Anio Szado (23 page)

If anyone could find a way to live among the stars, Antoine could. The sky was his playground and his workplace; when he couldn’t be in it, he couldn’t be at home in the world.

Once he came to one of our rendezvous carrying a box of whirligigs—helicopters of paper folded into T-shaped wings. As we made our way to the Empire State Building, he prattled on in an excited stream, explaining how rivers and skyscrapers affected the prevailing winds … predicting flight paths, percentages of whirligigs that would move this way versus that … musing about his research and what it could inform … describing inventions that seemed preposterous to me. On the observation
deck, we tipped the contents of the box over the side. The whirligigs spun and spread over the whole of the island. The sight left me speechless. He owns Manhattan, I thought. Give him paper, give him sky, and he can do anything.

I put my pen down. What an embarrassing attempt at camaraderie. And do Canadians ever shout anything together? I would ask the couple next to me, but they’ve snuggled their way back to sleep.

I throw down my pen. It bounces off my notebook, hits my neighbor’s leg, and rolls away.

“Geez, Miggy, you look like hell,” said Leo. “Maybe even worse.”

We had spent the previous night arguing over the butterfly dress. He wouldn’t tell me where it was, or whether I could get it, or anything else. We argued; we talked; we drank. We had ended up talking about childhood and Papa, fashion, France, and war.

“It’s not fair,” I said. “I think I only had three drinks.”

“Three glasses of Scotch isn’t nothing, sister. And then the
wine. You know it’s the weekend, don’t you? If I were you, I’d go back to bed.”

But there was Consuelo’s upcoming visit to the studio to think about. I needed drawings to convince Madame that we should present something fresher than the Butterfly Collection. And it was already close to noon. I pulled my hair into a pony-tail, though my roots ached in protest, put on my most comfortable slacks and an untucked shirt, and slipped my feet into casual slides.

Leo was in the kitchen spooning dumpling dough into a pot of boiling milk. “Off to inflict yourself on the innocent civilians of New York?”

“Going to the studio.”

“Oh yeah? Bring me back something nice.”

Riding the subway only increased the throbbing in my head. I made my way to Madame’s building, opened the street-level door, and jumped back in surprise.

Antoine was sitting on the steps to the lobby, looking petulant. He closed his notebook, dusted off his trousers, and took his folder from a stair. “How am I to borrow the studio when no one has given me a key?”

As if I didn’t have my own problems. For one thing, this miserable brain.

He said, “I spent the whole night in interruptions. I haven’t written a word, and I haven’t slept a wink.” He began to climb the steps, but stopped when I didn’t follow. “Well, come on. I’ve been waiting for you for an hour.”

Audacious, rude man. I opened the door. “Leave.”

Antoine clattered down the stairs, his soles making an ungodly noise, and stopped beside me. “Don’t be like this, Mignonne! Good morning. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”

He tilted his head one way, then the other, ducking down
to my height, trying to catch my stubbornly averted gaze. “It is only that I am desperate. A million hornets are buzzing in my head. I need to work. My publishers, they will lock me up if I don’t get them something soon.”

“That’s a lie.”

“You are right; they will wait. But I cannot wait; I need to complete this manuscript. Every day it takes is another day in which I am chained to my desk in America instead of fighting to free my country. And the money, you understand. I cannot leave until I settle my debts, until the book is in my publishers’ hands.”

Chained … what? I was in no shape to argue or to understand.

“And my apartment,” he continued. “It is unbearable. I cannot work there. Consuelo is killing me with her visits, her demands, her staying out to all hours with whomever suits her fancy, all night, without discretion or sense.” He stood in front of me, jittery. “Please, can you let me in now? We both have work to do. We should get started. Please, Mignonne.” He gave me a contrite, endearing smile. “Let’s go upstairs.”

I followed him, my head pounding with my feet. Let’s go upstairs, indeed. This was not how I had hoped to someday hear those words. I asked, “Do you really think Madame Fiche was serious when she said you could borrow the studio?”

“Does it matter? Since she suggested I do so, she cannot blame me—or you—if I do.”

