Legacy (23 page)

“I’m an anthropologist. I’m researching some family history for my mother. Or I was. I fell in love with it, and I guess now I’m doing it for me. I’m hoping to find some diaries about the French court. You wouldn’t know of any, would you?” He seemed to be her only hope now of locating anything here.

“There are an enormous number of them. You just have to wade through them. Anything in particular?”

“I’m looking for accounts of the Sioux Indians that Louis XVI invited to the court as guests, and an ancestor of mine who was a marquis.”

“That sounds interesting. You ought to write a novel about it,” he teased.

“I only write academic nonfiction that makes no money and puts people to sleep.”

“So did I, until I started writing historical novels, which is actually a lot of fun. You get to play around with history and add fictional people to the real ones, and they do what you want. Most of the time
anyway.” He seemed interested in what she was doing, and he had been very helpful to her.

He went in pursuit of his own research then. Brigitte took down a stack of diaries in the section he had pointed out to her, but she found no mention of Wachiwi or the Margeracs, so it turned out to be a lost day. She ran into him again when she was leaving the archives late that afternoon. She had been there all day, without even stopping for lunch. She had brought an apple in her purse and ate it while she continued reading.

“Did you find anything?” he asked with interest. She shook her head, looking disappointed.

“That’s a shame. You have to keep at it. It’s here somewhere. Everything is,” he said calmly. But he knew his way around. Brigitte didn’t.

“What are you working on?” she asked politely as they left the building together.

“A book about Napoleon and Josephine. It’s hardly an unusual subject, but it’s fun to write. I teach literature at the Sorbonne, so that pays my rent. But the books help a bit too.”

He was very friendly and open with her, and he introduced himself as they stood on the front steps on the way out. He said his name was Marc Henri. His name sounded familiar, but it was a fairly ordinary French name.

She saw him again the next day as she made her way through the stacks. She still hadn’t found anything of interest when he wandered over to her in the late afternoon. And she was exhausted from reading in French. She had to use a dictionary constantly, which made it tedious work.

“What is the name of the ancestor who was the marquis? Perhaps I can find him for you,” he said helpfully, and she wrote it down for him. “We can cross-reference him in their lists.” And five minutes later Marc had found him. She was embarrassed by how easy it was for him, and how difficult for her. But the archives were confusing, and it wasn’t her language.

They looked up Tristan de Margerac together, and it listed his Paris address in 1785. It was on the Left Bank, and she had a feeling it wasn’t far from where she was staying. She wondered what the building was now. But it said nothing about his wife.

“We might find him in some diaries tomorrow,” Marc said hopefully, “if he went to court often. Did he live in Paris all the time?”

“No, the family seat was in Brittany. I’m planning to go there next week, to visit the château.”

“You have very fancy ancestors,” he teased her, and they both laughed. “Mine were all either paupers, priests, or in prison. What about the Sioux Indians you’re looking for? Are you related to them too?” He was kidding, and didn’t expect a positive response when she nodded.

“The marquis married one of them. She was a Sioux Indian, the daughter of a chief in South Dakota. I’m trying to figure out how he met her. I think it must have been at court. But I don’t know how she got there, or to France. She’s an amazing young girl.”

“She must have been, for a French nobleman to marry her. It would be interesting to know how that happened, wouldn’t it?” She told him about her research with the Mormons and at the University of South Dakota then, and he was intrigued. “That
is
fascinating. I can see why you’re pursuing it. I feel that way about Josephine Bonaparte
when I read about her. She was a bewitching woman too. And so was Marie Antoinette. I’d give you some books to read about them, but they’re all in French.” He casually suggested a drink to her on the way out, and feeling somewhat swept away by their mutual interest in history and research, she agreed. She didn’t usually go out with strangers, but there was a café nearby and he seemed like a nice man.

“So tell me, what do you do when you’re not chasing your relatives all over France? Do you teach anthropology or only write books?” he asked her, as they sat at a table in the café.

