Paris: The Novel (30 page)

Still feeling rather cheerful, he trudged contentedly along. On his right he came to the railings of the Lycée Janson de Sailly, and this made him smile again.

All Paris knew the story of the grand new school that had recently opened on the rue de la Pompe. The rich lawyer whose name it bore had discovered his wife had a lover. His revenge had been sweet. He had disinherited her, and left his entire fortune, down to the last sou, to build a school—for boys only! Though the lycée had only just opened, it was already fashionable. Thomas wondered cheerfully what had become of the widow.

There was still a glow of gaslights coming through the windows. No doubt the cleaners were finishing their work. As he watched, he saw the lights starting to go out. He paused.

Why did he pause? There was no reason at all, really. Just idle curiosity, to see the cleaners come out.

A moment later they did. Two women, one old, one younger, though he couldn’t see their faces. The older one crossed the street. The younger turned up it. He continued walking. He came level as she reached a lamp outside a doorway. He glanced at her. And stopped dead in his tracks.

It was the girl from the funeral. It had been so long since their brief encounter that he’d almost put her out of his mind. He’d wondered if he’d even recognize her. Yet now that he saw her, even in the lamplight, he hadn’t the slightest doubt. He’d looked all over Paris for her, and here she was, hardly a mile from where he’d first seen her.

She was a few paces in front of him now. He drew level again. She looked across sharply.

“Have you been following me?”

“No. I was walking up the street when you came out of the lycée.”

“Keep walking, then.”

“In that case, you will be following me,” he said cleverly.

“I don’t think so.”

“I will do as you ask, but first I have to tell you something. We have met before.”

“No we haven’t.”

“You were at the funeral of Victor Hugo.”

She shrugged.

“And …?”

“You were in the front row, on the Champs-Élysées. A soldier made you move.” He paused. She gave no reaction. “Do you remember a man hanging out from the railings of the building behind?”

“No.”

“That was me.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” But she was thinking. “I remember a crazy man. He was saying vulgar things to a man below him.”

“That’s right.” He smiled. “That was me.”

“You’re disgusting. Get away from me.”

“I went looking for you.”

“So now you’ve found me. Fuck off.”

“You don’t understand. I went back to the same place in the Champs-Élysées for weeks. Did you ever go there again?”

“No.”

“Then I went from district to district, all over Paris, for over a year, in the hope of finding you. My little brother came with me sometimes. I promise you this is true.”

She stared at him.

“I work on Monsieur Eiffel’s tower,” he continued proudly. “He knows me.”

She continued to stare at him.

“Do you always piss on people’s heads?” she asked.

“Never. I swear.”

She shook her head.

“I think you must be crazy.”

“There is a bar over there.” He pointed up the street. “I was going to eat something. I’ll give you supper. It’s a respectable place. You’ll be quite safe. When you want to leave, I won’t follow you.”

She paused.

“You really looked for me all over Paris, for a year?”

“I swear to you.”

In the bar, he could see she was giving him a thorough inspection, but he pretended not to notice. They sat at a small wooden table.

He supposed she was two or three years younger than he was. There were even more freckles on her face than he remembered. Her eyes were hazel, but up close he could see different lights in them. A hint of blue or green, he couldn’t decide which. Perhaps both. But it was her mouth that he especially noticed. He’d remembered that it was wide, but there was something potentially sensuous about her lips that excited him. And she had white, even teeth. He hadn’t been able to see that before.

She was sitting across from him, leaning back slightly, as though to keep him at a distance. He could hardly blame her for that.

“My name is Thomas Gascon,” he said.

“I am Édith.”

“You come from this quarter?” he asked.

“We’ve always been here.” She shrugged. “Since it was a village.”

“I’m from the Maquis. On Montmartre.”

“I’ve never been there.”

“It’s all right. People come up there for the dancing, and the views. But our family name is Gascon, so Monsieur Eiffel says we come from Gascony.”

“Monsieur Eiffel seems to be important to you.”

“I worked for him on the Statue of Liberty. Then I got sick, but he let me work on the tower as a favor. He was talking to me this afternoon.”

“He must think well of you, then.”

“I’m skilled. That’s why he hires me. It’s important for a man to have a skill. If he can.”

“My mother and I clean. And I work for my aunt Adeline too. She has a very good situation.” She paused. “Maybe I shall inherit her position one day.”

“Would you like to do that?”

“Certainly. She works for Monsieur Ney, the attorney.”

“Oh.” This meant nothing to him, but in her mind, evidently, he was as significant as Monsieur Eiffel.

She took a little wine, but she refused to eat, explaining that she was on her way to her aunt, who would be expecting to feed her.

She asked him some questions about his work and his family, then said that she must leave.

“I hope I shall see you again,” he said.

She shrugged.