Upstairs, I pulled out my key but did not slide it into the lock. “Bring me coffee, lots of black coffee, if you want me to let you in.”

He examined my face. “Ah. Poor Mignonne. I did not realize that last night you perhaps had too much to drink.”

Antoine returned with a full restaurant pot of coffee and a bottle of wine. “The waiter attempted to limit me to a single cup, and
no bottle at all, in the interests of national defense. But he gave in readily when I explained the severity of the situation. Unfortunately, I had to do so with the most grotesque pantomime.” He gave me a sample performance, staggering and cross-eyed, that left me guffawing painfully. “I’m afraid I may have besmirched your dignity a little.” He held the bottle under his arm to lock the door behind him.

I had settled into a corner of the sofa with my open sketchbook on my lap.

“I’m sorry,” he said, tiptoeing. “I am stopping you from working.”

“You’re not. I am working.”

Antoine peered at the page. “Apparently everything next season, including the models, will be invisible.”

I swung the book at him, and he laughed as he swatted it away.

“Come now, Mignonne. Surely it is not that hard.” He took a blank sheet from his folder, filched the pencil from my hand, and in a few confident strokes completed a sketch of a lithe, sensual beauty in a clingy, off-the-shoulder dress and a featherweight cape that hovered above the ground.

It was stunning. I said, “You’re a swine!”

“Ha-ha! You take yourself too seriously. Come, let us play for a bit.” He pulled a deck of cards from his pocket.

“Coffee.”

“I have it, hot, right here. You have cups?”

Of course I didn’t have cups.

“No? It is just as well. What you really need, first, is a small bit of wine. In a moment, your headache will be fixed.”

He roamed the studio looking for a tool, and finally reamed out the cork with sewing shears.

“Madame Fiche would string you up.”

“Madame is all too serious herself. Now”—he sat down beside me—“just a little bit on your lips.” He supported the bottle
while I took a tiny sip. “Good. Are you ready for a short break? I will teach you a simple trick—how to make a card disappear.”

He stood on the rug, cards jumping, eyes laughing.

I could hardly follow what he was doing, never mind memorize how to recreate the illusion myself, but it wasn’t unpleasant to watch him perform. I drank from the bottle and began to breathe more easily.

He moved gracefully as he demonstrated the mysteries of the trick, very light on his feet for a man who had broken so many bones.

I had asked him about one of his scars at the studio the other day.

“I was flying a Simoun. Very simple compared to what we have today. When we crash landed, the nose curled like the toe of a sultan’s slipper.”

“How exotic.”

“Just so. The sun was shining; I had my mechanic friend by my side; life was good.”

“And your Guatemala City crash?”

“Broken collarbone—right here.”

“As I heard it, the plane was smashed to smithereens and you were, too.”

“One gets used to being reassembled.”

“Bernard says the repairs haven’t always been good.”

“The mechanics’?”

“The surgeons’.”

Antoine looked at me sharply. “What did he tell you?”

“He said your bones weren’t always set properly.”

“And?” The scar that ran from the corner of Antoine’s lip to his jaw seemed to have darkened.

“That the crash in Guatemala was the start of your fevers. I’m sorry; I didn’t think it was a secret. He spoke freely to me.”

Antoine lit a cigarette with a long draw. “So you have been seeing Lamotte.” Smoke seeped from his mouth and veiled his
face. Then suddenly he was muttering: “Of course you are free—and he is closer to your age. Of course you should. You are right, you are always right. I knew you would like him. And if—”

I pressed my fingers to his lips. “Are you losing your marbles, Antoine?”

“Am I?”

“Hold on. I’ll check.” Brazenly, I dropped my hand to the front of his trousers. “Everything’s there. You have nothing to worry about.”

That had pleased and amused him. He said, “Nor should you worry, Mignonne. Lamotte speaks openly because he knows that I trust you. But he is not loose with secrets. I have known him for a long time. I would trust Lamotte with my very soul.”

I refocused: we were alone in Madame’s studio and Antoine was still talking. He was still standing in front of me holding out his cards.

