by Alex George
“That would be fine,” he croaked.
He studiously arranged his easel and began to mix paints while Suzanne stepped out of her dress. She sat down on the chair and looked directly at him. Guillaume’s fingers hovered above his paintbrushes, paralyzed by the sight of her. Her limbs were still sleekly muscled, her body lean and strong.
“Here I am,” she said. “Paint what you see.”
He worked for hours. Suzanne sat in the chair and watched him, not saying a word. By the time he had finished, it was late afternoon. He went to the window and looked out over the city’s rooftops. Suzanne stood up. She crossed the room and put a hand on his shoulder. He did not turn around.
“Are you happy with your work?” she asked.
He nodded. “Would you like to see it?”
“If you want to show me.”
He led her to the easel. Suzanne looked at the painting.
“Do you like it?” asked Guillaume.
Finally she turned toward him. “I love it,” she said. “Do you?”
“It’s the best thing I’ve ever done.”
Suzanne’s face was serious. “I told you to paint what you saw.”
“Yes.”
“And this is what you saw?”
“Yes.”
She put her hand on his chest.
“Do you like it?” he asked again.
She undressed him then, and took him to bed.
* * *
When it was over, they lay in each other’s arms and listened to the sounds of the city’s streets floating in through the open window.
“I should go,” she said.
He wanted her to stay forever. “Must you?”
“Oh yes.” She rolled away from him and climbed out of the bed.
Guillaume watched her collect her clothes. “Can I see you again?” he asked.
Suzanne buttoned up her dress and smiled at him. “I don’t think so.”
He propped himself up on one elbow. “Did I do something wrong?”
She shook her head. “Not at all. I’ve had a wonderful time. I’ll treasure the memory of it. But some things are better left just as they are.”
Guillaume frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“This has been perfect, don’t you think?”
“Yes, but—”
“And that’s how I want to leave it.” She sat down on the edge of the bed and stroked his cheek with a fingertip. “I want to remember us exactly like this. No fights, no disappointments. No broken hearts. Just a perfect memory.”
She had given the speech many times before.
“A perfect memory.” He sighed.
Suzanne kissed him lightly on the lips and stood up. She walked over to the painting, which was not yet quite dry, and ran a finger along the top of the canvas. “And you’ll always have this to remember us by.”
With that, she was gone.
* * *
Guillaume hammered a nail into the wall and hung up the painting so that he could stare at it from his bed.
For the next week, he languished in his room, crucified and bewitched. The rest of the world retreated, cast into shadow.
He stared at the painting for hours on end.
When he finally left the studio, he turned every corner beset by anxious elation. He wanted to see Suzanne more than anything in the world. He longed to stare into those eyes again.
It was about a week later when he finally spotted her on Boulevard de Clichy. Guillaume stopped and stared across the busy thoroughfare.
She was not alone.
A man walked by her side, gesticulating comically. Suzanne’s head was thrown back in laughter. Guillaume could have been standing right in front of them and she would not have noticed him. He remembered that laugh all too well, so full of unabashed delight.
The couple turned down Rue Houdon and disappeared.
Guillaume stood on the sidewalk.
After that there was no escaping her. Suzanne was everywhere he turned. Sometimes she was alone, but she was usually in the company of a man—although never the same one twice. Guillaume wondered if she had given each of them the same little speech.
There was a quiet change in register to Guillaume’s longing. He understood that his memory of their hours together would have to be enough.
The painting helped. He could look at it whenever he liked, for as long as he liked. He knew every brushstroke by heart. That, at least, nobody could ever take away from him.
* * *
Ah, but what tricks fate plays on the beleaguered heart!
As the months passed, Guillaume noticed an unmistakable swell to Suzanne’s belly. The following spring, a baby carriage.
A little girl.
He looked at the calendar. He counted the months. And, because men are fools, with the little girl there came fresh hope.
Guillaume waited for a knock on the door. He imagined Suzanne standing there, the baby in her arms, begging for help. He would welcome her in, and together they would raise the child and become a family.
But there was no knock. Suzanne did not come looking for him. She did not want his help.
There were no more men scurrying devotedly along by her side. Now it was just Suzanne and her child.
One afternoon he saw them on Rue Custine. Unable to help himself, he followed them until they disappeared into an apartment building on Rue Nicolet. Guillaume stared up at the building’s windows. He wondered which ones belonged to them.
* * *
In the ten years since then, he has spent countless hours on Rue Nicolet, waiting for them to appear. He gleans what information he can from these brief sightings—new shoes for the little girl, a different hairstyle for Suzanne. These glimpses remind him how little he knows about their lives.
Guillaume has watched his daughter grow from an infant to a beautiful, long-haired sprite. The sight of her never fails to pull his heart to a standstill, but not once has he approached them. He is a penniless artist, after all. He watches as his daughter skips happily down the street. He longs to follow her, but his feet are stilled by shame.
Still, he cannot stay away.
After each sighting Guillaume retreats to his studio and stares at the painting on his wall.
