The Unruly Passions of Eugenie R. (27 page)

“My legs hurt,” said Jolie. “The bones aren't setting right, I can feel it.” She closed her eyes; she had gone pale and a sheen of sweat lay over her brow. I went to the window and opened it; the air felt like lead, again. Louise had rattled our chains but left the padlocks without their keys. I found what was left of the laudanum, helped Jolie to the divan. She'd been running through the stuff like wine. “
Chouette,
you're a darling.”

Silence settled as the glint of candlelight flickered over empty plates and jars.

“So, to business?” said Odette. She found a pen and tested its nib against her fingertip.

“What do you think about what Louise said,” I began, slowly. “About—suing for child support?”

Odette said, “Do you want to know what I think?”

“Do we have a choice?” said Jolie, easing back on the pillows.

“That the ground has been torn out from under you, Eugénie. And you have to build it back up again, stone by stone.”

“Like Haussmann and the rue de Rivoli,” Jolie said languidly. Her eyes were a little glassy; the laudanum was sinking in.

“The best lawyer in the world isn't going to get you what you don't feel you deserve. You need to face them. All of them, before you ask any lawyer to do the job for you. This painter—”

“I told Odette about those newspaper articles and
An Unknown Girl.
I thought she might know how to get these
michés
to pay up,” Jolie said.

“Yes, Mademoiselle Cat's-Got-My-Tongue—why was it Jolie who had to tell me?”

I sighed. “Believe me, they don't think they owe me a thing.
You
know, Odette.”

“I want to see those clippings.”

I went and rummaged for them, my gray and fraying little stack of newsprint. The past spring's Salon columns from various papers. Odette became absorbed in them, and when she surfaced, said, “So—fill me in. Who was it that paid off what you owed to those villains at Deux Soeurs?”

“Vollard. He's a sort of—he organizes business for Chasseloup. He sold the painting.”

“For a fortune,” interjected Jolie.

“Hm. So—how did he come to pay your debt to that place?”

“I saw him there. After I left he wanted me to sit for Pierre again, to paint another
Unknown Girl.”

“Presumably, the second time around she'd be
Known
.”

“That's what I said. But they thought I could still be
Unknown
because—I wasn't in the press, at the parties—”

“So?”

“Pierre got angry and refused. When he found out where I'd been.”

“After Vollard had paid up? . . . He had qualms, but Vollard did not?”

“This Chasseloup is a bit of a prig,” Jolie said.

“So, Monsieur Vollard is out his sum. There's one point.”

“Whatever it is, I'm missing it,” said Jolie. Her heavy lids were half-closed and she was stroking Clio's tawny belly.

Odette sat back and tapped her fingers together. “I think that the subject of
An Unknown Girl
has to be launched into society. We can throw a big party. The press will eat it up. Vollard—he might just jump at the chance to get Chasseloup's name in the papers again. What do you think, Jolie?”

“With what kind of lettuce? Who'd stake us?” Jolie, still pale, had rallied but she winced when she moved.

“I have an idea,” said Odette. “Nathalie Jouffroy . . . Well, why not? She could front us the money and invite her friends. We'll have to have them lining up like German princes at a caviar bar, anyway, to get you two through the winter with your chocolate tarts.”

“Well, she'd know how to work this thing, if anyone would. I've never understood this art business,” said Jolie.

“It's a fairy tale people want to believe.”

“Leading to cash being thrown in Eugénie's direction?”

“More at a figment of their imagination, but the money is real enough. I've seen stranger things happen in this city. So if you want my opinion, it's worth a try.”

“I suppose it's odd that people spend a fortune on a picture at all,” said Jolie. “Paint. What is it, really?”

“Chasseloup will never go along with this,” I said.

“Oh, you might as well go for the game and try,
chouette.
”

“I'll tell you about this Chasseloup,” said Odette. “I heard of him, back when I tried modeling. He's been around forever. By the time you came along, not a model in Paris would sit for him; he'd run through them all. He was slow and never paid, never turned up when he was supposed to. Everyone but this Vollard had given up on him. Without you, he'd have been left painting a plate of turnips and then having them for dinner. Now he's got his little corner on fame and fortune, but I've known an artist or two in my time. They all need to chase the press like it's their last hope.”

