by Alex George
He walks slowly through the streets, reluctant to return to his studio. As he pushes open the door to the building, Madame Cuillasse is standing in the middle of the hallway, her lumberjack arms folded across her chest.
“There you are,” says the concierge crossly. “I’ve been looking for you.”
Are Le Miroir’s men here already? “What is it?” asks Guillaume. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, apart from the fact that I’ve just walked up six flights of stairs to deliver this to you, and you weren’t there.” She brandishes an envelope at him. “Apparently it’s urgent.”
Guillaume looks at the letter in her hand. The stationery is heavy, ivory-hued, expensive. His name is scrawled across the envelope in purple ink. He does not recognize the hand. It is not, he concludes from the purple ink, another demand for payment.
“Thank you,” he says, putting the envelope into his pocket.
Madame Cuillasse stares at him with her small, suspicious eyes. She wrinkles her nose, smelling the alcohol seeping through his skin. “You don’t know anything about a bottle of wine that disappeared from my kitchen last night, by any chance?”
“Absolutely not,” says Guillaume, doing his best to look offended. The concierge stares at him for a long moment, and then turns to make her way back to her lair with a pointed harrumph. Guillaume walks up the stairs to the top of the building. He closes the door of the studio behind him and opens the envelope.
Blanc, you hound—
Dear God, I feel like a steaming pile of horseshit this morning. If there’s any justice in this world, your hangover will be at least as bad as mine.
Anyway, look, I have some news. I’ve found your wealthy, art-loving American, just like you asked. She’s a strange bird, fancies herself quite the connoisseur. The walls of her apartment on Rue de Fleurus are covered with decent stuff. Some Matisses, a few Cézannes. Her name is Gertrude Stein. Perhaps you’ve heard of her. I called her last night when I got home and talked about you. She’ll be at your place this morning, at about 10 or so. Show her your best work and keep your fingers crossed.
Consider your back well and truly scratched, old son. No need to thank me—just make sure you uphold your end of the bargain with the lovely Thérèse.
E.B.
Guillaume reads the letter twice, blinking in astonishment. In the sober light of morning, he assumed that Emile Brataille had forgotten about their deal of the previous night, but the art dealer has made good on his promise.
He reads the letter a third time, his delight and disbelief growing with every word. Gertrude Stein! They say she possesses a limitless appetite for new art, and the means to finance such a habit. Guillaume’s heart begins to race again. There is none of last night’s drunken elation, but there is a flicker of cautious hope. Suddenly he can see a possible way out of his predicament. Guillaume starts to make plans for this rich, gullible American: he’ll charm her, delight her, and then fleece her for every franc she’s got. By lunchtime he’ll have enough money to pay off his debt and more to spare. The prospect of a humiliating return to La Rochelle retreats. Perhaps he’ll be able to stay in Paris after all.
He’ll be able to watch the woman and her daughter walk down the road again.
Guillaume closes his eyes, and pictures Gertrude Stein taking down a Cézanne to make room for one of his paintings. Her guests will inquire about it. She will confide in them, making them promise not to tell others about this brilliant artist she has discovered.
But genius will out. Soon the world will come running to his door.
Then Guillaume thinks: this morning!
He looks around him. The room is a mess. He scrabbles through his supplies, and swears. There are no nails. He’ll have to prop the canvases up against the walls and hope for the best. Perhaps the American will be bewitched by the poverty in which he lives. She’ll admire his struggle to bring his art into the world. None of the exotic fripperies of those lazy wastrels in Montparnasse here! He starts to pull his canvases into the middle of the room. He arranges them first one way, then another. Some on the bed, others on the floor. The best ones he puts near the window, where they will get the morning light.
There is a knock on the door.
Rat-a-tat-tat.
Guillaume looks at his watch. It is ten o’clock.
7
Ritual
JEAN-PAUL MAILLARD LIMPS THROUGH the gate of the small city park, as invisible as the air.
Two old men sit on a bench, a chessboard perched between them. They are hunched over the pieces, two small Rodins, each with a cigarette hanging from one corner of their mouths. They do not look up at the uneven crunch of Jean-Paul’s footsteps on the gravel. A flock of pigeons swarms across the pathway in front of him, the birds’ heads a bobbing sea of hopeful pecks. They ignore him as he approaches, and he does not want to disturb their frantic hunt for food; he maneuvers around them. Mothers stand sentry on the periphery of the well-manicured lawn, too busy watching their children play on the grass to notice Jean-Paul’s heavy progress past the blooming banks of bougainvillea.
This is how he likes to live his life; to see, rather than to be seen.
There is a bandstand in the middle of the park. Jean-Paul has never heard music performed there. It is where he likes to sit. He chooses one of the empty metal chairs and arranges it just so. He lights a cigarette and pulls the smoke gratefully into his lungs. From his elevated perspective he can see most of what he wants to see—the benches, the grassy area, and the ornamental lake beyond, its surface a dark mirror.
