“Don’t rush,” Jules told him. “Take your time. I’ll see you when you arrive.” He hung up without saying goodbye, like Jack, or the generic kind of person who might buy a ten-million-Euro life insurance policy.
In near shock, Armand gathered his brochures, calculator, and forms, automatically put them in his briefcase, left the office, locked the door, and walked into the elevator like someone who had been hypnotized. He knew they would be mad at him for deserting his post. They would think that this was the final dereliction, the failure that would at last put him under. And if he couldn’t sell a policy, they would be right. The thought occurred to him that the call wasn’t genuine, and that he would find himself in the rain in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, standing in front not of a house but a butcher shop or police station. Because of this, waiting on the platform, riding on the train, and finding his way through the town was a torture such as one might feel on the drawn-out path to one’s execution.
BUT AS ARMAND MARTEAU, in dread, left the station and walked through the lovely gardens of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the sun began to disperse the clouds, which had been no more than a thick mist settled upon the countryside. As it was February 18th-, the sun strength was roughly equivalent to that of October 23th. The day had not been too cold, and there was no wind. So, all of a sudden, something like spring arose. The sun came into the clear, surrounded by blue. Remnants of fog, which in the absence of strong light had been gray and dull, now shone in white as they fled upward and disappeared. Evergreens and the stems and branches of deciduous bushes were covered in droplets of condensation left behind as the fog lifted, and they sparkled like a hundred million suns. Best of all, the air was soft and forgiving, as it is when light returns to the world after the dark of winter.
He dared to take this as a sign, but, still, he imagined that nature was merely cruel, and that, as so often it did, it was setting him up the way it does with farmers, who after a glorious summer redolent of perfection then find in drought or hail or pests that they have been tricked. Because so many of his father’s crops had failed, Armand Marteau was expecting to see that the address he had been given was in fact a graffitied storefront, its iron gate long rusted and closed.
At the Shymanski gatehouse he didn’t know what to think, because as camouflage it was deliberately modest and decrepit. Only when the gate was opened and one could see a small palace set in its own meticulously landscaped park would one realize what splendor lay beyond the nondescript walls. As he knocked, he knew it could go one way or another. And as Claude the now discreet gardener, happy at the prospect of earning twenty Euros, opened the gate, Armand Marteau knew that he had finally been given his chance.
JULES HAD SOLD the piano, a small Picasso ceramic that he had always hated, his Volvo, a few first editions, half a dozen Krugerrands, and the little Daubigny. He had consolidated the proceeds of the sales with all his cash and savings into a single checking account, the new balance of which was more than €236,000. Shymanski had gone to the South of France forever, but for the moment his furniture and decorations remained in place. Except for the gardeners, the servants were with him, but the house was alarmed with every beeping and blinking contraption known to man, including nets of laser beams suitable for a great museum.
Jules had disarmed the alarms. Greeting the awestruck Armand Marteau in the main hall, he was dressed in his characteristic blazer but with one of Jacqueline’s Hermès silk scarves made into a cravat, which made him look both ridiculous and the part of a billionaire. Shymanski wore cravats. Had Jules not been standing on marble parquet in a magnificent hall with Renaissance oils on the walls, but on some street corner in Paris, he would have looked like an idiot who thought he was David Niven. Here, it was just right.
“Thanks for coming on short notice,” he told Armand.
“The client is our reason for existence,” Armand stated, trying not to let his knees knock.
“Good, good. I like that,” Jules responded as he acted the part of a man imbued with confidence and kindness. “Come in and we can talk.” Armand followed briskly. He tried to walk deliberately so as not to thunder against the floor and draw attention to his weight, but the floor was marble so solid it would have remained absolutely silent even had he jumped up and down like a child on a hotel-room bed.
Almost open-mouthed at the decor of the salon, with its Fragonard, tapestry, eastward view, and extraordinary surfaces made all the richer by carefully designed lighting, Armand tried as hard to pretend that he was calm as Jules tried to pretend that he was in control of his life.
“Subsidiary of Acorn?” Jules asked.
“Directly owned – and backed – by all the resources of Acorn. I’m Armand Marteau, by the way” – he gave Jules his card – “of the La Défense office, high-value, one of two we have in France.” He then launched into a general description of Acorn, its reliability, and its history of payment to beneficiaries, explaining that though it was expensive it paid out much more readily than any other company.
“That’s why I chose Acorn,” Jules said, smiling invisibly. “What is the cost of a ten-million-Euro policy?”
“First, I have to ask why you might want it. We ask that of all our potential clients, so we can know their desires. In your case, it’s not readily apparent that you would need such a policy.”
“I haven’t moved any substantial sums out of the country since Hollande,” Jules said, truthfully, thinking of the cash he took to America for use whenever a credit card wouldn’t do, “and I don’t believe in tax avoidance even if I find the regime of taxation to be punitive and unfair. However, great wealth is often deliberately tied up in distasteful complications that cannot be fully understood except by experts. Upon death, a gate falls on your assets, and the wealthier you are, the more time it takes to lift that gate.”
Armand nodded. Everyone knew, or at least suspected, that this was true.
