Heaven Has No Favorites: A Novel (18 page)

“We have Number Six,” the man said uncertainly. “Next door to Madame.”

“Fine. Take everything up there.”

The porter carried the food up to the room. After looking at his tip, he once more mentioned his bicycle. He would run errands all night, if necessary. Clerfayt wrote out a small list of purchases—toothbrush, soap, and a few other items to be left in front of the door in the morning. All that would be taken care of, the man promised. He went away, and came back once more with some ice for the champagne. Then he departed for good.

“If I had left you alone tonight, I was afraid I’d never see you again,” Clerfayt said.

Lillian sat down on the window sill. “That’s something I think every night.”

“What?”

“That I may never see things again.”

He felt a stabbing pain. She looked terribly lonely, with her lovely profile framed against the night. Lonely, not deserted. “I love you,” he said. “I don’t know whether that helps you at all, but it’s so.”

She did not reply.

“You know that I am not saying that because of this evening,” he said, not knowing that he was lying. “Forget the evening. It was chance, stupidity, and confusion. I would not want to hurt you for anything in the world.”

She remained silent for a while longer. Then she said thoughtfully: “I think I cannot be hurt at all, in a certain sense. I really think that. Perhaps that makes up for the other thing.”

Clerfayt did not know what to say to this. He understood vaguely what she meant, but did not want to think of it. He wanted not to believe it. He looked at her. “At night, your skin is like the inside of a sea shell,” he said. “It gleams. It does not swallow the light; it gives it back. Do you really want to have the beer?”

“Yes. And give me some of the Lyons sausage. With bread. Does that upset you?”

“Nothing upsets me any more. I feel as if I had been waiting forever for this night. Below the porter’s box down there, smelling of sleep and garlic, the world has come to an end. We have just made it to safety in time.”

“Have we?”

“We have. Don’t you hear how quiet it has become?”

“You have become quiet,” she replied. “Because you’ve gained your objective.”

“Have I? It seems to me that I’ve walked into a fashion show.”

“Oh, my silent friends.” Lillian looked at the dresses, which still
hung about in the room. “They keep me company and tell me about fantastic dances and masked balls. But I won’t need them this evening. Shall I gather them up and lock them in the wardrobe?”

“Let them hang. What have they told you?”

“So many things. About
fiestas
and cities and love. And a great deal about the ocean. I’ve never seen it.”

“We might drive to it.” Clerfayt poured her a glass of beer. “In a few days. I have to go to Sicily. To a race there. I’m not going to win it. Come with me!”

“Do you always want to win?”

“I find it a good idea, once in a while. Idealists can do a lot with money.”

Lillian laughed. “I’ll tell that to my uncle Gaston.”

Clerfayt looked at the dress of tissue-thin silver brocade which hung at the head of the bed. “That is a dress for Palermo,” he said.

“I wore it a few nights ago.”

“Where?”

“Here.”

“Alone?”

“Alone if you like. I was having a party with Sainte-Chapelle, a bottle of Pouilly, the Seine, and the moon.”

“You won’t be alone from now on.”

“I was less alone than you think.”

“I know,” Clerfayt said. “I talk about my loving you as though it were some kind of favor I were doing you. That’s not how I mean it. I express myself crudely, because I’m not used to talking about such things.”

“You don’t express yourself crudely.”

“Every man talks crudely when he tries not to lie.”

“Come,” Lillian said. “Open the bottle of Dom Perignon. Beer
isn’t your drink, I can see. It makes you a little too fumbling, philosophical, and full of generalities. What are you sniffing at? What do I smell of?”

“Of garlic, moonlight, and lies I can’t quite analyze.”

“That’s good. Let’s find our way back to earth and hold on there. It’s so easy to fly off into space when the moon is full. And dreams don’t even obey the laws of gravity.”

A CANARY WAS SINGING
. Clerfayt heard it in his sleep. He woke up and looked around. It took a moment before he realized where he was. Sunlight, white clouds, and shimmering water were playing on the ceiling of the room, which seemed to be turned upside down. The blanket was bound with green satin ribbon. The bathroom door and the window were open, and Clerfayt could see the bird cage with its canary hanging in the window of a room across the courtyard. A woman with massive bosom and yellow hair sat at a table just within the window. She was eating, and, as far as he could make out, it was not breakfast but lunch; a half-bottle of Burgundy stood on the table.

