Babayaga: A Novel (5 page)

The two girls began asking Oliver’s opinion on various topics, and Will realized he should know a bit more about the range of subjects they touched upon, the fashionable filmmakers like Chabrol and Truffaut and the new authors he had never heard of—Robbe-Grillet, Butor, and Duras. He knew a little about current events, the situation in Algiers and the return of de Gaulle, but only what the headlines told him, not enough to have anything resembling an informed opinion. Listening on as the subjects went by, one by one, like train cars clattering along through the night, Will was aware again of how, despite the time spent here and all the things he had done, Paris remained vast and impermeably foreign to him. For the first time since that heady season when he was literally fresh off the boat, the city once again felt exotic.

When he had arrived, more than two years before, Will had earnestly planned to immerse himself in the arts, the museums, the theater, and great stacks literature, to become more cultured, even sophisticated. He imagined taking tours of the Louvre’s galleries and attending lectures at the Sorbonne. But, wearied from the tedious days at work, he had wound up spending his leisure time focusing only on the food, the wine, and the women. He had spent more time chatting up the owl-eyed girls with the straight gray skirts and bare legs he met browsing the shelves at Shakespeare & Company and Galignani than he did reading the actual books. In fact, he rarely got to the books. But it was hard to feel guilty about it when even the basest pleasures of Paris were so abundant and entirely elevating. Tonight, though, he did feel a slight pang of guilt for all the time he had wasted. He nodded and smiled along, feeling the shame of his ignorance as he quietly scraped the last mocha out of his
pot de crème
while his dinner companions chattered on about protosocialist revolutions and structural linguistics.

To Will’s relief, not only did all the intellectual conversation finally peter out, but, as the last cheese plate was picked clean and the table finally cleared, Oliver picked up the check too, with a reassuringly confident gesture indicating that he had it happily covered. Then, still laughing and chatting, the four of them crowded into a taxi and began a drunken, fruitless search for a mythical Latin Quarter jazz band. Oliver claimed to know the players in the band. “These cats are mad with talent! Their music is absolutely phosphorescent!” he kept shouting, though after many stops and drinks, it turned out the band wasn’t playing at any place they could find, nor had any of the various waitresses or bartenders ever heard of them. Eventually, the prettier girl yawned and peeled off, leaving polite farewell kisses on Will’s flushed cheeks. He wandered on with the other two as they eventually found their way to this secluded spot beneath the bridge on the Seine.

The last of the bottle of Drambuie that Oliver had bought off the last bartender had been finally drained dry and the Chesterfields were all ground dead into the stone. Will lay on the bench, listening to Oliver hum his little waltz to the girl as they danced along the gravel path. Gazing past them, across the water, Will watched a low barge slowly work its way up the river. To his sideways mind, the small glimmering gas lanterns on the boat’s sides seemed to be heading off to a rendezvous with the flickering stars above, their luminous sisters in the floating constellations.

The sound of the water against the barge’s bow reminded Will of being a young boy back home, standing on Jefferson Avenue, watching the massive gray cargo ships churn down the Detroit River on their way to the enormous and looming Rouge mills. Those vast, ugly ships, so large they seemed to barely fit bank to bank, were laden full of the raw, mined ore pulled from the Iron Range that would be forged and molded and stamped into the new industrial skin for the whole wide world. And what were these charming Parisian barges filled with? Sacks of grain for little baby lambs? Ground corn for pecking geese? Fresh-milled white wheat flour for warm morning croissants and baguettes? And why did he find the small boat so beautiful and romantic while those much larger ones were to his eyes only ugly and overbearing? Why do we love the little things so? Will grinned to himself. See, he thought, I can be philosophical. He drunkenly chuckled and his eyes flickered low as, one by one, a string of imaginary yellow ducks nimbly swam across the sea of his mind, each one kissing out puffs of vanishing smoke.

