The House I Loved (11 page)

A strange, painful peace invaded me when I sat by his tomb, under the rain, or the sun, my umbrella protecting me on every occasion. I did not wish to talk to anyone, and if someone hovered too near, I would swoop under the umbrella to safety and privacy. A lady of my age came to a nearby grave with the same regularity. She too would sit for hours, her hands in her lap. Was she praying? I wondered. I sometimes prayed. But I preferred to talk to my son directly. I talked to him in my head, exactly as if he had been standing in front of me. In the beginning, the presence of the other lady disturbed me. I soon got used to her. We never spoke to each other. Sometimes we nodded, very quickly. Who was she mourning? A husband, a son, a daughter, a mother? Did she talk to her dead the way I did?

You never asked what I said to Baptiste when I visited him. You were most respectful. I can tell you now. I gave him all the news and tidbits about our neighborhood. I told him how Madame Chanteloup’s shop on the rue des Ciseaux nearly burned to the ground and how the firemen fought all night long to master the flames and how exciting yet horrible it had been. I told him how his friends were bearing up (funny little Gustave on the rue de la Petite Boucherie, and rebellious Adèle on the rue Sainte-Marthe). I told him how I had found a new cook, Mariette, talented and timid, and Germaine bossed her around in a scandalous fashion until I put my foot down, or rather you did, as the man of the house.

Day after day, month after month, year after year, I went to the graveyard to talk to my son. I told him things I never dared tell you, my very dear. Our new Emperor, for instance, and how I was not impressed by the runt of a man parading on his horse under a cold drizzle with crowds hollering, “Long live the Emperor!” especially after all those deaths during his coup d’état. I told him about the great balloon bearing a majestic eagle that floated over the roofs in the Emperor’s wake. The balloon was rather impressive, I whispered to Baptiste, but the Emperor was anything but that. However, you believed, at that time, like the majority of people, that the Emperor was “remarkable.” I was far too soft-spoken to voice my true political feelings. So I quietly told Baptiste that in my humble opinion, those haughty Bonapartes were far too full of themselves. I told him about the lavish wedding at the cathedral, with the new Spanish-born Empress that everyone wanted to see, that everyone made a fuss of. And then, when the Prince was born, I told him about the cannonballs fired from the Invalides. How jealous I was of that baby prince! I wonder if you ever felt it. Seven years beforehand, we had lost our own baby prince, our Baptiste. I could not bear reading the interminable articles in the press about the new royal child, and I carefully averted my eyes so that every new and sickening portrait of the Empress preening herself with her son could no longer be seen.

GILBERT HAS INTERRUPTED ME
with the most astounding news. He has just seen Alexandrine skulking along the street. I asked him what he meant. He looked at me sternly.

“Your flower girl, Madame Rose. The tall, dark one with all that hair and a round face.”

“Yes, that’s her,” I said, smiling inwardly at his description, which was most fitting.

“Well, she was just outside the house, Madame Rose, peering in. I thought she was going to ring on your bell or open the door, so I gave her a little fright. It’s getting mighty dark out there, and she nearly jumped out of her skin when I popped out of that corner. She scuttled off like a frantic hen, and she did not have time to recognize me, I can assure you.”

“What was she doing?” I asked.

“Well, I believe she was looking for you, Madame Rose.”

I stared at his grimy face.

“But she thinks I’m with Violette, or on my way there.”

He pursed his lips together.

“She’s a bright girl, Madame Rose. You know that. She won’t be taken in that easily.”

He was right, of course. A few weeks ago, Alexandrine had supervised the packing up and removal of my furniture and valises with an eagle eye.

“Are you truly going to your daughter’s place, Madame Rose?” she had asked nonchalantly, bent over one of my cases as she struggled to close it with Germaine’s help.

And I had replied, even more nonchalantly, gazing at the darker patch on the wall where the oval mirror used to hang:

“Well, of course I am. But first I shall spend some time with the Baronne de Vresse. Germaine is going down to my daughter’s with most of my luggage.”

Alexandrine had shot a keen eye in my direction. Her grating voice hurt my ears:

“Now, that is unusual, Madame Rose. Because I was with the Baronne recently, delivering her roses, and she never once mentioned you were coming to stay with her.”