He looked at his watch. He was not mistaken; it was noon. Not for months had he slept so long, and he became aware that he was very hungry. Opening the door, he peered out. There lay the package of things he had ordered the night before. The porter had remembered everything. He ran water in the tub, bathed, and dressed.

The canary was still singing. Its stout mistress was now having apple cake and coffee. Clerfayt went over to the other window,
which looked out on the quay. The traffic was roaring by at full volume. The booksellers’ stalls stood open, and a bright-colored tug moved by on the river, a barking spitz on its deck. Clerfayt leaned out, and in the adjoining window saw Lillian’s profile. She, too, was leaning out, with an attentive, collected air, unaware that he was observing her, slowly letting down a shallow basket on a string. Down on the sidewalk, an oyster vendor had just set up his boxes. He seemed familiar with the procedure. The basket reached him; he lined it with damp seaweed and looked up. “
Marennes
?
Belons
? The
belons
are better today.”

“Six
belons
,” Lillian replied.

“Twelve,” Clerfayt said.

She turned and laughed. “Don’t you want any breakfast?”

“The
belons
will do fine for breakfast. And a light Pouilly instead of orange juice.”

“Twelve?” the oysterman asked.

“Eighteen,” Lillian amended. She turned to Clerfayt again. “Come over. And will you bring the wine.”

Clerfayt went down to the restaurant for wineglasses and a bottle of Pouilly. He also brought bread, butter, and a piece of ripe Pont l’Evêque. “Do you do this often?” he asked.

“Almost every day.” Lillian pointed to a letter on the table. “Day after tomorrow is the dinner at Uncle Gaston’s. Would you like an invitation?”

“Not especially.”

“Good. It would sabotage the purpose of the dinner, which is to find me a rich husband. Or are you rich?”

“Never for more than a few weeks. Will you get married if a rich-enough man turns up?”

“Give me some of your wine,” she replied. “And don’t be silly.”

“I’d believe anything of you.”

“Since when?”

“I’ve been thinking about you.”

“When have you had time to think about me?”

“While sleeping. You’re unpredictable. You function by other laws than the ones I know.”

“Good,” Lillian said. “That can never do any harm. What are we doing this afternoon?”

“This afternoon, I’m taking you with me to the Ritz. I’ll deposit you in a secluded corner of the lobby behind a few magazines for fifteen minutes while I go to my room and change. Then we’ll have a big lunch, and later a dinner and tomorrow the same, in order to undercut Uncle Gaston’s plans for day after tomorrow.”

She looked out the window and did not reply. “If you like, we can go to Sainte-Chapelle, too,” Clerfayt said. “Or to Notre-Dame, or even to a museum, you dangerous combination of bluestocking and Greek hetaera of the late period whom the winds of chance blew to Byzantium. I’m even ready to go up the Eiffel Tower or take a tour on the Bâteau Mouche.”

“I’ve already taken the Seine tour—and was made an excellent proposition by a wholesale butcher. He wanted to set me up with a three-room apartment.”

“What about the Eiffel Tower then?”

“The Eiffel Tower? Thither I’ll go with thee, beloved!”

“So I thought. Are you happy?”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t you know yet? But who really knows what it is? Dancing on the head of a pin, maybe.”

Lillian was on her way back from Uncle Gaston’s dinner. The Vicomte de Peystre was driving her to her hotel. She had spent a disconcertingly boring evening over excellent food. The company had consisted of several women and six men. The women had been
like hedgehogs, so sharply had they bristled with inquisitive hostility. Of the men, four had been unmarried, all wealthy, two young, and the Vicomte de Peystre the oldest and wealthiest. “Why do you live on the left bank?” he asked. “For romantic reasons?”

“By chance. That is the best reason I know.”

“You ought to live on the place Vendôme.”

“It’s amazing,” Lillian said, “how many people know where I ought to live better than I do.”

“I have an apartment on the place Vendôme which I never use. A studio, completely modern in its appointments.”

“Would you care to rent it to me?”

“Very gladly.”

