Double Happiness (12 page)

The toilet? Well. The toilet! Really? Patty put down her cup and stood. Maybe we should hang them on the line? Let me see? The toilet, good lord. She almost felt like laughing.

Wait, she bent to brush the crumbs from her new black jeans and a tiny breeze threaded the air. The last of her roses shivered and released a powdery fragrance and she was suffused with ease, just like that. Maybe it was Guy's basic dullness, maybe she'd settled the fuss with Brad. Maybe Coren's troubles, whatever they were, were so beyond the reach of friendship that Patty felt released of any obligation. She did laugh a little. Poor Madame, she whispered to Marie-Noelle, tipping her chin toward the guest quarters.

Marie-Noelle shook her head, murmured that her mother took this as the worst possible sign. The blood.

Blood?

Here, Madame.

Patty could now see the speckles of blood, just on the right foot. She must have stubbed her toe, said Patty, in the dark, in the kitchen. It's nothing, Marie-Noelle. And she nearly smiled, felt grateful to Marie-Noelle and her mother, as she had from the start, for their tragic sense of everything, it relieved her of the burden.

She spoke to Marie-Noelle in French, in an accent that always amused Marie-Noelle. Patty watched Marie-Noelle's stern face as she hinted at an undisclosed trouble in her houseguest, the plan for general, distant coddling, and the specific remedy, perhaps today, of a visit to the widow of Combarelles. Perfect, yes? she said in English.

No, Madame, no, no. Marie-Noelle struggled to find words that Patty would understand, the slippers dangling in her hands. No!

Patty remembered they'd had this conversation before. How could she forget? She'd nearly fired Marie-Noelle on the spot for insolence. The widow of Combarelles was not a joking matter. Her home not a place for a tourist like Patty to go spit out her stupidity and ignorance.

Patty had just been able to gather her own wits and leave the room. At a dinner party that evening, before an open fire,
she told the amusing story of Marie-Noelle's frenzy—with amendments.

She called you a murderer? sighed her hostess. Poor Marie-Noelle. It wasn't the Americans. It was the French themselves. Their own fault. They caused the nasty deed.

Then the hostess burst out laughing. She was Italian and had a beautiful throat she displayed, head tilted upward, as if sharing the joke with a passing spirit.

Yes, poor Marie-Noelle, you must apologize somehow, said the host, poking the enormous fire. Make a gesture. Perhaps a candle at the shrine? Then you must be sure to look chastened when you report back. Though I promise the entire village will know about it already.

Just candles? Patty laughed, toying with her silk collar; she had a pretty throat herself. No sacrifices, right? And she thought she saw appreciation in the smile of her host.

But don't let them catch you, that's the main thing, and just in case they do, make it look like you're going to church. The widow of Combarelles is like a saint.

And she'll calm Marie-Noelle?

The hostess shrugged and bit into a wedge of cheese. Try it, she said, then went to see what was taking so long in the kitchen.

It's more a sad story, really, said Guy. This was maybe the last time the two of them were thrown together. (The widow is not the saint of romance, Patty said when asked what went wrong.)

Well?

He lifted his hands to signal the obvious and said, She was a widow. She lived with her mother, just like Marie-Noelle. They worked the cows and chickens, but the fields they left to go fallow. Too much for them. There were walnuts and potatoes and leeks, that's it. This is nineteen forty-three. Maybe forty-four.

And where are the men? smiled Patty.

Conscripted or killed. The women and children left behind were starving. Even the German soldiers couldn't always find enough to eat. But they were lazy, too. And this posting was easy, out of the way. Not much to do. Of course, many cellars of wine to drink.

This
is
a sad story, Patty said. She lifted pleading eyes to her host, ready for the closing punch line, but he was plucking a loose thread on his red leather ottoman.

They lived beyond the long ravine, far from where the soldiers usually found their rations. She stored food, urns of milk, in a cave dug into limestone in the forest. And those still left in the village knew to crawl at night to the widow's provisions. She kept them alive.

Well, said Patty, she
is
a saint! I have some problems besides Marie-Noelle she might be able to solve! She laughed.

