I stared. “Leave Maman behind?”
She shrugged. “Maybe. It is better than being shackled, so yes, I think we should.”
* * *
Sometimes Maman scared me or I didn’t like her, but she was still my mother and I didn’t want to leave her behind.
“How long do bones take to mend, Papa?” I asked. “Is it a month? Or two months?”
“Even a week,” he replied, “is too long.”
I tried to make a splint for her broken ankle—twigs and rope. “Try that, Maman. Can you walk?”
But she screamed when she tried, saying, “No, no! It hurts too much!” Then I went into the woods and found a straight, strong branch to be her walking stick. She leaned her weight upon it and it helped a little.
I whispered to Papa, “We aren’t going to leave Maman, are we? She’s getting better now.”
He kept sharpening his knife and said, “I can smell their rifles … They’re getting near.”
* * *
An idea came to me one night. The rain went drip-drip through the hole in the boat, and I suddenly sat up.
I felt the hole above me. It wasn’t very big. Surely we could fill it? Maman and Gavroche were sleeping beside me. Outside, I found Papa and Azelma; they were creeping in the darkness, trying to catch a roosting bird and snap its neck. “Papa! The boat!” I called as I ran to them. “We can plug the hole and sail in it and it won’t matter that Maman can’t walk very far because the boat will carry us, and the river’s fast-flowing so we’ll be taken far away …”
Azelma sniffed. Her face was wet with rain. “What’s downstream, anyway?”
“Paris. It must be. Because rivers run into other, bigger rivers, and the Seine in Paris is the biggest river of all,” I puffed, out of breath. “Papa?”
He stared at me for a second. “Wake your mother. Let’s plug this hole.”
* * *
We used wet cloth and mud and moss, tree sap and horse hair, dung and old rope. We packed it very tightly. “Will this hold?”
Papa shrugged. “For a while.”
The rain stopped. The moon was high and full when we pushed the boat into the water. Papa held it as we climbed in, one by one—Maman, Azelma, and I. Then I turned to lift Gavroche into the boat—but he wasn’t there.
“Where’s Gavroche?”
“Who cares?” Maman said.
“Gavroche? Gavroche?” I yelled.
Papa climbed in and pushed at the riverbank so that the boat moved out, into the river, but I still couldn’t see my brother so I shouted, “No! We’ve got to wait for him!”
“No, we haven’t,” said Maman. “His fault, for wandering off …”
“We can’t leave him!” I scrambled to the edge of the boat and tried to snatch at bulrushes to pull the boat ashore and I said, “Let me off the boat! I’ll find him and we can meet you downstream …”
“The moon,” hissed Papa, “is full! It’s showing us up! There’s no time to go back and look for that boy …”
“But what’ll happen to him? He’s only seven!”
Maman seized me. She said, “Look at me. Listen. We are slow enough with my ankle without being slowed down by him as well. And he’ll be fine, anyway—he’ll get to Paris, join the others …”
“The others?”
“Urchins—other homeless boys who beg and steal and live on the streets … Now shut up, Eponine, or we’ll push you overboard.”
I looked back—and suddenly, there he was. He must have been gathering moss to plug the hole with because his arms were full of it—and he dropped the moss when he saw us sailing away in our patchwork boat. Gavroche began to run. He tried to catch up with us with his arms outstretched and I stretched my arms out too, and I screamed, “Jump! Jump and I’ll catch you!” But the distance was too big for him. The boat went faster and faster.
Gavroche slowed down and stopped.
He grew smaller. He lowered his arms and I lowered mine, and we looked at each other until he was out of sight.
Nobody spoke for ages. The boat rocked past villages and fields and waste ground. After a while the plug of cloth and mud felt damp to touch and water came in, around our shoes and hems, but all I could think about was Gavroche. We scooped water out of the boat with our hands, but I just saw his frightened face and eyes.
We swam to shore, in the end. We were soaked and shivering. There was a row of rotting houses. A dog howled. It started to rain again.
Maman said, “Well? There it is. What do you think?”