It is early. He can still taste the coffee he slung back at the zinc of the small café on Rue de Bretagne. He’s been coming here so long that he no longer needs to order; his espresso is already brewing by the time he sits down at the counter. It is strong and bitter on his tongue.
Jean-Paul knows this quartier well. The military sanitarium is two streets away. The place had been an elementary school before the war began. For six days he stared at the same patch of wall, dodging the bullets and bombs that were still exploding inside his head. Iron beds were packed together where children’s desks had once been, the air thick with the cries of the wounded. A teacher had written the words “TROIS CHEVRES” in chalk in the top left-hand corner of the blackboard at the front of the room, the legacy of a final, long-ago lesson. Those three goats saved Jean-Paul’s life while he convalesced. For hours every day he pictured them gamboling peacefully together on a green hillside, somewhere far away from the blood-soaked fields of Verdun.
Today there are children everywhere, delighted with this new summer’s morning. Jean-Paul sits back in his chair and surveys the scene before him. He and Anaïs used to come here every Sunday after Elodie was born. He liked to sit on the wooden benches and watch the world go by, dazzled by the baby sleeping in his arms. Now his eyes roam up and down the pathways, watching, searching, hoping.
There is a group of young girls playing jump rope. They laugh and chant and clap hands as they take turns to hop in and out of the rope’s looping orbit. Jean-Paul looks at the face of every girl. Their games become faster, louder, more joyful. He finishes his cigarette, and then smokes another.
After a while he pulls his eyes away from the children and reaches into his coat pocket. He pulls out a black notebook, opens it at random, and begins to read. He knows every word by heart. The notebook contains the story of a life unlived, resurrected from the ashes of despair. Its telling was an act of love, of desperation, and of survival.
There were not enough memories to be had, and so Jean-Paul created more.
With a sigh, he closes the notebook and contemplates the day ahead. A month previously, France was gripped by Charles Lindbergh’s solo flight across the Atlantic. Over a hundred thousand Parisians swarmed to Le Bourget to greet the Spirit of St. Louis when it landed. Roads around the aerodrome were gridlocked for hours. The following morning Jean-Paul stood among the excited crowd of cheering Frenchmen as Lindbergh appear
ed briefly on the balcony of the American embassy. They stayed for hours after the famous pilot had disappeared, chanting his name and waving their hats in the air. Jean-Paul realized that he was not the only one of his countrymen who was obsessed with the United States. The idea came to him then: a series of profiles of American expatriates now living in Paris. He made a list of potential subjects, and pitched the idea to his editor, who agreed to it at once. Today he has two interviews. He hopes his English will be up to the job.
He glances at his wristwatch. It is time to leave for his first appointment, but he does not want to quit his post just yet—there’s no knowing when his hopeful vigilance might be rewarded. He sits back and watches the children play for a few moments more.
Jean-Paul does not even know the face he is looking for, but he is sure that when he sees it, he will recognize it at once.
8
Jealous of the Dead
THE HOTEL ON RUE DES CANETTES is a modest establishment for visitors to the city who are on a budget. The rooms are small and neat, with low ceilings and a great deal of dark wood. Guests share a communal bathroom at the end of each corridor. Camille Clermont scrubs and dusts from morning to night, but no amount of cleaning can eradicate the faint whiff of better times that lingers in every corner. Still, she could not be prouder of the place.
When Camille and Marie return from the cemetery, many of the guests have not yet appeared for breakfast. During the summer months the hotel’s visitors are mostly tourists, and they tend to start their days in a leisurely manner.
Camille’s husband is standing at the entrance to the small dining room. He watches the handful of guests who are already eating. Some talk quietly; others scrutinize guidebooks and make lists of the day’s destinations.
“There you are,” says Olivier Clermont.
“Here we are,” agrees Camille. She kisses the top of her daughter’s head. “You may go and play now, Marie,” she says. “Later on we’ll polish the silver together. You always enjoy that.”
The little girl nods and runs up the staircase.
Olivier watches her go. “How did she like the cemetery?” he asks.
Camille shrugs. “She’s ten years old.”
“I did wonder.”
“I wanted her to see the grave,” says Camille. “That’s not so terrible, is it?”
“It’s been five years since he died,” says Olivier. “That’s half Marie’s lifetime. She knows nothing of all that.”
“Anyway, we’re back now,” replies Camille briskly. She is uninterested in having this argument yet again. She unties the scarf from around her head and shakes her hair free. “I’ll get started on the rooms.”
Olivier turns his attention back to the dining room. Berthe is taking orders and delivering pastries and coffee. She is young and pretty, and her black skirt is perhaps a little too tight. Camille notices that there is a small run in Berthe’s stockings, just above the left knee. She turns away and climbs the staircase to the top floor, where she can hear Marie singing quietly to herself in her tiny bedroom under the eaves. Camille walks into the family bathroom and closes the door behind her. Next to the sink is a small chest of drawers. She crouches down, pulls open the bottom drawer, and removes an armful of impeccably laundered white sheets, which she carefully places on a wooden chair. She reaches back into the drawer. Her hand slips under the remaining bed linens and inches forward, the polished wood beneath her fingers. She is waiting for the touch of old leather.
