The Unruly Passions of Eugenie R. (36 page)

“Open it!”

A handful of news clippings fluttered out from between the pages of a letter. The first was from
Illustrated London News
dated August 6. Lili snatched it and smoothed it out on the tea tray.

Lili said, “Oooh. Look at this.” And we did, while our drinks sweated in the heat. The picture was very different from our own artists' renderings, printed in the French papers. It showed peasants with flat spades, in a pelting rain, burying bodies on a battlefield.
Burying the French dead at Woerth,
said the caption—even I could read that much in English.

“Could this be?”

“Here is the
Pall Mall Gazette,
with no pictures. Dictionary?”

We picked out the words, one by one. “You don't have to be a medium to see what is going on,” said Lili pensively.

“All of the battles—Forbach, Froeschwiller, Woerth, Spicheren—were French defeats?” asked Francisque, puzzled. “Do you think the English papers are telling the truth? Spicheren is near Saarbrücken, I think, but the army won there. Didn't they?”

“Well, the prince imperial . . . as we know . . .”

“Yes, yes! Who could forget?” said Lili. “I think that—this is why they won't let this news into France.”

We sat silent, and Sévérine removed the tray, casting a questioning glance at us as we sat still as statues, with a few pieces of newsprint where the cards usually were.

“What does Odette say?” asked Francisque finally. “What is she doing in London?”

I scanned the page and read aloud, summarizing. “The Préfecture's violation was . . . classified as a crime rather than an offense, so the matter was referred to the
ministère public.
We applied to him, and he put the complaint in his wastebasket in the name of the ‘Principle of Authority.' According to this good principle, the police cannot be tried for a crime. And we cannot prosecute that
frotteur
for reporting what he believed was a crime.”

“So you
can't
sue the Préfecture,” said Lili.

I continued. “‘My lawyer then sent a letter asking that my name be expunged from the Register—”

“
What?
” exclaimed Francisque.

“He denounced her for rejecting him, so she was put on the Register, of course,” said Amé.

I kept on reading. “But meanwhile, the police had the right to arrest me whenever they liked. As a result, at my lawyer's suggestion I have removed myself to London. In fact, he has accompanied me. I am seeing the sights and sitting out the war. And we are investigating the work of some English women who are suing against the Act of Contagious Diseases. Please tell Lili that I have seen an excellent dental surgeon . . .”

 

Later that evening, to distract ourselves, we went to see that famously bawdy queen of the
cafés chantants,
Mademoiselle Thérèse, who was doing a special performance at the Gaïté. We were accompanied by a group of officers: de Ligneville, de Montarby, Savaresse, others. The chorus was satirically costumed as revolutionaries of the past century: soldiers with ancient rattling swords, peasants, bourgeoisie, and so forth. The scenery was fragmented, falling apart. Thérèse herself wore a red skirt with blue stockings and a white sash; with her sleeves rolled up washerwoman-style and her bodice very low, she sang “La Marseillaise
”
with great and winking fervor. We all laughed along with the rest. “How we love to mock ourselves,” said Francisque. “Odette will miss that, with the English.”

So Odette left before the Paris walls closed, and that alone was worth the price of her lawyer.

S
TRASBOURG, NOW: EVERYONE
spoke of Strasbourg, first in low tones, then at an escalating pitch. “How is the defense going, what is happening?” “Strasbourg holds out!” “That city cannot be defended; it is riddled with spies.” “London reports that the Prussians have opened fire.” “Strasbourg is a proving ground; Paris is next. Look at the structure of the Strasbourg walls.” “The Prussians would not dare. We are five times the size of Strasbourg!” “Do you think we are next?” Eager chroniclers, boulevardiers of the conflict, were available for consultation. One could clock the moments of change, when something became something else. Certainty became doubt; Strasbourg went from being distant to very close. The new fashion in panniers turned into the “bulletproof” silk bodice. Carelessly extravagant dinner parties became canned goods from Potin's, scurrilously hidden.

