Paris: The Novel (122 page)

“There is just one thing, madame,” Jacob said. He was gazing at her kindly. “The artist may ask me who bought the painting.”

“Just tell him that a private collector has the work.”

“You are sure, madame? He might like to meet you.” His voice was very soft.

He had guessed. She was sure of it.

“No, monsieur, I do not wish to meet the artist.”

“As you wish, madame.” He opened the door and bowed, as she stepped out into the street.

She took a taxi back. She was eager to spend a little time alone in her apartment thinking about the best place to hang the picture and its accompanying drawings.

She also couldn’t help reflecting that it was sad that she couldn’t make herself known to her blood relations—to Marie, whom she liked, and Marc who, whatever his faults, had talents to be admired, and to her dear old grandfather down at Fontainebleau. Might she and Claire, whom she’d seen only from a distance, have become friends? Or would they have rejected her, as her mother’s family had done? She didn’t intend to find out.

But unknown to them all, with the purchase of the portrait, she was piecing together her family, her true identity, reconstituting a past and a truth that would otherwise have been lost.

For a few moments, her thoughts turned to Luc. He was the one who had set her upon this path that put a moral and social barrier between herself and her real family. Most people would say he had corrupted her. But if she felt a resentment over the fact, she told herself that it was useless. She had chosen her path too. Had she chosen another, she might have found a respectable husband. Perhaps. But then she’d have had no freedom. There were no other paths to fortune that were open to a woman. Whereas, after a few more years of this, she’d be able to retire as a lady of independent means.

Only one thing was missing from her life now.

A husband? Truly, she wasn’t sure she wanted one, and certainly not the kind of man who’d want to marry a brothel keeper. But she would have liked a child. And time was passing on. She was thirty-six.

It could be arranged. She could surely find a rich lover again, a man of some interest, perhaps. She needn’t tell him her intention. If he wanted to help the child, good. If not, she could provide. Perhaps, she thought, as the taxi reached the rue de Montmorency, this would be the next step forward in her life.

She paid the cab and went swiftly up to the door, letting herself in with her key. The hall was empty, as was the salon on her right, but from the morning room at the back, some low voices told her that one or two girls had already arrived. She was just about to mount the stairs when she heard a man’s voice, speaking softly. She frowned. Surely this wasn’t a customer. They were always kept in the salon. Then she realized it was Luc’s voice. Perhaps he had wanted to see her.

She went quietly to the door of the morning room, and opened it.

The two figures sprung apart. It was Luc and Bernadette. The girl went pale. But they weren’t breaking from a lovers’ embrace. She could tell that at once. It was something else. The girl was holding a small handbag. She had clipped it shut as she moved back. Louise came into the room and closed the door behind her. She ignored Luc, but went straight toward Bernadette.

“Open your bag,” she commanded.

“But those are my things, madame,” the girl protested.

“Give it to me.” She didn’t wait. She took it from the frightened girl
before she could resist. She opened it, looked in and saw what she had suspected at once.

Two little packets of cocaine. She took them, satisfied herself that it was what she thought and handed the bag back to Bernadette.

“Madame …,” the girl began, but Louise cut her off.

“You know the rules. Get out.”

“Madame?”

“Don’t come here anymore. Tell your cousin we can’t use her either. Now get out.” She turned, opened the door and indicated the way out. The girl looked at Luc, expecting him to intercede.

“But it’s not necessary, Louise …,” he began.

“We always agreed,” she answered. “You can’t go back on it now.” She turned to the girl again. “Go,” she commanded. And this time Luc was silent.

After the girl had gone, Louise turned to Luc. She was no longer angry, but she was sad.

“How could you betray me?” she asked.

“It’s not so important.”

“It is to me. How many others were there? I need to know.”

“Only Bernadette. She has been using cocaine for years. She’s not addicted. She’s all right.”

“So you’ve lied to me for years.”

“It’s only Bernadette.”

“I can’t trust you, Luc.”

“You can trust me.”

“No.” She shook her head. “I can’t.” She sighed. “Don’t come here anymore, Luc. Don’t come near my girls.”

“Don’t talk to me like that, Louise. You need me.”

She paused. She didn’t need him at all, but she didn’t say it.

“Whatever I owed you was paid long ago,” she said. “You have hurt me very much. I don’t wish to see you anymore.”

“Just don’t forget to pay me,” he said quietly.

“I’m not going to pay you anymore.”

She saw his hand go toward his side. She remembered that he sometimes carried a stiletto. But his hand did not go farther, and she decided it was just an automatic reaction when he was crossed.

“You pay me,” he said, “or you will regret it.” Then he left.

