The Third Grace (19 page)

The tour book photographs punched into 3-D around her with dizzying speed while Lou fulfilled her self-assigned duty as guide, pointing to examples of Greek deities in every salon as though she'd at last caught on to Aglaia's intoxication with the mythology and were rubbing her nose in it. Lou stopped in front of a picture of Pygmalion and recounted his tale: The Greek sculptor fell in love with his own ivory creation of a faultless woman and married her after an empathetic goddess filled her lungs with divine breath. Then Lou pontificated on a painting of Eve as Pandora, inflicting misery upon all humanity forever with her witless act of opening the jar of evils held in one hand or biting into the flesh of the forbidden fruit held in the other—the artist left the viewers to decide which. Before a bronze statuette of a young man in traveling boots, Lou related how the death of his mother during pregnancy caused the would-be father, the god Zeus, to tear the fetus from her still-warm body and stitch it into his own thigh from which, upon gestational completion, the child was
born again
.

At that, Lou's eyes glinted with silent laughter. She was ridiculing Aglaia's faith background, but Aglaia didn't share Lou's humor or appreciate her rendition of the myths that had such an impact when Aglaia first heard them from François or discovered them on a library shelf or sanctified them in her daydreams. Lou's accounts were dispassionate, told to make some philosophical or sacrilegious point rather than stir a feeling. The lessons diminished the romance for Aglaia, ruining her pleasure in them through Lou's bleak reduction.

“Slow down,” she complained.

“François will be waiting for you in front of the Three Graces at two o'clock,” Lou reminded her, but Aglaia wasn't stalling. She just wanted to look fresh when they met. An hour now separated her from him, a sliver of time and a few steps instead of what used to be an eternity and an ocean. She couldn't wait! She hardly believed François chose the Graces as their meeting place, and she wanted to ask Lou if she'd planted the idea in his head. But there was no chance to quiz her about it as they ricocheted through the crowded museum. They stopped one last time in front of a statue of an armless woman.

“Venus de Milo, one of the Louvre's most prized possessions,” Lou said, although of course the carving was familiar to Aglaia and she knew its Grecian name: Aphrodite, goddess of love. Lou went on, “Experts say her posture indicates that, in her completeness before she was damaged, she would have been studying an item in her upraised left hand—an apple perhaps.”

Lou gasped as soon as she'd said the words.

“What is it?” Aglaia asked

“Oh, never mind. I just solved a riddle that's been bothering me for a day or two.” Lou smiled at her own secret. “Let me fill you in on some of Aphrodite's exploits.”

Aglaia had a moderate store of knowledge regarding Aphrodite, but most of it related to the goddess's entourage of the Three Graces, her royal handmaidens with the high calling of serving her every demand. Anything to do with the Graces drew Aglaia. But she hadn't made an organized study of the complex body of Greek mythology in which one story intersected another in a baffling maze of versions. So she made no claim to know Aphrodite's every role.

“You've heard about the Trojan War?” Lou asked. She wouldn't be dissuaded from her narration, and Aglaia steeled herself to submit to the tutorial.

“The one where soldiers hid inside a giant wooden horse as a ploy to get inside the city walls, you mean.”

“Yes, that was what the imaginative Homer wrote,” Lou agreed. “But Troy was an existent city, its ruins excavated by a nineteenth-century German archaeologist. The authenticity of the fall of Troy is wreathed in myths, none so intriguing as the part played by this very Aphrodite before whom we stand.”

Aglaia was mistrustful about Lou's emphasis on mythology, especially the stress she was placing on the tales during this museum tour of hers ostensibly for Aglaia's welfare. She chafed under the professor's long-windedness, glancing yet again at her left wrist. It was ten minutes to the hour. Was Lou trying to make her late for the rendezvous?

“The story tells of a wedding feast to which our Aphrodite was invited along with several other major goddesses who, true to form, were very jealous of one another.”

Aglaia tried to listen politely but couldn't concentrate when so many people were standing near them or walking by. What if François were passing them in the same hall, making his way to the Three Graces right now?

“Dissent erupted among them under the direction of the goddess of strife,” Lou said, “who wrote the word
Kallistei
on the surface of—”

“Can you finish this later? We're going to be late.” Aglaia's interruption was beyond rude and she heard the peevishness of her own voice, but she couldn't stand to wait a minute longer. So Lou finally led her at last to the French sculptures in the Sully wing with a promise she'd be in the terrace coffee shop when the meeting was over.

