Girl in the Afternoon

by Serena Burdick

  When she finished, she stood over Auguste and watched him sleep. The white coverlet was clutched up to his chin, which had sprouted unruly whiskers. Lazy whiskers, Colette called them. He’d been a lot more attractive in his lieutenant’s uniform, before he’d suffered the minor wound that forced him to leave the service. She may have been able to find something attractive in him if he’d been in the artillery, fighting heroically, but he’d been posted to the general staff where there was no real danger other than accidentally dropping his bayonet straight through his foot.

  It was not that she didn’t love him. She was just disgusted with him. What woman wouldn’t be? He lay in bed all day complaining even though he could walk perfectly well with a cane.

  “What’s the point of getting up when there’s no meal to go down to?” he grumbled. “Besides, keeping to bed is the only way to stay warm.”

  He’d tried to get her to join him, tugging at the front of her dress as he pulled her on top of him, and she’d had to slap his hands away from her breasts.

  “You’re too pathetic an old man to attract my attention anymore,” she’d said, struggling to her feet, which had only made him laugh, as if he didn’t really believe her.

  This had always been their marriage. He would want her, she’d push him away, he’d become inflamed by her flirtatious nature, there would be a passionate fight, and then they’d fling themselves at each other. She held back for Auguste’s own good. Marriage was boring. If she gave in easily there’d be no struggle, and men like a struggle.

  She’d known this from the beginning. She made Auguste wait three years for her hand in marriage even though he had asked the very night he met her.

  “You’re magnificent,” he’d whispered, pulling her off the dance floor onto a dark balcony. “Marry me.”

  “I’ve only just met you!” Colette had cried, her voice pitched with youth and the delight of attention. “Besides, I’d be a fool to marry the first man who asked.”

  She was only seventeen, after all, and not the type of girl to make things easy on anyone.

  After that, she entertained more suitors than was respectable, receiving an outrageous number of proposals even for a woman of her beauty. Most men would have given up. Not Auguste. He didn’t bother with the coy formalities of courtship, but worshipped Colette openly, which she rebuked, though secretly adoring his attention. He’d drop conversations the moment she entered a room, rushing to take her hand, holding it firmly as he ran his thumb over the ridge of her knuckles, at first gently, and then with enough pressure to arouse her.

  If he’d only touch her like that again, Colette thought.

  Auguste groaned and rolled over, one arm falling limply off the edge of the bed. He looked vulnerable in his sleep, and as Colette turned away, the gravity of what she had done sliced through her, sharp as a blade, leaving a deep wound of regret.

  * * *

  Auguste’s maman, Madame Savaray, was the only one who saw Henri leave.

  Earlier that morning she had been in the kitchen checking on the menial provisions Marie had procured for the day’s meals. In normal times, Colette ran the household and had always made it perfectly clear that Madame Savaray was not to interfere. But ever since that first shell fell on Paris, Colette had receded, doing nothing to ensure their survival.

  Madame Savaray, on the other hand, knew all about survival. She came from the Nord—a much heartier people than the pampered Parisians—where she’d practically starved as a child. She knew what it was to be hungry, and she knew what it was to sleep on soiled linens. She also knew they should be grateful that, under Marie’s vigilant stewardship, there was something to eat every day.

  They had been fools to stay in Paris. Auguste had wanted to send them to England, but Henri, who was not obligated to fight since he was not a Frenchman, had refused to return to his homeland, something Madame Savaray simply did not understand. Colette had also refused to leave. She’d said, “I don’t see why I should be cast out of my own home. These things always sound worse than they are.” Of course, Auguste let her do exactly as she pleased. So here they were, stuck in Paris as it crashed and crumbled around them.

  Fools, every one of them, Madame Savaray was thinking as she ascended the stairs, stopping at the sight of Henri, bag and easel in hand. He looked sickly. He had always been a thin, weak child, and he had grown into a thin, weak man. His stooped shoulders, his restless blue eyes that never seemed to settle anywhere, and the way he mumbled—as if petrified to speak up—had always made Madame Savaray pity him, as if the simple hardships of life were too much to bear.