“Of what?” muttered Azelma.
“Paris. That’s the start of it.”
* * *
I’ve done bad things but the worst was leaving Gavroche. The guilt and sorrow made my belly ache. I kept thinking, I’ve let you down, little man.
But there was another pain too. It was also in my belly, like someone was pushing there. It made me wince and bend over in the street so that Papa barked, “What’s the matter with you? We don’t need two invalids …”
I wasn’t sure what the matter was but that night, in an alleyway, I found blood. It was on the back of my skirt and when I touched myself to find where the blood came from, my hand came back bloodied too. What was this? I was frightened for a moment in case I was dying or had something bad inside me. But then I remembered the rumors that this was what happened to women—they bled every month, like the moon turns from big to small. Years ago, Maman had said, “Your monthly times will come …” She gave birth to Gavroche a few days later.
I cried a little in the alleyway as I thought of my brother on the riverbank—and for having this blood on my hands that I didn’t properly understand. What did it mean? Did it make me a grown-up? I hoped not because I didn’t feel ready to be a grown-up Eponine. I washed my skirt in a rainwater barrel, then tore a little cloth from a sack and tucked it under my clothes between my legs.
I wiped my tears away and decided, I am just the same. I am still me. I could still play with dolls if I wanted to and I could still look at the stars and say, “Hello up there …” But I felt wiser too.
So that’s how I entered Paris: wet and tired, with a belly that hurt. But I was also ready for the city and all the things that I reckoned might lie in it—danger and beauty and love.
Paris began as a path through scrubby grass. Then a few soggy crops appeared and a rickety windmill and gravestones showed through the weeds.
Gradually, more houses came, with more alleyways running between them. Pigs trotted, chickens scratched, children begged, and people snatched at things. Two men started fighting and I said to Azelma, “Keep walking,” because she’d stopped to stare.
The ground wasn’t earth anymore. Instead, it was dung and bones and matted feathers and rotting meat and human muck. The smell was horrid. A woman shouted out from a window, high up: “Look out!” And then she slopped a bucket into the street so we got splattered.
“They throw their toilet buckets in the street?” Azelma covered her mouth.
No ladies in fine dresses here. The only dresses I saw were frilly, gaudy things that fit badly so that their chests were spilling out. Those women had painted their faces and they lolled in doorways, picking their teeth. Some whistled to Papa and Maman hissed, “Don’t you dare.”
“Is it safe to walk in daylight?” I whispered. We’d not walked in daylight for six years.
Papa said, “We’re safer now. See all of this? These are our kind of people—vagabonds, harlots, pickpockets …” He smiled for the first time in a long time. “There are worse people than us in Paris, Eponine, and the gendarmes here will leave us alone.”
We walked all day. Maman hobbled more and more; Azelma got blisters on her feet. We passed through the huge wall into the proper city, where the houses were much higher and the sky seemed small. It was still raining. Our dresses were so wet they stuck to us.
“Papa,” wailed Azelma. “When are we going to rest? And where, because I’m definitely not sleeping in those ditches …
” She meant the ones with human muck in them.
Papa said, “I’ve got friends in Paris. We’ll stay with Babet on the rue de la Charcuterie. You’ll like him, Azelma: he pulls teeth.”
“Pulls teeth?”
“There’s money in it. Rich people will pay a lot for a proper human tooth to fill a gap in their own mouth—a whole franc, even!”
“Useful,” said Maman, “if we get needy. The girls have lovely teeth.”
* * *
As dark fell, Papa said, “Here we are.”
We looked at the house. Its wood was black with rot. Maman winced as a rat ran past. Knock-knock went Papa’s knuckles on the door.
It opened. The man who stood there was small but hard-looking, like a whip. His eyebrows met in the middle and the few teeth he had were brown.
“Thenardier … Well, well.”
Papa shook his hand. “Babet! It’s been too long. You remember my wife, Josephine?”
He took my mother’s hand (the hand that wasn’t clutching her walking stick) and kissed it. “Enchanté, Madame! And who are these lovely ladies?”
