Lost in Paris

by Elizabeth Thompson

  She died when I was six, but a few months before, to celebrate my graduation from kindergarten into “big-girl school,” she embroidered similar beaded pearlescent flowers around the neckline of my favorite pink sweater. It was like wearing the most wonderful necklace, and I thought I was so grown-up. It’s one of my most beloved memories of Granny Ivy.

  I start to call out to Marla to come look, but I don’t.

  She wouldn’t remember, because she wasn’t there.

  I make a mental note to have the items cleaned. In the meantime, I hang the dress back in the closet and turn my attention to five more diaries I find stashed away on the closet shelf. Jackpot. I take them into the living room and sit at the desk, where I thumb through the earliest volume and skim a part that has her talking about first arriving in Paris and having a difficult time finding a job, ultimately taking work as a painter’s model.

  That must be where the paintings in the bedroom came from.

  I put down the diary.

  I’m wasting precious time sitting here reading when I should be searching. I only have three more days—two and a half if you count travel time—before I have to return to London and go back to work. I can take the diaries with me and read them later. Right now, I need to see what other treasures I can find in the apartment.

  When I booked the ticket, I made a return reservation for myself, not fathoming that this shrine to Ivy’s life would be a real thing.

  Honestly, since Marla was involved, I expected nothing.

  Speaking of the devil, I hear her humming “I Love Paris” to herself in the bedroom.

  I walk around the common area, opening drawers, closets, and cupboards, taking inventory of the contents. In the living room, among other things, I find an old deck of playing cards still in its box, a heavy glass ashtray, and a world atlas. In the bathroom, I find a brittle robe hanging on a hook on the back of the door. There’s an empty cut glass bottle with a faded label that reads EAU DE LAVANDE AMBRéE PURE and a sliver of petrified soap next to a silver-handled shaving brush. One of the more curious things I uncover in the kitchen, shoved in the back of a cabinet, is a set of five rectangular cookie tins painted to look like a train when set end to end. The first tin is the engine, the next three are cars transporting both human and animal passengers, and the last is the caboose complete with a waving conductor.

  I keep reminding myself that I’m supposed to be here. I’m not snooping, despite how weird it feels to pilfer through someone else’s belongings, looking at what was left behind. I can’t escape the feeling that someone might burst into the room at any second and stop me.

  Maybe it’s because I don’t really know what I’m looking for.

  Finally, after I’ve been at it for a couple of hours, I silently bid Ivy’s ghost to give us some clues. I’m squinting at a faded grocery list that I found wadded up in a kitchen drawer when Marla calls from the bedroom. “Hannah, come here and look at this. I think I might have found something.”

  I get up from where I’ve been sitting on the floor and walk into the bedroom. Marla is holding a stack of yellowing papers as thick as a phone book.

  “This was under the bed. What do you make of it?”

  I take the tome from her. It appears to be a manuscript of some sort written in French on a typewriter and held together by a rotting rubber band, which crumbles and falls away as soon as I take the stack from Marla and start thumbing through the pages.

  There’s no cover page. No name anywhere on the manuscript—at least not from what I can see at a glance.

  The yellowed paper feels brittle and fragile, like dry autumn leaves. I don’t want to rip through it.

  “This might be something,” I say. “But I don’t know.”

  A few French words jump off the page at me, but I can’t make sense of it as a whole. I bring it into the living room.

  “Where are you going?” Marla trails after me.

  “One thing I learned from the tours I lead is that we need to touch things like this as little as possible.”

  “How are we going to look at it unless we touch it?”

  “Marla, I can see by looking at the papers that they’re fragile. Dirt and oil on our hands will only make them deteriorate faster.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Okay, excuse me while I get my X-ray glasses.”

  “You’re hysterical. But I’m serious. While we’re figuring out what we have here, we need to treat it with care, and that includes keeping our hands off it until I can get us some gloves and an acid-free box to store it in.”

