“What do I do?”
“Nothing. Keep your mouth shut and your eyes open. I’ve enough troubles without having to look out for you all the time. I did that once already.”
Thomas was silent for a moment. Was Compagnon letting him know that he’d noticed him that day he’d panicked when he’d looked down in the early days of the tower’s building? Probably.
“What’s going to happen about the strike?” he asked.
“Eiffel’s furious. But Éric’s right. He’ll have to settle. It’ll take a day or two.”
“Won’t Éric just do it again?”
“I don’t think so.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I’ll make sure. Now, lad, I’ve got a home to go to. Are you going to keep your mouth shut?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t talk to me. Don’t talk to Eiffel. Keep your head down. Now beat it.”
So Thomas walked up the rue de la Pompe. He supposed Jean Compagnon stayed in the shadows for a while. He didn’t look back.
The bargaining lasted three days. In the end, the men were given a bonus that would reach an extra four centimes a day. They were given waterproofs, and sheepskin clothes, and mulled wine to warm them up. Eiffel also set up a canteen on the first platform.
The men went back to work. Although Thomas was aware that he was regarded with suspicion, nobody gave him any trouble. During the month of October, the tower rose rapidly.
Thomas saw Édith regularly now. One Saturday night they went out with Pepe and his friend Anna, a pleasant, round-faced Italian girl, who took them to a little place that served Italian food, which neither Thomas nor Édith had ever eaten before. It was a good evening. He discovered that Pepe had a good voice and liked to sing Neapolitan songs.
Thomas would often kiss Édith. But so far at least, he had never had the chance to use the capotes anglaises that he sometimes secreted in his pocket. For Édith would never let him go all the way.
They went to see her aunt again. This time Édith’s mother was not there. Aunt Adeline probably wasn’t overjoyed to see him, but she didn’t show it. Monsieur Ney, however, chancing to look in again, welcomed Thomas politely and urged him, “Next time you visit, young man, do not forget to bring your little brother.”
So when, halfway through November, he and Édith agreed to meet the following Sunday at her aunt’s, he told her: “Say to Monsieur Ney that I will bring Luc with me.”
On Sunday, he met Luc near the Arc de Triomphe. As they walked down the avenue de la Grande-Armée, Luc was in a cheerful mood.
“I don’t know why Ney wants to see you,” Thomas admitted. “But I thought I’d better not disappoint him.”
“He has no particular reason,” Luc assured him. “Do you remember the giant squid that attacked the submarine in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea?” One didn’t need to have read Jules Verne’s classic tale to remember the giant squid. Popular illustrations had made highlights of the story familiar to almost every child in France. “People like this notaire spread their tentacles out to catch anything they can. If he thinks it’s possible I might be of use to him one day, he’ll want to get one of his tentacles around me, that’s all.”
“How would you be of use to him?” Thomas asked.
“Who knows? I’m just a young fellow who does things for people, and I don’t ask questions. That’s all he needs to know.” Luc smiled. “He’s right. I might do something for him one day. As long as he pays me.”
“If you say so, little brother,” said Thomas.
Édith met them at the door. She greeted them both, offered her cheek to Luc to kiss, as he was Thomas’s brother, and took them inside.
“Monsieur Ney is out, but he’s coming here shortly,” she told them. “But Mademoiselle Hortense is here. She’s calling on Madame Govrit, and my aunt says you should go up there to relieve her. Madame Govrit likes to see new people.”
The old lady was propped up in her handsome bed as usual. She had a lace cap on her head. On the bed lay some magazines that Mademoiselle Hortense had brought her, and as they entered, the lawyer’s daughter was sitting very upright, with perfect posture, on a chair beside the bed. Thomas and Luc bowed to them both politely. Madame Govrit stared at them.
“I remember you,” she said to Thomas. “Are you still building that monstrous tower?”
“Yes, madame. It’s my job. I’m sorry.”
The old lady gave a sniff.
“Well, you’d better come closer so I can hear you better. And who’s this?” She indicated Luc.
