by Howard Engel
After a visit to the bureau de poste in the rue Tournon with my letters, I struck out for a walk in the Luxembourg Gardens. I admired the tiny Statue of Liberty, so much friendlier here, amid the falling gold leaves and scruffy palms, with children playing with their hoops nearby, than the colossus of the New York harbour. I was still not quite settled on the French idea of a garden; my training led me to favour the less orderly colonial variety, where one could sit until the cows came home without a pinched-looking drab charging a few centimes for the use of a metal folding chair.
I had been moving in the direction of the gate on the rue Guynemer when I saw the woman with the dark, prunish face again: Miss Toklas. She was walking the white poodle, Basket. I tipped my hat to her and congratulated her on the weather. She became anxious when Basket began to show an unnatural interest in my trousers again. To foil him, she took in the slack of the dog’s lead like a good sailor tightening the sheets on his sails.
“Are you enjoying the sun, Miss Toklas?”
“Oh, we enjoy weather, Mr. Ward, in all of its moods and whims. If we did not, we might as well have remained in California.”
“Surely California has other charms. I’ve heard good things about the San Francisco art gallery. Many Canadians have gone there to study, in fact.”
“Ah, yes! Priscilla told me you are a Canadian.”
“Yes, I come from Toronto.”
“I have always believed that we settlers of the west coast, whether Canadian or American, are brothers under the skin.” I didn’t correct her impression that Toronto was on the Pacific coast. Perhaps she has been getting geography lessons from Cyril Burdock, who was always placing me in Vancouver.
“Gertrude Stein says that it is from the west that the energy of the New World comes.”
“A land of promise, certainly. Most of its history is still to be written.”
“Gertrude Stein says that the geniuses of the next generation will come from there.”
“Europeans, I think, are often intimidated by the sheer size and health of North Americans. We are like prize cattle, and we come wearing our blue ribbons into French salons, often breaking the figurines.” Miss Toklas allowed herself a short, stifled laugh at that.
“You must call on us some Saturday evening, Mr. Ward. I’d like you to meet my friend, Miss Stein.”
“I should be greatly honoured and more than pleased,” I said, almost hearing my mother’s voice as I repeated one of her pet phrases. How curious to discover that the friend of the Great Innovator was so old-fashioned in her manners.
“My friend might be amused to meet a young man who thinks it is as difficult to become a good writer as to become a great chef.”
“You have a good memory, Miss Toklas,” I said.
There were a few more pleasantries exchanged and we finally went our separate ways. As I walked out of the park, I remembered that this was Saturday. It was too late to run back to remind Miss Toklas, although, I must say, I was tempted.
I bought a cheap lunch at an artists’ restaurant on the me de la Grande-Chaumière. It was small, crowded and self-absorbed. There was sawdust on the floor. The faces above the soup bowls belonged for the most part to solitary diners. Most of the noise came from the waiters carrying on a conversation about Jack Dempsey, who had visited Paris earlier in the year. One waiter said that Dempsey and Georges Carpentier had fought a private bout for some well-to-do sportsmen. The other said that this was just a story. He went on to tell another story about Carpentier that he knew to be untrue and presented it as evidence that his fellow waiter’s story was equally false. None of the diners pointed out the fallacy. My steak was served with Béarnaise sauce, bled freely when cut and did not remind me while I was eating it that it had once worn a bit in its mouth and iron shoes. The café-filtre device on my cup failed to function, which I was beginning to discover was a common occurrence. I was just getting up, after settling the addition scrawled on the paper tablecloth, when I thought I saw a familiar figure walking down the street on the far side. I pocketed my change and set out in pursuit.
Arlette La Motte had nearly reached the boulevard when I caught up to her.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said. “I didn’t recognize you in the daylight. Most of the people I know sleep all day. Comme les vampires.”
I led her to a small café that was lost among the three great cafés at this end of the boulevard. It had no terrace and only half a dozen tables, but the patron was serving a very handsome-looking omelette to one of his customers. We ordered coffee.
