“You love me?”
He scrunched his face as if tasting one of Marguérite’s dastardly collations. Poor child thinks when she’s done with the Folies she will become a chef in the finest restaurants in town. (A female chef!) Her food is dreadful, and the only place she’s actually going to wind up is in jail for poisoning guests. That and too fat for contortioning due to oversampling of food!
“You love me,” he repeated.
Again with the sour face.
“Indeed!” I danced up to him and wrapped my arms around his neck. “We can be together! Forever! No Pierre to block the way.”
Giovanni then looked at me squarely, wiggled his nose, and said, “Marthe, I adore you. But I am not rich enough to love you.”
“How could you say that?” I cried. Oh, the heartbreak! The immediate fracture across my chest! “You cannot refuse my love. I want to get married!”
“No you do not,” he said. “You are only bored.”
“I love you, Boldini, you idiot! With my whole heart!”
I put a hand to my forehead and attempted to pass out. He caught me before I landed.
“I have quite a lot of work to do,” he said. “Please take your theatrics elsewhere. I will call on you later.”
“You don’t have time for love?”
“I have time for love. I said I cannot afford it. What I do not have time for are your variant emotional states, which are another matter entirely. Please. Begone with you. I will see you later.”
What could I say? Filled to the hairline with humiliation, I slunk out of his studio. Despite Sœur Marie’s long-ago admonishments I allowed my sobs to break loose on the streets, emotionally naked for the world to see.
I then did the only thing I could: I proceeded immediately to Marguérite’s new flat. That she has a new flat when I am in such constant straits confounds me. Marguérite has had lovers, lovers aplenty, but they are all women!
At first I thought her penchant for the gentler sex was a ruse, a way to attract a certain kind of male. Yet her dedication remains steadfast. She has no sexual interest in men, she claims. Can you believe such a thing? Counting on women to support you? Honestly! She might as well wait for pixie dust and talking giraffes! I suppose this mythical line of thinking is why Marguérite believes she can cook meals for the great men of literature and arts and actually get paid for it.
When I arrived at Marguérite’s mysteriously acquired flat she was contorted into a figure eight. She answered the door this way, her bottom up above her head, debuting like a turkey looking for a mate. Momentarily relieved of my own problems, I asked why she could not greet visitors in a normal fashion. Then I breezed past and into her surprisingly grand parlor. Marguerite followed, waddling across the floorboards, still all tied up in her salacious numeral.
“What’s wrong?” she said, her voice twisted and guttural, giving new meaning to the term “talking from one’s ass.”
“My life is over!” I wailed and fell onto a couch. Unlike Boldini, she did not stop my descent.
As I worked up the best of my sobs, I rubbed the seat with my fingers. It was made of a smooth velvet pattern and far nicer than anything in my flat.
“Where did you get this?” I could not help but ask. I sprang into an upright position and ran my hand along the nailhead detail on the seatback. “This is extraordinary.”
“I purchased it. How else? Tell me, Marthe, do you need money, is that why you’ve come?”
“And why do you assume this?”
“Because the only time you get this emotional is over francs and louis!”
“All right,” I said. “You are correct. I am having some financial difficulties. Pierre has cut me off.”
“It is only a wonder it took him this long. What happened to your wages?”
“Gone! The necessities in life are dear. I do not make as much as the stage performers, it seems.”
“You don’t make as much? Ha!” Marguerite snorted and pulled herself to standing. Her boobs dripped down toward her waist. The nipples were brown, fat, and erect. “I’ve always said you should have the Folies give your wages straight to Maxime and save time!”
“Please, Marguérite, I beg of you, for your oldest friend?”
“All right,” she sighed. “I cannot give you much. But I will give you what I can.”
“Well, thank you,” I said, trying to smile. “I am much obliged.”
“Please use it for food and other necessities, not your chinchilla wraps or questionable beauty products.”
“Questionable?!”
“Marthe—”
“Très bien,” I sniffed. “As you wish.”
After taking possession of the funds and watching Marguérite demonstrate her latest contortionist feat, I bade my friend adieu and walked back out onto the street. The sky had grown dark. Black clouds hung low over the city, and the air was damp. As I counted the moneys, panic took hold around my neck. Marguérite’s funds would only last a month or two. The time would go fast.
Afraid to return to my flat, to bump into any knowledgeable landlords, I stumbled down to Maxim’s for a quick drink. Alas, as often happens, one cocktail turned into three turned into four and more. Before long I was dancing with La Belle Otero in between the tables, her collection of pink rabbits scampering beneath the chairs. I stepped on at least one.
We had a grand evening. For a time. Then, while wrapping a scarf around my head and between my legs at the instruction of La Belle, I looked up and saw her. Jeanne Hugo. She was very obviously watching me. It seemed the optimal time to confront the woman.
After pushing La Belle Otero aside, I marched straight across the restaurant to where Jeanne sat atop a piano, legs crossed, the skirt of her gown draped in a most strategic way. It must be said: she is not the plain toast anymore. For the sake of her reputation, she could afford to be a little more plain.
