A Week in Paris

by Hore, Rachel

  His automatic response was to start off after her, but a man’s voice said, ‘Didn’t think I’d see you here, Gene,’ and he turned to find himself shaking hands with a man he knew slightly, Bill Delaney, a young Irish-American journalist and the baby’s godfather. By the time he’d extricated himself and got outside, the girl had all but vanished. No, there she was, some way ahead of him, walking towards the river. He set off after her, though not too quickly as he wasn’t sure how he would explain himself if he caught her up. The necessity of this did not present itself, for when they’d crossed the Seine he kept losing her, then when he eventually reached the Rue St Jacques, it was to see her turn down one of the many side streets near the café. Then a bus blocked his view so that by the time he was able to follow, she’d gone. He turned on his heel with a sigh, and made his way thoughtfully back to the christening party, where he presented the baby with a teddy bear and passed a most enjoyable afternoon. But from time to time he thought of the girl. At least, he thought, since he’d seen her in his neighbourhood twice now, he knew roughly where she lived.

  Late September brought cooler weather, and by the first week in October, keen winds were blowing the dead leaves down dusty streets. The nights were starting to draw in, and Kitty chose to return earlier from the Conservatoire each day while the twilit skies above Notre Dame turned soft mauve and grey. She took to practising in the church in the late afternoon. On occasion a passerby might be drawn in to listen and at first this bothered her, but after it happened a couple of times it ceased to worry her and once she’d registered their presence she’d lose herself again in the music.

  It was on such an afternoon, about a month after her arrival in Paris, that she sat at the piano in a patch of candlelight amid the encircling gloom. The priest had not yet been in to switch on the lights, but she’d lit the great candles set on wrought-iron stands to either side of the piano and liked to sit in the aura of their hot smoky flames. Stirred by the feeling of mystery and calm, she turned the pages of her book of Beethoven sonatas and found a piece to suit. She knew it well, the beginning she’d learned to play when she was twelve, but only now did she have the technique and the maturity to convey the deep feeling of it. She played with her eyes half-closed, letting the music tell the story.

  The screech of wood on stone brought her to a sudden stop. ‘Damn,’ someone said, out in the darkness. ‘Sorry, didn’t see that chair.’ The voice was a man’s, with a lazy transatlantic burr.

  ‘Who’s there?’ She half-rose, alarmed.

  ‘Only me, ma’am.’ American, definitely. A tall, bulky figure separated itself from the shadows. He was a young man dressed in a soft brown suit, a little older than her – mid-twenties, perhaps – with clipped fair curls, and a round face with a pleasant grin. ‘Please, don’t stop, I was enjoying that. What was it? I know it from somewhere.’

  ‘It was Beethoven. His Moonlight Sonata.’ Her fear of him had faded.

  ‘That’s the one! I’m sure my big sister used to play it back home. Me, I was never any use at the piano. Or any other instrument, come to that. I guess God made some folks to play and others to listen. I’m of the listening variety.’ He stopped, but seeing she still sat, hands resting on her lap, added in a humble tone, ‘It would make me very happy if you continued.’

  She said nothing.

  ‘I’ll go away again if it helps,’ he offered. ‘Should probably never have come in, in the first instance. Only I was passing, on my way home, and I heard beautiful music and since it was a church I figured maybe nobody would worry if I listened in.’

  What he did not say was that he had made it his business to pass this way at various times over the previous fortnight, had even attended morning service again at the cathedral, in the desperate hope of seeing her. He didn’t know what had got into him; he’d never been this way before about a girl. And it was the plaintive beauty of her music floating out on the early-evening air that, in the end, had led him to her.

  Kitty smiled, beguiled by the easy run of his talk. ‘You’re right,’ she said, ‘anybody may come in, but I was only playing for myself, I’m afraid – it isn’t a performance. The curé here is kind enough to let me practise. You don’t have to go, but I’m worried I’ll disappoint you if you stay.’