But Guy didn't laugh with her. He said, One enterprising soldier, bored by his drunken friends, followed a girl into the woods, and then lost the idea to rape her.

Patty gave up. She told him everything?

Yes. And he killed her, then the widow and her mother.

Horrible.

Yes. The mother immediately. The girl immediately, too. Shot through the skull, each. Very carefully. Thoughtfully almost. But the widow he had crucified in the village square. They hung what was left of her on the cruciform you see—every village here has its own, you've seen them?—they hung her torn-up body on the filigree cross and left it for days. Not even the crows dared to touch her. That's what they say, and still you see them gather when, well what's the idea?

The sleepy host jerked opened his eyes, Oh, when a crime of the soul is perpetrated. Isn't that it? The crows are judge and jury. He stretched his arms above his handsome head. God, the heat of that fire. My love? Are we almost ready? he called out.

Terrible, said Patty. Terrible. She smiled a half smile she hoped showed her sympathetic nature.

When the villagers finally found the courage, they buried her with two stones. Because she was pregnant. It would have to be, right?

Ha, I see. Immaculate conception.

Some guess a young boy hiding in the woods from conscription, there were many, but no one really knows.

Probably the soldier who killed her. He knew all along, cried Patty. He was playing a double game, don't you think?

Guy shrugged his disagreement. I doubt it.

Please, said Patty. No more! Uncle! And the host smiled his approval. Quite right, he said, quite right, no more bloody bodies.

Their hostess reappeared by the fire in a new ivory satin sheath, only two slender straps held it in place. Come, please forgive us, we'll feed you at last.

It was a ridiculous story, but Patty took their advice. What else could she do? If she lost Marie-Noelle, no one else would clean for her. Patty knew how small communities worked. Long ago, when Brad Jr. wandered downstairs just once too often to play cards with the doorman with palsied cheeks, she'd let the building manager know about Jorge's odd clinging behavior toward her very young son. Jorge was let go immediately, without warning. And for years, she'd had to flag her own cabs, as if all the doormen of Madison and Park avenues were on notice. No, she would march straight to the shrine and light her best bees-wax candles and leave a handsome gift in the little alms box.

She set out first thing the next morning in the prim overcoat and headscarf her hostess had suggested. She half expected a practical joke, that they'd all jump out with cameras. But as she followed the blazes marking the path, she felt the cool shadowy darkness of the thick tree canopy wouldn't allow for much levity. It was a spooky place and a wonder the path was kept clear; better to let this all grow over and disappear. She
spotted the high pile of rubble at the trailhead, and smelled a quick spurting stench and then it was gone. As if some animal had been killed in the instant, in flight.

She pulled the gray mackintosh tighter across her chest. There was a constriction here as if the air had lost its power to circulate. Stone shards, old netting, bits of roof tile, shale, and slate. The morning fog hadn't yet lifted, but a votive flame wobbled in a ceramic bowl on the first collapsed wall of the widow's henhouse. Someone had been here before her. What was she looking at anyway? What was so different from the junk she had to clear from her own field? She tossed her coins on the ground and ran.

Marie-Noelle looked nearly as angry today as during that earlier vexed conversation. Patty led the way to the clothesline and studied the blood flecks on her green grippy slippers with what she hoped was suitable gravity. Yes, I diagnose a stubbed toe.

The trouble is clear, Madame.

And then Patty realized it, too. She's sick! The muumuu, the chills, the pallor. You don't think she's dying, do you?

Madame, said Marie-Noelle, with the forced patience Patty had grown accustomed to, even admired. She's with child. Marie-Noelle's mother was quite concerned and would prepare a special broth. They were leaving now. The young madame was in need of great care.

The young madame? said Patty, confused.

This, said Marie-Noelle, nodding to the slippers, A very dangerous sign.

There was one part of Coren's story Patty never quite understood. Some political aspect to Coren's mother's murder. And why her replacement in the household was considered a comrade of sorts. Her name was Sylvia and she resented the color of Coren's hair, flaxen just like her mother's. Sylvia took to calling Coren little clam, because the child was quiet. So when Coren's womb was said to be a clamshell beyond prying at the fertility clinic, it was as if Sylvia had been a seer of sorts.