He awoke twisted up in his suit, as the dawn’s first flush was tinting pink, yellow, and orange off the clouds and glinting gold and bronze off the Paris rooftops. He sat up on the bench, rubbing his eyes and glancing around. Only here, he realized, could one wake like a vagrant and feel so lucky and blessed. The city was dappled in light, looking Impressionistic and wholly refreshed from its own nocturnal slumber. Checking his jacket to make sure he still had his wallet, he found a note scrawled onto the back of the dinner receipt: “Pricey dinner. We’ll sort it tonight. Meet me at 9 rue Git-le-Coeur at eight p.m. Be prompt. Ta, O.P.A.” He studied the note. Was Oliver saying that Will owed him for dinner? That didn’t seem right. What else did they need to sort out? Plus, there were a few other words scratched at the bottom that he couldn’t make out. Finally, studying the handwriting carefully, he deciphered it: “p.s. bring a knife.”

VI

Most French men, like his father and uncles, were completely happy to leave the kitchen work to their wives. But Charles Vidot enjoyed cooking with Adèle. Their kitchenette space was tiny and cramped, but after ten years of patient practice they now moved about one another in what felt to him like a smoothly choreographed routine. She diced while he mixed, she poured while he simmered. All while he recounted the details of his days to her, and with this series of small, brisk movements, Charles Vidot was able to unwind from his life at work and reattach himself to the cozy and satisfying comforts of home. The radio was whistling out Debussy. “You see,” he said to her, “it seems Monsieur Vallet had a lover.”

“A lover,” she said.

He could not tell if she was merely repeating what he said or asking for more details. “Yes”—he put the pan on the burner and turned on the gas—“a lover who has utterly vanished, leaving nothing but the faintest trace of her scent on the pillow.”

Adèle smiled. “You smelled the pillow?”

“Well”—he smiled—“I would not be much of a detective if I had not.”

Adèle nodded. “And what did it smell like?”

Charles paused to think. “Citrus and jasmine … expensive.”

“So, perhaps whoever killed him also frightened his lover away.”

“Perhaps,” he said skeptically. He put the two chicken breasts on the skillet, letting them simmer with the garlic and the butter.

“But you suspect her?”

“Probably, yes. She is certainly the most interesting element in this case.” He told her about the girl’s garbage bin and the strange remnants he had discovered there.

“A few mouse bones spit from an owl do not necessarily make her a suspect,” said Adèle.

“That is quite true. And if she were present I am sure she could have provided a reasonable explanation. But she is not, so…”

There was so little room in the kitchenette that her waist slid against her husband’s as he shook the pan. He smiled at this, savoring the small satisfactions that fed their life together. He watched as she squeezed lemon onto a bowl of shredded carrots and placed them to the side. She gave him a small smile. Was it a remote smile? A hesitant one? He could not tell. She had been difficult to read as of late. “Have your headaches been back?”

“Yes, earlier this week,” she said, “but the new pills from the pharmacist seem to help.”

“Better than the tea?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps. The doctor tells me my tea recipe is merely an old wives’ tale.”

“Ah well, if it works, it works.” Charles leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “I am glad I could come home early.” He had thought of staying at his office desk to peruse various notes on the case, there were interviews to comb through and the coroner’s statement to study, but he hated being in the station of late. A new chief of police for Paris, Maurice Papon, had recently been installed. In Vidot’s opinion, Papon was a thoroughly dishonorable man who, twenty years earlier, had stood out as one of the very worst of the Vichy collaborators. But history in France was a fickle thing, and as the nation healed from its great trauma, the powers that be had found a place for Papon. Once installed in his new office, this quisling had moved quickly, placing numerous other regrettable characters in various high positions throughout the department, including Vidot’s new superior at the station, a stout, lethargic toad of a creature named Maroc. As a detective, Vidot had encountered many disagreeable sorts, both criminal and civilian, and he liked to think he had a patient spirit and could tolerate any soul so long as they did not obstruct his path; but Maroc strained his patience. The man’s every expression insinuated either dishonesty or lethargy. Vidot found him nauseating and hated even being on the same city block with the man, and so this evening, after typing his case report in duplicate and leaving a copy in Maroc’s in-box, he locked up his files and made his way home.