  ‘Disappoint me? No, I don’t think you would do that!’ the young man said, then, ‘May I?’ before plumping himself down on a chair in the front row and placing his hat on the one next to it. ‘My apologies, I spoiled the mood, didn’t I? But go on, try again. I won’t interrupt. I’ll be silent as a mouse, I promise.’

  She laughed. ‘The mice in here can be extremely noisy. They scamper about shamelessly and gnaw the candles, but . . . all right. I’d better start again.’

  She turned to the music once more and, true to his word, he was so still that she quickly immersed herself in the sublime languor of the broken chords of the first movement, as sad and ethereal as moonlight, music which built in passion and intensity to a state of rapture, before returning once more to the peaceful chords of the beginning.

  The last notes echoed away in the darkness of the church. There was a long silence.

  ‘Bravo,’ he whispered eventually. ‘That was . . . that was quite something. Beautiful. The Moonlight, I’ll remember that.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, touched by his wonder. ‘Somebody told me Beethoven didn’t give it the name, but after his death a critic said that it reminded him of moonlight falling on the Lake of Lucerne and the name stuck.’

  He nodded. ‘I see why he thought that. It reminds me of when I was a child and we stayed one summer in a house by a lake. The night skies were so clear you could sit and count the stars of heaven and never get them all.’ He spoke slowly and the low timbre of his voice was like music to her, so that she could see the scene he painted. ‘My father took me fishing in the moonlight and I trailed my fingers in the water – and you know what? I believed him when he said it was liquid silver.’ He chuckled. There was a faraway look in his eyes and she saw that the memory was a happy one. She liked his face, which was guileless and friendly, and the thought came to her that she’d been denied the chance to do anything at all with her father, and she envied him. Uncle Pepper had not known how to behave with children. He’d always treated her as another adult, with a serious formality.

  ‘You must think me rude, not to have introduced myself,’ the young man said, standing and putting out his hand. I’m Dr Eugene Knox – Gene to most people.’

  ‘And I’m Kitty Travers. Are you a medical doctor?’ She found him easy to talk to, did not feel shy with him in the least.

  ‘They’ve seen fit to let me loose on the unsuspecting sick just recently, yes. I’ve started work at the American Hospital, if you know it.’ Kitty didn’t, so he explained. It had been established by his countrymen as a charitable trust, principally to look after the many Americans who were living in Paris, though it treated people of other nationalities from time to time. ‘And you, you’re English, of course – but what brings you to Paris, if you don’t mind me asking?’

  ‘I’m here to study the piano,’ Kitty told him. ‘You could say that I’m attached to the Conservatoire – that is, I go to classes there, but I’m not properly part of their system. I’m being taught privately by Xavier Deschamps. Have you heard of him? They say he was a famous concert pianist in his day.’

  Eugene shook his head, a regretful expression on his face. ‘As I say, I enjoy listening, but I don’t know much about your kind of music. I’m more of a jazz man myself. Duke Ellington’s a favourite. You ever heard him play?’

  Now it was her turn to say no. She didn’t even know the name. ‘I haven’t ever heard much jazz.’

  ‘You haven’t? Then may I respectfully suggest that you haven’t lived, Miss Travers.’ He paused for the slightest of moments, then said, almost casually, ‘Perhaps we can remedy that. I’d be honoured to take you to hear some one evening, if you’d allow it.’

  ‘Oh, I’m
not sure . . .’ she started to say, dismayed, then it came to her, why shouldn’t she? Who would stop her? She was her own person here and she liked this young man, liked him very much and felt him trustworthy. ‘Well, yes, I’d like that, thank you.’ She was surprised at the heady sense of freedom the answer gave her. She was still getting over the fact of him sitting here, a complete stranger, and yet somehow so utterly familiar. It made sense to her that he was a healer for his was a soothing presence. There was something about him that was comfortable, comforting, and she found herself flying to him like a bird to a safe nesting place.

  The following Friday, Kitty told Sister Thérèse that she wouldn’t be eating dinner at the convent and asked if it mattered that she’d be back a little late. The young novice’s response was to fetch a spare key, which she slipped into Kitty’s hand with a complicit smile.