Patty remembered all this as the last small lever to launch Phil off into his new adventures below the equator. The clam-shell, the longing, the suffocating plants. Who could blame him, really, Patty said to her husband. I'll be amazed if he ever comes home.

But Brad Sr. disagreed, which was unusual. She's a love, he said, then looked up and smiled.

A what?

Trust me, he'll get bored.

You mean at home?

No, wherever he is now. Brad shrugged, smiled, went on with the project in front of him, spread across the sofa and all along the carpet. He seldom brought home work, but they were experimenting with face time. Someone had recommended it.

She's a love? Patty asked, That's a new expression for you.

But Brad wasn't listening. And then, so soon, these planned conversations were over.

Patty fixed a light supper and laid the table in the kitchen and waited for Coren to come tell her all the things she'd been keeping to herself. When Guy knocked on the door, it was already dark. She lit tapers as if keeping a vigil and when he sat down long shadows made gray slashes on his flat cheeks. Marie-Noelle and her mother had offered their best but it was clear Coren needed a hospital. Guy had driven her to Saint Cyprien. She would spend a night or two.

Alone? asked Patty.

No, said Guy, her guardians are with her. I just came to tell you, so you wouldn't worry.

And the baby?

Already fragile; she probably shouldn't have come here.

I see, said Patty.

Guy nodded, watched her.

May I offer you something? Patty said.

I won't stay long. I want to check back.

At first he was very quiet, then said, Coren mentioned you were having some trouble?

Patty served the small salad without speaking. She looked at him, kept her eyes very plain, very open. It's nothing, she said.

He shook his head. Let his hands cup the knobs of his knees,
the long forearms taut. She could see a tremble there. But when the chicken was on the platter he said some things about the strange place they'd all come to. As if that was the whole story.

Marie-Noelle had told him about the planned outing to the widow. And Patty listened but wished he would stop. Why talk about that? Why talk about her at all, hadn't they learned a thing? Now the village square where the soldiers hung the entrails had mosaics of bright pink flowers. And bauble shops enticed money from the pockets of tourists. Always French tourists. Few foreigners ventured here. Those who did bought up the deserted houses and stayed, because they were safe. They were out of range.

The widow and the war doesn't apply to us, to our happiness, said Guy, and he had that watchful look again, as if there was a correct answer. So why take her there?

Patty kept quiet. He was accusing her of what? Of wrecking a pregnancy with the suggestion of a walk in the woods?

The houses aren't right for us, either, are they?

Patty knew this, too. No, she said, they aren't. Something was always wrong. And if she thought about it, the list was long. Walnuts lost their bitterness but twisted the belly. Her fragrant roses failed to please an inner palette. Good candles carried into the forest did nothing to offset night terrors. And the men who came to comfort lay down and got up again, restless. Her housekeeper was sad and haunted and resentful. The guest who finally arrived after repeated invitation left without
thanks or farewell. Later on she just might push the blankets low, the moonlight a flat square in the high window. His face would be a cloudy shape beside her. But for now she knew to keep still. Let him sip and think as if she were nothing but a vapor, or maybe she would be a flame. His choice.

R
AYMOND HAD BARELY SLIPPED THROUGH THE DOOR
when his wife announced she was pregnant. She said it with tickets to Rome. Let's go back to where it all began, she sang. And he decided—after a dramatic pause, sloughing off his jacket, pretending to want to see a doctor's note—sure, why not. It had been a lot of trouble coming to this point and he could tell Megan was ready for a romantic scrim. Their honeymoon just off the Spanish Steps had been hectic and expensive; Raymond lost his wallet three times! He lived at the American Express. But now, ten years later, those memories were vague, and only the beauty of umbrellas bobbing down the ancient street to Ferragamo remained, for Megan.

Raymond still hadn't quite forgiven her for those baleful glances in the famous glove shop. He'd chosen aubergine lined in cashmere, something vibrant yet cozy, and she'd embarrassed him by thinking the gloves were for her. She'd held out her diamond hand and blushed. A flurry of conversation behind
the counter among the old men with yardsticks, then the glances. Awful. They left with no gloves for anyone. Lost gloves, lost wallets, that was the Rome he remembered.