AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yom Kippur?”
“Yes, that is it.” Thierry nodded. “The Day of Atonement. Paul says it is a day for remembering the dead, and for confessing sins.”
“I see.” I took a sip of my drink. “And this begins tonight, then, does it?”
“When the sun goes down, yes. Paul and Simon, they will have to eat like giants before then, if they are to fast all day tomorrow.” Thierry placed a sympathetic hand on his own flat stomach. “I would not like to be a Jew, I think.”
“Didn’t you ever fast for Lent?”
His dark eyes danced with mischief. “My sins, they are so many, Mademoiselle—the fasting, it would do no good. Besides,” he added, “the Jewish holiday is more than just not eating. Paul says it is forbidden to be angry, or to hold an argument, or to think bad thoughts about someone. It is not possible.” He dismissed the notion with a “pouf.” “Not if I must serve Madame Whitaker.”
One level up, the violin ran through a series of scales and then began its mournful song. Thierry frowned. “He has not listened to me, what I said. He plays today the love song.”
Sure enough, the strains of the Salut d’Amour came drifting down the empty stairwell and into the bar. I tried to shut it out, leaning back in my chair. “Where is Madame Whitaker today, anyway?” I asked Thierry. “I haven’t seen her at all. Does she have another headache?”
He shook his head. “She has gone with my aunt and uncle, to see the church at Candes-St-Martin. It is a nice church, very old.”
“Did her husband go, as well?”
“I do not think so. But he is also out, somewhere.”
Hiding from his wife, most likely. Happy marriages, I thought, seemed something of a rarity these days. Especially in Chinon.
“Ah.” Thierry glanced upwards, approvingly, as the violin shifted tunes. “This is the symphony by Beethoven, is it not?”
I listened, and nodded. “Yes, the Eroica.”
“Comment?”
I repeated the name more clearly. “Beethoven’s Third Symphony. He wrote it for Napoleon.”
Thierry raised his eyebrows. “So it is F
rench, this symphony?”
“Well, in a way. But Napoleon went and had himself crowned Emperor before this piece was finished, and Beethoven wasn’t at all pleased about that.” In fact he’d been so disillusioned that he’d changed the dedication—no longer for Napoleon, but simply “to the memory of a great man.” Every age, I thought, had mourned the loss of heroes.
Thierry smiled. “You know much about this music, Mademoiselle.”
“Not really. I just remember certain pieces, and the stories that go with them.”
“Me, I do not listen to the type of music Monsieur Grantham plays. I take him into Tours, to the discotheque, so he can hear real music, but…” The young bartender shrugged again, amiably. “He says he likes better the violin.”
Silently, I sided with Neil. “What time is it now, Thierry, do you know?”
He turned his wrist to look. “It is just after fifteen hours.” He sighed. “Two hours more before my work is finished for today.”
Work or no, I thought, the hotel bar wasn’t the worst place one could spend an afternoon. The long polished windows stood open to the scented breeze and the glowing sunlight of an autumn afternoon fell warm upon my neck and shoulders. Outside, the market crowds had thinned and I could clearly see the fountain scattering its rain of diamond drops through which the Graces gazed, serene.
Thierry was looking out the window, too, and thinking. “Yesterday, that was Monsieur Valcourt you lunched with, was it not? I did not know you knew him.” The trace of envy in his tone puzzled me, until he went on, “He has the best car, the very best.”
I smiled, remembering that bright red Porsche that purred like a great cat and gleamed like any young man’s dream. “It is a nice car,” I agreed.
“Madame Muret, she has promised she will take me for a fast drive in this car one day. When Monsieur Valcourt is gone to Paris.”
“Has she really?”
“Yes. He lets her drive the car, when he is gone. She brought it here last week when she came once to see Christian, and she would have given me the ride then,” he confided, “only I could not leave until my work was finished and by that time the police had telephoned.”
