DTLD 8

Chapter 8

 Hôtel d’Écran

Laurant’s train station was always crowded with people. Enzo sat in a café with a good view of the entrance, waiting for his family to arrive. As a clear, long bell tone rang out from the bell tower, the gas lamps lining the tree-lined avenue began to light up one by one. Enzo checked his wristwatch once more.

After a noisy whistle, people poured out of the just-arrived train. Enzo quickly stood, left money under his empty cup, and exited the café. Through the gaps in the dense crowd, a girl with a pea-green ribbon tied in her hair was waving her hand vigorously like an excited puppy.

“Enzo!”

The girl who ran over in an instant hugged him tightly before Enzo could stop her. It was Sacha, who had recently turned fourteen.

“It’s been a while, Sacha. But where’s Father?”

When Enzo pointed that out, Sacha finally looked around. Mr. Vinoc’h, swept up in the crowd, arrived a step late.

“There you are. You little tomboy. Good thing you found Enzo. You nearly got lost, didn’t you.”

Startled, Mr. Vinoc’h scolded Sacha, who had darted out the moment the train stopped, and pinched her nose. Reunited safely, they took a shared carriage from in front of the station to the hotel where Enzo was staying.

The lady seated beside them praised how well Sacha’s hair color matched her ribbon. Sacha played with the baby in the lady’s arms, and when Enzo said they had to get off now, she gave the ribbon away as a gift.

Enzo passed the illuminated fountain and headed for the most famous place in Laurant. In front of the Hôtel d’Écran, luxury cars and carriages were lined up in abundance. Beautiful noblewomen alighted gracefully, escorted by gentlemen. Sacha rolled her eyes and looked at Enzo, asking doubtfully.

“Don’t tell me this is the hotel?”

“This is it. Let’s go in.”

Enzo took the lead and headed for the building without hesitation. Sacha and Mr. Vinoc’h hurried after him. Passing through the bronze doors with gold reliefs, the interior was far more magnificent and splendid than it had looked from outside. Beneath the domed ceiling painted with frescoes, a gigantic crystal chandelier hung long, scattering light in every direction and overwhelming the visitors. In front of the old-fashioned amethyst-colored lobby elevator stood the Minister of Foreign Affairs together with a composer considered the finest of the age.

Sacha couldn’t close her mouth at the scene, which felt like stepping into a completely different world. This place was another kingdom located within the city of Laurant. Mr. Vinoc’h, intimidated before even entering the room, tried to straighten his hunched shoulders.

“This way.”

Enzo guided them familiarly. Passing through a corridor so dazzling it hurt the eyes and going up the stairs, they came to the room where they would stay for two days. It was incomparably more luxurious than their home in Manoli. Flustered, Mr. Vinoc’h couldn’t even set down his travel bag and stammered.

“Are we really allowed to be in a place like this?”

“The royal family invited the academy scholarship student, after all. The hotel is owned by the Guienne family, so they may have lent a room to the academy. Everyone’s been saying that in a few years, the Duke of Guienne and Princess Deborah will marry.”

Sacha, who had been examining the marble bathtub with interest, turned around at the mention of the Duke of Guienne. Enzo told her that the duke owned several hotels besides this one.

“Four years ago, when we went to the Guienne castle, didn’t they say the duke was ill? How could a man like that run such a huge hotel?”

Mr. Vinoc’h asked, bewildered. He had been to Lortèze only once, but he clearly remembered that the Duke of Guienne had been bedridden at the time.

“The old Duke of Guienne died three years ago. The man who returned from Borona and inherited the title is called the young Duke of Guienne. He’s the owner of the hotel. He’s probably the wealthiest man in Laurant.”

“Even more than Her Majesty the Queen?”

At her innocent father’s shock, Enzo shrugged. After the war ended, the monarchy was restored, and the eldest daughter of Count Truffaut was enthroned as the current Queen Anaïs.

“A restored royal house doesn’t last long. A hundred years at most, if you look at it generously.”

“Enzo!”

“Father. Even if it weren’t me, it’s what the republicans in Laurant are clamoring about every day. The queen has already lost real power, and the conflict between the royalists and the republicans deepens by the day.”

It was an age in which wealthy bourgeoisie could reign above poor nobles. The young Duke of Guienne, just twenty, was not content with the immense wealth his ancestors had accumulated and constantly multiplied his money. If, as people said, a union with the royal family were soon to follow, then no one would be able to covet his position anymore.

When that time came, Bricenne might become not the Truffaut royal family’s country at all, but the Duke of Guienne’s nation. Enzo sank into thought about what he should do after graduating from the academy.

Just then, a suspicious sound came from the direction of the bathroom. Sacha, who had tasted the bath salts out of curiosity, was turning on the faucet and spitting into the sink. Enzo pressed a hand to his forehead and rushed to the bathroom.

Rue Sainte-Mare was full of nothing but expensive restaurants, so the Vinoc’h family had to go quite far. Fortunately, before all the shops closed, they found a reasonably priced café and had dinner there.

