Girl in the Afternoon (10 page)

The concierge wiped the sweat from her upper lip and flapped her apron at Aimée. “Three flights up.”

Aimée thanked her and headed for the stairs.

It had been a week since she'd seen Henri outside the café, a week in which she'd hardly slept or eaten. At times she wondered if the ghost of her imagination had become spectacularly real, that her desire had gotten the better of her mind, and Henri did not exist at all. She jumped slightly when he opened the door.

“This heat is going to do us in today, I'm afraid,” he said cheerfully.

Aimée smiled. Henri was certainly real. He was right in front of her. If she reached out, she could touch him. “Yes,” she said, stepping into the apartment. “It most certainly is.”

They were both deferential and reserved, as if she were a patron coming to view his work. Henri took care to move aside as Aimée looked at the paintings on the wall, and Aimée made sure her hand did not so much as brush up against his.

The paintings were mostly landscapes, the Fontainebleau, the Seine. Some were good, Aimée noted, but nothing exceptional.
Girl in the Afternoon
was there, so even that hadn't sold. But Aimée was glad it hadn't. It reminded her that Henri had been breathing her to life next to him too.

Behind her, she heard his shallow breath and the rustle of his trousers as he shifted his feet. The silence she used to hold so precious between them made her nervous now.

“How did you capture my likeness?” she asked, turning to Henri who stood directly behind her. His face was no longer soft and round as Aimée remembered, but thin, with stubble gracing his upper lip and chin. She wondered what it would feel like to kiss him now.

“I spent half my life with you. It's not likely I'd forget,” he said.

His cheeks were red with heat, and his eye fluttered, his small freckle leaping uncontrollably. There was something clumsy about his smile, as if he hadn't quite committed to it, but his fierce blue eyes held hers steadily.

Aimée looked away, pretending interest in his small apartment as she wrestled with the ache in her chest. There was a single iron bed, a larder, a table of art supplies, three chairs, and a black stove with last winter's ashes still piled in front of it.

She had been so sure Henri had gone back to England, to the mysterious family and wealth that he'd come from. But he'd been here all along, in the back of a building on the rue de Calais, having no luck with dealers and, according to Leonie, reduced to painting potboilers and portraits in this one crammed room.

“Stifling in here,” Henri said, struggling to prop the window open with a long stick. “Thing slams down without it. Might slam down anyway, but we'll give it a try.”

The breeze felt good. Aimée was perspiring under her dress, and a trickle of sweat rolled down the middle of her forehead. Henri had taken the apartment for its windows and high ceilings. Light was abundant where space was not, which meant, on a summer day such as this one, the room was as hot as a furnace.

Aimée dabbed the sweat from her forehead as she walked to an easel. “May I?” she asked, pulling back the draped cloth before he could answer. Propped on the easel was an unfinished painting of Leonie. Naked. Completely naked. Full breasts, pink nipples, round stomach, plump thighs. One arm draped discreetly over the dark place between her legs. Aimée turned away, not sure why this upset her so much.

A light tap came at the door.

It was Leonie, wearing a white blouse tucked into a pale blue skirt. Her face flushed under her hat. She halted at the sight of Aimée. “I thought you were coming tomorrow,” she said.

“I'm engaged tomorrow,” Aimée lied. The truth was she hadn't been able to wait.

Leonie put her hand on Henri's arm and leaned in. “Isn't she a wicked thing?” she said delightedly, “not letting me have the triumphant moment of reacquainting the two of you.” She untied her hat strings and handed her hat to Henri. Thin strands of hair stuck to her neck and forehead. “She could have at least let me witness the reunion.”

“Aimée does what she likes,” Henri said, and it was not an insult. He said it because he knew her, because he'd watched her defy her maman as a child. Because her papa's rules had never stopped her.

“A trait I admire.” Leonie took Aimée by the shoulders and planted a firm kiss on her cheek. “There now, I've forgiven you.”

Aimée wrapped her arm around Leonie and drew her to the end of the room where the chamber pot and washbasin were visible behind the screen at the foot of the bed. “You didn't tell me he was painting you nude,” she whispered.

