by Roman Payne
1 RIVE GAUCHE: (Fr) “Left Bank” (The section of Paris south of the river Seine which flows from the east to the west. The neighborhoods north of the Seine form the Rive Droite [‘Right Bank’].)
Madame Gazonette2, our landlady, was a flamboyant and sentimental woman of about sixty years who spent her time reading fantastic novels and creating gossip about other Parisians—from the famous to the fictitious. She said she loved what sorts of bizarre lives people lived, although most of her stories were perfectly impossible. She caught me in the hall once to inform me that the famous Marquis de G***, who supposedly lived near us, had been caught a month ago by a fish: a bottomfeeder in the Seine. She admitted that such a capture was, quote, “most-likely fiction, invented by people who wish the Marquis de G*** harm”; but she upheld that it was perfectly possible. The fish made the marquis his prisoner in the Seine, although he offered to grant the marquis one wish. The marquis said to the fish: “A wish, eh? I wish I hadn’t met you today!” …That day was a Friday; and the fish being more clever than the marquis, he granted him that wish for that day, but none the rest. So once a week, every Friday, the fish let the marquis out of the river so he could run errands in Paris and enjoy his favorite activities: that of promenading in the Tuileries Gardens, and going to the theatre at the Comédie-Française. I laughed through my nose at her story and wondered what marvel she had put in her laudanum that day.
1 ÎLE DE LA CITÉ: The larger of the two islands in Paris, in the Seine river, on which the cathedral of Notre Dame and the Palais de Justice are situated. The other island is Île Saint-Louis, where Saskia seeks her friend Adélaïse.
2 MADAME GAZONETTE: The word ‘gazon’ in French means ‘lawn’ or ‘turf.’ It is also a slang word for a woman’s pubic hair.
When Madame Gazonette met Saskia, she fell devoutly in love with her. She would comment on her beauty constantly, and on the beauty of us both as a whole… “And if that isn’t the most handsome couple!” she said often, clasping her hands to show how profoundly she took all of this, “and you both speak such amazing French! And with these adorable accents too!…” I informed Mme Gazonette that I had learned French before any other language, it being my mother’s native tongue. Mme Gazonette was impressed to learn that Saskia learned French in London from her friend Adélaïse…
“The two of us were glued together in England,” Saskia told her, “We spoke in English every day before six in the evening, and after six we spoke in French. But this is my first time really ‘living’ in France.” Madame Gazonette wondered why on earth we were in Spain when we met—no bother, she left our apartment after inviting us for the apéritif and a souper1 at her home any night we wished.
I feared for good reason that the Gazonette would also fall in love with inventing gossip that involved Saskia and me. And since at least half of her stories were believable—when they didn’t involve things such as time-travel, witches, magic fish, or the transforming of male facial hair into diamonds—I couldn’t risk her inventing gossip about the two of us, and I knew warning her was not enough. The second day in our new place I paid Mme Gazonette a visit at her apartment beneath ours...
“Are there any vacant maid’s quarters in this building that I can rent?”
1 APÉRITIF AND A SOUPER: (Fr) The words ‘apéritif’ and ‘souper’ now figure in modern English after having been borrowed from Classic/Modern French. As for the word ‘apéritif,’ neither the meaning nor the spelling were changed, whereas the French word: ‘souper” was modified to become the English word: ‘supper’; and with the change, went the meaning. ‘Souper’ as a noun in French means ‘the evening meal,’ which is the last meal eaten at night. The word appears more in Classic French: Used primarily by the noble, the wealthy, or the educated classes, it means: Any nighttime meal shared between friends; or if eaten between strangers, a meal shared by people of compatible values, who seek the intimacy of others present. The word is still used to refer to a ‘dinner after a night out (soirée).’
“I’m sorry, Monsieur, most of the maids for our building live in the same house as their employers; but if you don’t want another woman living in your house, which I can understand, I can arrange for a maid to come afternoons to clean, etc. I can find a maid who is honest… they are rare, but I can find one!”
