The Paris Hours

by Alex George

  He cannot leave Paris without seeing her first.

  Ahead of him a man and a woman are leaning into each other, their faces nearly touching, laughing softly at something. They are holding hands. A terrible thought strikes Guillaume—so terrible that he momentarily forgets to breathe.

  What if Suzanne is here with someone else?

  A rush of nausea. Guillaume remembers Arielle’s beautiful face, and thinks of the priest’s words: We only get so many chances at happiness.

  He can’t leave now. If Suzanne is not alone, he’ll just turn around and walk out again.

  The line moves forward slowly. Guillaume glances at the small group of prostitutes standing in the nearby shadows. The tips of their cigarettes glow as they watch the crowd. He does not see Thérèse in her usual spot.

  A shiver of apprehension. He wishes Suzanne were anywhere but here. Guillaume is now regretting sending Brataille into the unforgiving hands of Léon and his thugs. He has no wish to witness the art dealer’s come-uppance himself.

  Finally he is at the front of the line. He pays the admission fee with the last of the coins in his pocket and steps inside. At the far end of the room the band is in full flight. In front of the stage there is a dance floor, bordered by a sea of small tables. There’s a single candle on each table: the place is more shadow than light. Guillaume needs to see the faces in the audience, so he walks closer to the stage to look out across the tables.

  And there, near the back of the room, Suzanne sits with her eyes shut. She is swaying, ever so gently, in time to the music. There is a small smile on her face.

  She is alone.

  * * *

  Ernest Hemingway wraps an arm around his friend’s back and shouts something into his ear, trying to make himself heard over the music. The other man picks up the notebook that is sitting on the table in front of him. He flicks through it idly. Camille watches the stranger’s fingers on the pages, unable to pull her eyes away. The music is no more than an echo on the fringes of her consciousness.

  She has been sitting here for half a lifetime.

  Thanks to Pauline Hemingway’s advice to look for the two loudest Americans in the room, Camille identified her quarry even before she sat down. The pair would have been impossible to miss in any event. Their laughter is long and loud and is attracting looks of irritation from people at nearby tables. Neither man cares in the slightest. Camille thinks of Hemingway’s new wife, marooned in the apartment on Rue Férou and drinking herself into a lonely stupor. She wants to stride across the room and tell him to go home. Instead she is frozen in her seat, unable to move. She watches as the two men toss the notebook back and forth, trying to summon up the courage to approach them. Camille looks down at the glass of wine in front of her, no longer sure whether it is her second or her third. Her head has begun to swim alarmingly.

  She picks up her glass and empties it in one swallow.

  * * *

  Still carrying his suitcase, Souren follows Thérèse up the staircase at the back of the club. When they reach the second floor they turn down a long corridor. Numbered doors line both walls. The sounds of the band from the club below waft up through the floorboards. Thérèse stops in front of number 8. She opens the door and Souren follows her inside. The room is small, with a long mirror on one wall, a chest of drawers, a rug, and a bed. Embers of a dying fire glow in the grate. On the wooden mantelpiece there is a large brass lamp. Thick drapes cover the walls.

  He has been here many times before. He sits down on the bed and watches as Thérèse moves around the room, lighting candles. When she is finished, she sits down next to him.

  “Can I see?” she asks, reaching out to touch his hand.

  Souren nods, and with that Thérèse carefully starts to unwind the outermost bandage. He does not want to look.

  “Ah, mon dieu,” breathes Thérèse. “What have you done?”

  “There was a fire,” whispers Souren. “My hand—”

  “Hush, now, don’t talk.” Thérèse stands up. She opens the chest of drawers and begins to rummage through it. “You need a fresh dressing, for a start.” After a moment she produces a red silk scarf. “Here. This will have to do.” She sits down next to him on the bed and pulls his hand toward her. She examines it closely. “There’s not a lot I can do for you, chéri,” she tells him. “You need a doctor.”

  But Thérèse is giving him something more valuable than the most expert medical attention. The last time someone looked at him with such kindness, he’d been no more than a boy: Françoise, sitting by her dead son’s bed, feeding him and teaching him French. Ever since he crept out of that house and escaped into the moonlit night, the world has been an unbearably lonely place.

