The Last Time I Saw Paris (19 page)

The men took turns shaking Kinsel’s hand. In crumpled overalls and pressed suits, they all shared a hard-eyed look. A familiar face pushed through to Claire.

Jacques squeezed her shoulder, his normally sardonic face subdued for the occasion. “Evelyn, I will see you home.”

Claire glanced back as he opened the door. Kinsel was at the table, a glass of wine in his hand. He raised it to her in a toast. She blew him a kiss as she stepped out.

It was after midnight when they reached the flower shop. Jacques waited in the shadows, his eyes on the street as Claire fumbled with the lock. In the darkness and her exhaustion, it took two tries to get the damn key in place and the mechanism to click. She turned back to him as the door swung open. “Thank you, Jacques.”

He shrugged. “For
une femme américaine
, you have
des couilles
.” He slipped into the darkness and was gone.

Claire crept up the stairs to her room, her feet aching, body heavy. She couldn’t help but smile in the darkness. She had paid her debts. They damn well knew she was more than a Yankee princess. As Jacques said, she had balls.

A
sweltering late summer day. The air trapped in the alley behind the shop cooked between the buildings. Bricks baked underfoot in the late afternoon sun. The sour scent of rotting vegetation and steaming trash settled on hair and skin. Claire wiped the sweat from her neck with a grubby hand. With a heave, she slung decaying flowers into the rubbage bin. Dropping the empty bucket at her feet, she picked up the next.

Eleven days ago, a
Resistánt
shot and killed a German officer at the Barbès-Rochechouart station of the Métro. Then the reprisals started. Nazi sweeps pulled people off the street. There were rumors of a planned public execution. Ten people, fifty people, a hundred, lined up and shot. No one knew. They held their breath and stayed inside. German soldiers weren’t walking alone anymore, not pursuing lonely girls with dinner and flowers.

Even the Comte disappeared. The promised second meeting should have been nights ago. Instead of a car to pick her up, his assistant called. Apologetic but brusque. Apparently used to finishing what the Comte started.
Thank you, Madame, for your interest, but regrettably the situation is somewhat changed. The Comte will keep your services in mind.

Madame Palain was relieved. “We will do without his money.”

But Claire knew what the loss meant. She said nothing when Madame pursed her lips and frowned, smoothing her hair in the tight bun she wore low on her nape.

They did need his money.

In the heat, what flowers Madame managed to buy slumped, unpurchased, in tin buckets. Claire tossed those that started to rot into the garbage. Claire cursed at the slimy daylily stems that slid from the bucket and splattered green sludge on her dress. With the Comte’s party, the shop would have been set at least until Christmas. Was this the big Resistance Christophe came to Paris to lead? A single German midshipman dead, what good did it do? The entire city suffered for it.

Several turns of the decrepit water faucet handle in the alley and warm water splattered onto the bricks. Claire rinsed the worst from the buckets and carried them rattling against her legs back inside the shop. She paused as she saw Madame locking the front door. Another day without a customer. With the money from the pawned wedding ring long gone, they wouldn’t survive many more.

Claire wiped her neck and arms as she leaned against the cool stone wall in the back of the shop. Madame started her closing routine. Claire watched her go through every bucket, every plant, a slight nudge here or there, inspecting the counters, the floors. Without looking at Claire, the florist gestured to the floor under the shelves. “The stones have sweat in the heat and collected dirt. It will need to be mopped in the morning.”

Claire usually found the routine endearing. A daily lesson in observation and discipline. Tonight it was grating. “You think someone is going to notice?”

The florist straightened, her shoulders pulled back. Claire waited for her to respond in her modulated voice, offer some quaint lesson in living that would, tonight, make Claire sneer.

Madame ran her hand over the wall as she walked to the front and paused in front of the window. When she finally spoke, it was in a quiet, dreamy tone that forced Claire forward to hear.

“My mother was a baroness. The Baroness du Vinen. A title, but not the means. Still, I was given the best education at Sorbonne. Art, literature, culture. For the purpose of charming and marrying an important and wealthy man. I admit I was a disappointment to my mother. I married a professor of engineering. An educated man. A gentle man. But a man of simple tastes.”

Madame never spoke about herself. Claire stepped forward, enthralled.

“We lived in Paris, a small apartment across from jardin du Luxembourg, near the university, his work. After only nine months at the university, my gentle engineer was called to fight the Germans. Another soldier fighting the Great War. Months passed. I cherished his letters. But without his salary, without the university, I had nothing. And one day, I passed by this place. The suitcase in my hand was all I had left.” She stroked the petals of a peach-colored rose. “I had no experience, no references. Monsieur Russo saw something in me, I think. I became his assistant.”

“He was the owner?” Claire said.

“Yes. The preeminent florist in the arrondissement. A celebrated artist, like Renoir or Seurat. But that was the Great War. Times were not easy. Still, he believed in this place.” Madame smiled gently, her eyes gazing through the years. She tucked a slender green cherry branch behind three ruffled rose blossoms.

“My husband did not survive the war. I was devastated, of course, but no more so than many others. I gave my heart and soul to this place. When my mother died, I inherited a bit of money. Monsieur Russo was tired, his hands stiff. He sold me the shop on very lenient terms. He knew no one would care for it like I would.” Madame turned to Claire, enunciating each word. “He knew I would never let it fail. Elegance endures. It must.”

Claire gulped, wrestling with the knot in her throat. She scuffed a toe at the grit beneath the shelves—it
was
there—and bit her lower lip. She concentrated on the pain until the tightness in her throat relaxed.

