Le Divorce (9 page)

“La petite Geneviève. Bonjour, mademoiselle.”

“Bonjour, Monsieur Cosset,”
I said, startled.

“You should just say,
‘Bonjour, monsieur,’
” he said. “I saw you another day, coming this way,” he added. This confused me. Had it been he, not the blind man, who spoke? Or had he told the man to speak? Or neither? And why was I not to use his name?

“Unless you are pressed, we have time to offer Geneviève an ice cream.” He lifted Gennie up, and carried her as we continued on our way. I had an unaccustomed attack of shyness, maybe from seeing him on television, and couldn’t think of anything but to answer his questions like a child, yes I was content with my time in Paris, yes Roxy was doing okay. We installed ourselves at the Vues de Notre Dame, the cafe where I had met Charles-Henri.

“Apéritif? Café?”

We both had coffee. He had an instant of silence, during which it perhaps sank in that he had condemned himself to a half hour with a wiggly three-year-old and a California au pair girl, non-French-speaking.

“I think it’s great the way you stick up for the Bosnians,” I heard myself say, in the most horrible Valley Girl voice, a voice that fell on my own ears as if I were hearing a skit on
Saturday Night Live
. My remark seemed to startle, then to amuse him.

“Do you? Thank you. Why do you think so?”

This Socratic maneuver struck me silent again. Why did I think so? But I am a good student, and know how to give the professor what he himself has said.

“You’d think people would remember history,” I said. “The First World War started like that, with Balkan conflicts.” He made no comment.

“And the moral issues. How can we just stand by and permit terror and rape?” This was the argument I really believed.

“You are right.” He smiled, perhaps without irony. His
views exactly. “Gennie,
mange ta glace comme ça
. And do you think that the Europeans alone, or that the Americans too, should fight the Serb?”

“The Americans too,” I said. “But the Europeans have to start, or else the UN, or Americans won’t come in like they did in World War One, or Two.” Mrs. Pace’s good little historian.

“Though it may surprise you, I was not alive during the First War,” he began, smiling. “I was born in 1925, and thus was just old enough to have served in the Second War. Later I served in Indochina.”

Indochina! Something thrilling in that. Though I am not usually ill at ease with men (
au contraire
, Roxy would say), I was ashamed of how silly I sounded, how impudent to be talking of war and European politics to a man who had stood at the side of the President of France (I had seen them on television, in Lyon for a ceremony).

At this memory, Oncle Edgar and the President of France, as we were speaking, I felt my palms moisten with deepened self-consciousness. I felt young and absurd, and my heart gave me that unpleasant unease I used to feel hoping a certain guy would talk to me or ask me out. I was aware of a male power over me that I have always resented. This elderly Frenchman, so full of will, experience, moral force, political passion, was affecting me like a man. How totally odd, I thought afterward, walking Gennie home, how almost embarrassing. But of course he couldn’t have guessed my inappropriate emotions.

The two wretched creatures who alone in the world knew each other and alone were capable of consoling each other, now seemed to be irreconcilable enemies bent on mutual destruction.

—Adolphe

W
HEN
C
HARLES
-H
ENRI MADE
it known that he wanted to divorce, Roxy at first did nothing, took no steps, in no way tried to resolve the issue. I thought it might be a kind of inertia hormone that goes with pregnancy. Except for strange outbursts, about pigeons or a metro strike, she even seemed happy enough most of the time, going to her studio, portfolio in hand, attending her seminar on Thursday nights, having Sunday lunches in the bosom of Charles-Henri’s family, for it was she (we) and not Charles-Henri who continued to go to these occasions. “I know Suzanne wishes Charles-Henri would pick up Gennie and come himself, but he hasn’t even suggested it,” said Roxy. The lunches were civil, and neither divorce nor Charles-Henri were ever discussed. As far as we could learn, Suzanne still had not yet met or even seen the Other Woman, Magda Tellman.

Following Charles-Henri’s request for a divorce there had been several weeks of uncertainty and discussion, always initiated by him or his mother. Suzanne would call to talk to Roxy in person, always expressing support, and Charles-Henri would
telephone to plead or threaten, conversations that would leave Roxy tearful and furious. “These are your own kids, Charles,” she would say, or “Over my dead body!” At last, convinced by Suzanne that she had better find out what her rights were, Roxy did consent at least to go with Charles-Henri to meet with a lawyer suggested by Monsieur de Persand, a Maître Doisneau. I think that is why she consented to go to the lawyer, it was a chance to see her husband. She dithered about what to wear. She wanted to look her best for Charles-Henri. I had not realized that vanity would continue during the misshapen months of pregnancy. If I am ever pregnant, I don’t expect to care what I look like.

Maître Doisneau was a darting, slender man behind a large desk, who explained to them what they would have to do. “In general, in a divorce matter, it is in everyone’s interest to agree,” he said. “If the two of you make a motion together, I can prepare it, and it is all simple. The court follows your wishes as to the distribution of property, you wait several months, we enter a second motion to say that you are still of the same opinion, the court grants a divorce and you are free.”

