Italy. Where Valentina so conveniently shipped artwork in great big packing cases.
Again Faith demurred. "I'm very tired, as you can imagine." As you know would be more accurate. "Perhaps I will see you when you get back.”
But Valentina had come prepared for all eventualities. She reached in the pocket of her very smart navy blazer, pulled out a serviceable little revolver, a twin of Chris-tophe's and said, "I think not.”
It couldn't be happening again. Tom would come through the door at any moment.
“Valentina, you must be insane. You can't get away with this." They were lines from a thousand B movies, but they suited the moment.
“Au contraire, Faith, I will. Please open the door and walk ahead of me. It would be so traumatic for your small son to find his Maman dead in the hallway.”
Faith opened the door and stepped outside. The sunlight was struggling to filter through the dusty windows. Someone would have to call the regie to have them washed.
“Now start walking down the stairs," Valentina commanded.
As Faith took the first step, it became clear what Madame Joliet had in mind. No bullets, no poison. Just an unfortunate accident. She grabbed Faith and deftly flung her up and almost over the railing. She'd have been successful if she hadn't teetered off balance in her high heels.
“No!" Faith screamed as she threw her body back away from the five-flight fall. She wrapped her leg around one of the upright iron rods that supported the banister and held tightly to another with both hands.
Valentina continued to push, using all her considerable strength. Faith took one hand away from the railing and slashed at her assailant's face with her nails. Blood streamed from the cuts, and while she tried to wipe her eye, Valentina dropped the gun, which fell to the vestibule below. Faith heard it strike the stone floor, and she clung more desperately. She'd be all right if only the whole banister didn't give way and send her over the edge. She wouldn't hear the sound of that landing. And there was an occasional missing rod, she'd noted in her travels with Ben, keeping him always away toward the wall. But she couldn't choose another place now and she willed herself to believe it was her own fears making the iron in her grip feel looser.
Valentina was trying for a firm grasp of Faith's short hair to turn her head around to get at her face. She brought her foot up, kicking at Faith's leg, which was locked into the railing. The pain was tremendous.
“Help!" Faith screamed again. "Au secours! Au se-cours.1" There had to somebody in the building. But it was the holiday. The offices were empty and everyone else was out enjoying the sun.
If she let go right now, they would both go tumbling down the stairs. Valentina was both taller and heavier than Faith was, and if this happened, she'd most likely knock Faith out, then throw her over. Faith tightened her grip and tried to kick back with her free leg. It was impossible. The two women grappled in silence punctuated by oaths from Valentina and Faith's own breathing, which was fast and labored. She'd kept Valentina away from the baby so far.
She mustn't let her get an opportunity to kick her there. She bent over and screamed again.
She heard a sound from above. It was a door opening. Someone came to the railing and called down, "Mon Dieu! What is happening! Mesdames!" Valentina stopped her attack for a moment, surprised at the voice from above. She arched her head over the side to see who it was. Faith dredged up every ounce of strength in her body, reached for Valentina's ankles, and tipped her over.
It seemed to take a long time for the body to reach the bottom. The woman's screams rattled the windows as she passed each floor, making vain attempts to halt her progress by reaching for the iron bars. Her shoes fell off and her skirt ballooned up around her face. The poubelle lid was closed and she hit it dead center.
Faith sat down on the stair. Someone was next to her taking her hand and stroking her head. It was Madame Vincent. Faith started to try to explain. "Hush, ma petite. She was not a good woman.”
Sirens were wailing outside, but in the building, all was quiet. They stood up and peered over the railing down the dizzying stairwell at the limp figure clad in navy and white with the chic splash of red resting on top of the trash bin. The hat, the chapeau rouge, had never budged. It must have been pinned on.
Eleven
French country weddings, Faith Fairchild decided, were either an endurance test or a question of habit. They'd set off for Beaujolais early Saturday morning for Act One—the civil ceremony at the mairie in the groom's small village, where the couple was officially wed in the eyes of the state and the mayor of the village. Then they adjourned to a church where the bride's mother and grandmother had been married, in the neighboring village of Matour, for the eyes of God. Coming down the aisle of the ancient Romanesque stone church on her father's arm to kneel at the side of her betrothed, Adele, the Veaux's niece, looked as radiant as she was supposed to in a simple long ivory satin sheath, carrying one perfect calla lily and replacing the traditional veil with a short wisp of tulle that floated about her short dark curls. The groom, who worked for France Gas and Electric, seemed ill accustomed to his wedding finery and tugged at his cuffs nervously as if to make the suit fit better. His name was Jean-Jacques and he smiled so continuously that Faith wondered whether his jaw muscles would ever function normally again. The happy couple left the church in a hail of rice, accompanied by their gargons et demoiselles d'honneur, a dozen or so angelic-looking small children in bright, flowered frocks and long white Bermudas, which as the day advanced took on new and different hues. Wide-eyed and preternaturally solemn during the mass, the children exploded out of the church laughing, calling to the newlyweds, and scooping up the rice from the steps to hurl at each other. Quickly collected by mothers and fathers mindful of village opinion, they were hustled into cars to be tidied and transported to Act Three, the brioche and champagne reception for the entire village at the family farm.
The farm appeared as old as the church. Delphine took Faith and Benjamin into the house to use the salle de bain and explained that very little had been changed since Clement's great-grandfather had settled on the land. Portraits of sober-looking individuals peered down on her in the stiff company parlor where Faith had been placed to wait her turn for the amenities later Veaux had fortunately deemed essential. Meanwhile, out of sight of the ancestors, the village was toasting the bride and groom in mounting merriment, filling the courtyard that separated the house from the immense stone barn and other farm buildings.
Clement took Paul Leblanc away to the orchards as soon as decency allowed. He was eager to get Paul's advice about his experiments with hybrid peaches. The two men strolled companionably across the fields as if they had been friends from childhood. The Fairchilds and Ghislaine were left to make conversation with the locals. Tom was soon caught up in a discussion with one of Clement's brothers, who explained there had been six boys in the family. One stayed to farm, one became a priest, and the others split fifty-fifty—two going north to Paris to learn to be bakers and two going south to Lyon to train as butchers and charcutiers, sausage makers, which was the pattern for villages like this. Coming together for weddings, baptisms, even funerals was more than an old custom. It was a way to maintain their ties.