Crossing the road and the small pasture beyond, I entered the woods and began to climb, but at a place where some trees had been felled, I again looked back.
The Château de St-Germain sat in a clearing, nestled in a cup of land and surrounded by woods. To my right, to the east, the road continued towards Fontainebleau some seven kilometres away. From there, one of the main roads ran northwest to Barbizon and Chailly-en-Bière. It was deliciously wild, yet not wild at all. In fact, if one thought about it, Fontainebleau was only about sixty-five kilometres to the south-southeast of Paris, not far from the junction of the Loing and the Seine. The trains were good, so it wasn’t that much of a journey. The trains … there I go again. Yet it could be isolated, too. Listening to the whistles, the engines, and the rumbling of the wheels made me lie awake at night thinking of the city and wondering about my husband.
The slope ahead of me grew increasingly steep. The warm scent of beeches and oaks, of rotting leaves and humus gone dry with the summer’s heat, came from all about me. Soon, however, the forest closed around me, and I could no longer see the château.
Now I was on my own and, shutting my eyes for a moment, pausing to lean against a tree and remember my first visit here, but all I can hear now is the sound of their footsteps in the leaves, that awful crisp, dry crackling and then … why then, the ragged sound of gunfire.
Rising straight above me, a grey stone tower broke through the edge of the trees. It was Norman perhaps, though no one knew of its origins. Built so long ago, its circular walls and tumbled blocks remained a local mystery.
Patiently, I picked my way over the stones, always climbing. From time to time, I would reach a ledge and stand there breathing hard and listening to the silence, remembering again until suddenly I was running to the tower. Then, suddenly, I was at the edge of the cliff. While the tower rose behind me, the land fell abruptly to stunted scrub, bracken, patches of barren sandy soil and copses of mature trees.
Hunted over by kings, a private preserve of the wealthy from the Middle Ages right through to the Revolution and to Napoléon himself, the Forêt de Fontainebleau was very wild in places like this. Oak, beech, ash, birch, and poplar spread into the distance with scattered clusters of pine and clearings where they had all been felled.
There were deer, wild boar, rabbits in plenty, and foxes to be sure. There were birds, too, partridges, pheasants, and doves—the pigeons. And nearly always when I went there in the autumn and winter, I would hear the hunting horns and think of the days when hounds were fed the still warm stag and the king and his retinue dined on other things.
There was always the chance a person might find something. Perhaps a louis d’or, perhaps the jewelled handle of a dirk or buckle of a shoe. When a place has been hunted over by kings, all sorts of things can be left behind, even trip wires and grenades.
There might be brigands, too, of course. Far to the north, much nearer to Barbizon and the farm of my mother, there were gullies and caverns in which fortunes might once have been hidden. Who knows? It was just a thought, had been so then.
I gave a shrug. I filled my lungs and sighed. Every time I came here, I remembered that first time. Jules had brought me to the tower when I had come from Paris to meet his father. The tall stone walls had kept the sun out and drawn their shade. Scattered about the floor were large blocks of stone that had fallen from the battlements, but in the centre of the floor he had levered several into place as an altar, a boyhood thing. He hadn’t chosen one of the rooms in which to make love.
We had made love there, though, but that had been a long, long time ago, and Tommy … why Tommy had used the tower, too, but for purposes of his own.
That night, I listened to the wireless in the library, and they told me that at five a.m. that morning, 1 September 1939, Germany had invaded Poland. What I had feared had come to pass, and I felt alone as never before.
In the morning, I took the children to the farm to stay with mother and went on to Paris, unannounced. On the eve of war, so many had fled the city, the inbound trains had been empty. One could walk down the rue Mouffetard, as I just had, and see so few people the experience was frightening. Nothing, though, like the Exodus that came in June 1940 and a day or two ahead of the blitzkrieg. Through the morning’s haze, opalescent and diffuse, the cupola of the Panthéon rose ethereally, lifting itself up from the narrow, walled-in street to touch the sky. The Fifth Arrondissement, the Latin Quarter, was the habitat of students. Tenements; small, cheap hotels; bistros; cafés; bars; street hawkers; taxi drivers; maisons de tolérance, maisons de passe, and putains who often challenged passing men in hopes of a little cash.
