The Missing Italian Girl

by Barbara Corrado Pope

  Maura turned her attention to the dance floor, even as she could feel Ralph’s beard touching the back of her neck. She was a laundress now, not a home-bound seamstress, and definitely not a respectable shop clerk. A laundress, and this is how laundresses “had fun.” A tear trickled down her cheek. If she left, if she was cold, what would Mimi and Yvette think of her? How could she work with them? She examined her fingers as Ralph blew on the soft hairs that she had not been able to pin into her bun. She clenched her teeth and closed her eyes.

  “I think we have a shy one here,” Ralph proclaimed. “Let’s all loosen up. Bock or champagne, ladies?”

  “Champagne,” Yvette and Mimi called out. “Champagne before the cancan, and afterwards we’ll dance!” Yvette added.

  “And will you show your knickers too?”

  Without looking Maura could tell from his accent that it was Jim who had spoken.

  “Maybe.” Mimi in a singsong voice.

  “Why not?” Yvette’s husky tones.

  Ralph pulled Maura closer to him.

  She was about to jump out of her chair when wild shouts erupted from behind the dance floor. Eight women in big feathered hats streamed out, swishing their red skirts back and forth and kicking their legs high into the air, revealing thigh-high black stockings held up by black satin garters, and ruffled white chemises and knickers. Soon everyone around her was clapping to the raucous rhythm of the dance. In the whirl of color and noise there was no place for Maura to go. She pressed her hands on her skirt. She was not going to show her knickers to anyone.

  Somehow in the din, champagne arrived at the table, and Ralph set a glass in front of Maura. Hand trembling, she reached for it and took a sip. She had heard champagne was delicious but could go to your head. At any other time, she might have liked the way the tiny bubbles tickled her nose, but tonight they felt like pinpricks. What was she doing here?

  “Drink up,” Ralph whispered in her ear, too close.

  “I think I have to go,” she said in response.

  “And why is that?”

  “My sister just died, and I must be with my mother.” She hated using Angela’s death as an excuse, but she could not think of anything else. Except she did not want the old man’s hand creeping up her body.

  “Oh, really?” His voice was skeptical. “Then why are you here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I could take you to heaven or hell, and take the fear of death out of you.” Again in her ear.

  “No!” What was this horrible man talking about?

  She heard him chuckle. “I was talking about the cafés, the famous cafés; don’t you want to see them?”

  She shook her head.

  “Jim,” he yelled across the table, “it’s a special night with our new friends, Charles and Maura. Let’s drink up and go to Heaven and Hell.”

  “Heaven and Hell! We’ve never been!” cried Yvette.

  “Quick, quick,” Mimi exclaimed, as she drained her glass. “Charles,” she turned to him and gave him a hug, “how exciting, on your first night!”

  The cancan had stopped and patrons were once again advancing toward the dance floor. Ralph threw some bills on the table, and the six of them pushed their way out. Maura went along, hoping that when they got outside she could plan her escape.

  They strolled, arms linked, back in the direction of Goutte-d’Or. When Maura had been told they were going to the Moulin Rouge, she had been too excited to take note of all the signs and entrances along the way; now she could not avoid the bizarre façades that electrified the boul’ Clichy. Their first stop was an entrance, flanked by black velvet mourning curtains, to something called the Café of Nothingness. “We can drink ‘the microbes of death’ here,” Jim announced. “It’s very delicious.”

  “No,” Maura backed away. She didn’t want to have anything to do with death.

  “Or we can go into the cave of death, very exciting,” the tall Englishman continued undeterred, “and you don’t know where you’ll end up.”

  “Not that one!” Yvette decided. Although Jim was holding on to her, she managed to bend toward Maura and whisper, “These places are much more expensive. Everyone must pay, even girls. But they’ll pay for us, I’m sure.”

  Ralph pulled her away from her friend. “Would you prefer Heaven?” he asked.

  “Heaven, yes, Heaven,” said Jim leading the little parade to the gaudy white entrance of the Café of Heaven, “Let’s take a look.”

  Maura did not want to take a look, but she wasn’t sure how to get away without making a fuss.

  Jim tipped the ticket-taker, a burly man dressed as an angel, promising to come back to pay full admission if they decided to stay. The six of them crowded into the entrance. “Here,” Jim said, directing his remarks to Charles, “you can drink ‘the ambrosia of the gods’ served by angels and listen to heavenly music.”

  The music didn’t sound heavenly to Maura. It sounded morbid. Like the worst, lowest grumblings of a church organ. The big dining room was all shiny white with gauzy curtains and waiters wearing body-length wings. Her chest began to heave. She didn’t want to think about death or heaven.

  “Which do you like best?” Charles asked Jim. “If I’m going to catch the train to London tomorrow, I should only go to one.”

