French Fried (26 page)

“Well, Martin, what are
you
doing here?” Albertine asked, striding up to us.

“I am going on your excursion, Madam Guillot. When Madam Blue cannot manage, I will carry her.”

Albertine didn’t argue. She just said, “Well, it looks like we’ll be doing the whole tour.” She didn’t sound particularly happy about it. I had no plans to be carried about like a cripple, but accepted so she couldn’t back out. When I asked Martin to take the envelope and flowers to the desk for safekeeping until I returned, Albertine whispered, “I do believe that young Norman is in love.”

“Not with me,” I replied without explaining my answer. Martin’s secrets were safe with me. I owed him, as my son would say.

While Martin wandered
around blinking at dresses and lingerie, I told the saleslady I wished to return the shoes and dress I had bought earlier. She examined them and pointed out the damage, which made them nonreturnable.

“Ha!” cried Albertine. “You told her the heels would withstand stone streets, but look at them! The left one broke, causing Madam Blue’s ankle to break and her dress to be damaged when she fell.” Albertine then pulled the salesclerk aside for a conversation in French. Meanwhile Martin stopped inspecting ladies’ wear and towered over the combatants, scowling. At length the saleslady agreed to let me choose merchandise to replace the value of the shoes and to put their seamstress to work repairing the dress.

I was both pleased and puzzled until Albertine told me she had warned the woman about Americans, who loved lawsuits. She predicted that I would sue the establishment for the money I had paid, for my pain and suffering, and for my medical expenses, which were not covered by French health care.

I’m not sure whether Martin’s immense, glowering presence or Albertine’s argument did the trick, but I was soon trying on shoes with heels of the proper height. I found one pair made of leather so soft they felt like bedroom slippers. And they were pretty. I wouldn’t mind wearing both when I had two free feet again. I also looked at cropped pants and had to settle for a pair with side lacings up over the knee. I’d probably never wear them at home, but at least I could pull them over my boot to try them on. And they had a matching top.

My two-piece dress, at which the salesperson looked askance, my slip, one new shoe, and one old shoe were bundled into a shopping bag and deposited in Albertine’s trunk, the torn evening dress was left for remodeling, and we started toward another shop Albertine wished to visit. However, Martin objected and made me sit down to rest.

It was there that Sylvie and Winston Churchill found us. While the dog sniffed my gauze-wrapped toes, Sylvie sat down to tell me about a restaurant, La Compagnie des Comptoirs. “I know how much you’ve been craving Japanese food, Carolyn, and they have sushi.”

I couldn’t very well say that it wasn’t Japanese food I yearned for, but I was saved from disappointing her when Albertine arrived, listened to the description of the restaurant, and decided that the six of us should meet for dinner the next night. “Oh, very well,” said Sylvie. “But neither of us can bring our dogs, Albertine. They’ll squabble over Carolyn. I’ll make reservations. Rue Joseph Vernet, number eighty-three. We’ll see you at eight.” Then she took a picture of me sitting on the bench with Martin, who was being sniffed suspiciously by Winston Churchill.

We stopped at a bistro so that Albertine could have lunch. I had a tasty dish of glacé and two pain pills, after which we walked to Albertine’s car and headed for the cathedral. Unfortunately, having a car didn’t help much because there were many stairs to climb in order to reach Notre-Dame des Doms. The other wives stared when Martin carried me into the church at the head of our group. It was horribly embarrassing. I should probably have stayed home, but the church was interesting.

It was built in the Romanesque style in three different periods during the twelfth century, and then changed inside in the seventeenth century. Still, for all the fiddling with the old Romanesque architecture, there were lovely things to see, two fine chapels, one with frescoed arches dedicated to the Holy Sacrament and another to St. Roch with statues and lush ornamentation, not to mention a bishop’s chair with red velvet drapes and a pretty baroque organ above. I was, however, disappointed to hear that the huge statue of the Virgin on top of the bell tower was actually gilded lead, not gold. Of course if it had been gold, some conqueror would have made off with it.

