Luncheon of the Boating Party (31 page)

“Did you kiss him?”

He waited without moving, rare for him.

“What was a kiss since I’d already saved him? Already betrayed

Louis, and France. Yes, Auguste. I breathed my life into him. I allowed him to thank me in that way.”

Auguste’s cheek twitched violently. It made her think that he needed her to say that nothing else happened between them.

“He was gone in the morning. He had straightened the daybed, military style, and had left a medal on the pillow.
Heiliger Christophorus,
it said. Saint Christopher, I assumed.”

How quickly, that morning, she had hurried down rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré to the church of La Madeleine. Bodies of French soldiers and citizens had been piled four deep in the portico. She covered her nose with her handkerchief and went inside. Amid the din of screams and moans, the nuns calling for more bandages, the stench of rotting flesh and feces, she squeezed her way past rows of wounded men on cots, to get to the small painting and offertory of Sainte Rita, Advocate of Desperate Causes, and said the prayer.
You, the saint of the impossible,
give me the courage to hope. Tell me how to love more.
She’d lit two candles. Neither one was for her.

“I knew that Louis would know, but I could not, would not take

back what I’d done. And Louis didn’t come home.”

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“Leaving the man to die would not have brought Louis home.”

“I know.” She put her hand in the water, washing it cool and clean.

The awkwardness of the silence made her say, “See?
X
equals
y
equals
z.
Hat shop, soldier, sadness.”

“You are a poet.
Une Symboliste.
”

Was that all he would give her? That she was a poet? Not that she was a humanitarian or even a compassionate person? Not that he understood? He was as silent as a dumb brute.

She yanked one steering cord out of his hand to turn the boat around, and dug in the oars. Her rage exploded in each hard stroke.

“So, Alsace and Lorraine were to be joined to Bavaria.” Words tumbled out in a hot flood. “Did they have to learn to breathe differently as Bavarians? Weep differently? Die differently? Did Bavarians make love differently? Does it make a difference whether we say
amour
or
liebe?
Every French person would say yes, including you, Auguste, but when Bismarck’s legions marched triumphantly under our Arc de Triomphe and down the Champs-Élysées a month after the surrender,

what was I doing while Parisians all around me were hissing? Looking for my Prussian in the ranks.”

She was practically yelling at him. “And then the Communards. We hadn’t had enough dying, we had to kill each other. That’s
la vie moderne.
Your painting is celebrating modern life? Just think what we’re doing in our modern life. Tossing live babies in trapeze acts to make us forget.”

“Take a breath, Alphonsine.”

She gave him a chance to say something, but he didn’t.

“Isn’t there anything more to you than a brush? You don’t see me, do you? You with the vision to see hundreds of colors, you see only a carrot.

Maybe Guy and Edgar are right about you and your pretty rose-colored world.”

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C h a p t e r T w e n t y

A Ride in the Country

Jeanne raised the pale green dress over her head and let it fall billowing over her shoulders and down to her ankles, feeling a cool swoosh of air bathing her. She read the script for
Le bourgeois gentilhomme
on the bed while she did up her hair. Nicole’s lines were short, but they still had potential. How many ways could she say, “I won’t”? She practiced it with a pretty pout. “I won’t.” A glare. A dash of spunk. A husky, unlady-like outburst. A syrupy sweetness but fire in her eyes. She put on a touch of rouge, chose her cream-colored hat, and brought the script with her.

Downstairs, her father was already at work in the music room. How would she get by without music in the house?

“A Sunday dress on a Friday?” her mother said in the hallway, not frowning, but with an eyebrow raised. “Are you posing again?”

“No. Just going on an outing with Joseph-Paul.” She turned her

back to have her mother do up her row of hooks. “A ride in the country, then to the theater. I won’t be home for dinner.”

“Sit down. Don’t rush through life. Have your
café.
”

She sipped her
café au lait
with her eyes on the script. Maman always had her
café
ready when she came downstairs, and they talked a bit.

Now how would it be? She and Joseph-Paul together speaking of the day ahead over their
café
and croissant? But who would make it?

“We have to live above a café. I’m going to demand it.”

Maman’s mouth formed an uncertain smile. “Just make sure . . .”

Jeanne’s cup rattled as she replaced it in the saucer.

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“Make sure you know what you’re doing.”

Jeanne took her last sip, and placed her hand over her mother’s for a moment. “I will.” She tucked the script into her drawstring bag.

Outside, she plucked off a sprig of honeysuckle at Eva’s house and held it to her nose. A bride’s flower. At the foot of the crescent she opened the iron gate and, with Joseph-Paul extending his hand, stepped into the waiting carriage.

“You had me worried. You’re ten minutes late,” Joseph said.

“I had to have a
café
with Maman.”

The carriage lurched ahead and his kiss landed on her ear.

“You’re especially beautiful this morning. It’s a shame we don’t have time to stop at Nadar’s studio for your portrait.”

“Can’t we get married the proper way? Telling your parents too? I feel like a thief robbing them of happy moments.”

He gave her an understanding look. “It won’t be happy if my father thinks he can stop us.”

“He’s not God.”

“No, but he has powerful connections on this earth. He and my

grandfather spent their lifetimes acquiring an estate and a reputation which I will inherit and you will enjoy. I’m sorry to say it will be a come-down to him at first, until he comes to love you, which he will, I’m sure. So in the meantime, please pay him the respect to give him time to adjust and to put on a public face.”

“He’s only a financial middleman. My father’s a creator, an artist.

That should make him at least equal in the scheme of things.”

“All artists are only playthings of a fi ckle public.”

“That’s unkind of you.”

“I’m only telling you the way my father will see it.”

