She flashed him a bright look. “Now you’ve got it.”
He gazed down at her with an odd half smile curving his mouth. The look in his eyes was considering, but undefeated.
They bought the éclairs, rich with chocolate and cream, then walked idly along until they found a sidewalk café. When the waiter had brought the coffee they ordered, they sat in the last light of evening, eating their sticky treats and drinking from the tiny cups of incredibly bitter brew. The table was not much bigger than the cups and wobbled on the uneven sidewalk. A light wind rustled the leaves of a plane tree nearby. A sparrow hopped here and there on the sidewalk in search of crumbs. The traffic on the wide thoroughfare was beginning to pick up as Parisians headed homeward for the evening; its roar was punctuated regularly by the cranky horns of the boxlike little cars. The waiter who had served them, in his white shirt, black pants, and his apron almost down to his ankles, busied himself wiping tabletops and stacking chairs just inside the cafe’s door.
“I don’t think,” Joletta said judiciously, “that you and I have improved our waiter’s opinion of American manners.”
“You mean by bringing our own eats into his fine establishment? Don’t worry about it; that supercilious look doesn’t mean a thing. The guy’s probably thinking about his fallen arches.”
“You think so?”
He nodded. “In Europe, nobody really cares what you do so long as you don’t involve them or make a big noise about it. The trick to getting by — whether it’s sitting in a Paris café or crossing the street against Rome traffic — is to be perfectly courteous but oblivious. Do what you like, do it with composure, and never make eye contact.”
“You’re joking.”
“I promise you’ll look like a native.”
Rone watched Joletta as she sat so poised and alert beside him. Her attention appeared to fasten for an instant on a blond woman, obviously an American, who was coming toward them along the street. Her body tensed, then relaxed as the woman moved past them without a glance.
He wondered, then, if Joletta had seen Natalie back there at the hotel. She must have; something besides pastries had diverted her down this side street. It would be like her to say nothing to him since he was still a virtual stranger.
There was a great deal, he was discovering, that went on under the surface she presented to the world. She was a private person, self-contained, almost too much so. It wasn’t that she was timid, he thought; timid women didn’t walk down dark streets at night or set out for Europe by themselves. Rather, she used wariness and the repression of her natural impulses as a shield against personal pain. He would give a great deal to be on hand when she came out of her shell.
The evening light filtered through the top layer of her hair and reflected with a pearl sheen in the translucence of her skin, so she seemed to glow. There was a tiny smudge of chocolate icing on the tender curve of her bottom lip that made him want to kiss it away. The urge was so strong that he sat perfectly still, willing his self-control to kick in, as he leaned back in his chair with his fingers cradling his coffee cup.
He wondered at the rightness of his decision to join her tour. He was doing it to make his job easier, or so he told himself, but it was going to be a strain, no doubt about that. The question was whether he could stand it. Principles could be a pain — if principles were a word that could be applied to a situation of this kind.
He wished with sudden fervor that everything about this trip were as simple as he was pretending to Joletta. He would give a great deal to be able to amble with her around Europe without a care or worry, to have no constraint in his relationship with her except that imposed by common, decent behavior. Well, fairly decent.
He could still feel heat in the place on his chest where her hand had rested so briefly. Before he could prevent it his mind flashed an image of what it might be like to have her touch him of her own will, with affection, even with desire.
The scent of her drifted to his nostrils, that gentle blending of Tea Rose and her own unique female fragrance. Most women smelled to some degree of vanilla, a kind of universal feminine smell. Not Joletta. He thought that was a part of the fascination she held for him, a part of his need to come closer to her, so he could decipher that fragrance. It was a little like the jungle orchid that created the vanilla bean, along with a blending of sun-ripened pear. Or maybe it was like a cross between a dark red plum and a night-blooming jasmine.
What it was, was maddening.
He was going to have to think of other things if he ever wanted to lift the napkin from his lap and stand up from behind this table without embarrassing himself.
He was becoming far too involved.
And he was beginning to be afraid of what was going to happen when this trip was over.
They started back toward the hotel as dusk began to gather. There were more people on the sidewalk at this hour, shop assistants and secretaries wearing ponchos and scarves, businessmen in trench coats with newspapers weighting their pockets, and elderly women carrying string shopping bags with baguette loaves of bread sticking out of the tops. The number of cars on the streets had increased also, while their respect for marked traffic lanes had decreased. Horns blared in a near-constant cacophony, and riders on bicycles wove in and out of the traffic with insouciance, apparently never looking at the drivers.
Joletta and Rone walked along, letting the other pedestrians push past them while they talked of the excursion to Versailles the next day. Joletta had signed up for it earlier; it was something she had not wanted to chance missing. She thought Rone could still make it if he cared to try.
As they reached a cross street they heard the rise and fall of the two-note police sirens coming from somewhere to their right. The steady flow of cars slowed, then braked to a stop. As foot traffic was cut off also people began to gather around the two of them on the street corner. The pedestrians grumbled among themselves, stretching their necks to look.
Rone, able to see over most of the Frenchmen and women around them, identified the cause of the commotion first. “Police vans, three of them.”