Aglaia dug through her small bag between ticket and passport for a compact to check her makeup. She gave the people around her a quick once-over as well. A couple dressed in matching khakis brushed by her, and several art students slouched against the wall or crouched on the floor as they sketched—but she saw no lone Frenchman in his thirties with, say, with a magazine folded in the crook of his arm and ardor, or kindness, or even simple recognition lighting up his charcoal eyes.

She walked towards the statue grouping Lou had pointed out, transferring from her left to her right hand the Bible she'd carried around the museum since the women traded their baggage for numbered tokens upon entry. The officious guard there had flipped through its pages, questioning Aglaia's feeble reasons for taking it into the palace.

Would François be as incredulous as the guard when she tried to explain the Bible to him? Would he even remember he'd left it behind, or care that her mother had rediscovered it in the moldering trunk? He couldn't guess the effect of his long-forgotten notes on her these past few days, or that she was suddenly reluctant to let the book go. He himself had been so eager to leave it behind—to leave
her
behind—never once in fifteen years phoning or writing. Aglaia should have left well enough alone and never reacted to her mother's suggestion, should have disregarded her own compulsion to find him. Yet here she was in this predicament, hoping François might buy her excuse to look him up, hoping the reunion might ignite something in him. Would he even recall the significance of the Three Graces?

Aglaia approached the statues of the three marble nudes. François had predicted, “I will take you to the Three Graces when you come to Paris,
ma petite
.” And now here she was, the gods having engineered fate in her favor.

Lou had no intention of isolating herself in the museum café, and stood obscured from Aglaia's view behind another of the many nineteenth-century sculptures celebrating the revival of classical antiquity. The irony tickled her: Aglaia, examining the Three Graces, was unconsciously assuming the poses of the statues—shifting her weight, tipping her head—as the Graces in their turn emulated those before Pradier. Lou was tickled as well by Aglaia's abrupt shut-down when she'd told the story of Aphrodite in front of Venus de Milo. Too bad for her, Lou thought; there was more to the Trojan myth than Aglaia allowed herself to hear. But Lou didn't mind having time to read up on details. She'd be able to unburden herself of the story when Aglaia came to her office asking for the translation of François's last Bible note. And certainly she would come.

In fact, the translation might be Lou's last card, as she'd played her hand out to no avail during this trip, the purpose of which from the beginning had been to show Aglaia how useful Lou could be to her career. Aglaia hadn't responded to her overtures of intimacy, her generous expenditure of time and money, or her subtle encouragement to talk about the movie. Even her promotion of the consulting job with PRU's theater department seemed to be falling on deaf ears. What an asinine girl! Lou offered Aglaia a significant leg up and she was being rebuffed. The scene unfolding before Aglaia now was likely to incur her anger, but any emotion was preferable to the blank wall the girl usually projected.

She watched Aglaia fidget, put on lip gloss, even turn a few pages of her French phrasebook—maybe nervous that François would not understand her. Lou hugged herself in sly glee. It was pathetic how Aglaia lingered for him as the hour wore on. Steady, Lou advised herself; let Aglaia have her fill of waiting before breaking in on her. But she acknowledged a twinge of anxiety because her off-the-cuff scheme for the lovers' meeting didn't have a plotted end. All Lou knew for sure was that Aglaia, in ignoring her advances and refusing to take her into confidence, was systematically crushing her dreams and deserved some of her own medicine back.

While Lou waited in the shadows, she reached into her purse for her cell phone and, using the international prefix for calling home, tapped in a text message for Oliver Upton, as ambiguous as possible to protect herself should it be intercepted:

Still in Paris. Trust nomination is proceeding. No leaks for you—sorry. Must depend on your pitch at the gala. Make it good.

Lou had to concede that Aglaia was ignorant of any quote Incognito might be submitting in the bidding process. She'd pushed the issue almost too far when she blundered by referring to the movie in conjunction with the job at PRU, but Aglaia didn't make the connection. Lou's best bet now—perhaps her only option—for attracting the favor of the tenure committee was to hire Aglaia on as theater consultant and keep a close eye on her, so that when credit for the costumes was being given out, she herself would be available and noteworthy. The rules she was forced to bend! And Aglaia was completely oblivious to her unfolding future.

