Chapter Fourteen
It All Comes Back to Flicka
Maxence
The last time Maxence Grimaldi had been inside the Louvre, he’d watched his first love, Flicka von Hanover, dance at her wedding reception after she’d married his older brother, Pierre.
Everything was connected to Flicka that week. He’d seen her a few days before, and that had been a horrible mess.
Sayyida was saying something.
Maxence’s attention snapped back to her. He said confidently, “Yes,” even though he’d no idea what she’d said.
Sayyida stared at him. “I asked what time you’ll want to leave.”
“Oh, perhaps around one?”
“Fine. Text me on my cell, and I’ll let you out the doors, then, ‘Augustine.’” Her lowered voice made it clear that she didn’t approve of his alias.
“Thank you, Sayyida.” He took Dree’s hand and led her toward the spiral staircase that wound down into the lobby of the Louvre.
They descended, the bright Parisian sunlight streaming through the nearly seven hundred triangular panes of glass that formed the four-sided pyramid.
At Flicka’s wedding reception, he’d walked down these curling stairs, carefully placing each foot in the center of each step, as the man who announced the important people’s arrival bellowed his name across the lobby.
He’d attended the reception without a date, so his name had been announced alone, while everyone else was announced in couples. He’d meant it as a statement that he had found strength and serenity.
As he’d descended the stairs, he’d just felt pathetic.
Everything came back to Flicka, and he knew why she was on his mind.
Dree, who had a solid hold on his arm, swayed as she walked down the stairs.
Maxence placed his hand over her fingers that cupped under his elbow, making sure he could grab her if those high heels slid out from underneath her.
Dree was swaying so much because she was craning her neck to look at the transparent pyramid above them that appeared open to the blue Parisian sky and bending to survey the magnificent lobby below. The spiral staircase was built to allow people an excellent view of both the sky above and the entirety of the many levels of the Louvre that led to the different exhibition halls. The entrance had been controversial when first built because the hyper-modern steel-and-glass pyramid constructed in the middle of the ancient palace had seemed out of place. However, the effect of the open sky above and the cavernous lobby below reminded visitors that France had been a world power and had looted some of the most majestic artifacts in existence.
Maxence had many mixed feelings about France’s “glory” and the terrible effects from the colonial era he’d seen the past few years. His only, insignificant solace was the fact that his own family’s money came not from colonialism but from trade and allowing the world’s elite to gamble away their wealth in the casino.
They reached the bottom of the staircase, the soles of their shoes tapping the marble floor. Their footsteps echoed in the lobby.
Maxence turned to Dree and forced a smile onto his face. “What do you want to see first?”
She cocked her head to the side and looked up at him, hesitantly smiling in return. “What’s up with you?”
“Nothing, nothing. I’m just pleased to be back in the Louvre and seeing the collections in such a lovely, quiet environment. What do you want to see first?”
“Some paintings, I assume? I don’t know anything about art or artifacts or what’s-all in here that I’m supposed to see. You said you’ve been here a few times. Just take me around here and show me the stuff that people will ask me if I saw while I was here.”
“The Egyptian exhibit first, then, where we shall see some ancient artifacts from the dawn of civilization and a small blue hippopotamus. After that, art that includes the Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Mona Lisa, because everybody has to see the Mona Lisa. It’s practically a rite of passage to fight your way through the crowd and take a picture of Leonardo’s masterpiece. Luckily, we won’t have to do the crowd part.”
Maxence steered Dree on the most efficient path to the Egyptian exhibit first. He’d been to the Louvre on many school field trips as a child and several times for charity events since. Thus, he knew his way around the labyrinth of exhibit halls, hallways, and staircases that sometimes bypassed floors and turned people around such that they became hopelessly lost.
Within minutes, they found themselves in the enormous room displaying the Processional Way of the Sphinxes, a line of the stone human-headed lions from Egypt. Several of them even had intact noses.
As they walked past the sphinxes on their tall stone boxes, Dree asked him, “Are you going to tell me what’s up with you?”
Maxence said, “There’s personal stuff floating around in my head. I don’t want to burden you with it.”
