of hair, and her equally ravishing amber eyes… I think of her voice, rich as honey but low and deep: Come now, Vida. Here’s your chance to play Nancy Drew. Or Miss Marple. Whomever you prefer. I’m in Nancy’s court myself—always fancied her, you know. So smart, too clever for her own good. My kind of girl.
I sigh, eyes still closed, and draw my knees up against my chest. Detective work fascinates me in novels, but in real life, it’s far more complicated, unaccountably personal—and exhausting. I curl upon the rock, exhaling a bone-weary breath. Who would have guessed that a mossy rock could be so comfortable? There’s hours to go until I’m supposed to meet up with Effie for tea. Maybe I should just rest here for a while—
---
I wake with a start.
I’m not alone.
I know it in the way your closed eyes feel dawn through the drapes—blindly, subconsciously. It takes me a moment more, though, to realize where I am: still lounging on the moss, the side of my face veined with broken leaves. I sit up, brushing dirt and small, sharp stones from my skin. My hand comes away damp; it’s begun to drizzle.
“I knew you would find this place.”
“Effie?” My eyes blink hazily at the older woman, poised beside my mother’s tree, her back straight as a broomstick, holding a black umbrella above her head. She looks misplaced here, too posh to loiter in these wild, fairy woods. My mother had something of the fairy to her appearance. Renée, too, is a little feral, a coil-haired, roguish Puck.
But Effie… Effie is effortless elegance, a creature for yellow lamplight and warm buttered scones, not earth underfoot, swarming with ants, and this cold, invasive, slow-falling rain.
“You missed our appointment, so I came here to search for you.” Her mouth curves up fondly. “You fell asleep, ma chére, like a kitten by a fire. Were you restless last night?”
“Oh, a little…”
“Well, you’ll catch a cold, if you haven’t caught one already. Come—”
“That tree—have you seen that tree?” My sore, pinched legs tingle with a thousand needles, but I force myself to stand and move toward Effie; she adjusts her umbrella so that it arcs over my head, too. “The initials…”
“Oui.” She doesn’t look at the carving; instead, she turns her watery eyes on me, muscles twitching in her high-boned cheeks. “Your mother’s initials. They must have been chiseled there ages ago, when she was very young.”
I bite my lower lip as I search her gaze. “Effie.” I’m almost afraid to ask, afraid to find out the truth, or find out that I’ll never have the truth… “Do you know who GL is?”
She breathes out, long and low. I expect her to shrug, to say no, that GL might have been one of my mother’s friends or sweethearts. I expect her eyes to take on that faraway look they often assume when she speaks of the past. But Effie surprises me: she holds my stare, and in a clear, sure voice, she says, “GL was someone your mother loved very much.”
My heart nearly leaps out of my throat. Wide eyed, I stammer, “Who—was he—do you know if—”
“Come, ma chére.” She slides her arm through my crooked elbow and turns me to face the direction of the chateau, its black brick masked completely by the grey, staggered tree trunks. “I think you will find some answers for yourself in your mother’s letters. Let’s sit by the fire a while, shall we? I’ve made raspberry tarts.”
---
Effie insists that I warm up with some hot rose petal tea before she will permit me to open the lidded basket resting on the far end of the kitchen countertop. Blanket draped around my shoulders, seated on a simple cushioned chair that Effie gently shoved me into, I bask in the heat of the hearth flames. I don’t know how long I was sleeping outside in the rain, but my clothes were soaked through—I’ve since changed into a sweatshirt and yoga pants—and there’s a deep chill in my bones.
Effie sits next to me on a similar chair, taking dainty sips from a white china cup. “Do you like the tea, Vida?”
“Mm. I’ve never drunk rose petal tea before. I feel like I’m breathing perfume.”
“This is my own blend, made with the roses from my garden. I hope you’ll remain at Villa Etoile long enough to see the roses bloom.” Her pale but piercing blue eyes regard me curiously. “Do you intend to stay?”
I exhale heavily, laughing a little. “I would like to,” I smile at her, “but I haven’t worked through the ramifications yet in my head. Ask me again in—I don’t know—a week or two?”
“Ah, I will, and I hope your answer will be oui.” Her keen gaze twinkles. “It would be nice to have another woman beneath this roof. And I know Renée enjoys your companionship. If you stay, she will no longer have to sleep alone.”