“When—when would remarriage be permitted?” asked Charles-Henri, with fatal insensitivity.

“You could remarry in a week or so. Madame de Persand, of course, could not marry until after the birth of your child.”

This shocked Roxy. The unfairness of the female lot, of European sexism, of her particular fate, stabbed at her heart. She said fiercely, “That’s unbelievable! You mean that the law is different for men and women?”

“For obvious reasons,” said Maître Doisneau, seeming to indicate Roxy’s pregnant belly.

“It isn’t obvious to me! I could marry as soon as I wanted in California, and France could not stop me!” Roxy snarled, wishing at that moment for a California suitor so she could leave France, marry immediately, and give Charles-Henri’s child another man’s name. Charles-Henri and Maître Doisneau exchanged glances of masculine commiseration.

“There is no property to speak of,” said Charles-Henri, sliding smoothly along. “I would return any gifts given to me,
and of course I don’t want anything from the apartment. Oh, the things that come from my family, perhaps. I would let my parents decide if there is anything that shouldn’t go out of the family.”

“Your children are your family,” Roxy snapped. “Things going to your children are not going out of your family.”

“I was thinking of things going to the U.S.,” he apologized.

Roxy was suddenly wary. She sensed the peril of being in a strange language in a strange land. She sensed an alliance between Maître Doisneau and Charles-Henri, the natural sympathy of countrymen, or of males, arising from their similar views on neckties and black socks, from their both knowing the three hundred sixty cheeses, from their impression of the strange smell of women and their shared hatred of a woman’s tendency to cry.

“I’m not going to the U.S.,” said Roxy. “I’m staying right here. And I expect you to support me and your children.”

“We have talked about divorce by mutual consent. There is also,” said Maître Doisneau, discerning trouble, “there is also divorce ‘for cause.’ In such a case, one of you is the innocent spouse, and must have proof of the other’s guilt.”

Perceiving from their silence that they had not planned to take this tack, he amended himself. “Excuse me for employing such a term, ‘innocent,’ I mean only in the legal sense. If you are divorcing by mutual consent, naturally I do not need to know details of the events which have brought you to the law. In such a case no one is guilty or innocent. But when . . .”

“I am, I suppose,” Roxy ventured. “
Innocente.
Not that anyone is ever innocent, it’s a very unsophisticated term.” She was trying to be equable, but was unable to control a note of self-righteousness that was creeping into her voice. She broke off. Charles-Henri, who had sat stonily, pinched his lips.

“I am no longer living at home,” he said.

“Ah,” breathed Maître Doisneau, in a tone of relief to have found such a relatively painless breach of marital law. “As you know, madame, that is grounds for an action for cause. The point of an action for cause is that one partner needs to obtain monetary compensation from the other.”

“But I don’t plan to bring an action,” said Roxy. “This is my husband’s idea.” Audible sigh of vexation from Charles-Henri. Maître Doisneau, failing to follow this turn, proposed another solution.

“If Monsieur de Persand were to bring an action, he would have to identify some cause—violence, cruelty, adultery, or madness—which could apply to Madame.”

“He couldn’t possibly say any of those things,” protested Roxy.

“No, of course not,” agreed Charles-Henri. “No, no, the offense is totally mine.”

“Monsieur de Persand wishes the divorce, and he has moved out of the house. That was badly advised. Excuse me, but you cannot be both the guilty one and the seeker of the divorce where the innocent party objects, though you could file a motion in which the other party does not oppose. Does not consent but does not oppose. Is that your position, Madame de Persand?”

“I do not wish a divorce,” said Roxy. “I oppose divorce.”

As Roxy said this, Charles-Henri could see her seizing with force on the sense and implications of staying married. A legal separation would be much better than divorce. That way she could retain at least the perks, the technically consolidated and secure position, of wife. Let Charles-Henri go his own way, she would continue to be Madame de Persand of the Place Maubert, pushing her children in their
poussettes
along to the Ecole Maternelle, buying her
pain
and
légumes
in the market on Saturdays. Her future love life didn’t matter. A woman with two kids—what could happen to her, in the romantic way, anyhow? The path of her reasoning showed in the purse of her lips, aging her, allying her with a procession of wronged females down through history who hang on to what they have. I wouldn’t have behaved this way, I don’t think, but perhaps you feel less reckless when you have kids, more in need of securing your nest, less trusting that life will provide.

“The party who has given cause cannot also be the suing party. It must be the wronged person who asks for the divorce,” repeated Maître Doisneau. Here Roxy, suddenly attacked by hot
tears, struggled to her feet and prepared to leave. The two men were instantly on their feet, like twin puppets.

“Madame de Persand, where are you going?”

“I must think about all this. I can’t say anything now.” She stumbled toward the door. Charles-Henri hung back as if it were now Maître Doisneau’s part to prevent her or go after her. But Doisneau shuffled the dossiers on his desk, staring down, trying not to catch the expression that passed between the two sundering and angry people who had once lain rapturously each in the bosom of the other.