  She holds him gently by the wrist and begins to wrap the scarf around his fingers. She pulls the silk tightly to his ravaged skin. As she works, she starts to sing. Her voice is gentle, full of light.

  Souren Balakian starts to weep.

  * * *

  Jean-Paul watches Ernest Hemingway and his companion from across the room. On the table in front of the two men is a black leather-bound book. Every so often one of them picks it up, opens it, and reads a little. They keep the waiters busy, beckoning at them from behind clouds of cigarette smoke and calling for more drinks.

  The band is playing a raucous up-tempo piece now. The trombone player has taken center stage and is playing a lively solo. Sidney Bechet stands to one side, stamping his foot in time to the music and nodding his head in approval. Jean-Paul looks back to the other side of the room. A tall black man has joined Hemingway and his companion at their table. He stands between them, a giant hand on each man’s shoulder, laughing at something Hemingway has said. Jean-Paul guesses that this must be Lloyd Waters, the war hero who stayed in France when the fighting was over. The three men are shouting to make themselves heard above the music. If Americans behave with such self-satisfied entitlement when they are thousands of miles from home, how on earth do they behave in their own country? Jean-Paul checks his watch, wondering when Josephine Baker will appear.

  There is nothing to do but wait.

  * * *

  “Good evening,” says Guillaume, the words barely escaping his lips. Somehow his feet have carried him between the tables and now he is here, standing in front of Suzanne. She looks up at him. There is no flicker of recognition on her face.

  “You don’t remember me,” he says.

  She tilts her head to one side and looks at him with those gray eyes he has dreamed of for so long. “You do look familiar,” she says.

  “We met a long time ago,” says Guillaume. “I painted your portrait.”

  “Yes.” A smile. “You actually painted a house.”

  She remembers! “That’s right,” he says, stunned.

  “I liked that painting very much, I remember.” She looks at him, curious. “What are you doing here?”

  “Oh, well.” He points toward the stage. “I just love jazz.” The band is so loud it’s making his ears hurt. The noise is a terrible caterwauling, a screeching calamity of wrong notes.

  Suzanne takes a sip of her drink. “The music is wonderful, isn’t it?”

  “It’s unbelievable,” he answers, honestly enough.

  “Did you break your nose?”

  He waves her words away. “A small accident. Nothing serious. Would you mind if I joined you?”

  Suzanne hesitates. “I suppose that would be fine.”

  Guillaume sits down before she can change her mind. “Quite a coincidence, seeing you after all this time!” he says.

  “Tell me your name again,” says Suzanne.

  “Guillaume. Guillaume Blanc.”

  “Yes. Guillaume.” She pauses. “You gave me a sketch of some statues. Stone angels from the Montmartre cemetery. Do you remember?”

  He pretends to think about this. “No,” he says, “I don’t think I do.”

  “I love those statues. I look at them every day.”

  Before Guillaume
can respond, he is horrified to see Emile Brataille weaving between the tables. The art dealer is determinedly making his way toward the far side of the room, and quickly disappears behind a full-length velvet curtain. Guillaume looks around, hoping to see Léon in hot pursuit, but nobody seems to be following him.

  The band ends its song with a terrible flurry of squawks and honks. It sounds as if a dozen swans are being brutally murdered. As the noise mercifully subsides, the audience bursts into applause. Suzanne claps enthusiastically, and so Guillaume joins in.

  The saxophonist waves for quiet. “A dear friend of mine has just arrived in the house,” he announces in English. He looks over the heads of the crowd and smiles at someone in the back of the room. “Please welcome the most beautiful woman in all of Paris,” he says. “Ladies and gentlemen, Mademoiselle Josephine Baker!”

  * * *

  A low murmur of excitement sweeps through the crowd.

  Along with everyone else, Camille turns and watches as the city’s most famous resident floats across the room, smiling and waving at the audience as she goes. She is wearing a dazzling silver dress that clings to every curve of her body. Her beautiful skin glows. She moves with effortless grace.