“Mike, what have you heard about our friend Waddington? I heard that he has left his wife and that the police detained him for questioning?”
“You’re very well informed, Arlette.” She smiled at that, as though I had intended it as a pure compliment without irony. In the light of day, Arlette was still an impressive-looking woman: tall, with fine teeth and a good figure. She moved her coat from her shoulders to her chair, a practical gesture informed with pleasing sensual overtones. I remembered thinking on our first meeting that she looked complicated. Today she seemed simpler, as though there were nothing on her mind but the hot coffee in front of her. Her face, heavily made-up at that time of day, aged her and distanced her.
“Wad was questioned because he, like so many of us, knew Laure Duclos. As for him leaving Hash, I don’t know anything about that,” I lied. Had she heard about the argument after the boxing match or was her news better than mine? I know that when he left me, Wad said that he was going home. “I hope it isn’t true,” I added. “They seem so right for one another.”
“They get on well enough together, but we all know that Waddington is not going to be made into a comfortable bourgeois, is he?”
“Is that the direction Hash is pulling him? I thought they planned to keep on working and living simply here in France.”
“With Waddington it is always the career that counts first. The career demands that he find a richer woman. Julia Lowry évidemment.”
“Julia is Hash’s best friend here in France, Arlette. She has gone out of her way to help both of them. She may have more money, but she isn’t half the woman Hash is. She hasn’t had the chance to be.”
As I spoke, I got the impression that Arlette thought this defence was commendable, transparent and, somehow, rather Canadian.
“Oh, men! You have no eyes to see what the women do around you. You are all like that.”
“So you think that Wad is about to change partners?”
“But of course. Isn’t it obvious?”
“Not to me, damn it!” I was getting warm and uncomfortable. I didn’t like thinking in this direction. “What about their child?”
Arlette shrugged as though that altered nothing. She sipped her coffee, studying my reddening face over her cup. Something was going on, something she was not saying.
“Are you usually so acute at divining these things? Do you read palms as well?”
“Oh, Mike! Now you are being angry with me.” She opened my cigarette case, which was lying on the table, frowned at the contents and closed it with a snap. She took a pink, oval cigarette from her own case. I watched her eyes as I lighted it for her. They were green, lustrous and clear. I could easily see why Anson Tyler escorted her everywhere. I was growing envious. As I allowed myself to speculate on their relationship, one thing was very clear: Dr. Anson Tyler was not keeping Arlette on his barge on the river. Arlette needed the elbow-room of the grands boulevards. She liked clothes, followed the fashions. She didn’t sit down to play bridge in an old sweater and skirt. Arlette was expensive.
Thinking that, I began to wonder what led her to spend so much time with these American and British expatriates. That night in the Dingo, she had labelled them all “tourists” and claimed to despise our likes. Was she fleecing them in these bridge games of hers? Or did I have the wrong end of the stick about her completely? Perhaps, like so many Parisians, she lived in a small flat, squalid, without water or light, and spent
her life in cafés and public gatherings.
She was looking at me again, and I tried to remember what we had been talking about. Then I remembered my flash of anger. I told her I was sorry for that. She smiled, reached across to take my hand, and soon we were talking about the village where she was born.
“Someplace you’ve never heard of. It’s near Le Puy, south of St-Etienne in the Cévennes. I still go back there to see the old people and my cousins. My brother, of course, lives here. Most of the family was wiped out in the war: the men were killed, the women moved to the factory towns. Nothing ever happens there. Once, in the spring, the river changed colour. When I was a little girl. It was never explained.”
She continued smiling and I wasn’t angry any more. I asked her about Anson. Perhaps that was a mistake. She began by telling me things I already knew. I asked about his writing.
“Oh, he’s given all that up. He lets things go when he is unable to achieve what he wants.”
“I know the feeling.”
