Belle Epoque (33 page)

T
HERE IS UNEASE IN THE
agency ranks since Marie-Josée was fired: tears, temper tantrums and general bickering. I hadn’t realized until now that she was the linchpin holding us all together. Without her mother hen influence, the repoussoir spirit can only be crushed a certain amount before it is unable to reshape itself. The rumors of Laurent’s departure have also been confirmed. The question everyone is too scared to ask: who will be the next to go?

Having Isabelle know the truth about the agency has reminded me of the humiliation and disgust I felt the first day of my interview. And now, with Marie-Josée gone, I feel encouraged to act. The seed of an idea popped into my head the day she was sacked, and it has grown into a fully formed plan. But first I must talk to my colleagues. Their jobs are at stake, so I won’t go ahead unless we are all in agreement.

A client has pushed back her selection appointment by an
hour, and most of the girls are gathered in the dressing room with time to kill. Now is the right moment, I think.

“Who loves her job?” My question is met with quizzical looks and a snort or two.

“Who genuinely takes pride in her job and feels good at the end of each week, with the money she has earned?” I scan the somber faces looking back at me.

Silence. “No one?”

I am just getting started, but I can sense that my question has grabbed their attention. The other conversations have died down, and they’re all looking at me. I feel self-conscious, but I decide to stand up. I might as well embrace everything I’m about to say.

“Does anyone have an alternative way of making a decent living?” I ask.

There’s a moment of silence before Emilie says, “My uncle might be able to get me a factory job in Dijon.”

All heads turn to her, which makes her look down at her lap and smooth her dress nervously. “I’ll admit I don’t think I can do
this
for another season.” She looks up again and blinks guiltily; her big dark eyes are serious, after her confession.

“But the money is good here. How will you earn as much?” asks Cécile.

“I don’t much care about money, as long as I can live. I’ll have my self-respect. It won’t be as hard to look at myself in the mirror every night.”

Murmurs of surprise echo throughout the room.

“Ladies.” I call for their attention again. I look at each of my
colleagues, one at a time. “My question for all of you is: what are your dreams?”

They meet this question with puzzled looks.

I continue, “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I feel that working this job has been holding me back, making me think less of myself and what I’m capable of.”

I can see the flash of recognition when I say these words.

“What’s your dream, then, Maude?” Cécile asks, trying to challenge me.

“To learn how to take pictures properly.” The words that escape my lips are as much a surprise to me as anyone else. “Maybe get a job in a professional studio that takes portraits.” I have never admitted this secret desire to myself, let alone another person.

“What about the rest of you? What are your dreams?” I ask again, looking around the room at each of them. For once, the girls can’t find their voices.

“Come on. You want more than this, surely.” I gesture to our surroundings. “Or do you think only beautiful people get to live life, pursue their dreams and fall in love?”

You could hear a pin drop, the room is so quiet. But there is a pulsing energy; I can feel it.

To everyone’s surprise, Cécile answers first. “I want to be an actress,” she says, almost in a whisper.

I look at the other girls, who are still silent. “Emilie? Is a factory job really your dream in life?”

“No.” She shakes her head. “I want to be a writer. I like to watch people in the cafés and make up stories about them.”

Hortense chimes in. “Think of the things we’ve learned—
the manners, dress and elocution. We can use those skills for other jobs.”

Cécile stands up and addresses the girls. “It’s been two seasons I’ve done this job, and Durandeau and the clients just get worse every week that passes. I can’t stomach it any longer. Yes, we’ve made some good money, but it’s time to move on.” She raises her hand. “I say we quit.”

The chatter rises as the girls talk to their neighbors.

“If we are all in agreement …,” I say, fighting to be heard.

“Everyone listen to Maude.” The girls obey Cécile and quiet down.

“I have a plan,” I tell them. “We are going to bring down the agency.”

S
INCE THE PIANO RECITAL ON
New Year’s Eve, I have dreaded running into Paul, and now, when I need to speak with him most, he is nowhere to be found. I’ve tried his apartment, Café Chez Emile and some other bars and cafés in our neighborhood, but it’s Friday night and these places are full to bursting; it’s not easy to tell one young bohemian from another. The last place I can think to try is the music hall on rue de la Gaîté.

When I walk in the band is playing, and I catch sight of him behind the piano. Now that I’ve found him, I feel like running away, but I must speak to him. As I fight my way through the crowd to the stage, I’m filled with doubt. How will he react? Is it a good idea to speak to him here?

I squeeze between two drunk women swaying by the stage. I’m glad he’s playing; otherwise I worry that he would walk off before I have the chance to say a word. As soon as he lays eyes on me, surprise crosses his face. He quickly covers it with a hard contempt. The expression doesn’t suit him.

“Paul, I have something to tell you,” I blurt out over the music.

He shakes his head at me. “I’m working!” he shouts.

After the first song he immediately nods to the violinist and accordion player and the band starts playing another tune. I stand waiting by the edge of the stage. Everyone in the band is looking at me except for Paul. Over the din of the music he shouts, “More stories to tell me? I don’t want to hear more lies.”

“No!” I yell back, desperate to make him listen to me. “I want to tell you the truth. I’ve been looking for you all over Montparnasse for the past hour—for the past few weeks, if you must know. I want to make my peace with you, Paul. Can you at least hear me out?”