“My little brother, Luc, madame.”
“Is he building the tower too?”
“Non, madame.”
“I’m glad to hear it. He has more sense than you.” She looked appraisingly at Luc. “He’ll be very handsome, this one, don’t you think?” she remarked to Hortense. Hortense bowed her head slightly to indicate that it might be so. “He looks sly. I like him. Are you sly, young man?”
“I am whatever a lady likes me to be,” said Luc in his smoothest manner.
“Oh, what cheek!” exclaimed the old lady with delight. “What a young villain.” She addressed Hortense again. “Do not marry the young one, my dear. He’ll lead you a dance. The older one looks more stable, I think. Not so amusing, but …” She shifted her gaze back to Luc. “Ah, but he has mischievous eyes.”
Mademoiselle Hortense slowly turned and looked at the two Gascon boys. Her eyes rested on Luc, but only briefly. Then she transferred them to Thomas.
Her eyes were a very deep brown. He hadn’t noticed before how dark they were. Almost chocolate. The color was deep, but the eyes gave nothing away. He could find no emotion in them, nor any expression on her long, pale face. She was wearing a fashionable riding habit, whose narrow waist and swelling line accentuated her small breasts. Even more than before, the pale lawyer’s daughter seemed to suggest erotic possibilities to him. She rose.
“I must leave you with these two young men, madame,” she said in a low voice. Yet as she passed him, Thomas thought that she paused, just for a moment, before moving to the door. And however absurdly, the thought came into his mind: Perhaps, if she liked him … after all, she must be nearly thirty, and wasn’t married yet … what a surprise for his family if, having turned down the daughter of La Veuve Michel, he were instead to waltz off with the heiress of rich Monsieur Ney, the notaire.
Luc meanwhile was wasting no time in amusing old Madame Govrit.
“Do you play cards, madame?”
“I used to, young man, but I haven’t any cards now.”
Luc reached into his pocket and produced two packs of cards.
“Tiens,” she cried, “this young man has everything. You have two packs?”
“Oui, madame. Shall we play bezique?”
She clapped her hands with pleasure.
“Excellent.”
As bezique was played by two, Thomas contented himself with supplying a tray, which was placed on the bed, and with watching while the old lady and his brother played. He couldn’t tell whether Luc was letting her, but the old lady was taking more of the tricks and becoming quite animated. This continued very agreeably for almost half an hour. At the end of the game, the victorious lady gave them both a smile.
“That’s enough, young man,” she said to Luc. “But you have given me great pleasure.” She nodded at Thomas. “I hope you have not been too bored, monsieur.”
“Not at all, madame. My little brother has too good an opinion of himself, so I like to see him defeated.”
“And what do you think of this tower your brother is building?” she asked Luc. “They say it is seen from all over Paris, but I can’t see it from my window.”
“It’s already taller than the highest cathedral spire in Europe,” Luc told her. “You can certainly see it from the avenue de la Grande-Armée.”
“I want to see it,” Madame Govrit declared. “I want to see it now. We still have a couple of hours of light. Will
you young men take me to the avenue?”
“Certainly, madame,” said Luc. “It’s not far away.”
Madame Govrit turned to Thomas.
“Do me the kindness, young man,” she commanded, “to tell them that I wish to go out.”
For a moment, Édith was speechless.
“Go out? Nobody ever goes out. I don’t think they’re allowed to.” They went to find Aunt Adeline.
“Everything that the residents need is here,” she told them firmly. “And if not, it is bought for them. I’m sure Monsieur Ney would not hear of it.”
“You’ll have to tell her, Aunt Adeline,” said Édith. “We can’t.”
Even Aunt Adeline hesitated at the thought of this ordeal. But the situation was quickly put in other hands by the arrival of Monsieur Ney himself.
“Ah, you are right, this is difficult,” he agreed, as soon as Aunt Adeline had told him the situation. “Normally we do not let the residents out,” he explained to Édith and Thomas, “because most are infirm, some confused. Funds do not permit that we should employ staff to take them out on the streets, and they cannot go alone. Imagine if we had them wandering all over Paris. But Madame Govrit …”—he nodded thoughtfully—“she is perhaps a special case.” He looked at Thomas. “She really wants to go out?”
