Snowstorms in a Hot Climate (25 page)

One further question remained. If it couldn’t be got rid of, where could it be kept? It could hardly stay in an airport
locker. Twenty-four hours and it would be dug out by a security officer. Lenny’s flat was all locked up and in the hands of an agent, and J.T. would, I knew, not thank me for mailing it registered post to Santa Cruz. When it came down to it, there was only one thing to do. And I had, of course, known it all along. It had simply been a question of dismissing all other alternatives.

I got up from the seat, packed the ball carefully into the bag, flushed the loo, and went out to the washbasins. On a side wall was a full-length mirror. I turned to face it. Canvas holdall in hand, I considered what I saw. A large, plain woman in a somewhat crumpled trouser suit. Square face, unnaturally aged in the strip lighting, but otherwise remarkable only in its ordinariness. A face in the crowd, one you would not look at twice. Certainly not the face of someone with the flair or the chutzpah to earn her living by smuggling drugs. I was Ms. Ordinary, Ms. Awkward, Ms. Uncharismatic. I had led a dull life, and it showed.
ENGLISH ACADEMIC CAUGHT WITH KILO OF COCAINE
—the headline was not written for me. No way. I was just one of a few hundred tourists coming in from New York. Not an incriminating passport stamp to be seen. What would be the logic of carrying this particular illicit cargo on such a route? What I knew about smuggling could be written on the back of a razor blade, but I knew enough to know this was not the kind of haul you built empires on. The profit margin made no sense. Unless, of course, someone knew. Or had been told. But what they “knew” in London, they didn’t know in Paris.

I stood to attention, and my reflection smartened up. It was simple. If I wanted to destroy Lenny, I had to have the power to do it. And the power, to coin a phrase, lay in Lenny’s balls. I smiled at the image of the criminal I was about to become and marched out into the airport compound.

I rescued my luggage and set off for the check-in desk. I had
not gone more than thirty yards when I spotted her, hunched into her plastic seat, smooth black head bowed over a copy of
Vogue
. There was something about that head that brought back Iowa City. I stopped right in front of her.

“Indigo,” I said, because there really was absolutely nothing to lose. “What are you doing here?”

To be fair, I’m not sure that even Meryl Streep would have got away with it totally—and Indigo had been resting for a while now. She made a valiant stab at Complete Surprise but missed by the best part of a mile. By the time the eyes had settled back into Friendly Innocence, I knew that I had been watched.

“Oh … oh, hi there. God, I jumped right out of my skin. Wow, this is a coincidence … it’s … er … oh, forgive me, I—”

“Marla. Elly’s friend. We met at the shop a couple of weeks ago.”

Light dawned in Technicolor. “Oh, oh yeah, now I remember. Marla. How are you?”

“Spiffing,” I said. “How about yourself?”

“Oh, fine … fine.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Here? I’m—I’m meeting my mother.”

“Really, how interesting. Where’s she been?”

She was so nearly on cue. Someone else would not have noticed the shimmer of a pause. “Paris. Paris, France. Among other places. She’s been doing a trip. Europe.”

“How adventurous. Is she with your father?”

“No. No. She’s with a group. A package.”

“How lovely for her.” It may sound cruel, but just for those few moments I was having fun, watching her jump through the hoops. “How long will she be staying in New York?”

“Oh, she’s just passing through. Connecting planes …”

“Back to Iowa City?”

“What? Oh, yeah, back to Iowa City. Hey, you got a good memory. Imagine you remembering that. What about you?”

“Morocco.” I smiled. “I’m beginning a trip to Africa.”

“Africa … but I thought—”

“You thought I was going to France, right? Well I was, but I changed my mind. I just saw Elly off on the flight to Zurich.”

“Zurich?” She paused for a second. I didn’t stop smiling. Somewhere in midair I felt her complete a somersault. “But I thought she was going to Paris with you?”

No, Indigo was not as green as she was cabbage-looking. Elly had not told her about London. It was supposed to be a secret. It was therefore important that she remember not to know.

“Another change of plan,” I said gaily. “We’ll meet later. In Tangier. Have you ever been there? It’s a wonderful city. Full of pirates and adventurers, smugglers and spies. You’d love it. Well, I must be off now. Who’s minding the store, by the way?”