* * *
This is what Guillaume Blanc painted that long-ago afternoon as he gazed at Suzanne Mauriac from across his studio:
A small house, in the middle of a wood.
On either side of the house erupts an army of trees, streaking upward into swirling knots of darkness, black stars of mordant energy. Ranks of lichen-wrapped trunks surge toward each other, a sinister labyrinth of shadows. There is no sky: the dark forest marauds across the canvas, annexing every square inch.
There is a strip of lawn in front of the house. On the grass stands a solitary wooden chair. An owl is perched on the back of the chair. Its feathers are silver and purple. It is gazing off into the distance.
A path leads to the house, but there is no door there, just a wall.
The walls of the house are painted white. All the light gathers here, a radiant defiance against the encroaching shadows. But we cannot see what lies within Guillaume’s little cottage in the forest, because it has no windows.
No windows, no door … but no, there is a door. It is a rich, deep blue, and it sits in the very center of the building’s façade, suspended halfway between the ground and the roof.
The door is the only way into the house.
Every night Guillaume lies in his bed and looks across the room at the painting. The last thing he sees before he goes to sleep is the blue door, beautiful and unreachable.
This is the painting that has saved his life, over and over again.
This is the painting that Guillaume Blanc swore he would never sell.
This is the painting that Gertrude Stein has just purchased for six hundred francs.
This is the painting that must save Guillaume’s life, one last time.
15
Th
e Language of Flowers
JEAN-PAUL MAILLARD STANDS in the hallway of the apartment, pulling on his coat and saying his embarrassed good-byes. It is the interviewee who should confess secrets, not the journalist.
There is a crystal vase standing on a table near the front door, full of perfect red roses. Josephine Baker grabs the flowers and thrusts them into his hands.
“Here,” she says. “Take these.”
He shakes his head. “Really, there’s no—”
“I don’t need them. Some man sent them to me. I don’t even know who. Wait.” She disappears down the corridor and returns a moment later with an old newspaper. She wraps the dripping stems in it and hands them back to him. “There.” She pats his hand and opens the door.
No further words or instructions are needed. Jean-Paul knows what he is to do with them. “Thank you,” he says.
Josephine Baker smiles at him. “We’ll see each other at Le Chat Blanc tonight?”
He nods. “I’ll look forward to it.”
“Alors, à ce soir.”
Jean-Paul limps down the staircase. A moment later he steps out onto the street. The grim-faced concierge of the building opposite is sweeping the sidewalk with a stiff broom. A cloud of dust dances around her thick ankles. Jean-Paul raises the bouquet of red roses to his nose and inhales deeply. They smell of sunlight and hope. His leg is aflame, mortification salting the old wound. At the entrance to Parc Monceau, he turns in through the ornate iron gates. He is agitated by his encounter with Josephine Baker, and is not yet ready for the claustrophobic embrace of the Métro. He needs fresh air and some time to think. As he makes his way down the winding gravel paths and past the overflowing flower beds, his pace slows. Finally he stops in front of a marble bust of Guy de Maupassant, who looks sternly off into the middle distance.
Josephine Baker was so young, so pretty, so kind. When she looked at him with those big, dark eyes and asked what kept him in Paris, the words had poured out of him. She sat quite still as he told his story. Behind her famous face, Jean-Paul saw the little girl who scrabbled around beneath tables for bruised fruit at the market. She knew the fragility of happiness, and for this reason he trusted her.
Now, though, he feels nothing but dreadful embarrassment. How unprofessional he has been! He looks up at the statue of Maupassant—now there, he thinks ruefully, is a proper writer—and shakes his head. He is so appalled by his indiscretion that he contemplates ignoring her invitation to Le Chat Blanc this evening, but decides against it. He cannot slink away from his mistakes. Tonight is an opportunity to make things right, to show her that he is a professional, after all.
There is a sweet kiss of honeysuckle on the morning breeze. The damp stems of the roses have soaked through the newspaper, and a few drops of water have fallen onto his shoes. Jean-Paul glances at his watch. With a nod to Maupassant, he turns and makes his way back toward the park’s entrance and disappears down the steps of the Métro station.
As he waits for his train, Jean-Paul holds the roses out in front of him, so as not to drip any more water on himself. When the train pulls in, he becomes aware that some people are casting furtive glances in his direction. He looks straight ahead. At Place de Clichy a small group of women board the train. They nudge each other and point at him. One or two stare at him with indulgent looks on their faces. They are remembering a time when men traveled across the city to bring them flowers.
The women would not be looking at him like this if he were carrying lilies, reflects Jean-Paul. Flowers have their own silent vocabulary. There are blooms for love, for friendship, for sorrow, and for joy. He inspects the roses he is carrying. Long-stemmed and elegant, they have been grown, selected, arranged, and purchased for a single, unambiguous purpose: to seduce. Jean-Paul considers unwrapping the newspaper and handing a single flower to each woman who is jumping to such wrong conclusions about him. He thinks about Josephine Baker’s devoted admirer who has pinned so much hope on these twelve roses. They are so identical, so perfect, they must have cost a fortune. She does not even remember his name.
