by Lydia Syson
‘Yes. More than anything.’
Zéphyrine looked at her thoughtfully, and nodded.
‘I see.’ She turned her attention to the pile of clothes. ‘This is very grand,’ she said wistfully, fingering a slightly showy afternoon dress in silk with a broad green-and-black stripe.
‘Too grand? I think you’re right. Not such a good idea now I come to think about it,’ Marie said, quickly whisking it away. ‘I forgot you’d need a corset for that one.’ She didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that Zéphyrine had so little to hold in. She’d soon plump out, Marie thought, if she’d only let Anatole take better care of her.
She pulled another dress from the pile. ‘Better?’
‘Oh yes! That’s very pretty!’ Zéphyrine held it against herself: a simple, summery affair in white muslin with blue spots.
‘I think it will be perfect. Let me find my black sash. It goes with the ribbons at the wrist and neckline – do you see? Then we can see how it looks on.’
‘Thank you!’ Zéphyrine began to unbutton her blouse, turning her back for modesty.
Marie was happy to be of use, and not just because clothes always took her mind off things. Over the last weeks she had discovered – slightly to her surprise – that she liked Zéphyrine a great deal. The girl was straightforward. Quick and sharp. Marie could see exactly why Anatole – so charming, and so impressionable – had fallen for her. And she and Zéphyrine weren’t as different from each other as they looked. Just one foot wrong, and any woman on her own in the world could find herself in the gutter in no time.
‘Lovely. Look in the mirror. And stand still while I tie the sash.’
‘You really don’t mind lending this? I’ll bring it back laundered of course.’
Zéphyrine plucked at the muslin. It was a little bunched at the waist, but not obviously too big.
‘Not at all. It suits you beautifully, much better than it does me. Now, you’ll need finer stockings than those …’
Marie had other reasons to be kind to Zéphyrine. An ally like her could be very useful. She was still worried that Rigault really had set his spies on her. Increasingly frightened to turn round when she heard footsteps on the pavement behind her, she found herself pathetically suspicious when she noticed anyone standing for too long under one lamp post. It could be no bad thing to be seen at a women’s meeting, rallying to the cause. She needed to cement her Commune credentials.
Marie had given up hoping Rigault would ever send news of her brother. How could she have believed for a moment that he might? She thought she understood his game, but nothing would induce her to trade herself for the sake of that passport. It was also getting harder to believe that abandoning her work was the right thing to do at the moment. With new musical projects announced each week by the Artistic Federation, Marie’s ambitions felt suddenly within reach. If she left Paris now, she might never have the chance to sing at the Opéra. But if she stayed, any on-stage triumph would be sour without Emile there to witness it. She felt hopelessly torn. For the moment, her only option was to hedge her bets.
‘I hope Anatole likes the dress,’ said Zéphyrine uncertainly. Marie registered the doubt in her voice, and wondered if she still saw her as competition.
‘I’m certain he will.’
Although Marie had briefly been tempted to fall into Anatole’s arms – they were so lovely, and she had been so lonely – her approach to love was firmly practical. Her intention was to go up, not down, in the world. And he certainly didn’t need any more admirers. Poor Jules, thought Marie, looking at Zéphyrine and noticing her new earrings. Poor Mister Crowfield.
At the final rehearsal the next day, Anatole looked up to see Marie coming down into the orchestra pit, music in hand, her face unreadable.
‘I came to tell you: I’ve done it,’ she said, and paused to see his reaction.
Anatole looked at her, and continued to rosin his bow. ‘You want me to guess?’ he asked.
‘Has Zéphyrine told you already?’
‘Not that I know of …’
She lowered her voice. ‘I’ve registered with the Women’s Union.’
‘Bravo! That’s splendid news.’
Marie didn’t react to his enthusiasm.
‘Isn’t it?’ he said.
‘Perhaps.’ She shuffled the pages of her music. ‘But it does make me frightened. I couldn’t decide what to do for ages. What if the Commune is defeated, and my name is on their list? What if the Commune triumphs, and I haven’t declared my loyalty?’
