A Bordeaux Dynasty: A Novel (42 page)

Aurélien had another attack, as Robert had predicted. One morning, Jules walked into the library to find his father dead. The nurse was sleeping in the adjacent room. She’d left her door open, and Jules could hear her loud breathing. The library’s shutters were closed. It looked like Aurélien had tried to sit up straight and then fallen across his pillows. Hopefully he hadn’t suffered.

Though Jules had been preparing himself for Aurélien’s death for a few days, it took a moment for him to fully comprehend the situation. He finally approached the bed, leaned over his father, grazed his forehead lovingly, then closed his father’ eyes. He didn’t dare walk away, realizing that soon Aurélien would be gone from Fonteyne for good. He took a few deep breaths to hold back his tears. His grief would remain with him for the rest of his life, no need to try to squelch it all at once by crying. As he left the room, he felt the same intolerable pain he’d have experienced watching Fonteyne burn to the ground.

As soon as he crossed the hallway, he felt a little bit better. He then saw Fernande coming out of the kitchen, a breakfast tray in hands. She stopped in her tracks when she saw him, no need for questions. She looked at Jules for a couple of seconds, completely still, then turned on her heels and returned to the kitchen.

Jules didn’t know quite what to do. He went up the stairs slowly and knocked on Robert’s door. He walked in, went straight to the windows to open the shutters. When he turned around, Robert was sitting up in his bed.

“Is it over?” he asked.

“Yes.”

After a brief moment of silence, Robert got up.

“Okay,” he said. “When?”

“I don’t know exactly,” Jules aid. “I just found him. … Want to tell Louis-Marie? I’ll go over to Alex’s house.”

As he headed for the door, Robert said to him, calmly, “You should go see a certain Delgas.”

“Who?”

“Delgas. He used to be the chief of police around here. He lives in a bungalow somewhere on Labarde Road. He should know all about your birth and adoption. …”

Jules nodded, looking tired.

“Yeah … I’ll go see him.”

First he went by Alex and Dominique’s. He gave them the news bluntly. Alex started to say something, but Jules left without listening to him. As far as he was concerned, Alexandre no longer existed.

He struggled to find Delgas’s exact address and then stopped into a phone booth to let him know he was coming over. He finally did come across the small, nondescript bungalow the ex-cop had retired to. Jules couldn’t help hating narrow spaces, and he felt uncomfortable as he stood in front of the house’s ancient gates and rang the bell. Almost immediately, an old man stepped out of the garage next to the house. He came over to open the gates himself, eyed Jules, and shook his hand. Jules figured he was nearly eighty years old.

“You’re Jules Laverzac?” he asked, his voice still strong.

“Yes. …” Jules muttered.

“Come with me.”

Delgas walked into the bungalow, followed by Jules. He must’ve been living alone, as the furniture was sparse. There was a feeling of loneliness in the house.

“Please, sit down,” Delgas said. “Something to drink?”

“No, thank you.”

Jules was sitting there, pale, silent, and so old Delgas decided to speak.

“Why did you want to see me?” he asked.

“Aurélien Laverzac died last night.”

“No!”

The word burst out of Delgas’s mouth.

“My condolences. … Your father was highly respected. He was one hell of a guy. He did a lot for the region. You weren’t around during the heroic era, young man. …”

The old man shook his head, morose all of a sudden. Jules had no idea what he was talking about.

“They’re almost all gone now,” Delgas said. “So sad …”

After a moment lost in his thoughts, the old man looked at Jules again.

“I still don’t know exactly why you came to see me,” he said.

“You must know that Aurélien was my adoptive father?”

Delgas nodded, encouraging Jules to go on talking.

“Concerning the adoption, it seemed as though my father was trying to say that you’d be able to tell me about certain things. He was paralyzed and couldn’t speak. He was able to give me your name, and that was it.”

Delgas was gazing at Jules intently and then said, “Why do you want to know that old story?”

Jules answered without hesitation.

“It’s my right. And Aurélien is the one who made the decision, since he’s the one who sent me to you. And so I want to know.”

Delgas sat back in his armchair and began to roll a cigarette.

