Chapter 13
The party was over, and the guests were leaving the mausoleum, on their way to a reception hall with a full buffet. As they exited, Thomas took his time putting the sheet music in order, eager to be alone.
Raymond was waiting outside. He’d claimed that this was so he could be a lookout, but the truth was, he was afraid his nerves would cause him to mess up their mission, and he didn’t want to watch his son do the very thing that he had asked him to do.
When the last conversations had faded into the distance, Thomas walked over to the altar.
He had to be quick. Open Camille’s urn, grab his father’s, which he’d hidden, transfer the ashes, and walk out as discreetly as possible.
He placed his hand on the lid, wondering if he needed to lift it off or unscrew it. But a small amount of upward pressure proved to be enough to pull it free.
“What are you doing?” Manon asked.
Thomas jumped. He hadn’t heard her come in. He quickly pushed the lid back into place, but he wasn’t able to close it properly, so he turned around toward her, using his body to shield the urn from view.
“I was paying my respects to your mother,” he said awkwardly.
“That’s very kind, thank you. But I still need you.”
“To play?”
“No, I don’t need a pianist. I need you. I can’t take being alone in the middle of all those people.”
“Do you want me to take you home?”
“I’d love that, but my father would kill me if I left. Would you mind keeping me company instead? You don’t even need to talk to me, just stay by my side so people will stop coming to offer their condolences. I’m at my wits’ end.”
“I promise to stick to you until the guests have finished all of the hors d’oeuvres. If they stay longer than that, we’ll have to improvise.”
“This is going to sound strange, but I really feel like I’ve met you before.”
Thomas kept quiet.
“Okay, that was a terrible line, I admit it,” Manon said.
“Don’t worry about it. Come on, your father is waiting for you, and I haven’t eaten all morning. Let’s hit that buffet.”
The guests had gathered in a large, brightly colored room.
A huge portrait of Camille hung over the mantel of an artificial fireplace.
She looked to be about fifty in the photograph.
It was the first time that Thomas had really looked at the face of the woman his father had fallen madly in love with, the woman he had maintained a romance with, mostly through letters, for over twenty years.
Manon had just finished making a plate with an assortment of hors d’oeuvres, and she hurried over to Thomas before a pretentious-looking older lady wearing an anguished expression could get too close.
“Your mother was beautiful,” he said, picking up a macaron.
“I think she was lovely—which is much better than pretty. Beauty fades, but she always kept her smile, even after the rest of her was pretty much gone. Mom left us long before she died. In her final months, she kept calling me ‘miss.’ She thought I was the nurse or the cleaning lady. On really bad days, she even thought I was my father’s daughter by another woman.
She would scream that I couldn’t take her daughter’s place even if she was ungrateful and neglectful of her mother.
And then at other times, a light would come into her eyes, and I felt like she recognized me, though she didn’t say so.
Now I can finally grieve. I’m sorry, this isn’t the happiest of topics. ”
“Don’t worry. You can say whatever you need to. That’s why I’m here.”
“I hardly think you came to San Francisco to attend Mom’s funeral, and certainly not to help get me through it. You’ll have such lovely memories of your trip to share! I hope you’ll at least be able to laugh about them.”
“Only with you, I promise.”
“You were terrific on the piano. When you said you were a musician, I thought you were just bragging. Everyone in this city claims to be an artist, but I see now I was wrong about you.”
“No need for praise. It’s actually my job,” Thomas replied with a shrug.
“Being able to express your emotions without words must feel like magic.”
“But you haven’t told me what you do for a living.”
“You didn’t ask.”
“I’m asking now.”
“I’m a pastry chef. I’m glad you like my macarons. Eight in a row, that may be a record!”
“A pastry chef?”
“Is that a problem?”
“No, it’s just that you’re the first pastry chef I’ve ever met.”
“Sorry, I was just messing with you. Actually, I run a bookstore near Union Square. But please, I beg you, don’t ask me who my favorite author is. It would ruin everything.”
“What do you mean by ‘everything’?”
“Our conversation, which already barely makes sense. It is somehow helping me forget why I’m here, though.”
Raymond stood by the buffet, looking impatient. Thomas realized it was because of him. He told Manon he was going to get more food and promised to make sure no one came over while he was gone.
He joined his father and filled his plate with a few more macarons, which were somehow slightly less appetizing to him now.
“When you’re done flirting—and don’t even try to say you’re not—maybe the word ‘bookstore’ will remind you of something?”
“Were you spying on me?”
“I was wandering around, since no one can talk to me. I tried to listen in on Bartel’s conversations, but I couldn’t bear it. No wonder Camille died. That man could bore the life out of anyone. So, now, ‘bookstore’—does that word bring anything to mind?”
“Books?”
“Excellent. You’re on the right track. And when you buy books, what do you put them in to take them home? A bag! And what else can a bag hold? My ashes, which you forgot inside the Columbarium!”
“Oh shit!”
“Oh shit, indeed.”
“I’ll go get them right now.”
“I would have begun by telling you to do just that, but the guard has locked the doors. Hopefully, he’ll open them up again this afternoon. In the meantime, you can go back to flirting, now that you’ve essentially buried your father.”
“I ‘buried’ you five years ago!”
“And you’re insolent too. In any case, Operation Urn is turning out to be a disaster.”
“‘Operation Urn’? Really?”
But Raymond had disappeared, leaving Thomas frowning at the spot where he’d been.
“Who were you talking to?” Manon asked as she approached.
“To myself. Pianists are lonely people.”
A friend of Camille’s came over and helped herself to a large glass of white wine. She was wearing a large Afro wig dyed in psychedelic colors and winked conspicuously at them as she left.
