Paris Ransom Read online

  “I guess she’s not coming back right away,” I said. “Sometimes she does that.”

  “That’s odd,” he said. “But sometimes wives can be odd.”

  “Well, you would know,” I said, laughing. “How many have you had?”

  “Six, I think, including the current one. But only three of them were truly odd. In any case, I must go. I will be back for dinner at nine, and I am looking forward to it. Au revoir.”

  When ten more minutes had gone by and Tess had still not returned, I concluded that she wasn’t going to, or at least not right away. She was probably just puttering away in her study, doing whatever she did in there.

  Although I had been invited into the study a few times over our five years together, she had made it clear the first night we ever spent together that she preferred to leave it as her private place. And, obviously, there were things in there she considered off-limits. All the cabinets and drawers had locks, and one filing cabinet had a glowing green light on it, suggesting some kind of alarm. We soon turned the fourth bedroom into my study, so it really didn’t matter much, and I gave it little thought.

  Maybe after we were married, I would ask what was locked up in her study. Which reminded me that amidst Oscar’s unexpected arrival, I hadn’t yet had the opportunity to tell Tess yes.

  CHAPTER 3

  While I waited for Tess to emerge, I went out on the balcony to smoke a cigar and admire the floodlit Notre Dame, which was visible through the bare branches of the trees.

  After the cigar, which I’d started the day before, burned itself down to a nub, I came back in, sank into my favorite chair and scanned Le Monde, more or less the New York Times of France. It was filled with the usual French fare—a sinking economy, restless immigrants and the latest exploits of Roland de Fournis, an investigating judge who had been looking into alleged financial scandals of former cabinet members. Such judges in France are super-powerful and, assisted by their very own judicial police, can jail people for up to forty-eight hours while they question them. Which is exactly what de Fournis had been doing for weeks. Photos of the formerly powerful being hauled off to jail, one by one, had made it onto even the staid pages of Le Monde. I loved it, and so did all of France.

  Next I inspected Tess’s elegant table setting and then opened the red wine to let it breathe. We were serving two grand cru wines—a white 1989 Bâtard-Montrachet and a red Château Margaux of the same vintage. Nineteen eighty-nine was the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution, so if I brought that up at dinner, perhaps it would generate some good table talk.

  I was surprised to see that the table was set for six. While I was reading Le Monde, I had heard Tess leave her study and make her way into the kitchen. “Tess,” I yelled through the swinging door that led from the dining room to the kitchen—“I thought there were only going to be four of us. Who are the extra plates for?”

  She came out of the kitchen sporting a white apron and a chef’s hat and wiping her hands on a napkin. “Eh bien, while you were on the balcony an old friend, Jean Follet, telephoned. His wife is dead this last year and I find myself to have sorrow for him. Donc, I invited him at, how do you say, the final second?”

  “Oh, okay. But there are six place settings.”

  “Yes. He will bring a guest, he says.”

  “I hope he won’t be a drag on the party.”

  “What does this mean, ‘a drag on the party’?”

  “I hope he will not be depressed and depress us all.”

  “Oh no. He is very animé. He is a retired army general and has many stories to tell.”

  Tess turned as if to head back to the kitchen. I reached out and touched her on the shoulder, and she turned back toward me.

  “Tess, I want to say yes. And I want to apologize that I didn’t say it immediately. I love you and I want to marry you.”

  She beamed and gave me a giant hug and then a kiss on the lips. “Ah, this is great. Did you see that I added your name to the plaque?”

  “Yes.”

  “We will be very happy I think. Do you not think so?”

  “Yes, I do. And I thought we could announce the engagement tonight during dinner. I would love to raise a toast to you.”

  She seemed to stiffen slightly and said, “Eh, maybe not at this dinner. The general, he is an old friend, but we are not close, and I do not know at all this person he will bring. Let us instead have a special dinner with good friends to announce this.”

  “Okay,” I said. “That works me for me.”

  She started to head back to the kitchen. “Tess, I want to tell you the details of what happened to Oscar in front of our building,” I said.

  “Yes?”

  I told her about the tall young man who tried to grab the box, about my falling on it to save it from being stolen and about the car that had been idling nearby.

  “Mon Dieu! Why did Oscar not to tell me all of this?” she asked.

  “I think he just wants to minimize it.”

  “We should call the police, do you not think?”

  “He doesn’t want to do that.”

  She paused for a moment, then said, “It is his head, I suppose.”

  “We would say it is his neck.”

  “Eh, whatever part it is, it is his.”

  Not long after that conversation, Jenna arrived for dinner, wearing an ankle-length alpaca coat, black boots and a jaunty red beret. When she doffed her coat, I could see that she was wearing a swanky designer dress and five-hundred-dollar shoes.

  “Hey, how come you never dressed like that when we were trying cases together back in Los Angeles?” I asked.

  “I didn’t want the jury—or you—to think I was a rich bitch,” she said, and gave me a kiss on both cheeks and proceeded to do the same with Tess.