Since she had her phone in her hand, Lou reviewed her electronic calendar for the coming week—her lectures, a meeting to facilitate communication between the sociology and arts departments. Then, of course, she was acting as master of ceremonies for next weekend's function just mentioned in the text message. It was an exclusive dinner of fewer than a hundred guests, arranged jointly with Oliver under the auspices of PRU—though the institution, if asked directly, might officially deem the project outside their educational mandate. They'd be wining and dining a complement of members from the film studio, development team, and investors. Perhaps a screen celebrity or two might even make an appearance. Certainly Dayna Yates was invited; Lou wanted her there to witness the influence she as a tenure candidate brought to the sociology department—to the whole university, for that matter. Aglaia as well had agreed when asked to accompany Lou to the gala, but Lou doubted the girl understood the cruciality of the event, if her attitude towards their shopping this week was any indication.

She wouldn't even try on the gown Lou had picked out for her at the Givenchy shop. It was a perfect choice for the
soirée
at the Oxford Hotel in Denver, since Aglaia was to sit at the head table with Lou. But the girl insisted she couldn't afford it because it was worth four months' salary. Imagine living on that pittance! Instead Aglaia said she'd wear the same dress she'd put on for their dinner the first night in Paris, a little black, low-cut number. So Lou had bought a gown herself, crossing her fingers that Aglaia's homemade frock might be mistaken as a Lacroix or at least a Gaultier.

Her chance to ingratiate herself with the proper people right now rested to a great degree upon Aglaia's ability to impress these same people. After all, Lou was presenting her as a sort of debutante, but Aglaia might not have the will to carry it off. Perhaps Lou needed a back-up plan so as not to be caught off-guard at the gala. On that note, she verified that she did, indeed, have young Whitney Wadsworth's number, then sent her a brief text message inviting her to the affair as well. The university chancellor's granddaughter would make a nice addition to the head table, as though the old fellow himself were attending.

Lou craned her neck around the statue that hid her in order to see Aglaia before the Three Graces, still gawking about for her knight in shining armor. She'd better accelerate her seduction of the girl if she hoped to get any use out of her, Lou thought, but her patience was wearing thin.

T
he life-sized Graces stood on a marble base so that Aglaia had to look up into them like a fourth party, a child approaching a trio of grown-ups who were companions of each other in an intimate alliance. They didn't condemn or condone her intrusion; she was to them a specter, unseen and unheeded while their communion continued. The personification of grace, they were poised as if asking, “May I throw my spell around you, beautify you as I clothed the very gods?” Aglaia could sense their infinite waiting, triplets frozen in marble for all time, three persons chiseled from one substance. They were a tri-unity of personhood.

Aglaia wanted to lose herself in their lifelikeness, to wish them into reality. The pearly grey skin, bellies rounded and buttocks dimpled, dented under their mutual caresses. Did she see the throb of a vein in a neck, or a breast rise and fall? She almost smelled the heat of flesh. Could
their
noses smell,
their
tongues taste? She was nearly persuaded, but their eyes gave them away—sightless, flat, no markings of iris or pupil. Now that she studied them in the flesh, so to speak, she couldn't differentiate them except by their props and their postures. The three faces could be one; there was little to set each goddess apart, and it perturbed her.

The Grace on the left peered downwards as if in expectation that a plant would sprout at any moment from the soil. She held a swag of flowers draped across her thigh and behind her
derrière
to wrap around one sister and up in an encompassing bond over the shoulder of the other, who stared out at eye level across the distance, the back of her hand pressed against the breast of the center figure, wrist softly bent.

But the middle Grace was the one that claimed Aglaia attention. The middle Grace stepped lightly on a jewelry box, like a victor claiming possession or a child at the beach sinking her toe in the sand. She held her chin high, gaze cast heavenward seeking the radiance of the sun or of her father, Zeus.

Aglaia knew her name—knew all their names, read many times since she first saw that postcard, murmured to herself on lonely nights. Thalia, on the left, was the goddess of the garden and all that flourished in nature's abundance; she was given domain over the harvest and brought hearty nourishment to her sisters and all the gods. Euphrosyne, on the right, was the pleasure-giver, goddess of mirth and dance, the life of the party. But the middle Grace, Aglaia, was known as the most beautiful, the brightly shining one, the keeper of treasures.

Aglaia
, her self-approved namesake and her idol.