“Except for insurance proceeds. When I die, I want my daughter to have some money immediately, to tide her over until the estate is settled.”
“Who would argue with that?” Armand asked. “It’s entirely reasonable.”
“So then, what’s the cost of a term policy for ten million?”
“It’s a very large policy, and at your age the premium changes every year, settling somewhere between a base cost (the minimum you’ll always pay) and a maximum. The premium determination is made taking into account the investment proceeds of the previous year, but in the first year you pay only the minimum, which is, nonetheless, considerable, and which, in turn, depends upon your health. Do you smoke, or have you ever?”
“Never.”
“How would you characterize your health? Excellent, good, fair, or poor?”
“Excellent.”
“You’re not in treatment for any diagnosed disease or condition?”
“Not at all, fortunately.”
“Let’s say then that you are in excellent health, a non-smoker, etc. If you meet all the criteria and rate high in the physical, your first-year’s premium, payable in quarterly installments, would be two hundred and thirty-five thousand Euros. But in the second year, with the worst possible investment assumption, you might have to pay as much as a million fifty-nine-thousand Euros.” He pulled out a laminated chart and unfolded it. “You can see here how it gets crazy. At age one hundred, your premium could be nine million, two hundred thousand Euros, but that’s just for illustration, because at the maximum rates by then you would already have paid many times the value of the policy. No one’s ever done that.”
“Two hundred and thirty-five thousand, divided into four installments?” Jules said. “Why so little in the first year?”
“To bring customers in. Suicide is precluded in the first two years, as are death in a self-piloted aircraft, accidental death in mountain climbing, car racing, and quite a few other pursuits. Statistically, if you’re top-rated on the physical, charging the minimum is even a bargain for us. The physical is comprehensive. W
e write the policy at these rates only if you pass.”
“I’m sure I’ll pass, and so I’ll take this,” Jules said as routinely as someone buying a newspaper.
Armand felt a surge of elation. Suddenly it was as if he had no weight. “For ten million?” He could still hardly believe it.
“Yes.” Jules acted detached and unconcerned.
“We’ll need bank references.”
“Of course.” Jules went to Shymanski’s desk and took out a leather portfolio, into which before Armand Marteau’s arrival he had placed copies of his own bank statements and other documents. “My checking account number at BNP Paribas, the branch here” – he threw his right hand in the air, as if directing traffic, pointing to – “thirty-one Rue de Paris, is seven three, eight one, four nine two, eight six. That account is for everyday expenses.”
“The balance?”
“I don’t know, really. Somewhere between two and three hundred thousand.”
As Armand Marteau wrote, he said, “Is there another financial reference, perhaps of greater substance? Not that that’s not of great substance! But I ask only because the policy is so large.”
“Again, the money is tied up. But, yes, I can give you another. Unlike the checking account, it’s not in my own name. It’s a trust linked to the house here. The title of the trust is my address.”
Armand Marteau wrote the address as Jules gave it to him, reading it back to make sure it was accurate.
“Exactly, followed by ‘Nineteen Sixty-Eight Trust’.”
“Numbers or written out?”
“Numbers. We established it at the time of the student revolts, because we didn’t know what was going to happen.” Shymanski had indeed established it then, and for that reason. Jules knew the account number at Société Général because for years he had made symbolic ten-Euro per month payments into it so as to be included in the insurance coverage pertaining to the house.
“It’s not in your name?”
“No, it’s a trust. Just the address. I fund it periodically, of course.” That was entirely true.
“The balance?”
“Again, I don’t really know.” He knew roughly. It was the last Shymanski trust not to have fallen to the monster boys, and Shymanski had stuffed many of his remaining assets into it. They would have it, Shymanski had told Jules, disclosing the amount, by the end of the year. Meanwhile, it was frozen. “But it’s certainly north of fifty million,” Jules told Armand.
“Fifty million?” Armand Marteau repeated as a question, his eyes almost bulging.
“It serves real estate needs, here and in many other places. Commercial as well.”
“You will pass the physical,” Armand said, almost as an order.
Jules took this graciously. “Of course I will. I run and swim every day. I don’t know how long I’ll stay in good health, given my age, but, right now ….”
“That’s another thing,” Armand said. “The high-value policies come automatically with disability. If you become legally disabled, you get five thousand Euros a month. The benefit is part and parcel of the life insurance. You can’t choose to reject it.”
“Why would I?”
“Ah! Well, here’s the problem – for some people. Obviously, you wouldn’t need it, but you’d have to take it for the whole policy to remain in force, and you can’t work. You could manage your personal investments, but you’d be forbidden to practice your profession, whatever that might be, in any form whatsoever. But you’re retired, is that not so?”
“No. I’m on a reduced schedule, but employed by the University. I teach privately as well. I compose. Surely I could sit in my house and write music?”
“You could. But if you were found out, the policy would be voided.”
“I couldn’t continue to have private students?”
“No.”
“What if I didn’t charge them? I don’t need the money.”
“It wouldn’t matter. It’s the customary activity that figures in.”
“I couldn’t write a sonata for my own entertainment?”
“Have you, in the past, ever sold a musical composition?”
