Invitation to Provence(54)
He shrugged. He still couldn’t tell if she was listening but he’d gotten this far so he figured he might as well tell her the rest. “Anyhow,” he said, “Rafaella taught me to be a civilized human being, she taught me how to behave in society. After all, I knew nothing except how to chow down with cowboys and ride a horse. She found me tutors, found out what I wanted from life. She knew I was in love with her, and I knew she was crazy about my father. There was a sort of neutral ground between us, an acceptance that this was the way things stood and the way they always would, but that didn’t stop us from loving each other. She was like a mother to me, and I was the callow youth in the throes of first love.
“Things between her and my father came to a head after another year. He took it out on me, told me to get out and make my own way in the world instead of living off him. So I packed my few things and I went. I never saw him again.”
He looked at Franny. She had buried her face in her arms. “Rafaella kept in touch,” he said. “Years passed but I never saw her again either, and then a couple of months ago she invited me to the reunion. At first I wasn’t sure. I was afraid today’s reality would not live up to my perfect memories, but then I knew I had to come, I had to protect Rafaella. I admit I wanted to check you out. I needed to know you weren’t some grasping woman who’d be out to take Rafaella for everything she could get, because Rafaella came first in my life. But then I met you and everything changed.” He stared anxiously at Franny’s indifferent back. She said nothing and he sighed and carried on.
“I went to Hong Kong to ask Felix to come home. He refused. I found out that later that night Alain had come to see Felix, probably to ask for money. Felix refused and I believe Alain killed him. So you see,” he said quietly, “why it was necessary for me to check out all the guests, even Rafaella’s own sons. And now you know the reason for the ugly scene last night.”
He thought he saw a softening in Franny’s back, a relaxing of the shoulders, a droop of her neck, but still she said nothing.
“Via Felix, I traced Little Blue,” he said. “I knew as soon as I saw those eyes that she was Rafaella’s granddaughter. I followed up the background, found out that Felix was definitely the father. I arranged for her to come here to meet her French grandmother, and I’m hoping she will bring back at least some of the joy to Rafaella’s heart.”
He heaved a sigh. “And what about coming back to the place I’d always called home in my memories?” He shrugged. “My fears were unfounded. Rafaella was exactly the same, still beautiful, still vibrant, but she was a lonely woman. My father had left her years before. I never knew the full story, though I knew he’d died. I never really had a father so it was no loss to me, but I never asked Rafaella how she felt. That’s her secret, and no doubt one she’ll take to her grave.”
Franny looked at him over her shoulder. “How awful,” she whispered. “What on earth did you do when you left the chateau?”
He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, staring at the rose he was twisting in his big hands. “I joined the navy, got accepted at Annapolis. After graduation and a few years on nuclear subs I was recruited for Naval Intelligence. I loved the life, loved the comradeship and its ‘clear and present danger.’ I was a risk taker par excellence, and ultimately that became my downfall.
“I want to tell you about my wife, Franny. Her name was Amanda and I met her at Harvard, at the Widener Library of all places. I was there taking some courses and she was studying for a master’s degree in English. She was brainy, kind of an intellectual prodigy, still only nineteen and already with a B.A. in her pocket. And god, she was beautiful.”
He put his head in his hands, staring down at the floor. “I can still see her sitting at that desk with the reading lamp flashing a green glow over her pale face. She was petite, very slender with long dark hair and brown eyes that I always teased her were like a spaniel puppy’s, soft and warm and intelligent all at the same time. She wore skinny black turtle-necks and short skirts and black tights with clompy black boots. I told her she was a throwback to the old Beat Generation, the Juliette Grecos and Simone de Beauvoirs of this world, and she agreed she probably was.”
He sighed. “We were married before the semester was over. I wrote Rafaella to tell her because I knew she was the only one who would really care. She sent us a wedding gift, a magnificent old silver candelabra I’d always admired. I have it still, up at my cabin. I never look at it without thinking of her.”
“And of Amanda,” Franny said, understanding.
He nodded. “Amanda knew I was in Intelligence but she didn’t know the risks. We never talked about them. Two years after we were married she told me she was pregnant. I didn’t know how to react. What did I know about babies? You’ll learn, she told me, laughing at me, and I knew I wanted to have a daughter exactly like her.
“We were in Tunisia, taking a little vacation and we went out that night to celebrate. My guard was down because I thought there was no need to worry. I wasn’t even on a mission. We drove round a corner and I saw the roadblock, a barrier with gasoline poured all around. We skidded on the gas, hit the barrier … and the car exploded. It was deliberately planned by counterintelligence to kill me. Instead they killed my wife and my unborn child. And I was barely alive when I should have been very dead. And believe me, Franny, I wished I was.”