“I worked in the admissions office of Boston University for ten years.” She was about to tell him she had just quit, but decided to tell the truth. “I got laid off. That means I got fired, and a computer took my job.”

“I’m sorry to hear it. What are you going to do now?”

“This, for a while. And then I’ll probably go back to work in the admissions office of another college. There are a lot of them in Boston, that’s where I live.”

He smiled as she said it. “I did a master’s in literature at Harvard, and one at Oxford. I had more fun in Boston. Where do you live?” She told him, and he said he had had an apartment about four blocks from hers. It was a funny coincidence, and then she realized why she had recognized his name. “You did a book about a little boy who looks for his parents after the war, didn’t you? I remember your name now. I read it in translation. It was incredibly touching. They were in the Resistance and had been killed, and another family takes him in, and eventually he married their daughter. It was the sweetest book I ever read, although it was very sad.”

He looked pleased. “That little boy was my father. My parents actually. My mother is the daughter of the family that took him in. My grandparents were killed in the Resistance. That was my first book. I dedicated it to them.”

“I remember. I cried like crazy when I read it.”

“So did I when I wrote it.” She was impressed that he had written that book. It had been beautifully written even in translation, and very poignant. It had haunted her for weeks after she read it.

“You know, you look a little Indian,” he said, looking at her.

“The woman at the Mormon Family History Library said that too. I think it’s just because I have dark hair.”

“I love the idea that you’re part Sioux. How exotic. And how interesting. Most of our histories are so boring, and look at you. An Indian great-great-great-great-whatever-grandmother, who came from America and married a marquis.”

“Better than that, she was kidnapped by another tribe and ran away from her captor. She may have killed him, and then escaped with a Frenchman, or at least a white man, and wound up here. No mean feat for a woman in 1784.”

“Those are powerful genes,” he said admiringly. But so were his, she remembered from the book he’d written. His grandparents had been war heroes and were decorated by de Gaulle posthumously. They had saved countless lives before they lost their own.

“So what about the rest of your life? You write academic books. You worked at a university until recently. Are you married?” He seemed interested in knowing more about her. And so was she, about him. But she was sensible about it too. No matter how appealing he was, she was going home in a few days, and he lived here. So even if
they liked each other, all they could ever be was friends. More than that made no sense. She wasn’t into casual sex or sleeping with men she’d never see again. And she was still feeling raw after the breakup with Ted. So at best they might be friends. Nothing more.

“No, I’m thirty-eight, I’ve never been married, and my boyfriend and I just broke up a few weeks ago. He worked at the university too,” she answered simply and honestly.

“Ah,” Marc said with interest, “both academics. Why did you break up?” He knew it was a little rude to ask her, but he was curious anyway.

“He went to Egypt to run a dig. He’s an archaeologist, and he wants to stay there for several years, and he figures it’s better like this, going our separate ways. So we broke up.” He was surprised by what she said.

“And you? Were you heartbroken?” He was searching her eyes as he asked, and she shrugged.

“Not really. Disappointed. I thought it was forever. I was wrong.” She tried to sound matter-of-fact about it, more so than she felt. It was still fresh, and not yet healed.

“I had a relationship like that too,” Marc volunteered. “I went out with a woman for ten years, and we broke up last year. She said she realized she didn’t want to be married and have children. I thought she did. I was waiting for her to finish medical school. And when she did, she didn’t want me. It feels stupid after ten years. But I realized afterward that we hadn’t been in love with each other for a long time. We were in the beginning, for the first few years. After that it was just convenient and easy. Somehow you drift along on the river, and one day you wake up and you’re someplace you don’t want to be,
with someone you realize you don’t know. I’ve never been married either. And after that, I’m not sure I want to be anymore. I gave ten years of my life to that relationship. Now I’m enjoying my freedom and doing what I want. I don’t regret the woman, but I’m sorry I stayed in it for so long. I kept thinking it would grow, but it never did.” It was exactly what had happened to her with Ted. Nothing had grown. “It took me a while to get over it, but I’m fine. We’re friends now. I take her to dinner once in a while. She hasn’t met anyone else, and I think she’d like to come back, but I won’t. I like my life now.”