The vehicles were painted a rich blue seldom seen on the other side of the Atlantic on anything except luxury cars, and were flanked on both sides by outriders of motorcycle police. They fought their way through the stalled cars, detouring now and then by way of the sidewalk to get around them. As the vans neared, the rising and falling tones of their sirens were deafening.
It was, apparently, some routine police movement, though it might also have been a response to a terrorist attack; in Paris anything was possible. Joletta had been wakened by other cavalcades just like it at least twice per night since she had been in the city.
“That sound always reminds me of the gestapo coming to get Anne and her family in the movie of The Diary of Anne Frank,” she said.
“Wrong city,” Rone answered, his voice even.
“I knew that,” she said dryly. She glanced at him, but he made no answer as he looked right and left at the people crowding around them.
The last of the vans went tearing past. In the midst of its noise and rush, Joletta was jostled from behind. She stumbled a few steps away from Rone, but did not try to move nearer again. The mood between them had changed somehow, and she was a little chilled by the distance she sensed in him. Besides, the signal light on its side pole was flashing, indicating that it was almost time to cross.
Engines were gunned and tires squealed as the traffic surged forward again. It was like a raceway as drivers tried to beat the incipient change of the light. The flow seemed interminable, as unstoppable as a flooding river.
Then suddenly brakes screeched and engines geared down, rumbling to a standstill once more. Joletta, moving with the traffic-wise Parisians around her, stepped off the curb.
The roar of an accelerating car ripped through the traffic’s hoarse grumble. Women screamed, men yelled. Joletta whipped her head around. She saw the red sports car spinning around the corner straight at her, noted
its sleek, expensive shape and its power.
She was hemmed in on all sides. There was a wall of bodies between her and the curb. Terror beat up into her throat.
Abruptly, the crowd scattered. She saw an opening to one side and spun around, leaping toward it.
Her movements felt inconceivably slow. She flung herself forward with every ounce of her strength, struggling to attain height in an atmosphere that seemed made of glue. Her body was airborne, arcing deliberately, hovering in midair with the grace of a hang glider before plunging down toward the surface of the sidewalk. She thrust out her arms to absorb the jar of the landing.
She never felt it. Something struck her hip, a glancing blow that brought a vivid explosion of pain. She spun, tumbling like clothes in a dryer. Her head brushed something upright and hard.
Silence and darkness reached out to catch her.
8
MAY 28, 1854
Everything in Paris is either boring or ugly. I am weighted down with ennui from listening to Gilbert’s ancient relatives extol the beauty and aristocratic glory of the departed Bourbon regime and deplore the atrocities committed by Napoléon III as he seized the title of emperor last worn by his uncle — this while they live in tasteless and thoroughly petit bourgeois comfort.
Gilbert has become a tyrant. He decrees that I cannot go out without Hermine, since he is known in Paris and I must protect his good name. Known? He? Such pretension. Or perhaps it is no more than an excuse to keep me close?
A lavender twilight lay over Paris. It touched the gray, smoke-stained limestone buildings and cobblestones with a purple glaze and reflected amethyst in the puddles of water that lay here and there in the sunken stones of the rear stableyard outside Violet’s window.
She stood at the open casement with her head resting on the glass, watching as a stable lad drawing water from the central fountain flirted with a maid hanging out of a window opposite. The air was damp and cool, and smelled of horses and decay, with now and then a whiff of the Seine that lay not so far away. Somewhere carriages rattled along the streets and boatmen and street hawkers called, but the sounds were muffled by distance and walls. A church bell clanged in discordant appeal, then fell silent.
It had been raining, but had stopped in time for the dull evening to be colored by the sunset. Gilbert had been gone for hours, looking, no doubt, for the perfect rococo mirror or Louis XVI chair. He was becoming fanatic about such pieces, talking endlessly about the stories behind them. He was buying history, he said. Since it seemed to make him happy, Violet did not argue with him.
She had been reading most of the day, the lugubrious Dame aux Camélias, by Dumas fils, the son of the famous writer and roué Alexandre Dumas. The book had been published some time ago, but had been brought back to popularity by the production of the play of the same name just over a year before, and also by the recent performance in Venice of Giuseppe Verdi’s opera La Traviata, which had been based on the story. The tale, a tragedy about a courtesan who gives up the love of a rich and handsome young man to save him dishonor, then dies of consumption and a broken heart, had lowered Violet’s spirits to such a degree that she could no longer continue. It would make a marvelous opera; she could see that, one she would no doubt cry over at the French opera house in New Orleans in some future season, but for now it left her restless and impatient. She was in no mood for tears and self-sacrifice.
Gilbert had not contacted Delacroix. The artist was too elusive, he said. He was also too important; hadn’t he, just the year before, completed the ceiling of the Salon de la Paix of the Hotel de Ville, the seat of government for all Paris itself? Violet, Gilbert said, was very pretty, but this great painter at the height of his fame would certainly not stoop to putting her image on canvas. His darling young wife must accept the disappointment and think of another artist.
Violet refused to accept it.