“And if we have this—party, then what?”

“You
do
make me sing for my dinner as well as bring it along, don't you,” said Odette, yawning. “You are set up for society. You have gone public; you are
launched.
”

“Will I be able to get Berthe back?” I asked, my voice flat.

“Stop making yourself sick on regret,
chouette.
Let me squeeze that bottle,” Jolie said, reaching for the laudanum.

Odette said, “I'll tell you one thing. You need to come out of your child's world of
‘If I do this, may I do that?'
Wait to be told and I'll tell you what you'll get.”

“Or the police will—there's one sure bet,” Jolie said, with mock cheer. “Things can always get worse.”

Odette said, “What do you think, Jolie? About Jouffroy.”

Jolie looked thoughtful. Even now, I didn't know her whole history with Nathalie, how well she knew the woman, and on what terms. “She does love a party, when there's enough in it.”

“Is she interested in art?” Odette riffled the stack of clippings.

“Sure, why not?”

“Eugénie will have to propose it,” said Odette firmly.

“You mean to her? Jouffroy?” I shuddered, remembering my last encounter, sobbing into a handkerchief with the woman towering over me, an iron fist dressed in flamboyant colors, spinning her yarns about wealthy courtesans and ignorant girls.
She
—so confident and certain, bent on culling and selecting—deciding who would live and who die, for that's what it was—she had never seen Lucette's ashen face in the mirror when she put on her kohl and rouge, or heard Claudine weep after a rough night, or listened to Banage's black jokes. Nathalie Jouffroy was never around to hear the silence that fell when Delphine's name came up. And the morning the Dab took Lucette—she hadn't even been allowed back upstairs. I knew because before I left in my own haste, I found her few belongings stuffed under the pallet—among them, a bent and stained
carte de visite
of an older couple wearing photographer's rentals. An empty envelope addressed to Germinie, which must have been her real name. A ribbon; a rhinestone hairpin. No, Nathalie Jouffroy never went far afield of that bank-vault parlor of hers, the countinghouse where she reigned with Émilie Trois and the chief of police. Jolie railed about the Morals Brigade but I didn't find our own keepers any better. If anything, they were worse. Closed their eyes to what was happening under their noses.

“I won't, I
won't
go back there,” I said violently.

Jolie drawled, “Well, she's right—if they meet, it shouldn't be there.”

“And you'll have to be dressed,” said Odette firmly, turning to me. “I don't mean in what you're wearing.”

“We can knock something together,” said Jolie. “Go look now, if you'd like.”

“No, not your bits and pieces, Jolie. I mean Eugénie must be
dressed.
”

Clio made a leap to the tabletop. Reached up her paw and batted Odette's bright feather earring. Odette laughed and gathered Clio onto her lap. “You want to bag a peacock, do you?” She passed me a fresh sheet of paper and a bottle of ink.

“Yes, put the ink pot to good use, for a change,” said Jolie, helpfully.

Odette said, “If you play your cards right, you'll be better off than you are now.”

“All right,” I said slowly, testing the nib. “All right.”

Jolie clapped her hands, once. Clio jumped down and stretched, since it was time for the mice to start scratching in the walls.

“But I need a new nib. No scratches or blots.” I knew what letters should look like; I'd checked my mother's, often enough. I had a good writing hand. Even the nuns at school said so, though I doubted they would say it now.

F
OR A SPREAD OF
days, then, in the dying November light, while students settled down to their books, artists to their ateliers; as my nearest of kin, leagues distant, hurried to prepare foie gras for market, and Jolie painted perfume labels and read Rousseau,
The
Social Contract
propped up on boxes of envelopes, I was remade before the cracked mirror on the rue Serpente.

