‘How lovely.’
Until I die, I will remember those two words and how Tommy said them. Like a schoolboy, tickled pink that fate had brought us together.
Fate … Dear God, forgive us all.
We looked at each other steadily in the glass of that window. How can I ever express that moment? I knew-that’s all I can say.
‘I must sell my earrings,’ I said to break the impasse.
Quickly, I took them off, and he looked at them in the palm of my hand, was serious now and puzzled.
‘Why? They suit you. They go with the outfit. This guy will only cheat you at a time like this. He’s got buckets of that stuff.’
Tommy indicated the window. I shrugged and said, ‘I have to take my children to see my father in England before it’s too late.’
Though he nodded solicitously, he had to say, ‘Surely you’re not that broke?’
It was my turn to smile, and I did a little sadly. ‘Just because I live in a château doesn’t mean I’m wealthy.’
The husband then … You could see it in his eyes, though he had no wish to hurt me. ‘But your interest in this window? All these things. You appreciate them, Madame de St-Germain. You must be accustomed to such things.’
Had he been so wrong about me? he wondered. Had I misjudged him?
The shop was full of lovely things. Tommy circulated while I asked about the earrings. At a point in the discussions, he even leaned into the front window to explore something. This set the shopkeeper off and the man grabbed my earrings and went to speak to him.
They had a quiet talk. That smile, that grin broke over Tommy’s face as the shopkeeper’s voice began to rise and then to lift even further in, ‘Jésus, merde alors, I would not even bother to cheat the salope! Out, I tell you. Out! Tell the slut I’ve no interest in them. Thirty thousand francs? You’re crazy. Crazy like a horse that has had turpentine shoved up its ass!’
Red in the face, the shopkeeper roared back to me and shouted, ‘Stolen, madame? Not for anything would I buy these!’
He slammed the earrings down on the display case. Behind him the eyebrows arched as Tommy heaved a shrug and said, ‘Sorry.’
In anger, I snatched them up and fled. How could he have been so cruel to me, a perfect stranger, a mother of two children, a desperate woman?
Not until the avenue Matignon did he catch up with me to put ten thousand francs into my hand and say, ‘The rest will come later, but let me buy them from you.’
I turned away, he touched my shoulder, gave a gentle chuckle-I can still hear it. ‘Relax,’ he said. ‘It was all just a game. I’m sorry I had to use you like that.’
What does one do in such a situation? I threw the money into his face, swung hard and fled.
* * *
Dust filtered through the warm, still air, caught in the slanting rays of the sun as the patient scraping of charcoal on drawing paper came into the silence and the leftover taint of fixative mingled with that of gum arabic.
I eased the door shut behind me but didn’t move away from it for fear of being noticed. There were perhaps thirty students at their easels, arranged in a semicircle about the model. This at a time of war.
Folds of white sheeting had been draped over a high stool and, on this, my sister sat with her toes touching the floor. Her slender legs were slackly parted, the arms stiffly at her sides so that the hands could grip the edges of the stool and hold the pose.
Janine’s shoulders were flung back, etching the sharpness of the collarbones. Her breasts were lovely-even now I must force myself to admit how envious I was. A suckling’s midnight snack, a lover’s feast! Plump but firm and round. Uptilted, the nipples flushed even in repose, no signs of a child yet. None of that swollen look, or of the aureoles enlarging. The waist was slender, the tummy flat, the hips but slightly flared. That gorgeous cul, that ass of hers, was all but hidden.
Every time I looked at Nini, I thought of Renoir’s painting of Jeanne Samary. Young and vivacious, those same dark, warm eyes, that same mop of dark black hair that was feathered over the brow and fluffed out in carefully contrived carelessness to emphasize the eyes.
Jeanne Samary’s expression was the look Nini would get when a young man who was foolish would dare to tell her she was beautiful. Nini would compress her lovely lips and stare openly at him. Silently, her eyes would ask, Well, mon ami, what are going to do about it?
The tangled nest of her préfet’s goatee seemed trapped, the mons pouting a little and wanting to be scratched, for Jules was standing at the back of the room, in the other corner. He hadn’t even noticed that I was there.
‘Lily, wait!’
‘No! It’s true. You are in love with her!’
He caught me on the stairs, gripped me tightly and as I wrenched away, I spat at him and raced for the street. Down, down the stairs … down …
Halfway across the Pont des Arts he caught up with me. My Jules. Handsome, arrogant, tall, and thin.
A barge passed beneath us, chugging slowly up the Seine, sending waves off its bow as his hand moved from my back up to my neck and into my hair. ‘Chérie, relax.’ Twice that afternoon I’d been told to do that! How could I?
‘Lily, listen to me. Nothing’s wrong. So I was looking at your sister. Would you want me to lose interest in such things?’
As if his bitte was in danger of falling off!
‘How are the children?’ he asked.
‘Fine.’
The last of the waves smashed themselves against the quays. Old men fished in the sun, one person sketched, and I couldn’t help but ask myself again, How could they do such things at a time like this?
‘What do you say we go to the hotel and settle this?’ he said.
‘So that you can pull me on like an old boot?’
‘Look at me,’ he said, and I knew that if I did, I would weaken. How can I describe it? Every time he smiled at me like that, a fire rushed through me.
He was tired and worried-I could see that at a glance. There were touches of grey in the tousled black hair that had receded a little but was feathered thickly and brushed well back. He had good, strong teeth, my husband. Very white and perfect. Jean-Guy had them, too.
Not for a moment did those dark eyes leave mine. ‘You’re not an old boot. Besides, those are usually far too loose.’
‘Unless they’ve dried out.’
‘Lily, Janine means nothing to me. How could she? Things have been hectic these past few months. I’ve had to take on two more classes and some of the administration. People keep leaving as they’re called up. I’m to do a national inventory of all the paintings and sculptures in private collections. Everything of importance must be listed with its value.’
‘The Boche won’t come here, will they?’
He didn’t shrug or even gesture with both hands but looked at me sternly and said, ‘The times are going to change because they must. Poland will be crushed.’
I hardly noticed how he had said it, but wish I had. Instead, I said, ‘I listened to the wireless last night. I think I should take the children to England until we see what happens.’
‘How long will you be here today?’
No argument about the children because there could be none, not in so far as he was concerned. ‘Until the last train. I … I didn’t bring anything with me.’ No diaphragm, no pessary. Nothing.
That train rushes on. That night closes in and I’m sitting here all alone, listening to the sound of the wheels. Now a gap between the rails, now the briefest of pauses, then another gap. Racing … always racing. Cows and farms, lights winking in the night, the barriers down at a crossing. No lights. None. The blackout …
Jules … and I’m remembering that hotel room of his, us standing naked beside the bed. My right arm rested over his shoulder, that hand not touching the hair at back of his neck, not yet. In uncertainty, I placed the palm of my left hand on his chest and felt the skin and its curly hairs, was a little sideways to him, for it was always best like this at first, and I constantly reminded myself that English women just jumped into bed and went at it hard, but I didn’t. I tried not to.