I told her that it had nothing to do with a maid and told her firmly to remain discreet about what I was going to say. I invented a tale about Saskia coming from a very conservative household, and that her father’s position in the government made it necessary that she stay out of the press. I informed Madame that Saskia’s life was of nobody’s business, and that as far as the public was concerned, she lived alone in our apartment. I insisted that Saskia’s name was to be the only name attached to the apartment, that my name appear nowhere.
“If anyone asks you about Saskia and me,” I told her, “you say that I am her tutor in French, and that I live elsewhere. That is why I asked you if there is a vacant room somewhere in the building where I can throw a mattress. The smallest possible. I will pay an extra gold louis every month for the rent.”
Madame Gazonette liked the idea of an extra louis every month and said that throwing a mattress down wouldn’t be necessary, as she had a room that already had one. She led me up to the top floor of our building: a dim corridor of student flats, building maintenance closets, broom closets and the like. She unlocked a stoopy little door at the end of the hall, opened it, and I saw inside the perfect alibi: a miniscule space of three by two meters with enough dust to signify that someone hadn’t been inside it for a long time. In the center of the floor sat a floppy old mattress. A nightstand of common pinewood stood by the table. There was also to my great satisfaction something that would make it believable as a place where someone might live… a foot below the ceiling, casting moonlight on the mattress on the floor, was a tiny window looking out over the city.
“I’m very happy, Madame,” I reached in my pocket for six louis d’or.
“I am very happy too, Monsieur, shall I prepare the room?” “On the instant,” I told her, adding that she was to abide by certain conditions for this deal to work out: one, she and I were to remain the only two people on earth to have a key to the room; two, every day she would heat the room so it would be warm enough to make someone believe a person could live there. She would also sprinkle men’s eau de toilette on the sheets… “Don’t scrimp on quality,” I said, “our tutor is a real dandy—I think he makes extra money on the side! Ruffle the sheets a bit then, and put a candle that has been burnt all the way down on the night table, changing it often so the room will look constantly fresh and used.
“…If someone rings at the gate,” I continued, “asking after Saskia or myself, make them wait. If we decide to be available to see them, we need time to be each in our place. If someone asks for me and I am out and around town, don’t make them wait; invite them up to the sixth floor, enter with your key without knocking, and let them glimpse at my lifestyle—show them into this shabby, little cubbyhole where only I live, remember! Prepare official rental papers for this cubbyhole for me to sign tonight; we’ll have them notarized. We’ll also notarize the agreement for Saskia’s apartment to have legal proof she lives alone… I count on your discretion, Madame.” I then gave Mme Gazonette an extra louis to find a Catholic cross for the wall and to buy some books on ecclesiastic law and theology. I wanted anyone who visited my room to believe I was an Abbé at seminary school studying to become a priest. I reminded her again to keep the room smelling like men’s eau de toilette and fresh burnt wax.
Madame Gazonette was a good woman, and a real Parisian in the way that she thought neighbors, and neighbors’ neighbors, should either know nothing at all, or else only things that aren’t true. She grew up in the days of make-believe, and my request didn’t startle her in the slightest. She was fond of the theatre; many of her friends were actors. She too would have been an actress if her husband hadn’t forbade it while he was alive. S
o after hearing me cast her in the role of ‘landlady,’ Mme Gazonette swore on the soul that she swore she lost long ago that she would perform her role well. She laughed and changed her mind about her soul, “No, Monsieur, I’ll swear on my health. That means more to me! I am honored.”
“Very good,” I said, “I will leave you to clean my garçonnière1. And remember all that I told you about Saskia’s privacy.”
When I returned to our apartment, Saskia was seated at the table writing something down on a piece of brown stationery, which she quickly hid from me, sliding it into the book of Homer I’d given her. She jumped-up and asked me if we would go look for Adélaïse then, or if I wanted ‘to help her understand her fortune…’ I told her that I wanted to take a walk. “This is my first time in Paris,” I told her, “I want to explore.” She could come or stay, I explained, but I wasn’t happy about the way she phrased our plans: either search for Adélaïse, or help her with her fortune.