  That evening found Kitty puzzling between the two long dresses she owned, rejecting the formal black silk she’d brought in the event of concert performances in favour of one in soft apricot organdie she’d had made up in London, sleeveless with a fashionably pleated skirt and a matching jacket. There seemed to be no full-length looking-glass in the convent, so she was forced to position the adjustable face mirror in the bathroom as best she could to view bits of herself from different angles and trust all was well. Her shoulder-length hair with its natural curls needed little more than to be parted in the middle and clipped back with a pair of mother-of-pearl slides. Some russet lipstick and a touch of powder were all it took for a palely glamorous face to reflect back at her, eyes bright with excitement. As a final touch she fastened round her neck the delicate sapphire pendant she’d inherited from her mother and clipped on matching earrings. It struck her that it was her first proper night out in Paris.

  At the stroke of eight she slipped out unseen to meet Gene, and found his cab already waiting. He took her first to Harry’s Bar near the Opéra, where she viewed the glamorous clientele, mostly English and American, through a golden haze of champagne. ‘I don’t come here often,’ he whispered. ‘Tonight is a treat for us both.’

  In a cosy back-street restaurant nearby, where the walls were hung with scenes of Paris nightlife, they ate sole meunière by candlelight. A gypsy violinist came to serenade them, but sensing Kitty’s bashfulness, Gene gave him some coins to go away.

  Kitty was touched that Gene seemed to want to know all about her. She told him how she was an orphan and couldn’t imagine what it must be like to be part of a proper family, as he was. She was here, she said, because her uncle wanted so much for her to do well, but she was worried about leaving him alone. ‘What about you?’ she asked Gene, curious. ‘Why did you come so far from home to train in Paris?’

  ‘My grandma on my mother’s side was French,’ he explained as they ate. ‘I came here to stay with her once or twice and sort of fell into the place, like I was born here. You need to walk down a main street in Alabama to appreciate what I’m saying. Here folks are discreet, don’t interfere in one another’s business so much. Not that I’ve anything to hide, you understand.’ He gave one of those friendly smiles she was quickly learning was a part of him.

  ‘I’ve not found it easy to get to know people here,’ Kitty confessed. ‘They speak so quickly, that’s part of the trouble. I should try harder, I suppose.’

  ‘Do you know, I saw you at the cathedral,’ he said quietly, between mouthfuls. ‘A couple of weeks back.’

  ‘Did you?’ she said in surprise. ‘I didn’t see you.’

  ‘You looked a little lonely. I’d have come across and said hello, but you ran off before I had a chance.’

  ‘Everybody seemed to know one another – it was like a big party for that pretty baby. I’m ashamed to say I funked it.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Well, we all do that sometimes.’

  ‘I don’t believe that you would.’

  ‘I can assure you that you’re wrong,’ he said. ‘Though perhaps I wouldn’t tell that to any patient of mine.’ And she smiled up at him.

  A waiter came to refill their glasses with red wine.

  ‘It’s such a coincidence the way you found me,’ she said, and was genuinely surprised when he turned bashful.

  ‘All right, I’ll have to admit it. It wasn’t exactly luck.’ And he told her how he’d followed her from the cathedral out of concern, that he’d passed the spot where he’d last seen her several times since that Sunday, for he still attended the odd lecture at the École de Médecine and anyway was working out his notice on an apartment near the Panthéon. It was easy for him to walk near where he’d last seen her.

  ‘I suppose I should feel flattered that you went to so much trouble,’ she said, but he heard the disapproval in her voice.

  ‘Now, darn it, I’ve offended you. I should have kept my big mouth shut.’

  ‘No, I’m not offended,’ she said in a soft voice, her fingers stroking the stem of her glass. She looked up to meet his steady gaze and couldn’t help smiling. His was a face of such honesty and friendliness it was difficult to believe he would ever do anything underhand. Slowly he smiled back at her and his eyes lit up. Soon they were both laughing.

  She’d been in love, really in love, once before, painfully and hopelessly, with the headmaster’s son, a golden-haired athletic boy a year or two older, whose eyes had never even rested on the quiet seventeen-year-old girl who came to tea sometimes with her uncle. But nobody had ever warned her that love could spring up as suddenly as this. That two people could see instantly that all they needed was there in the other.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, breaking the spell. ‘I promised you jazz, and you shall have it.’