“You know where I work in the evenings.”

“I don’t get off work until late in the summer months,” he said.

“I don’t get off work until late anytime.”

“Can I see you safely to your aunt’s?”

“No.” She seemed about to get up, then paused. “Tell me one thing,” she said. “Why did you waste your time looking for me all over Paris?”

He considered.

“I will tell you,” he answered. “But another time.”

She laughed.

“Then perhaps I shall never know.”

But he did see her, a week later, and this time she consented to eat something, but only a crepe. And toward the end of their little meal, she said: “You still have not answered my question.”

“About why I looked for you?” He considered for a moment. “Because, when I first saw you, I said to myself: ‘That’s the girl I’m going to marry.’ It was therefore necessary to find you.”

She stared at him in silence for a moment.

“You tie yourself to a railing and hang there offering to piss on people’s heads, and then you catch sight of a person you’ve never seen before in your life, and you decide to marry her?”

“That’s it, exactly.”

“You’re insane. I’m eating with a lunatic.” She shook her head. “No chance, monsieur.”

“You can’t refuse.”

“I certainly can.”

“Impossible. I haven’t asked you yet.”

“Ah. What an asshole.”

The next week, however, when she found him waiting for her one evening, she told him that, if he liked, they could meet on the following Sunday afternoon. “Meet me in front of the Trocadéro at two,” she said.

Sunday was a warm September day. She was wearing a pale striped dress and sash.

On the slope below the Trocadéro’s Moorish concert hall as it looked across the river to the site of Monsieur Eiffel’s tower, there were some pleasure gardens, which contained two big statues, one of an elephant, the other of a rhinoceros.

“I remember my father bringing me here to look at these,” Édith told him, “when I was a girl.” She smiled. “So I like to come and see them sometimes.” She shrugged. “It brings back good memories.”

“Is your father still around?”

She shook her head.

“There’s an aquarium,” she said, pointing to a long, low building. “Have you ever been in there?”

He hadn’t. They spent a pleasant half hour looking at all manner of exotic fish. There was a small deep-water black squid that fascinated him. And exotic jellyfish with poisonous stings. Even more exciting was an electric eel that could kill a man. The power of these sea monsters attracted Thomas, and he pointed them out eagerly to Édith. “They’re even more impressive than the sharks,” he said. She looked, but preferred the brightly colored tropical fish.

When they had finished, Édith led the way. He noticed that they were going toward the rue de la Pompe.

“When my mother was my age,” she remarked, “this wasn’t part of Paris at all. It was all the village of Passy.”

“Same with Montmartre.”

“Did you know,” she said proudly, “that Ben Franklin, the great American, used to live up the street from here?”

“Oh.” He’d heard of Ben Franklin, though he couldn’t remember much about him. “I didn’t know that.”

“On the west side of Passy, there was a small palace where Marie Antoinette used to stay.” She glanced at him. “You can tell I am very proud of Passy.”

“Yes.”

“So. I am going to show you something even more important.”

They kept walking until they came to the lowest section of the rue de la Pompe. Looking up the street, most of the houses were set in gardens. Some were hard-faced granite residences, newly built town houses for rich people. Others, somewhat older, were less formal suburban villas with shutters on the windows, set in leafy gardens where fruit trees suggested a more rural past. But the place where she stopped was the gateway to a
courtyard containing some stables, and beyond which he saw a kitchen garden.

“Do you know who lived here before the Revolution?”

“No idea.”

“Charles Fermier, himself.”

Thomas paused, unwilling to expose his ignorance. She was watching him.

“Well, who was Charles Fermier?” she prompted.

“I don’t know,” he confessed.

“The ancestor of my father.” She smiled. “He was a farmer. This area was mostly farmland then.”

“He owned the land?”

“Oh no. Most of Passy was owned by a few big landowners. He rented his land. But he kept a lot of cows. We’ve been here ever since. Well, except my father. We don’t know where he went.” She shrugged a little sadly.

“Your family didn’t continue to farm?”

“My grandfather looked after the horses at a château on the far side of Passy. Then my father worked in a merchant’s house until he left.”

They walked up the street. Just past a handsome horse chestnut tree they came to the house where Thomas lodged.

“I rent a place in there,” he said.

“It looks nice.”

He thought of his tiny room where he had just space to lie down.

“It’s all right,” he said. “I’m afraid the owner won’t allow me to bring any women into the house.”

“I’m a respectable girl. I wouldn’t go in if you asked me.”

They walked on.

I make good money working for Monsieur Eiffel, he thought. I could rent a nicer place if I didn’t give my spare money to my mother. It was a moral conflict he hadn’t thought of before.

“Where do you live?” he asked.

“My mother lives over by the Porte de la Muette,” she said a little vaguely, “and my aunt Adeline in the other direction. I go between the two.”