Odette enrolled the
marchande d'habits,
a kind of traveling wardrobe bank. Madame Récit looked you over with a practiced eye and then lent, at a stiff tariff, what had been culled from Europe's bankruptcies and its best boudoirs, once she ascertained what a girl could pay off, given the requisite ambition and the right clientele. Once she set your price, no shot silk or Indian cashmere would be too expensive; no gilded button, soft kid, ribboned linen, or faked-up Valenciennes lace. From her boxes came giddy clutches of rhinestones, knots of tiny beads; hats ticklish with marabou and ostrich; silks in magenta, sunlight, and silver; crinolines of a fashionable cut and breadth. She had embroidered dance slippers and silk stockings wittily striped or delicately worked, lacy and gossamer-fine. Lorgnettes and opera glasses. Umbrellas with carved handles; tiny confections of evening bags. Everything gone first to the frippery tailor or
rebouiseur,
who brushed up a dulled nap with thistles, pasted over tears, stitched new linings, and ran an inked quill over faded seams. Récit knew the sleight of hand and how her troves could effect marvels of fortune turning. She was a sort of
rebouiseur
herself: making over her clients, women of the better classes whose reputation had undergone wear and tear, those who had entirely fallen off the social ladder and lived now by their appointment books. The balance was made up of those like myself. Aspirants.

Jolie watched and smoked and painted and the rue Serpente garret became a bazaar. Clio dove and hid among the valises and folds of fabric as whalebone tightened around my ribcage. “Enough, enough,” I gasped, fearing for my fragile, newly reknit bones; but Madame said that a cracked rib would be the better for it, and her pearl-gray silk floated and settled over the cage of an undergarment like redemption. Next was a ball dress of chiffon and lemon-colored satin; then a high-cut creation in aniline violet that hitched up to show a bit of boot and a good deal of six layered petticoats. As I rotated in front of the mirror, the feeling of silk and other fine stuff felt like blood returning to my veins. Jolie turned a page and licked her brush.
“
‘Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains.'
”

“Poor bastard,” said Odette. “Got rid of five children at the
tour,
never laced a corset in his life, and he still died a madman . . . The boots need some color; use the embroidered ones. Gloves too pale, black is better with the ivory umbrella. No lace, take it off the collar, and the Comtesse Dash herself could scarcely make any improvements. No jewelry. And the handbag is atrocious. Find another.”

“If you have to go to the trouble to carry a handbag, you'd better be sure it's stuffed to the gills. I'd rather a skirt with a dozen pockets, myself,” said Jolie.

“Aren't we just talking about one evening?” I ventured, as Madame Récit's fingers twitched and fussed.

“I am growing ambitious; what do you think, madame?” said Odette.

“She's a glory, demure with a touch of the wild, rustic but decorous.”

“Or decorated,” said Jolie.

“Perfect as a picture!” said Madame, clasping her hands, although I failed to see how violet silk was demure. But the view in the mirror was felicitous, we all had to admit.

“Now, these half-corsets precede the full. You won't ever want to appear unlaced, even in your own boudoir.”

“Clio won't mind,” said Jolie.

Odette intoned sonorously, as if reading from a
cocotte
's instruction manual: “To cultivate a clientele, you'll have to start reading the society papers and the financial news. If the money is in rail, go to Legrand. If it's in textiles, to the rue Saint-Marc at midday, to Lyonnais. When it's in art, the rue Drouot. When the Bourse goes up, the
courtes
go up. And when the Comte de Whomever is marrying Mademoiselle de Something-Else, you'll find out where he buys jewelry and luggage. In which case the odds are better than roulette.”

“Not by so much,” said Jolie.

“You're just lazy,
minouche.
”

“No, I don't want the trouble of some old
muffe
falling in love with me.”

“Love is your trump in the commerce department, my dear,” said Madame Récit. “Now, with you, I could perform miracles.” She dove once again into her bags. “Might I tempt you?”

“No, but thank you anyway,” said Jolie, as though declining teacakes from a gracious hostess. I suppressed a laugh.

 

Madame Récit fostered the notion, soft as a whisper, that whatever the difficulty, she alone provided the remedy: the armor against the world's troubles and the ill-deserved feminine plight. Murmurs about Mademoiselle So-and-So's bad luck, or the Baroness-of-That, all over the society columns but no baroness at all and poorer than she looked. She barbed and placated; scolded and persuaded; soothed and remonstrated; dripped like laudanum. Plucked and tacked as though fine dress was a privilege she alone could grant. Only at the very end, after I had signed the promissory note, did she fall into a plaintive tone, that of the old woman past her talent days, and wouldn't we know it ourselves, in time! . . . Ah, well: the very seam of grief, the stitches that held in place the injuries of the past; it was the thread leading to the future, was it not?