  “Ralph, don’t you think—” Jim was tall enough to look over everyone toward the white-whiskered man and wink.

  “Definitely,” Ralph said as he tightened his grip on Maura’s arm.

  “Then, let’s go to Hell!” Jim cried. “All red and black with devils all about,” he said in a dramatic voice before planting a kiss on Yvette’s red mouth, “and you can watch bodies disintegrate in the fire and become skeletons!”

  “Ohhh,” Mimi excitedly clapped her two little fists together over her amble chest. “Let’s do it, please, please!”

  “Yes, let’s!” Charles agreed.

  Meanwhile Ralph’s hand gripped Maura’s arm, pulling her to the entrance next to the Café of Heaven. She would not have had the strength to resist him if her worst nightmare hadn’t loomed up in front of her. The entrance to the Café of Hell was the huge open mouth of a hideous devil with blazing crimson eyes. While others eagerly went under the fang-like teeth, Maura held back. A short man dressed like a devil emerged yelling, “Enter and be damned. We want more of you to roast!”

  “I can’t,” she pleaded and tried to wrench her arm away.

  “My little girl. I’ve paid for the champagne and I’m going to pay for this. Don’t you think I deserve something in return?”

  She kept pulling away.

  “Listen to me. There’s a policeman only a block away, watching over things. What if I told him you were flirting with me, trying to get me to spend my money. You know what they do with unlicensed whores? They send them straight to Saint-Lazare where they examine them for diseases before throwing them into the cells.”

  “No,” Maura cried desperately. “I’ve never—” She’d heard of girls from the neighborhood being picked up just for looking at a strange man. It could happen. She would not let it happen to her.

  “I know you’ve never. That’s exactly what makes you so interesting.”

  The bastard. Suddenly anger overtook her fear and she reached down and bit his hand hard.

  Shocked, he let go to give her a slap, which resounded across her painted cheek and threw her almost to the ground.

  “Hey, hey there, mister, why are you treating a girl like that?” Two men in caps, rough blue muslin shirts and brown vests, stepped in between her and Ralph.

  “She’s a whore. She tried to steal my wallet. Didn’t you see?”

  “Dirty bourgeois, we saw nothing of the sort!” The smaller of the two men shook his fist at Ralph in a threatening manner.

  “I’m calling the police. I’ll tell them you’re all in league together. Help me,” Ralph called to the devilish imp who guarded the door to the cabaret.

  “Let’s go, quick. We can’
t win a battle with the bourgeois and the cops, not in this crowd,” the bigger man said as he grabbed Maura’s hand. The three of them took off, threading through the top-hatted crowd until they reached a side street, taking them up the hill. With both men holding on to her, Maura ran as fast as she could, away from Ralph, away from the police, along the dark, narrow streets above the boulevards. Finally, they stopped, all three of them panting. “I think it’s safe to go down now,” the bigger man pronounced, and led them to the far end of Rochechouart, where they melted into the crowd around the singer, who was still performing her passionate love songs.

  When they were breathing more steadily, the taller man introduced himself as Gilbert and his friend as Léon.

  The younger man was skinny and pimply faced, and still had a firm hold on Maura’s hand, even after Gilbert had let go.

  “I can’t stand when they treat our girls like that. But you should know better,” the older, bigger Gilbert said.

  “I’ve never done this before, I was with two other girls,” Maura tried to explain away her mortification.

  “And that paint. Sure to get the cops looking,” Gilbert continued, making Maura’s face, which was already hot from her flight, burn even redder.

  “It’s not mine, it’s—” She closed her eyes and stopped. Why should she blame anyone else? She was the one who had been stupid.

  “I kinda like it,” said Léon as he peered directly at Maura and emitted a strong odor of cheese and beer.

  Maura ripped her hand away. After Ralph, was she going to have to contend with him?

  “Where do you live?” asked Gilbert.

  Under the gas lamp she could see that he was a handsome man, perhaps in his twenties. Clean-shaven and, it would seem, serious, like Pyotr. Still, she didn’t know if she should tell him.

  “C’mon,” he urged. “We’re not going to hurt you. We just want to make sure you get home. We don’t like the rich bastards hurting our girls just ’cause they can get away with it.”

  “Goutte-d’Or.” She had to trust them. What if Ralph came after her? Or the police? Or Angela’s killer?

  Gilbert considered for a moment, then nodded. “It’s not too far out of our way. What do you say, Léon?”

  “Sure.”

  She wished the skinny boy would stop looking at her with such big eyes. At the same time, she wished Gilbert would find something in her that met his approval. Instead he was involved in surveying the crowd around him. When approached, he even paid the poor little musician’s assistant half a sou for a sheet of the singer’s music. He must be a good man, generous and kind, like—the name Pyotr almost brought tears to her eyes. No one would ever be Pyotr, ever again. She bent her head, waiting. Finally, Gilbert gave the command to move along.