“My daughters, Azelma and Eponine.”
Babet cast his gaze from our faces to our feet and back again. “How old?”
“Fourteen and fifteen. Good stealers too.”
“Oh?”
“Very much so.” Maman beamed, proudly. “Azelma has taken earrings and brooches and a silver mirror, and much more!”
“And the older one?”
“Eponine? Perhaps she is less good at stealing but she can read and write …”
Babet stared at me. He gave a slow smile, showing his pegs and swollen gums. “And she’s got other charms …”
We were given a room upstairs. There was a single mattress that smelled of drains; damp bubbled on the walls. All night, it rained—I listened to it hammering on the windowpane.
I thought of Gavroche. I thought of peach trees and the dreams I’d had.
Cosette too. Where was she?
“Welcome to Paris,” I whispered in the dark.
Babet’s house was just like his mouth—stinking and wet. The curtains never opened and the fire was rarely lit. His candles were made of pig fat, which meant the air smelled horrid.
Azelma hated it too. She grumbled about having to squat in the yard to do her business. And there was a little hole in our bedroom wall; once I thought I saw an eye, peeking through at me. But when I bent down to it, the eye was gone.
“How long do we have to be here for?” I asked.
Maman sat on the stained mattress. She couldn’t hobble far but she didn’t want to stay there either.
“We need money if we want to rent a place of our own,” she said. “We can’t leave this horrible place until we have ten francs, at least—so steal, my girls! Pick the pockets of everyone you meet! Get us out of here.”
* * *
Winter blew in quickly. In the rue de la Charcuterie my teeth chattered and my nose turned pink. I wrapped a blanket around me because I didn’t have a coat and I packed straw into my boots to make them warmer. I remembered the white fur muff I’d had—long, long ago.
Rue de la Charcuterie was a poor street. I thought to steal meat from the butcher but blood was splattered on his walls and the flies were as big as my thumb, so I kept away. The people were drunks or peddlers or urchins or those women with painted faces and squashed chests, and they’d hiss, “Get out of my way!” when I passed them. Some talked of a man called Lamarque. It was the first time I’d ever heard of him: Lamarque will save us! He’ll make France a free country again! Down with the king, down with the king! And most people cheered and clapped.
There was nothing worth stealing here. I needed to find the richer parts of Paris, the Paris of my dreams with gold and diamonds, with dance halls and handsome men and satin skirts … Did it exist at all? If it did, I’d probably find the deepest and fullest pockets I’d ever seen in all my life.
I must find it. But how?
At that moment a carriage whisked past me. The horses that pulled it were glossy and the wheels had gilded spokes and through its window I saw the flash of silk and furs and a lady’s gloved hand, and I thought, Follow that carriage! Because surely it would lead me there. I turned left by the man who sold pigs’ trotters and right by the charred tree stump. I followed the carriages on and on—down the rue Mouffetard and passage des Patriarches. The streets got wider as I went. The houses were grander than any I’d ever seen and the shops sold wonderful things—soap, flowers, china, sugared confectionary laid out like stars. As for the men, they wore top hats and had neat mustaches, and the ladies wore white curled wigs with their skirts rustling behind them, and I thought, Here it is! Here is the Paris I’ve been dreaming of.
Its theaters had red velvet curtains. Its music halls had lanterns by their doors. There were cafés and clubs and ballrooms, and a lady with little silver eyeglasses that perched on the end of her nose—and I thought, What would Maman say, if I took such things back to her? She might love me more than ever. We could leave Babet’s horrible house.
I dipped into purses. I unraveled a silk ribbon and snatched a sparkly brooch. And even though I wished I weren’t stealing, I was still so glad to be in such a place, and I thought how beautiful that brooch looked—like the night sky in my hand.
Cosette. She might wear a brooch like this.
I put the brooch away. For a good deed, I stopped to pat a stray and gently pulled its ears. The dog blinked, like it was grateful.