“And that is all there is to it.” He came laughing back to join me on the sofa and take a swig of wine. “You must try it on Madame Fiche.”

“Oh God, no. Madame would turn up her nose.”

“Consuelo too.”

“Consuelo doesn’t seem like such a serious type.”

“She is full of fantasy, but she has lost the taste for simple play. Her imagination, though, is enormous. She could convince one that a hat is a boa constrictor that has swallowed an elephant. She sculpts. At times she paints. She draws. Mostly, she makes up fantasies. She wants to write.”

“And does she write?”

“That is a good question. I have come across pages that are written in her voice but not in her hand. She may be dictating, or she may be relying on the talents of a literary friend.”

“Fiction?”

“She calls it a memoir, and says I don’t have the right to ask her not to tell the story of her own life.” He sighed. “She has acted when it was the thing to do. In Oppède, where she lived with a colony of artists after the exodus from Paris, they had all sorts of ways to pass the time. Skits. Games of the heart. I’m sure she misses the drama of it all. She makes up for it by engineering her own.”

I rubbed the edge of my sketchbook. “I guess sometimes you must wish for a life of peace and quiet.”

“I crave it,” he said huskily. “It is not easy to escape commitments one has made. It is not possible to shed the duties and demands one carries in the heart.” He opened his folder, pulled out a drawing, and contemplated it. “So it is in my new story. I am calling it
The Little Prince
. I asked Lamotte to illustrate it, but he insists I am capable of creating the pictures on my own.”

He handed me the drawing. Rising from the bottom right was a miniature planet in a sunset violet hue. On the planet stood a boy—the blond, wild-haired boy Antoine had been doodling for more than a year. Another planet, with a single orbiting ring, was visible far away. Robust stars sat like rivets in the sky.

The boy wore springtime green—a short-sleeved, buttoned shirt, and long pants that flared toward the hem, where pointed shoes stood sturdily on his planet’s curving ground. Antoine had captured perfectly a child’s softly rounded muscles at rest.

The red of his bow tie and belt were reflected in the slight flush of his cheeks. Golden hair fanned out from his head like soft flames. His face was simple and pure, sketched with a quick stroke for the bridge of a childish nose, the mouth no more than a brief bar—a mere hyphen—as though he held his emotions in check. His eyes were small ovals, defined with ink that swelled thicker at the bottom so that rather than being blank and empty, they looked longingly down—at a flower, a rose.

My rose, captured forever in Antoine’s art. My whole body warmed with pleasurable surprise.

Carefully, reverently, I placed Antoine’s drawing on top of the sketchbook in my lap. “Tell me the story.”

“A pilot crashes in the middle of the desert with nothing but sand for thousands of miles around. He’s awakened by the voice of a little boy.”

“This boy.”

“Yes. He is a prince.”

“He’s dressed very simply here, for a prince.”

“Because he is going to be traveling. He comes to the desert from far away.”

“From this planet?”

“Yes. The asteroid known as
B-612
.”

“I see.
B-612
.” We sat shoulder to shoulder on the sofa. I had my feet up under me. Antoine sat with his long-injured leg held almost straight.

I said, “He looks worried.”

“It is love that does this to him.”

“Because he’s away from someone he loves?”

“In this drawing, because he is with her. But later in the story, in the desert, it will be because they are apart.”

“Is it a love story, Antoine?”

“All stories are love stories.”

I was transfixed by the expression on the face of the little prince. “Before you tell me anything more, I want to know the ending. I’m afraid your story will make me cry.”

“Because it is a love story? It isn’t love that causes pain, but ownership. And anyway, I don’t know the ending yet. Much still needs to happen before the end. You must be patient, and let me work.” He took his drawing from me. “How are you feeling now?”

“Much better.”

“You will work, too?”

“I’m going to try.”

“You draw. I will sit for a while and write. Later, you can show me your sketches and I will read to you.”

He lowered himself from the sofa to sit on the rug, and propped his notebook on his bent knee. For a long time, he only looked at the paper. Then he began to write, his script small and imprecise, each letter half finished, the words spreading wide in even lines.