Madame pulled her bag from under the counter.
“Au revoir, mon ami.”
She kissed Claire good night and glided into the evening shadows.

Claire climbed the stairs and threw open the windows to her room. She pulled the garden photo from the mirror’s edge and sat on the open windowsill, her feet resting on the balcony. She squinted at the picture in the dimness.

The dark violet sky lent the image a mystical air. The verdant beauty of the garden, the wise serenity carved on the statue’s face was like cool water on Claire’s overheated emotions. Her marriage and high society life was dead, her affair with Laurent a memory. Yet this little photo not only survived but had grown more real. A place, if only in her mind, that welcomed her like the first sun of spring.

Claire peered down at the deep blue awning below the balcony at her feet. The faded lettering of
La Vie en Fleurs
looked murky grey against the dying light.

Everyone saw her beauty, Claire knew. They always had. But Madame saw something more. Something worth saving. Claire felt a surge of heat in her chest. She straightened her shoulders, felt a warmth spread throughout her body.

Beauty might be a gift to our souls from the heavens. Luxury, purchased. But suddenly she understood. There was strength in elegance. Claire wouldn’t let the shop fail. And she knew, first thing in the morning, before Madame arrived, she would mop the damn floor.

T
he midday sun felt thin, hinting at fall’s chill. The pressing heat of summer was a memory. Broken clouds stirred over the city. It would pour by nightfall.

Claire breathed deep at the scent of rain in the air as she walked slowly by the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. The façade of the theater was beautiful, pale white carved limestone. A mix of Art Deco and classical styles, a good five stories tall, judging by the windows of buildings on each side. The gold-framed windows were oversized. At the end of avenue Montaigne, Claire crossed Place de l’Alma and meandered along the Seine toward the Eiffel Tower.

Madame Palain was out today. Another day spent in line to get her
Ausweis
, her permit to travel south to Nice in the unoccupied zone. They had no business to speak of, but the florist wanted to ensure they could procure stock for the long winter ahead.

Claire went to the Hôtel Emeraude to see Leluc. She wore the thin pale blue dress she knew he liked, forced a gay tone. Surely such a distinguished hotel would need increased orders for the holidays. A deposit would be available now, perhaps?

“I will need to check.” Leluc hedged, his expression pinched, as he sat back in the chair behind his desk. He meant no.

Claire had learned there were many degrees of
No
in France. She played with the curl over her brow, settled a hip on his desk and twisted her body about to face him. “Ah, Monsieur, in times like these, a gift of beauty would mean so much.”

A sigh rose from his feet, then Leluc relented they might need something soon. He pulled a small pile of francs from his desk. “The gift of beauty.”

Claire judged the thickness as she slipped the money in her pocket, offering Leluc
la bise
good-bye. Enough to keep the shop going for a few more days but nothing more.

She squeezed the bills as she turned into the park at Trocadero, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower across the Seine. She traced her way along the looping paths through the broad leafy trees. A beautiful fall day, she was in no hurry to face the empty shop.

She heard footsteps approach. She turned, hoping to be met by Grey’s steel-colored eyes and a bemused smile. An older man hurried by her. Thin white hair, hunched shoulders.

Claire sighed. She wasn’t angry at Grey. Not anymore. She thought back to the day they walked nearby and remembered the force of his gaze, the steadiness of his arm around her waist.

She wished for his company. He would let her be. What? Herself? Perhaps. Or someone close to it.

The papers said half of London was destroyed in the Luftwaffe bombing. She hoped it was propaganda. Then she dug out Madame’s hidden radio and listened to the BBC one night in bed. Thousands
had
died. But London stood strong.

For the moment, the Nazis had turned their attention away from air raids over England. Still, she didn’t doubt Grey had gone where his strength was needed most. No. She wasn’t angry.

 

 

A
n hour lost in mindless reverie, only her feet noticed the distance she traveled back to rue du Colisée. As Claire unlocked the shop door, she heard the phone ringing. She lunged for the phone.

“Allô?”
Claire gasped.

“La Vie en Fleurs?” a low voice said.

“Yes.” Claire grabbed the notebook and pen under the register, tried to calm her breath.

“I would like to place an order for Christophe.”

A message then, not a paying order. Claire crumpled the paper in her hand.

“A white posy. Delivered to 17, rue Perrault. Take the Métro to the Louvre station.” The line went dead.

Claire dropped the phone in the cradle and examined the shop. The long, barren shelves, the stack of empty tin buckets. The few flowers they had were artfully arranged on a center table, but they might well die there and join their brothers in the rubbish. La Vie en Fleurs couldn’t go on this way.

She hadn’t been able to swing a deal with the Comte. She would just have to try a different route. Resolution squared Claire’s jaw. This dirt farmer’s daughter had survived worse times. And she’d learned a thing or two since then.

A vase of white sweet peas intertwined with a single shell-pink rose caught her eye. Not exactly a white posy, but . . .

C
laire climbed aboard the Métro at the Saint-Philippe-du-Roule station. She settled back in the seat, resting the paperwrapped bouquet on her lap. A young woman in dirty brown trousers sat across the aisle. She looked about fifteen; her face still held the roundness of a child. Only unmarried women were allowed to work. Or widows. With so many men gone, Claire imagined the girl on her way home from a factory.

The girl stared at the flowers the hungry way Claire used to stare at jewels, but she wouldn’t meet Claire’s eyes. These days no one met one another’s eyes. They still waited for the retribution to end. For the guillotine to drop.

 

 

A
t the Tuileries stop, two police officers came aboard the car. They walked down the aisle asking for identification. Claire slipped hers out and held it in front of her without looking up. After a moment, they passed on.