The Other Side of Silence

THREE

“Well, this is a pleasant surprise. Fancy meeting you here.”

Just a few kilometers west of Cap Ferrat, Villefranche-sur-Mer is a curious old Riviera town full of tourists enjoying its hidden Escher stairways, high tenements, and dark, winding cobbled streets. It’s a little like being in a Gallic version of a Fritz Lang movie, shadowy, secret, and full of awkward, fish-eye angles, perfect for a deracinated wanted man living quietly and under a false name. So it was surprising to bump into Mrs. French outside a bar on—of all places—the Rue Obscure, which is entirely vaulted over, like a crypt, and most reminds me of a part of old Berlin, which is probably why I go there. Alone. The La Darse Bar is a crummy, sepulchral sort of place with sawdust on the floor and sticky wooden tables and looks like it’s been in existence since the time of Charles V, but the house rosé they serve in earthenware pitchers is just about drinkable and I’m often to be found there, if anyone was ever inclined to look for me. Nobody ever had been inclined to look for me and so I couldn’t help but feel that Mrs. French finding me in the Rue Obscure wasn’t entirely the happy accident she claimed. She was wearing pink capri pants, a matching head scarf, a loose black sweater, and around her neck was a string of pearls and an even more expensive-looking Leica. Hers was the kind of carefree, casual look that women spend a lot of time in front of the mirror getting just right.

“Do you live around here, Mr. Wolf?” she asked.

“In a manner of speaking. I have a place on Quai de la Corderie. On the seafront.” I wondered who among my colleagues at the GHCF might have told her where I lived and, more to the point, my habits, and quickly arrived at the name of Ueli Leuthard, who was my boss and, I knew, a friend of Mrs. French.

“You realize we’re almost neighbors, don’t you? My house is on Avenue des Hespérides.”

I smiled. My house resembled the local jail. The houses on Avenue des Hespérides were large, well-appointed villas with several stories, sprawling gardens, and expensively uninterrupted views of the sea. Describing us as neighbors was like comparing a sea urchin with a giant octopus.

“I suppose we are,” I said. “But what brings you along this street, Mrs. French? It’s not called obscure for nothing.”

“Taking pictures, like everyone else. When I’m not writing, I take photographs. I’ve even sold a few. And call me Anne, please. We’re not at the Grand Hôtel now.”

“That’s for sure. You know, I wouldn’t have thought there’s enough light for a picture in here.”

“This is the whole point of a good picture. To work with the available light and shade. To find definition and meaning in black and white where none seems obvious. And perhaps to illuminate a mystery.”

She made it sound like being a detective.

“Well, aren’t you going to buy me a drink?” she asked.

“In there?”

“Why not?”

“If you’d ever been through the door you’d know the answer to that question. No, let’s go somewhere else.” I dipped my head beside her ear for a second and sniffed loudly, for effect. “That’s Mystikum, and I’d prefer to enjoy it because you’re wearing it, not because it hides the smell of fish.”

“I’m impressed. That you know my perfume.”

“I’m a concierge. It’s my job to know these things. Besides, I saw the bottle in your handbag last night when you showed me your book.”

“You have keen eyes.”

“Not for very much, I’m afraid.”

She nodded. “I won’t argue about going somewhere else. It does smell of fish around here.”

“Good.”

“Where shall we go?”

“This is Villefranche. There are more bars in this town than there are mailboxes. Which probably explains why the post is so slow.”

“I’ve a better idea. Why don’t we go to your house and then you can give me that bridge book?”

“I think I may have misled you, Mrs. French. When I said it was a house what I actually meant was a lobster pot.”

“And you’re the lobster, is that it?”

“Certainly. There’s no room in there for much more than me and a local fisherman’s hand.”

“All right. Why don’t you go home, fetch the book, and then bring it to my house? Avenue des Hespérides, number eight. We can have a drink there if you like. There’s quite a substantial wine cellar I’ve hardly touched since I rented the place.”

“Didn’t the Garden of the Hesperides have some golden apples that were guarded by a never-sleeping, hundred-headed dragon named Ladon?”

“We had a guard dog, but he died. I do have a cat. His name is Robbie. I don’t think that you need to worry about him. But if you’d rather not—”

“It’s like this, Mrs. French, so you don’t mistake me. We might easily become friends. But suppose we fell out again afterward? You want me to teach you bridge. There are drills. Homework. Suppose I said you were not a diligent pupil? What then? Suppose I had to get rough with you when you played your hand all wrong? Believe me, it’s been known.” I shrugged. “It’s just that like all lobsters I’m anxious not to get myself into hot water. Staff are discouraged from fraternizing with people who stay at the hotel and I wouldn’t want to lose my job. It’s not a great job but it’s all I have right now. The movie business is a little slow down here since Alfred Hitchcock left town.”

“Well, that’s all right then. I never stay there. I hate staying in hotels. Especially grand hotels. They’re actually very lonely places. All of the rooms have locks on the doors and I always find that rather claustrophobic.”

“You’re very persistent.”

“I certainly wouldn’t want you to feel uncomfortable, Mr. Wolf.”

She winced, and I sensed that it was me who’d made her feel uncomfortable, which made me feel bad. That’s a problem I have sometimes; I never like making people feel bad, especially when they look like Anne French.

“Walter. Please call me Walter. And yes, of course, I’d love to come. Shall we say in half an hour? That will give me time to fetch the book and to change my shirt. For a lobster it’s the most painless way there is to change color.”

“I think pink would suit you,” she said.

“My mother certainly thought so when I was a baby. Right up until the moment she discovered I was a boy.”

“It’s hard to imagine that you had parents.”

