Paris: The Novel

by Edward Rutherfurd

  “I was given a couple of tickets,” said Luc. “Thought you might like them. You could take Édith.” He pulled a little packet out of his pocket, carefully extracted two tickets and handed them to Thomas to see. Thomas stared at them.

  “But this is for the grand opening! How in the world did you get them?”

  “A gentleman gave them to me.” Luc grinned. “I’d helped him with something.”

  “But you should go,” protested Thomas.

  “No. I want you to have them.”

  “But they’re for the grand opening,” Thomas repeated.

  “That’s right,” said Luc.

  It was Wednesday before he saw Édith, but this time she agreed to accompany him to the bar they’d gone to the first time they met. She even agreed to eat a little.

  All the same, Thomas sensed that she was uncertain about something, and he was anxious to find out exactly what it was.

  “I’ve been worried about you,” he said.

  “I’m all right.”

  “I feel terrible about what happened. I never meant to put you through that.”

  “You shouldn’t. After all, it was my fault.”

  “Your fault?” He stared at her in astonishment.

  “Yes. If I hadn’t told him to take a bow …”

  “Édith.” He put his arm around her shoulder. “I never even thought of such a thing. Pepe was going to do that anyway, I promise you. That’s just the way he was.”

  She didn’t say anything for a moment, but she was weighing his words.

  “You really think so?” she said at last.

  “Of course. I know it.” He reached over and kissed her head. “You can put that idea out of your mind. It isn’t so.”

  She stared down at the table. After a pause, she picked up her glass of red wine, took a slow sip, and put it down on the table again, still holding the stem for a little while, before finally releasing it.

  “There’s something else you should know,” she said, and looked up into his face.

  Then she told him about the miscarriage.

  When she had finished, he was left staring at her openmouthed.

  “I had no idea you were pregnant,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t want to.”

  “I thought … after what happened at Christmas, and then you were suddenly cold …”

  “I was anxious. And upset. Perhaps I felt angry with you. I suppose … it makes no sense, but I was afraid to be with you.”

  “I thought maybe you didn’t like me.”

  “I know.”

  “Oh.” He considered. “Are you still angry with me now?”

  “No.”

  “How do you feel about everything.”

  “When you lose a baby, even so early when, you know, there’s hardly anything, you feel a sort of grief.” She shrugged. “But now, I feel relief. I can’t deny that. I don’t want a baby, Thomas. I mean, not now.”

  “Of course.” He pulled her to him and held her closer. “You could have told me. You can trust me.”

  She nodded silently. She knew that.

  They talked quietly for a little while. It seemed to Thomas that her mood was lightening. She felt warm beside him.

  “Would you like to do something dangerous?” he suddenly asked. He felt her stiffen, and he laughed. “Would you like to go to the Wild West show?”

  On the first day of April 1889, at the start of the afternoon, Monsieur Eiffel gave a party at the tower for the workers, almost two hundred of them, in the presence of a large company of the great men of the city. The prime minister was there, the entire municipal council, numerous dignitaries, all formally dressed in top hats, together with their wives and children. Among these, Thomas noted with amazement, were Monsieur Ney and his daughter, Hortense, elegant in a blue silk dress in the latest fashion. Somehow, deploying his two hounds, Loyalty and Gratitude, the huntsman from his small attorney’s office had managed to bring down this impressive quarry. Hortense, as usual, looked pale and strangely sensual as her father quietly insinuated himself in one group after another. Surely, Thomas thought, amid such a distinguished gathering, the small-time attorney should be able to find a worthy suitor for his daughter’s hand.

  It was a windy day. The sun showed through the clouds as they chased across the sky.

  Recently Thomas had gone to a tailor in Montmartre who made men’s clothes for a price that the artists and artisans could afford. From the tailor he had acquired a suit with a short coat in which he looked very smart, and he was wearing it today.

  At one thirty precisely, Eiffel and a party of more than a hundred dignitaries prepared to ascend the tower. It was a pity that the elevators were still not working, but that did not deter them from ascending the stairs to the first platform. One of the deputies, afraid of heights, insisted that he would go up all the same, which he did with a silk scarf wrapped around his eyes.

  Eiffel took his time. Every little while he would pause to explain this or that detail of the construction, and let the visitors catch their breath. On the first platform, the bar, brasserie and two restaurants, one French and one Russian, were still being fitted out for the public opening the following month.

  The more determined members then accompanied Eiffel on the long climb up to the second platform. And a still smaller group ascended to the very top, where Eiffel ran the national Tricolor flag up the flagpole where it flapped in the wind, a thousand feet high in the sky. And at this patriotic signal, a burst of fireworks sent out the equivalent of a twenty-one-gun salute from the second platform.

  It took a long time for them to come down. The wind was growing stronger, and Thomas wondered if it was going to rain. But they all sat down to their feast of ham, German sausage and cheese.

  And if there was a hint of Eiffel’s Germanic origins in this choice of food, it was quickly dispelled both by the champagne which was served, and the patriotic speeches which followed.