‘Well, since you have now declared your loyalty, the point surely is to make sure the Commune does triumph. So you should do all you can to help it.’ An oboe began to sound an A, and Anatole tucked his violin under his chin, ready to tune up. But Marie still stood there.
‘It’s easy for you to say that.’ She looked around to make sure nobody was listening. ‘You believe in all this, you and Zéphyrine.’ She didn’t say the other thing they were both thinking: ‘and you don’t have a brother in the Versailles army.’
Anatole couldn’t argue, and nor did he want to tell Marie what to believe. She and Jules could both be so stubborn, so cynical. He didn’t want to hear their doubts. He didn’t want the certainties Zéphyrine had given him to be undermined.
‘And what if they make me fight?’ Marie asked.
‘I don’t think any citoyenne will be forced to fight.’ He hoped he was right about this. He couldn’t imagine Marie with a rifle on her shoulder, any more than he could bear to think of Zéphyrine as a target for the enemy’s machine guns, the merciless mitrailleuses you heard grating the skies every evening outside the city walls when the wind was in the right direction. Whatever he said out loud, in his heart he did feel it was different for men.
‘But some of the money for the union is to be used to buy petroleum and weapons.’ Her clear blue eyes were steady. ‘And haven’t you seen the notices?’
The conductor rapped his baton on the music stand. ‘Five minutes!’ he called.
‘Should you go back to your place?’ said Anatole.
‘I’ve got five minutes.’
‘The notices, you said?’ Whatever it was, he had a feeling he didn’t want to hear.
‘Thiers’s notices. Saying what will happen when Versailles attacks. What they will do to the Communards.’
‘Oh those.’ Anatole was dismissive. ‘Nobody believes empty threats like that. If Versaille was going to attack Paris, why haven’t they done it yet? Anyway, people like us have nothing to worry about – we’re just rank and file. It’s the leadership they’ll be after. The men at the top. Why on earth should they bother with the likes of us? For goodness’ sake, they can hardly send half of Paris into exile. Devil’s Island wouldn’t hold us all!’
‘We’ll see,’ said Marie, which was something she said a lot these days.
23.
6th May
So the grand doors of the Tuileries Palace were thrown open for the first concert, and everyone was astonished at how many people turned up. Some came to gloat, some to despair. A few held their heads up high, and went in chattering. Others just couldn’t shake off the old habits of submission, and still bowed and scraped, keen to mind their manners in so much splendour. And then there were those who came to judge and sneer, mocking not the building but its new occupants. Zéphyrine watched Jules noticing them all, and, as usual, she could not decide what he was thinking.
Anatole had warned that they would need to arrive early, if they wanted time enough to look around the imperial apartments, and to secure seats too. Even so, there was a river of hopeful concertgoers ahead of them in the queue.
‘Do you think we’re too late, already?’ said Zéphyrine. She tugged at the cuffs of the white gloves Marie had given her, pulling out the wrinkles on her fingers. Not a bad fit. Quite transforming.
Jules looked unperturbed. ‘Wait until you see the size of the palace.’
‘Shall we go then?’ asked Zéphyrine.
‘Without Rose?’ Jules was curious about the washerwoman’s daughter.
‘She couldn’t come. Too much committee work, she says. And she’s taking a petition round the clubs after her shift at the ambulance station. Still trying to get Versailles to release Blanqui from prison – in exchange for the archbishop.’
‘Good luck to her.’ Jules looked grim. Blanqui – black-clad, uncompromising – had been at the heart of every revolutionary uprising that century. He’d already spent half his life in prison. ‘I think I’d rather have the archbishop.’
‘Shhhhh. Don’t say that here.’
It was just as the posters had promised. At last the palace was being ‘rendered useful to the people’. For fifty centimes you could wander through and gawp at the actual rooms once occupied by ‘the tyrant’ emperor and his wife. Citizens stood in uniforms at the entrance selling tickets, and making the usual collections for widows and orphans.
Jules handed over a generous donation and was rewarded with a red rosette with a little copper liberty cap in its centre. He examined it, without a word, then pinned it onto Zéphyrine’s shawl.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘This way,’ he simply replied.