When they mentioned they were staying at the Hôtel d’Écran, the café employee told them that there was one room there that was not open to the public. It was a place no amount of money could get you into. One could visit only with the permission of the hotel’s owner, the Duke of Guienne. The name of that room was….

“What a strange coincidence. I like that word too!”

The room’s name was the same as the title of the first painting Sacha had completed in Manoli. That her taste overlapped with that of the owner of such a beautiful hotel was a very pleasant coincidence.

Early the next morning, Enzo went to the palace to have an audience with the queen. Sacha and Mr. Vinoc’h headed to the department store to buy gifts for Mrs. Vinoc’h and the grandmothers, who hadn’t been able to come along.

Not long after Sacha left Rue Sainte-Mare, a black car stopped in front of the hotel. The young duke, who alighted elegantly while fastening the buttons of his jacket, exchanged a brief conversation with a countess in the lobby before disappearing upstairs.

Even after returning to Manoli, Mr. Vinoc’h took an interest in the Duke of Guienne. Whenever the duke’s name appeared in a newspaper delivered from Laurant, he would often speak as if he knew something about the hotels the man owned.

“I know a thing or two about the Duke of Guienne. The newspapers say the man is a financier with an enormous amount of money.”

According to La Fuette, the subscription paper Grandmother Elodie enjoyed reading, the Duke of Guienne was the queen’s most favored great-nephew. It was already so famous that everyone knew the duke’s mother was a relative of Prince Eugène, the queen’s husband.

While the adults, having finished dinner, exchanged opinions about Laurant’s social circles and bureaucratic society, Sacha went up to her room first and finished preparing for bed.

‘If I had won a prize in that competition back then, could I have gotten into the Royal Art School? If I went there, would I paint all day every day? I wouldn’t have to learn math, so that would be nice.’

For some time now, Sacha had been painting imaginary pictures on the ceiling every night. Some nights she stayed up all night doing so. The ceiling was filled tight with paintings only Sacha could see. Sacha’s canvas was the whole world.

Doing so, she would sometimes think of the past. Lying on a yellow checkered mat, Sacha would gaze at the slowly drifting clouds and think. The painting she had first made after visiting the ducal castle in Lortèze. Who had bought that painting she’d submitted to the Royal Academy of Art?

Whenever such a question arose, she wanted to exchange letters with that unknown person. Manoli was peaceful, but sometimes it felt boring. Old Mr. Bertrand, the owner of the shop that sold art supplies, was the only friend with whom Sacha could talk about painting.

‘That person liked my painting, so wouldn’t we understand each other well?’

Sacha sent a letter to the Royal Academy of Art asking them to reveal the buyer, but the only reply that came back was that they couldn’t, because he didn’t wish it.

“Of course. If a book as humble as mine could include writing about such a beautiful hotel, it would rather be an honor. May I make one request in return?”

Baron Pierre Auguste, the finest critic of the age, gladly accepted the request to include content about the Hôtel d’Écran in his book. In return, he asked to see the rumored painting Robert owned.

At the unexpected request, Robert set down the coffee cup he was holding.

“It’s not as impressive as the rumors suggest. It’s not a famous work—I happened to discover it at an exhibition.”

But such words only further piqued the baron’s interest. Robert offered to show him famous paintings from his separate collection, but the baron insisted to the end on the unknown artist’s work. In the end, after finishing the meal, Robert had the manager bring the key to the room where the painting hung.

The baron marveled at the painting hanging on the wall.

‘All those socialites clamoring that the Duke of Guienne has lost his aristocratic dignity and discernment in his hunger for money are utter fools.’

This painter was surely a genius not yet noticed, like a pearl buried in mud. The young duke who had recognized it was a true guardian of art.

“Would you sell this painting to me? I’ll pay ten times what the duke originally paid.”

The excited baron offered to buy the painting for himself. Instead of answering, Robert smiled gently. It was a sign of refusal. The anxious baron raised his offer to a hundred times, but the duke had no intention of selling the painting at all.

“How about this, then? If you ever wish to see the painting, visit the hotel, and I’ll show it to you myself.”

Ah. It was such a sweet proposal. The baron gladly accepted.

“But who is the painter? Would it be too much to ask you to introduce me?”

The baron, having barely pulled himself out of the rapturous appreciation he hadn’t felt in a long time, asked. Unexpectedly, at those words, the duke hesitated over his answer for the first time.

“I haven’t yet met the painter in person. The higher the expectations, the greater the disappointment when you actually meet.”

Baron Auguste marveled once again. To know who had painted such a fine picture and still not rush to meet them—he was clearly a man of tremendous self-restraint.

“Of course, one could worry about that. But by my humble judgment, there’s no need for such worry regarding this painting’s artist. I’ve interacted with no small number of artists myself, but the higher the level of the work, the more the artist’s soul is reflected in it. A painter who made a picture like this could not possibly be the owner of a murky soul.”

“Is that so?”

The duke gazed at the painting. The baron, full of conviction, asked him in a voice brimming with passion.

“If you change your mind and meet the painter, would you introduce me as well? If it’s an artist not yet known, I’d like to support them personally. If you give me the chance to know that painter too, I will never forget the duke’s kindness.”