Paris: The Novel (32 page)

Luc had been observing Édith, but unusually for him, he’d been rather silent so far. Édith asked him what he was planning to work at when he grew up.

“I shall work in Montmartre, like I do now,” he answered cheerfully. “And then I am going to be a great comedian, and make a fortune.”

“Oh,” said Édith.

“It’s better than working,” said Luc.

“He’s joking,” said Thomas, though he wasn’t sure that his brother was joking at all.

To make conversation, Thomas told them how they had taken a tram, and how Édith had nearly fallen.

“Ah,” said his father. “Thomas is working on his great tower, and people will come from all over the world to see it, but when they see how we move around the city, we shall be ashamed.”

“Why?” asked his wife.

“In London they have steam trains that take you all over the city. They go underground, many of them. We still have nothing like that.”

“And in New York,” Luc chimed in, “they have elevated trains.”

“The English and the Americans can do what they like,” said Édith, “but why should we spoil the beauty of Paris with soot and steam and hideous rail tracks everywhere? They may be more modern, but we are more civilized.”

“I agree,” said Thomas’s mother, with approval. “Life is more civilized here.”

After the meal, Thomas and Édith stepped out into the unpaved streets of the Maquis, and he walked her up the hill to the Moulin de la Galette. The day was clear but cold, and although it was a Sunday, there weren’t many people up there. Then he took her through the little square where the artists liked to paint. There were just three men out there, wrapped in heavy overcoats and scarves, but doggedly applying paint to canvas. They looked at them for a few minutes, then proceeded to the great building site of Sacré Coeur. Though the huge stone walls of the church were steadily rising, all one could see at present was a great fortress of scaffolding in a sea of mud.

But from the edge of the hill beside it there was still a magnificent view.

“There are the towers of Notre Dame.” Thomas pointed them out
proudly. The golden domes of the Opéra, only a mile away, and Les Invalides farther off. “And there”—he indicated the site some way to the right of Les Invalides on the panorama—“that’s where Monsieur Eiffel’s tower will soar above them all.” He smiled. “I know the Maquis is a bit primitive, but I love Montmartre. There’s nowhere else in Paris like it.”

“You’re really proud of the tower, aren’t you?”

“Of course.”

“That’s nice.”

Before it grew dark, he took her back to Passy. On the avenue Victor Hugo, she thanked him, let him kiss her on the cheek, and parted from him. He thought she had enjoyed the visit, but he couldn’t be sure.

The next Sunday, she wasn’t free, and so he went to see his parents. His mother waited until the meal was nearly over before she brought up the subject.

“That girl you brought here: Are you interested in her?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe.”

“You can do better,” said his mother firmly.

“You just say that because she isn’t the daughter of the widow Michel,” he answered with a shrug. He glanced at his father, but his father refused to meet his gaze. He turned back to his mother. “You seemed to get on.”

“You can do better.”

After the meal, he went for a walk with Luc. He hadn’t been entirely surprised by his parents’ reaction. Nothing less than the widow Michel’s daughter was ever going to satisfy them now. But he hoped for something better from Luc.

So he was taken by surprise when Luc finally spoke.

“Was that the girl we went looking for?” Luc suddenly asked.

“Yes. How did you guess?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you think of her?”

Luc paused. Then he looked a little sad.

“She doesn’t like me,” he said.

“Why do you say that? She didn’t say so to me. Not a word. I think she likes you.”

But Luc shook his head.

“No. I promise you it’s so. I can tell.”

“I’m sure you’re wrong,” said Thomas. But he was puzzled.

Three days later Édith asked him if he would be free to visit her mother and her aunt that Sunday.

It was mid-afternoon when they met. She was waiting for him at the top of the avenue Victor Hugo. They walked around the great circle under the Arc de Triomphe until, directly across from the Champs-Élysées, the massive avenue de la Grande-Armée stretched down to the west. Turning down the avenue, they walked a few blocks, turned right and proceeded a little way. The houses in the street, though respectable enough, had a gray and dingy air that Thomas found depressing. One house on a corner, somewhat larger than the others with an impressive central door, also had a gateway beside it, leading to an internal courtyard, protected from intruders by a tall screen of iron railings. To the right of this iron screen was a door, and a bell chain, which Édith pulled. Somewhere within Thomas heard a small, harsh clang. Moments later, the door was opened.

“This is my mother,” said Édith.

One could see the likeness at once. The same freckles, the same wide mouth. But time had not been kind to Édith’s mother. She’d been pretty once. He could see that. Then she’d become blowzy. But in recent years, she’d started to let herself go. She had dyed her hair with henna, some while ago, and the gray roots showed as cruelly as a wintry wind, winnowing the autumn leaves. The eyes that had once been bright were puffy. The skin on her neck was criss-crossed with deepening lines, and sagging.

“So you’re the boy who works on the tower.” She managed a smile.

“Oui, madame,”
he answered politely.

She led them down a narrow passage into a room. It contained a sofa with a curved back, two formal chairs, a sideboard on which a decanter, a bottle and some glasses stood, and a small table. The window, framed by heavy damask curtains, gave onto the yard, but the thick gauze in front of the glass only let in a modicum of light.

“My sister-in-law has a beautiful situation,
n’est-ce pas
?”

So Aunt Adeline was the sister of Édith’s vanished father. Thomas hadn’t realized that.

“Beautiful, madame,” he said.

“My aunt is the concierge,” Édith explained. “She really looks after the whole place.”

“It’s a big house,” said Édith’s mother. “A big responsibility. But she has the head for it. That’s for sure.”

“And Monsieur Ney lives here?” said Thomas.

“Monsieur Ney owns the establishment,” said Édith’s mother, with the pride of someone with a rich friend. “His office is next door. And he has his own house nearby, where he lives with his daughter.”