We went from solid ignorance to greater familiarity with maps, and eastern railway lines, and where they could be disrupted; the status of the fortifications girdling Paris. Fleeting rumors were heard about uniforms, sugar supplies, absent battle gear, and phantom victories. The papers continued to present bloodless marches and brave scenes. On any given day, flags flew from windows and victory lamps were lit; the next, the flags were snatched from sight and the lamps extinguished. The nonstop “La Marseillaise” ceased its drone and an eerie silence fell; a single pair of boots echoing on the cobbles the only sound. At the rue du Mail, nerves ran high; Sévérine was forever running up and down stairs with cold rags, smelling salts, and pots of tea for someone's
crise
and looking as though she could use some relief herself.

By the end of August, the heat was intolerable; travel on foot beyond bearing. Waste clotted the gutters; mountains of rubble and garbage had grown up like barricades; the Seine ran turbid with waste. We lifted our skirts and held handkerchiefs to our faces to walk to the corner. The
fouille merdes,
the cesspool workers, the sewer-and-rubbish men, had all been German and they had either left or been shot, just as Jolie predicted. No one had considered the consequences of this robust defense of the capital. In every corner black flies clustered, and with them arrived the flux of watery diarrhea, cholera's first sign.

 

Jérome Noël's hair had thinned, his jowls thickened under his Louis Napoleon beard. It was nearly a decade since I had first stood before him, a pale, trembling girl, as he presided over the Register of the
inscrits
. Now, as lieutenant, he made his lair in an interior office with a green-shaded lamp, with his silver-framed photographs of Madame Noël and the children dressed in their Sunday best, along with a framed
carte de visite
of the imperial family. Noël carried upon his shoulders a burden of licensing, regulating, and policing upper-echelon
tolérances,
but he was a clean-desk man and actually disliked corruption. He made a great effort to conduct proper research into families, to keep underage girls and foreign traffic out of the
tolérances
and clean bills of health inside. In many ways he was an admirable officer and these past few years I'd seen a good deal of him. However, a summons to the Préfecture was a bit out of the usual; generally I reported directly to Nathalie.

And so, turning down his corridor and tipping my nose to the fevered activity there, the rushing of uniforms to and fro that late August—I wondered, what next?

***

“You have been helpful to the Préfecture, Mademoiselle Rigault, your contribution to the public health. But a matter of greater importance has arisen.”

Noël seemed nervous; his well-nourished paunch pressed against the edge of his desk. Noël had inked me; Noël held the power of erasure, and it occurred to me that I should seize the opportunity before it was too late. With this precariously ill-planned war, a capital seething with anxiety, train stations filled with our former clientele—any remaining visitors and the fleeing well-to-do—how important was arresting girls under street lamps? Noël's pale mustache hairs twitched.

“Madame Jouffroy is a native of Strasbourg. You have traveled with her, from time to time?”

“Yes. But not to Strasbourg.”

“A beautiful city that will never fall.”

“Surely not. If there are setbacks, they will be turned around.” These were the patriotic utterances of the day, and I faithfully recited my part.

“Persons of Prussian or German extraction were turned away from the Maison des Deux Soeurs from what date forward, if you please?”

“Why—I don't know. Certainly the clients have always been international. Perhaps Madame Trois—”

“You are aware of Nathalie Jouffroy's aliases?”

“No.”
But who doesn't have other names, on our end of things?

“You defend her, Mademoiselle Rigault?”

Defend her, Nathalie Jouffroy? My employer, the woman to whom I owed my relative freedom—who was I to defend her or not? However, Noël's words set a dozen scenes playing through my mind: Nathalie on the arm of various uniformed officers; Nathalie speaking German, in which she was fluent (but also in Spanish); Nathalie before her mirror, dictating letters while at her toilette. Nathalie on her way to Baden-Baden this past July. Vain, self-absorbed, preoccupied with anything that offered a diversion or turned a profit—and who had half of Paris at her beck and call. Never mind which half; the woman had her admirers, some very high placed . . . So Noël was turning his back on Nathalie, who has lined his pockets and has done him a dozen favors a week for fifteen years.

