1.5 Olympe: Hope
1.5.1 Olympe Montrachet-Picpoul
Hôtel-Restaurant Le Gardon, Pouzay, France
About 10 pm Tuesday 1 April 1987
Pouzay: Dark but for the amber glow of the lamp above the entry of Hôtel-Restaurant Le Gardon; and silent but for the occasional slop and hiss of the swift-running water of the Vienne.
"Bonsoir," Olympe called after the last of the departing diners. "Bonsoir, Mesdame-’sieur. A bientôt, à bientôt…." Tall, slightly stooped as women who in youth wished they were not so tall tend to be, sleek in the black silk gown of the restaurateuse, she continued to smile and wave until the last diners had vanished in the gloom.
She turned back into the empty restaurant, suddenly tired after another long day. She flexed her shoulders and twisted her neck so that her gleaming black hair flopped from side to side. She let fall her mask of politesse. The local customers, what dull and tiresome people! They kept coming back, week after week, always clamoring for the same boring dishes, always disdaining her modest attempts at artistry: Black bean soup, okay. White bean soup, okay. But black and white slid simultaneously into the bowl in a visually appealing yin-yang formation—non non non et non! Definitely not okay. Olympe sighed. The locals had to be catered to. Their patronage was essential to the business of Le Gardon.
The business—such as it was, Olympe thought as she sank into the chair behind the counter. And she thought for the hundredth time, it’s all the fault of Le Cèpe. Le Cèpe—the disrespectful nickname for her adoptive brother and business partner had become a habit, but what of it? It fit. Gaea, he was fat! He looked more like the mushroom ever day.
Of course he wasn’t always fat, didn’t always smell funny. That was only after he fell for the allure of substances. They soon caught him. He tested positive, of course. Cholesterol, triglycerides, CT scan, ultrasound scan and all the other indicators showed nothing immediately life-threatening, but most of them were on amber alert for CHAOS AND OUCH. They gave him the option of rehab, a forty-day water-only fast to reverse some of the damage and open the way for him to return to decent society. But he balked at fasting, made a deal, and the authorities set him up as a chef in the entrapment program, gave him this secret restaurant under the same roof as Le Gardon, even allowed him to name the place for his signature dish, Le Gardon Frit.... Meanwhile, never to be more than a front for the entrapment enterprise, plain and honest Restaurant Le Gardon had failed to take off as an independent enterprise.
The entrapment activities were kept secret outside the shady world of substance users, politicians and PROFATPOL. Le Gardon’s clientele never suspected a thing.... Olympe smiled wanly. If only those dull and tiresome people could see what kinds of substances were served in that decadent subterranean garden of delights, how shocked they would be, how amusingly shocked!
But that thought ought not be the occasion for a smile, Olympe reminded herself. With the abstracted air of habit she picked up her hair brush from a hiding place on the desk under the computer monitor, and indulging a secret habit, she dragged the stiff bristles again and again through her thick mane until it shone like polished ebony.
Her thoughts followed a weary daily groove. If the worst came to the worst, she thought, if Le Cèpe’s undercover entrapment activities on behalf of PROFATPOL were ever exposed to public scrutiny, to save face the authorities would be obliged to step in and put an end of it, and put an end to Le Gardon as well. The entire family enterprise—built up over the years by the Picpoul family and subsequently expanded by her and Le Cèpe—would come to nothing.
On the other hand—and this idea had come to her mind more often of late—suppose this happened, would this be the end of the universe? Of course not, she told herself. In the worst case it would mean a lengthy term behind bars for Le Cèpe, and perhaps prison or at least a serious term of Community Service for her as well. It could be the end of all she had striven for and sacrificed for. Or--she forced herself to look on the bright side-- with Le Cèpe out of the picture it could mean a new beginning: the end of the long hours, the interminable helping out in Le Gardon Frit’s kitchen, the struggle to keep up standards of dining-room service without a regular waitress….