My sister was a sewer rat. Janine knew the worst of places. Water dripped constantly from the faucet. The gunk-plugged sink in the washroom at the far end of the corridor trapped its puddle before slowly drinking it in. Chipped enamel gave rust stains. Crinkly hairs were everywhere, some brown, some peroxide-blonde, others black. All transient.
The stench of a clogged bidet was overpowering, that from the toilet in its own little closet next door, revolting. There wasn’t a bathtub anywhere—merde, no! Such things weren’t necessary.
Transfixed, I listened to the water, the building, the courtyard, and the street. Why did I feel so threatened? Not by Jules and Janine, but by something else. The city. Whistles in the night. The rushing tramp of hobnailed boots. Shouts in German, cries in French.
There is no other sound like that of boots. Compressed, shut in, the windows crowd. Shutters are closed or open. Shades are drawn, but there are no balconies, and I’m running and cry out once, for I’ve stumbled and fallen. Scrambling up, I race along the street. I’ve torn my stockings—my only pair! My knees are bleeding. I’ve scraped my hand …
But I’m here, well before all that, in the washroom on the sixth floor of that ramshackle tenement. Can you imagine what it must have been like to run up those stairs, to hear their boots on the stones, their shouts, their whistles, and the dogs?
I was pregnant, damn it. Pregnant!
Forgive me—that came much later. The tenement had a narrow courtyard that opened on to the rue Mouffetard. The door to that courtyard was set in a high, wooden wall. Bolts held it shut. Garbage tins and refuse were everywhere on that second day. Cats, dogs, children with runny noses—the poor, they didn’t leave the city like others, but why had they to look at me like that? Their expressions revealed not just suspicion, but also a wariness that was tempered with fear. Yes, fear.
If only I’d known then what I know now.
The entrance to the house was from a narrow, cockeyed wooden shanty of a structure, a slot that jutted out and didn’t face directly down the length of the courtyard but sideways as if ashamed. Electrical cables, fuse boxes, and broken meters lined both walls, but there was no outer door, so it was open to all weathers and all defecators. One went up a short flight of steps then, suddenly, there was a door.
From behind the armour of a bent, wrought-iron grille, the concierge took one look at my outfit, huffed, raised her bushy black eyebrows, and snorted contemptuously.
The rush of garlic and bad teeth overwhelmed. There were clouds of cigarette smoke in her tiny cubicle. To sit all day in such a place … ‘That one,’ she shouted, when I asked for Janine. ‘Hah! She should charge for it. Then maybe she could pay her rent.’
The Himalayas of those stairs began. I thought to count them but soon gave up. The boards were old and dished, and when I reached the top floor and found the room, a note had been left for Jules. À dix-sept heures, chéri. L’Académie Julian. At five and one of the city’s long-standing schools for artists. Chéri … la salope! An art class at a time like this!
Jules, of course, hadn’t been in his office or anywhere near it. I had left a note for him, the suggestion of dinner together, but had they ever made love in that room of Nini’s? Had she cried out in ecstasy to paper-thin walls and flung her head from side to side as he’d pushed her to orgasm, eh? Hairs to hairs?
No thoughts of Jules, none at all but …
Later … that came later. Please, you must forgive me.
The silver backing had peeled. Smoke had damaged one quarter of it, and the half-moon of that burn had spread from the lower left out under the glass, brown against the peeling silver and the stains, so that my face appeared as if … I can’t say it, but I must! Tortured. There, at last, I’ve said it.
I had a lovely linen dress then, something very special. Très chic, you understand. Off-white, superbly tailored with an open collar that plunged to matching cloth-covered buttons, buckle, and belt. My waist was slim—how could it have been otherwise with all that slugging to do at the house and in the garden, the children, too, and an unfaithful husband?
