It was cold. Adriane had left a
window open the night before and she had passed out wearing only light cotton
pajamas. Off to the side, over the garage, a light cast a glow onto the lawn
from the servant’s quarters. Other than that the house was as empty as it was
large. She had the urge to talk with somebody and Gotson... Gotson, he had been a guardian angel to her throughout her
tumultuous and awkward teens. He was there, when her Papa wasn’t, to console
her after the tragedy…, the lingering death of her younger brother, Eder . Now it only seemed fitting that she should find
comfort in the company of this single-most dependable man in her life since her
dad, Marcel, was gone.
She tapped lightly at his door, “Gotson… are you awake? It is me,
Adriane.”
The door swung open, “Of course,
Adriane, please come in.”
She could see the loom of the light
of the morning sun rising above the hills from the window of his small but
comfortable room. She held her hand out towards the view beyond the window and
whispered, “So, this is why you didn’t take the guest house when Père offered.”
“Yes, I have room enough to care
for here.” He moved some magazines and books off the chair at his desk and
motioned for her to sit. “How are you doing, my sparrow?”
She looked around the room. A
picture of her is framed on the wall next to his writing desk. She is fourteen,
naked in the surf with her arms stretched above to the heavens. He’d snapped
that picture in better days… before the incident with Robert. Next to it was
one of Gotson with an arm
over Marcel’s shoulder from the days before Madrid Madrid
“You are always up before dawn,
even when no one is here,” she stood by the window. Under the glass of Gotson's desk was another picture Adriane hadn't seen before. It was a wallet sized, black and yellow, crumpled photo of a young woman with fierce eyes under a beret cocked jauntily to the side holding down a cascade of curls that must have been as jet black as Gotson's once were. Her cupid bow lips kissed the end of an odd shaped knife she held in front of her face, "Who is that woman, Gotson?"
"Should you ever love..." his eyes darkened and he turned away, "Yes, how are you?"
"Should you ever love..." his eyes darkened and he turned away, "Yes, how are you?"
“Oh, I don’t know… things are so
strange. Robert tried to take charge of everything. Mère was content to let him run all our
affairs at first… what have I to do?”
“And this is not okay with you?”
“I can’t complain… I am hardly ever
here anyway. Robert can handle all the lawyers and banks… the estate. I counted
on being here for Mère, and
that’s all, but Robert swooped in and scooped her up before I could do
anything.”
“You could have come for the
funeral, perhaps?”
“Funeral services are nauseous for
me.” It was a sore subject for her since the village congregation wouldn’t
allow her little brother, Eder , to be interred
on church grounds. Memories of the fucking village assholes, so afraid of
queers and AIDS, sitting with the priest in his office while Père pled: He, Marcel
Fournier, the financier and huge donor to the church whose office he was
begging in, still brought up a taste… the bitterness of bile from her guts.
“Are you afraid the dead will be infected? Or are you more afraid that your
corpses buried there will become queer?” she castigated the smug elders of the
church as she stormed out of the office.
“Understood, so, what is it you
plan to do now?” he held both her hands. It was a comfortable gesture and a
fatherly one she longed for now from her real father. Eder
too was like a son to him as he was named after Gotson’s father. The once jet-black hair of the Spanish Civil War
vet, and hero of the Maquis of Southern France, was completely white now but
time had been kind to his gentle features. The lines on his face had the
contours of kindness, and hardly at all from hard chiseled revolutionary fevers
his face showed in the old photographs. He and her father had survived the
Franco, Stalinist partisans, camps in Vichy France France Pyrenees . Still, to his credit, in time for Adriane’s
christening, Père managed to
bribe, maneuver and otherwise wrangle, the Franco government into releasing the
Basque Maquis and hero of the Resistance from the very pit of hell, Caracremada. Ironically, he was now termed a
terrorist mastermind by Interpol as he sat isolated in a small room on the
estate of the French billionaire, Marcel Fournier.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t look well… are you…
again?”
“Is it that obvious?” She was
sweating and cold. Every cell in her body ached.
“Please, little Sparrow…” his brow
knitted before he spoke, “There is a spa in Switzerland
“No, no Gotson… don’t go on like my brother. Robert
taunts me all the time. I can’t go through that again.”
“But you are so sick …”
“Yes, but I can get through this.
I’ve done it several times already,” she knew that she could too. This wasn’t
just bravado. She knew that quitting was easy compared to staying quit. “You
know, Robert tried to get Père
to have me declared incompetent the last time….”
“No, though I did suspect something
was troubling Marcel after you left that last one.”
“No way am I going to grant Robert
another opportunity. I am going to take this respite to get clean and go back
to California
“Suddenly, the odor of fresh coffee
caused her stomach to turn, “Please excuse me Gotson, I have to …”
Gotson put a trash can under her chin just in time.
To be continued...
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