Belle Epoque (18 page)

“One, please.”

Isabelle stirs in the sugar and hands me the cup. We drink our tea in silence for some time. Her face is perplexed, as if she’s solving a problem.

Finally she breaks the silence.

“Maude, can I ask you something?” Her eyes are fixed on her teacup and her tone is cautious.

“What is it?” I say in a half whisper.

“Before Mother got rid of her, my governess was helping me study for the
baccalauréat
exams. You need to pass to get accepted to university.” She looks up and meets my gaze. “I mean to read science at the Sorbonne.” Her dark eyes are wide and serious.

My eyes flit around the room: the equipment, the experiments, the self-designed curriculum—everything falls into place now. This room doesn’t house the distractions of a bored debutante; there is a purpose to all of it. How bold. “A university education?” I breathe the words. It’s so far from what I could ever wish for myself.

“Mother can’t know,” Isabelle continues. “She doesn’t approve of education for girls. But you can help me study, assist with experiments and quiz me on all the facts I have to memorize.” She pauses, then adds hopefully, “I thought you might like to help.”

All I can think of is that the countess doesn’t know. It’s another secret, another layer of duplicity, and I stall for time. “With your governess gone, what does your mother think you do up here?” I ask.

“Her mind isn’t curious enough to wonder.” She rolls her eyes. “If I were alone in the drawing room with a gentleman for five seconds, she would demand an account. Up here”—she nods in the direction of her workbench—“there are only books and bric-a-brac. Harmless.” She cracks a mischievous smile.

“But why me?” I ask her.

“You’re different from other girls my age. I know I can trust you.”

My heart contracts. I am a fraud. “But I don’t know anything about science. In the village—I mean in the convent, we had a very simple education.”

“You’re curious about the world. You came to Paris to see something of it, not to get married off.” She shrugs and her voice gets softer. “Maybe you’re as much a misfit this season as I am.”

Her words make me feel utterly treacherous. A wave of nausea washes over me and I put down my teacup.

“Will you help me, Maude?” Her dark eyes lock to mine as she waits for an answer.

A ribbon of panic swirls inside me. I try to push back thoughts of the countess—of deceiving her. She
is
my employer. But there is something about Isabelle I’m drawn to. I grip my knees, as if to hold myself together, and I force a smile. “Of course I’ll help you.”

Scraping together some threads of logic, I decide that
helping Isabelle will solidify our friendship, which can only strengthen my role as foil. The countess couldn’t disapprove of that, could she?

Isabelle looks instantly relieved. “Your portrait. It must be dry by now.” She gets up, goes to the workbench and opens the canvas drying rack. She studies the photograph for a few moments, then brings it over to me. “What do you think?”

I take the fibrous paper and study the person looking back at me, the familiar, unremarkable features.

“It’s odd, seeing yourself as a stranger might,” I say. My eyes have a faraway look, serious and earnest. But I question the portrait. Which Maude is staring back at me: Isabelle’s confidante or her repoussoir?

“I wonder if I shouldn’t have exposed it a few seconds longer.” Isabelle peers over my shoulder and points to one side of the photograph. “You see some of the detail on the side of your face is missing.”

“I don’t think my plain face needs more detail,” I say, trying to sound light. I’m cutting too close to the bone with this comment, but I can’t help it.

“You’re too interesting to be plain,” Isabelle says with some vehemence. “Imagine if I’d taken Claire de Rochefort’s portrait. Can’t you just see her conceited pose, that silly hair and her dim expression?”

I can’t help but laugh.

“I’ll make another print for you to keep,” she says, taking the photograph and placing it with the others in her portfolio. “Maude, you are officially part of my collection.” She smiles
broadly, and it’s then that I realize the layers of Isabelle’s façade have dropped away and the real girl is standing before me.

After tea, as soon as the carriage pulls away from the house and turns onto the street, I slip my hand into my coat pocket. The perfume is still there. I take out the bottle, pull out the stopper and take a sniff. It does smell sweet—heady and decadent, like luxury should. I dab a drop on my neck and one behind my ears, just like the Countess Dubern.

T
HE
D
UBERN CARRIAGE DROPS ME
at the agency, where I change out of my work clothes before heading home. Boulevard du Montparnasse is busy tonight. The November evening is crisp, the sky is jet-black, and twinkling lights burst out of the darkness, bringing my neighborhood to life. The activity doesn’t cease when night falls in Paris. The sound of competing piano music spills out onto the sidewalk as I pass the bars and restaurants, and on every corner there are placards and posters advertising a new cabaret or music hall.

A carriage pulls up just in front of me, and I don’t think anything of it until the door is flung open and a familiar voice calls out to me.

“Maude! Come with me to le Chat Noir.”

It’s Paul. I freeze for a moment, my heart racing. I smooth my skirt and tuck a wisp of hair behind my ear.

“Climb in!” he shouts. The horse snorts loudly and stamps a hoof, as if urging me to hurry.

I’ve seen posters all over my neighborhood for the famous Montmartre cabaret; it’s popular with artists and is famous for its shadow-puppet plays. How I wish I could transform my outfit into something fashionable from the countess’s couturier. At least I put on the perfume, I think gratefully as I climb into the carriage.

“Where were you heading?” Paul asks.

“Just home from work. I live on rue Delambre. It’s not far.”

“You work late, for a governess.”

All I can do is smile in agreement and quickly change the subject. “How was your concert last week? I wish I could have been there.”

“You enjoy music, then?”

I sigh. “I don’t get to hear much in the way of concerts, really,” I tell him, and look down. “I work a lot, you see.”

The carriage jolts and jerks along the streets of the Left Bank, across the river and north, cutting through the Right Bank in the direction of
la butte
de Montmartre.

