Paris: The Novel (110 page)

In many ways, Marie could see, Frank and Hemingway were similar. Both were clearly athletic fellows, although Hemingway was more of a showman. Hemingway was only a couple of years older, but Frank treated him as a mentor. Maybe because Hemingway was already a married man, but more likely because he’d served in the war. That was the great dividing line in the younger generation, she’d noticed—whether you’d been in the war or not.

Hemingway, for his part, treated Frank very much like a brother, and one he respected. “I know you’re a good oarsman, Frank,” he remarked, “but you should try boxing. I know a good trainer here. I’d be glad to spar with you.”

He also told them that Frank was writing short stories, and was quite surprised they didn’t know.

“I hope to learn a little about writing while I’m here,” Frank confessed. “But I shall go home like my father, in due course, and become a teacher.” He smiled. “That’s a good enough life for an honest man.”

“It certainly is,” Hemingway agreed, “but you could make a name as a writer. It may surprise you, but it won’t surprise me.”

Claire seemed intrigued by Frank’s literary interests and wanted to know more, but Frank was keeping his cards close to his chest.

“I’ll tell you one thing, though,” he said. “The best advice I ever had came from Hemingway here.”

“Tell us,” Claire said.

“Everyone who tries to write anything should know this,” said Frank. “What Hemingway told me is that he never stops a day’s work until he knows exactly what’s coming next. Stop then, and you’ll be able to get back into rhythm when you start writing again. If you don’t do that, you’ll probably get stuck at the beginning of every day’s work.”

“So don’t come to the end of a section and put down your pen and say, ‘That’s done, now I’ll stop for the day.’ ”

“Exactly. Natural reaction, but fatal error.”

“I like that,” said Claire. “It’s good to know practical things.”

Marie watched. A flirtatious young man can be attractive, but when he shows he has a serious side as well, and skills that he values, he becomes even more intriguing. She wondered what else Frank was going to say to get her daughter’s interest.

The Vélodrome d’hiver was a big covered stadium. For the cycle races, a wooden track would be set up, and the spectators would crowd into the
center area of the track as well as the steep tiers of seats around the sides. Hemingway told them that he loved to come to the cycle races, but that all the terms were French and it was hard to write about them in English.

For the boxing, however, the stadium had been turned into a huge auditorium with the ring in the center, and an array of powerful lamps hanging from the metal rafters high overhead.

They watched several bouts. Both Hemingway and Frank seemed to be well informed. The United States looked set to take the most medals, but the American strength was in the lighter weight classes. The British dominated the middleweights. The Scandinavians were strong in the heavyweight class.

The two men discussed the boxers with some knowledge. It seemed that Hemingway sparred in a gym quite often, and Marie asked him if he went to boxing matches in America.

“The last I went to, I saw the finest fighter in the world.”

“Who’s that?”

“Gene Tunney. Light heavyweight champion. If he could make the extra weight and fight as a heavyweight, I think he could beat Jack Dempsey.”

“I thought no one could do that.”

“Tunney might. That’s a man I’d like to meet.”

Frank grinned.

“What would you say to Tunney if you met him, Hemingway?”

“I’d ask him to fight me.”

Marie laughed, but Hemingway’s wife, Hadley, shook her head.

“You don’t understand,” she said. “He really would.”

Frank laughed.

“Tell them the Pamplona story, Hadley,” he said, with a sideways glance at his mentor.

“Last year,” said Hadley, “when I’m pregnant with Jack, I am told that I must watch a bullfight in Pamplona because the sensation of it will be good for my unborn child. You know. Toughen him up before he’s even born.” She looked at Hemingway fondly. “I am married to a crazy man.”

Soon after four o’clock, Marie and Claire left their new friends and returned to their apartment. Frank was going to join Claire at her uncle’s in the evening. On their way back, Marie asked Claire what she thought of the day so far.

“I love Shakespeare and Company.”

“And the Hemingways?”

“They seem very much in love. He means to be a figure in the world.”

“I agree. A showman,” said Marie.

“They say his short stories are really fine, though.”

“And Frank Hadley?” She made it sound casual.

“Were you interested in his father?”

Marie laughed.

“He was Marc’s friend, rather than mine. Your father and I were already courting at that time. I think the son’s a bit of a flirt. Not to be trusted.”

“He seems serious about his writing. He denies it, but I think he is.”

“That may be. Avoid him if he has any talent.”

“Why?”

“Because all artists are monsters.”

“Tell me about Monsieur de Cygne. Is he an old flame?”

“No. His father and your grandfather were friends. He was always away with his regiment. But he was nice, the few times we did see him.”

“You’re both free now. You could be a vicomtesse.”

“Better than that,
chérie
. I can be seen at the opera with him. It’s quite respectable, and chic.”

“Is that so good for you?”

“You’re missing the point, my child. It’s good for the store.”

She enjoyed the evening. It was the very end of the ballet season, after which the Opéra would close until September. The opulence of Garnier’s opera house, the magnificent, gold Corinthian columns, the sumptuous decoration, the gilded balconies and tiers, and the rich, velvety red seats recalled the Belle Époque of her youth so strongly that she gave a light laugh as they sat down.

