The Last Time I Saw Paris (11 page)

Sylvie and Babette closed ranks around Claire. “Laurent said you didn’t speak French,” Babette started.

“I’ve learned.”

“Strange you hadn’t studied it in school,” said Sylvie.

“Yes. Isn’t it.”

“I thought all American socialites went to finishing schools. Babette and I met in Switzerland at Château Mont-Choisi.”

“How nice for you both.” Claire took a drink and smiled, showing her teeth. “I was already finished.” Claire was reminded of something her Mama said:
You gotta be careful, Claire, fighting with pigs. They like to roll around in the mud. You just get dirty.

“
C’est vrai?
Well, in France it takes more than blue eyes and lipstick to interest a man of consequence,” Sylvie said, eyes glittering.

Claire felt a pair of eyes on her back. She turned. The men were standing by the window drinking scotch. Laurent was pointing something out to the cousin on the street below. Grey was watching her.

She drank deep and emptied her glass. “I think I’m ready for something stronger.”

Claire marched past Grey and placed a hand on the cousin’s thick shoulder. Gazing deep into his eyes, she slid her fingers down his arm to tap the rim of his glass. She smiled, running a tongue over her lips. What the hell was his name? “Hello again, my personal bartender, how about some scotch?”

In short order, her glass was full, the scotch was building a warm fire in her stomach, and Sylvie and Babette, for the moment, stopped stalking her. They all retired to the stuffed chairs scattered around the window. Babette slid next to Grey. Claire leaned against the cousin, the most boring man she had ever met, and asked him about textiles. It was hard to feign interest and keep the conversation going. She still couldn’t remember his name, and the drink had gone straight to her head.

She ran two fingers down his jelly-filled leg toward his knee. Sylvie and Babette were silent. Apparently, even in France it was in poor taste to insult the woman who was giving your cousin a small erection. Laurent lost the pretense of being interested in his wife, and his gaze kept falling on Claire. All that was ruining the pleasant fuzziness she felt were the burning cold glares from Grey.

“It’s late. And time for me to go.” Grey lurched from the seat, away from Babette’s tangling arms.

The cousin’s hand slid down her hip toward Claire’s thigh. His pudding body pressed against her. A wave of nausea hit her. She swallowed. Cold air was needed. Fast.

Claire pulled herself free and stood. “I also must be leaving. I have a full day of shopping tomorrow.” She looked over at Sylvie. “You know how tiring that is.”

The cousin scrambled to his feet next to her. “I will take you home.”

The scotch was burning its way up her throat. “Burcet—”

“Bertrand,” he said, lips pushing forward in an angry pout.

“I’m sorry, I don’t even know your name, but you are. So. Boring. And—” She shuddered and slipped away from his hands. “Don’t.” She waved him off. “Just don’t.”

“Claire.” Laurent reached for her elbow.

She jerked her arm back, stepping away. “Laurent. Thanks for an . . . evening.” Lurching from the salon into the hallway, thank God, the closet was open and her coat in sight. She skittered down the stairs as fast as she could go. A few wobbly strides across the hall and outside. Doubling over, she vomited into the cone-shaped topiary boxwoods.

“Let me take you home. You aren’t well.” Grey shrugged on his coat behind her.

“Damn.” She hadn’t wanted to lose dinner. Claire straightened up. It took a moment for her eyes to catch up to her head, but her stomach seemed to be staying put.

Grey handed her a kerchief. “It’s past curfew. I’ll take you.”

Claire wiped her face with the cloth. She was relieved to find she hadn’t thrown up on her dress or coat.

Laurent rushed onto the step, hugging his arms to his body against the chill. “Claire, you mustn’t misunderstand this thing with Sylvie. We married when we were very young, in school. This is Paris. She doesn’t even live—”

“Laurent,” Grey said, a low warning tone.

Laurent frowned, then turned to Grey. “I deserve the chance to explain myself.”

“Not now. You are needed inside.”

Laurent sighed, facing Claire. “
Au revoir
, Claire. I was truly glad to see you again.” He turned on his heel and hurried back in the door.