‘So you’ve been here before?’ Zéphyrine didn’t know whether to be impressed or disgusted. ‘To a party?’
‘I’m not that grand,’ Jules said with a faint smile. ‘And certainly not that important. No, an English journalist I used to know brought me here – to help translate – on the night of the empress’s flight. You know, after the surrender at Sedan.’ Some heads turned, and he lowered his voice. ‘He couldn’t understand the kind of French the soldiers spoke.’
Gutter French, he meant. They shuffled on a few paces, and Zéphyrine waited him to elaborate. When he didn’t, she poked him.
‘Ouch.’
‘You can’t just stop there. What was it like?’
‘You’ll see for yourself soon enough.’
‘But that very night …?’
Unusually, Jules reddened slightly, and coughed. ‘I’m sure you can imagine. She left in a hurry.’
‘A mess?’
‘Somewhat. Bedclothes on the floor. Gloves … and … whatnot …’
Zéphyrine laughed, delighted. ‘Oh … underwear you mean! You saw Eugénie’s corsets!’
‘No, no … not those.’ Jules put a finger on his lips, and shook his head.
‘Her drawers!’ Zéphyrine said, even more loudly. ‘Or just her shift? No! You saw the empress’s drawers! What were they like?’
He shushed her quite angrily, and she knew she’d gone too far. She ducked her head away, and smiled only at her own feet, looking forward to telling Anatole later.
They finally reached the foot of the grand staircase. It was decorated with cooking pots and tin plates. A battalion of National Guardsmen, some now sitting around on benches, some more obviously on duty, had clearly been quartered there for some time. There were mattresses and blankets pushed to the corners, and even shirts and stockings hanging up to dry. Clothing was draped on marble statues and hung from railings supported by gilded banisters, candy-cane twisted. On the first landing, a pair of retired soldiers who’d served the empire for decades, sat recovering from their climb. Their lips were tight and lined. They stared accusingly at the National Guard soldiers now treating the emperor’s old palace with such disrespect.
Zéphyrine’s fingers trailed along the wall-panelling, hesitating at holes made by nails where fédérés’ marching orders had been pinned up. A few still fluttered. Names were scrawled and scratched in the woodwork, like Lovers’ Lane promises. Jules shook his head, and kept walking.
Upstairs were the staterooms, bare of furniture but swarming with people, echoing with endless feet.
‘Where is everything?’ The question was on everybody’s lips. Not a chair, not a door handle was left. ‘Where’s it all gone?’ Nobody seemed to know. Some drapery still buzzed with imperial bees, each golden insect hand-stitched by an unknown female hand. And crystal chandeliers still glittered, luminous and complicated and symmetrical. So much red velvet and brocade. It reminded Zéphyrine of the theatre. In the Throne Room they stopped in front of a new poster signed by Dr Rousselle.
‘“The gold that drapes these walls is your sweat and toil …”’ Jules read the words aloud. ‘“… Now your Revolution has made you free, and you return to possess your wealth … here you are at home.”’
‘I don’t feel at home,’ she admitted.
‘This way to the empress’s bedroom!’ called a guide. No bed now of course, but Zéphyrine and Jules watched a party of dressmakers cry out with delight at looking glasses that sprang down from the walls on all sides.
‘Oh, we must have something like this in the shop, when Paris is Paris again!’ they said. ‘Take a note, quick, so we remember how it works.’
They left in a fluttering flock, the last woman poking some faded drapery with her parasol, as if to check it wasn’t alive.
‘Extraordinary …’ murmured Jules, as they stood in front of a sign beside a secret recess. It seemed that a whole garment workshop had been kept permanently at work above here, unseen women stitching endlessly at gowns, which then descended by some elaborate mechanism straight into the bedroom. Zéphyrine imagined this faceless army dedicated to keeping the empress in new clothes, ruining their eyes for a pittance. She shuddered. An old lady standing next to her suddenly shook her head, and sighed. ‘So foolish of them, really …’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Zéphyrine, curious.
‘They could be living here still, in this paradise, couldn’t they? It didn’t have to be like this. If only they had done just a little for us. Just a little. But what did they care?’ She moved away.