They pretended to look at a sketch tacked on the wall while Henri carefully ignored them as he gathered his brushes, pushing aside scattered ends of charcoal and nubs of pastels.

Leonie pressed closer to Aimée and whispered, “I've posed nude lots of times. I never thought to mention it.” Aimée could smell the orange water and jasmine Leonie splashed her face with every morning, insisting her delicate complexion couldn't do without it. “Are you upset because he's your brother? Is that indecent or something?”

“No,” Aimée said. “I don't see why it would be.” There were nude studies all over the walls. It should not bother her that he was painting Leonie nude, and yet it did.

Aimée released her hand from Leonie's waist and pressed it to the back of her neck as she watched Henri squirt paint onto his palette.

Dropping her whisper, she said, “I'm only terribly disappointed that you've never posed nude for me.”

Henri looked up from his color preparation, and Aimée wondered if he was remembering how she'd asked him to take his shirt off for her all those years ago.

“You never asked me to.” Leonie stepped behind the screen, her forehead appearing over the top. “If I did, your parents would run me out of the house. You, my dear,” she called, slipping off her skirt and rolling down her gray lisle stockings, “are only allowed to paint a nude in a roomful of overeager students with a stodgy, pockmarked art instructor breathing down your neck.”

“If it weren't for the Académie Julian, I would never have had a chance to paint a nude,” Aimée said, looking straight at Henri, who snapped his head back down.

What he remembered was how Aimée always wanted him to conspire, to break the rules. He could hear the confidence in her voice now, and see the daring in her eyes. Her daring used to excite him, and he thought how innocent she still was, how ignorant. She had no idea what it meant to really break the rules, how much damage could be done.

Leonie stepped out, stripped of all her clothing. “Paint me now,” she said. “You're paying. Might as well get your money's worth.” She dropped onto a chair. “Although, you two are getting a bargain. I won't charge double as long as I get supper.”

“I told you I'd pay you,” Henri said, with a sort of desperate humility.

Leonie shrugged, everything about her sensual and gratifying. “Might as well let Aimée pay. She can.” This was just practical, no need to be prideful. Henri could hardly afford this miserably small apartment as it was.

Leonie's nudity made Aimée surprisingly self-conscious. She stayed on the other side of the room, watching Leonie wipe the perspiration from under her full breasts as Henri filled his brush with the rose pink tint of her nipples and touched it to the canvas.

 

Chapter 11

Without any further discussion, Aimée began showing up at Henri's apartment with her portable easel and paint box.

She told her parents she was off to the académie every day. She'd never lied quite so boldly, but it felt inevitable, their relationship primed for just this kind of deception.

Aimée would stop for a baguette on her way over, buy a hunk of firm, ripe cheese, sausage, a jar of jelly, fresh plums, or a basket of figs. Often she brought an extra canvas or two, a new brush she'd leave behind, tubes of paint. She didn't make a show of it, but the supplies were helpful, and because Henri never said a word she knew he was grateful.

It was strange, what was going on inside Aimée. It wasn't happiness, but a kind of thrilling anticipation. Lying to her parents felt unexpectedly satisfying, telling them nothing of Henri.

She started arriving at the apartment earlier than usual, hoping for a few private moments before Leonie showed up. She would hang her hat and set up her easel with a show of competence and ease. Having familiarized herself with the tiny cups and the one pot that hung on the wall, she'd grate chocolate into a saucepan of milk, pour their drinks, and rinse the pot immediately so it wouldn't crust over. She'd scold Henri for his paltry breakfast, telling him he couldn't work all morning on a hunk of bread.

Henri was tolerant of all of this feminine influence, even appreciative, but he made it very clear, without words, that he wanted nothing of their old relationship. He wanted nothing of their past. He never spoke of it or her parents. He did not ask Aimée a single question about herself, and in turn she never asked how he survived the war, where he'd gone, who had helped him. Desperately she wanted to know why he left. It was the most obvious question to ask, and also the most obvious to avoid. This hole in his past was like a specter, haunting every corner of that room.