“A true music lover makes their own music.” Paul leans in closer. “Is there a song you like to sing?”

I shake my head, laughing. “I don’t sing—I’m not musical at all.”

“Come on, you must know at least one song by heart.” He doesn’t take his eyes off me.

I think for a moment. “I know some Breton songs.” I shrug, not sure whether to share. “The Breton language has music in it. To an outsider, it might sound rough and not as pretty as French, but I always think of it as more honest, somehow.”

Paul leans back in the carriage with a smile on his face. “I knew it. You are
not
a governess.”

My heart seizes for a moment.

“You’re a poet.” He grins at me.

With a secret smile I peer out the window at the winding, narrow streets and seedy venues surrounding us. Montmartre—capital of sin, vice and bohemian Paris. I feel the thrill of adventure. Finally I’ll be on the inside looking out and not the other way around.

If the ball I attended with Isabelle was a display of invisible rules and perfect choreography, le Chat Noir is the complete opposite: there are no rules. Once we walk through the door, we hit a wall of smoke and noise. Out of nowhere a jolly fat man appears in front of us and booms, “Come in and sit where you please. There is no hierarchy here, except for the intellectual one.” He gestures to the packed tables around us.

The place is jammed with customers; there’s no room to sit. Paul takes my hand as we push through the mob of people to find somewhere to stand. I hold on tightly, feeling anchored to him against the crush of the crowd. When someone bumps me, my cheek brushes his shoulder and I wish I could freeze time.

The cabaret is decorated with a collection of oddities: coats of arms, swords, stuffed animal heads. Rows of antique tables are populated with a mix of clientele as varied as the establishment’s decorations. Some look well-to-do—bourgeois, even. Others look like disheveled artistic types; their style of dress is peculiar. I even catch sight of a woman dressed in men’s trousers and a collar and tie.

Out of the crowd a hand claps down on Paul’s shoulder and
I start. The bubble of our intimacy bursts and I recognize the man’s familiar red face from l’Académie—Claude the drunkard. Paul lets go of my hand to greet his friend and I’m suddenly adrift in the sea of bohemians.

Claude ushers us to his table and introductions are made. He appears to think he’s meeting me for the first time. He hails a waiter in bold military costume.

“Et alors?”
the waiter asks, nodding in my direction.

I have no idea what is appropriate to order. Papa only drank cider at home. I glance at the other tables and see glasses of absinthe, beer and wine. “Wine,” I say immediately.

“Red or white?” asks the waiter impatiently.

“Red,” I blurt out. Only because that is what a woman at the next table is drinking.

“Good. A carafe of Médoc and three glasses,” says Paul.

“Make that four,” says a voice. We look up to see Suzanne standing at our table. “But I won’t stay if you talk politics.”

Paul gets up and kisses her on the cheek. My heart sinks.

Claude leans over and does the same. “Politics is my bread and butter, my dear. How else does a journalist make a living?”

Paul introduces me. It’s noisy and I know Suzanne probably didn’t catch my name. She gives me a droopy handshake then slides into a chair next to him. Claude lights her cigarette. Her swanlike neck cranes up as she blows smoke above our heads. She’s the very definition of nonchalance.

“How was the show?” Paul asks her.

She tosses her head back. “Claude’s friend from
Le Figaro
described my paintings as ‘vulgar and infantile.’ ” A chorus of protests follows from Paul and Claude.

“To my face, he said it.
Le con
!” She inhales on her cigarette.

I’m mesmerized watching her. She breaks all the agency rules of ladylike behavior: smoking in public, cursing, the uninhibited gestures and forceful personality.

I can feel myself disappearing, drifting into the background like a younger sibling, uninvited and tagging along.

The waiter returns with a carafe of wine.

We clink our glasses together in a toast and I take a sip. It tastes sour, like vinegar but thicker, and catches in my throat. After a few more sips I decide not to let my presence be drowned by the others. “Paul, how is your composition coming along?”

I wait for him to answer. But my question hangs in the air. When he continues to sip his wine and glance around the room, I realize instantly that he hasn’t heard me. It shouldn’t feel like a slight, but it does.

Claude refills our glasses and then picks up the empty carafe.
“Garçon, du vin!”
he shouts, waving it in the air.

There’s a stir in the bar, as the shadow play is about to start. On stage there’s an elaborately framed white background, onto which characters made of black zinc cutouts are projected by colored lights. Tonight’s play features a character who is supposed to resemble Sarah Bernhardt, the famous actress—the toast or scandal of Paris, depending on who is talking about her.

“You think her beautiful?” Suzanne asks the table.

“She’s much too skinny,” says Claude.

I feel self-conscious; I’m sure I’m even skinnier than Sarah Bernhardt.

“She’s popular,” offers Paul.

“Is it better to be beautiful and obscure or ugly and popular?” asks Suzanne. She looks at me. “Maude, what do you think?”

I don’t know how to respond. It feels as if she’s trying to draw me out only to humiliate me. But she can’t know that words like
ugly
and
beautiful
are dangerous for me; they’re coated in barbs.

“Cat got your tongue?” Claude bellows.

“It depends what you consider beautiful,” Paul says, coming to my rescue. “Isn’t it different for everyone?”

“Maybe people are as beautiful as they need to be?” I say eventually.

Suzanne takes a sip of wine. “How very modern of you.” She returns her arm to its possessive position along the back of Paul’s chair.

The play begins and everyone’s attention turns to the stage. I’m relieved that the conversation is over. Yet as I pretend to watch the shadow figures, all I can think about is how much more I enjoyed the carriage ride alone with Paul and that the promise of the evening eclipsed everything that followed.