  Today, he looked particularly troubled, and there was such desperation in his piercing eyes that Madame Savaray stepped forward unwittingly, but he practically ran out the front door. She had the urge to run after him. Where in heaven’s name was he going? To paint in the open air? What a ridiculous business this new method of painting outdoors. His hands would freeze. He would get shot. What could he be thinking?

  Quickly, she went to the parlor.

  Colette had just come in, missing Henri by minutes. She was seated at the far end of the room near a set of double doors that, in warmer months, opened onto a garden. In her hand she held a piece of ecru fabric cinched into an embroidery ring.

  Madame Savaray couldn’t help noticing how thoughtlessly attractive Colette looked this morning. There was a war on. The woman could at least attempt modesty. It was sacrilegious to sit in her silk dress with a brooch at her throat when people were freezing to death.

  Wetting the tip of her finger and knotting the end of her thread, Colette glanced up at Madame Savaray. Her mother-in-law was a formidable woman, taller than most, with wide hips and an abundant chest that, with age, had turned into a hapless mound of flesh. Her face was set hard beneath a black bun, and her dated wool dress swished over the floor. It had always amazed Colette that—given Madame Savaray’s age—her hair had never grayed. It was still so black that sunlight could turn it blue.

  “Where is Henri going?” Madame Savaray demanded.

  Colette’s needle hovered over the tiny, yellow bird she was stitching. “Whatever do you mean?”

  “He just walked out the front door.”

  Colette looked as if not quite understanding. Then she dropped her embroidery on the chair and stepped to the window. “He can’t have,” she said, drawing back the curtain.

  “Well, he did!” Exasperated, Madame Savaray left the room. “Aimée?” she called, mounting the stairs to the second story, a muscle in her left leg cramping as it always did in this miserably cold weather, not to mention her hip joints cracking at every step. “Aimée?”

  Her petite-fille stepped into the corridor, her hair half-up, the rest hanging straight down her back like a slab of dark wood. Aimée still had the figure of a girl, but she had grown into a thoughtful, serious woman with the most unusual eyes. At times, like right now, they were as soft and pale as the morning sky. But they could shift, without warning, to a sharp, unrelenting gray.

  Madame Savaray halted in front of her, respiring quickly from the climb, the pain in her left leg worsening as she stood still. “What have you put Henri up to? You might as well tell me the truth. I have not the time, nor the patience, to drag it out of you.”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea what you mean,” Aimée said, a hot rush of fear and excitement expanding through her. Henri must have already told her papa about them.

  “He’s gone.” Madame Savaray’s eyes narrowed. “And I suspect you know why.”

  “I’m certain he’s in his room.”

  “Well, I’m certain he just walked out the front door.”

  “That’s impossible. He can’t have.”

  A puff of air exploded from Madame Savaray’s lips. “It’s quite possible,” she said. “I just saw him leave.”

  Stunned, Aimée said, “Why would he do that?”

  “He had his easel. I imagined you two had come up with some preposterous idea of risking hi
s neck for a painting worthy of the salon.” She shook her head. “Or some such nonsense.”

  Aimée flew down the hall. Henri’s bedroom was empty, the bed covers tossed aside and the sheets rumpled where Henri’s body had been. There was a slight indent on his pillow, a shirtsleeve hanging over the edge of his trunk like a limp arm. Everything had the look of an impulsive departure, and Aimée felt a sudden lurch in her chest.

  In the parlor, Colette was at the window with her fist clenched around the curtain. She did not look at her daughter when Aimée stood beside her. There was a hefty sigh from Madame Savaray as she sank onto the sofa, tucking her foot under her petticoat and flexing it to relieve the cramp in her leg.

  Aimée pressed her forehead against the glass, the cold sending a tendril of pain coiling behind her eyes. The rue de Passy was empty. Nothing, save for a lone set of footprints broken through the ice-coated snow.

  “Henri wouldn’t paint in this weather,” she said, peeling her head from the window, a red circle widening across her forehead. Henri would not leave her either. There must be some explanation. “We should tell Papa. He can send someone to find him.”