From the cathedral we went into the gardens, with their shady trees, flowers, lakes with swans, and naked statues, also benches, on which Martin insisted that I rest, although he had been carrying me every time there was even one step to climb.

I thought maybe he’d become discouraged when Winston Churchill, who joined the tour with Sylvie, tried to bite his ankle, but Martin simply lifted his leg with the dog attached and flung it gently away. After that, Sylvie carried the dog, and Martin continued to carry me. Albertine was snickering, and the other ladies still staring, while the guide seemed distressed over the interruptions to her talk.

And, oh, the views of the Rhône, wide and gray-blue, and of Avignon and the town and fort across the river. The ramparts were built of thick stone with out-thrust ribs rising to the walkways and crenellated towers. No wonder the French king could only take the city by siege and starvation. We could have walked down the long flight of stairs where the walls descended from the Dom to the bridge of St. Benezet, but I decided against that. The stairs were narrow and steep, and large as my Norman knight was, I did not want to put him and myself at risk.

After all, Albertine and I had already seen the bridge, and Martin, although willing, did not insist. Given all the whispering among the ladies when he picked me up, his fear of having his sexual orientation discovered was now no longer a problem. No doubt they thought he was having a fling with me. Was that why he was so insistent on
not
letting me attempt any stairs?

“What’s this I
hear about my wife being repeatedly swept into the arms of Martin the Norman?” I asked. “Now the conferees think we’re both having affairs with graduate students.”

“Martin was preventing me from going up and down stairs.” She’d been lying on the bed reading. “Actually, I wanted to try stairs to see if I could.”

“Then I owe the young man my thanks. Why did you think you could climb stairs wearing that boot?”

“I could have if there’d been railings, and what’s your excuse for Mercedes?”

“She was trying to keep me from being shot. You should be grateful, too. What’s this?” Carolyn had just handed me a manila envelope.

She rolled off the bed and walked over to the door that led to our cement-walled patio. “Look at the sky, Jason. More clouds are gathering. I got a wonderful picture of the cathedral with that same sky behind it. Positively menacing.”

“That reminds me, Bertrand and Nicole Fournier want us to meet them at La Fourchette. They say a member of the Hiely-Lucullus family runs it, but it’s less expensive and close by. They have reservations, but the way the weather’s looking, maybe we should stay here.”

“L’Horlage doesn’t serve dinner, and we have umbrellas.” She pulled the drapes across the door as if hiding the sky would change my mind.

I mentioned the danger of falling on wet pavement, damage to the orthopedic boot, which was undoubtedly going to cost us something excessive, and damage to her new shoe. Arguing with Carolyn didn’t work; she had plastic boots to cover her shoe, called downstairs to get a plastic garbage bag to tie over the orthopedic boot—evidently they liked her, because they sent one up—and then she promised to cling to my arm so that she wouldn’t fall.

While I was picturing both of us falling in a heavy rainstorm, I examined the manila envelope, which contained a chemistry paper in its early stages. The drawing of the compound on the second page was so interesting that I immediately sat down to read.

When the garbage bag arrived, my wife gathered clothes for the evening and went into the bathroom to tie the bag around her knee, thus protecting the boot while she took a shower. The paper described the synthesis of the molecule pictured, plus notes on possible medical applications for a dilute solution of the stuff. It had a French name with which I was unfamiliar.

When Carolyn limped out of the bathroom a half hour later, looking very pretty except for the boot under her skirt, she announced that the garbage bag had been a great success, and she felt much better for having had a shower. “Sponge baths are
very
unsatisfactory.”

My wife is given to frequent bathing, changing of clothes, and washing said clothes. “This is a fascinating piece of work,” I told her. “A compound I’ve never seen before with excellent medical applications when dilute enough to be nontoxic.”

“Toxic?”

“Of course. Why would anyone send me a paper that wasn’t about toxins? Who did the work, by the way? There’s no name.”

“Martin brought it over, but it’s Catherine’s experiment.” Instead of sitting down, or putting on the shoe that balanced her boot, she stared at me anxiously.

“Catherine’s? Then I look forward to discussing it with her.”

“Jason, you can’t do that. I don’t think Catherine knows he copied it and brought it to you. You’d get him in trouble. What’s the name of the compound?”