  I pointed to her beret. “And I see that you’ve also adopted French habits even though you’ve only been here a few days,” I said.

  “Oui.”

  “And now you speak French, too?”

  “Oh no! Oui is pretty much my only word.”

  “Fortunately, my French is much better.”

  “Pas du tout! Not at all!” Tess said. “Robert’s French, it needs work. Much work.”

  I was about to respond by saying that my French was at least as good as her English, probably better, when Oscar arrived, looking Christmas-dapper in a dark-gray windowpane-plaid suit, white shirt and red-and-green bow tie—a far cry from his appearance earlier, when he’d been wearing an old raincoat and a floppy hat. He was clutching a bouquet of fresh flowers, which he handed to Tess as they, too, exchanged the mandatory two-cheek buss.

  I was on the edge of asking him some more about the book in the red box, still in Tess’s study, when the general arrived. Tess introduced him as General Jean Follet. He was tall, thin and fit, and looked to be in his late fifties. He had graying hair, still in abundance, and a full, jet-black mustache. I had half expected him to show up wearing his dress uniform and the traditional high hat with the small visor and the round top—the kepi—that French army officers are always seen wearing in old war movies. He was dressed instead in an ordinary blue suit and was hatless. Considering his advertised status as recently widowed, I was surprised to see that he had on his arm a young Russian woman at least thirty years his junior. Not of course that I had standing to object since Tess was twenty years younger than I.

  The woman was rail thin and an inch or so taller than the general, who was himself at least six feet tall. A skintight red dress hugged her figure from neck to knee. She was introduced as Olga something or other. I couldn’t quite make out the last name. I assumed she was a model of some sort.

  I made drinks for all and poured a vodka martini for myself. We stood and chatted awhile—almost entirely in English—until Tess announced that dinner was ready. Olga, however, had said nothing.

&
nbsp; We all sat down at the table and dined on roast beef and quail, although Oscar, who is a vegan, had boeuf à la tofu, or so Tess named it. Many toasts were drunk to the chef and to Franco-American friendship. During the dinner, the general regaled us with amusing stories about how he had tracked down thieves and con artists while he rose through the ranks in the military. He had apparently spent his career in supply and logistics, where theft and fraud were endemic. His English was impeccable, and eventually I inquired about it.

  “General, your English is perfect. Which is, if I may be frank, unusual for the French.” I cast a glance at Tess and got a glare in return.

  “Please do not call me ‘General,’ Robert. I am retired from all of that. To answer your question, my father was a French diplomat posted for many years to English-speaking countries, so I went to American, British or Australian schools from grade school through high school.”

  After that, the conversation rolled on, spurred by the six bottles of wine we were in the process of consuming. Eventually, I tried to draw out Olga, who had sat almost entirely silent throughout, but I got only yes and no answers from her to the simplest questions.

  Finally, the general broke in. “My niece is from Russia. She has only recently arrived here, fleeing persecution there. She speaks very little English and very little French, and it makes her very nervous to speak either language with people she does not know.” He looked over at her and she smiled shyly.

  At the mention of persecution, Oscar, who had spent his life as a criminal defense lawyer, sometimes in defense of people prosecuted for doing the unpopular, perked up. “What kind of persecution?”

  “Her father, Igor Bukov, is a wealthy businessman who has fallen into disfavor with the Kremlin, and he is trying to get his family relocated outside of Russia. I agreed to take Olga in until he can find more permanent lodgings for the whole family.”

  At the mention of Bukov’s name, Oscar had gone pale. “Is Igor here in Paris?”

  “I don’t know where he is, Oscar. All I know is that he is coming here soon. He first had business in the South of France. Do you know him?”

  “I only know of him. But it’s of no import.”

  Dessert was a wondrous apple tart. After dinner, more toasts were drunk, including toasts of appreciation to Tess for the wonderful meal. Only I knew that most of it had been delivered by a caterer via the back stairway, which opened into the kitchen.

  By the end of the dinner, almost every guest had gotten up at one point or another to use the guest bathroom, which was across the hall from Tess’s study. When Olga went, she was gone a very long time, and I noticed that Oscar kept glancing toward the back of the apartment, pretty clearly wondering what she was up to.

  After fifteen minutes had gone by, I got up, explaining that I had drunk too much wine and urgently needed to use the other bathroom. When I reached the back of the apartment, a light shone under the door of the guest bathroom. I knocked and asked if she was okay, but got no response. Suddenly, the door flew open, and Olga emerged. She said nothing, but I could have sworn that she gave me the finger as she brushed by me. But then, maybe she didn’t. It might have been my imagination.

  After she had disappeared down the hall on her way back to the dining room, I turned around, turned the knob on the study door and found it unlocked. I flicked on the light switch and observed the red box sitting on Tess’s desk, lid still on and apparently undisturbed. I went in and lifted the lid. The books were still there. I shrugged and returned to the dinner table. There was no way to tell if Olga had been in the study.

  Not long after that, as midnight approached, the general and Olga said their good nights and left. We had all clearly been waiting for them to go so we could speak more candidly.