  Colette let go of the curtain and stepped carefully away from her daughter. “There’s no need to worry your papa.” She lifted her embroidery from the chair and sat down. “Monsieur Manet walked through the streets yesterday. Clearly, it’s not that dangerous.”

  There was a pulsing in Aimée’s neck, a fast thumping near the ridge of her throat as she watched her maman plunge her needle into the fabric. Her maman was not a cold woman, but she reserved her warmth when it came to Aimée and her papa, dishing it out in small, controlled doses. Where Henri was concerned, however, there was always a kind word, a smile of avowed admiration. Aimée pictured the indentation on Henri’s pillow, the mark of his hurried absence, and fear ballooned inside her.

  She turned back to the window, the snow outside brilliant and blinding.

  “Aimée,” Colette spoke sharply, focusing on exactly where to place the bird’s outstretched wing in her embroidery. “Come away from that draft. You’re struggling to see something that is not there.”

  If Colette had seen the desperation on her daughter’s face, if she had noticed Aimée’s hands turned up at her sides and her neck tilted forward in a silent plea for help, things might have turned out differently. But all Colette saw was the silhouette of her stubborn daughter in the window.

  “I’m sure Henri just needed to get out of the house for a while,” she said. “What I wouldn’t give for some air.”

  Madame Savaray made an audible snort. “From the expression on Henri’s face, he was not stepping out for a bit of air.”

  Colette gripped her needle, her hand dashing up and down. “And what expression was that, exactly?”

  The question, in Madame Savaray’s opinion, did not deserve an answer. She was no fool. She could see the uncertainty passing over Colette’s face, her white knuckles, and her hand quickening its pace.

  Seventeen idle years in this house had turned Madame Savaray into a keen observer. She made a game out of it, predicting the meanings behind a look or a gesture. There was so much a person didn’t say. It amazed her that others didn’t pay more attention to the silences. But then, there were so many things that had amazed her since she’d moved into this house after her husband’s death.

  She’d come from the town of Roubaix, where her husband had devoted himself to the new opportunities in textiles and made a great fortune. A huge portion of this he had used to finance his son’s endeavors in Paris, where Auguste Savaray now ran a successful lace and linen thread business.

  Madame Savaray had no idea how it was so successful. Her son, in her opinion, was lazy, and in her day a lazy man did not make a fortune. Her husband had worked fifteen-hour days and never once, in twenty years, took a holiday. She had worked just as hard beside him, controlling the accounts, keeping the books, distributing the raw materials, and inspecting the finished products. Every day, no matter the weather, she opened that factory gate at six in the morning for the workers. Her life was spent in a world of quality control, price fluctuations, and labor problems until her husband died, the business was sold, and she was forced to move in with her son. At the time, she imagined Auguste could use her help. Very quickly she learned that her son did not believe a woman, young or old, knew anything about running a business.

  Madame Savaray watched as Colette deftly snipped a thread with a tiny pair of swan-shaped scissors. She did not understand this new generation of women. All they did was sit around in silk dresses planning soirées. She closed her eyes, the cramp in her leg finally easing up. She supposed Colette wasn’t to blame for her ways. Men didn’t want women to know the value of money anymore. It was just how the world was now.

  A shell fell so close it shook the house. Madame Savaray’s eyes flew open, and Colette’s scissors dropped to the floor. Aimée clutched her skirt, watching the smoke swallow the street, blotting out the last blue strip of sky.

  “Henri will be home by dinner,” Madame Savaray said. “Aimée, my dear, you must stand away from that glass.”

  But Aimée couldn’t move. She felt weak and brittle, like a withered twig hanging on to an already dead tree. It seemed she’d crack with the slightest movement, shatter, if she so much as bumped against something.

  Chapter 2

  Henri did not come home for dinner.

  Three weeks went by, and a deeply forlorn sense settled into the Savaray house. They did not celebrate the new year. If Henri had been there they might have found something hopeful to look toward in 1871, but he was not, and it seemed as if the war, their hunger, and the bitter cold would never end.

