Belle Epoque (4 page)

I study my reflection in the tarnished mirror. Candlelight flickers and distorts my features, and I wonder what Durandeau saw when he looked at me. My light brown eyes are inoffensive enough. My nose tilts upward, “optimistically,” my mother used to tell me with a smile. My lips are thin, my chin juts out—“willfully,” my father says. My hair is neither blond nor rich brown, but something in between. And my figure isn’t womanly; I’m skinny, with bony shoulders and hips.

I destroyed Durandeau’s job notice weeks ago, but the words are still branded into my memory.
Ugly young women wanted for undemanding work
. I have no choice—tomorrow I will return to avenue de l’Opéra. I will become a repoussoir.

“Y
OU
’
VE COME BACK FOR THE
job?” Durandeau spits the accusation at me. “Is that what you said? As if you left it here by accident, like an umbrella in a café. And here you stand to claim it.”

We’re in the dining room of his private apartment at the front of the agency. He is wrapped in a dressing gown, picking at his breakfast. “What do you have to say?”

“No, you misunderstand, monsieur.” I shake my head and look pleading. “I wasn’t sure if I would be a good fit … for the position. At first.” My excuse is weak; my voice sounds small. I never imagined I’d have to beg for the job.

“You caused me much embarrassment with the Countess Dubern, vanishing like that. I don’t appreciate your ingratitude, Mademoiselle Pichon.” Using tiny silver tongs, he picks up a sugar cube and drops it into his coffee.

“An unattractive woman contributes nothing to society. But with my agency she has the chance to use her cursed looks to
benefit others.” He stirs his coffee. His swollen fingers dwarf the dainty spoon. “I’m not sure that you are deserving of such an opportunity.”

I can feel my fate swinging like a pendulum. I’m terrified he’s about to say no. “Please, monsieur,” I beg.

Durandeau sneers. “It’s a delicate balance to be a repoussoir—at first to fit in and be considered a society lady, then to repel the gaze from yourself to your more attractive client.”

I nod emphatically, trying to show him I understand perfectly—even though I don’t. I have no idea how this awful job works. I just know I need it badly, desperately.

“And to be honest, as a repoussoir you’re not a standout,” he continues. “You’re unremarkable—not the type lots of clients go for.” He pauses, his hawkish face searching mine. “Alas, it’s not my decision.” His words catch me by surprise, and I watch as he leans back in his chair, cradling his bowl of
café au lait
. “I bow to the countess.” He sighs. “She chose you for her daughter, and there is still time to train you before the Rochefort ball.”

I maintain a contrite expression for his benefit, but inwardly I’m rejoicing—I can live, I can live! He slurps the coffee loudly. “You will be given a base salary during your training. If your first client—in this case the countess’s daughter—is satisfied with your services, you will be instated at full pay, which is base salary plus a commission on each assignment you’re hired for.”

He puts the bowl of coffee on the table, hauls himself out of his chair and belches. He approaches me, tightening the belt of his dressing gown under his expansive gut. He exhales coffee
breath and contempt, and I have to restrain myself from gagging. “I have my eye on you, Mademoiselle Pichon.”

I force a pleasant smile, realizing the implication of his words—I cannot afford to fail with the countess’s daughter. “I will do my best, Monsieur Durandeau.”

“Madame Girard!” he barks to the closed door, and moments later a sinewy woman dressed in black enters the room.

“Madame Girard is in charge of training,” says Durandeau, returning to his breakfast. “She will deal with you from here.”

As Madame Girard approaches, I decide she could pass for a nun. Her mousy hair is scraped into a tight bun, which exaggerates her stern expression—all that’s missing is her wimple. She stops in front of me, yet doesn’t shake my hand or utter any greeting; she simply gives me a hard stare, then addresses Durandeau.

“I will see to it that she fits in, monsieur.”

Durandeau is already consumed by his newspaper. He just snorts in reply, which Madame Girard takes as her cue to show me to the door and usher me into the hallway.

“Follow me.” Her tone is curt. “I’m going to take you to the repoussoir dressing room, where you will be assigned a more experienced colleague to mentor you through the training.” Her perfunctory tone suggests that she has done this introduction countless times.

She pauses in front of the wall clock, pulls out her watch and checks the time, like a matron taking a patient’s pulse. I hear a giggle and look to see a couple of girls lingering in the corridor. “Hortense, Emilie!” Girard shouts. “Get changed at once. There’s a client coming at ten.” The girls take a quick look
at me before hurrying away. Standing here with Girard, I feel like the new girl in school.

“What did Monsieur Durandeau explain to you about the position?” Girard asks me as we continue our march down the hallway, in the same direction the girls disappeared.

I think back to the countess and her friend looking at the women in the salon like accessories to wear. “To be honest, it doesn’t make sense to me,” I say cautiously.

She gives a short sigh. “Just as the jeweler places a thin metal foil under a gemstone to make it shine brighter, the agency places a repoussoir next to a society jewel to make her shine.”

“Oh,” I manage, even though the comparison leaves me clueless. How can my face change the appearance of someone else’s?

Girard continues, “You will be given instruction on manners, dining, clothing, grooming and for you in particular, accent reduction.” She fastens her eyes to mine. “You need to sound as though you come from Paris, not a pigsty. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Madame Girard.”

We arrive at the end of a corridor and enter a noisy room where there must be at least ten or fifteen girls, who immediately stop talking and turn to stare at me. Some are around my age, others in their twenties or thirties; they sit squeezed between dressing tables, mirrors, basins and pitchers of water. Dresses are hanging up around the room, and corsets and bustles are slung over chairs like broken birdcages.