“I am afraid she was most insistent, monsieur.” Thomas realized that, inadvertently, he was falling into their way of talking, but he couldn’t do anything about it. “She had been playing cards with my brother. And now she wants to go as far as the avenue to get a glimpse of Monsieur Eiffel’s tower—though I do not think the sight will please her.”
“Couldn’t we tell her it’s cold, and that she should wait until another day?” Édith suggested.
“With another resident, yes,” said Monsieur Ney with a faint smile. “But Madame Govrit won’t forget, I assure you.” He turned to Thomas again. “I cannot spare Édith or her aunt, but might I ask if you and your brother would convey her to the avenue?”
“Of course, monsieur.” His chance to get in favor. “With pleasure. We should take the greatest care.”
“Thank you,” said Ney. “I will go and speak to her myself.”
They escorted her carefully down the main stairs. She insisted that she would walk with her sticks, but it was as well that the two Gascon brothers went one on each side of her. For the occasion, the handsome front door had been opened. “My aunt says the last time it was unlocked was when Madame Govrit first arrived,” Édith had whispered. Down the front steps they went into the street, where they helped her into the large wheelchair that Monsieur Ney had provided.
It was certainly a magnificent conveyance. With two large side wheels and a single front wheel, the body of the chair was of handsome wicker basket construction. It took a minute or two before Madame Govrit was ensconced, wrapped with a shawl around her neck and a blanket to cover her body. But when all was ready, with Thomas pushing, the chair moved slowly away from the spectators at the front door with the solemn dignity of an ocean liner leaving port.
The wicker wheelchair was heavy. Thomas and Luc took turns pushing it. Madame Govrit meanwhile, rather flushed from the cold air, was observing the proceedings carefully. They negotiated one street, turned into another, crossed by a small church. Madame Govrit remarked that it was cold. Thomas politely asked if she wanted to turn back.
“Never,” she cried, though Thomas noticed a minute later that she had closed her eyes. For a minute or so she nodded off, but was wide awake again by the time they reached the broad avenue de la Grande-Armée.
It was a quiet, Sunday afternoon. The trees in the avenue were bare. To the left, up the avenue’s gentle slope, the Arc de Triomphe filled a portion of the gray November sky. Across the avenue, the long, low line of buildings stared dully at their counterparts. Here and there, carriages haunted the empty thoroughfare like boats on a deserted waterway. There were few pedestrians about.
Thomas pointed across the avenue and to the left.
“There it is, madame,” said Thomas. “There’s the tower.”
Had there been a sun in the west, its low rays might have bathed the girders in its softening light, so that they appeared like a mighty Gothic spire, full of romantic promise. But there was no sun. All that was to be seen, a mile away over the rooftops, was a grim, industrial tower attacking the heavens with its jagged iron spikes.
“Mon Dieu!” cried the old lady in horror. “But it’s frightful! It’s terrible! It’s worse than I could have imagined!” She slapped her hand on the arm of the wicker chair. “Ah non!”
“When it’s finished …,” Thomas began, but the old lady wasn’t listening.
“What a horror!” she screamed in rage. She started to struggle forward, fighting with the shawl and blanket, as if she meant to rise and tear the offending tower with her own hands. “They must be stopped,” she cried, “stopped! Ah!”
She got tangled in the shawl and fell back into the chair. Thomas looked at Luc in consternation. Luc shrugged.
“She chose a bad afternoon,” said Luc.
Madame Govrit seemed to be almost panting after her exertions, but then apparently gave up in despair at what she had seen. She shuddered under the blanket. Thomas tried to straighten her blanket and shawl for her.
“I’m sorry, madame,” he said. “Do you want to return?”
But Madame Govrit refused to answer him. He looked at Luc for help, and Luc leaned down.