“I imagine your father’s funeral was more conventional than this?”
“As ordinary as an unfinished symphony.”
An hour passed, the guests slowly trickling out. When the room was almost empty, Thomas noticed Mr. Bartel sitting on a chair, his gaze lost in the distance.
“I feel like your father might need you,” he whispered to Manon.
She looked over at him.
“He couldn’t stand visiting her in that home where we locked her up.
Or maybe he just couldn’t stand the fact that he couldn’t keep his wife in their home.
My father has always gotten what he wants, all without cheating, lying, or sucking up.
Hard work and determination have always been enough to do the trick.
At his level of accomplishment, that’s not as common as you’d think.
His high principles don’t exactly make him easy to live with, but I also don’t know anyone who’s as honest as he is.
That said, I could never figure out how my parents fit together.
They loved and respected one another, even admired each other, but they were always distant.
There was no affection between them, which is absurd—Mom was such a joyful person.
She was so full of life that I often wondered what they had in common.
Maybe it’s like they say—opposites attract. Were your parents happy together?”
“I never understood much about them, either, at least not until very recently. They divorced ten years before my father’s death. After their divorce, they got along beautifully. They often had dinner together. Mom enjoyed his company. Dad made her laugh, and she calmed him down.”
“I have to admit, I’m jealous. I would have preferred that, and I’m sure my mother would have too. My father is very old-fashioned, though, so divorce wasn’t an option. Still, you’re right. I should go talk to him.” She sighed. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“For what? I haven’t enjoyed myself this much in a long time . . . I’m referring to playing the piano, of course.”
“You’re so awkward that it’s almost charming,” Manon mused with a smile. She kept her eyes on him for a long time and then, after hesitating, suggested they have dinner together the following night. “As friends, of course,” she clarified.
Thomas told her that he would be on a plane. He had to go back to Paris and then on to Warsaw, where he would be playing on Saturday night.
“Now I’m really jealous,” Manon said.
“Do you really dream of sleeping in crummy hotels and waking up in the morning wondering which city you’re in?”
“No. But you get to travel the world and share your talents with audiences who are thrilled to hear you.”
“If they were always thrilled, I wouldn’t have a million butterflies in my stomach every time I go onstage.
Classical music audiences have incredibly high standards.
I feel like I’m taking a test every time, like the audience members have the score on their laps and are watching the measures carefully, listening for even the slightest mistake. What’s keeping you from traveling?”
“My mom did these past few years.”
“But now that you’re free? My God, you’re right . . . my social ineptitude defies belief.”
“We could exchange contact information. You never know. Maybe I’ll visit Paris sometime, now that I’m free,” she added mockingly.
They typed their numbers and email addresses into each other’s phones.
Manon looked closely at him again. “Are you sure you never lived in San Francisco?” she asked.
“Never. Where did you live in France?”
“In the south, but I was so little that I only have a few memories. The port in Beaulieu, a Greek revival house at the end of a peninsula, a pizzeria near the beach . . . And I’m not even sure if they’re real memories or things people told me.
We spent our vacations in Brittany to escape the summer heat, but those memories are even fuzzier.
I have a vague one of a club where my mom took me for pony riding lessons, and a merry-go-round that I hated because its dead-eyed wooden horses scared me to death, and I almost forgot—”
“A creperie!”
“Yes, exactly! How did you know?”
“Oh, Brittany is known for its creperies, that’s all,” Thomas replied carefully. “It wasn’t much of a stretch.”
“I’m terribly talkative, aren’t I?”
“There’s nothing terrible about it.”
“There is, though; I’ll be quiet. I’ll let you enjoy your last evening in town. You’ve spent enough time in this depressing place. Have a good trip. I promise I’ll call you whenever I decide to travel back to my childhood home.”
Raymond was pacing impatiently at the door, his yawns growing increasingly conspicuous. Thomas joined him, and they walked side by side to the Columbarium.
“What a chatterbox!” Raymond exclaimed.
“She didn’t want to be alone. Understandable on a day like today, don’t you think?”
“Couldn’t her father have helped her with that?”
“I’ll get the bag and we can go.”
“I hope Camille is still on the altar. This is our last chance.”
“What if she’s not?”
“I’ll have to look around the place to find where they put her.”
“I could also ask. That might be easier.”
“For you and for them. That way, when you break into her cabinet to take the urn, they won’t have to wonder who did it.”
Thomas silently made his way up the steps to the mausoleum.
A police officer standing guard at the door kept him from going in. They chatted for a moment, then Raymond saw his son turn around and come back without the bag.
“What now?”
Thomas explained what he had learned. Someone close to the mayor was being buried that afternoon. And while they were readying the venue, some Dignity Memorial employees had discovered a suspicious package at the foot of the altar. The bomb squad was verifying its contents.
“Well this is definitely the first time I’ve ever been mistaken for a bomb.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll explain everything.”
Raymond raised his hand to stop his son. “Don’t try to explain anything as long as the police are crawling all over this place. Those uniformed cowboys would probably arrest you on the spot and put you on the first plane back to France.”
“For what? Leaving a cloth bag behind?”
“For bringing your father’s remains to the United States. I don’t think that’s exactly legal.”
“You’re just bringing this up now?”
“Better late than never. Isn’t that what they say?”
“Do you have a Plan C?”
“Not yet. But we’ll think of something. Go into town and enjoy yourself. I’ll stay here until I know more.”
“How exactly do you move around, anyway?”
“Now is not the time!”
“All right, fine,” Thomas said. “We’ll meet back at the apartment tonight.”