“He’s after more than competence in most things. When he can’t master something, he loses interest. I would very much like to live with Anson, but he is content to see me now and again.” There was a blush now under her smile. “I am being quite frank with you, Mike. You have a purging effect on people.”
“Yes, I work like a laxative. What happens when I say Warren Pease?”
“Tolstoi? Oh, Warren is still a boy. He is like a boy who has always looked through keyholes. He is well-known to the perverse in life, without knowing very much about the ordinary run of things. He is naïve about sex. Completely. I used to think he was one of those youth lovers. Like these abandoned young men of the Quarter, who strike poses and misunderstand women.”
“Does he take drugs? I heard that from someone.”
“How would I know about that?” The question made her nervous.
“I was just asking. There are lots of people taking drugs. We know some of them. You knew, for instance, that Laure smoked opium, of course?”
“Of course. But she did not die from opium.”
“But her habitual use of the drug linked her to another world, where such things are available. That’s why that theory of mine doesn’t work. Laure was connected beyond Montparnasse. The drugs had to come from somewhere. If Tolstoi is taking them, then he too needs to have a supply. Arlette, do you know where one can buy drugs?”
“Mike, why are you asking me? Do you think I smoke opium or use cocaine?”
“Arlette, I’m asking everybody. You are not under suspicion.” But even as I said that, she fell under the shadow of doubt. Something was marring her usual assurance.
“Why don’t you let the police find out who killed Laure? You shouldn’t get involved in these things. Especially as a foreigner. As an outsider, you lack the sensitivity to see what you are walking into. You could get hurt.”
“Are you warning me, Arlette? I just want to be sure.”
“Mike, I am beginning to be very fond of you. I would not like you to come to harm. What I say, anyone who knows this town would tell you. You must be careful, chéri. It could save you a great deal of pain.”
“What if you were talking to an extraordinarily obtuse Canadian, who has failed to understand you?”
“Such a one should not go abroad without having his insurance in good order.”
“It’s as bad as that, is it? Okay, Arlette, I can take a hint. I won’t pursue this particular angle. I’ll continue to translate the police reports that come into the office and collect my pay at the end of the month. Apart from the occasional night when I’ll drink too much, I’ll keep my nose to the grindstone. Okay?”
“Okay, Mike. I think that way you will have a wonderful memory of your life in France to tell your grandchildren.”
“Here’s to my grandchildren.”
CHAPTER 20
When I got home, the concierge was waiting for me. Her arms were folded and in her hand was a petit-bleu, an express letter, addressed to me.
“Voici un pneu pour Monsieur Ward,” she said. Already there was a note of respect in her voice. Pneus don’t arrive for people of no consequence. I took it upstairs with me, wondering what it could be. Nothing was expected of me this weekend from the agency, so it had to be of a personal nature. I tore it open.
Mike,
Join us for dinner before going on to see the Picassos at Gertrude Stein’s. Regards, Wad.
“Monsieur Ward? Voulez-vouz que je vous fasse couler un bain?” I told Mme. Janot that a bath would be in order. I could see that should I ever run short of rent money, a self-addressed petit-bleu would earn me more time. I’d seen her reading articles in magazines about the Prince of Wales. I might have to exploit that before I was finished.
In the meantime, I took my bath, dressed as well as I could and arrived at the Waddingtons’ primed for an adventure. Both of them answered my knock at the door.
“Wardo, come in. Have a beaker or two!”
“Hello, Mike. Wonderful to see you.”
Dinner was a mixture of French and Italian: fresh oysters followed by spaghetti in a clam sauce. “The seafood is so cheap at the market, we have it almost every day. I couldn’t get the correct pasta to do it right, but I’ve almost given up trying to find things that aren’t French here. Just try to buy sauerkraut on Montparnasse!”
