Lost in Paris

by Elizabeth Thompson

  I use the tissue in which I’d wrapped it to wipe away as much dust as I can.

  The upper left corner of the small blue book’s cover is embossed in gold with the year 1940. A piece of satin ribbon is wrapped around the four sides of the diary and tied in a scant bow on the front like a gift.

  The dust has settled into the fibers, turning the tie a grayish hue. I imagine it must have once been a soft ballet pink, like a ribbon off a ballerina’s pointe shoe, when the author of these pages tied it around the little book with such loving care.

  I’m careful as I unfasten it, half expecting the threads to crumble in my fingers like the drapery tie. But it stays intact.

  As I open to the first page, the glue that binds the pages cracks, but other than that, the book is in remarkably good shape.

  The inside cover is printed with This is my personal diary for the year 1940. My heart leaps when I see Ivy Braithwaite scrawled in indigo ink. I run my finger over the pretty script. It’s Ivy’s hand, and it speaks to me clearer than if she were standing here in the flesh.

  A link from the past to the matriarch I knew and loved, and when she was close to my age.

  I pull back my hand, not wanting to mar the pages with the dust that clings to the crevices. For a moment, I contemplate waiting until I can clean it up better so I won’t damage it.

  Then I hear Marla turn on the shower tap, and I realize that the next fifteen minutes might be my last bit of time alone for the next twenty-four hours or so. If I want to look at it uninterrupted, it’s now or never.

  I thumb through the whole thing quickly at first, noticing that the entries stop on April 16. Then I open to the first page to meet the young woman who brought me here.

  January, 1940

  Paris, France

  Dear Diary,

  A new year, a new diary. Usually, this is a happy time, a clean slate, a new beginning. But I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what this year holds for us. I can hardly bring myself to write of frivolity and pointless fancy, which consumed me this time last year. Now, everything is different. Andres and I didn’t even ring in the new decade with a party. Nobody was in the mood. It felt wrong. Instead, we spent a quiet night at home. We were asleep before midnight. The old year slipped away, nudged out by this new period of uncertainty. The silence that permeates all aspects of our life is symbolic of what’s happening in the world.

  They’re calling it a “phony war” because after Hitler invaded Poland in the fall, England and France declared war on Germany. Paris began mobilizing, but since then, there has been no military action. I listen to the news with keen interest and I’m hungry for any word from home. But what I’ve heard says that all is calm in England.

  So many months have gone by without any fighting (and believe me, I think that’s a very good thing) that if Andres wasn’t so concerned, I’d be inclined not to give this “phony war” much thought. But he is still cross because France won’t let him fight—they don’t want him because of the deafness in his left ear. Even so, he insists that if France goes to war, he will help on the home front. All he talks about as of late is resistance. I don’t ask him to explain the things I eavesdrop at the weekly meetings he holds at his apartment, because it sets him off. Normally, he is such a gentle, loving man. But I suppose waiting in limbo has many people on edge, including myself.

  Is it terrible that I am happy Andres won’t have to fight in the traditional sense? I suppose I’m selfish and weak. Andres is my weakness, my world. I wish the two of us could exist in this little bubble that is our apartment. I call the place ours, even though it’s mine, because he is here almost every night. His apartment has become a meeting spot for the resistance. A place dedicated to secret planning and plotting. That’s fine. He stays here with me. I love having him here. Him with his novels and me with my sewing.

  I hate to begin the new year—the new decade—on such an uncertain note. Maybe tomorrow I will have happier news to report. Even if Andres cannot see the good in humanity, I will hold enough hope in my heart for both of us.

  “What are you reading?”

  I jump at the sound of Marla’s voice. I’d been so engrossed in the diary I didn’t hear the shower stop or the bathroom door open.

  She’s standing there in the hotel-issued bathrobe, blotting her red hair with a towel.