“His daughter is called Hortense,” Édith explained.

“Ah, Mademoiselle Hortense,” said her mother. “She will make a fine marriage, one of these days. That’s for sure.”

“Perhaps I should show Thomas the house,” suggested Édith.

Her mother glanced at the sideboard, and nodded.

“Tell your aunt that we are waiting for her.”

Thomas followed Édith up a small staircase, then along a passage that took them into the back of the main house. With a smile, she opened another door, and he found himself standing on a broad landing looking down a big staircase toward the front door.

“It’s a handsome entrance,” he remarked. “Do you ever come in that way?”

“Oh no. The front door is always locked,” she told him. “Come.” She went to a door on the right, knocked softly, and entered.

The room was spacious. The paneling on the wall was a little cracked in places, but the general effect was grand. A picture of an eighteenth-century aristocrat with a face of perfect serenity hung over the fireplace. Colored prints of ladies in court dress graced the walls. In front of the window stood a small, elegant rococo writing desk and chair. Against the wall to the right of the door was a fine walnut armoire. And on the side of the room across from the fire stood a magnificent eighteenth-century canopied bed where, propped up on pillows and cushions, sat a lady of distinction swathed in lace. She was reading a small, leather-bound book.

“Ah.
La petite
Édith,” said the lady whose face, were it not for the obtrusion of some poorly fitting ivory teeth, would have exactly resembled the serenity over the fireplace.

“May I present my friend Thomas Gascon, Madame Govrit?” asked Édith politely. “He is working on Monsieur Eiffel’s tower.”

Madame Govrit de la Tour gazed at Thomas over her book.

“I am sorry to hear it, young man,” she said, quite calmly. “I have seen the pictures in the newspapers of this tower of Monsieur Eiffel, whoever
he may be.” She spoke the builder’s name as though she considered it unpronounceable. “You should find other employment.”

“You do not like the tower, madame?” Thomas offered.

“Certainly not.” She laid the book facedown on the bedspread. “When I think of what France has built in the past, young man—of the Louvre, or Versailles—and then I see pictures of this monstrous spike that will no doubt rust before it is even constructed, this barbaric seaside vulgarity that is to hang in the sky over Paris, I ask myself, what has France come to?” She picked up her book again. “You seem to be respectable, but you dishonor France. You should stop this work at once.”

“Thank you, madame,” said Thomas, as he and Édith withdrew.

Once the door was closed, Édith giggled. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not really.” Thomas shrugged. “It’s what half Paris of thinks.” One could read articles saying the same thing in the newspapers every week.

“I know. But she has her own way of saying it. She’s our aristocrat,” Édith said with a note of pride.

“So what is this place? Old people live here?”

“Yes, but it’s very special. Monsieur Ney comes to a private arrangement with each person. Some of them give him a sum of money, others have a house, or land, or income of some kind, and then they come to live here, and he looks after everything for them. He’s a lawyer, so he always knows what to do.”

“How many are there?”

“About thirty.”

“Don’t they have families?”

“Some do. But they all know they can trust Monsieur Ney. They say,” she continued quietly, “that one old lady was so happy that she left Monsieur Ney her entire fortune when she died.”

Thomas said nothing.

They looked into another room, not nearly as lavish as the first, where an old lady was sitting in the single armchair facing the window. She seemed half asleep.

“Madame Richard can be difficult. My aunt has to give her a little laudanum,” Édith explained.

As they went down the passage, a short, fat woman waddled out of one of the rooms. She was dressed in black, with a face so fleshy it was perfectly round. Could this be Aunt Adeline? he wondered.

“Have you seen my aunt, Margot?” asked Édith.

“
Non
. Haven’t seen her,” the small round woman answered placidly.
“Bonjour, monsieur,”
she said to Thomas, as she passed.

“That’s Margot, the nurse,” Édith explained. “I wonder if my aunt could be upstairs.”

They reached the top floor of the house by a steep and narrow staircase. The passage was windowless, though some light came from a skylight at the end. Édith called out her aunt’s name a couple of times, but there was no reply. She turned to go back down the narrow stairs. But just before he followed her, out of curiosity, Thomas opened the nearest door.

The room was almost bare. The window, which had surely not been cleaned that year, lacked any curtains. In several places, the walls were stained with damp. In the middle of the floor was an iron bedstead, painted black, covered with a red blanket under which, like a discarded garden rake, lay a bony old woman, whose gray hair hung in thin strands over the side of the horsehair mattress. She was very still. If she breathed, she made no sound. There was dust on the floor, but not a crumb to tempt a mouse. One thing, however, caught his eye. On the wall opposite the bed, in a thin metal frame, hung a cheap print of a Virgin and Child behind glass that had been polished till it gleamed.

“Thomas,” Édith called, “what are you doing?”

“Nothing,” he said, and closed the door. “Who’s that in there?”

“Mademoiselle Bac. She’s very poor. Come.”

By the time they got back to Aunt Adeline’s quarters, the lady in question had arrived there. She gave Thomas a brief look and having, he suspected, seen everything she needed to know, asked him to sit down.

She went to the sideboard and picked up the bottle of cider.

“Will you take a little
cidre doux
?” she asked him.

“Perhaps the young man would prefer a cognac,” Édith’s mother suggested hopefully.

“Non,”
said Aunt Adeline firmly.
“Cidre doux.”

“Yes, thank you,” said Thomas.

Aunt Adeline poured cider into small glasses for them all. She wore a starched white shirt and a long navy blue dress. Her dark hair was pulled back severely into a bun. Her eyebrows were thick, and her large dark eyes watchful.

“Where do you live, young man?” she asked.

“I lodge in the rue de la Pompe, madame. But my parents live in Montmartre.”