“I had two of them as a matter of fact.”

“What I mean is you seem like a very serious man.”

“Don’t let that fool you, Mrs. French. I’m German. And like all Germans I’m easily led astray.”

Back home I did a lot more than change my shirt. I washed, and combed my hair. I even splashed on a little Pino Silvestre that a guest had left behind in his hotel bedroom. I get a lot of my stuff that way. It smells like a mixture of mothballs and a Christmas tree, but it does repel mosquitoes, which are a real problem down here and it’s better than my natural body odor, which is always a little sour these days.

Mrs. French’s villa occupied a beautiful garden that was a series of lawned terraces that hung on the edge of the rocks above Villefranche and looked as if it had been landscaped by someone from Babylon with a head for heights. The semi-rusticated pink stucco house had a round corner tower and an elegant first-floor terrace with an awning. There was a pool and a clay tennis court and a guest villa and a caretaker’s house with an empty dog kennel that was only a little smaller than the place where I lived. I took one look at the basket and the dog bowl and thought about applying for the vacancy. We sat on the terrace that faced the floodlit, aquamarine pool and she handed me a bottle of Tavel that matched the color of the stucco and helped take away the taste of my cologne.

Inside, the place was full of books and art of the kind that takes a lifetime to collect, or paint, depending on whether it’s taste or talent you have, and since I have neither, I just stood in front of it all and nodded, dumbly, careful not to admit that I thought it was all a bit like Picasso, and which she might reasonably have taken as a compliment but for the fact that I can’t stand Picasso. These days all his faces look as ugly as mine and it seemed unlikely that my face should be of any interest to a woman who was at least ten years younger than I am. I wasn’t sure what she was up to; at least not yet. Perhaps she really did want me to teach her bridge, but there are schools for that, and teachers, even on the Riviera. Maybe I’m just being cynical, but she showed no real interest in the book when I gave it to her and it stayed unopened on the table for as long as it took us to finish one bottle and open another.

We talked about nothing in particular, which is a subject on which I am something of an expert. And after a while she went into the kitchen to prepare us some snacks, leaving me alone to smoke and go inside the house to snoop among her books. I brought one back to the terrace and read it for a while. But finally she came out and soon after that, to the point.

“I expect you’re wondering why I’m so keen to learn the game of bridge,” she said.

“No, not for a minute. These days I try to do as little wondering as possible. The guests tend to prefer it that way.”

“I told you I’m a writer.”

“Yes, I noticed all the books. They must come in handy when you’re thinking of something to write.”

“Some of them belonged to my father.” She picked the book I’d been reading off the table for a moment and then tossed it back. “Including that one. Russian Glory, by Philip Jordan. What’s it about?”

“It’s a sort of panegyric about Stalin and the Russian people, and the evils of capitalism.”

“Why on earth were you reading that?”

“It’s like meeting a rather naïve old friend. For a while during the war it was the only book that was available to me.”

“That sounds uncomfortable.”

“It was. But you were telling me about why you’re so keen to learn the game of bridge.”

“How much do you know about William Somerset Maugham? The writer.”

“Enough to know that he wouldn’t be interested in you, Mrs. French. For one thing you’re not young enough. And for another, you’re the wrong sex.”

“That’s true. Which is why I want to learn bridge. I was thinking it might provide me with the means of getting to meet him. From what I’ve heard, he plays cards almost every night.”

“Why do you want to meet him?”

“I’m a big fan of his writing. He’s perhaps the greatest novelist alive today. Certainly the most popular. Which is why he can afford to live down here in such splendor at the Villa Mauresque.”

“You’re not doing so bad yourself.”

“I’m renting this place. I don’t own it. I wish I did.”

“What’s the real reason you want to meet him?”

“I don’t know what you mean. Maybe you didn’t notice it, but I have an entire collection of his first editions and I would dearly like him to sign them all before—before he dies. He is very old. Which of course would make them worth a lot more. I suppose there’s that.”

“We’re getting warmer,” I said. “But I’ll bet that’s still not the real reason. You don’t look like a book dealer. Not in those pants.”

Anne French bridled a little.

“All right then, it’s because I have an offer from an American publisher called Victor Weybright to write his biography,” she said. “Fifty thousand dollars, to be precise.”

“That’s a much better reason. Or to be more accurate, fifty thousand of them.”

“I’d really like to meet him, but as you’ve observed I’m the wrong sex.”

“Why don’t you just write to him and tell him about the book?”

“Because that would get me nowhere. Somerset Maugham is notoriously private. He hates the idea of being written about and, so far, has resisted all biographers. Which is one reason why the money is so good. Nobody has managed to do it. I was thinking that if I learned to play bridge I might inveigle my way into his circle and pick up some conversation and some color. He’d never agree to meet me if he knew I was writing a book about him. No, the only way is to give him a reason to invite me. By all accounts he used to play with Dorothy Parker. And rather more recently with the Queen of Spain and Lady Doverdale.”

“Bridge isn’t the kind of card game you can just pick up and play, Mrs. French. It takes time to become good. From what I hear, Somerset Maugham’s been playing all his life. I’m not sure even I’d be in his league.”

“I’d still like to try. And I’d be willing to pay you to come here and teach me. How does a hundred francs a lesson sound?”

“I’ve got a better idea. What kind of cook are you, Mrs. French?”

“If it’s just me, I tend to go to the hotel. But I can cook. Why?”

“So I’ll make you a deal. My wife left me a while ago. I miss a cooked meal. Make me dinner twice a week and I’ll teach you how to play bridge. How’s that?”

She nodded. “Agreed.”

So that was my deal. And in bridge the dealer is entitled to make the first call.