  Now, Auguste hated to be in bed. Even with his aching foot he found it hard to keep still. His restlessness moved him through the house, and he wandered the corridors as if they were the streets of Paris, sharpening his worry over a grindstone of terrible thoughts, imagining Henri. Imagining the worst.

  In the dining room one day, deeply exhausted, he dropped into a chair. Slumped over the table with his hands spread before him, he thought of his sons, something he did not let himself do often. He imagined how handsome they’d be if they’d had a chance to grow up, what lovely wives and children they’d have. He closed his eyes and filled the room with the noise of them, set the empty candelabras alight, the fire ablaze, drank his favorite Chambertin, lifted lamb to his mouth, potatoes doused in melted butter and plums swimming in their own, sweet juice.

  Very quickly the images dissolved into a wide black hole behind his eyes, and he opened them, taking in the silent room. If he could just get a whiff of something cooking, a scent of perfume, a flower, even, but the fetid smell of his own body, the stench under his arm and in his unwashed hair, made it impossible to imagine anything other than this dismal room and his immense loneliness. Smells, Auguste thought, held everything. Too much could ruin a perfectly decent woman, not enough, a perfectly decent meal. A smell could bring back the most vivid memory, or, like right now, ruin a delicate fantasy.

  The urge to close his eyes again, to shut out the world, was great, but he forced himself not to. He looked out the window where snow fell in thick clumps against the panes. He realized he had no idea what time it was, or what day of the week, and this surprised him, that he’d lost touch with the things in life that grounded a person.

  He pictured Henri crouched in a doorway, his boots packed with snow, his arms wrapped around his thin chest.

  As a boy, Henri had once slipped his hand inside of Auguste’s and said, I wish you were my real papa. Auguste had looked down into Henri’s wide eyes and said, Boys don’t often love their real papas. Much better this way.

  * * *

  Two days after Auguste crawled back into bed—deciding he would keep to it until this blasted war was over—Madame Savaray resolved that she must do something. Even with the Sabbath, and the pain in her hip, she needed to bring some semblance of normalcy to the household.
Since she did not care one whit about keeping up appearances, she went into the kitchen and took the cook’s bloodstained apron from the hook.

  Marie came in just as Madame Savaray was cracking the layer of ice in the water bucket. “Madame,” she said reasonably, “you ought not to do that.”

  Madame Savaray plunged her rag into the freezing sludge at the bottom of the bucket. “I did it before my marriage, and I can do it now,” she said.

  It hurt more now, that was all, but Madame Savaray could tolerate the ache in her knuckles and her cracking hips. What she could not tolerate was this house. If she could scrub away the self-indulgent filth, she would. Grabbing the bar of lye soap, she swiped it over her wet rag. Then, to Marie’s horror, Madame Savaray got down on her hands and knees and began scouring the floor.

  Working the rag with her head down and her shoulders hunched, Madame Savaray was reminded of her maman’s kitchen on washing day. She remembered the smell of ash, and the moist air that made her hair curl at the temples. For eighteen hours she had stood pouring water through the bucking cloth, over the ashes and potash, collecting it from the tap, reheating it and pouring it through again and again. Despite her wrinkled hands and blistered feet, she had found the work soothing. Nothing soothed her like that anymore.

  When the kitchen floor was finished, she rinsed her rag in the bucket. Her knees hurt and her hands were numb, but she found satisfaction in that. Her legs and back had ached at the end of washing day too. Pain was a job well done.

  * * *

  Later that afternoon, Colette found Madame Savaray in Henri and Aimée’s studio on her hands and knees, and she thought the old woman had lost her mind.

  “God help us! What do you think you’re doing?” she cried.

  Madame Savaray couldn’t be bothered to look up. “Cleaning.”

  “Why would you do such a thing?”

  “It needs to be done, and I’m not proud.”

  “Well, you ought to be.” Colette walked to a table where a stack of books had been arranged next to a sheet of paper, a quill pen, and a bulbous decanter. “You didn’t touch anything in here, did you?”