The waitress problem—would it ever be solved? Probably not, but there seemed nothing for it but keep on trying. Today’s applicant had given signs of promise. A seventeen-year-old student at an Eye School or whatever you call a lycée in America. A clear-eyed African-American beauty with a brilliant smile, very good command of French. And another plus, the child was stupid, barely bright enough to learn which side to put the fork. She wasn’t one to get too curious about things that didn’t concern her, such as the goings on at Le Gardon Frit. Perhaps this Cleopatra--oddly grand name for such a ninny!--had already responded?
Olympe swiveled her chair to face the computer screen and checked her mail. No, nothing.... Despondent at this last in a seemingly unending series of disappointments, she crumpled in her chair, so tired, so tired....
She woke at the sound of the electronic voice saying she'd been vexed--two new messages. Good Gaea, she must have slept for hours! Well, Cleopatra had responded…and declined, was desolated to say she had taken another position at Restaurant Les Dhuits in Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises. Just as well, Olympe thought. Dunces like that are usually more nuisance than they're worth....
The other message was a pleasant surprise: American couple coming down from Paris today's date, 18:00 h arrival, wanting a double room and dinner for two at Le Gardon.
Two covers—now that was most unusual! In the ordinary run of reservations from abroad, at least one member of a couple was a wealthy user who came to Pouzay expressly to wallow in the high protein, high fat, animal-based specialties of Le Gardon Frit. Who in u could be making such an unusual request?
Olympe caught her breath as she recognized the name. A quick Google showed there could be no mistake—the reservation was in the name of a beloved figure of her childhood in Paris, the American governess her parents had called Mademoiselle Lynch, now apparently a person of some consequence in United States government circles. The American governess whom she had known as Tante Ada!
The restaurateuse stared unseeing into the darkness above the glowing screen. Four decades dropped away, and she revisited a particular moment of her childhood as the cosseted daughter of the Paris branch of the wealthy, aristocratic Montrachet family. That was before her parents drew life terms in prison for substance dealing, and she was taken in and set to work as a drudge with impoverished relatives, the Picpouls. At the time--she might have been five or six--she'd had pretty dresses, a dancing master, a riding master. And she'd had a governess, Ada. At the moment that had sprung, suddenly vivid, into her memory, she was holding Ada’s hand in the still sunshine of a springtime morning. They must have been in Parc Monseau, for she remembered the American-accented voice naming off its curious follies and grottos.
Would Ada remember any of this? Olympe was surprised to find herself longing to ask her, perhaps to reestablish some strand of their long-ago intimacy. She shrank from bringing it up directly. But with the aid of some delicate hint, some allusion, perhaps?
Sentimental nonsense, Olympe told herself. Why would the former governess, now shown apparently a person of some consequence in United States government circles, wish to recall one of her charges some forty years in the past? Yes, Ada had indeed become a person of note. From internet postings it seemed she was an influential advocate of the American-led War on substances, and a plausible candidate for the Protein and Fat Czarina in the next Administration. Just a governess—who would have guessed at such a glowing future for a mere governess?
On the other hand—and here Olympe felt a slight shock at seeing Ada’s tenure as governess from an adult perspective—she might have been even then an unscrupulous striver bent on her own advancement to the exclusion of all else. Perhaps Ada had never taken her governess duties at all seriously. Perhaps, rather than help Olympe with her English, Ada had concentrated on polishing her own language skills as she bantered with the young men who were always following them about. Olympe had always regretted her weakness in English….
Another, more disquieting thought came to her. Suddenly agitated, she stood up and prowled about the dimly lit foyer. She snatched up her brush and swiped it through her hair again and again as she turned the question over in her mind: Why had an important a public figure, as Ada must be, chosen to stay at as modest a hostelry as Le Gardon?
The answer seemed inescapable: to investigate the substance trade. Specifically, the substance trade going on underground at that very moment in Restaurant Le Gardon Frit!
Olympe stopped. How should she see Ada—friend or foe? Agitated, she permitted herself a rare liberty: she went to the bar and poured herself 20 milliliters of Le Gardon’s finest eau de vie, Bott Frères’ Poire Williams.