  The audience is applauding wildly. She blows kisses to the men and waves at the women as she shimmers between the tables. The band has stopped playing. They know they cannot compete with such a spectacle. She walks up to the stage. Sidney Bechet takes her hand and kisses it twice, ostentatiously. She laughs, curtsies, and gives him a peck on the cheek.

  As Josephine Baker bathes in the approval of these strangers, Camille thinks of Monsieur Proust, alone in his bedroom with just his pen and a flickering candle for company. He was always so modest, and so very private. He enjoyed a grand party, but liked to stay on the outside, looking in. She watches Josephine Baker as she finally relinquishes the spotlight and walks over to a nearby table. A man sits there alone. He gets stiffly to his feet to greet her. All eyes in the room are still on her, and she knows it.

  The band begins to play again. Josephine Baker and her companion are deep in conversation. Camille looks back toward the tables where the loud Americans are sitting. Ernest Hemingway has vanished. The other man sits there alone, smoking a cigarette and listening to the music. The notebook sits on the table in front of him, forgotten.

  This is her chance.

  Camille stands up.

  * * *

  There is a ferocious banging on the door.

  “Ignore it,” whispers Thérèse to Souren. “Whoever that is, they won’t—”

  “Thérèse!” comes a shout from the corridor. “Thérèse!”

  She does not take her hand off his. “I know that voice,” she says, frowning.

  Souren stares blankly at her. He just wants her to keep singing.

  “Thérèse!” The door handle rattles. “You shouldn’t be working! Let me in.” More thumps on the door.

  “Go away!” she calls. “I’m busy!”

  “But it’s Emile, chérie. From the art gallery. I’ve come to take you away.”

  At this Thérèse closes her eyes. “Ah, non.” She stands up and walks across the room. At once Souren longs to feel her touch again. “What do you want?” she hisses through the door.

  There is a pause.

  “Didn’t Guillaume come and see you today?” asks the voice.

  “Guillaume Blanc? Yes, I saw him this morning.”

  “And he talked about me?”

  “Well, we talked about your little cacahuète,” says Thérèse. “Now go away and leave me alone.”

  There is silence. Thérèse turns back to the bed. “I’m sorry, chéri,” she says to Souren. She sits back down next to him and takes his hand in hers once more. “Now where were we?”

  Just then there is a loud crack of splintering wood and the door flies open. Souren turns to see a man standing there, his frame silhouetted against the light from the corridor. He is breathing heavily. The candles next to the bed flicker.

  “You’re supposed to be coming with me!” shouts the man.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” says Thérèse.

  “But you don’t understand,” cries the man. “I want to take you away from here! I want you to live the life you deserve. With me, in Montparnasse!”

  Souren Balakian stands up. He does not know who this man is. All he knows is that Thérèse, who has treated him with care and kindness, is not treating him with care and kindness anymore. She has stopped singing her beautiful song. She is not even looking at him. And it’s all because of this man. Souren takes a step toward the intruder. “Leave,” he growls.

  “Thérèse,” pleads the man. “Be a good girl and come with me.”

  A white-hot anger is rising within Souren. All he wants, all he cares about in the world, is for Thérèse to keep holding his hand. He steps forward and shoves the intruder as hard as he can. The man staggers back a few steps before he regains his balance. He looks at Souren for the first time.

  “Who the hell are you?” he demands.

  * * *

  Josephine Baker kisses Jean-Paul on the cheek as if they’re old friends. She slides into the seat next to his. “I hope you haven’t been waiting too long,” she says.

  “I’ve been enjoying the music. How was the show this evening?”

  “Comme ci, comme ça. I danced. The audience clapped. You know how it goes.” A waiter materializes at her side. “Champagne,” she declares. “Bring several glasses.”

  Jean-Paul raises an eyebrow. “Several?”

  “I’m going to introduce you to some people, remember?” She points toward the stage. “Sidney, of course. And Lloyd Waters. And Ernest, if he’s here.”

  “Oh, he’s here,” says Jean-Paul.

  “Did you bring your book?”

  Jean-Paul pats his jacket pocket. “I did.”

