Paris: The Novel (38 page)

For a moment, Édith was speechless.

“Go out? Nobody ever goes out. I don’t think they’re allowed to.” They went to find Aunt Adeline.

“Everything that the residents need is here,” she told them firmly. “And if not, it is bought for them. I’m sure Monsieur Ney would not hear of it.”

“You’ll have to tell her, Aunt Adeline,” said Édith. “We can’t.”

Even Aunt Adeline hesitated at the thought of this ordeal. But the situation was quickly put in other hands by the arrival of Monsieur Ney himself.

“Ah, you are right, this is difficult,” he agreed, as soon as Aunt Adeline had told him the situation. “Normally we do not let the residents out,” he explained to Édith and Thomas, “because most are infirm, some confused. Funds do not permit that we should employ staff to take them out on the streets, and they cannot go alone. Imagine if we had them wandering all over Paris. But Madame Govrit …”—he nodded thoughtfully—“she is perhaps a special case.” He looked at Thomas. “She really wants to go out?”

“I am afraid she was most insistent, monsieur.” Thomas realized that, inadvertently, he was falling into their way of talking, but he couldn’t do anything about it. “She had been playing cards with my brother. And now
she wants to go as far as the avenue to get a glimpse of Monsieur Eiffel’s tower—though I do not think the sight will please her.”

“Couldn’t we tell her it’s cold, and that she should wait until another day?” Édith suggested.

“With another resident, yes,” said Monsieur Ney with a faint smile. “But Madame Govrit won’t forget, I assure you.” He turned to Thomas again. “I cannot spare Édith or her aunt, but might I ask if you and your brother would convey her to the avenue?”

“Of course, monsieur.” His chance to get in favor. “With pleasure. We should take the greatest care.”

“Thank you,” said Ney. “I will go and speak to her myself.”

They escorted her carefully down the main stairs. She insisted that she would walk with her sticks, but it was as well that the two Gascon brothers went one on each side of her. For the occasion, the handsome front door had been opened. “My aunt says the last time it was unlocked was when Madame Govrit first arrived,” Édith had whispered. Down the front steps they went into the street, where they helped her into the large wheelchair that Monsieur Ney had provided.

It was certainly a magnificent conveyance. With two large side wheels and a single front wheel, the body of the chair was of handsome wicker basket construction. It took a minute or two before Madame Govrit was ensconced, wrapped with a shawl around her neck and a blanket to cover her body. But when all was ready, with Thomas pushing, the chair moved slowly away from the spectators at the front door with the solemn dignity of an ocean liner leaving port.

The wicker wheelchair was heavy. Thomas and Luc took turns pushing it. Madame Govrit meanwhile, rather flushed from the cold air, was observing the proceedings carefully. They negotiated one street, turned into another, crossed by a small church. Madame Govrit remarked that it was cold. Thomas politely asked if she wanted to turn back.

“Never,” she cried, though Thomas noticed a minute later that she had closed her eyes. For a minute or so she nodded off, but was wide awake again by the time they reached the broad avenue de la Grande-Armée.

It was a quiet, Sunday afternoon. The trees in the avenue were bare. To the left, up the avenue’s gentle slope, the Arc de Triomphe filled a portion of the gray November sky. Across the avenue, the long, low line of buildings
stared dully at their counterparts. Here and there, carriages haunted the empty thoroughfare like boats on a deserted waterway. There were few pedestrians about.

Thomas pointed across the avenue and to the left.

“There it is, madame,” said Thomas. “There’s the tower.”

Had there been a sun in the west, its low rays might have bathed the girders in its softening light, so that they appeared like a mighty Gothic spire, full of romantic promise. But there was no sun. All that was to be seen, a mile away over the rooftops, was a grim, industrial tower attacking the heavens with its jagged iron spikes.

“Mon Dieu!”
cried the old lady in horror. “But it’s frightful! It’s terrible! It’s worse than I could have imagined!” She slapped her hand on the arm of the wicker chair.
“Ah non!”

“When it’s finished …,” Thomas began, but the old lady wasn’t listening.

“What a horror!” she screamed in rage. She started to struggle forward, fighting with the shawl and blanket, as if she meant to rise and tear the offending tower with her own hands. “They must be stopped,” she cried, “stopped! Ah!”

She got tangled in the shawl and fell back into the chair. Thomas looked at Luc in consternation. Luc shrugged.

“She chose a bad afternoon,” said Luc.

Madame Govrit seemed to be almost panting after her exertions, but then apparently gave up in despair at what she had seen. She shuddered under the blanket. Thomas tried to straighten her blanket and shawl for her.

