Anne Korkeakivi - An Unexpected Guest

She sat down on the bed next to her son and brushed aside the hair that had fallen over his face. The scent of his breath, warm and slightly rancid, wafted up to her, clashing with the coolness of the coming evening. “Jamie,” she said, and patted his shoulder. When he rolled away, she shook him a little harder. Then she left him to brush her teeth.

When she came back out of her bathroom, Jamie was awake but not up.

“You need to go to your own room,” she told him, sitting down beside him again. “Daddy will be here any minute.”

Her son stood. He rubbed his eyes.

“Are you hungry?” she asked.

“I had pizzas with Marc and some other guys. I met them after they got out of school. I had to borrow some euros from them…”

“Okay, then. Just stay in your room. You can see Daddy afterwards.”

Jamie wavered before her. “Mommy?” he said.

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

“Why, Jamie,” she said, reaching towards him, but he was gone.

She swam her hands up and down the length of the coverlet. And if they did end up in some place like Kyrgyzstan? What then would happen to Jamie? The emerald snagged on the fabric, and she carefully disengaged it. All those Thanksgivings Clare and her brothers had seen it winking from their grandmother’s hand as Mormor carried out the turkey she would never learn to make correctly, which, in fact, Clare’s mother would arrive in the morning to dress and put in the oven to keep them all from being poisoned. But still her grandfather would take the heavy platter from Mormor’s hands and kiss her cheek admiringly. “My bonny Swedish prize,” he would announce, even as her blond hair faded and her shoulders tumbled inward. Clare had always planned to pass the ring along to Jamie; she wanted him to be able to share it with a wife who would protect him as well as she had tried, or maybe a daughter who would clutch at his heart the same way as he had at hers. Peter would have the Turner, which he’d hang on the wall of a well-appointed home, wherever around the world it might be, and feel at ease on the honorable path he would undoubtedly take. Peter had already made his choice — he belonged to England. But Jamie? England, so far, clearly wasn’t working out for him. Maybe he would find his place in Ireland, if Edward got the posting there. Maybe he’d be able to feel a pride and even comfort in his Irish ancestry. From what she’d just learned, Ireland already seemed to hold its appeal for him.

The way he had said her name— Rian, with that lilt — as though the girl’s very name held magical properties.

Clare stilled her hand and stood. She went down the hall, and surveyed the formal living room. Amélie had set out silver plates of nuts and tiny burnished crackers. She had also closed the windows, so Clare went in and reopened them. She wanted the spring air of Paris. The night’s chill hadn’t settled yet, and the light evening breeze carried in a remembrance of the warm scent of earth awakening and blossoms opening.

The house bell rang. That would be Edward, arriving with the first guests, undoubtedly the P.U.S. amongst them. He wouldn’t open the door with his key, not when accompanied by guests. For one thing, it wasn’t dignified. For another, it didn’t give the household — including her — proper warning that guests were about to enter.

She could hear Yann’s footsteps heading for the door, echoed by those of Amélie’s cousin. The cousin would hover in the background, helping Yann hang up coats and pass out cocktails — her own hair neatly arranged now, her T-shirt and jeans traded for a white blouse and pair of black trousers — after the guests had passed through the front hall, Clare there to greet them. It was a science. They were all cogs in its machinery.

She still had a few seconds to run the guests through her mind, matching mental snapshots of their faces with some piece of information about them that would separate them from the scores of other individuals whose hands she shook or cheeks she kissed weekly, a trick she’d learned from Edward. If she did it quickly—

The P.U.S., Toby Pessingham, whom she’d met only a few times and who had been wearing a red tie each time. Perhaps he would be again this evening.

Alain LeTouquet, tennis-loving director general at the Quai D’Orsay, and his wife, Bautista, who was Florentine and took a great personal interest in art. Clare would speak Italian with her, at least initially. They would discuss Clare’s latest translation for the Rodin Museum.

Those de Louriacs — Rémy, Cécile, and what were the son and fiancée’s names? Clare fished around in her memory, saw her own hand inscribing their names this morning. There the names were: Frédéric de Louriac and Agathe Gouriant D’Arcy. Someday soon, especially if Edward got the Irish ambassadorship, she and Edward were likely to see their same names engraved on a creamy wedding invitation delivered to their doorstep. Recognizing them at tonight’s gathering would be simple. They’d be the young ones. The de Louriac seniors she’d run into at a reception just the week before last, and she could picture them all too easily. He’d kissed her hand, with emphasis, and Madame’s laugh had sounded like a tuberculin cough, low and puffy. She would ask them about the cave paintings in Dordogne, not so far from their estate. She’d read recently about a new exhibition opening.

Sylvie Picq, ministre délégué au commerce extérieur, blond, sharp, and frighteningly effective, be it at arguing a point over dinner or simply answering her cell phone, and her self-important husband, Christian Picq, from whose latest tome on sociology Clare would have to pretend to have read at least an excerpt. Or else pretend it was too above her to attempt reading. Edward had read most of it. She’d leave it to him to do the requisite flattering.

Hope Childs, the British actress now living in Paris, whose thin face and mysterious hooded eyes everyone knew from her movies.

And the bespectacled Reverend Newsome, John, and his wife, Lucy, whose latest book for young adults Clare had read. Lucy had been a pediatrician, specializing in adolescent health, before John had been named chaplain at St. George’s in Paris. She’d leaned into Clare after church services last Easter and, eyeing the well-heeled crowd milling about the church steps in their well-tailored spring suits, whispered, “If I had gobs and gobs of money, I’d invest in acne cream. Adolescent complexion crises are one thing, like death and taxes, you can always be sure of.” She’d said it with a straight face, but Clare had seen her brown eyes sparkling under her Easter bonnet. Clare had ordered the latest of Lucy’s novels online that very evening.

Toby, Alain, Bautista, Rémy, Cécile, Frédéric, Agathe, Sylvie, Christian, Hope, John, and Lucy. She had them now in her head. The front door clicked.

The first group entered and, shortly after, the second, like a ringlet of hair uncurling in water, strands separating and fanning out, spreading over the furniture in the reception room. She ushered everyone in, became a high-stepping waterbird, showing them towards the formal dining room, asking after children, the P.U.S.’s wife, the weather. With each cluster, she exchanged words of regret and condolence about the assassinated minister, but only gently so as not to engender deeper discussion or dampen the atmosphere.

Third came the de Louriacs with their next generation, as shiny and burnished as she had expected.

“You are Americaine! ” said Agathe Gouriant D’Arcy, the fiancée, looking confused, as she flipped a lock of long, lustrous brown hair behind one shoulder. “Not Eengleesh!”

“But, of course, cherie, ” Frédéric, the son, chided her. “ Maman told you in the car. Weren’t you listening?”