“It’s closed,” she said, this time without fluster. “It’s nearly eight o’clock.”

“Of course, how silly of me. Well, I do hope your mother had a good trip in Europe.”

“Thank you. And you take care. Sounds like a dangerous place you’re going to.”

“I’ll remember that. Oh.” I turned back. “Remember me to Lenny, won’t you? I was sorry to hear about his father.”

“Yes,” she said, staring unashamedly at me now. “It was terrible news.”

Straight from the horse’s mouth. That much I was sure of now. I smiled once more and headed off down the concourse, feeling her eyes stapled to my back. When I reached the check-in desk, I risked a look back. But Indigo was gone. No doubt checking nonexistent timetables to Morocco. Tall stories. All of them. In answer to my question, the girl punched up Arrivals on
her computer screen and confirmed that the last flight from Paris had come in two hours before. I hadn’t needed to ask. All the way to JFK just to watch her mother change planes? Bullshit, to use Elly’s phrase. Maybe she just had mothers on the brain. Which particular voice had she used to fool Elly? And who had given her the information? Mystery Number 435.

I picked up my boarding pass and beloved canvas bag and made my way to the departure lounge.

“M
esdames et messieurs. Nous commençons notre descente vers Paris …”

Beneath us the Seine ran like silver thread through the French countryside. I snapped on my seat belt. The boy next to me was twitching to the sound of a Walkman, head back, eyes half closed, a look midway between pain and ecstasy on his face. A cruising stewardess tapped him smartly on the shoulder and pointed to his belt. Over his head we exchanged small smiles of adult exasperation. I was doing just fine, conformity personified. Paris grew larger and more inviting.

Processed through glass tubes and moving walkways, I
placed myself behind the inevitable flock of French girls, small boned and fresh skinned, with firm little Gallic noses and clothes which looked as if someone had spent the entire journey pressing them. They sailed through the French Passports Only gate in a flurry of pouts and smiles. I took my place in the EC line, large and English despite my ancestry. The immigration officer studied my mug shot, bored already.

“Quelle est la durée de votre séjour en France, madame?”

“Quelques jours seulement. Je vais render visite à ma grandmère.”

“Bien. Merci, madame. Suivant.”

My canvas bag and I sauntered through, officially accepted. At the baggage reclaim I was joined by my vibrating travel companion. Together we watched as the baggage belt slid by, smooth and empty. My eyes itched from lack of sleep, but I wasn’t tired. On the contrary, I had never been so wide awake in my life. I felt as if I were plugged into some mainline current, which kept me sharp and fizzing. In front of us the belt stopped, then juddered back into life again, as the hole at the back began belching out an unsightly procession of battered belongings, including, eventually, mine. I waited until it reached me, then heaved it onto my trolley, wedging the canvas bag behind it and laying my jacket on the top. I was maneuvering myself away from the belt when someone pushed past me; Willy Walkman, still wired up, a rucksack bouncing off his back and music seeping out of his headphones into the air. I quickened my step, and we approached the exit together. Ahead of us the great divide.
Rouge
and
Vert
. I never faltered, simply pulled down the left hand of the trolley and headed for freedom. In the green corridor, a scattering of customs men in shirtsleeves stood lounging against benches, surveying the scene. I walked. Not too fast and not too slow. The surroundings ceased to exist. Ahead of me, through
the exit, I saw decades of student essays and gas bills, television licenses and Foyles’s book sales. Nowhere could I find any trace of the inside of a French jail. I was three-quarters of the way to the future when the voice said,
“Un moment, s’il vous plaît.”

I turned my head to see a gray-haired officer heading straight for me. I stopped, my heart making a sudden desperate bid for freedom out through my rib cage.
“Excusez-moi, madame,”
he said, pushing in front of me and grabbing for the boy with the rucksack, who of course could not hear a word through the throb of New Wave. An excellent choice, officer. The triumph of the bourgeoisie. My heart fell back into place. I tightened my grip on the trolley and walked on. Out through the doors, a sea of faces focused on me, a second of intense concentration lest I should be their loved one. But there was no one there for me. A man carrying a sign which read
MADAME JONES
smiled hopefully. Oh no, sir. You must be mistaken. I am Marla Masterson, history academic and international cocaine smuggler. You are looking for someone much more ordinary. Triumph got me as far as the taxi rank. A car drew up, and I poured myself into it.