I was the tiniest of cogs—not even the speck of oil on the smallest gear of this vast administrative machine now being dismantled and put to another use; from peacetime surveillance of the
non-inscrits
to turning up Prussian spies under every rug. Oh, I'd gone down the road with them—find this girl, that Brigade officer, these theater tickets, or that racing box. Around every bend, a new helter-skelter set of urgencies. Now it was spies, supposed spies, possible spies, someone's idea of who a spy might be, a neighbor one didn't much like, an old score settled. Was it a sign that Noël was out in the cold at the Préfecture if he was sniffing round Nathalie, betraying his line commander in yesterday's war? Did he need a promotion from poor girls to Prussian informants; was I the day's best prospect?

“She has always been Nathalie Jouffroy to me,” I said quietly.

“No information at all, then, Mademoiselle Rigault?”

“I know you understand, sir, that my desire is to offer my best efforts to the Préfecture.”

“Mademoiselle Rigault, I am aware of your service and your circumstances. I recall you standing before me as a young girl . . . perhaps unjustly. However, you have had opportunities that others have not, to learn and improve yourself. If you can be helpful to us in the matter, when the war is over you could find your situation much changed. Now. Let me share with you a few facts about the woman you know as Nathalie Jouffroy.”

 

The promised papers arrived at the rue du Mail for my signature the next day. A stew of accusations—purported dates of travel, meetings, engagements—Noël had run down a list of names I had never heard. I sat with the papers at my desk, crossing out words and clauses; deleting facts to which I could not attest. Sick-headed, queasy, and sleepless . . . Oh, I wanted to save myself once and again, a final time, for good! Should I trust Noël, denounce Nathalie, risk my livelihood on a chance? Would any of it matter; would it just go with a fistful of others into the dossier? I didn't know what was true; wanted to have it both ways, get off the Register and stay in Nathalie's good graces; have it all matter as little as possible and go back to
manille.

Oh, but you've forgotten, it is war and everything has changed.
Around the baize table, with our English-French dictionary and the
Pall Mall Gazette,
we learned that the emperor was so ill, he wore rouge on his cheeks into battle, and the empress now slept in her clothes. But I was too distracted to play cards, and that evening it was my headache that Sévérine ministered to with cold cloths and salts.

Again at my desk, head in hands, pressing a damp cloth to my temples. I could no longer focus my thoughts . . . Once this Prussian mess was over and done, Noël needed to marry off his Josephine properly and send little Louis to officer's school; he was looking for his best chance. Of Jouffroy I could believe anything. What was black or white; what would save my roof or salvage my soul? I felt corruption breaking over my head like a stormy wave at Trouville bringing in a filthy tide . . . and if one decides not to drown—
what?
That had been the question since my painted life with Stephan at La Vrillette cracked and turned brown. And at Trouville . . . what had I learned? That at life's ebb and flow, I was an apprentice.

 

While Jolie and I stood on the beach on our brief holiday, watching a storm roll in and the white spray scurrying up the flat sands, catching women in their bathing dresses, making them run—she told me that she loved Louise; that Louise was, perhaps, her first real, first unrequited passion. I learned that she had loved her from the beginning; through the fairy tales and the Civil War and for all of the months after that, whenever she could see her, wherever she was. That it was hopeless every time, for Louise loved nothing, and no one, but her revolution. “She really
does
want the
inscrits
to organize into trade unions,” said Jolie miserably. “That's why she came around at all. She thought I could help the cause.”

I stared at the gray sea, hearing but not hearing; not wanting to hear. The roar of the wind and waves provided some cover for my stricken heart; for I had my answer at last. Finally I said (rather traitorously), “It's not the worst idea in the world. Think of Banage. And Lucette, and Olga—whatever happened to Olga?”

“Saint-Lazare infirmary happened to Olga, what do you think?”

My friend stared out to sea, frozen in her unhappiness. Written all over her face, the familiar strain of love that, at least for a time—sees only itself. The waves roiled in and out; taking away what had been on the beach, throwing up something new. And now, and now—Jolie was ill and I had to run and catch up to a war.