Roland gave her a quizzical look.

“It’s so preposterous,” she said happily.

“You find it vulgar?”

“Can an overstuffed cushion be vulgar? It’s a kind of heaven, like a huge gâteau.”

He chuckled.

“I can imagine my dear father looking down from the balcony with the same ironic pleasure you feel.”

“And my father too. They smoked the same cigars, you know.”

“We share similar memories.”

“Mine are more bourgeois, Monsieur de Cygne.” She smiled. “Complementary, perhaps.”

“That’s it exactly,” he said with a nod.

During the interval, they sat and talked. She asked him about his son.

“He’s at the same lycée that I went to,” he told her, “and I don’t know if I did the right thing or not. It was always very conservative, and it still is. I wonder if I should have sent him to a place where their ideas are more modern. On the other hand, I feel I can help him better because I understand the school.”

“Is he happy?”

“He says he is.”

“I think you did right. If you felt out of sympathy with the school, uncomfortable with the teachers, then you’d feel off-balance yourself. Children don’t have to agree with their parents, but they like it when their parents are comfortable with themselves, if you know what I mean.”

“I’m so glad you say that.”

She could see that he said it with some emotion. Yes, she thought, you’re a good man.

She wanted to go straight home after the performance, but when he asked if she might care to go to the opera when the new season began, she smiled and told him: “After such a delightful evening at the ballet, monsieur, I cannot imagine why I should not want to go to the opera with you.”

“I go down to my estate in a couple of days,” he said, “but you may be sure, madame, that I shall look forward to taking you to the opera as soon as I return in September.”

The apartment was quiet when she returned. Claire was still not back. After she had prepared for bed, Marie told her lady’s maid that she and the other servants should go to sleep and that she’d let her daughter in herself.

She was looking forward to hearing about the Ballets Russes from Claire. Diaghilev and his company had decided to stage
Le Train bleu
for the Olympics, and it had opened just four weeks ago at the Théâtre
des Champs-Élysèes, which lay below the great avenue, near the river. All Paris knew about the huge front cloth that Picasso had painted for it, of two strangely ungainly women running on a beach.

Claire could be relied upon to give a vivid description of the performance.

An hour passed. Marie supposed that her brother had either taken the young people out to a restaurant, or was giving them a drink at his apartment. She decided to telephone him.

When he picked up the receiver, he sounded half asleep.

“I was looking for Claire,” she said.

“Oh. They went for a drink with friends. Americans.”

“Where?”

“How do I know?”

“You let Claire go out with a young man, to God knows where, in the middle of the night?”

“Look, Marie … She’s a young woman now.”

“She’s a respectable young woman. Do you remember what they are like?” she shouted down the line. “But I was forgetting,” she added bitterly, “you never knew any respectable girls in the first place.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Look after her. Return her to me. Not let her go off with a young man in the middle of the night. You have no sense of responsibility,” she cried in exasperation. “You never had.”

“Well, there’s nothing I can do now, anyway.” He sounded guilty, but bored as well, which only infuriated her more.

She hung up.

And then she waited. After a while, she opened the window of the salon, which gave out onto a small balcony where she could see up and down the street. Paris was silent. Now and then someone appeared in the lamplight, but it seemed that the city had gone to sleep.

Were they in a bar or nightclub? The night was warm. Were they walking along the Seine, or out on one of the bridges? Was young Frank’s arm around Claire? Was he kissing her? Or worse, had they gone back to his lodgings? Would he do such a thing? Of course he would. He was a young man.

She wanted to run into the street and save her daughter. And perhaps she might have gone out, if she had any idea where they might be.

She pictured Frank Hadley, his tall frame and unruly mane of hair, so exactly like his father. She imagined his eyes in the darkness.

And then, despite herself, she was assailed by a terrible sensation. It caught her by surprise and took hold over her before she even knew it was happening.

She wanted Frank Hadley.

Was it young Frank, or his father? She could hardly say. The other evening at her brother’s it had seemed that the Frank she knew had suddenly walked in from the past. Now it felt as if her old self had reappeared, as if the layers that made up her personality had been peeled back to the girl she’d been a quarter century ago, who had now emerged, hardly changed from what she had been before.

The shock she had felt when she saw Frank had now turned into something else. A terrible longing.

Desire. Jealousy. She wanted him for herself.

Could one be two people at the same time? It seemed she could. As a mother, she wanted to protect her daughter from Frank Hadley. But when she thought of them together, she wasn’t a mother anymore. She was a woman whose rival is trying to steal her lover. She felt ready, almost, to physically attack her. But first, she had to know.

Was Claire her rival? And how far had it gone?

She was sitting on the sofa in this confused state when she heard a sound at the door. She moved quickly to the hall. The front door opened. It was Claire.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine.” She looked pale. “I drank too much.”

“It’s so late. I was worried about you.”

“I’m fine.” Claire closed the door.

“You came home alone?”

“No. They brought me to the door.”

“They?”

“Frank and his friends.”

Was she telling the truth? Marie wanted to run back to the balcony to see if they were down in the street, but didn’t feel she could.