“Once we find Adélaïse, you two will be in your own little world together,” I told her, “Like lovers, you won’t need anyone or anything from outside. You two can go abroad together. Leave me here…”
“Oh, my poor Saul… please don’t be so sensitive!… I will never leave you, no matter what happens with Adélaïse. She is my best friend, yes, and my only tie to the past. But in a way, you are more important to me now… You are part of my fortune, and my fortune is my only tie to the future. It is my destiny. Just as you are helping me now, I will help you. I will always help you, Saul My Fortune. Once we find Adélaïse, you will see what I will do— once we find her!”
I took her hands in mine and sighed, “Oh, unhappy Wanderess!” It was really something to pity. “You will never navigate in this world if you talk to other people in this way. You call me your ‘fortune.’ You say, ‘Once’ we find Adélaïse, not ‘if’ we find her… Adélaïse could be dead. As for your fortune, that could merely be the ramblings of a woman who believed herself a visionary because she ate the mushrooms growing in her garden.”
Saskia pleaded with me then. She said that this gardener woman was a visionary; that she didn’t eat mushrooms—that she couldn’t possibly have… ‘It is the middle of summer,’ she told me, ‘Mushrooms only grow in the autumn time… when the weather is damp.’ She said that she’d memorized her fortune, and that a thousand times she’d written it to paper, destroying it each time so that all that remained was the copy engraved in her memory. I listened to her tell me that she considered the words of the gardener woman as true as nature, and as inevitable as the changing of seasons. She believed in this fortune more than she believed in anything else in the world, even herself. ‘Unhappy Wanderess,’ I thought to myself, ‘This beautiful child, wandering the world and suffering; cursed to wander and suffer …and all for some mischief told to her once by a madwoman in a garden— sprinkling seeds, surrounded by weeds.’
1 GARÇONNIÈRE: (Fr) There is no accurate translation for this French word that refers to a discreet apartment or room (usually in the city) that a married man keeps in order to engage in infidelity with his mistress or mistresses.
At thirteen, Saskia lost everything in her world in a single moment of confusion. At fourteen she was sent off into this world; she was given her wandering shoes, some money for the road, and a premature adulthood. Now, at seventeen, the only thing in her life besides her lost friend, was this mysterious ‘fortune’ that was supposed to solve everything for her, and which I still didn’t understand. I pitied her and agreed to tell her all she wanted to know… All, that is, except: where I grew up, and where my father was born…
“Why not that?” she stamped her foot.
“Because it doesn’t suit me. And I’m stubborn,” I told her, “Where I grew up and where my father was born are the two things you want to know most. And what I want to know most is: why you want to know these things! Why is it, you want this information so badly? If I can’t have what I want, you cannot either.”
“Child!” she exhaled with impatience, “The gardener woman said I cannot explain the puzzle to you, or else it will be ruined, the fortune will be ruined, we will be ruined, and our future will be terrible!”
“This was the gardener-woman on the Île Saint-Louis?” “Yes.”
I gave a long breath and reclined in my chair, “As a rule,” I told her, “gardener-women are easy to spot—since they lurk in gardens. I will go to the Île Saint-Louis tomorrow and torture every garden-woman I find until I get one to speak up and tell me what this is all about.”
This joke of mine made Saskia cry. I hated seeing her cry, seeing her soft cheeks attacked by tears. She said she was fed up. She told me how scared she was all the times she almost lost me: when I left her apartment in Barcelona after she’d healed me and I almost left for Florence without trying to find her; when I became furious because I thought she was having a romance with this Andrea boy—she was sure I would either kill him and go to prison, or else distrust her forever and abandon her; and there were many other times she was afraid I would leave her. She said to be kind to her. And even if her ‘stupid fortune’ was just that: a stupid fortune, it was all she had to grasp onto in this world besides the memory of her friendship with Adélaïse. Without her fortune, she told me, she wasn’t anybody. She cried again and I hugged her in my arms and told her I would tell her everything. I would tell her everything, I promised, except of course for the name of the country where I was born and the place where my father was raised.