“I’m sorry, madame,” he said. “Do you want to return?”

But Madame Govrit refused to answer him. He looked at Luc for help, and Luc leaned down.

“You know, madame,” Luc began, but then stopped and gazed at the old lady thoughtfully.

“What?” asked Thomas.

“She’s dead,” said Luc.

December passed without incident at the tower until the twentieth of the month. On that day, one of the flyers claimed that he had been shortchanged
an hour on his timesheet. Within the hour, it seemed that the men might go on strike again. This time, Eiffel promised a princely bonus of one hundred francs to each worker who continued until the building was finished. But anyone who didn’t go back to work at once would be fired. Whatever arrangements Jean Compagnon had made seemed to give him confidence, and Éric did not press his case so hard this time. The few workers who held out were duly fired, and replacement workers appeared at once. As Christmas came, the tower continued to rise.

But Eiffel did one other thing that impressed Thomas very much.

“I shall paint the name of every man who worked on the tower from start to finish on a plaque, for all the world to see.”

“Just think of that,” Thomas told his family. “I shall be immortal.” His mother said she was pleased for him, but his father was profoundly moved. “Ah, now that’s something. The first time our name has ever been written up.” It seemed to Thomas that his father was even more pleased by this addition to the family honor than he would have been if he’d married Berthe Michel.

If the start of the New Year was normally the day of greeting in France, the Christian festivals were well observed. Early in December came the Feast of Saint Nicolas; early January saw the season of Epiphany. As for Christmas, it was quieter than in some other lands, and was perhaps the better for it.

Monsieur Ney did not stint when it came to Christmas. On Christmas Eve, before celebrating the Midnight Mass at his church, the local priest came earlier in the evening to say a Mass for the old people in the house, which he did in the hall by the front door. As for the Réveillon feast that celebrated Christ’s birth after the Midnight Mass, this was deferred for the old folk until lunchtime on Christmas Day.

Up in Montmartre, the Gascon family would be celebrating the feast with their neighbors up at the Moulin de la Galette into the early hours. So when Édith told Thomas that he was invited to join Monsieur Ney’s lunchtime feast on Christmas Day, he didn’t hesitate to accept.

For a week after the death of Madame Govrit, he had been afraid that the lawyer might blame him in some way. But since he and Luc had taken her out at Ney’s own request, this would hardly have been reasonable.
And while Ney was certainly upset to lose his prize resident, whose aristocratic name and presence lured others to place themselves in his hands, there had been compensations.

For soon after her death, it was discovered that, in addition to the moneys she had paid Monsieur Ney upon her arrival, she had also left a most generous bequest to Hortense.

“She was always very fond of Mademoiselle Hortense,” Aunt Adeline explained. The residue of her estate was to pass to the daughter of a poor cousin who had no idea she was to receive anything.

“Madame Govrit was kindness itself,” Monsieur Ney declared. “She thought of everyone.” As executor of the will, he had told Aunt Adeline, it would give him particular joy to convey her bequest to this poor relation, as far as funds permitted.

Meanwhile the other residents were reminded, by the cautionary tale of what had befallen Madame Govrit, how wise it was of Monsieur Ney to insist that they should not go out.

When Thomas arrived, he found Édith and her aunt already helping those who were not bedridden into a long, narrow room off the hall, where a dining table had been set up. By the time this process was complete, there were nearly twenty old folk seated. Monsieur Ney took the head of the table, and Aunt Adeline the other end. Mademoiselle Hortense was not present. Secretly Thomas had rather hoped that she might be, as he wanted to observe her some more.

“Sadly, my daughter is unwell,” Ney explained. “I think it was brought on by her distress over the loss of her friend Madame Govrit, but she suffered a bad cold, and I was obliged for her health to send her to the south. I hope the warmer weather in Monte Carlo may restore her.”

The lawyer had brought in two women from his own house to help serve at table. Édith and Margot, the old nurse, took food up to the bedridden in their rooms. Thomas offered to help them, but Ney wouldn’t hear of it.

“You’re our guest,” he directed, and Thomas was seated between Édith’s mother and an old lady who seemed quite content to masticate her food while he talked to her, without making any reply.

The food was good. They began with oysters, accompanied by a glass of champagne. Then turkey with chestnut stuffing, and boudin pudding, with which a red bordeaux was served. The old folk were given just a glass, but Ney indicated to Thomas that he should fill his own glass as
much as he pleased. As for Édith’s mother, she needed no bidding, and it was clear that on this occasion at least, Aunt Adeline and Monsieur Ney were content to let her drink as much as she liked, on the premise that she would soon enough fall asleep.