I love those who love me. And yes, that’s him in stone in that medallion. But he also has Shakespeare, Dante, Homer, Virgil . . .” He points to each carved face as he says their names.
“Got it. Basically, he loved attention and had no modesty about his talents. And, apparently, you have a family crest?” I side-eye Alexandre. He grins and shrugs. The tension between us slowly starts to drain away. It might be because of our familiarity with each other, but also because we’re both here, searching, hoping to save something or someone, maybe ourselves.
“He was supposed to have had a huge ego, but more power to him,” he says. “He was a biracial man who faced terrible racism but still became one of France’s greatest writers.”
“Seeing this place, I understand why it’s important to you and your family.” I take a hesitant step closer to Alexandre. “Obviously it was pretty significant to Dumas—he literally stamped his identity all over it.”
Alexandre nods and squeezes my elbow. “Everybody thinks of him as wildly successful, but Dumas grew up poor and had to fight for what he had. He faced a ton of discrimination. I think that’s why he built this place and put his name everywhere. It wasn’t ego. It was a way to look his detractors in the eye and say, ‘I did this.’”
“Good for him.” I allow myself a smile; I’m all for giving judges the metaphorical middle finger. “I’m glad you’re here to help keep this place in your family and keep his story alive.”
“That’s why Leila’s story deserves to be told, too. Not because of who she was to Dumas, but because of who she was. Period. I learned that from you,” Alexandre says.
“Glad you were paying attention.” I nudge him in the ribs. My heart lifts at hearing his words, but I’m still nervous about uncovering a secret that has been hidden all those years. A secret that doesn’t belong to me.
Alexandre takes hold of my elbow. “Let’s try to find this cache of Leila’s treasures that my beloved great-grand-père supposedly hid here. I promise if we find anything, we will decide our next steps together.”
I smile. “In that case, let’s find out what your great-grand-père was hiding.”
Alexandre walks around turning on the lights and opening drapes as if he’s entered his family’s summer home for the season. I take a minute to admire the craftsmanship of the Chateau as the crystal in the chandeliers twinkles in the sunlight that streams into the front parlor. It’s a museum now, but I imagine how alive it must have once been, and as I float from one room to the next, I can hear the echoes of the past whispering to me.
While I’m leaning over a glass case examining some letters and first editions, I see it: Baudelaire’s Paris Spleen, the one Alexandre’s Uncle Gérard said was at Dumas’s bedside when he died, where the note to Leila was found. The book is open to a passage: “There are women who inspire you with the desire to conquer them and to take your pleasure with them; but this one fills you only with the desire to die slowly beneath her gaze.” The last phrase is circled multiple times. It’s hard to see Baudelaire’s writing as anything but sexist and possessive and he was probably not thinking about Leila when he wrote that. But Dumas must’ve imagined Leila when he circled those words; maybe that’s why he slipped that letter to her between these pages. The spirits of the past are all around us. I might not believe in actual ghosts, but sometimes the present feels like a palimpsest, and we’re all just here trying to decipher words we can’t quite make out.
Alexandre grabs the top hat off the head of a mannequin suited in period costume and bows before me, sweeping his arm across his body and doffing the hat.
“Put that back,” I whisper, though there is no one in here but us. “We’ve damaged enough French antiques.”
“It’s a replica,” he says. “A lot of this stuff is. The Foundation managed to save the building—it was in total disrepair when they bought it—but most of the antiques and our family heirlooms were already