It was still our first day in Paris. Saskia and I had yet to share a bed together in Paris. We were on the bed together, distant. Never had we ever kissed as lovers; if we touched lips it was as brother and sister. In one moment of emotion, our lips fell together by accident, but we quickly removed ourselves as though we were children touching glass with dirty hands. We were sacred to one another. We were frightened by the influence each was having on the other, more and more every day. ‘I love her no longer as a child,’ I told myself, ‘Since our last night in Barcelona, I love her as a woman, and I want her.’ But mine was a difficult task, I knew. It was probably the hardest task I ever set for myself. Since I learned the way her selfish uncle altered her sexuality forever, just so that he could extinguish a desire that was driving him crazy… And then his trip to Athens afterwards, with the gifts he sent to try to heal his cowardice and shame… The more I thought about him and what he did, the more I thought how unnatural he was—a monster, what he did was monstrous. And so I was setting before me the hardest task of all: I would not touch her as a man touches a woman until I knew she was fully grown, heart and mind, and until I knew she fully loved me and trusted me beyond measure.
So that night after we had kissed… after I wanted her, was inflamed by her, I stopped and told her what I’d decided. She told me that she would be my sister until the day we could become lovers. We were already lovers, although lovers who do not touch are comic lovers. The comedy in our lives was those first few weeks we lived together in Paris: Our bodies desired one another, our souls opened for one another. We experienced all of the happiness and anguish of first love. Those first few weeks in Paris, we barely touched lips; yet the few times we did, it had the force of a collision of stars.
Our landlady interrupted our pantomime love affair that first evening. She came to finalize things on the apartment and offer us wine. While Saskia sat sharing stories with Mme Gazonette, I sat somber in a chair thinking: ‘Why does Saskia need to know where I am from? And all this about my father? What possible business could this young girl have with the once famous Solarus?' I was suspicious. My intuition told me something bad was going to happen. A few more glasses of wine and I became very light at heart. I stopped thinking somber thoughts to listen to Mme Gazonette. She was good company that day, giving us some interesting facts about her life:
While she was young, she told us she had the pleasure of meeting Jeanne d’Arc at a ballet1. Jeanne had by then acquired a nerve disorder. She was trembling when the
y shook hands. Regardless, Madame said she was very pretty in spite of rumors about her having been an ugly, mannish and beastly thing. On the contrary, Madame told us that she was feminine to her fingertips and even had the body of a ballerina. During their conversation, two different men and one woman approached Jeanne d’Arc to inform her that, although she chose an important mission in life, she could have been a ballerina if she’d wanted to; for, they said, ‘You have the body!’ After Madame Gazonette described meeting Jeanne d’Arc, she announced that this night was the twentieth anniversary of her discovery that she was in menopause.
1 JEANNE D’ARC AT A BALLET: Such a meeting could never have occurred, since Jeanne d’Arc (John of Arc) was born in 1412 and died in 1431. The first attested ballet performance was given in 1581 at the French court. Although there may have been ballet performances before 1581, it is doubtful that there were any many years before—certainly not as early as the fourteen-hundreds.
Before the good woman left, giving us back our pantomime love affair, she made sure to get another rent payment from me. I gave her thirty-six gold louis for six month’s rent on our apartment (this was in addition to the six louis already paid her for three month’s rent on the cubbyhole where my ghost would sleep), and I gave her three pistoles for the services to be rendered daily unto ‘Ghost Saul.’ With the gold still clicking in her hands, our happy landlady clasped them to her heart and sighed, “it is good to have you here! Good to drink Italian wine and reminisce of those beautiful memories of menopause! Such joy,” she added, “is only achieved by Shakespearean youths who fall asleep during love making! Ô, to youthful love on hot summer nights! May you young birds make beautiful music together on your first night in Paris…” This statement made Saskia blush to the ends of her ears. Madame Gazonette turned serious and told me directly…