Golden light flowed through the courtyard windows, bathing the Three Graces, coating their surface without breaking the barrier of their solidity or solidarity. Pradier had carved life
onto
them, told a story out of the marble and it was an enchanting story but incomplete, for he couldn't breathe life
into
them. They were an unfinished covenant, a memorial. They were a tombstone like Lot's wife, a pillar of salt languishing for the cities of destruction, blinded by the gods of their age as, perhaps, Mary Grace had been blinded.

For the first time since she was a teen, Aglaia began to second-guess her decision to change her name, her identity. She found herself inexplicably irritated by the marble statues, as lifeless as Pygmalion's carving before its vivification, as Eve before hers. What had Aglaia, after all, expected from them throughout these years? Seeing the Three Graces in person, Aglaia felt the wind go out of herself.

At that moment, a breath on her neck brought her back to the present and sent a rush of heat to her loins. She stiffened without turning around—François had arrived! She must compose herself, relax her face as she'd practiced in the bathroom vanity before leaving the hotel this morning. She moistened her lips and fixed them in what she meant to be an alluring, Mona Lisa smile, and then she turned at the touch on her arm.

“So he didn't show after all, did he? That's men for you—fickle.” Lou, not François, stood before her. Aglaia surveyed the gallery, bewildered, and Lou continued, “Haven't you waited long enough? We don't want to miss our train to Versailles.”

“He's only twenty minutes late.” Aglaia rubbernecked past Lou but the other woman moved to block her vision.

“He's not coming, Aglaia.”

“He promised,” she said, then stooped to pick up her bag and the Bible resting on it, scanning the room again. Nonplussed, her own voice sounded naïve to her, even puerile. “He likely got caught in traffic.”

“Your Adonis isn't coming.” It was a sneer this time.

Aglaia's stomach lurched and she said, “What do you mean?” Involuntarily she recalled that myth: Adonis was conceived in passionate incest and died in the arms of his lover, Aphrodite, who sprinkled his blood on the ground so that wherever the drops fell, anemones grew. Wherever Aglaia's thoughts of François fell, memories grew.

“You must get over this imbecilic obsession,” Lou said, rolling her eyes. “You can't actually believe I managed to locate François in a city of ten million people with a few phone calls.”

Aglaia's cheeks burned and Lou added with a snort, “François's coming here was a joke, you idiot. Honestly, your gullibility knows no bounds. You've been so fixated on him that it's been ruining your vacation—and mine—so I attempted to distract you, for your own good.”

“A
joke
? You mean you never even spoke to him?” Aglaia asked, incredulous. “You lied when you knew how important this was to me?”

“You've had your nose stuck in that storybook,” Lou said, poking her index finger towards the Bible and then into Aglaia's face, “while the culture of Paris is passing you by. It's beyond me why you would choose some fantasy of romance over what's right in front of you. You have a problem with dealing in real-life issues, Aglaia.”

Aglaia's astonishment gave way to a fury she was only now admitting, though it had been simmering in her mind for days. “I have a problem with believing anything you say!”

“Don't bellow at me, young lady. Show some respect—you owe me at least that.”

“I owe you
nothing,
” Aglaia said, her words chips of glass. “You monopolize my personal life, criticize my friends and family, bully your way into my trip to Paris, and now lie to me about talking to François. I've had enough of you!” Aglaia didn't wait for a reaction but tramped away, tearing open the Louvre pamphlet to get oriented.

“Where do you think you're going?” Lou snatched at her arm but Aglaia shrugged out of her grasp and picked up her pace, heading towards the baggage check to retrieve her suitcase. She had to get away from that woman.

But Lou followed her to the exit and outside of the museum, nattering at Aglaia about her lack of gratitude, about how Aglaia was beholden to her, and then—as though giving up—Lou said to her in a controlled sneer, “I suppose you think you can find your own way to Versailles? Good luck with that.”

Aglaia, still bold, asserted over her shoulder, “I won't be following your agenda any longer, Lou.”

“Is that right? The fledgling is taking wing, making a break for freedom, is she?” Lou's next words impaled Aglaia. “I suppose you're rejecting my ‘agenda' to get you a decent job, too? Watch yourself, girl, or you'll find yourself pounding the pavement for any job at all. You're nothing to Incognito but a glorified shop girl, yet you'd disregard the one break I'm offering you for significance in life.”

Aglaia almost stumbled. She hadn't been thinking straight; she was messing up the deal with PRU. But she regained her equilibrium immediately. She wouldn't be held ransom any longer.