  For a moment, I consider not telling her what I found, because I don’t want to share. I’m still trying to process it. Is the Andres Ivy mentions in the diary Andres Armand? She wrote, “Him with his novels…” Is that why she saved the newspaper clipping? She speaks of him so intimately. Obviously, even though they had their own apartments, they were living together.

  “What?” Marla asks. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “I found Ivy’s diary in the apartment and brought it back with me.”

  Her eyes widen and she stops towel drying her hair.

  “Was it okay to take stuff from the apartment?”

  “Monsieur Levesque said it was fine. Why wouldn’t it be?”

  She blinks at me. Offers a one-shoulder shrug.

  “It’s our apartment now,” I say. “Lock, stock, and barrel. When did you become such a rule follower?”

  She snorts.

  “It feels weird taking things. Maybe I should’ve brought some of the paintings here.”

  “It doesn’t mean we have to dismantle the place,” I say.

  “Oh, I’m sorry; it’s okay for you to take the diary, but not for me to take the paintings.”

  I roll my eyes. “Fine. Bring the paintings here. Where are you going to put them?”

  She glances around the room. Nods at a large oil painting of the Eiffel Tower. “We could ask the hotel to remove that one and hang Ivy there.”

  “That painting is probably bolted to the wall. They’re not going to remove it for us. Plus, we’re going to check out and move over to the apartment as soon as we can clean up the place.”

  I feel like I’m negotiating with a child. I’m surprised she hasn’t looked to see if the Eiffel Tower painting is, in fact, affixed to the wall.

  “How’s Ivy’s diary?” She lowers herself onto the edge of my bed. “Anything juicy?”

  Against my better judgment, I open the book and show her the inside cover where Ivy had written her name.

  “If by juicy you mean Ivy talking about the uncertainty of war in Paris, then yes.”

  “Ivy was here during the war?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t gotten that far yet. She started the diary on January first. She was sporadic about writing, but she was definitely living in Paris just before the Germans invaded. She mentions an apartment. I guess it’s the one on square la Bruyère. She mentions a man named Andres.”

  Marla’s left brow shoots up. “That’s exactly what I mean by juicy. I wonder if he’s the writer guy from the newspaper clipping?”

  “Andres Armand? It could be the writer. She references his novels. Then again, the Andres she mentions might love to read and have a lot of books.”

  Marla thumbs through the diary and squints at a page. “The diary is for the year 1940?”

  I nod.

  “Mom was born in December of 1940.”

  We look at each other and I can virtually read Marla’s mind.

  A sinking feeling pulls me down. “For Gram to be born in December, Granny Ivy had to conceive in March 1940, a few months after she wrote this entry.”

  “But wait—was Ivy with Tom when she wrote this? When did she meet Tom?” Marla continues to thumb through the diary and I want to tell her to be careful not to damage it. It’s not the latest issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.

  “A lot of pages are blank. Looks like her last entry was April 16, 1940. Did you see Great-Grandpa Tom’s name anywhere?”

  “No.”

  The story we know is Ivy met and married Tom in Bristol just before war broke out. He sent her to the United States to live with his family in Florida.

 
; It never crossed my mind to ask her for specific dates or details. All we knew was that she was a war bride. After that, she lived in Florida for the rest of her life.

  There was no reason to dig deeper. We had no reason to question the timeline.

  “Why didn’t we ask for more details about her life when she was alive?” I say. “When she could’ve given us the answers?”

  Marla tsks. “That’s assuming she would’ve shared this with us. I mean, if she was seeing Tom and this Andres at the same time… That’s sort of a bombshell, don’t you think? Especially back in those days.”

  “It is. Do you remember Ivy and Tom ever celebrating or even talking about their anniversary?”

  Marla wrinkles her nose. “I don’t. At the time I didn’t pay much attention, but now that I think about it, it seems weird. Then again, when she came to live with Mom after Tom died, I was out of the house a lot.”

  Marla shrugs and sighs.

  I never met Tom. He died before I was born. Since both grandmothers were widows and my mother wasn’t married, there wasn’t much talk about weddings or anniversaries.