“How much is the rent?”

Peystre shifted in his seat. “Why talk about money? Look at the place some time. If you like it, you may have it.”

“With no conditions attached?”

“None whatsoever. Of course, it would give me pleasure if you would dine with me now and then—but that, too, is not a condition.”

“That’s very generous of you,” Lillian said.

“Would you like to visit it tomorrow? We could have lunch together tomorrow afternoon.”

Lillian studied the narrow face with its white brush of mustache. “My uncle really wanted to get me married,” she said.

The Vicomte laughed. “You have plenty of time for that. Your uncle has old-fashioned views.”

“Is the apartment large enough for two?”

“I think so. Why?”

“In case I want to share it with a friend.”

Peystre studied her for a moment. “That is a possibility, too,” he said then. “Although, to be candid, the apartment would be rather
too small for that. Why not live alone for a time? You have only been in Paris for a few weeks. For the present, you ought to come to know the city. It has so much to offer.”

“You are right.”

The car stopped, and Lillian got out. “Well then, when? Tomorrow?” the Vicomte asked.

“I must give the matter thought. Would you mind if I asked Uncle Gaston’s advice?”

“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you. It might give him quite the wrong impression. You wouldn’t do it anyhow.”

“Wouldn’t I?”

“Not when you tell me beforehand that you will. You are very beautiful and very young, Mademoiselle. It would be a pleasure to set you in the environment that is proper for you. And take the word of a man who is no longer young: you may find this sort of life picturesque, but it represents lost time for you. What Uncle Gaston may think is quite irrelevant. What you require is luxury. Grand luxury. Forgive my speaking so, but I know about these things. Good night, Mademoiselle.”

She mounted the stairs. Uncle Gaston’s gallery of prospective husbands had amused and depressed her in a macabre fashion. At first, she had felt like a dying soldier to whom someone is telling stories about a plushy life. Then, she had imagined that she was on a strange planet where people lived forever and had corresponding problems. She had not understood what the other guests were talking about. Things she was indifferent to were of the highest importance to them—and what she was seeking was surrounded, for these others, by a curious taboo. Vicomte de Peystre’s offer seemed to her the most sensible thing she had heard this evening.

“Was it a nice party?” Clerfayt asked from the corridor.

“Are you here already? I thought you would be out drinking somewhere.”

“I didn’t feel like it.”

“Were you waiting for me?”

“Yes,” Clerfayt said. “You are turning me into a respectable person. I don’t any longer want to drink. Not unless you are drinking with me.”

“Did you used to drink a lot?”

“Yes. Always between races. And often between accidents. Out of cowardice, I think. Or to run away from myself. That’s over now. I spent this afternoon in Sainte-Chapelle. Tomorrow, I’m going to the Cluny Museum. Someone who saw us together mentioned that you look like the lady on the unicorn tapestries they have there. You’re having a great deal of success. Would you like to go out again?”

“Not tonight!”

“You’ve spent the evening with sober people who believe that life is a kitchen, a parlor, and a bedroom, not a sailboat with far too many sails, which may turn over at any moment. You have to offset all that.”

Lillian’s eyes began to shine. “So you have been drinking, after all?”

“I don’t need to, with you. Wouldn’t you like to drive around a little?”

“Around where?”

“Down every street and to every night club you’ve ever heard of. You’re gloriously dressed—a shame to waste it on Uncle Gaston’s candidates. At the least, we must take this dress out—even if you yourself don’t want to. Dresses carry responsibilities along with them.”

“All right. Let’s go driving. Slowly. Through many, many
streets. Not one of them covered with snow. With flower girls on the corners. Let’s take a carload of violets with us.”

Clerfayt fetched Giuseppe out of the tangle of parked cars on the quay and waited in front of the hotel door. The restaurant next door began to close.

“The pining lover,” someone said at his side. “Aren’t you too old for such a part?”

It was Lydia Morelli. She had come out of the restaurant ahead of her escort.

“Much too old,” Clerfayt replied.

Lydia draped the end of her white fur stole over her shoulder. “A new role! Rather ridiculous, my dear. With such a young chit.”

“What a tribute,” Clerfayt answered. “When you talk like that, it means she must be fascinating.”