Aimée tried to convince herself that at least they had their silence. But even that had changed. The intimacy was gone, the effortlessness of being in each other's company. The silence made them uncomfortable now. Aimée's stomach tensed every time Henri was near enough to smell the mix of cigar and resin that came from his clothes. When he brushed against her, her breath seized in her chest. Once, when she went to put his teacup down, he'd unintentionally put his hand over hers and they'd both pulled away, the cup shattering on the ground.

And yet, there was something undeniable between them. Love might be too much to hope for, but something had kept Henri away all these years, an emotion worth running away from, and this was what Aimée clung to.

*   *   *

No
mention of Henri came up in the Savaray household, so after a while Colette stopped worrying. She dropped Auguste as quickly as she'd picked him back up. The summer was progressing, and it was too hot to have him smother her at night, plus she needed her sleep. Her Thursday-night soirées had become a social event of note, and they took the entire week to plan.

She also got it fixed in her mind that Aimée had to marry. There had been no buyer for the salon painting, and it was obvious that the client Édouard sent Aimée's way was merely charity, and not generous charity at that. Monsieur Chevalier made Aimée scrape off his wife's face four times before he was satisfied. Then he only paid two hundred francs for the portrait when he'd originally agreed to three. Aimée, stubborn as ever, vowed she wouldn't paint another portrait, claiming it was commercial art. “I'm not going to paint what someone tells me to,” she'd said with a haughty jut of her chin.

Colette told her she was being senseless. Portraits were a respectable way for an artist to make a living, but Aimée seemed to think she had some inimitable talent that made her exempt. Édouard probably put that thought in her head; he was much too complimentary. Now Aimée spent all of her time at that académie, honing her skills, running up bills for supplies with no more commissions in sight.

Colette, for one, was tired of it, and there was Jacques to think about.

*   *   *

Auguste
was just grateful Colette's screaming, and the blows to the back of his head, had stopped. Of course he wanted her physical attention, even when it was reluctant. He never considered if there were tactical calculations behind Colette's behavior. He took what he could get when he could get it. He knew she'd inevitably cool again.

Lately, all the women in his household seemed annoyed with him. Just this morning he'd asked Aimée to see her work, and she'd rushed from the table, exasperated, saying that she was going to be late for class. His maman looked as if he'd insulted her as well, setting down her fork and leaving the table without so much as a word. Colette, in turn, offered a raised eyebrow as she spooned sugar into her coffee.

“How am I supposed to know what's going on around here if no one tells me?” Auguste shouted, slamming his fist on the table.

All the silverware jumped, but Colette didn't flinch.

Auguste stormed out of the room. A decent breakfast ruined by unpredictable women.

*   *   *

It
was her son's inability to question anything but the most obvious and superficial that angered Madame Savaray.

She had taken to eating pastries in the kitchen in order to avoid him and the rest of the household, settling in with the iron pots, black bottomed with soot, and the shelves of spices, knives, choppers, ladles, and crockery. The servants, as they came and went, gave her weary looks, but for the most part, ignored her. She found the bustle and clutter almost as comforting as the pastry she sank her teeth into, the sweet, chocolate icing breaking away to a slightly crunchy, buttery crust, and then onto the gooey custard center. It was a satisfaction worth the thickening of her middle.

Little else satisfied her these days. For a month, at least, Colette had stopped raging, but Madame Savaray knew that wouldn't last long. Colette preferred to be wildly unhappy. Tidy emotions did not suit her. Her most recent attempt to rein them in only confirmed Madame Savaray's suspicion that Colette had seen Henri's painting.

If the truth came out, Colette had more to lose than any of them, and even though Madame Savaray swore she'd take the secret to her grave, watching her son lured in by Colette's petty show of domestic normalcy was infuriating. If Auguste would just open his eyes he'd see exactly how manipulative his wife was being. And if he paid any attention at all to his daughter, he would see that Aimée was hiding something too. The girl's serious face had given way to a lingering smile, and Aimée practically skipped off to class in the mornings. Whatever it was, Henri was at the heart of it, of that Madame Savaray was certain.