Paris: The Novel (153 page)

It had been just as she was about to return to America that Esmé had sprung his idea on her.

“I wish I could see more of you. And it’s obvious that you enjoy being here in Paris. Now that Grand-mère is gone, you need an excuse to come over. Why don’t you buy a little pied-à-terre here in Paris? You can certainly afford it.”

“It wouldn’t make sense to do that if I wasn’t going to spend quite a bit of time here. At least two or three months a year,” she pointed out.

“So why don’t you? There’s nothing to stop you.”

“I really don’t think so,” she’d said.

She’d talked to her children about it, back in America. But with their own young families to keep them busy, they didn’t think they’d be able to make much use of such a place.

“Just do it if it makes you happy, Mother,” they’d said.

But like most people who’ve been mothers, Claire didn’t find it easy to do things just for herself. So she’d turned to Phil.

After drifting slowly apart from each other, she and Frank had waited until the children were grown before quietly divorcing in the fifties. Frank had married again. She’d had a few discreet affairs, none really satisfactory. She’d concentrated on her own work.

And she’d made a small name for herself. She had written three well-received art books, and two works of fiction based on the lives of artists. Not only had these sold well in America, but to her great delight they had been published to critical acclaim in France.

And then she’d found Phil. Or, he would say, he’d found her.

Phil was her friend. He was her husband now, and she couldn’t be happier
about that fact, but above all he was her friend. He wasn’t tall and handsome like Frank. He was somewhat round. He didn’t have eyes that made her go weak at the knees. His eyes were brown, and gentle, and amused. He’d been a doctor, recently retired. Her children liked him. That was important. Just as important, so did her mother. After she’d been with him for a year, but not yet married, Marie had told her: “I’ve left Phil a bequest in my will, dear, that I thought you ought to know about. I’ve decided to leave him that painting of Saint-Lazare in the snow. The one by Norbert Goeneutte.”

“But I always loved that painting,” she’d cried.

“Yes, dear. I know.”

When Claire had asked Phil what he thought about a Parisian pied-à-terre, he’d been unequivocal.

“I think you should do it,” he said. “You’ve family there.”

“I don’t care too much about Jules’s family. And if Esmé wants to see me, he can get on a plane. He’s free, and he’s got all the money in the world. And I’m pretty much happy staying here with you, you know.”

“You mean you won’t take me to Paris?”

“Not for months at a time. You don’t speak French.”

“So I can learn. It’ll be a project.”

“I’m not going to ask you to do that for me.”

“The offer’s open.”

But she’d put the idea out of her mind, and spent a very pleasant summer sailing and seeing her grandchildren, and Phil’s.

And then Esmé, with his cheek and sense of humor, had sent her a telegram.

COME AT ONCE.

“This is ridiculous,” she’d said.

“Why don’t you go?” said Phil.

It was perfect, of course. It was delicious beyond all words. It was on the Île de la Cité itself, with a quaint living room with old beams, and two bedrooms, and a view over the Seine one way, and a glimpse of the flying buttresses of Notre Dame the other. It was romantic. It was fun.

“You can be on either the Left Bank or the Right in a five-minute walk,” the agent pointed out, when she and Esmé inspected it.

“It’s Friday,” Esmé said. “I’ll give you dinner tonight. Then we can go
to the château for the weekend. I’ve already told them you’ll want to see it again on Monday. Then you can make up your mind.”

“You’ve already planned all this?”

“Yes,” he said.

They had dinner in the Marais quarter. Claire had always found that part of Paris interesting. Since the days when King Henry IV had built the lovely brick square of the Place Royale, the Marais had been home to so many of the great aristocratic
hôtels
, as they were called. But when the court had moved to Versailles, the nobles had little need of their Paris mansions, and many fell into disrepair. The aristocracy had usually gone to the Saint-Germain quarter, after that.