I looked smashing in the dress. Half-sleeves, with cuffs, extended to just below the elbows so that the soft tan of summer was exposed. The band of my wristwatch matched the alligator leather of the handbag whose strap was slung over my right shoulder. The hat was fedoralike and in a soft beige. I had added a band of linen to match the dress. Like a lot of women then, I wore the hat tilted to one side with the brim pulled down a little so as to give that sense of mystery. No lipstick. Hey, listen, mes amis, I had good lips, nothing but the best; wore high heels, too, and a coat in case it might rain or get a little chilly.
My hair had been newly washed and brushed—held at the back with a barrette so that it fell to shoulder length but gave some fullness beneath the hat and was very fine, would take the sunlight and become a lovely soft amber, but there was no sunlight in this place. None. Small, pear-shaped earrings, encrusted diamonds, a gift from Jules’s father, were worn. Now why had that old man given them to me? Had I reminded him of someone or had he had a taste for me?
The earrings had been quite old. In my innocence, I had thought they’d been his dead wife’s.
Ten thousand francs? I wondered. Fifteen thousand … How much could I get for them with this war upon us? Let me leave before it became too late. Let me take the children to safety.
The shop was on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, not far from its intersection with the avenue Matignon. I remember thinking that I had to be by myself for a while, but when I came to the shop, those feelings left me. The window was magnificent. Ah, mon Dieu, such things. An Aubusson tapestry was draped over one corner of a Louis XIV lacquered commode. Fabergé and Lalique were cast among the silver and gold, the antique jewellery as if rained from the heavens. A bronze of Rodin’s was draped with pearls. Another bronze—much, much earlier, was by Orazio Mochi who had died in Florence in 1625. Chinese watercolours on rice paper were also there, with blue-white porcelain and jade figurines dating from thousands of years ago, while leaning against one of a pair of late Regency carved beech-wood armchairs, a splendid oil on canvas by Henri Fantin-Latour showed gladioli and roses. Another canvas occupied the opposite side of the window—Renoir’s Vase des Fleurs. Then at the back, raised on an inlaid lime-wood button box and framed by everything, there was a sumptuous nude by Luis Ricardo Falero. La Toilette. A dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty.
The man who had come to stand beside me took no notice of the nude but concentrated on a pair of Dutch parcel-gilt tazza made by Abraham van der Hecken in 1600. Amsterdam … Lovely things. Christ dividing the loaves and fishes. The one tazza was filled with a sultan’s spill of rings, necklaces, and brooches; the other lay on its side as if rolled about in the act of robbery, but why did he concentrate so hard? Why did he give that fleetingly triumphant grin, as if he’d been searching for something endlessly and had suddenly come upon it?
But then he took to looking at me in the glass, and I had to quickly avert my eyes. I confess I found him attractive. It was exciting to have him look secretly at me. It made me momentarily forget the war, the worry, made me feel … Ah, how should I say it? Proud … yes, proud of myself for a change.
He was about … mm, thirty-four, maybe thirty-six? It was hard to tell. Tall and rugged of build, he had a carefree nature about him. The suit jacket was slung over the left shoulder, the shirt collar was undone, the tie askew. In many ways, I have to confess he looked somewhat English, not French, you understand. Italian? I wondered, but from the north, not the south. American … Was he one of those?
The wavy light brown hair was thick and curled about his ears. The brow was high and sloping back from eyes that squinted with mirth, slanting away and slightly downward from a strong and prominent nose. The jaw was square, the chin also jutting out so that when he smiled, ripples folded and creased burnished cheeks to join the furrows that had burst from the corners of the eyes.
That smile … Tommy often gave it in the worst of situations. It was disarming, engaging—so many things, and one couldn’t always tell what was meant.
The lips were as wide as the chin and turned up at the corners a little. Manly lips, kissing lips, even then I noticed this. Most women do, isn’t that so?
We talked a little, neither of us facing the other directly, but he watching me in the glass—the war, what it must mean, Poland, that sort of thing.
I glanced at him several times, gaining confidence. Feeling better, more at ease, I thought, You devil, you’ve been undressing me, but had he really?