  Eiffel thanked them all, and announced that the names of France’s greatest scientists would be painted in gold on the frieze of the first platform. The prime minister thanked Eiffel, and invested him as an officer of the Légion d’honneur. They all toasted the builder, and each other, and France.

  Then, as the wind got up and the rain threatened, they all dispersed to their homes. But not before one tiny incident occurred.

  Thomas was just heading toward the Pont d’Iéna, with the first drops of rain patting his face, when he felt a hand on his arm. It was Jean Compagnon.

  The burly man shook his hand and gave him a small card. On it was written the name of a bar.

  “They always know where to find me there,” he said. “Let me know if you need a reference.” Then, before Thomas could thank him, he was gone.

  The Universal Exposition of 1889 officially opened on the sixth day of May. Visitors looked in awe at the vast iron tower under which they passed. They had to wait until the fair’s second week before they could go up it, but even if they didn’t ascend, they found plenty in the huge fair to interest them. There were the exhibits from all corners of the world. There was a replica of a Cairo street and Egyptian market, with cafés serving Turkish coffee and entertaining the customers with belly dancers. The site was so huge that a delightful miniature train took passengers from the Champ de Mars to the esplanade by Les Invalides, where they found Oriental rickshaws.

  The fair might be celebrating the centenary of the French Revolution and its ideals of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, but the honor of France demanded that visitors should also be reminded of her far-flung colonies; and so there were large and exotic exhibits from the colonies of Algeria, Tunisia, Senegal, Polynesia, Cambodia and others. If the British had an empire, so did France.

  But while the Eiffel Tower was the staggering glory of the fair, it had to be admitted that the pavilion which astounded everyone was the one supplied, at his own expense, b
y Thomas Edison, who was sailing from America to Paris himself in August. The range of inventions on view was staggering, and in keeping with the shared republican values of America and France, it showed how, very soon, the advances of modern science would bring electricity, telephones and other wonderful new conveniences not only to the wealthy, but to the masses. Most fascinating of all was the new phonograph with its cylinders, which no one had ever seen before.

  The huge numbers of Americans who were filling Paris to see the exhibition might feel delight and gratification that the man who’d built the Statue of Liberty and their own Thomas Edison were the stars.

  And then of course, just twelve days after the opening of the fair, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show was due to open on a Saturday afternoon.

  On the evening before, Thomas went up to Montmartre to see his family. He ate with his parents and sister. Luc was working, and Thomas decided to stay the night up at the house so that he could see his brother. It was after midnight when Luc arrived, and as it was warm, the two brothers sat out on the wall nearby under the stars to chat awhile.

  “I went to the tower this afternoon,” Luc informed him. “It’s only been open two days, and you still can’t use the elevators, but I wanted to go and see.” He smiled. “Most people only walk up to the first platform, but I went on to the second. It’s still not open above that. And guess who I met there?”

  “Tell me.”

  “The man himself. Monsieur Eiffel. He was walking up to his office at the top. He’s certainly fit. He told me he does it every day.”

  “You spoke to him?” After his disgrace, Thomas was a little nervous of what the great man might have had to say.

  “Certainly. He recognized me. He said I could walk up to the top with him if I liked. So of course I did.”

  “I see.”

  “And I saw the plaque with all the workers’ names on it.”

  “Ah.” Thomas sighed. “I didn’t tell you yet. But unfortunately …,” he began.

  “I saw your name.”

  Thomas started. His name? Could there have been another Gascon working on the tower he didn’t know about?

  “My name? You are sure?”

  “It was Monsieur Eiffel who pointed it out to me. ‘There’s your brother’s name,’ he said. ‘Don’t forget to tell him you saw it.’ ”

  “Oh,” said Thomas.

  “So I went up to the top and he went up into his office and I walked around the viewing platform. Quite a view. It must be like that when you’re up in a balloon.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I came down, of course. What else?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Il est gentil, your Monsieur Eiffel. He’s nice.”

  “Yes,” said Thomas. “He is.”

  Édith wasn’t sure. Aunt Adeline was.

  “This is the time to end it. You made a mistake, but now that is over. You’re not pregnant anymore. You’re free. He’s a nice boy, but he seems to have a talent for getting in trouble, and he hasn’t a sou.”

  Even Édith’s mother did her best to give her good advice.

  “You know that butcher up at the top of the rue de la Pompe? Well, his son has his eye on you. And that junior master at the lycée, the one with the little beard, I see him looking at you when he leaves the building. You should encourage him, you know.”

  “A schoolmaster’s never going to marry me.”

  “You never know. I could talk to him.”

  “That may not help.”

  She was determined to decide for herself, but she couldn’t deny that her aunt was right. Thomas might be as much as she could hope for, but he was no safe haven.

  And then there was his family. Better than many in the Maquis, she supposed, but she hadn’t felt any particular kinship with them. She’d probably finish up working to support them.

  As for his little brother Luc … There was something about young Luc that she didn’t like. She wasn’t sure what it was, but she didn’t trust him.