  “And then what?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  We stand and stare at the stack of pages as if we’re waiting for it to answer our questions.

  “Okay, I know we shouldn’t get too excited, but remember that obit clipping that was with the deed?”

  Marla nods.

  “The person was Andres Armand.”

  “Right, we think he’s the Andres in Ivy’s diary,” Marla says.

  “He was a writer. Even though he was French, he hung with the American expats in Paris between the wars. What if this is his work?”

  Marla’s eyes are wide. “Do you think it is? You’re the one who’s the expert in dead writers.”

  “I have no idea. I’m not that familiar with his work. Who knows? If it is his, it’s probably a draft of something that’s already published.”

  “Maybe we need to go to the bookstore or the library and see if we can get copies of his old work and compare,” Marla suggests.

  “That’s a great idea. I want to do an internet search to see if I can figure out how many books he wrote. Then we can take it from there.”

  A quick online search on my phone turns up a website for the Andres Armand Foundation, which is headquartered in Antibes. The site says Armand wrote twelve books over his lifetime. A respectable number. Though it would take some time to compare the French text in the manuscript to his body of work, it would be doable… in all our spare time.

  I jot down the names of the books and plan to purchase the original French-text versions before I go back to work.

  “Too bad we can’t borrow them from the library,” Marla says. “Since neither of us speaks French, what are we going to do with twelve French books after we’re done comparing?”

  “Maybe that would be a good way to start learning the language,” I say. “You realize you’re going to be living here for the time being, right?”

  Marla gives me a blank look. “Reading those books is like asking me to solve a calculus equation without knowing basic math.”

  “You have to start somewhere,” I say.

  “That’s an awfully expensive outlay for a bunch of books that might not even turn out to be useful. I mean, what if this isn’t his work? Or what if it’s not something that’s been published before?”

  My pulse picks up. “If this is unpublished work by Andres Armand, that would be pretty significant.”

  “Would it be worth something? I mean, would it be valuable?”

  “Discovering a previously unpublished manuscript by an author of note would definitely be valuable. I’m not sure how much it would be worth, though. It’s not like a painting by Picasso that could be auctioned off.”

  “Why couldn’t a manuscript be auctioned?” Marla asks.

  Resisting the urge to lift the first page, I clasp my hands. “I don’t know. This isn’t my area of expertise.”

  “But you’re book smart, Hannah. You’ve never come across anything like this on your tours?”

  “No, I haven’t. I know some literary history, sure, but antiquities publishing is its own beast. We need to find an expert who can tells us if this is an Andres Armand book, either published or not, and what to do with it if it is.”

  She gives me a stern look. “Do not call that horrible cheating man.”

  “I won’t call Gabriel. I don’t want to talk to him after last night.”

  “
I think we should enlist Levesque’s help.”

  I get my phone out of my purse and call the main number at the firm.

  The receptionist passes me along to Levesque’s secretary, who says he’s tied up this afternoon and will call us Monday, unless it’s an emergency. If so, Monsieur Cerny might be able to help.

  “No! It’s not an emergency. Monday will be fine.”

  Why is Gabriel always available while Monsieur Levesque seems to never stop working?

  I blink away the frustration and explain what we’ve found, hoping that when he calls us back, he will be able to guide us.

  Fifteen minutes later, my phone rings.

  “Mon amour,” says Gabriel. “Levesque’s secretary said you called. How may I help you?”

  “You can’t. I’ll wait until Monsieur Levesque gets back.”

  “I understand you have found an interesting manuscript? If that is the case, I am the one in the office best equipped to help you. Emile would simply turn the task over to me anyway.”

  “Thank you, but, as I said, I’d rather wait and talk to Monsieur Levesque. Perhaps he can tell me where to get help outside the firm.”

  There is silence on the other end of the line. It lasts long enough for me to think we’ve been disconnected.

  I’m about to push the End Call button when he says, “You are angry with me. Please do not be.”