She thought of Molière’s line for Madame Jourdain:
Marriages between people not of the same rank are subject to the most serious inconveniences.
This deception, then, was a mere inconvenience? Molière had the lovers marry through deception, but each couple married within their class. Not a good sign, but that was in the seventeenth century.

She looked out the window. They were heading north through Porte

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de Clichy. Beyond the town, they turned to the northwest through rolling hills. Wheat fields were beginning to turn golden, almost ready for harvest, and pickers were on ladders in the plum orchards. In every fold of land a stream flowed, and at every crossing there was a village.

“You must promise me one thing. Two things. That we will have a proper wedding in Paris, for Maman and Papa and our friends.”

“Don’t you think I want to show off my bride to all of Paris?”

“Do your parents love each other?” she asked.

“I’ve never thought about it.” He kissed her hand. “All that matters is that we do.”

“It’s not as simple as that. Where will we live?”

“I found a large suite not too far from the Bourse. You’ll be pleased.”

He smiled as if knowing that he was going to drop her a plum. “It’s on rue Molière.”

“Rue Molière! That’s near the theater!” There were two good cafés on that one-block street where actors ate. More important than the cafés, he wouldn’t have chosen that street if he were going to deny her the theater, would he?

“Now, what was the second promise?”

“The dowry. Our parents will come together to discuss that.”

“Our fathers only, when the time is right.”

“When the papers are drawn up, I want the dowry to be designated as falling under the
régime dotal.
”

He puffed out a breath. “You surprise me. What’s wrong with the
régime d’acquêts,
sharing everything equally?”

“Under the
régime dotal,
the capital, or principal of the dowry, is in-violable. The husband can use the income from the dowry, but not the dowry itself. It’s a protection for the woman. Otherwise, if you go bankrupt, the whole dowry could be seized.”

“
Mon Dieu!
Where did you learn all those big words, my little worrier?”

“From Hubertine Auclert. I attended a talk she gave.”

“That virago! I’m not planning to go bankrupt, so you don’t need to fill your pretty head with numbers and laws.” He knocked his knuckle on her forehead.

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She turned her head away and said with real pique in her voice, “I don’t want my father’s money, which he earned note by note, as a
lowly
musician to be used to make good on your debts if the Bourse turns fickle. I want the
régime dotal.
”

He let out a huge, false sigh. “We’ll see. Let’s not have that spoil this lovely ride, the only such ride we’ll ever take.”

She gave him a sharp nod, to tell him she considered it settled.

The carriage stopped. She poked her head out the window and

breathed the smells of clover and earth and manure. A narrow bridge ahead was occupied by a boy and his goats. A bell on the lead goat rang out a cheerful sound. The bell would last longer than the goats, or the boy. A few stone houses, centuries old, were overgrown with vines. Right here, people had been born, were married, had children, and died. A timeless cycle. Here, no doubt, people all married within their class.

“These people, so close to Paris yet their lives are so different from ours, except for the broadest story lines,” she said. “They may never have heard of Molière.”

“Or the
régime dotal.
”

After an hour, the coachman stopped in front of a church.

“What village is this?” she asked.

“Saint Ouen-l’Aumône. The priest and mayor are expecting us.”

Joseph-Paul leapt out and offered her his hand. Once, only once in her life would she step out of a carriage for so momentous an errand.

When she would step back up, in only a few minutes, would avenue Frochot still exist?

The church was small, dark, and cool. Père Bellon, the round-

cheeked priest with milky blue eyes extended both hands in welcome—

thick hands like a peasant’s, with age spots.

“The mayor will be here right away.”

He rang the church bell and the mayor arrived and read the required sections of the Civil Code. Against his monotonous blur of words, the many ways of saying
I won’t
kept creeping into her thoughts.

The emptiness of the sanctuary, its plaster crucifix, the dust motes floating in a ray of light coming through a window onto the altar made the moment solemn, timeless, and very private. Each time they stood for

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a recitation and then sat again, the pew creaked. The priest’s words were a comfort, countering the satire of the playwrights. Finally he came to the crux, and she was ready. She looked directly at Joseph-Paul.

“Do you, Léontine-Pauline-Jeanne Samary, take Marie-Joseph-

Paul Lagarde, to be your lawfully wedded husband, to honor and cherish for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, as long as you both shall live?”

“I do . . .”

Don’t change that tenderest of expressions,
she told him with her eyes.

Don’t blink, don’t twitch a muscle,
she told herself.

“. . . on the condition that the dowry be contracted under the
régime
dotal,
” she said in the sweetest voice she had in her repertoire, but with fire in her eyes.

Joseph-Paul’s smile vanished. The priest looked to him for a sign to continue. She kept her pose as though she were commanding a moment of drama on the stage. Joseph-Paul gave a slight nod and the priest continued, ending with, “I now pronounce you man and wife, with the stipulation that the dowry be contracted under the
régime dotal.
”

The priest and mayor sent them on their way with benign smiles

and a hand clasp for Joseph-Paul, and they climbed into the carriage to cross the Oise at Pontoise.

At an auberge festooned with ivy, she speculated about the apartment he had picked, the friends they would invite to the city wedding.

She asked him about his favorite food, his favorite color, his favorite possession, what he kept in his pocket, when he got up in the morning, what he did at home in the evenings, those mysteries that surrounded him, and then she stopped. A certain mystique was essential for love, to anticipate touching the untouched. There were thresholds she didn’t want to reach without imagining them fi rst.

One more question nipped at her mind. “Will we have a cook and

housemaid?” When he said yes, she nestled in his arms for the ride back to Paris. The house would not be the battlefield. Theater would.

After the last curtain call that evening, she hurried through the back-stage corridors to her dressing loge. Red and white roses crowded her

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dressing table on both sides. Joseph-Paul sprang to his feet and pulled her to him. “Your performance was particularly brilliant tonight, Madame Lagarde,” he said, whispering the last two words.