He doesn’t respond, but once the song is finished, he gets up from the piano and calls out to the band.
“Pause, dix minutes!”

Now that he’s agreed to listen to me, I feel nervous in his company. We walk toward the bar. “Do you want a drink?” he asks.

I shake my head. “Can we talk outside? It’s too noisy in here.”

We muscle through the bottleneck of people at the entrance. Paul holds the door open for me and we step into the dark street. April is mild during the day, but the temperature cools at night; I welcome the chilly air, which clears my head and keeps me focused. We wander through the streets, the endless party of our artistic neighborhood. I’m glad of the crowds; their noise and banter breaks the painful silence between Paul and me.

“What do you have to tell me?” He speaks gruffly. He looks straight ahead, his hands in his pockets, as we walk side by side down the street.

I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment, then begin. “There is an agency in Paris. I doubt you’ve heard of it. It provides a unique service to its clients, who are wealthy women.”

I see his eyes flit over to me. My story doesn’t begin as he imagined—it doesn’t sound like the pitiful excuse he was expecting. Just say it as directly and as simply as possible, I remind myself.

I continue, “The agency rents out ugly women to well-off clients, who use them as an accessory to make themselves look more beautiful by comparison.”

Paul slows his pace as he listens.

Keep going, I tell myself. I’ve rehearsed it a thousand times; I know every word by heart. “In the way a metal foil is placed under a jewel to make it shine brighter, an ugly woman accentuates the beauty of an attractive client. I am one such foil.” He glances at me, and I see his look of confusion betrayed by an ever-so-slight shake of his head.

I must credit Girard on her handy definition. It’s proved useful when having to explain myself to everyone I’ve lied to. Paul still hasn’t responded, so I finish my speech. “I was embarrassed and ashamed to tell you—to tell anyone, but especially you.”

He stops walking and turns to look at me full in the face.

“Preposterous!” he bursts out. “How can you invent such a tale? You’re not ugly.”

I keep walking, and he follows beside me. I think back to my interview with Durandeau and how he described me to the countess.

“I am neither pretty nor ugly. The agency finds me perfectly
plain,” I explain to him. “I am a light ornamentation of plainness, suitable for a debutante. My client was the girl you saw me with at the recital; her uncle and a prospective suitor were the men accompanying us. I am no one’s mistress. The fact that you might have thought—”

I can’t bring myself to complete the sentence, because if I do, the lump of shame in my throat will give me away, and I don’t want to cry in front of Paul.

We turn down a quieter side street, walking in silence until we find a little courtyard framed by apartments. Even though it’s too chilly to sit outside, we take a seat on a bench, under the yellow light of a streetlamp. Tree branches shiver in the lamplight and make shadows of spring leaves on Paul’s coat.

He studies me, bemused. I didn’t expect him to find my tale funny. Again he shakes his head quizzically, as if trying to find the right words. “Ugliness as a commodity for sale? How perfectly abominable—what gross and indecent people are these clients?”

“Oh, you’d be surprised.” I laugh. “The cream of Paris society. Renting a repoussoir has become quite the craze this season.”

He’s silent for a few moments, staring at me intently. “But they have it all backward.” He reaches toward my face, cupping my cheek in the palm of his hand. “You are lovelier than any person I have met in this City of Light. You are truth and honesty and imagination and, yes, beauty. And a rich woman, dripping in jewels and silks with painted lips and curled locks, is but a foil for your purity and strength of character.
She
is the repoussoir, to your loveliness.”

He keeps his hand on my face, draws me close to him and
kisses me gently on the lips. I close my eyes and feel my stomach swirl and my heart leap, and I lean into him and kiss him back.

I have never been kissed before. After it happens, Paul’s eyes study my face for what feels like a long time, and I want to hide. Despite his kind words, I’m not ready to be scrutinized. Thankfully he kisses me again and I learn my first lesson on the subject: it’s easier to be kissed than to be looked at—kissing means your eyes are closed.

We walk back to the music hall hand in hand. I feel woken up from the last few months. I realize that I never did see myself as ugly until I became a repoussoir. Perhaps now I can see myself the way Paul sees me, the way I used to see myself, the old me, that true friend whose presence I haven’t felt in so long. I squeeze Paul’s hand, hoping that he has led me back to myself.

Later that night, after Paul has returned to work, after he has been yelled at by his band members and the manager, after he has finished his set and we are enjoying a quiet drink—it is then when I show him the photograph.

He studies the faces of my colleagues. “They’re not the fairest faces I’ve seen,” he admits. He smiles and I swat at his arm.

“You’re going to help us.”

He lifts his eyes from the photograph. “How?”

“Get in touch with Claude. Give him the photograph and tell him I have a story for his newspaper—a good story.”

I
SIT ON A TERRACE
at a café near Montparnasse station. I open the newspaper on my lap to read the latest installment of
L’affaire Durandeau: l’agence des belles-soeurs
, as the press has named it. The agency has become the scandal of Paris. Claude’s first article appeared on a Monday in
Le Figaro
. It caused a sensation with its cutting analysis of Durandeau and his operation. He followed it up with another the same week in which he blasted the whole of French society for helping to create a demand for such an abhorrent trade, declaring that society itself had descended beyond the shallow to the immoral.