Dead Sleep

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“Mademoiselle,” she says with a slight inclination of her head. “Monsieur. This way, please.”

This time there will be no body search. John is carrying two service pistols, and the governor knows it. De Becque knows it too, and he’s made no objection.

Li leads us to the great hall at the back of the mansion, where the massive window looks out onto the harbor. Just as before, the tanned, silver-haired French expatriate stands framed in the lower corner of his window, staring out to sea like a man with an unquenchable yearning.

“Mademoiselle Glass,” Li announces, and then she backs soundlessly down the hall.

De Becque turns and nods with courtly grace. “I’m glad you came, cherie. I’m sorry to bring you so far, but alas, my legal situation does not allow me to travel to you.” He takes a step toward us, then hesitates. “I have things to tell you that you must know. For my sake, and for yours.” He motions us deeper into the room. “S’il vous plait – come in. Please.”

John and I walk over to the sofa we sat on less than a week ago and sit side by side. De Becque remains standing. He seems ill at ease, and he paces as he speaks.

“First, the matter of the Sleeping Women. I want to assure you that I never knew the identity of the painter, or of his associate. I did know Christopher Wingate, the art dealer, and it’s him that what I have to say concerns. As you know, I bought the first five Sleeping Women he offered for sale. The sixth painting was also promised to me, and I paid a deposit on it. Then Wingate ‘stiffed’ me, as they say. He sold the painting to Hodai Takagi, a Japanese collector, though he knew I would match any price Takagi paid.”

“Why would he do that?” I ask.

“To open new markets,” John replies. “Right?”

“Quite so,” says de Becque. “It’s a business, after all. But this painting had been promised to me, and I was angry. I’m not a man to brood over an injustice. I’m not what the psychiatrists call ‘passive’ – I’m sorry, what is the term?”

“Passive aggressive?” I suggest.

“Oui. I happened to know that Wingate was heavily invested in a development project in the Virgin Islands. I made a few phone calls, and very shortly, Monsieur Wingate discovered he had made a very bad investment. His principal was wiped out. Am I boring you, Agent Kaiser?”

“I’m riveted, actually.”

The Frenchman nods, his sea-blue eyes flickering. “Wingate was infuriated by what I had done, and he sought revenge. Now, you should be aware that Wingate had visited my estate here on three previous occasions. I’d entertained him over a period of days. He learned a bit about my life. He sat in this room. He saw many of my things, among them certain photographs.” De Becque waves his hand toward the wall where his collection of Vietnam photos hangs. “You have seen these photos. Some, anyway.”

He walks over to the wall and takes down two black-and-white photos, then comes back to us, studying the pictures all the way. “These were not hanging here during your last visit. Perhaps you’d like to see them?”

With a strange sense of foreboding, I take the frames from his hand. The first picture is of me, my standard publicity head shot. The second is of Jane, her graduation photo from Ole Miss. My heart begins to pound.

“What are you doing with these?”

At last de Becque sits on the sofa opposite us. “Listen to me, Jordan.” Again the soft “J.”

“Because of the circumstances when we last met, there were certain things I could not tell you. Now things have changed. You should know that I knew your father much better than I led you to believe. I think perhaps you suspected this.”

“Yes.”

“He was a good friend to me, and I to him. I did what I could for his career, and for his life.”

“What did he do for you?”

“He enriched my days. That’s a great gift. But what you really want to know is this. Did your father die on the Cambodian border? Today I tell you – he did not.”

“Oh, God.”

“He was shot there by the Khmer Rouge, yes. But he was found alive later by others. There are many angles in an Asian war. Business, always business. Even with the Communists, until they win. Jonathan Glass was my friend, and when I heard what had happened to him, I exerted considerable effort to learn his fate. Over a period of months, I managed to negotiate an exchange for him, for certain considerations that need not be mentioned here.”

“How badly was he hurt?”

“Very seriously. He had a head wound. There had been infection.”

John takes my hand and squeezes tightly.

“He was not the same man he had been before the wound,” says de Becque.

“Did he know who he was?”

“He knew his name. He remembered certain things. Other things, no. His vision was impaired as well. Photography as a career was over for him. Though I don’t think he much cared at that point. His frame of reference had been reduced to fundamental things. Food, shelter, wine-”

“Love?” I cut in. “Is that where this is going? Did he have someone here? Someone like Li?”

De Becque raises his eyebrows in a way that says, We are all adults here, no? “There was a woman.”

“She was with him before he was shot?”

“Oui.”

I take a deep breath, then plunge on to the almost unspeakable question. “Did he have children by her?”

De Becque’s eyes tell me he understands my pain. “Non. No children.”

Relief washes through my soul, but new fear follows. “Did he remember us at all? My mother? My sister?”

The Frenchman holds up his flattened hand and tilts it from side to side. “Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But let me speak plainly. If your anxiety is that Jon simply decided to abandon you, to not go back to America – this should not be a concern. He was in no condition to do such a thing. I had a plantation in Thailand, and he lived out his days there in a simple way. He did simple work, he knew simple joys.”

John squeezes my hand again, and I’m grateful for his presence. The emotions pouring through me now are too intense to bear alone. Amazement that my secret hope turned out to be true. Sadness that my father was not himself afterward, that perhaps he did not remember me in any meaningful sense. But deeper than any of these wells a relief that even tears cannot express. My father did not abandon his family. He did not choose others over us. He did not voluntarily stop loving us. Though I do not voice it, a child’s simple cry of joy bursts from my heart: My daddy didn’t leave me.

There is no sight quite like gentlemen in the presence of a lady reduced to tears. John blushes and reaches for a Kleenex he doesn’t have, while de Becque, the Old World man, pulls a silk handkerchief from his trouser pocket.

“Take a moment, ma cherie” he says in a soothing voice. “Family matters… always difficult.”

“Thank you.” I wipe my eyes and blow my nose, and neither man seems to mind much. “Tell me the rest, please.”

“I anticipate your next question. Your father lived until 1979. Seven years past the wound that probably should have killed him. He was lucky to have those years.”

Seven years. My father died during Jane’s sophomore year at Ole Miss, the year I became a photographer at the Times-Picayune. Before I can think of what to ask next, John speaks.

“Monsieur, your story began with the daughters, not the father. With the photographs. And a point about Christopher Wingate?”

De Becque looks at me. “If you are now composed?”

“Yes. Please go on.”

“You understand the situation? Wingate had offended me. Cheated me. I then taught him a lesson about the consequences of breaking promises.”

“We understand.”