For dessert, Hash had made a real American deep apple pie, which we finished among the three of us. Before we left, Wad exchanged an old sweater for his jacket, Hash put on a hat and we were off. I had so recently walked over the same streets with Hash and young Snick that I couldn’t help noticing the happy couple sharing the sidewalk with me. Their spirits were high, with Hash holding close to Wad, who left her side only to kick a chestnut ahead of him three or four times, until a bad connection sent it bouncing onto the road.
“You’re in for a treat, Michaeleen. You can’t find modern pictures like these anywhere else in town.”
“I’m not afraid of the pictures, Wad, it’s their owner I’m worried about.”
“Aw, Gertrude’s not as black as she’s painted. We’re like brothers, she and I. Just remember not to mention James Joyce. If you mention him twice, you’ll never be invited back.”
“Oh, go on, Tatie. She says Joyce is a genius. I’ve heard her.”
“Joyce is one genius too many when Gertrude is talking. You see, Mike, she thinks she invented the twentieth century. If you give her that, she’s a pet.”
“I suppose we can talk about early American history.”
“That can be tricky too. She has an interest there. I’d stick to a neutral subject.”
“Does she hold strong views on geology?” I asked.
“Safe as far as I know. Quite safe. Leads directly to Cubism.”
“Oh, stop it, you two! You’d think we’re off to see the witch in her cave to hear you talk! You’re going to love Gertrude, Mike. Tatie’s only trying to scare you.”
We walked down the rue de Fleurus. It was dark, with the trunks of large trees casting shadows and dead leaves blowing across the street.
“By the way, Wad, I saw Arlette La Motte today. She’s the only one of the gang I’ve seen since that memorable night.”
“I always said they were worthless characters. No loyalty.”
“Does Arlette have a brother working here?”
“I think he’s a bartender over on the other side. Why?”
“I was asking her about taking drugs and she began warning me to stop asking questions. I assumed it was because she had somebody close in the business.”
“Jean-Paul La Motte’s name is well-known in a few sordid holes. There’s one on the rue des Italiens. He’s been there. It has a back way out that leads through the sewers to the catacombs. So they say. I paid a visit to the sewers once, just to see where Jean Valjean carried his wounded friend, but I saw no arrows pointing the way to the catacombs. I guess they want you to pay another admission. One thing about the famed sewers of Paris, you
don’t need to show your droit d’entrée to prove you’ve been there. People will tell you where you’ve been.”
“I sympathize completely. In fact, as we get closer to Miss Stein’s, I begin to feel as though I’d passed the day exploring the lower depths myself.”
“Calm yourself, old man. Alice came around to the flat herself. She was most insistent that we bring our young Canadian friend. You don’t think I send pneus around town on a whim, do you?”
The door was opened by Hélène, the cook, who greeted Hash warmly. Hats and coats were passed over and we followed her through a passage into the atelier, where Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas were enthroned in a large, square room surrounded by glorious pictures. Gertrude was enormous. She seemed part of the architecture, and yet she was perfectly balanced by the diminutive frame of Alice on the other side of the room. They smiled at us without getting up. I had been expecting a roomful of people. We must have arrived early. Since I was taking my cues from Wad, I took no responsibility.
“Waddington,” Gertrude said, after introductions had been attended to, “I was thinking about you this morning. About the matter we discussed.” She was trying out a frown on Wad, who answered it with his dark smile. “You should think again about that Anderson matter. He’s been a friend to both of us and it’s unfriendly to turn on a friend. Besides, you both are very close to me and I don’t like family quarrels.”
“I see.”
“Waddington, whenever you disagree with me, you say ‘I see.’ Does that mean you intend to pursue this?”
“It was just a thought, Gertrude. Can’t act on them all. Never enough time.”
“Yes, I know all about time. Why can’t the summer pass like the minutes in a doctor’s waiting room?” She now turned her attention to me, the newcomer. “Alice tells me that you are a great favorite of our dear Basket.”
“We only look to become better acquainted.”
“What do you think of Waddington pouncing upon poor Sherwood Anderson and making fun of Dark Laughter?”