  “Who’s this?” asks a voice.

  Josephine lets out a small cry of delight, and stands to kiss Ernest Hemingway on both cheeks. “Come and join us,” she says. “Champagne is on its way.”

  Hemingway looks down at Jean-Paul. “Who’s this?” he asks again.

  “Ernest, this is Jean-Paul. Jean-Paul, this is Ernest.”

  The American nods at Jean-Paul and turns his attention back to Josephine. “Look, do you want to dance?” he asks.

  “I’ve only just arrived,” she replies. “I haven’t even had a drink yet. Perhaps you’ve forgotten that I’ve been dancing all night.”

  “Just a quick one,” he pleads.

  The waiter arrives with a bottle of champagne and glasses. “At least let me have a drink first,” says Josephine.

  Hemingway pulls out a chair and sits down, watching her keenly.

  “Both of you are writers, you know,” says Josephine as the waiter pours the champagne. “Jean-Paul has written a book, too, haven’t you?”

  Jean-Paul pulls Elodie’s book out of his pocket and puts it on the table.

  Hemingway looks at it suspiciously.

  “We were hoping that you might be able to help Jean-Paul find a publisher for it,” says Josephine. She winks at Jean-Paul.

  The American looks pained, but he desperately wants to dance with Josephine Baker, so he picks up the book. “It’s in French,” he complains a moment later, as he flicks through the pages.

  Jean-Paul performs his most Gallic shrug. “Et oui.”

  Ernest Hemingway puts the book down and empties his glass of champagne in one swallow. “All right, so we had a drink. Won’t you dance with me now?”

  She rolls her eyes at Jean-Paul. “Would you mind?”

  “Not in the slightest,” he says. Josephine stands up and touches him gently on the shoulder. “I’ll be back,” she promises.

  Hemingway nods at Jean-Paul before turning away, his arm around her waist as he leads her to the dance floor.

  He leaves the book on the table.

  * * *

  Guillaume and Suzanne watch as Josephine Baker
glides across the room. The man she is with has a handsome but glowering face. She says something in his ear, but this just makes the man’s frown even deeper.

  “She looks divine,” says Suzanne. “I wonder who that is with her?”

  “Whoever it is, he doesn’t seem very happy,” says Guillaume. His gaze drifts back to the velvet curtain that Brataille disappeared through. He guesses that it leads to the rooms where the prostitutes ply their trade. With each minute that passes he feels a growing sense of unease.

  Guillaume watches Suzanne’s radiant face as she listens to the music, and his heart slips, just a little. The band is playing a blues, as hot and as sultry as a New Orleans night. Josephine Baker and her companion have started to dance. They push their bodies against each other in time to the pulse of the music. The man is holding Josephine Baker very tight. Not a sliver of light escapes between their bodies.

  “I’ve been watching you,” says Guillaume suddenly.

  Suzanne looks at him. “Watching me?”

  He clears his throat. “After we were together, you became pregnant.” He pauses. “Since then I’ve watched your daughter grow.” He takes a deep breath. “Our daughter.”

  There is a moment’s silence.

  “You’re not Arielle’s father, Guillaume,” says Suzanne gently.

  “Of course I am.”

  “I was already pregnant when I met you.”

  He shakes his head. “That can’t be.”

  “It’s true.”

  “But I worked it out,” he says. “I looked at the calendar. I did the calculations. She was a few weeks early, but—”

  “She was born two weeks late.”

  Guillaume is silent then. Arielle has been the sun around which he has been devotedly orbiting for years, but now he’s been cut loose. Suddenly he’s streaking away into nothingness.

  * * *

  “Good evening,” says Camille.

  The sole occupant of the table looks up. He has been staring disconsolately at the empty glass in front of him while a forgotten cigarette smolders between his fingers. “How do you like that?” he says in English, gesturing toward the couple on the dance floor. “A fellow asks you out for a drink and then leaves you high and dry while he goes off to chase tail.” He pauses. “Exquisite tail, I’ll grant you,” he concedes, “but still. Bad form all around.” He looks up at Camille. “Do I know you?”