“Don't expect to see me any time soon,” Aglaia said, but she doubted she was heard. She knew Lou wouldn't follow—was counting on it, in fact—but somehow the thought didn't give her much relief.

Aglaia got lost in Paris. She rampaged off the Louvre grounds in a fit like none she'd thrown since her teens, and tromped directionless down this street and that in a temper of a workout. Why would Lou deceive her about meeting François? If she'd put her foot down and refused Lou's accompaniment in the first place, her prospects for finding François on her own would have been better. Now, with her plane leaving in the morning, her chance was gone forever.

Furthermore, she was still laden with the Bible, which was jammed back into the suitcase that throughout her tirade had bounced along behind her and even rolled over the toes of a stylish office girl on her way home from work. That Bible had become symbolic to her of all the baggage she carried around. She'd hoped off-loading it on François would be a finish to things—an end to her memories of him and to the scraps of faith still clinging to the edge of her consciousness like lint from the dryer. But most of all she'd wanted to look him in the face again, to search his eyes for traces of that summer.

Aglaia stood at a crossroads nonexistent on her street map. She'd passed the Picasso museum a while back and the Pompidou Center long ago, but now not one of the fancy
art nouveau
Métro signs was in sight. The sun was getting low in the sky and she didn't want to be left in some seedy neighborhood alone on a Friday night.

By the time she found her way beneath the sidewalk to the Chemin Vert station, her feet and her frenzy were worn out. She pressed her back into the sloping tile wall in front of the tracks and waited till the hollow hum proclaimed the train's arrival, its doors opening with a sigh to exhale and inhale its passengers. A kind man slid over to make room for her, and she wedged her bag between her sneakers and gripped it with her jean-clad knees.

Aglaia drooped on the burgundy vinyl seat, her adrenaline depleted. Listless, she beheld the passing scenery through the window: the blackened walls lined with wires and graffiti, the flashes of waning daylight, the bright bustle at each momentary stop. Anaesthetized by the rhythmic rocking and clatter, she watched the station names pass by: Liberté, Maisons-Alfort-Stade, Créteil-L'Échat.

She was jerked alert by the laughter of a couple of rowdy teens and took note of the
plan du Métro
posted above their heads. She was almost at the end of the line and should return to a larger station near the center of the city to make her transfer out to the airport, she thought. Maybe she'd catch a few hours of sleep on one of the benches there before heading through security; she had no intention of checking in at the nearby hotel even though she'd lose her deposit for the last night's room. She wasn't ready to see Lou again and hoped to forestall facing the professor until boarding time.

République was an onslaught of activity when Aglaia disembarked. She minced past an Algerian beggar huddled at the foot of a column and stopped before a flautist, case open for change as he piped a cheery tune. Aglaia fished out a Euro and dropped it in, then turned back to the poor bundle of rags and gave him a few coins as well before she entered the stream of connecting passengers flowing through the tunnels and up stairways.

At last she broke through to the surface of the station, where shops were open for business. Aglaia grabbed a fast-food
crêpe
, as buttery and sweet as she'd imagined it would be, and then spotted an adjacent Internet café.

She should collect her e-mails at least once while in Paris, she thought, and waited her turn in line at the busy depot. It took her most of her prepaid ten minutes just to negotiate the foreign keyboard before she got to her inbox. A few messages hid amongst the junk mail but she clicked on the one with a startling subject line:
Aglaia or Mary Grace?

Dear Ms. Klassen
, it ran,

I read an article in
Le Parisien
about your meeting at the Musée de l'Histoire du Costume
here in Paris. The photo was unclear, but your
surname is the same as an old girlfriend's of mine, also from the U.S. You must be Mary Grace Klassen, Joel's sister.

Aglaia stopped breathing, her icy fingers inept on the mouse, all thumbs as she scrolled to the bottom of the message. Stunned, she read the closing line typed above the automatic signature and street address of the Tedious Beatnik Taverne:

Love, François Vivier
.

This couldn't be true! Was Lou up to her old tricks again, now e-mailing her under François's name to mock her further? The English was excellent and the timing too coincidental. But returning to the body of the message, she became convinced that the author was no prank writer but her own François. She resumed reading.

I found your e-mail address linked to the Incognito site. You're still sewing, I see! I still sing. In fact, I perform most nights at the cabaret I co-own. I'm sorry to have missed you while you were here. I could have bought you a drink, at least. I like your new name, Aglaia. It unstrings my limbs.