“It’s something in French. I don’t recognize the word, but it’s very strange that her graduate student would bring you a stolen copy of her research. Maybe you misunderstood.”

“Maybe,” said my wife, and reminded me that I should take my shower if we were to arrive on time at the restaurant. She was right, and I went in, only to find the floor as covered with water as the floor of that bathroom in Lyon had been. However, this one had never flooded before. Still, I made no complaint, imagining the difficulties of showering while wearing a garbage-bag-wrapped orthopedic boot.

When I’d finished, I returned to the room to see Carolyn staring at the screen of her computer with the research papers in her hand. “Jason,” she said, looking up, “this compound is tetrodotoxin.”

I laughed and began to dress.

“No, really,” she continued, sounding peeved. “I compared the drawing I downloaded to my computer to the one in the paper. They match atom for atom.”

“Well, the positioning and bonds could make it an entirely different—”

“Will you look? She’s the person who tried to kill us. She didn’t have to find fugu. She made the toxin herself.”

I looked, and the molecules did match, but the idea that Catherine put fish toxin in our pâté—well, I didn’t believe that for a minute. “Two points, my love,” I said. “Well, three. First, you’ve decided that it was a terrorist. Second, Catherine wasn’t in Avignon when you were pushed down those stairs, and third, that research is medical in nature. The compound in dilute solution holds promise to relieve all kinds of pain—that of recovering heroin addicts, and intractable arthritis pain, for instance.”

“Fine, Jason. Just promise me that first, you’ll keep away from her; and second, you won’t get Martin in trouble by telling her that he stole the research—he was trying to help us—and third, I’ll never forgive you if you talk to her about this research no matter how wonderful you think it is. I—well, I need to check some things out.”

Carolyn wouldn’t put her knee-highs or her new shoe or her jewelry on until I gave her my word. Since we hadn’t cancelled on the Fourniers, the weather had cleared, and they’d be waiting for us, I gave in and promised to stay away from Catherine. What else could I do?

La Fourchette was
crowded, bustling, and noisy, with half-paneling below and white walls above covered with pictures and cooking implements, white tablecloths, and hard chairs. The Fourniers were seated, studying menus and wine lists. After the usual expressions of sympathy about my ankle and questions about why I had been out in an alley instead of attending the delicious banquet—which they described in detail, relieving me of an explanation for my absence—they began to tell us what we should order.

We let them choose the wine, which had worked well before, and then Jason ordered a sardine appetizer in a bright green sauce and carpaccio in white coriander sauce, while I had twelve snails, each tucked into its own compartment and bathed in a butter and green herb sauce, and as my entrée, La Daube de Boeuf a la Avignonnaise, which was stew of tender, tasty beef chunks in dark red wine. The Cote de Luberon Maison that Bertrand ordered went wonderfully with my choices, but I only took a sip or two.

That, of course, raised objections. The Fourniers couldn’t seem to understand that I shouldn’t be drinking at all while taking pain pills. Jason pacified Bertrand by engaging him in a serious discussion of chemistry, while I pursued my suspicions of Catherine by asking Nicole questions about the dead husband.

“My dear,” said Nicole, settling down for a good gossip, “that was fifteen years ago at least and quite a scandal. Because he killed himself, the priest, called while he was dying, refused to give him the last rites. Catherine was furious and had him buried in a Protestant cemetery rather than risk having him refused burial in sacred ground.”

“How did he kill himself?”

“With a gun, of course. Probably a target pistol. They both owned guns and enjoyed shooting. I don’t believe they hunted, but they belonged to a club for shooting at targets and clay birds.”

I wondered whether a target pistol had been the weapon used to shoot Mercedes. “What was his name? I don’t believe anyone has ever mentioned it.”

“Maurice Bellamee. She kept her own name when they married. Very modern, but then she was quite a young woman. She’d been his student, but she had to change professors when they fell in love, and they couldn’t marry until she took her degree. Then Maurice insisted that the university hire her. That caused scandal, too, but Maurice was well thought of, a dear man really, except for his mental illness.