  So what did that leave? Only the fact that when she felt Thomas’s strong arm around her, she was at peace. That he was attentive to her, and that she was happy in his company. That he loved her, and that she liked the way his body was made, and the scent of it. And that she knew he was a good man. And that therefore, taking all these things together, she supposed that in a modest way she loved him. And that sometimes she yearned for him. But that at other times she could almost forget him.

  So she still didn’t know what to do, and she wished that she did, because she didn’t like to be dishonest with him. And perhaps that was why, recently, she had somehow avoided him.

  During April, she’d seen him several times, but only in the evenings after her work. She hadn’t been out with him at a weekend. There had been things to do helping Aunt Adeline, of course, but she knew she could have made time for him if she’d really wanted to.

  He’d asked her to the World’s Fair. But she had an easy excuse for putting that off. She wanted to go up the tower. “And I’m not walking,” she said. “I want to take the elevator.” The tower had finally opened to the public three days ago, but the elevators still weren’t fully operational, and probably wouldn’t be for another three weeks. And by that time …

  For by the start of May it seemed to her that, if it hadn’t been for the tickets to the opening of the Wild West show, which she really wanted to see, she might have broken with Thomas already.

  Thomas came to pick her up at noon. Soon, they were walking down the avenue de la Grande-Armée westward toward Neuilly. Thomas was wearing his new suit that he was proud of. She was wearing a summer dress with a silk shawl that Aunt Adeline had found for her. Thomas offered her his arm, and she put her hand through it. She liked walking with him like that.

  At the bottom of the avenue where it reached the Bois de Boulogne they turned right, and soon came to the part of Neuilly that was still open ground. In the middle of this open space stood the remains of an old fort, and here Buffalo Bill had built his camp.

  There were two hundred tents, and big corrals for the horses and the shaggy buffalo—which had caused a sensation when they were led down the road from the railway station to the camp. And in the center of it all were the splendid arena and a newly constructed grandstand that would hold fifteen thousand spectators.

  “Look at the crowd,” said Thomas. They were early, but already a sea of people was flowing through the entrance. And it wasn’t just any crowd.

  The president of France, Monsieur Carnot, and his wife were to be present. Royalty and ambassadors, generals and aristocrats, distinguished visitors from all over the world, including a large party of visiting Americans—the stands were packed. Everyone who was anyone was there. And so was Thomas Gascon.

  It amused him that he and Édith were there and that Monsieur Ney and Hortense were not.

  And all that packed crowd—except of course the Americans—were united by two things. They were all excited to be there. And they were not quite sure what the show was about.

  The opening of the show was clear enough. It was a huge parade around the ring of all the colorful cast. Cowboys and cowgirls with whirling lassoes, magnificent Indians in feathers and warpaint, Mexicans, Canadian trappers—French Canadians, of course—with their huskies, all that was brave and dashing and exotic in the huge, wild North American spaces. The crowd was delighted. Then came a single young lady, Annie Oakley, with her guns. The crowd clapped politely, not knowing much about her. And finally, the hero of the West, the greatest showman of them all, Buffalo Bill himself in his buckskins and big cowboy hat, his hair flowing behind him, entered at a gallop, whirled around the ring and made a magnificent, sweeping salute to the president of France.

  The crowd roared. So far so good.

  Thomas offered Édith the bag of popcorn he had purchased at the entrance.

  “What is it?” she asked uncertainly.

  “God knows. It’s American. Try it.”

&nbs
p; She did, and made a face. But a few moments later, she dipped her hand in again.

  The first reenactment of Wild West history was the attack of the Redskins on the Pioneers. The show’s regular man, to whom God had given a magnificent, carrying voice, declaimed the narrative so all could hear, the trappers formed their wagons into a circle, the Indians whooped—the riding and the action were altogether splendid.

  There was only one problem.

  “What’s going on? What’s it about?” asked Édith.

  “I don’t know,” said Thomas.

  Nor, apart from the Americans in the stand, did anyone else. For although the announcer had a mighty voice, and although he’d been practicing his lines in French for weeks, his idea of French pronunciation was even stranger to his audience than the Wild West itself. As the trumpet sounded, and the U.S. Cavalry came riding in to the rescue, the French were not quite certain who the men in uniform were, or why they were there.

  As the thrilling scene ended, they waited in silence.

  “Is that it?” whispered Édith. “Should we applaud?”

  “Let’s wait till someone else does,” said Thomas. Most of the audience was in the same dilemma. Fortunately the Americans started to applaud, and so everyone thankfully followed suit. But it was not the start that Buffalo Bill was used to.

  So as the audience waited for the next tableau, and prepared to strain their ears to try to decipher the announcement—for they all wanted to be pleased—they were a little surprised to see instead the slim young lady walk into the ring, accompanied by some assistants and a table of guns.

  Thomas frowned. This surely was an entr’acte, supposed to come later in the show. The first piece of action had at least been exotic. The young lady seemed pleasant enough, but not very exciting. He hoped Édith wasn’t going to be disappointed by the whole thing.

  The young performer was looking around at her audience, sensing them. But she remained composed.