The Unruly Passions of Eugenie R. (18 page)

In practice, on the street, the Brigade des Moeurs didn't check information in the Register before apprehending a girl; rather, they judged her by her dress and behavior, and then stepped in if they pleased. She might be a registered girl who had committed some infraction, or a
non-inscrit
—a “clandestine” who really did have something to hide. Or she might be merely an innocent going about her business, who somehow aroused suspicion. It made us all vulnerable and helped explain why nearly all women disappeared at dusk; why they wore this or that—playing, as adeptly as they could, this guessing game. I took to avoiding everything I imagined an
inscrit
might tend to do, the places where she might go, and how she might attract the eye of the Brigade—easier said than done, because
inscrits
were forbidden to behave or dress in any way that could be described as tempting, a quite inclusive category. As a result, every unescorted female under thirty was behaving in approximately the same way—suspiciously, in the eyes of the police. She was presumed guilty unless married, rich . . . or a real
cocotte
decked out in finery and driving her carriage through the Bois
.
I did not yet understand this contradiction, how that other tier of women operated—as open and brazen as tulips in June, plying a trade in kings, princes, and the empire's wealthiest men.

Some of Chasseloup's grocery money went to a cheap gold-colored band to slip onto my finger whenever I left the Impasse—it went, I told myself, with my condition, and provided camouflage. I was rather proud of this innovation; marriage was a sacrament of the church, and most girls would not dare go so far. I shopped always in crowds, avoided the arcades and boulevards; took care to steer clear of single men, or girls who might view me as “competition.” I walked without stopping or appearing to look up, while making a covert study of gray coats: where they traveled, at what times; where they ate and attended the
pissoir.
Whom they noticed or stopped; what they did, when they did it. It was a lonely business, shot with bouts of alarm.

As for what I was wearing, the indigo gown had stood me in good stead. It was proper looking, not too worn, and nondescript. I had let out its side seams a little, gusseted them with fabric from the hem. And soon it would be too small.

 

Chasseloup and I seemed to have crept around to some kind of understanding, but matters were hardly settled. His only interest in dresses concerned the one he wanted to paint—so I resorted to the only solution I could come up with—the secondhand market back on the rue du Temple. Near the Mont de Piété and only a stone's throw from Deux Soeurs, and for all I knew, another of Françoise's trawling grounds. But after another week, need had gotten the better of wisdom.

The fripperer's bins were a sea of secondhand flotsam: ancient handbags, fossils of shoes, shawls of every fabric. Crinolines hung like giant birdcages amid Turkish carpets, mantillas on strings, racks of whalebone stays, and tattered point lace. Hordes of shoppers behaved like pecking flocks, like the ruckus of a goose pen. My arm was one among many raking hastily through the bins, clutching at sleeves or a bit of hem, tossing and clawing for any decent scrap: nothing dyed too bright, cheap-looking, or gaudily trimmed. Bursts of argument flared when opposing hands grabbed at the same bit, and bargaining and bartering clamored all around. We all wanted the same rare item: a suitable dress in summer fabric; decent gloves, a bonnet, a pair of shoes not entirely worn through. A few of these dangled overhead on hooks, just out of reach. Their prices, written on fluttering yellow tags, were nearly as much as those in the shops.

A serviceable stretch of sepia-colored material fell under my hand, but no sooner did I tug it out from the pile than I felt an opposing pull. Tired and frustrated, I cried out just like my noisy neighbors and seized it harder, determined to win or tear the thing to shreds. We struggled for a moment, then the other side abruptly let go, nearly dropping me into the lap of the
patronne.
Astonished, I looked up. My opponent was tall, sloe-eyed; red-gold hair falling from its pins.

She grinned and dived, tossing a moth-eaten tippet in my direction. I gasped, dodging it. And she came slouching around the bin, irreparably herself, dressed in a man's smoking jacket over a dress that had seen better days. The
patronne
glanced up and jerked her chin.
Out of here, with you.

“What are you doing, you little idiot?” Jolie growled. “Don't you know this place crawls with Brigade boys?” And the world rolled around again—turned up its nether side, and peculiarly, it looked and smelled and felt like relief.