“I don’t think Ted and I will end up friends. Geography, if nothing else. And I was pretty upset about it … mostly at myself. I made a lot of assumptions that didn’t apply. I missed all the signs.”

“We all do that sometimes. I did it too. Now I’m forty-two and a bachelor. It’s not what I expected, but I’m fine like this.” He seemed to have come to terms with it, as she had with Ted.

“Me too,” she said quietly. “I feel like those posters that say, ‘Oops, I forgot to have kids,’ but I did. I was too busy being a kid myself. I think working at a university does that to you. You forget how old you are. You think you’re one of them.”

“I agree. I like the class I teach, but I wouldn’t want to be there full time. It’s a very insular life.” He finished his glass of wine then and smiled at her. “Shall we take a walk and see where your illustrious ancestor lived?” She had made note of the address at the library that day.

“That would be nice.” She liked his openness and honesty, and he was interesting to talk to. She liked him a lot. She was sorry he didn’t live in Boston, he would have made a good friend.

She took the address out of her bag, and he had remembered it
himself. It was only a few blocks away from her hotel on the rue du Bac. They found the number easily and looked up at the house when they got there. It was a once-beautiful building that looked somewhat frayed now. The doors to the courtyard were open, and they walked in. Marc explained to her from the signs that were posted that it was occupied by government offices now, as many beautiful old houses on the Left Bank were. But you could see easily what the house had once been, with stalls for the carriages that were garages now, and tall windows, and Marc explained that there was probably a big garden on the other side of the house. It was a handsome place, and as she looked up at it, Brigitte felt the magic of knowing that Tristan de Margerac had once lived there when he was in Paris, and almost certainly Wachiwi had lived there with him. They had no doubt used it when they went to court and stayed in town.

They wandered back out to the sidewalk, and he walked her to her hotel. He asked if she was going back to the archives the next day, and she said she was. He suggested lunch and she agreed. It was fun having someone to talk to about their projects, as she hunted for Wachiwi, and he researched his book.

Marc was waiting for her in the lobby of the library the next day when she arrived. He had looked up some references for her, and she hit pay dirt this time when she checked them out. She almost squealed with delight as soon as she found them, and went running to find him. She had come across a diary where a lady-in-waiting from the court talked about the Marquis de Margerac and his beautiful young Indian bride. She said that she had been at their wedding, in a little church near their house on the rue du Bac. She reported that there had been a small reception at the house afterward, and the
next day the new marquise had been presented at court to the king and queen, and she even mentioned Wachiwi by name.

It thrilled Brigitte to realize that their wedding reception had been in the house that she and Marc had looked at the night before. This was incredible, and it was all so real. It still said nothing about how she had come to France. And then, miraculously, later in the afternoon, Brigitte came across another of the same woman’s diaries on her own, chronicling court life. She mentioned the birth of Tristan and Wachiwi’s first child, and his christening. She said they had named him after the marquis’s dead younger brother, who had accompanied Wachiwi from America to France. The woman said that he had saved her, and was planning to marry her, but had died on the trip over. And eventually Wachiwi had married his older brother the marquis instead. So that was how she had come. The younger brother, Jean the count, had rescued her and brought her from New Orleans to Brittany by ship, as the diary explained. The Frenchman mentioned in the oral histories in South Dakota was probably he. Brigitte couldn’t help wondering if the Crow chief Wachiwi had supposedly killed when she fled was really killed by Jean who rescued her from them. How he had found her no one would ever know. But now she knew how Wachiwi had come to France. And there were also mentions of the Sioux chiefs who came to court from time to time, but apparently Wachiwi was not related to any of them. The woman who had written the diaries found it a little odd that their king was so obsessed with them. She thought the Indians who visited court an unruly lot, but she had nothing but kind things to say about Wachiwi and said she was a lovely girl, and made the marquis an excellent wife.