“See! I can steal anything!” She laughed. “The grocer didn’t even notice!”
That night, with all the plums around us, I said, “We’ve enough fruit to feed the whole of the Gorbeau if we want to …”
“Which we don’t,” snapped Papa. “Why would we want to share what’s ours? With that wheezy couple in Room Seven or that sour old churchgoing cripple who talks to himself, in Room Nine?”
“Or,” said Maman, “that snooty, well-dressed boy next door, in Room Four? I won’t share a thing with him. I bet he’s got money hidden away.”
Azelma swallowed. “Really? Then maybe we should give him one of Papa’s letters? Let’s trick him too.”
Maman grinned, her mouth full of plums. “A wonderful idea! Do it now, Azelma! Have you got a letter?”
I spoke up. “Room Four? Let me, Maman.”
She flinched. “You? Miss Goody-Two-Shoes?”
I nodded. My stomach felt hard and my hands shook, but I said, “Yes, I’ll go. It’s my turn, after all.”
Papa spat out a plum stone. “Don’t mess it up—do you hear?”
* * *
I went to the corner. I rinsed my face and washed my hands.
I can do this. I can speak to him.
I trembled. I didn’t want to trick him but at least I had a reason to speak to him now. My insides turned over and over.
I picked up one of Papa’s letters.
I went out into the corridor and stood in front of his door. The number 4 looked back at me. I smoothed my hair and cleared my throat.
Take a deep breath, I told myself. Be brave.
I knocked three times: bang-bang-bang.
His voice! It called out, “Come in, Madame Bourgon!”
I opened the door. “It isn’t Madame Bourgon, Monsieur.”
There he was—sitting at a writing desk. He wore a dark blue shirt and woolen breeches, and his feet were in socks, without shoes. There were shadows under his eyes like he hadn’t been sleeping. He wore the slight crease between his eyes that I knew. “Oui, Mademoiselle?”
“Excuse me, Monsieur. I live next door, in Room Five. We met once—on the stairs? I ran into you, and …” I paused. Of course he didn’t remember but I couldn’t help feeling crushed. “I’ve got a letter for you.”
I held it out. He kept looking at my face for a moment, and then he reached for the note. “I remember. Back in the winter? You were upset, I think. Even though you said you were all right.”
He did remember!
I nodded.
“Had someone hurt you?”
“Only with words.”
He gave a small smile. “Sometimes words can be the most hurtful things of all.” He opened the letter and started to read.
His room was much better than ours. It was the same size, with a hearth in it, but he also had a bed with a proper coverlet and a desk with a matching chair, and a mirror in a fine frame. What was the frame worth? (I’d been raised to ask such things.) And there was a piece of material at the window—a curtain. I’d not seen curtains since we’d left Montfermeil.
There was a bookcase too. Without thinking, I went to it. It had been years since I’d held or read a book. I pulled one off the shelf. “Books! You have books!”
He looked up, surprised. “You read?”
“I used to. I know I don’t look much—all rags and bones—but I learned to read when I was very small and I loved it. I read about Paris, and those books made me want to come here. Sometimes I’d read to my little brother …” I paused. In a quieter voice I said, “It’s been a long time since I read a book.”
What else could I tell him? I said, “I like walking too. I’ve walked and walked through Paris and seen so much …” I couldn’t stop suddenly, found myself babbling all my secrets, as if now that I’d started talking I might never stop. “And how white Notre-Dame looks at night and the grassy slopes of Champ de Mars, and the boulevards. I’ve peeped into theaters! And I’d love to see a proper play, like ladies do. Maybe one day. Paris is so beautiful, Monsieur! Before I came here, I used to sleep in ditches or under an upturned boat—yes, I know how that sounds! But it wasn’t so bad. We could swim, and catch fish there … I think there is beauty in most things, if you look for it, don’t you? Even the dirtiest things can be lovely, underneath. I knew a man who said that the speckled peaches were the sweetest of all, and I like that. There can be light in dark places—don’t you think, Monsieur Marius?”