Grey watched him close the door and turned back to Claire. “I don’t like anything that happened tonight. But”—he shook his head and tugged his coat collar up around his ears—“I’m getting you home.”

“Really?” Claire said with as much venom as she could muster, pulling her coat tight around her. “I am not interested in your opinion of my actions. Nor do I need
or
desire an escort.” She marched away, head high, saying a prayer she wouldn’t stumble. She called over her shoulder. “Thanks for the kerchief. I will wash and return it.”

She felt his eyes bore into her back. She glanced behind her. He hadn’t moved from the sidewalk; his hands were stuffed in his pockets, his stare drilling through her. A warm shiver rose up her torso.

As she turned the corner, she heard him swear,
bloody Yankee princess
. A sharp ache dug into her chest. She was so damn tired of pretending to be someone she was not, of scratching her way up. It never worked. Not for long. The little barefooted farm girl was still there, inside her.
Bloody Yankee princess.
He had no idea. She breathed deep into the cold air, letting it burn away at the fuzz in her head and lungs.

T
he click of a heavy bolt into the flower shop’s ancient front door marked lunch break. Claire pressed away from the bench in the back room and stretched. She had hand-painted curved tree branches silver and gold all morning. They hung like long jeweled fingers from a wire stretched across the small room. Lunch wasn’t in mind. Her stomach still churned from last night’s scotch; she couldn’t even look at the brined egg Georges had passed her.

It was easy to stay busy. The Paris Ritz called this morning. The hotel had lost their florist to the fighting, and their greenhouses had been requisitioned for growing food for the hotel. But apparently Marshal Goering, Field Marshal of the Luftwaffe and said to be running the Blitz against England from the hotel’s Imperial Suite, demanded something lavish be done for the New Year. The staff at the Ritz turned in desperation to La Vie en Fleurs. The contract was generous, much-needed money, and Claire’s first opportunity to make masses of lavish arrangements. Overseen, of course, by Madame.

The florist left Claire mercifully alone this morning. She took one look at Claire’s face and sent her to the back with gold leaf and paste. The branches were structural elements of the arrangement; small crystals would hang from them, like icicles in a golden forest. Tomorrow, Claire would be gold-leafing ceramic nuts.

Madame walked into the back room. She inspected each stem, her eyes inches away, her hands tucked behind her back. “Quite nice, Claire. I’m pleased. You show discipline.”

Claire raised an eyebrow at the compliment. Discipline?

Madame smoothed a loose fleck of gold leaf with a fingernail as she spoke. “A party at the Ritz will be sophisticated, extravagant, no doubt. But La Vie en Fleurs brings a spirit of cultivated beauty—romance—to the night. That can’t be bought. Only earned.”

A loud rapping against the shop window made the florist pause.

“You seek artistry, Claire. But discipline must come first.” Madame turned and left the back room.

The front door’s bolt clicked. “
Bonjour
, is Madame Harris here?” asked a woman’s warm voice.

Claire stepped around the corner, dusting bits of dried flecks of leaf from her dress. “Odette? What a surprise.”

“
Bonjour
, Claire. I apologize for coming unannounced. Care to take a walk?”

 

 

O
utside, trees shivered against a pewter sky. An icy wind gusted from the north in staccato coughs that pricked the skin. The women walked in silence. Claire inspected the passing buildings as they walked down rue Rembrandt toward parc Monceau.

Odette’s mouth was pinched, her forehead creased. She spoke slowly. “I have known Laurent for seven years. Thomas introduced him to us.”

It took Claire a moment to remember Grey’s given name. She nodded.

“My husband works at
L’Express
. He is the foreman for the printing machines. We are simple, Jacques and I. Our social circles, we would never have crossed paths with Laurent, except for Thomas. Perhaps it is because he is English or because he is that kind of man.”

Claire thought about the possibility of a man like Jacques at one of her Manhattan parties. He never would have been let in the door. “I see.”

“I understand Laurent. He and I both had the same past. A few generations back, we were important. Some of us marry for love and accept who we are now. Others marry money, trying to get back to the place where we were raised to believe we belonged.”