 

We passed through high-walled, cobble-broken streets so narrow, we had to flatten ourselves against the walls when a vehicle passed. Workshops sat chock-a-block: an iron filer, a gem polisher, a window of watch chains. Walls painted with advertisements for
VINS
and
BIBERONS
.
Finally we turned into an alleyway even more cramped and ancient, the walls leaning in so they nearly touched at the top.
Rue des Vertus.
Haussmann's work carts had apparently passed it by.

“Virtue takes a narrow path,” said Jolie. “This street's all ours.” She parted a set of ragged door curtains, ducked inside. My eyes adjusted to the dimness of a room furnished with a few chipped marble tables barely bigger than plates. A kind of café, a no-name place without window or sign. Jolie dropped her bag, a cloth sack tied with a drawstring (like a thief's), disappeared, and came back with a
pichet
of thin-looking wine and two glasses.

“I used to live up on the corner,” she said. “Six floors up. My window looked onto Gravilliers. Once I thought I'd live and die here. Still—it's the only café in Paris where we won't be bothered . . . You're growing past your clothes; is that why you were at the Temple? You shouldn't, you know. What's that on your finger—?” Jolie divided a cache of tobacco. It lay in fragrant, curly little piles; she methodically separated and smoothed cigarette papers and deftly rolled the first.

“You're out of there, then?”

“Bit of a tip-up with Françoise.”

“Not on my account, I hope.”

“Well, what if it was?”

“I'd be sorry to have put you to trouble!”

“You are nothing
but
trouble. But no. It was over Bette. Some cigarettes, Françoise's private cache that she kept to sell to the
michés
—not cutting the house in on her markup, don't you know—but I had tipped Bette to light-finger them. Françoise caught her in the business, looking for them under a stack of chemises in the parlor—I'd told Bette where they were! But she doesn't have the hand of a thief, alas—”

“Poor Bette!” I had to laugh, imagining the scene, the submistress red as a beet and buzzing mad.

“I've deviled her anyway, Françoise, for selling under the table. But Bette can't afford to lose her job, she's got two little brothers to support, and a father with the gout. Jouffroy and Trois weren't too hard on me; they helped me make an arrangement. Didn't want to lose their submistress over a pile of cigarettes! Well, it's summer anyway—a good time for fresh air.”

She got up and slouched over to the bar for a light. Women relaxed on mismatched chairs, smoked, poured wine from their
pichets.
They didn't appear to be the right kind of woman, nor the wrong; and a spectrum of wardrobes was represented: from shopping-arcade gowns to maid's dresses to eccentric combinations like Jolie's. All mixed together; these women just
were,
as though they'd a right to be there. One sat alone reading
L'Opinion.

“You see?” said Jolie, sliding back into her seat. “That's what I want to do.”

“What?”

“Read. Know without asking, for once. There's a school near where I stay now, just around the corner in the rue Hautefeuille. A teacher there will see me for free. Now—what have
you
gotten yourself up to?”

She poured. And poured again; we passed her rolled cigarettes between us. I told her I was staying with Chasseloup, and she eyed the ring on my finger again. “So. Model marries painter, happy ending? I may not read much, but I've heard the fairy tales.”

“It's a fake,” I said, uncomfortably.

“Ah.” And then she pushed back her chair. She had to go and meet Louise. Her teacher. When she said the name, her eyes sparked.

 

A few flights up the stairs on the Impasse de la Bouteille I stopped to rest, breathing heavily; a few provisions and my stash from the rue du Temple weighed me down. Madame-who-lived-on-the-fifth gave me her fisheye stare through her cracked-open door. Chasseloup was dining out, which was just as well. He and Jolie jangled in the mind like two animals that should not be placed side by side in cages at the menagerie at the Jardin des Plantes
.

A sooty stain had accumulated on the wall over the stove because of my enthusiasm for cooking with a more inspiring range of ingredients. I lit the stove, though the coal was down again; tossed a few bones into the pot and cut up a carrot and an onion. Then took up the brown-flecked fabric from the fripperer's bin. A solid in a dull color, but rich enough to gather into graceful folds.