Pigalle, Stalingrad, Belleville. Jean-Paul looks at his reflection in the carriage window as the darkness rumbles by. Finally, his destination. He steps off the train and makes his way toward the exit, his uneven footsteps echoing along the tile-wrapped tunnels. He emerges blinking into the sun and sets off down the street.
Clutching the flowers, Jean-Paul walks through the gates of the cemetery and into the labyrinth of tombs. His pace slows as he nears his destination. He does not want to read the terrible, granite-inscribed truth that awaits him there.
As he walks along the familiar paths, he notices that someone has left a spray of fresh camellias on the tomb of Marcel Proust.
16
The Search Begins
OLIVIER IS RIGHT. Paris is a big city. A beautiful, glittering haystack.
Where to start looking for such a precious needle?
On Boulevard Saint-Germain, Camille passes in front of Les Deux Magots and Café de Flore. Waiters move with regal grace between the tables, full trays of drinks balanced on their upturned hands. She has heard that famous writers like to spend whole days in these establishments, drinking coffee, arguing with strangers and acquaintances, and perhaps sometimes jotting down a sentence or two. She sniffs. Monsieur Proust would never have contemplated such an unserious existence. His work was too important to be conducted in public.
Camille walks on, clutching her handbag tightly. The money she took from the hotel safe is as heavy as rocks. Men are such imbeciles, she thinks. Her husband is jealous of a man already five years in the grave! She cannot forget the look of defiant triumph on Olivier’s face as he stood in the bathroom doorway, watching her. It is a look that throws into doubt everything that has gone before. With every step comes a recalibration of the last fourteen years. The cumulative effect of these microscopic adjustments is devastating: she looks back and no longer recognizes her own marriage.
She crosses the river at the Palais Bourbon. She is going by blind instinct. Where would you go to sell something that is priceless? To where the most money is, of course. She heads toward Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré.
It is a quartier she knows well. Boulevard Haussmann is not far away, and before the war she and Olivier liked to explore the area after their work for Monsieur Proust was over for the day. They held hands as they strolled up and down the streets, dazzled and bewitched by the fairy tales on display in every shop window. Other worlds existed beyond the glass. There were ankle-length fur coats, of sable and fox and mink. There were impossibly beautiful dresses, shimmering with light and promise. There were strings of perfect pearls, made for the neck of a princess. Olivier used to nudge and tease her, urging her to step inside the shops, but Camille remained frozen on the sidewalk. She was a country girl from the Lozère! She could no more cross those thresholds than fly to the moon.
Now she walks past those same shop fronts, but no longer stops in wonderment in front of every boutique. Today she is shopping to save her own life.
* * *
Camille walks the neighborhood for an hour. She gets lost and regains her bearings. She retraces her steps. Finally she finds what she is looking for. She pushes open the narrow door and steps inside.
There is only one person in the shop, an elderly man who is standing behind a counter at the far end of the room. The walls are lined with shelves from ceiling to floor, every one of them bursting with books. Volumes are crammed into every available inch of space, some horizontal, some vertical, some poking out at peculiar angles. The building could disappear, thinks Camille, and there would still be an edifice standing, its walls made entirely of paper. She breathes in the comforting smell of old books, and wonders how many lifetimes of stories are held here.
“Can I help you, madame?” asks the man behind the counter. “Are you looking for something in particular?”
Camille walks to the back of the shop. The shopkeeper has a certain shabby gentility.
His white hair is a little longer than it should be. His tie is marginally askew. He is wearing a dapper pinstriped vest, but Camille can see the ghost of his breakfast smeared just above the breast pocket. She wonders how many of these books he has read.
“Do you buy books, as well as sell them?” she asks.
“If they’re of good quality, then bien sûr. I reject a great deal of what people bring in because it’s in poor condition.” The man shakes his head sadly. “You wouldn’t believe the way people treat their books these days.”
Camille nods anxiously. “Have you bought anything recently?”
“Of course, every day. Are you looking to sell something yourself, madame?”
“Oh no. Quite the opposite, in fact. I’m looking to buy a book.”
“What is it you’re looking for?”
Camille looks around. “Do you know every volume on your shelves?” she asks.
“Of course.” The bookseller taps the side of his head. “It’s all up here.”
“I’m looking for a book by Marcel Proust.”
The man’s eyes light up. “Ah! What a treat you have in store for you, madame! Or perhaps you’re already familiar with his work?”
Camille falters. “Well, I—”
“Oh, I’m quite jealous! Such a journey you have ahead of you! Seven volumes of wonderment! Seven volumes of consummate mastery of the literary art! Forget Voltaire, or Dumas, or Flaubert, or even Victor Hugo. Never has the French language been so blessed by the craft of such a genius!” The shopkeeper beams at her. “Of course, you’ll want to start with Du côté de chez Swann.” He steps out from behind the counter and walks down the shop, scanning the spines of the books. “I believe I have several copies here for you to choose from.” He runs his hand along the shelves as he goes.
“As a matter of fact,” says Camille, “that isn’t the book I’m looking for.”
“So you’ve already begun! Alors, which volume do you need?”