“I would say you made the better choice,” Claire said, with a smile.

“C’est vrai.”
Odette laughed. “Jacques can be a beast, and sometimes I think he would be better living in a barn. But he’s good to me.” She considered her words before continuing. “Sylvie is mean-spirited. It was bad enough Laurent was forced to bring her last night. He never should have invited you.”

Claire shrugged. There were many things about that night she would prefer not to dwell on.

Ahead rue Rembrandt spilled into a small side entry of parc Monceau. Claire’s eyes were drawn to the stately apartment buildings surrounding the park. In the dead of winter, the dark and shuttered windows looked down on the women through jagged branches of giant desolate oak trees. She shivered as much from unease as from cold.

Odette glanced back at Claire as she headed for the open gate of the iron-spired fence. “It will feel less exposed inside.”

True enough. Once inside the park, Claire felt the calm dignity seep into her raw nerves. Hands bunched in pockets, they strolled along a side path tracing the park’s perimeter. On their right, the buildings were a fanciful backdrop. Barren trees lined the paths they crisscrossed. Even dressed in a snowy winter grey, the park’s architectural lines of trees and stone defined beauty. To Claire, parc Monceau was a stately woman, her well-bred bones showing through the ravages of the season.

Claire had come once before with Madame Palain, not long after the Occupation began. They walked beneath green spreading trees, past the grand rotunda, over a delicate bridge that arched over a finger of pond. Children chased each other along the water’s edge, throwing bits of stale bread to the ducks. The mothers cajoled and ordered,
Martine, slow down; Jon Pierre, don’t push your sister
, but the words rang hollow and halfhearted. Claire understood they were going through the motions. They were there because they were Parisians and, damn it, it was their park.

There was just one little boy at the bridge today. He skipped stones across the pond’s half-iced surface. No bread, no matter how stale, could be wasted on birds. A nervous mother hovered behind them.

Odette turned onto a path beneath towering oaks. “Sylvie and Laurent separated years ago. Before we met them. Sylvie is a
connasse
, undoubtedly, but also useful, in a certain way.”

“Really? For bringing your favorite foie gras to parties?”

Odette snickered. “Yes. But also for more.”

They continued down a narrow curving lane that opened up onto a large oval pool and crumbling marble columns. Claire stepped up to the water’s edge, breath suspended in her throat.

Odette smiled at Claire’s reaction. “Good. I didn’t think you’d been here yet.”

Claire tore her eyes away from the view. “Thank you. It’s beautiful.”

Odette watched her a moment before continuing. “You haven’t been able to leave the shop much, have you?”

Claire shook her head.

“These are dangerous days.” Odette’s eyes speared Claire. “Even more so if you don’t have papers.”

Claire started before she could cover her response. “What do you mean?”

Odette shrugged. “The way you arrived in Paris. At best your papers have expired, no? It wasn’t hard to figure out.”

Claire burrowed her hands deeper in her coat pockets.

“There is an option,” Odette said. “We spoke of it this morning.”

“We? Who is we?”

Odette pulled a half-smoked cigarette from her pocket and lit it, her hand cupped over the flame. She was either not at liberty or plain not willing to answer. “Sylvie is a collaborator. Her family’s factory—wool, cloth. They are shipping it all to Germany. Not because they were taken over.”

“For money,” Claire said. That had been made clear last night.

The winter, she had been told, was the coldest anyone could remember. Coal prices had gone through the roof; most was hauled away for the German war effort. People froze in their beds nightly. The only way to get a coat was to take it off someone’s back. Now it comes out the textile factories were shipping their cloth to Germany.

“What do you say to that, Claire?”

Sylvie left a horrible taste in Claire’s mouth. It would be easy to say what Odette was fishing for. But, Odette deserved to know the truth.

“I knew industrialists back in New York. Successful, hard men; my husband was one of them. Sylvie’s family is no mystery to me. My husband would let poor Americans die to make a buck.”

Odette’s eyes squinted as she tried to decipher Claire’s answer.

“If you are seeking moral high ground, don’t look to me. I have no high ground to climb onto, Odette. I gave that up years ago.”