  Suddenly, exhaustion takes down my brain like a power outage.

  “I’m going to go take a shower and then we both need to get some sleep,” I say. “Tomorrow’s another day. The diary is not going anywhere, and neither are its clues.”

  June 1927

  Paris, France

  Dear Diary,

  I am elated! A woman I met when I went out with Helen and Luc tonight told me that the department store Galeries Lafayette was hiring sales floor attendants. Why did I not think of something like this sooner? The place is not so dissimilar to Selfridges, where I worked in London. In fact, it’s perfect. At least in the meantime, until I can find work as a designer. I have been so blinded by the need to find work with a couture house that I ignored alternative opportunities.

  I will inquire after a position first thing tomorrow. It would be wonderful if I could work in tailoring, but I will take any job that pays a decent wage. When I am gainfully employed, Helen will get off my back about working for Pierre, who, just between you and me, I find to be a most disagreeable fellow. Fingers crossed!

  Ten

  January 3, 2019—8:00 a.m.

  Paris, France

  The next morning, we grab a quick breakfast of coffee and fresh croissants at the café next to the hotel. To save money, we’ve decided to clean the place ourselves rather than hiring the cleaning service as Monsieur Levesque suggested. We ask the concierge to direct us to a hardware store.

  He tells us about a shop called Aux Couleurs Modernes.

  The last thing I ever imagined I’d search for in Paris was a hardware store. But people do live here, and even Parisians need supplies to fix up their homes. We’re already living like locals.

  The store is small with crowded metal shelves set up in narrow aisles. We purchase a couple of buckets and mops, rags and paper towels, all-purpose cleaner, rubber gloves, plastic safety goggles to keep the dust out of our eyes, and white dust-filtering masks to keep the dirt from asphyxiating us. We also grab a couple of twin air mattresses to sleep on until we can buy new beds. I shudder to think what might be living in the double that’s been there for eighty years.

  At the register, I grab two bandannas for our hair—a green one for Marla and a hot-pink one for myself. With the goggles, masks, and scarves, at least our top halves should be sufficiently shielded from the grime.

  Marla flirts with one of the shop clerks and lets me pay for our purchases.

  Packages in hand, we stop outside of the store to regroup.

  “I’ll save the receipt so we can add it into the final expenses for the house,” I say.

  Marla nods. “Maybe we should go back in there and get that wet-and-dry vac we were looking at. We’ll be moving around a lot of dust in that apartment. And where there are webs, there are sure to be spiders.”

  “The dust won’t move around very much after water hits it and we pour it down the drain,” I say.

  Marla crosses her arms and frowns. “Sounds like a recipe for mud. Maybe it would be a good idea to vacuum up the top layer because… spiders, Hannah.”

  When I don’t answer, she says, “Here, hold this.” She hands me her mop and bucket, which is full of supplies. I nearly drop mine as I try to get a grip on hers. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  “Hannah, we need it. It’s on me.”

  The model she had been looking at was a five-gallon vacuum that costs about forty-five euros. I don’t know how well it will hold up under all the grime, but if she wants to buy it, I won’t argue with her.

  A few minutes later, she emerges from the shop empty-handed.

  “Did you change your mind?”

  She reclaims her bucket and mop. “Nope. The charming man at the register offered to deliver it.”

  She actually bats her eyes at me.

  It’s a good twenty-minute walk to the apartment. We pass the magnificent Galeries Lafayette department store and église de la Sainte Trinité. I enjoy the chilly morning air and marvel at Paris all around me. There’s barely a trace of last night’s snow.

  I slept remarkably well. After meeting with Monsieur Levesque yesterday and signing the papers, I am finally letting myself believe that this apartment is ours.

  I’ll battle cobwebs and dust any day if it means we can call the apartment—and all its secret history—our own.

  “You’re awfully quiet,” Marla says as we approach the building and I set down my bucket to unlatch the gate. “What are you thinking about?”