From the window, a pool of light from one lamp, then the next, as the lamplighter made his way. He lit the nearest lamp, then the one across from the hat maker's porte-cochère, and passed on to the rue Montorgueil. It had begun to rain; the street glistened. A lone girl, bareheaded, with her shawl pulled around her, appeared in silhouette under one lamp, then drifted to the next. For a moment her face turned up, as though to look at me, and I shivered with her chill, not my own. The sky was black and I closed the shutters.

I had planned to use the indigo dress as a pattern to make over the new one, and then use some additional fabric to expand its waistline, to create two serviceable garments. I separated the waistband from its skirt, ripping seams and pleats. Slowly; I was no seamstress. When I checked the soup again, the fire had gone out and a skin of whitish fat had congealed on top.

After I'd relit the fire and returned to my work, I noticed something had fallen out of the indigo dress's waistband. A pale square of pasteboard, about the size of my palm, which had been sewn inside. Inscribed with a name—a female name. I knew what it was.

Carte de brème
—
carte de brème—it's only after a few days that it begins to stink!
The genuine article, dated and stamped. I had no such
carte.
But the original owner of the indigo dress did. I'd been carrying it all along.

 

Voices from the hall shook me from where I sat staring at it, pins and fabric scattered about. Chasseloup's voice and another man's and a third voice, lighter. Feet stamped; umbrellas were shaken. Flare of the gas lamp just inside the door. The flicker lit up a girl's blonde curls, her elbow-length black gloves, as she tugged at the fingertips with her teeth. Her other arm was linked through Chasseloup's. When she saw me, the girl's lips widened into a silent O
.

“Sweetheart,” she began, in a clotted voice.

“Eugénie! What are you—? Vollard needs a drink, so I invited him up—” Chasseloup's voice slurred like an idiot's; his posture was half-reeling. A cloud of liquor over both men, with the chill of the night; the third of the party angled into the tiny room.

“I just want a look at that canvas you claim is not blank.” Vollard glanced in my direction and began to laugh. “Why, if it isn't is the ‘unknown girl.' I'd heard you were back in the picture!”

You may remember that that year, tropical flowers were the fashion—orchids, hibiscus, and gingers grown through the winter in heated glasshouses. Melodrama was in vogue too; a commodity in itself—it was the kerosene that the empire burned. What was in me was also ready to ignite, although I could afford neither melodrama nor orchids; and a quickening voice might have told me so, had I cared to listen. But cold fury at seeing the girl hanging on Chasseloup's arm, and panic and humiliation at the sight of Vollard—whose shoulder I had all too recently dampened on a sofa at Deux Soeurs—carried me, in three steps, across the wedge-shaped room, from the divan to the stove. I flung open the window; with one gesture seized the soup, cold as rain under its sheath of fat, and dashed it to the street, bones and onions and carrots—hurling the pot after it. I wanted to hear the clatter all the way down, six flights, to the street, smash iron against stone. Some buried, long-banked rage—at the whole nauseating faithful ignorant attempt at—
what?
I grabbed the fresh white
ficelle
from where it was resting and flung it after the pot.

Chasseloup had retreated to the cupboard alcove, his back turned. Vollard was pouring himself a drink. The girl had not made a move to leave—just the opposite; she settled herself on the divan. Her eyes were narrow and too close, and her white fingers were smooth. She looked stupid as lead, and determined to get her lousy coin for the evening. I took a look at her, and she at me, before I decided—well, it was hardly a decision, not a strategic move, but a furious, impetuous one, almost a bodily reflex, like vomiting.

“Wait!” called Chasseloup, but I was done with waiting.

Down the million stairs, flinging myself around each landing, dizzy at the bottom. Nausea, emptiness at the center, as I headed toward the river and Notre Dame. I walked to keep moving, to keep myself from thinking.
Inside me there was a ravenous something, tearing at my guts, keeping me from being still, from any clear thought.
Three flights down, I realized that I was wearing only a dressing gown of Chasseloup's. It was raining. And I had left the
carte
on the divan.