I was not to be deterred. No matter how much I was fond of the girl (and believe me, Armand, I am far more attached to that odd creature and her button mouth than to my own daughter), I simply could not let her tamper with my plans. So I tried another tactic. I took her long slim hand in mine and patted her wrist.

“Now, now, Alexandrine, what do you think an old woman like me would do in an empty house on a closed-down street? I have no choice but to go to the Baronne’s and then to my daughter’s. And that is what I shall do. Trust me.”

She glared down at me.

“I will try to trust you, Madame Rose. I will try.”

To Gilbert, I said worriedly:

“She somehow learned from my daughter that I have not yet arrived … And the Baronne has informed her, I presume, that I never did come and stay. Oh, dear…”

“We could always move somewhere else,” suggested Gilbert. “There are a couple of places I know. Warmer and more comfortable.”

“No,” I said quickly. “I will never leave this house. Never.”

He sighed ruefully.

“Yes, I know that, Madame Rose. But you should step outside this evening, to see what is going on. I will darken my lantern. The condemned areas are not watched as closely since the cold set in. We won’t be bothered. It’s icy, but if you hang on to my arm you’ll be safe.”

“What is it you want me to see, Gilbert?”

He gave me that crooked, rather charming grin.

“You may want to say good-bye to the rue Childebert and the rue Erfurth. Do you not?”

I swallowed with difficulty.

“Yes, you are right, I do.”

WE SET OUT ON
a sort of expedition, he and I. He bundled me up as if we were heading for the North Pole. I wore an unknown bedraggled greatcoat which reeked so much of anise and wormwood that I suspected it had been drenched with absinthe, and a top-heavy fur cap, caked with grime, but that kept me warm. No doubt it had belonged, in other times, to a friend of the Baronne de Vresse or such like. When we stepped outside, the cold reached out to envelop me in an icy embrace. It made me gasp with surprise. I could not see a thing, the street was too obscure. It reminded me of those ink-black nights before the public lighting was installed, when walking home even in a safe part of the city became frightening. Gilbert raised his lantern and slid it open so that the dimmed blaze fell softly around us. Our breaths rose in great puffs of white above our heads. I was bracing myself, expecting the crater I had seen when Émile’s house had been swallowed by the hungry boulevard. I squinted through the gloom to get a better look.

The row of houses in front of ours had gone. They had been razed to the ground and, believe me, it was stupefying to behold. In their place rose mountains of rubble that had not been disposed of yet. Madame Godfin’s boutique was a stack of timber. Madame Barou’s building had one flimsy partition still standing. The printing house had vanished into thin air. Monsieur Monthier’s chocolate shop was a mass of charred wood. Chez Paulette had disintegrated into a mound of stones. On our side of the street houses still stood bravely, but they bore a new frailty that made me wince. Most of the windows had been broken, at least the ones which had not been shuttered. The façades were all plastered with expropriation orders and decrees. Litter and papers lined the once-clean cobblestones. It was heartbreaking, dearest.

We walked slowly down the deserted, strangely silent street. The freezing air seemed to thicken around us. My shoes slid on the frosty pavement but Gilbert gripped me to him very firmly despite his limp. It struck me again how tall he was. When we got to the bottom of the street, I could not help but let out a gasp of shock. The rue Erfurth had entirely disappeared, all the way down to the rue des Ciseaux. There was nothing left of it, just clutter and debris. All the familiar boutiques and shops had gone, the bench I used to sit on with Maman Odette, even the water fountain had been taken away. Suddenly I felt dizzy, as if I no longer understood where I was. I had lost my bearings. Gilbert asked me gently if I was all right. I nodded helplessly. You know, sometimes the years catch up with me, and I feel the old lady that I am. Believe me, tonight my nearly sixty years weigh heavily upon me.

I could now see where the boulevard Saint-Germain would continue its monstrous sweep, right there, just by the side of the church. Our dark row of houses, where no windows were lit, fragile roofs etched out against the pale wintry sky where no stars glittered, were the last ones standing. It was as if a giant had lumbered out here, and with a huge, clumsy hand, like an angry child, he had knocked away the little streets I had known all my life.