‘The concert is in that great hall we passed earlier,’ said Jules. ‘Shall we go and sit down?’
Zéphyrine nodded, too overwhelmed to speak. She couldn’t have explained how she felt. Triumph, perhaps, but also churning horror and confusion. Jules was more silent even than usual in her presence. What he was actually thinking, she still had no idea.
Ghosts greeted them all along the corridors: statues swathed and bound in white linen.
‘Why don’t they want us to see them?’ asked Zéphyrine, wondering what obscenity these sheets could be concealing.
Jules licked his lips, trying to choose his words. ‘They are probably …’
Zéphyrine hurried on into the vast domed ballroom, not wanting to press him again. Workmen were still setting out the seating for the concert audience, and clambering up and down ladders to drape red silk over picture frames. She hardly dared look. And then one screen slipped, and all she saw was a portrait of a general with a helmet, and fierce staring eyes.
‘War heroes,’ confirmed Jules. ‘Admirals, field marshals … battlefields. But there can be no pride now in the triumph of Empire.’
‘And nor should there be,’ said Zéphyrine with indignation. ‘Those pointless, cruel wars. That savagery. Surely, you can’t think —’
‘No, no,’ Jules interrupted her. ‘I see no glory in any of that. I just wonder … never mind. Look, there are a couple of empty spaces left on the bench over there. A bit squashed. Perhaps those ladies wouldn’t mind moving up a little.’
White-capped, baskets on knees, the old women wore masks of fortitude, their worn and wrinkled faces set firm. Zéphyrine knew the type so well: they had queued uncomplainingly in frost and rain all through the siege. They must have sat here already for hours today, all through these busy preparations.
‘They are here to do their civic duty,’ she whispered to Jules. ‘They’re not expecting to like the music. Let me sit by them.’
Space was made, and they shuffled along, trying not to tread on toes and hems. Soon Jules was flipping the tails of his frock coat over the back of a velvet-upholstered bench. Squeezed so close together, it was impossible not to be aware of each neighbour’s body and breathing, but they were the l
ucky ones. Cigar smoke and hundreds more voices drifted in from the gardens below – an ever-growing, good-natured crowd who laughed and waved their useless tickets at the open windows, and joked about their outcast state.
As the ballroom filled up, it became stuffier and hotter. Zéphyrine’s face prickled. She hoped the little droplets of sweat she could feel forming on her nose were not too obvious. Inspecting her gloves again, she was dismayed to see a mark on the fingertip. Perhaps a bit of spit would get it out? She bent her head, and licked her finger quickly, and tried to rub the grubbiness off on her shawl without Jules noticing. But of course he did. He noticed everything. She quickly folded her hands in her lap again, and hid the stain.
‘You’re nervous,’ he said. ‘Don’t be.’
Zéphyrine winced. ‘I can’t help it. I don’t think I could be more scared if I was on stage myself.’
‘I know. I used to feel like that when Anatole performed in public.’
‘Did you?’ Zéphyrine couldn’t imagine it.
‘I made the mistake of imagining how I would feel, in his place. Then I would think of all the things that could go wrong. It always ruined the evening of course. I think I understand better now. Musicians are different. They live for performances, even if they do get nervous.’
Jules seemed to come alive when he spoke about Anatole.
‘I suppose so,’ said Zéphyrine, turning back to the stage. A thought had entered her head that she didn’t want to pursue. ‘I wonder what they’re doing now. Warming up, I suppose.’ She had learned that much now. She loved listening to Anatole playing, even just climbing up and down scales, or leaping through arpeggios. She knew exactly what expression he would have on his face right now: slightly cross, though he wasn’t at all. It was just his practising face. ‘We’ve still got hours to kill.’
‘No – look. Here comes the orchestra now, though I can’t see Anatole … and here’s the chorus too – look – there’s Marie.’
Zéphyrine leapt to her feet to peer over the heads of the people sitting in front of them, and waved her hand frantically. Jules gently pulled her back to the bench before the chorus of complaints behind them became too loud.