According to Maxime I shoved over not one but two waiters on my way to the piano. When I reached Jeanne, I put one hand on either side of her and brought our noses to touch. She’d been drinking champagne. The smell was on her breath.
“How does it feel?” I asked, tears running down my face. “To be able to sit on some poor sap’s piano without a care for tomorrow? Knowing what you know, knowing what you’ve taken from others?”
“Why do you assume I don’t have a care for tomorrow?” she asked and guzzled champagne straight from a bottle. “Perhaps I have a lot of cares. Perhaps even more than you.”
“You don’t have to worry about feeding yourself, do you? Or where you will live? Or how you will buy the next most fashionable coat or hat? You have everything!”
“Everything is not everything,” she said.
Everything was not everything? Everything was everything, and it meant so much. It meant my life.
Jeanne never had to be with a man who repulsed her, one who reeked of merde from a cave. She didn’t need to roost in a goddamn barroom window, back aching, to pay off a dressmaker or two, all the while smiling at a hundred more men who made the bat guano swain look like a prince.
She never worked behind a bar, staring longingly at the stage, wondering how she could get beneath the lights. Nor did she have to borrow money from the very friend she was supposed to be looking after or try to persuade a man to love her in order to pay the rent, when really love was all she felt in the first place. And yet! Yet this was a place I could stand and legitimately say I’d come far. Mon dieu! The indignity.
“‘Not everything’?” I said, frenzied past any modicum of decency. The marriage, the presents, the four homes: This was her “not everything.” All of it from a stroke of luck and a little bit of wiliness to boot. “I don’t know how you can say those words when you’re who you are. When you know who I am!”
“You? You are nothing but a crazy lady! Always have been.”
Dizzy with rage, I yanked the champagne bottle from her hand and threw it against the wall, narrowly missing Maxime’s group of midge
t friends. The room went dead. The piano player stopped. My breath stopped, too.
“Here come the Cossacks!” someone called. Everyone looked from Jeanne and me toward the door, and there they were, spilling into the room like hens freed from a coop. The Russians.
“The Cossacks!” the room shouted in unison.
“Save yourselves, here come the Cossacks!”
A call back to Waterloo, but a call that all current battles were over. It was time to have another round, to gather gold coins from the floor.
Precisely on cue the pianist started banging on the keys and people cheered. Somehow I got swept up in a crowd moving toward the door and was ultimately deposited outside. I landed on the sidewalk, my dress and spirit torn. Everyone had forgotten me, which was either a relief or the worst feeling in the world.
Tripping down the rue Royale, sobbing against the background cheers of Maxim’s revelers, I bumped into an old friend. It was Pujol, our city’s beloved flatulist. I never thought a farter could present such a romantic vision, but there he was, dandy and dapper, whistling as he went.
“Joseph!” I cried and threw myself into him. “My world is ending! I cannot go on!”
“Ma chérie,” he replied and stroked my hair. “Whatever is the matter?”
I hiccupped and then poured my troubles at his feet. He nodded while I spoke, eyes downcast, the lone person sympathetic to my plight.
“Oh, sweet Marthe, I am sorry you are in such a state,” he said. “Are they not paying you enough at the Folies?”
“They are plenty generous,” I said and looked up at him, hoping that, despite the tears, he still found me beautiful, that the whitewashes and hair dye achieved their desired effects. “I am in such a bind!”
“Well, let me help you.”
“Really?” I blinked hard, trying to make my eyes big and weepy like Marguérite’s. “Oh, could you? I would be so grateful! I promise, whatever you want—”
He stepped back.
“Please. You do not need to promise anything. I am happy to help. Though I am a little low on cash myself I will try to come up with something. I might need to find a little creativity, but I will do my best.”
Crying big, plump tears of relief, I hugged him again. He offered no figures or guarantees, only a promise, which seemed as valuable as the Cossack gold. I needed only that—a promise of help, undefined, with the possibility to stretch forever.
Chapitre XLII
“April?” a gruff, irritated voice snarled into the phone.
More than a week had passed. April thought she was in the clear given her extended ticket and not a peep from anyone back in New York. Usually Peter favored in-the-moment reactive rants, but this was worse. He’d given himself time to stew.
“Peter?” April replied meekly. “How are you?”
“This is unacceptable!”
Phone hot against her ear, April walked to the window. Since the weather had finally warmed, noontime in Marthe’s apartment was stifling, the air thick with allergens and smoldering clouds of dust.
“Whatever has riled you up”—she started, despite knowing exactly the whatever—“I’m sure it’s not that bad.”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Vogt. This is about your e-mail and the revised itinerary Birdie printed out and smacked on my desk.”
“We made the plans over a week ago.”
“We made the plans? Ha! That’s rich. I don’t remember being involved. Who is this ‘we’ you speak of?”
“Fine. I made the plans. Birdie followed my directive. Regardless, this all happened eight, nine days ago? You’re getting upset now?”
“It’s taken me this long to calm down! I should fire you right now. In fact I think I will.”
Peter was like this, bombastic, prone to flying off handles. He threatened to fire April at least once a month even though performance reviews contained only accolades and great long declarations about the extent of April’s talent and expertise.