I looked toward the Seine, where men and women were walking arm in arm. I thought, If I’ve found the Paris I dreamed of, then maybe I’ll find love as well? I hoped so. To be loved would be better than a coin, or anything.
Maman loved the brooch. She clasped it to her tattered bodice, saying, “Oh, see how pretty? Do I look like a lady?” But like everything, we sold it in the end.
Azelma found buttons, firewood, a fur-lined glove, and fistfuls of coins. “Paris,” she cried, “is wonderful!”
I smiled because maybe she was the same as me? Maybe she’d seen its beautiful parts too? But she added, “People are so busy with politics or fashion or the guillotine that they don’t see me robbing them! Stupid lot!” So no, we weren’t the same.
She liked what I didn’t—dark deeds and alleyways. She liked Babet’s stories about pulling teeth from men as they slept, and she drank his gin, and one day she said, “This house isn’t so bad after all. Maybe we can stay here?”
But I’d seen that eye peeping through the hole in our bedroom wall again and again, and there were spiders as big as my hand, and I wanted to leave the house more than ever before.
* * *
That was a very hard winter. It snowed. Like babies, we pressed ourselves to Maman in bed for extra warmth. Papa stayed downstairs playing dominoes with men I didn’t know. They smoked and swore and made plans.
“Who are they?” I whispered. “They’re so loud …”
“The Patron Minette,” said Azelma. “Haven’t you heard of them? They’re in the house a lot—but then you’re probably too busy daydreaming by the Seine …”
I bristled. “I don’t daydream by the Seine!”
“You do. Montparnasse has seen you.”
“Who?”
“One of Babet’s friends, and Papa’s. They are the best thieves in all of Paris—so clever and exciting. You should meet them, Eponine.”
I didn’t like the sound of them at all. But I did meet them before very long. One night I was alone in the bedroom. The others were downstairs but I wanted to climb into bed and dream of being fur-dressed and beautiful … Then Babet opened the bedroom door.
“The fire’s burning bright downstairs. Join us.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re blue. You’re shivering with cold. Don’t be foolish, Eponine … Come down to the fire.” He smiled, showing his gums. “I promise I won’t bite.”
* * *
That’s how I met them—the Patr
on Minette—by the fire, playing dominoes. There were four of them, including Babet. My parents and Azelma were there too. That slimy, tooth-pulling man showed me a space near the fire with a sweep of his hand as if he were offering me gold. “Here, Mademoiselle. Warm your pretty hands …”
One of the men was like a monster—so big he had to stoop to fit into the room. His forearms were wider than my whole body. His name was Gueulemer and he grunted a lot.
There was a man in the corner who I couldn’t really see because his face was in shadow. “That’s Claquesous,” said Babet. “He won’t speak. He lets his fists and blades speak for him.”
The third man was called Montparnasse. He wasn’t like the others because he was neat and clean-shaven. He was young—twenty, no more. He wore pomade in his hair and a cravat at his neck and a flower bloomed in his buttonhole, which made me think, A flower? In winter? Azelma was looking at him too.
The men cackled and passed a flagon of wine between them.
“All this unrest must help,” Papa said. “Everyone hating the king and fighting for la république … People are distracted, easier to steal from.”
Montparnasse replied, “It’s true. The gendarmes have far more to worry about than a thief or two …”
I sat by the fire and said nothing. I just thought about Gavroche, and hoped he was warm and safe. Maybe he was playing in the snow, like children do? I hoped so.
When I looked up, I saw Montparnasse was watching me. He didn’t blink. He just half smiled and licked his lips as a dog might before it eats its meat.
They boasted all night long. Papa talked of the bishop’s face as he’d stabbed him with the bone-handled knife. Gueulemer held out his hands, said, “I’ve strangled too many people to count … See how strong these hands are?”
As for Babet, he told stories of pulling teeth. “There’s a man near Boulogne who collects them and hangs them on string around his neck … I’ve pulled the teeth of pretty ladies, too—although they’re less pretty once I’ve finished with them!”
This made me feel my own teeth with my tongue as if checking they were still there.
A Little in Love Page 6