  Ugh. Technically, nothing happened. We could pretend that we were simply client and attorney having a business dinner.

  But we both know that’s not true. He misled me, and it proves how bad a judge of character I am when it comes to men. I can’t blame Gabriel on Cressida, though he has definitely earned a place in my Date From Hell Hall of Fame as The Cheater.

  “Your wife is beautiful, Gabriel. You’re a lucky man.”

  “Hannah, is that… that man?” Marla sputters, catching on. “Why are you talking to him after what he did to you? Let me have the phone. I have some things to say to him.”

  I hold up a hand to silence her and turn my back when she persists.

  “Hannah, my wife and I have an arrangement. She travels excessively and while she is gone, I am free to do as I please.”

  From the look on Veronique’s face, I would venture to guess that she’s not as on board with their arrangement as he thinks she is, but it’s not my business. I will never allow myself to be alone with him again, but based on his ties to the arts community, he might be our best bet at finding an expert in interwar literature.

  “That’s between you and your wife, Gabriel. Thank you for offering to help, but Marla and I can wait to talk to Monsieur Levesque.”

  “Tell me about the manuscript,” he says. “Does it appear to be an antique?”

  “Yes. So, you can see it’s not exactly an emergency. The manuscript has waited many years. We can wait a few more days.”

  “Ah, as I said, Emile will simply refer you to me. I am the consultant for all things having to do with the arts and antiquities. So, it appears as if you’re stuck with me. I am very happy to help you find someone who can look at it. I will connect you with the right person. You won’t even have to see me again. Since you are upset, it is the least I can do to make it up to you—to prove that I am truly sorry for making you uncomfortable. Please trust me, Hannah.”

  July 1927

  Paris, France

  Dear Diary,

  I took Sunday off, but today, when I arrived at Pierre’s studio, I asked him what happened on Saturday night. I deserved to know why he’d left me at Miss Stein’s salon without the courtesy of a goodbye.

  Though we did not work yesterday, it appeared that Pierre did not benefit from the rest. He was quite irritable and disagreeable.

  When I asked him again to explain why he left me in a stranger’s home, he rubbed his red eyes and raked his fingers through his greasy hair. I suspected he’d been bitten by the Green Fairy or worse.

  Absinthe is illegal in Paris. Even so, it’s everywhere. Hiding in plain sight. The same holds true for the fairy’s good friends, opium and cocaine. One need not look very hard to find them, especially within the circles Pierre and Helen run.

  It was clear that Pierre was unrepentant and didn’t wish to talk about abandoning me. All he said was he had run into an unexpected conflict and was confident I would see myself home.

  I shouldn’t be too mad, because if he had done the right thing and walked me home, I might not have met Monsieur Armand. My heart skips a beat every time I think of him. But Pierre doesn’t need to know that.

  We had been working for an hour when someone knocked on the studio door. Pierre erupted and threw his brush against the wall, cursing and demanding the person go away and let him work.

  But then the door opened and my heart nearly stopped when Monsieur Armand stormed into the room.

  He did a double take, tipped his hat, and said it was lovely to see me again.

  I wanted to disappear into the crevices of the floorboards. Seeing this man who treated me so kindly and with such respect the other night made what I was doing suddenly feel shameful and wrong. I grabbed my robe and hugged it to myself as the two began arguing in rapid French.

  Finally, Pierre went to his rusty can and counted out francs, muttering to himself the entire time.

  He threw coins at Armand, who stooped to collect the money.

  Armand then addressed Pierre in English, saying his debt to Mademoiselle Leon was settled. That she would be happy to receive what she was owed, though Pierre shouldn’t need someone to call to collect his debts in the first place.

  He turned to go but not before warning me of Pierre’s reputation for taking advantage of his models. He said that’s why he always seems to need a new one.

  Pierre began shouting at him, and I wanted to cover my ears, but Andres Armand remained composed. Again, he tipped his hat to me as a gentleman would to a lady and took his leave.