“You’re supposed to be in the office on Monday,” he went on, voice climbing with each word. “We’re not exactly sitting around here scratching our asses, wondering what good ol’ April is up to. There’s work to be done. Other auctions. I had to go look at some house on Long Island by myself.”
“How awful,” April said. “And I’m sorry I’m not there to help. But I wouldn’t have extended the trip if it wasn’t completely necessary. You said I could, remember? When you first sent me? You said take as long as I needed. I need longer.”
Peter sighed, the fight seeping out of him already.
“Birdie said you were supportive of what we’re doing,” April reminded him. “And that you were in full agreement. C’mon, Pete. You know I’m right.”
He sighed again, loudly, to make sure April heard.
“Do not call me Pete.”
“Come on, boss. You know I have to stay.”
“You realize this costs us money, don’t you?” he said. “And auction season is fast approaching. I need you in New York. Even Karen wants you back. Apparently I’m insufferable when you’re gone. My wife does not like being called during the day, it seems, at least not to discuss work. You’re making us both miserable! You’re wrecking our marriage!”
“Send her my sincerest apologies,” April said, stifling a laugh, since he sounded so forlorn. “I so wish I was there to be on the receiving end of your constant work-related stress. But the extra time in Paris will pay for itself in the end. The better the provenance, the higher the sale, the higher the premiums. You taught me that, Peter. It’s exactly what you would do yourself. The old Peter. The young and hungry one.”
Peter blubbered his lips as April braced herself for a response.
“It would behoove you not to insult my age,” he said. “All right. You’ve got two more weeks.”
“Yay!” April yelped. “And to be clear, you mean two from today? Because—”
“Two. From today.”
April squeaked again.
“Then that’s it,” he said. “No more BS extensions.”
“Great. Perfect.”
“I don’t know why I let you get away with these shenanigans,” Peter grumbled.
“It will pay for itself in the end!” April said again, happily. “Promise! Okay, I’d better get back to work so I can be ready.”
“Yes. You’d better.”
The phone went dark.
Breathless with the sweet, glorious thrill of victory, April scrambled around the apartment collecting files and notecards. It was Friday, and Olivier and Marc had left for their country homes the night before. April saw no reason to stick around ingesting dust particles. She would spend the balance of the afternoon working at the place des Vosges, in the sunshine.
At one o’clock the city heat was almost unbearable. After weeks languishing in the drizzly-gray fifties and sixties, the weather had taken a sudden shot upward, landing somewhere in the midnineties and enveloping Paris in a thick, damp blanket of heat. When talking Celsius, which April did for dramatic effect, the temperature nearly tripled in a few days’ time.
Straddling the Third and Fourth Arrondissements, the place des Vosges was a bit of a hike from the Ninth, especially when carrying a laptop and sweating profusely, but it was one of April’s favorite spots in all of Paris. Her furniture museum had been only a few blocks away, and rare was the day she hadn’t walked beneath the arches of the square or stepped out onto its grass.
Many years had passed since she’d last seen the Vosges, but April could still picture the red-brick and white stone buildings, their steep blue slate roofs, and the two-tiered fountain with its water-spitting lions. Henry IV created the place des Vosges as a royal pavilion more than four hundred years before. Now the buildings included shops, restaurants, and upscale Renaissance townhomes. But before all that, and for centuries, it was the preferred location for duels. April wondered if any of Marthe’s cohorts ever matched up on the lawns. It was hard to imagine swords or pistols where now lo
vers, sunbathers, and toddlers littered the grounds.
April found a table beneath one of the arcades. She pulled out her laptop and started to work. Already crowded when she appeared, the park grew ever-more populated with each passing minute. Stylish mothers arrived with their soft-haired tots, seeking shaded sandboxes. Smartly dressed couples strolled by, hand in hand, sometimes speaking animatedly and other times not at all. Tourists and backpackers reclined on the grass.
April wanted to recline on the grass, too. Peter was antsy, but how much work did she really have to finish right then? It was almost the weekend. All good Parisians were already off and enjoying their respite. As the thoughts trickled though her mind, April could almost feel Peter’s rage from across the ocean.
The answer was, of course, all of it. She had to do all the work, and as quickly as possible.
Gazing with some degree of longing at the backpackers (Mon dieu, what a life, no responsibilities to be had!), April picked up her phone. Birdie promised to send over some pictures, groundwork for their grand plans. Though there was no e-mail yet from Birdie, another message awaited. April’s heart flinched.
“I have some news about Marthe,” Luc had texted some seven or eight minutes before. “Where can I find you today? Are you in the city?”
“Yes!” April wrote back, fingers flying. “I’m at Carette, near place des Vosges. Table outside. Will be here another hour or two.”
She figured Luc would’ve been, like Olivier and Marc, tucked away in an old stone manse by that late time in the week. That he was in Paris, thinking of Marthe (and, okay, maybe even her) made April smile more than was socially acceptable for someone sitting alone. An observer, like the two women in pink seated nearby, might think her half insane. Not that they’d paid a speck of attention to April, or even noticed her at all, but if they knew her, surely they would’ve thought, oh dear, what happened to our friend April? I think she’s losing her mind.
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