  A cab dropped them in Montmartre where the steps up to Sacré-Coeur gleamed in the moonlight. Kitty took Gene’s arm and they walked together down a steep side street, then in through the door of a building so nondescript that nobody would have noticed it unless they knew it was there. Instantly they could hear a wonderful swell of music. She followed Gene up a rackety flight of stairs. The music grew louder as they climbed. At the top Gene thrust aside a velvet curtain and drew her into a large square room swirling with smoke. It was noisy and packed with people, and the windows had been thrown open to the night, God help the neighbours. There was a bar in one corner and a makeshift stage draped with crimson in another, where three Negro musicians were playing to a swinging rhythm. The smudged, dancing notes of the piano and the rich, lilting sound of the trumpet snaked inside her in a way that was thrilling and strange, and yet at the same time felt perfectly natural.

  Gene guided her to the bar and bought her more champagne. He seemed utterly at home here, and soon they were joined by friends of his – a slight, dapper fellow American whom Gene introduced as ‘the renowned writer Jack Miles’, and a charming, sandy-haired Irish-American by the name of Bill Delaney, who was a journalist on the Paris Herald Tribune. The third was a woman, a girlfriend of Bill’s. Claudine was a thin, elegant Frenchwoman in her thirties with a feather in her headdress. She contributed very little to the conversation, simply smoked a cigarette through an ivory holder, but there was a mysterious air about her that fascinated Kitty.

  Later, much later, in the cab home, Gene held her hand and she leaned against him, half-drunk on the champagne, the music, and happiness.

  ‘I enjoyed myself so much, thank you, but I’ll never get up for my class in the morning,’ she murmured.

  ‘You must, or I’ll blame myself,’ Gene said, squeezing her hand. ‘I can’t have you cutting your lessons. Your uncle would never forgive me.’

  ‘He wouldn’t approve of jazz. “Music of the gutter”, I once heard him call it.’

  ‘Oh, don’t spoil it, I was liking what I heard about your Uncle Pepper.’

  ‘He’d like you, I’m sure,’ Kitty said, laughing. ‘It’s in matters such as music and painting that he has strong old-fashioned views.’

  ‘I hope to meet him one day then,’ Gene said as the cab drew up outside her alleyway. ‘Attendez
un petit moment s’il vous plaît,’ he instructed the driver.

  She was glad to have his arm to cling to in the silent darkness of the alley. Where it opened out into the square, all bathed in moonlight, he stopped and turned to her. ‘It’s been the most wonderful evening,’ he murmured. ‘May I see you again?’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered, while glancing anxiously at the shuttered mansion, ‘but you’d better go now in case we’re seen. I don’t want to get thrown out of my lodgings.’

  At the gate of the convent he waited while she stole in through the front door using the key Sister Thérèse had given her. Upstairs, safe in bed, she fell asleep at once, but her dreams were full of the sinuous, caressing music of the evening and Gene’s soft lazy voice.

  They saw each other as often as they could after that, and on his days off Gene made it his business to show Kitty Paris. It wasn’t always the main tourist sights, but the out-of-the-way places, the secret nooks he took her to – a shabby theatre showing Grand Guignol melodrama, the Jardin des Plantes by the School of Botany, Chopin’s tomb in the cemetery of Père-Lachaise. Best of all, Kitty loved a little piano shop in St Germain, where she roamed about marvelling at the beautiful old instruments whilst Gene chatted easily to the proprietor, learning the stories about the pianos and the people who’d owned them. In the evening he might accompany her to a concert, or they’d dine together and visit one of the boîtes to listen to some woman in black with a smoky 4 a.m. voice, singing heartbreaking love songs that left Kitty with the melancholy sense of how time effaced everything. Not this, she thought, not this, as she sensed the warmth of Gene sitting close, the fair hairs on the backs of his strong hands gleaming in the candlelight, and he would catch her eye and smile his open smile.