  After Monsieur Armand left, Pierre threw a can of turpentine at the door, leaving a muddy, oily splat on the wood.

  I had to ask him if what Monsieur Armand said was true.

  Pierre called him a jackass and told me not to believe a word he’d said.

  When I asked him what happened to the model he’d used before me, Pierre said it was none of my concern and demanded we get back to work.

  But it was my concern if what Monsieur Armand said was true. The only thing worse than posing naked for a man like Pierre was doing it for no compensation.

  He blinked and asked how I knew Andres Armand.

  I told him I’d met him at Miss Stein’s Saturday night. But I wasn’t about to let him change the subject. I demanded pay for the next two days up front.

  He then started growling about how he had no money because Armand and I had taken it all.

  I told him if that was the case, I would leave, too.

  Pierre flew into a rage, throwing things, then storming out, leaving me in the room alone with the door wide open.

  By the time I had dressed, he had not returned, so I gave my portrait a little wink and marched out of that dreary studio.

  Fifteen

  January 6, 2019—10:00 a.m.

  Paris, France

  I’ve taken Gabriel at his word that he will keep things strictly professional. He’s a married man. Hard stop. There will be no more breakfasts at his favorite café, or tours of museums, or dinners for two. We will only speak of the manuscript and who can help us figure out if it’s the work of Andres Armand.

  Marla doesn’t want to speak to him, much less work with him. When I told her I wasn’t afraid of him, that I could handle myself, she washed her hands of the manuscript. She wants nothing to do with him or the authenticating process.

  As far as I’m concerned, that’s just as well. I’m sure she finds this book talk boring.

  After telling Gabriel my hunch that the manuscript might be the unpublished work of Andres Armand, he showed up at the apartment, on a Sunday, no less, wanting to see the treasure w
ith his own eyes.

  I want to ask him what Veronique is doing on this lovely Sunday morning, but he distracts me with the hint that he knows someone who might be able to help us—a professor of literature at the Sorbonne.

  “If this manuscript turns out to be important, we will need to safeguard it,” he says. “It is not a good idea to simply turn it over to someone whom you have just met—even if they are affiliated with the university. You don’t know people’s motives.”

  “Not everyone’s motives are pure,” Marla murmurs. “That’s for sure.”

  I give her a look that says, Knock it off. There’s no sense in rehashing what happened the other night.

  “Who is this professor you’re recommending?” I ask. “Is he not honest?”

  Gabriel shrugs in that way I found endearing when I first met him, but now it seems affected.

  “One would hope. Still, you must be careful, Hannah. Your manuscript could easily get lost and poof.” He snaps his fingers like a magician who has made the woman in the box disappear. “There goes your precious find. And you have little recourse.”

  He suggests I copy each page of the manuscript. He offers to hire someone to do it for us, and this time there is no mention of it being on the house. It’s better that way, because I don’t want Levesque, Racine, and Cerny to have any claim to the book should it prove to be authentic.

  I know I’m being extra cautious, but my gut is telling me this stack of typed pages might turn out to be something.

  Still, Marla and I can’t afford to shell out for fancy photocopies and we don’t know how someone else will handle the fragile pages, so Gabriel and I establish that it’s documentation enough—at least for now—for me to take clear photos of every page with my iPhone. I get to work.

  * * *

  GABRIEL CALLS HIS SORBONNE contact first thing Monday morning. Professeur Louis Descartes is available to meet this afternoon; I invite Marla to join us, but she declines. She’s in the middle of sorting through Ivy’s dresser drawers and doesn’t want to stop.

  “I mean, if you need me, of course I’ll go, but you keep making a point of saying you can handle yourself. Frankly, I’d rather not see the French skunk again, even if he is pretending to be helpful.” Her gaze sweeps over the pile of underwear and stockings and garter belts she’s deposited on one of the air mattresses. “You’ll be in a public place. It’s not as if he’s going to try something in the middle of the Sorbonne.”