“Yes.”
“Then, no.”
“How would anyone know?”
“They might not, it’s true, but if they did ….”
“What? Do they, that is, do you, have detectives?”
Armand let seconds pass. He inched forward on his chair, and leaned in toward Jules. Then he raised his head so as to look at Jules directly. “They have a lot of detectives, whose incentive is a percentage of whatever policy they can void.”
“What percentage?”
“Ten. That is, ten percent of whatever you’ve paid in, if fraud is discovered before the policy pays out. If it has paid out and the company can claw back the money, the incentive is still ten percent, which in your case, with your policy, would be a million Euros. If after the policy goes into effect there’s a hint of irregularity, you’ll be very popular, I assure you.”
“So I couldn’t even write a little ditty?”
“Ditty, symphony, sonata, song, to them it would all be the same.”
AFTER AN HOUR and a half of filling out forms, obtaining the proper signatures, and receiving a check for the first quarterly payment when the physical was completed and successful, Armand exited onto the street and turned left into a golden sunset spreading across a powder-blue sky. His round and ruddy face was orange and glowing, his blue eyes like aquamarines.
He breathed hard and held his briefcase tightly. Perhaps it was a dream, but no. Now he felt that he could sell such policies quite easily, maybe even several a month. Assuming that Jules would pass the physical, Armand Marteau would be the top performer. Edgar Auban would reprimand and threaten him the next morning, and Armand would say, nonchalantly, “Yesterday I sold a ten-million-Euro policy to a man who’s going to be seventy-five in June. I have his signature. I have the check.” And then he would watch Edgar Auban either faint or float up to the ceiling.
Walking through Saint-Germain-en-Laye, through air that despite the date was balmy, and in light that was magically bright, Armand thought, is this what it’s like to be thin? To be handsome? To be rich? To be admired?
Spring Fire and Smoke
JULES WENT INTO the physical for which, without intending to, he had prepared all his adult life. But as in war, preparation was no guarantee. Things go wrong in the body independently of will, devotion, discipline, or virtue. It can happen any time, but is sure to happen to the old, then to cascade, and then to end. The tests would bring to light processes and balances that he could neither read nor directly influence. As there was only so much he could do, he entered the assessment in a state of calm and with a prayer that he didn’t pray but felt. For the Jews of Eastern Europe, who for ages had their synagogues in unheated hovels, there were cathedrals in the air, which amplified modest prayers, if heartfelt, into a choir of confirming voices. If perhaps the assimilated Lacours of Holland and France had thought themselves different from the Jews of the East, the war had made them one.
Cathérine and David were now prepared for Luc to die, and as he declined they crossed into despair. All they could manage was to take care of him day by day. Everything else was defeat. Death, their own as well, seemed very close. Both of them had come to look much older than they were. Jules understood only too well that were Luc to die it would be the end of the line for a chain of life that had started at the beginning of time. It happens every day, but is no less painful for being commonplace.
Although his possessions – paintings, photographs, books, letters, clothing – were only material, they had received the impress of his life and of his little family when it was young. These things would all be dispersed and destroyed. How many photographs of people who were deeply loved ended up in junk shops and flea markets, curiosities treated without respect for the souls that, were one to look closely, one could see in them? Photographs and letters would go to Cathé
rine, but then where?
Though he hardly knew Élodi, he loved her as if he were twenty, but he wasn’t twenty. So she, like the composition for the Americans, like his career, his works, his whole life, he accounted his failure. The one thing left to him, his last act, might yet fail as well, although he was certain that, like everyone else, he would succeed in hitting the center of the black target to which he felt himself rushing faster and faster, the target that, once struck, ends the game. Not only would he not resist the increasing acceleration, now he would push it along, aiming himself at reckless speed, a missile in love with the point of impact.
With such thoughts, he submitted to examination at the Clinique de Grève, a neglected and secondary facility where, to be in residence, the doctors must have done something wrong. Maybe they weren’t even doctors, although they said they were. Jules was sure that, given the circumstances, his blood pressure would be the kind of number that could break the bank at Monte Carlo.
“UNBELIEVABLE,” THE DOCTOR said, after the third measurement. “One ten over seventy. I thought there was something wrong with the machine, or that the cuff was not on right. No medicine?”
“No medicine.”
“Are you sure? For someone your age ….”
“I don’t take any medications whatsoever.”
“How can that be? It’s crazy. Your blood work is in the normal range except for bilirubin, which is high – Gilbert’s syndrome. You’ll live forever.”
“I’ve been told that,” Jules said, “but I think it’s optimistic.”
The doctor was Russian, bald, thirty-eight, and amazed. “And I’ve never seen anyone over fifty with normal liver function, especially a Frenchman. It’s always at least a little out of whack.”
“No medications,” Jules said, almost like an idiot or a fanatic. “I hesitate to take aspirin. Virtually no alcohol. No caffeine. Chocolate, yes. Never tobacco even once. Exercise like an athlete in training. Sleep like a dog. Spend hours on the terrace, doing nothing. Play music.” He began to laugh because he sounded insane, and his laughter made him seem even more so.