And yet, just beyond the destructions, people were living in houses that still stood, that were safe. People were eating, drinking and sleeping, leading their everyday, ordinary existences, celebrating birthdays, weddings and christenings. The work that went on here was probably a nuisance to them—the mud, the dust, the noise—but at least, their houses were not threatened. They would never know what it meant to lose a beloved house. I felt swamped with sadness and my eyes watered. And then my hatred for the Prefect rose again within me, so powerful, so strong, that if it had not been for Gilbert’s sturdy hand, I would have tumbled headfirst onto the thin layer of snow.

When we returned to the house, I was weary. Gilbert must have seen it, for he stayed with me well into the night. A gentleman from the rue des Canettes that he knew and who gave him money and food from time to time had offered soup tonight. We sipped it with relish, the burning liquid filling us up. I could not help thinking of Alexandrine, her coming all the way to this closed-off, condemned part of the area to look for me. My heart went out to her. It had been risky slipping into the abandoned streets, ducking under the wooden barriers that all bore menacing signs of “No trespassing” and “Danger.” What was she expecting? I wondered. To find me enjoying a cup of tea in my deserted living room? Had she guessed I was using her cellar as my secret hiding place? She must have suspected something, otherwise she would not have been back here. Gilbert was right. She was a bright girl. How I missed her.

A couple of weeks ago, just as the entire street was packing up in view of the upcoming demolitions, we had spent the morning together, she and I, walking in the Luxembourg Gardens. She had found a position in a large flower shop near the Palais Royal.

“I’m none too pleased about it, the owner of the shop is apparently as bossy as I am,” she explained as we walked around the flower beds, “and sparks will fly, but it will do perfectly for the moment, and it is reasonably paid.”

“Have you found new lodgings?” I asked.

“Indeed, two large, sunny rooms, near the Louvre. Of course, I will miss the rue Childebert, Madame Rose, but am I not a modern-minded young lady, who approves of what the Prefect is doing to our city?”

I stopped in my steps, gazing across at her, as she is as tall as I am.

“Come, now, my dear girl, I cannot believe for one minute you approve of the new Bois de Boulogne near La Muette?”

She nodded vehemently, her black bonnet almost sliding off.

“Yes, I do, and I find the new lake positively gorgeous.”

I groaned. I thought the Bois de Boulogne was vulgar and you would have too, had you seen it. How could that modern, hilly place full of brash new trees ever compare to the ancient Medicis splendor of our own Luxembourg?

Eight years ago, Alexandrine had not even minded the annexation of the suburbs, the fact that our eleventh arrondissement was now the sixth. You would not have liked that either. Paris became gigantic, tentacular! It now had twenty arrondissements and gained over four hundred thousand Parisians overnight. Our city wolfed up Passy, Auteuil, Batignolles-Monceau, Vaugirard, Grenelle, Montmartre, but also places I had never been to and that were now part of Paris, such as Belleville, La Villette, Bercy and Charonne. I found it puzzling and frightening.

Despite our differences, it was always interesting to converse with Alexandrine. Of course, she was headstrong, and she did sometimes take off in a huff, always coming back, however, to beg my pardon. I grew inordinately fond of her. Yes, she was like another daughter, a warm-hearted, intelligent, cultivated one. Do you find me unfair? I suspect you may. But you must understand how far away Violette has grown for me, both physically and mentally. Another reason that endeared Alexandrine to me all the more was that she was born the same year as Baptiste. 1839. I had told her about our son, but only once. It was too painful to pronounce those words.

I sometimes wonder why she has no husband. Is it her fiery personality? The fact that she says exactly what she thinks and that being submissive is an impossible feat for her to manage? Perhaps. She confessed to me she did not miss having a family, a child. She even admitted that looking after a husband is the last thing she wants. I find such opinions unbelievably different, almost shocking. But then, Alexandrine is not like any other person I know. She has not revealed much about her childhood in Montrouge. Her father took to the bottle and was not kind. Her mother died when she was still young. So you see, I am, in a way, her maman.

I MENTIONED RECENTLY THAT
after your departure two people saved my life. You were no doubt surprised by this declaration. You probably wondered what I meant. I shall now explain. (Just a small interruption: Gilbert is snoring in the most extraordinary fashion. I am tucked away in the cellar, as snug as can be, a piping-hot brick in my lap, and he is upstairs by the enamel cooker. Yet I can still hear him, can you imagine? I have not heard a man snore for a long time. Since your death. It is an odd yet comforting sound.)