“It’s not easy, after all these years …” he began. “He never said a word to you about it? Well, I suppose that’s not important anymore. It’s just that for you … You must be … wait, let me count … about thirty years old, right?”

Delgas stopped speaking and gave the young man sitting in front of him a melancholy look. Then he frowned, as though he’d just thought of something meaningful. Again he studied Jules’s face, before lowering his eyes.

He went back to rolling his cigarette and, reluctantly, continued, “Why is it up to me to tell you about all this? It’s not as though I was really friends with your father. We knew each other well, since I was in charge of the Margaux police department for a while. Okay … Even back then, Aurélien hired a lot of laborers for the harvest. They came from everywhere. You know that. … They were mostly foreigners, not students like nowadays. One year, there was a girl that … We knew her by the name of Agnès. Yes, Agnès …”

He lit his cigarette and took a long drag. Jules was completely still.

“As a matter of fact,” Delgas continued, “she was Hungarian. With a name much too complicated for folks around here to pronounce. You won’t have any trouble finding it.”

Jules shuddered, but the old man paid no attention.

“If memory serves, this woman was extremely beautiful. Impossible to resist. Being beautiful was actually all she had going for her, and she knew that full well. She was cheerful, sly as a fox, and all the men fell for her. She laughed all the time. Not the sharpest tool in the shed, but carefree, provocative, haunting … Aurélien Laverzac was like everybody else—he fell in love with her. At that time, Mrs. Laverzac was still alive. She was a stickler for principles, and your father had to be careful. He had a bit of a reputation for liking women, but he was head over heels in love with that girl. He saw Agnès here and there, as much as he could … But he wasn’t the only one! You know how things are during the harvest. …”

With that recollection, Delgas stopped talking. The trace of a smile appeared on his lips. He looked at Jules and, suddenly in a hurry to finish his story, began to speak faster, letting his cigarette go out.

“At the end of the fall, she left. Everybody sighed with relief, as she’d made so many men crazy, and there had been all kinds of fights and hairy situations. … It was the year after that things turned tragic. Agnès came back in September, and she had a baby with her! Yes, a newborn that she showed everybody, laughing …”

Jules became deathly pale, but Delgas was no longer looking at him.

“That kid, she was always carrying him on her back, in a shawl that she tied around her neck. Women around here don’t do that. … And so for a lot of men, seeing that little baby dangling from that piece of cloth made them very nervous and guilty. …”

Delgas stopped and asked, “Should I go on?”

“Please,” Jules said.

“Your father may have been one heck of a ladies’ man, but he was also a good man, a man of integrity. … But that Agnès, she really was going too far. Who knew who the baby’s father was? Not even Agnès probably. Only, she wanted to find a father, at any cost. She decided to go after the biggest fish in the pond and tried to make Aurélien assume responsibility for her baby. Just like that! He hesitated, and he was right. … He was troubled by the whole thing, and he didn’t trust her. … And while he was mulling things over, trying to come up with a solution that would be acceptable to everyone involved, that nutcase was trying to make other men accept paternity. Just in case. … She wanted her boy to have a bright future, and she was ready to do anything for someone to take him. Since everyone knows about everything in the region, Aurélien eventually learned that she was trying to pawn the kid off on anyone who would take him, and that she was telling all the men the same story. He got extremely angry and kicked her off his property right away.”

Delgas stopped himself once again as he thought how the young man sitting in his living room had been that baby, offered here and there by a mother who didn’t want him, rejected by a bunch of men who may or may not have been his father. …

“I’m listening, Mr. Delgas,” Jules said.

Delgas was impressed by Jules’s fortitude, and so he decided to tell him everything.

“Yes,” he said, “you want to know the rest. I understand. … Unfortunately, the rest is even worse. But it will make clear to you how come I know so much about this story. Agnès … Well, one day Agnès was found dead.”

Jules bit his lower lip but didn’t say anything.

The old man continued, “No one ever figured out what exactly happened. Nor why nor how. Did she try to blackmail someone and he decided to kill her? Did one of her lovers get scared? Murder? Suicide? Who knows … maybe just some stupid accident. That was the conclusion that the authorities came to, anyway.”