There is nothing there.
When her fingers hit the back wall, she pulls out the remaining sheets and stares at the empty drawer.
“Eh oui.”
Her husband is standing in the doorway, watching her.
“Where is it?” she demands.
“Gone.”
She straightens up to face him. “Where is it, Olivier?”
He puts his hands in his pockets. “I sold it yesterday.”
A wave of nausea. With an effort she remains upright.
“You have no idea what you’ve done,” she says.
“Au contraire.” He is exultant. “I know precisely what I have done, and I don’t regret it, not one little bit. I got two hundred and fifty francs for it! What do you think of that?”
She stares at him. “Who did you sell it to?” she asks.
“Tiens, do you think I’m going to tell you that? Exactly how much of a fool do you take me for?”
“We need to get it back at once, Olivier. It’s very important that nobody else ever—”
“It’s gone, Camille. You’ll never see it again, I promise you that.”
“How could you be so cruel?”
“I wasn’t being cruel. I just want you to pay some attention to me and Marie.”
She looks at him in stupefaction. “What do you mean?”
“Do you even see us, Camille? Do you even know we’re here?”
“Of course I do!”
“Really, though?” Olivier shakes his head. “It’s bad enough that you visit his grave every week with fresh flowers, but that’s not the worst of it. You creep up here all hours of the day and night.” He sees her stricken face. “What? Did you think I didn’t know where you’ve been disappearing to all these years?” He pauses. “It’s time to stop mourning him, Camille. It’s time to become a mother and a wife again.”
Her husband is jealous. In any other circumstances this news would amuse her, but now terror is roiling in her gut. Finally she speaks, quietly and calmly. After all, there are the hotel guests to consider.
“Olivier, listen to me,” she says. “You need to tell me what you did with it. We absolutely have to get it back.”
He shakes his head. “I’m not telling you a thing.”
“But you have no idea what you’ve done!”
“Tell me then, Camille. Tell me what I’ve done.”
They’re going to lose everything that is precious. Their lives will be destroyed, but she cannot tell him this, because it is she who has brought all this upon them.
She is the one who told their secret.
“Did you look at it?” she asks.
“Of course not. I didn’t open the damn thing. I just wanted it out of our home.”
He does not know. He does not know.
She walks out of the bathroom.
“Wait,” he says, grabbing her arm. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to find it.”
A momentary panic ghosts across Olivier’s face, but he quickly regains his composure. “Paris is a big city, Camille.”
“If you think that’s going to stop me, you don’t know me very well.”
“This is madness! He’s been dead for five years!”
They stare at each other.
“I have to go,” she says.
“But there are rooms to clean!”
“Have Berthe do it once breakfast is over.” Camille hurries down the stairs. Is she already too late?
Olivier’s office is in the basement of the hotel. Behind his desk sits an iron safe. Camille retrieves the key from its hiding place under the carpet, and unlocks it. There is a pile of banknotes nestling in a brown envelope. She counts out two hundred and fifty francs and replaces the rest.
Back in the lobby, she puts on her coat and reties her headscarf. Then she steps out into the street. As the door closes behind her, she realizes that she has no idea where to go next.
9
Eastern Anatolia, 1916:
A Mother’s Dress
THEY MARCHED ALONG THE BANKS of the river. Every step forward was a step closer to their deaths.
They had been walking for weeks, the bayonets of the Ottoman soldiers at their backs. The plains of Eastern Anatolia were brutally harsh. There was no shelter, and little food. At the end of each day the marchers collapsed in exhaustion, and every morning there were some who did not get back to their feet. The clothes of the dead were quickly stolen. Naked corpses were stacked up by the side of the road, left
to the circling crows. The old and the infirm fell first, then the children. Souren Balakian remembered a young mother digging a grave for her infant baby with her bare hands. Deranged with grief, she pawed at the soil like a dog burying a bone. When the hole was half finished, she was dragged away into the nearby forest by a group of laughing soldiers. Souren did not see her again.
In this way his village was annihilated.
Throughout the region Armenians were being forced from their homes and driven eastwards, into the Syrian desert, to die.
The Euphrates ran red with their blood.
* * *
Souren did not leave his mother’s side. Misery and exhaustion had erased the woman he used to know. She walked with her eyes fixed firmly on the ground, mumbling about the home that they had left behind. She did not talk about her greater loss, the one that opened up a hole in Souren’s stomach every time he thought of it. Grief had cauterized something deep within her.
The villagers were forced to sleep under the stars, unshielded from the cold of the night. Each evening Souren’s mother fell into a deep sleep, too tired for nightmares. He lay by her side and watched the breath spill from her lips in small white clouds. On the far side of the camp, tents were set up for Kamil Ömer and his thuggish cohorts. Lamps burned warmly from within, and the sound of the soldiers’ merriment drifted across the cold air. Late at night, the men staggered drunkenly up and down the lines of sleeping villagers, looking for young girls to take back to the tents.