Now, she thought, she had two new girls to find.

After the rapid ending of the strikes in June, Max Le Sourd and his father had seen little of each other. Through the long summer and into the autumn, they had each gone about their business. Each Sunday afternoon, Max would look in at his parents’ apartment in Belleville. His mother would be there, but his father would always go out. In due course, Max supposed, he’d find his father there, but it hadn’t happened so far.

For Max it was a painful time, not only because he felt the separation from his father, but because by the time that summer was over, it was beginning to look as if his father had been right.

True, at first, the party strategy had seemed to be wise. The strikers had accepted the terms of the government’s settlement, and gone back to work. Even the employers had praised the parties and the unions for showing such responsibility. Moreover, the new working conditions were a huge improvement. “This is historic progress,” the unions could claim. They had won respect.

But would it last? Within weeks, the employers started to whittle back the benefits the strike had won. As he looked forward, it was clear to Max that he would soon see more of the same.

Outside France itself, the Spanish military and Catholic right had launched a massive counterattack on the leftist government in July. Spain was now in a state of civil war. Fascist Italy and Germany were sending support to the military. In France, Blum’s socialist government was dithering over what to do. Was Spain about to fall under a fascist regime?

And in the month of August, the Nazi regime in Germany had staged the Olympic games with a magnificence that the whole world had watched and applauded. A token German athlete with a Jewish father had been allowed to take part. But while all the world’s press and thousands of visitors had only to look around them in Berlin to see what the Nazi regime was really like, the splendor and beauty of the games had overpowered their imaginations. As his father had perceived, they didn’t want to know. Hitler’s fascist regime had scored a huge propaganda success.

So what had been achieved? Max asked himself. The answer: nothing. The Marxist cause had been betrayed, the chance of revolution lost, its enemies stronger than ever.

He had been wrong. His father had been right. The question was, what could he do now?

On the first Sunday of October, the fourth day of the month, Max went as usual to his parents’ apartment. His father was not there, so he talked to his mother as usual. But instead of leaving at the end of the afternoon, he remained there.

It was six o’clock when his father came in.

“Oh,” he said, “you’re here.” But he didn’t leave.

“I came to say good-bye,” said Max. “I didn’t want to leave without saying good-bye to you.”

“Leave?” His father frowned. “Where are you going?”

“They’re recruiting international brigades to fight against Franco and his fascists in Spain.”

“I’ve heard.”

“I went for an interview on Friday. Paris is the main recruitment center, as you know. Being a Communist Party member, I was accepted at once. All the others have to be interviewed by a Russian intelligence officer.” He grinned. “I would have enjoyed being grilled by the NKVD, but it was denied me.”

His father registered faint disgust at the mention of Russia, but made no other comment.

“Why don’t you go as a war correspondent, for
L’Humanité
?” his mother asked.

“Not needed. Anyway, I want to fight.”

His mother said nothing. He turned to his father.

“I have to go, you know.”

“I know.”

“This summer, I was wrong. You were right.”

“There was nothing you could have done yourself, in any case. It wasn’t your fault.”

“No. But all the same …” Max shrugged. “I wanted to say I was sorry.”

His father gave a brief nod. Then, rather stiffly, he hugged him.

“Come back,” he said.

•  1794  •

It was the age of hope. The Age of Reason. The dawn of Freedom, Liberty, Equality. The time for all men to be brothers.

And now it was the time of the Terror.

In France, when the eighteenth century began, that grim, magnificent autocrat the Sun King still sat upon the throne. The long reign of his successor, Louis XV, had brought a financial collapse, it was true, but there had also been a gilded luxury that would be remembered with pleasure for centuries to come.

And the Enlightenment, and the Romantic spirit: these too, Frenchmen could say—for they claimed both Voltaire and Rousseau as their own—had been born in France during that mighty century. Voltaire had taught the world to love reason; Rousseau had taught the natural goodness of the human heart.

Hadn’t these ideas inspired the American Revolution? Hadn’t French support, and French arms, made possible the independence of the grand new country in the huge New World?

Now, in the reign of Louis XVI and his not-very-popular Austrian wife, Marie Antoinette, France itself had begun its own revolution. But where the American Revolution had promised an honest freedom from oppression, this French Revolution would be something altogether more radical, more philosophical, more profound. After all, it was French.

In France, a new world age would be born.

First they had stormed the Bastille. Then they had taken the king from
Versailles to Paris, and made him obey their will. And when he had tried to flee, they had cut off his head. And after that?

After that, the world had turned against them, and they had argued among themselves.

And now, it was the time of the Terror.