The journey was quicker than usual. August in Paris and the city was empty. The café owner at the corner of rue Jean-Goujon had watched me grow up over annual holidays. He was only too happy to change a traveler’s check so I could pay the taxi driver. He also let me use the phone. The Heathrow Hotel gave the impression of efficiency. Yes, they had a reservation for Eleanor Cameron. But no, Miss Cameron had not checked in yet. She had left only an hour before me. There could be a million reasons why she had not arrived yet. A million reasons. And none of them illegal. No message. I would call again.

Four doors down the rue Jean-Goujon, pressed the bell to Apartment 3. Upstairs I imagined Gem’s hand fluttering to the lace curtain, then ordering Elaine down to open the door. When she saw me, her face lit up.

“Marla … quelle surprise
. We had no idea. You ’ave told ’er you were coming?”

I put my finger to my lips. “It’s an impulse visit, Elaine. I’ve come for lunch. How is she?”

She stuck out her bottom lip and shrugged her shoulders. Funny how the French make their bodies so articulate. This gesture said, “Oh, you know Germaine. The same as always.”

I picked up my case and followed her neat little figure up the stairs, catching in her wake a stream of muttered complaints. “… yesterday she accuse me of stealing ’er little ivory elephant. Ze one from Bangalore. Poouf … so stupid. It was there all the time. On the mantelpiece. You speak to her, Marla. I tell her … I will not stand for this. I will leave.
Immédiatement
.”

Elaine had been leaving
“immédiatement
” for the best part of thirty years: from the day, in fact, she had first moved in. “Companion for widowed army officer’s wife, newly arrived from India.” She had taken one look at Gem and they had known it would be an adoring hatred, a battle to the bitter end. Elaine might have looked fragile, but she was ten years younger than Gem and tough as old boots. She gave as good as she got.

Through the doorway of the apartment, I saw Gem’s silhouette in the front room, head peering forward out of the armchair, her stick legs stretched out on a stool in front of her like some aging bird at rest. As a child I used to think of her as an ostrich. Now, with her long slender neck turned to wrinkles and the cloud of white hair, she looked even more the part. Germaine Lemans was one of those women for whom the word
indomitable
had been invented. She had lived the first fifty years of her life in India, and had never reconciled herself to the newfangled ideals of independence and equality. In 1947, when the colonel died, she had packed up her wealth and come to Paris, where she set herself up as a piano teacher—another family talent I had not inherited. But she couldn’t stand the majority of
her pupils (
“ils sont complètement bêtes”
), and for much of the last thirty-four years she had done nothing. I could no longer remember the last time I had seen her out of the apartment. She was eighty-four years old, but when she chose she had the brain of a woman half her age. It was as well not to underestimate her.

“Marrrlaa.” She twirled my name off her tongue, endowing it with an exoticism which its owner did not possess.
“Pourquoi tu ne m’as pas dit, mauvaise enfante.”

I approached and kissed the parchment skin of her cheek, then sat myself next to her, digging out from my bag the California crystal I had bought for her and holding it up against the window till the sun flickered a hundred colors around the room. She clapped her hands like a child, then forgot it instantly.

“You look tired,” she said, this time in English, which was not as perfect as her French. “You are unwell? What is wrong with you?”

I explained the all-night flight, carefully introducing Elly and the possibility of her arrival.

“But of course I remember her. Such a sweet girl. So dainty.” Gem had always despaired of my big bones, which she saw as some kind of genetic betrayal. “Well, I will not ask ’ow long you will stay. Young people can never answer this question. We shall take it one pace at a time. But now you must change your
vêtements
. We will take an early lunch, and you have been traveling too long in one garment.
Entiens?”

My grandmother was one of the original exponents of the clean underwear theory. I have no doubt that when Germaine is told she is going to die, her last act will be to change her clothes. And the Grim Reaper will just have to wait for her. In this case, though, she was right. As I stood up, I too could smell the dried sweat on me, evidence of an adrenaline turned sour.