“You know, madame,” Luc began, but then stopped and gazed at the old lady thoughtfully.
“What?” asked Thomas.
“She’s dead,” said Luc.
December passed without incident at the tower until the twentieth of the month. On that day, one of the flyers claimed that he had been shortchanged an hour on his timesheet. Within the hour, it seemed that the men might go on strike again. This time, Eiffel promised a princely bonus of one hundred francs to each worker who continued until the building was finished. But anyone who didn’t go back to work at once would be fired. Whatever arrangements Jean Compagnon had made seemed to give him confidence, and Éric did not press his case so hard this time. The few workers who held out were duly fired, and replacement workers appeared at once. As Christmas came, the tower continued to rise.
But Eiffel did one other thing that impressed Thomas very much.
“I shall paint the name of every man who worked on the tower from start to finish on a plaque, for all the world to see.”
“Just think of that,” Thomas told his family. “I shall be immortal.” His mother said she was pleased for him, but his father was profoundly moved. “Ah, now that’s something. The first time our name has ever been written up.” It seemed to Thomas that his father was even more pleased by this addition to the family honor than he would have been if he’d married Berthe Michel.
If the start of the New Year was normally the day of greeting in France, the Christian festivals were well observed. Early in December came the Feast of Saint Nicolas; early January saw the season of Epiphany. As for Christmas, it was quieter than in some other lands, and was perhaps the better for it.
Monsieur Ney did not stint when it came to Christmas. On Christmas Eve, before celebrating the Midnight Mass at his church, the local priest came earlier in the evening to say a Mass for the old people in the house, which he did in the hall by the front door. As for the Réveillon feast that celebrated Christ’s birth after the Midnight Mass, this was deferred for the old folk until lunchtime on Christmas Day.
Up in Montmartre, the Gascon family would be celebrating the feast with their neighbors up at the Moulin de la Galette into the early hours. So when Édith told Thomas that he was invited to join Monsieur Ney’s lunchtime feast on Christmas Day, he didn’t hesitate to accept.
For a week after the death of Madame Govrit, he had been afraid that the lawyer might blame him in some way. But since he and Luc had taken her out at Ney’s own request, this would hardly have been reasonable. And whi
le Ney was certainly upset to lose his prize resident, whose aristocratic name and presence lured others to place themselves in his hands, there had been compensations.
For soon after her death, it was discovered that, in addition to the moneys she had paid Monsieur Ney upon her arrival, she had also left a most generous bequest to Hortense.
“She was always very fond of Mademoiselle Hortense,” Aunt Adeline explained. The residue of her estate was to pass to the daughter of a poor cousin who had no idea she was to receive anything.
“Madame Govrit was kindness itself,” Monsieur Ney declared. “She thought of everyone.” As executor of the will, he had told Aunt Adeline, it would give him particular joy to convey her bequest to this poor relation, as far as funds permitted.
Meanwhile the other residents were reminded, by the cautionary tale of what had befallen Madame Govrit, how wise it was of Monsieur Ney to insist that they should not go out.
When Thomas arrived, he found Édith and her aunt already helping those who were not bedridden into a long, narrow room off the hall, where a dining table had been set up. By the time this process was complete, there were nearly twenty old folk seated. Monsieur Ney took the head of the table, and Aunt Adeline the other end. Mademoiselle Hortense was not present. Secretly Thomas had rather hoped that she might be, as he wanted to observe her some more.
“Sadly, my daughter is unwell,” Ney explained. “I think it was brought on by her distress over the loss of her friend Madame Govrit, but she suffered a bad cold, and I was obliged for her health to send her to the south. I hope the warmer weather in Monte Carlo may restore her.”
The lawyer had brought in two women from his own house to help serve at table. Édith and Margot, the old nurse, took food up to the bedridden in their rooms. Thomas offered to help them, but Ney wouldn’t hear of it.
“You’re our guest,” he directed, and Thomas was seated between Édith’s mother and an old lady who seemed quite content to masticate her food while he talked to her, without making any reply.
Paris: The Novel Page 24