But he was not done with the case that day, for work was not something that Vidot ever entirely left at the office. He lived and breathed and often dreamt about his cases until they were done. “My husband is a man of passion,” Adèle used to dryly joke with their friends. “Unfortunately, his passion is police work.” So, there in the kitchen, his thoughts now turned to the puzzle of Leon’s missing lover. Vidot did not judge the man too harshly for having a mistress. It occurred all too often in French society, it was as ordinary as the sliver of lemon rind that came with his morning espresso. But, in his opinion, it did signify a weak man and a dull mind. Any fool could seduce, but it took a true intellect to know and love his partner. Women, to Charles Vidot, were absolute and thrilling mysteries. They moved through the world as if a different gravity applied to them and answered to untranslatable calls of the body and soul. So many times, especially of late, Adèle had utterly befuddled him with her sudden moods and reactions to events. Tears would arrive and tempers would flare with no warning, vanishing again as if carried away by some unseen benevolent wind. He understood that these sorts of unpredictable mood changes often frustrated and shut lesser men down, sending them searching for other, seemingly more simple, beds; but to Vidot a woman’s riddles were nothing to run from, each was another enigma to be solved, another curious knot to untie. He knew he could never completely comprehend the wonder, the strangeness, that was his wife—how could one soul ever know another?—but he did completely love every small challenge that she gave him, every shadowed and mysterious moment she delivered. They may not have been as physically intimate as they once were, in fact lately she seemed even more distant from his touch, but that was fine; after all, they were not lusty schoolchildren. As far as Vidot was concerned, their union was a complete one, encompassing all the harmonies and inherent contradictions any relationship could hope to hold.

They sat at the table, held hands, and said their habitual small prayer of thanks. Charles opened a thick volume of the encyclopedia to a chapter on owls and read as he ate. He found himself quickly distracted by a description of this strange bird’s incredible powers of hearing (a high perched owl could detect the sounds of a tiny mouse moving beneath a foot of snow!) as Adèle slowly finished her food in silence. She never seemed to object when he worked at the supper table. In fact, it was how they spent many evenings. She was employed at the university library and would often bring him home books on subjects related to his cases. It made him happy to share his work with her, and he was always grateful for her thoughtful assistance and insights. To him, it was like they were one organism, different arms and legs carrying the two lobes of one great mind.

Adèle finally rose and began clearing the empty plates. “Perhaps the woman is also dead. They could have thrown her body in the river,” she said as she headed into the kitchen.

“No,” Charles said, looking up from his reading. “I am certain that Leon Vallet’s lover is very much alive. Not only were her dresser drawers cleaned out but also the bottom of her closet was completely bare. And a dead woman rarely takes all her shoes with her, however much she might like to.”

VII

Zoya chose the hotel down the hill from Place Pigalle because it was two stories higher than the other buildings on the block. Also, it was inexpensive and the block it stood on, though busy, had none of the loud nightclubs or neon that filled the rest of the district. In the small, yellow-tiled lobby, the man working at the front desk was not wearing a suit or even a jacket, only a sleeveless white T-shirt with a pair of suspenders. He itched at himself as she signed the register.

“That’s not from bedbugs or fleas, I hope?” she said.

“No,” said the man with a self-conscious grin. “It’s only a little rash.”

She knew a simple myrrh cure for his ailment but she was not in a mood to be generous. “I need a room on the top floor if you can, one with a bath.”

“No problem,” he said. “The top floor is mostly empty because the elevator is broken. I only have one room up there with its own bath, but it is our most expensive.”

“
Quoi?
The most expensive? With no elevator?”

The man shrugged. “It’s a big room. Lots of sunlight.”

“Fine, I’ll take it,” she said. “But I will need some assistance with my luggage when it arrives from the station. I hope that will not be a problem.”

The clerk smiled. “Not a problem for me. I’m off in ten minutes. The next fellow can take it up.”

She counted out franc notes to him as he explained that each room had a kitchenette with an electric coil, but that the only working phone in the building was behind the front desk. “We do not let guests use it unless it is an emergency. Otherwise, there is a phone booth down the hill on the corner. They sell the
jetons
for it down at the tabac.”