I’d said too much. But it was hard to be calm, and my head and heart were racing.
He stared at me. He looked amused and puzzled. “You know my name?”
I blushed. “Oui. I heard … Madame Bourgon say it …” It was the truth.
“Then I should know yours. It would be fair, wouldn’t it?”
I smiled. “Eponine.”
“Eponine?”
“I was named after a heroine in one of Maman’s books.”
“C’est un joli nom. And it sounds like you’ve had an interesting life, Eponine. Sleeping under boats?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer that.
Marius lifted the letter. “Did you write this?”
I winced. The letter … “It’s not my work … it’s my father’s. Please forgive me for giving it to you. It’s full of lies and I didn’t want to give it to you but I’ve got no real choice in it. My mother’s crippled. My father is … well, he ordered me to give you this and I can’t disobey him. We’re penniless, you see.”
“Many are.” He looked out the window. “If the souls who died forty years ago in that revolution could see us now …” Then he looked back to me. “Aren’t there better ways of trying to get a sou or two?”
I felt so ashamed. All my talk of books and beauty suddenly seemed very foolish; I’m a grubby thief, that’s all. “There are. And I do try. But it’s hard to get a job when you’re someone like me.”
He folded the letter and handed it back. “Well, you’ve been honest enough in explaining the note to me. And, Eponine, I know how poor you are. I’ve seen your family on the stairs and I’ve caught your sister dipping her hands in my coat pocket …” He opened a drawer in his desk and offered me a five-franc coin.
I gasped. Five francs? That was more money than I’d stolen in months and months. My parents would be so happy if I handed it to them—but I shook my head. “I can’t take that. It feels wrong.”
“Why? You aren’t stealing it. I’m offering it willingly.”
I suddenly felt very sad. I didn’t want his pity; I wanted something else. Pity was the last thing I wanted. “But, Monsieur, it’s your money.”
“And so I can choose to spend it how I like. Take it. You need it more than I do. Have you seen how thin you are, how unwell you look?”
My shame was greater than ever then. The word unwell meant ugly. Thin meant boyish, and not like a girl at all. In all my dreams, he’d told me I was beautiful—but those were just stupid dreams.
I could barely speak to him. I reached for the coin.
“Buy food with it.”
“Thank you,” I murmured. And I hurried from his room with tears in my eyes.
* * *
The others cooed over the five francs. Maman stroked me and smiled.
“He must be a proper fool, that boy,” said Papa. “Good to know.”
But I thought, No, he isn’t a fool! He wasn’t tricked, he was kind, that’s all. And I comforted myself by thinking that a little food and summer sun might make me look much better, and maybe he’d meet me out in the street and say, Goodness, how you’ve changed, Eponine! You don’t look unwell anymore. I looked back at each word he’d said to me. C’est un joli nom—did that have meaning in it?
I stared at the wall between us that night. I imagined what he might be doing at that moment—sitting at his desk, or drawing the curtain, or taking off his shoes and lying down on that coverlet. Might he be looking at his books, thinking, Eponine has touched these … ? Briefly I pretended; it was a nice
daydream to have. But I knew the truth: I looked thin and unwell, with bruises and hollow cheeks. Of course he wasn’t thinking of me.
The five francs lasted a while. It bought meat, cheese, a new darning needle, and tobacco for Papa’s pipe. It bought me freedom too because I could follow Marius without having to give out letters, or steal.
June bloomed all around us. In Montfermeil this had been the month of hawthorn blossom and the early roses climbing over the churchyard wall. In Paris, there were fewer flowers—just some weeds in the rue des Gobelins and roses in gents’ buttonholes. But it was enough.
That was a hot June too. Maman fanned herself in our room, saying, “There’s no air … and the smell! What’s that horrible smell?”
The heat meant that everything—rubbish, milk, human muck, the offal by the butchers’ doors—rotted far more quickly. A stench seemed to rise from the river as well. Some people walked with handkerchiefs held over their noses, or with posies in their hand.