What would happen if this single avenue of contact between herself and Allain were allowed to wither away? Would the few words of parting they had exchanged in a hotel lobby be final? Would they never look upon each other again?
Perhaps that was what she should allow to happen.
Perhaps this sweet fever in her blood would pass. Perhaps in time she would no longer call Allain’s face to mind, no longer wonder where he was, what he was doing, and if he was thinking of her.
No.
And no again.
Gilbert had been going out at night. He had been dining out with some of his male cousins, so he said, though he had returned to the hotel intoxicated and smelling of cheap wine and cheaper perfume. Violet was not so innocent that she did not realize how he had been entertaining himself. The Théâtre des Variétés where women appeared half-naked, the society of the demimonde, which included courtesans, mistresses to famous men, and other loose women, was talked about in whispers among the ladies of New Orleans. Its attractions were supposed to be powerful; it was not to be expected that a man visiting Paris would ignore the chance to sample them.
Violet had locked her door and pretended to be asleep when Gilbert returned, covering her head with her pillow to keep from hearing his knock. She had claimed in the morning that she had shut herself away because she had been frightened at being left alone. Gilbert had retreated into frustrated and sullen silence.
There had been a time when such silences disturbed her. She had felt them as a punishment, had been anxious to restore ease between her husband and herself, to find some concession she could make to regain his favor. Now she welcomed them.
This afternoon she had put on a gown of silk in rose and green stripes on white, and with nosegays of roses and greenery embroidered between the striping. Hermine had dressed her hair with a mass of ringlets falling at the nape from a high knot and with tendril curls at her temples. A dish of bonbons had been set out.
No one had called. She would have welcomed any visitor, Gilbert’s relatives, his newly made business acquaintances, anyone.
The rain had begun two hours before and continued with thunder and great silver-white streaks of lightning above the chimney pots of the houses. When it had stopped, the streets had steamed.
Violet had watched each slanting raindrop and found a small thrill in every one of them. Rain had become for her an aid to memory.
And she had made a decision.
Now she moved to where a secretary-desk sat against the wall. Seating herself, she drew a thick sheet of paper toward her. She uncapped the inkwell, took up her pen of malachite and gold, and looked at its nib. She sat for long moments with the point of the pen hovering over the paper. At last she began to write.
A few minutes later it was done. She held the square envelope of cream vellum containing the letter by one corner, as if it was dangerous. The impulse to tear it up and retreat once more into apathetic safety rose strong inside her. It was folly, what she was doing; she knew it. More than that, it was a betrayal.
She had never thought she would come to this, seeking for something more than the comfort and stability of her position as Gilbert’s wife. She had never thought she would need it, never thought she could be enticed by the transient excitement of seeing another man. Everything was not perfect between her husband and herself, but there was much to be said for the quiet predictability of their days together, for his generosity, his care for her welfare, the respect and homage he accorded her when they were in public together. If there was no great stimulation for her in their moments of closeness, perhaps it was not all her husband’s fault, perhaps it was also due to her coolness.
Oh, but how could she ignore the turmoil of pleasure only the thought of being with Allain again gave her? She could not. This sweet joy might never come again. It must be seized. She would be discreet; she did not mean to injure Gilbert in any way or do anything that might harm her marriage. A light flirtation, that was all she desired. What could it hurt to speak to Allain, to learn something of him, to grasp at a few, innocent memories to warm the long years ahead? It was such
a small thing, really, so small.
For two days there was no reply to Violet’s letter. On the third day there came an invitation for an afternoon visit at the house of Delacroix.
“You wrote without consulting me?” Gilbert said as he stood holding the invitation in his hand.
Violet had been expecting precisely this reaction. “We have spoken of it any number of times, you and I, but you have been so busy. I was thinking of it again the other evening while you were out and I was alone. It seemed we would never know if the great Delacroix would agree to our request unless we asked. To think was to act. I may have been impulsive, but only look at the result.”
He sighed, looking at her from under his thick, iron-gray brows. Finally he said, “You want this a great deal, do you not?”
“Yes.” She let the answer stand without embellishment.
He tapped the invitation against his thumbnail while a frown of consideration hovered about his brow. Finally, when she thought she would choke from holding back all the pleas and reasons she had marshaled to convince him, he spoke. “Well, then, so be it. We will go.”
Sherry and olives together, Violet discovered, made a wonderful blending of flavors, each canceling out the bitterness of the other. These two things were only a small taste of the marvelous food and drink that was served during the late-afternoon salon at Delacroix’s house; there was something for every palate, every nationality.
It was Allain who introduced her to the odd combination. He was able to do it because the rooms where the gathering was held were crowded with people, all of them talking at the top of their lungs about politics and art and philosophy and a thousand other things, and most of them gesticulating like mad people.
Allain also pointed out to her the famous and infamous who came and went: the jovial and wild-haired mulatto Dumas the elder, who had recently published his memoirs in ten amazing volumes; the poet, novelist, and literary critic Théophile Gautier; a number of government officials, several actresses. Then there were the painters, the rebels Corot and Courbet, Daumier and Millet, with also a few of the more correct members of the academy.
Wildest Dreams (The Contemporary Collection) Page 11