“What did she die of?”

“She fell in the shack she was squatting in and cracked her head on a stone bench. The case was quickly closed. There no were clues, no witnesses, and way too many possible suspects! The investigation was over in no time. She was just some poor foreigner … but the baby had to be dealt with. He was found howling, starving, next to his mother’s body. …”

Jules felt as though he was going to vomit but managed to control himself.

“And Aurélien Laverzac decided to adopt the child,” the old cop said. “At all levels the paperwork was expedited. Your father knew people in high places, and everybody appreciated his gesture. The death had happened on his land, he took on the responsibility without admitting to anything. As for the girl, Agnès, she had no family, no links to anyone, and it was like she had no past, either. The usual investigation came up empty. Her documents were in order, but they only gave us her marital status. No one ever heard from the Hungarian authorities about her case. She was buried in Bordeaux, as Margaux was too close. … You’ll be able to find her grave there. … You now know as much as I do. …”

Jules swallowed hard and took out his pack of cigarettes. But all he did was fiddle with it, nervously.

“The entire Médoc region must’ve heard about the scandal, right?” he muttered.

Weary, Delgas shook his head.

“Your father did everything he could to prevent that. There was no scandal per se. A bit of gossip, of course. Your father was a powerful man and he knew what he wanted. The entire affair was completely hushed up. Besides, what was it, really? An accident and an orphan, that’s it. Most people probably assumed that this woman simply went back to where she came from, along with her child. Just some foreigner we’d never see again around here. Again, there was some gossip about it all, but then people got tired of that story and found something else to talk about. As for the child … I mean, you! Well, you arrived at Fonteyne after a few weeks, after the adoption was made legal. Those who put two and two together mostly kept it to themselves. This is the first time anyone’s talked to me about it in thirty years. And, of course, no one ever dared to bring up the topic in Aurélien Laverzac’s presence! Not even his wife. And, with time, people forgot all about it. …”

Tired from having talked so much, Delgas let out a long sigh.

“Things are different in your case,” he said, “it goes without saying. … And so I’m going to tell you something else. … As far as I can remember, you look a lot like she did.”

Jules took a deep breath and asked, “In your opinion, Mr. Delgas, was it an accident or a murder?”

The ex-cop looked Jules straight in the eyes and said, “The case was closed, young man. It was an accident. Ac-ci-dent.”

He slowly got to his feet and stared at Jules long and hard.

“You now know the truth,” he said. “You’re handling it well. I don’t feel sorry for you because your mother got what she wanted: a good future for her son. Focus on that and don’t go unearthing old stories. You wouldn’t gain anything by it. Nothing. You understand what I’m saying to you? You’re part of their world.”

Everything had obviously been said, and Jules remained quiet. He held Delgas’s gaze for a moment and then stood up. He gave the old cop a nod filled with gratitude, then he left the house without turning back. He climbed into the Mercedes, drove a few miles, and then stopped on the side of a small road he knew well. He got out of the car and started to walk, briskly, hands in pockets. He almost felt relieved, in spite of Delgas’s painful revelation.

Jules didn’t really care what Aurélien had done; what he’d most feared was learning that he was someone else’s son. Since there was a chance, if only small, that Aurélien was his father, Jules could breathe more easily. He finally came to a stop, leaned against a tree, and lit a cigarette.

What saddened him was the fact that it was impossible for him to now go to Fonteyne, knock on the office door, walk in without waiting for an answer, and sit in front of Aurélien to thank him. From now on, he’d sit in the boss’s chair for good. He smiled at the idea. Then he slowly walked back to the car. Aurélien was dead. He was going to have to deal with the formalities, the burial, people, work. He was going to get rid of that pathetic Alex. He was going to have children with Laurène. … And there was no room in Jules Laverzac’s life to think about this Agnès.

Mr. Varin was done reading. Absentmindedly, he ran a hand on top of the pile of documents in front of him.

“Any questions, gentlemen?” he asked.

He looked at them all, one after the other. Jules remained attentive but hadn’t seemed surprised, as he knew full well that Fonteyne was his.

Robert and Louis-Marie had politely listened to the notary and showed no trace of surprise, either.