Marius was the one good thing in my life. I wanted to talk to him again. I’d left Room Four feeling tearful and ashamed, but as the days passed, I could only think of the best parts of my time with him—his concern for me (Had someone hurt you?) and how quickly he had forgiven me for the note. One hot day, I followed him again. In the summer heat, he moved more slowly; he moved from the shade of a house to the shade of a church, or he’d pause beneath a bridge for a while. He carried a bag with him—books, I suspected. An inkwell and quill?
I followed him to the Café Musain in the place Saint-Michel, where he sat outside with his friends. They read his books and papers, drank and wrote and talked beneath the shade of a tree.
I nestled against the stones of a nearby church, the one with the clock that chimed on the hour, and watched how he drank and how he moved his hand through his hair. They talked with gestures and loud voices. I recognized some of his friends: the boy with half-moon spectacles who shouted through cupped hands. And the boy with golden curls who stood, thumped the table, and said, “Yes! That’s it!” Their passion hadn’t changed.
I watched for a long time. In the end, my legs cramped so I stood and turned to go. But then I heard my name called out: “Eponine?”
I felt my heart leap.
“Eponine, is that you?” Marius was walking toward me. He’d risen from his chair, put his bag across his shoulder, and was making his way across the square. “I thought it was you! What are you doing all the way out here? You’re a long way from the Gorbeau.”
I couldn’t say, Following you. I could barely speak at all. I just shrugged and tried to look like my heart wasn’t beating faster and my hands weren’t shaking. “Just … walking. You know I like walking.”
“Ah.” He smiled. “Of course. Walking all round Paris. Well, I’m heading back home now; would you walk with me? For a while, at least?”
So we began to walk through the streets, Marius and me. We walked slowly, side by side, moving around the dirt in the streets and stepping over potholes. In my head, I told myself, Speak to him. Ask him things.
“Are you often at the Café Musain, Monsieur Marius?”
He smiled. “We’re neighbors, aren’t we? Just call me Marius—or else I will need to call you Mademoiselle Eponine, which all sounds a bit too formal, don’t you think?”
I blushed.
“Yes, I go there often,” he went on. “My friends meet there—friends from my student days. They are …” He considered which word to use. “Fiery. Full of ideas and passion. Patriotic, of course.”
“Are you?”
“Patriotic? Yes, I am. France deserves far better than all this fighting and disease and unfairness … Its people deserve more.”
“You support the man called Lamarque?”
He looked across at me, wide-eyed. “I do! You do too?”
I didn’t want to lie to him. “To be honest, I don’t know too much about politics and kings … I’ve just heard people talking of Larmarque, that’s all. I’ve never been to school. I’m not sure I’m very clever.”
He laughed. “Oh, I don’t believe that! You read books, don’t you? You were so taken with my bookcase, I remember. There are people who’ve been to university who aren’t readers of books at all, Eponine—people who say they’re clever and well-read but in fact they’re not: They’re just rich! Don’t assume you’re worth less than them. I imagine you’re smarter than most.”
I smiled. He thinks I’m smart.
We walked across the Seine. We paused on the bridge, looked at the sunlight on the water and how the sky was turning gold and pink.
“And your life, until now? Tell me about it. It sounds like a curious thing.”
It had been curious, I supposed. “Perhaps. We left our town six years ago. We were …”—should I tell him? Yes, I decided. I would always speak truthfully to him—“running from the law. My father committed a crime. So we hid.”
“For six years?” He seemed amazed.
“Yes. It was hard, that’s true. But I got to see some beautiful things—like full moons and frosty mornings …” Briefly, I thought of Gavroche. I shrugged. “It could have been worse.”
“And it could have been better too, I think. You’re generous with your words.”
Generous? I’d never been called that before. Smart and generous. I beamed. “And you? Your life?”
He looked down at the river. “What can I tell you? My parents have died. No brothers or sisters. I see my friends as my family and I love them just as much. I love my country too. I love Paris.”