Scènes, événements, rencontres.
The days pass as slowly as pregnancy, with little events, meetings, the wonderful sight for me of falling leaves, which I hadn’t seen since I was little, in Ohio.

A small bedroom in Suzanne de Persand’s apartment on the Avenue Wagram. Little Jean-Claude, aged ten, son of Antoine, is staying with his grandmother while Antoine and Trudi vacation in Miami. He is doing his lessons of French orthography, geography, literature, mathematics, history, and English, all these books weighing, as they come out of his knapsack, five kilos. He writes in little notebooks ruled in squares. He keeps track of what he is to do in another notebook, of which each page is divided into:
devoirs
and
leçons
. Duties and lessons. One could tell him right now that all of life is going to be divided into duties and lessons. Besides these duties, Jean-Claude has household duties such as helping Maria the Portuguese girl fold the giant tablecloths and sheets, plus the Boy Scouts, football, catechism, and piano lessons.

He is thinking that his joke on his parents rather backfired. He had told them he had picked up the phone and heard Lorraine (detestable babysitter) refer to them as
pauvres cons
. In a rage they had fired her, as he had foreseen, but now here he is at his grandparents’ house, overseen with more than desirable vigilance. Gennie and I come and take him out to kick leaves.

I had been at Mrs. Pace’s the afternoon Roxy saw Maître Doisneau, had loitered in the Place des Victoires looking at
clothes in the Kenzo window, had been slightly late to pick up Gennie. When we came in, Roxy was already home from the lawyer, raving with indignation. That Charles-Henri would expect her to compromise her (newly adopted) religious principles and the inclinations of her heart by divorcing him. That he seemed indifferent to her leaving France, and indifferent to the fate of poor Gennie and the unborn child, content to have them exposed to the dangers and cultural inferiority of America. That he could think of sacrificing the Frenchness of his children—the most priceless thing he could bequeath them—to indulge his crush on a Czechoslovakian slut. That he could turn on her this way, her having no warning or intimation, proving that she herself had no understanding of the human heart and was condemned to blunder to the end of her days, and would never write an enduring poem. “I never guessed, I never realized anything was even wrong. . . .” Etc.

“Let him divorce
me
, I can’t stop him. But I’ll never divorce
him
,” she kept saying.

The things the lawyer had explained were soon explained to her in more detail, by Tammy de Bretteville, about how she could stop him from divorcing her. Unless she agreed to his request for a divorce, or was guilty of something herself, she could stop him for at least six years, at the end of which he could bring an action on the grounds they weren’t living together. In this case, he would have to support Roxy and pay all costs.

“Fine,” she said. “Fine, fine, six years, that’s fine.” She said she was prepared to wait until she stood at the doors of hell, to thwart Charles-Henri’s lurid, illicit, unforgivable erotic desires.

One day I ran into l’oncle Edgar again, near Notre Dame. He looked imposing and dignified, in a navy blue suit with little ribbons in his lapel and a white handkerchief in the pocket, very like a diplomat. When I said,
“Bonjour,”
he said, “Say
‘bonjour, monsieur,’
not just
‘bonjour.’
” Another puzzle.

When I remarked on his being there again, he said, “On Wednesdays I often have lunch or a glass of sherry with the Abbé Montlaur.” It being hard to imagine the urbane and warriorlike Oncle Edgar consulting a priest, a puzzled
expression must have crossed my face, for he went on to explain that Montlaur was an old friend, they had been boys together, reminding me that priests were boys once. This is rather obvious, I know, but in California I had never met any boys who were likely to become priests. I suppose pious boys are common in France, where there must be more priests per capita than in America. I had an image of the two lads, Montlaur and Edgar, saintly but mischievous, swimming in the Seine (where I have never seen anyone swim, it must be dangerous or dirty) and climbing trees, the one boy destined for God and the other for Indochina.

“And how are you liking France?” he asked. “Your life here?”

As he seemed to be asking seriously, I tried to think about the question and give a serious answer. I said there was something to be said for not understanding a lot that goes on. “It keeps you alert. So I have an alert feeling here whereas at home in California I sometimes feel bored.”

“Do you sail in the Pacific Ocean? Are you interested in boats?”

“No,” I said. “Are you?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’ve done a bit of sailing.”

“Near us, the ocean is full of oil rigs. You have to go farther south,” I explained, not wishing to seem disdainful of boats, which actually do seem very boring to me, though perhaps they wouldn’t be if they were your own.

“I’ll take you to lunch one day, Isabel. Say next Thursday. Are you taken that day?”

I recognized these overtures, these attempts at conspiracy from members of the Persand family, occasions contrived behind Roxy’s back to discuss The Situation. I was uneasy in them, because they put me in the false position of speaking for Roxy; but I understood that they found it easier to talk to me than to Roxy directly. Since I can arrange my days to suit myself, I said I was not taken.