William Maxwell - The Chateau

The sense of unreality—the dreadful recognition that he belonged not to the white race but to the pink or gray—that often came over him at official functions, among people of the highest importance and social distinction, he never experienced in any place where there was sawdust on the floor. He enjoyed the tribute that was paid to his social superiority (sometimes it only lasted a second, but it was there, nevertheless—a flicker of incredulity that he should be talking to them) and also their moment of vanity, encouraged by his lack of condescension. Though their fingernails were dirty and their clothes had been bought and worn by somebody else, they thought well of themselves; they were not apologetic. As a rule they understood perfectly what he wanted of them, and when he had checked the addition and put the change in his pocket notebook, they clapped him on the shoulder, smiling at his way of doing business, and went back to theirs. Now and then, misunderstanding, they offered him their friendship—were ready to throw in their lot, such as it was, with his, whatever that might prove to be. And when this offer was not accepted, they became surly or abusive, and it was a problem to get rid of them.

The Americans passed their letters back and forth, and when they were all read, Harold glanced at his watch again and said: “It looks as if he isn’t coming.”

Before he could catch the eye of the waitress, they saw Gagny, and saw that he had already seen them, but it was a very different Gagny from the one they had known in the country—erect and handsome and as wildly happy as if he had just succeeded in extricating himself from a long-standing love affair with a woman ten years older than he, and very demanding, given to emotional scenes, threats, tears, accusations that could only be answered in bed. He was delighted that they had kept their engagement with him. He had checked in at his hotel, he said, and come straight here, hoping to find them. They had been missed, he told them cheerfully. Mme Viénot and Mme Carrère had agreed that the house was not the same without the Americans. Then, seeing the look of surprise on their faces, he said: “You can believe me. I never make anything up.” He surveyed the bar, in one fleeting glance, and for this afternoon renounced its interesting possibilities.

The waitress came and stood beside the table.

“Let me order for you,” Gagny said, “since I know the place. And this is my lunch.”

“Oh no it’s not!” Harold cried.

“Oh yes it is!”

By the time the pâté arrived, they were all three talking at once, exchanging confidences, asking questions, being funny. The Americans found it a great relief to confide to someone their feelings about staying at the château, and who was in a better position to understand what they meant than someone who had seen them floundering? But if they had only known what he was really like …

He kept saying “Well exactly!” and they kept saying “I know. I know.” They talked steadily through course after course. They finished the carafe of red wine and Gagny ordered a second, and cognac after that. The bistro was empty when they finally pushed their chairs back from the table. In spite of the adverse exchange, Gagny seized the check and would not hear of any other arrangement.

The sun was shining in the street outside. Gagny had an errand to do in the rue St. Honoré, and they walked with him as far as the rue Boissy d’Anglas. He was their favorite friend, and they felt sure that he was just as fond of them, but when the moment came for exchanging addresses, they were all three silent.

Standing on the street corner, Gagny smiled at the blue sky and then at them, and said: “You don’t happen to know where Guerlain is, by any chance?”

“Just one moment,” Harold said, “I’ll look it up.” He brought out his plan of Paris and began thumbing the pages. “ ‘Théâtres et spectacles … cabarets artistiques … cinémas …’ ”

“You won’t find it in there,” Gagny said.

“ ‘Cultes,’ ” Harold read. “ ‘Eglises Catholiques … Chapelles Catholiques Etrangères … Rite Melchite Grec’… Certainly it’s in here. ‘Eglises Luthériennes … Eglises réformées de France … Eglises protestantes étrangères … Science Chrétienne … Eglise Adventiste … Eglises Baptistes … Eglises Orthodoxes … Culte Israélite, Synagogues … Culte Mahométan, Mosquée … Facultés, Ecoles Supérieures …’ ”

Barbara put a restraining hand on his arm, and he looked up and saw that Gagny was ten feet away, in lively conversation with an English couple—friends, obviously—who had just arrived in Paris, by car, they said, from the south of France. They were very brown.

After a few minutes they said good-by and went off down the street. Gagny rejoined Harold and Barbara and said with a note of pure wonder in his voice: “They had beautiful weather the whole time they were on the Riviera.”

“We came up out of the Métro,” Harold said earnestly, all that wine having caught up with him at last, “and there it was right in front of us, with searchlights trained on the flying buttresses, and it was facing the opposite direction from Cleopatra’s Needle and the Place de la Concorde.”

“You’re sure about that?” Gagny said, looking at him affectionately.

“Positive,” Harold said.

“Well, old chap, all I can say is, there’s something wrong somewhere.”

“ Terribly wrong,” Harold said.

“I’d love to help you straighten it out,” Gagny said. “But not this afternoon. I’ve got to buy perfume for my mother. Cheerio.”

THEY SPENT all Friday morning at the Louvre and had lunch sitting on the sidewalk looking at the Comédie Française, but it was broad daylight and the lamps were not lighted; it was impossible to imagine what they were like at night. By not doing what they were told to do they had missed their one chance of having this beautiful experience. There was not going to be another illumination the whole rest of the summer.

They went back to the Louvre, and barely left time to check out of their hotel and get to the station. Sabine Viénot had not called, and they did not see her on the station platform. On the train they amused themselves by filling two pages of the financial diary with a list of things they would like to steal from the Louvre. Harold began with a Romanesque statue of the Queen of Sheba, and then took The Lacemaker by Vermeer, and Lot and His Daughters by Lucas van Leyden, and some panels by Giotto. Barbara took a fragment of a Greek statue—the lower half of a woman’s body—and a section of the frieze of the Parthenon, and a Bronzino portrait. He took a Velasquez, a Goya, a Murillo, some Fra Angelico panels, La Belle Ferronière, and a fragment of a horse’s head. She took two Rembrandts, a Goya, an El Greco crucifixion, and a Bruegel winter scene.… And so on and so on, as the shadows outside the train window grew longer and longer. When the compartment began to seem oppressive, they stood in the crowded corridor for a while. They saw a church spire that was like the little church in Brenodville, and here and there on the line of hills a big country house half hidden by trees, and sometimes they saw the sky reflected in a river. When they grew tired of standing, they ground out their cigarettes and went back into their compartment and read. From time to time they raised their eyes to observe the other passengers or the sunset.

Mme Viénot had said that she was expecting some relatives on Friday, and would Harold look around for them when he got off the train? But there was no one in the railway station in Blois who appeared uncertain about where he was going or to be looking for two Americans. The taxi brought them by a back road through the forest instead of by the highway along the river, and this reminded Harold of something. “We thought they would come from the direction of the highway,” Mme. Bonenfant had said, “and they came through the forest instead.” He turned and looked back. There were no Germans in the forest now, but would it ever be free of them? Was that why the gate was kept locked?