  “Oscar,” I said, “you looked—I don’t know, shocked maybe?—when you heard Olga’s father’s name.”

  “It was just a surprise. Her father is sometimes a business competitor of mine.”

  “What kind of business?” Jenna asked. “I thought you were a lawyer, Oscar. Or were you faking it when we defended Robert on that ridiculous murder charge?”

  “Ah right, you were not here this afternoon when we discussed this,” Oscar said. “I now also collect and sell antiquarian books. Robert can catch you up on the details. I need to go now. And Robert, I will call you tomorrow and tell you some more of this affair.”

  Tess walked back to her study, returned with the red box and handed it to Oscar. Then Jenna said that she, too, needed to get going, although I could tell that she was curious about the contents of the box. Maybe Oscar, despite his sensitivity about the book, would choose to show it to her.

  As we all bussed each other’s cheeks in the French manner and headed for the door, we made plans to get together again for New Year’s Eve. Tess agreed to pick a restaurant and let everyone know when and where.

  After the door closed behind our guests, Tess said, “I am afraid for your friend. Afraid that he is in this, how do you say, above his head?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Are you hurt from the fight today?”

  “A little.”

  “You did not say anything.”

  “I didn’t want to spoil the dinner or upset you.”

  “Come to bed, and I will make you forget this hurt.”

  Later, after we had lain there, I said to her, “Tess, why do you love me?”

  “Eh, it is perhaps that you are handsome.” She reached out and brushed my thinning gray hair off my forehead.

  “I don’t think I’m that handsome—maybe once upon a time I was, but this is now. And, anyway, looks can’t be the basis for love.”

  “They can. Or at least the love that comes first.”

  “There must be some other reason.”

  There was a silence, and just the darkness around us, until, finally, she said, “It is because you are a wonderful person. But also because you treat me just as an ordinary person. You do not care that I am very, very rich or how I became this. Or you care, maybe, only that I am too rich, like you said today about the airplane.”

  “I don’t care that you are rich, this is true. In fact, I don’t even know how rich you are.”

  “Do not ask. The amount is almost to me embarrassing.”

  “I won’t.”

  “It took me many years to find you, Roberto. So many men, they care so very much about my money. You do not. But we must turn this conversation around. Why do you love me?”

  “For your airplane.”

  She turned in bed and punched me on the shoulder. Hard.

  “Ouch.”

  “You merited this.”

  “Maybe I did.”

  “Robert, does your friend Oscar have love in his life?”

  “He’s married.”

  “This does not mean he has love in his life.”

  “True.”

  “How many wives does Oscar have?”

  “Pandy is number six. He doesn’t have the others anymore.”

  “He did not bring Pandy on this trip.”

  “Apparently not.”

  She was silent for a moment. “Alors, he must pay money to the other wives? I do not know what is the word in English.”

  “‘Alimony.’ In California we call it ‘spousal support.’”

  “Eh, we call this ‘une pension alimentaire.’”

  “I don’t know, Tess, if Oscar has to pay alimony to any of his former wives. Why are you asking?”

  “This is perhaps why he has started this new business with books. He has need for money. If he has five wives who need this money, this could be much.”

  I had never thought about it, but I realized that she might have been right. In truth, I knew nothing about Oscar’s finances or his former wives. He could be poor as a church mouse or as rich as Croesus. He could be pa
ying no alimony at all or be on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars a month. And if it were the latter, it might explain his new business, because if a lawyer who has reached his sixties isn’t yet rich, he never will be.

  CHAPTER 4

  I slept late on Christmas morning. When I woke up, Tess was no longer in the bedroom. I didn’t immediately remember the episode on the street until I tried to stretch and felt my whole body screaming at me to stop moving. When I pulled up my pajama top, there was a large purple mark on my chest in the general shape of a square box.

  When I moved slowly into the dining room, Tess was sitting at the table, sipping an espresso.

  She saw me and said, “I will make you one also.”

  “Thank you. I have been thinking about our conversation of last night.”

  “About love?”

  “No, about airplanes.”

  “This is now not funny.”

  “I’m sorry. Yes, about love. I don’t know what it is, Tess, but our life together these last five years has been almost perfect.”

  “But it will be still better if you speak my language more. For five years we speak mostly in English to one another.”

  “That’s true, but when we have your friends over who don’t speak English, I speak French with them.”

  “Yes, but you are held back in French. You are not in French the charming man I know.”

  “Flattery will get you everywhere.”

  “I am serious, Robert. If we are to marry I wish you to be a bigger part of my world. It is a world where people speak French couramment—fluently.”

  She had a point. “What do you want me to do about it?”

  “Look under the Christmas tree, you will see there my big present to you.”

  The present was in a large box. When I opened it, there were several smaller boxes inside until I finally got to a bright-red envelope. And inside that was a certificate for fifty “French and French Culture” lessons with a Madame Riboud.

  “Fifty?”

  “Oui! One each week for fifty weeks with two weeks off.”