He loves them. He seemed to love so much—and what did I love? I wasn’t sure that I had any friends. And I didn’t know Paris as well as he did.
As we left the bridge and wandered on, I said, “Marius? May I ask … ?”
He smiled, turned his head.
“What are your dreams?” It was a big question, I knew that, but he didn’t seem to mind.
“My dreams?”
“Yes. What you imagine when you’re alone. What you hope for, in the future?”
He kept his smile but it looked a little sadder. “I’m not sure I’ve been asked this before.” He thought awhile. “I want France to be a republic, of course. No more kings and queens …”
“But for yourself?”
He seemed bashful, suddenly. “It doesn’t suit a man to talk of love, not unless he’s a poet or an artist and can afford to have such dreams. But I was a lonely child and … well, I think I’d like a family of my own, one day. A wife to love.” He smiled. “Who knows?”
“I’d like that too. A person to love.”
“You don’t have that now?”
I couldn’t speak for a while. The sun was low, and I could feel myself trembling inside. Were we really talking like this? Him and me?
He pointed out the tiny things I had never seen before—how doves perched on the stonework of Notre-Dame and the urchins playing in the fountains near Les Invalides. It made me think of Gavroche again, but they were all too old to be him. Poor Gavroche. “See the light now, Eponine? How it’s catching the sides of the houses …”
It was gold and orange. I nodded: This was his Paris. It was real—not perfect like in romance novels. I knew that he saw the begging and dirt, the drunks and the thin, scavenging dogs, and I knew that he longed for it to end—“When Lamarque makes us a republic again … ,” he said. But then he pointed out a single weed growing through a cracked wall, like he was a bird, high up. “See that?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a beautiful thing too, don’t you think?”
“Yes.” And I did. Everything was.
He took my hand very briefly to help me over a ditch and I thought, He’s holding my hand … and we fit perfectly.
I wanted the walk to last forever but, too soon, the Gorbeau stood before us.
“Eponine,” he said, “thank you for your company. I’ve enjoyed it.”
“Me too.”
His face was glowing from a day in the sun.
His lashes were so long that they seemed to brush his cheekbones when he looked down to find his key. He was a boy who loved his friends and sunlight and France and the sound of urchins playing and he wanted love, just like I did.
“Good-night,” he said, and opened his door.
After he’d gone, I looked at the number 4 and knew it was all too late now: I loved him. I could feel it inside me.
“Good-night,” I whispered.
Generous and smart …
He hadn’t called me beautiful but it didn’t matter: I’d felt it, in his company. He’d made me feel beautiful and interesting for the first time in my life.
I wanted to walk with him all the time. But also, I didn’t want him to see too much of me and get bored, or to think with a sigh, There she is again … I wanted to be a surprise to him. A chance meeting. A happy coincidence that made him say, Ah! It’s good to see you again!
I told myself, Be casual, Eponine. Don’t let yourself be seen for a while.
Give him a chance to miss you.
I busied myself elsewhere for three whole weeks. I tried my hardest. But in the end, I couldn’t stay away. One bright July day I saw him walking southwest, away from the Seine. Not the Café Musain? So where?
I followed him farther into the quarter called Saint-Germain. This was where the university was, and there were lots of cafés and bars here too. There was a fiddler busking on a street corner and I saw Marius pause and give him a coin. He said, “You play very well.”
He kept walking. He crossed the boulevard Saint-Germain and turned left. Ahead of us there were tall iron gates, wide open, and beyond them I could see more greenery than I’d seen in eight months of living in Paris. The grassy lawn was huge. The trees were emerald green. Flower beds were like rainbows with all the colors in them.
Marius walked through those gates and into the garden.
I stopped a passerby. “Monsieur? Excusez-moi? What’s this place called?”
He answered as if I was an idiot. “Why, these are Les Jardins du Luxembourg!” He walked away, shaking his head.
A Little in Love Page 9