He mentioned my accent, and I told him I was half-French, half-English, caught in the middle of the Channel, so to speak. ‘My mother is from Provence, but I grew up outside of Paris, near Barbizon. In the summers, that is. In the winters, we lived in England. My father’s English.’
‘Care to tell me your name?’
His French accent was horrible. ‘Lily. Lily de St-Germain. My husband has a château in the woods to the west of Fontainebleau and just on the edge of the forest.’
‘How lovely.’
Until I die, I will remember those two words and how Tommy said them. Like a schoolboy, tickled pink that fate had brought us together.
Fate … Dear God, forgive us all.
We looked at each other steadily in the glass of that window. How can I ever express that moment? I knew—that’s all I can say.
‘I must sell my earrings,’ I said to break the impasse.
Quickly, I took them off, and he looked at them in the palm of my hand, was serious now and puzzled.
‘Why? They suit you. They go with the outfit. This guy will only cheat you at a time like this. He’s got buckets of that stuff.’
Tommy indicated the window. I shrugged and said, ‘I have to take my children to see my father in England before it’s too late.’
Though he nodded solicitously, he had to say, ‘Surely you’re not that broke?’
It was my turn to smile, and I did a little sadly. ‘Just because I live in a château doesn’t mean I’m wealthy.’
The husband then … You could see it in his eyes, though he had no wish to hurt me. ‘But your interest in this window? All these things. You appreciate them, Madame de St-Germain. You must be accustomed to such things.’
Had he been so wrong about me? he wondered. Had I misjudged him?
The shop was full of lovely things. Tommy circulated while I asked about the earrings. At a point in the discussions, he even leaned into the front window to explore something. This set the shopkeeper off and the man grabbed my earrings and went to speak to him.
They had a quiet talk. That smile, that grin broke over Tommy’s face as the shopkeeper’s voice began to rise and then to lift even further in, ‘Jésus, merde alors, I would not even bother to cheat the salope! Out, I tell you. Out! Tell the slut I’ve no interest in them. Thirty thousand francs? You’re crazy. Crazy like a horse that has had turpentine shoved up its ass!’
Red in the face, the shopkeeper roared back to me and shouted, ‘Stolen, madame? Not for anything would I buy these!’
He slammed the earrings down on the display c
ase. Behind him the eyebrows arched as Tommy heaved a shrug and said, ‘Sorry.’
In anger, I snatched them up and fled. How could he have been so cruel to me, a perfect stranger, a mother of two children, a desperate woman?
Not until the avenue Matignon did he catch up with me to put ten thousand francs into my hand and say, ‘The rest will come later, but let me buy them from you.’
I turned away, he touched my shoulder, gave a gentle chuckle—I can still hear it. ‘Relax,’ he said. ‘It was all just a game. I’m sorry I had to use you like that.’
What does one do in such a situation? I threw the money into his face, swung hard and fled.
* * *
Dust filtered through the warm, still air, caught in the slanting rays of the sun as the patient scraping of charcoal on drawing paper came into the silence and the leftover taint of fixative mingled with that of gum arabic.
I eased the door shut behind me but didn’t move away from it for fear of being noticed. There were perhaps thirty students at their easels, arranged in a semicircle about the model. This at a time of war.
Folds of white sheeting had been draped over a high stool and, on this, my sister sat with her toes touching the floor. Her slender legs were slackly parted, the arms stiffly at her sides so that the hands could grip the edges of the stool and hold the pose.
Janine’s shoulders were flung back, etching the sharpness of the collarbones. Her breasts were lovely—even now I must force myself to admit how envious I was. A suckling’s midnight snack, a lover’s feast! Plump but firm and round. Uptilted, the nipples flushed even in repose, no signs of a child yet. None of that swollen look, or of the aureoles enlarging. The waist was slender, the tummy flat, the hips but slightly flared. That gorgeous cul, that ass of hers, was all but hidden.
Every time I looked at Nini, I thought of Renoir’s painting of Jeanne Samary. Young and vivacious, those same dark, warm eyes, that same mop of dark black hair that was feathered over the brow and fluffed out in carefully contrived carelessness to emphasize the eyes.
Hunting Ground Page 2