But if the grand old mansions had been split into tenements, and parts of the area had become a thriving Jewish quarter, and other parts had filled with poorer folk from one or other of France’s colonial possessions, whose streets, rightly or wrongly, had a bad reputation at night, one old square had retained its magical charm. The old Place Royale was called the Place des Vosges now. Apartments in its quiet brick mansions were favored by international stars and the artistic rich. It was chic.

And it was in a quiet restaurant under the old colonnades that Esmé and Claire enjoyed a mellow dinner, and talked of the old days when she ran Joséphine, and met Hemingway, and Gertrude Stein, and many others. And Esmé told her that he was thinking of buying an apartment in the Place des Vosges himself, and how André Malraux was cleaning up the whole area, and restoring the old mansions, and how they were planning a huge new cultural center over in the southwest corner of the Marais that would be like a sort of modernist cathedral when it was built.

But he was careful not to mention the subject of her pied-à-terre at all.

The next day they drove down to the château. Esmé didn’t spend as much time there as he should. He was too busy with his life in Paris. But the place had its chatelaine.

Claire had heard about Laïla, the Jewish girl whom they’d rescued in the war, but she’d never met her. She found a delightful woman in her thirties. Laïla had married recently, a local vet, and they had converted one of the stable yards into a delightful office and animal hospital, as well as a large apartment for themselves. It suited everybody.

“Laïla’s part of the family,” Esmé explained. “She knows far more about
everything in the château than I do, and she keeps the place in wonderful order.”

When Laïla took Claire around, and explained all the furniture to her, it was clear that she had mastered her subject to an almost professional standard. Indeed, when she showed Claire her favorite unicorn tapestry, one might almost have thought that she owned it herself.

Claire spent a relaxing weekend at the château, enjoying the country air. Then Esmé drove her back to Paris. Upon parting from her, he reminded her that she had an appointment to see the place on the Île de la Cité the following morning, but that he would not accompany her.

“I’ll see you for dinner,” he said, “and you can tell me the verdict.”

Claire left the funicular behind her and went through the streets of Montmartre. She had only once before been up there for the wine festival, and that had been long ago. No doubt it was even busier at the weekend, but there was still plenty of activity. The little vineyard on the back of the hill was looking very charming. Below it, the streets of the old Maquis were looking quite respectable now. But the whole hill still retained a bright, intimate village atmosphere that probably went back to medieval or even Roman times. The wine from the grapes themselves was not too drinkable, but she found space at a table at the Lapin Agile where the men welcomed her very cheerfully and insisted on sharing their bottle of wine with her.

It took only a couple of drinks for her to feel very much at home.

Were they all from Montmartre? she asked.

No, they laughed, they were all from the car works out at Boulogne-Billancourt. But their foreman was from here.

He was a short, sturdy, thickset man, but with a kindly face. His grandfather had lived in the Maquis when he was a boy.

“You had to be tough to live in the Maquis,” one of the men said, and there was a chorus of agreement. Yes, one had to be tough.

She was quite definitely a little drunk by the time she thanked them and went back up the hill. She might be a little drunk, she thought, but it hadn’t helped her in the least decide what to do about that pied-à-terre. Did Phil really mean it when he said he wanted to learn French?

It was half an hour later that Marcel Gascon walked out onto the wide steps in front of the great white basilica of Sacré Coeur. It was a lovely afternoon, the light catching the towers of Notre Dame, the distant dome of Les Invalides and the graceful curve of the Eiffel Tower.

There were quite a few people about, but he noticed one woman sitting alone, staring out over the city. It was the woman who’d shared a drink with the boys a short time ago. She’d been an elegant woman, distinguished.

He’d rather wished the boys hadn’t made so much of the toughness of the Maquis. It was true, of course. But they made it sound as if everyone who came from there was crude, stupid, perhaps.

He went over to the woman, and stood beside her. She looked up and smiled.

“I come up here every year, madame, to look at the view.”

“It’s beautiful.”

He pointed at the Eiffel Tower.

“It never looks the same, the tower. Changes in the light. Like those Impressionists. You know. They’d paint the same thing in different lights. Different every time.”