  “I’m thinking that last week if you’d asked me how I was going to spend my second day in Paris, I never would’ve dreamed I’d be hauling a bucket full of cleaning supplies to an old apartment and preparing to spend the day cleaning. I haven’t even seen the Eiffel Tower yet.”

  Marla chuckles. “There’s plenty of time for that. I’ll bet if you went to the Champs-Élysées and asked the tourists if they’d rather sightsee or clean an apartment that they can keep after the job is done, all of them would take the apartment.”

  “I’m not complaining. I can’t believe we’re here.”

  “We’ll get to see everything. After we get our work done.”

  I start to point out that work-before-play is a very un-Marla-like statement, but I stop myself.

  Instead, I say, “All right. I’m holding you to it.”

  I shift the heavy bucket from one hand to the other as we ride the elevator in silence. Then we stand reverently in front of the heavy wooden door before we open it.

  “I think we should suit up out here before we go in,” Marla suggests.

  “Good idea.”

  We take the goggles and white masks out of the plastic wrappers, put them on, and help each other cover our hair with the bandannas. After we’re all suited up, we realize we resemble a couple of praying mantises. As we’re standing there laughing at each other, the door across the hall opens.

  An older woman peers out, gasps, murmurs something in French, and slams the door with a loud bang.

  “Uh-oh. Do you think she’s going to call the police?” I ask.

  “Probably. I would if I saw us standing out in the hallway looking like this. Quick, open the door and let’s go inside.”

  We don’t waste any time on the temperamental door, unlocking and throwing both of our bodies against it until it finally gives way.

  Once we’re safe inside with the latch locked, we break out into another fit of laughter.

  “No wonder she was startled,” Marla says. “Look at us. Wait.”

  She flips on the foyer light. To my surprise, one bulb in the fixture blinks to life; the other two don’t respond. As I’m making a mental note to buy light bulbs, Marla pulls out her cell phone.

  “This calls for a selfie.”

  “No,” I protest. “I don’t want this on social media. I look awful.”

  “
I promise not to post it.” I don’t know whether to believe her, but she puts her arm around me and presses her cheek to mine.

  Through the funk and odor of rotting time, I can smell her Chanel perfume. And oddly enough, it comforts me.

  I realize I can’t remember the last time my mother and I took a photo together.

  I suppose there’s irony in us looking like giant bug people, not like ourselves. So much is changing in our lives, I have to wonder how we will have changed once this weird Paris trip is over.

  “I’ll text it to you,” Marla says.

  “Mmm,” I say as I make my way through the gloomy dinge of the living room to the wall of windows. I tie back the rest of the curtains and start opening the shutters. Sunlight pours inside.

  I turn around and survey the apartment. Powdery dust motes dance in the air, but I’m happy to see that thanks to the small amount of time we spent here yesterday, most of the cobwebs that had spanned the expanse of the living room are now mostly confined to the light fixtures, crevices of the furniture, and ornate frames on the paintings that hang on the wall.

  My phone sounds a text as I open the second set of shutters.

  “Promise me you won’t delete the picture,” Marla commands.

  “I won’t, but that doesn’t mean I’ll frame it, either,” I say under my breath.

  “I’ll frame a copy for you.” Marla heads toward the third set of windows, throws open the shutters, and sings at the top of her lungs about how she loves Paris in the spring, then waltzes into the bedroom.

  It’s winter now, but I’m filled with a sudden longing for spring. We have a long way to go before we get there. I wonder where Marla and I will be in the new season. She has a history of quitting in the face of boredom or adversity, or when a shinier new thing comes along.

  “Where do we start?” I call. Even though the worst of the cobwebs are down in the living room and bedroom, we still haven’t explored the bathroom and kitchen. The magnitude of the job feels more daunting today than it did yesterday.

  In the shadows of twilight, the place had an ethereal, surreal look to it. It seemed more like a stage set or a life-sized diorama on one of my Austen tours. But in the unforgiving light of day, it feels real. It’s our privilege. Our problem.