“Marie-Josée,” Girard snaps at the woman in mustard I met on the day of my interview. “We can hear your fishwife laugh
from the hallway. Comport yourself in a more ladylike way at all times, not just in front of clients.”

Marie-Josée smiles, as though welcoming the rebuke. “You could do with a laugh yourself, Madame Girard. Loosen all that stress and responsibility you wear on your face.”

I’m impressed at how bold this Marie-Josée woman is in the face of authority. Girard arches a brow and steps toward her. “Don’t test my patience.”

I watch Marie-Josée’s reaction. She smiles lazily, unruffled, and I sense that she has scored a point.

Girard turns to address the rest of the girls. “Ladies, this is Maude Pichon, our newest repoussoir-in-training.”

I scan the faces of the occupants of the cramped dressing room and they nod a welcome, smile or say
bonjour
.

“Marie-Josée,” Girard says. “As you could do with a refresher of the rules, I’ll assign you to be Mademoiselle Pichon’s mentor.” She surveys the other girls. “There’s a client at ten, and training for the new girls at eleven.”

After Girard leaves it’s as though the room was holding its breath: immediately a rush of air and conversation fills the space. Marie-Josée comes up to me with a broad smile. In her thirties, she’s rotund—as wide as she is tall—with a ruddy face, crooked teeth and a bulbous, fleshy nose, but her eyes sparkle.

“Did the skeleton give you one of her speeches?” At my confused look, she explains, “About the job, how did she describe it? Was it the rule of comparisons, Cinderella’s stepsisters or the metal foil?”

The chatter subsides. I glance at the others and realize
they’re watching our exchange. “She said I am like a metal foil and something to do with jewels.”

Marie-Josée bursts out laughing and holds out her palm. A few of the other girls reluctantly hand her money. They were taking bets on this?

“How do you always win?” asks a blond girl with heavy jowls and small eyes set too close together.

“I have a talent for guessing Girard’s idiosyncrasies.” Marie-Josée belts out another laugh as full as her figure.

The piggy blond girl now approaches me. “Didn’t you have your interview ages ago? Why didn’t you start right away?” Her tone is aggressive, as though she wants to pick a fight.

“Yes, I—you’re right,” I stammer, trying to think of what to say next.

“Cécile, grab that box of pastries,” says Marie-Josée, coming to my rescue. “Unless you’re not hungry?”

In a few moments we are all sitting around, the girls draped over the mismatched furniture, sharing the box of pastries. I am introduced to everyone, which involves my smiling a lot and saying
bonjour
. It’s awkward between bites of croissant; flakes of pastry stick to my lips and between my teeth. Other than Marie-Josée, the only names I remember are Cécile, because she was mean, and another girl called Hortense because she looks like a horse with her long face and big teeth.

Cécile rips her
pain au chocolat
apart with her fingers. “So did you try to find a better job?” She raises an eyebrow. “Hard to beat the wages here, isn’t it?” She pops a strand of pastry in her mouth.

“Leave the new girl alone,” says Marie-Josée. “Entertain us with your latest crush instead. Which client has introduced you to a new dream lover?”

Everyone laughs at Cécile’s expense. Marie-Josée winks at me and I smile back. It’s hard to believe, but for the first time in weeks I am filled with a sense of relief.

T
UGGED AT, BUTTONED UP AND
pulled apart, I am a muddle of new clothes, uncomfortable shoes and alien manners. Almost a week has passed since my return to the agency, during which time I have learned about the dizzying number of courses at a banquet, how to enter and descend a carriage with decorum, as well as countless other rules. Madame Girard says we have to be convincingly of
their
world—just physically repellent enough to make the client shine in the reflection of our ugliness.

I have also learned how much fun Marie-Josée is. In the dressing room she entertains the girls with outrageous impressions of Girard and Durandeau, and during training she ignores the lectures, pulls out her knitting and whispers gossip about her clients.

“What’s the most glamorous assignment you’ve been on?” I ask her. We’re standing in line at the Breton crêpe stand, waiting for our lunch. The agency dining room is serving
langue
de boeuf
today. If there’s one thing Marie-Josée detests it’s beef tongue.

“My favorite assignment? That’s easy—Maxim’s. I ate a mountain of oysters, followed by the fattest lobster tails swimming in butter.”

“Sounds delicious. Makes me hungry to think of it.” I watch as the crêpe vendor flips the wafer-thin pancake on the hotplate, then adds the ham and cheese. “What was the client like?” I ask, then immediately I wish I hadn’t. A flash of the countess looking me up and down makes my appetite vanish for a moment.

“High-class. Everything was the best of the best. Including me.” She laughs at her own joke. “Not like last night. Usually at les Ambassadeurs, I dance and drink champagne at a table up front. But no, this client had me stuck in the back corner drinking a
tisane
.” She shakes her head. “Not a foot set on the dance floor, herbal tea, and my talents wasted.”

It amuses me how Marie-Josée feels as though the social whirl involved in being a repoussoir is all for her benefit. She loves to dance and mingle with people.

The vendor folds our crêpes in half, then into quarters, and wraps them in paper. Marie-Josée hands him some coins and continues her pronouncements on agency clients. “Nouveau riche. That’s the problem. They have the money but no class—all the trappings of high society but can’t quite pull it off.”

There are a few wooden benches nearby, and we take a seat. Marie-Josée’s corpulent figure takes up most of the bench, so I’m forced to perch on the end.