  As they walked, Gilbert told Maura that he and Léon lived on the other side of the Montmartre hill because they worked at a forge on the rue Marcadet. Gilbert was a journeyman, his comrade an apprentice. A blacksmith. No wonder Maura could feel his strength and steadiness. She hoped he would ask more about her, but they continued in silence until they reached the tenement.

  “Well, here it is,” Maura managed a smile. “I guess it’s good-bye.”

  “Not yet,” declared Léon, who grabbed her and planted a malodorous kiss on her lips.

  She shoved his hand away as it moved up toward her breasts.

  “Léon, stop. Do you want to be as contemptible as those bourgeois bastards, taking advantage—”

  “Don’t we deserve a little—”

  Gilbert yanked his friend away from Maura. “Here.” He handed her the singer’s lyrics. “I don’t like love songs. You can have this.”

  Maura limply accepted the sheet of paper. She fell back against the wall, feeling worse than she had after Ralph’s slap. She wondered if Gilbert would have paid more attention to her if she had been like Angela, pretty and sweet. But, of course, Angela would have never gone off with Mimi and Yvette.

  Maura blinked back tears as her two saviors ambled off, back up toward the Montmartre hill. “Thank you,” she called. But she wasn’t even sure if they heard her. Clutching the piece of paper in her hands, she slowly ascended the all-too-familiar steps to her room. When she got there, she reached into what little water was left in the basin and tried to wash the rouge off her face. Then she lay down beside her mother, staring at the ceiling. She kept going over in her mind how stupid she had been. She was not like Yvette and Mimi. And she didn’t want to be. She wished that Pyotr and Angela were still here. They would comfort her and teach her how to be good.

  6

  “I’VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT IT,” Bernard said between sips of his morning café au lait; “perhaps it would be a good idea if you and Jean-Luc went to Normandy for part of the summer.”

  “Thinking about it?” Clarie looked up, surprised. “I didn’t think we could really afford—”

  “Train fare? Surely we can, for you and little Luca. And when you get there, you’ll be the guests of the Franchets.”

  “And you?”

  “Rose can take care of me.”

  In their tiny kitchen, Rose heard everything as she bustled around getting the baguettes sliced and the confiture on the table. She never joined in the Martins’ conversations unless invited to, and seemed grateful to be concentrating on buttering Jean-Luc’s bread.

  Clarie placed her bowl of coffee gently on the table and, raising one eyebrow, gave her husband a skeptical look. “Is this about our conversation two nights ago? Are you afraid that I am going to do something ‘foolish’?” Like visit Francesca again.

  “Oh, no, I was just—”

  “Mmmm,” Clarie twisted her mouth into a smile.

  “Really, you know how hot it was last summer in the city. Think of how good it will be for Jean-Luc. As you said yourself, Robert is like a cousin to him. The fresh air. The sea.”

  By this time, Clarie had folded her arms and was gazing at her husband, who had picked up his bowl to drink, but also, she suspected, to hide his face.

  “You’re not afraid that Emilie will be a bad influence on me?” She could not resist tweaking him.

  “Of course not!” He looked genuinely shocked.

  “You know what Emilie says?” She paused to let the rapier possibilities of her friend’s wit sink in. “She says that our republican husbands love to talk about how they believe in women’s rights, but somehow they still believe they are more rational, more capable, and, shall we say,” she let her eyes roam over the ceiling as if searching for the right words, “less foolish than we are.”

  “Perhaps Emilie has gone to too many women’s rights conventions,” Bernard said dryly. The blade had found its mark.

  “And perhaps not,” Clarie responded.

  Bernard wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Still something to think about,” he mumbled as he rose. “I have to go to work.”

  Clarie got up, too, and put her hands on his shoulders. “Darling,” she said, “let’s scrimp and save this summer, and go to Arles together in August to see Papa. It will make him so happy, you can tell him all the wonderful things you are doing, and we can give Rose a real vacation from all of us.”

  It took less than a moment for Bernard to accept the truce. He always said that he could not resist Clarie’s almond-shaped brown eyes. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow when we have all the time in the world to decide. For now,” he said, before kissing the tip of her long, slightly upturned nose, “I have to get to work.”

  “All the time in the world” meant Sunday, a day that Clarie had come to treasure more than ever since her arrival in Paris with a child, a demanding teaching post, and a husband desperately looking for a position. Sundays were even better now, for Bernard had found his place and was as happy as she had ever seen him. Sundays meant letting Rose enjoy the day off, going to the bakery to get their own bread, strolling to the Square Montholon playground with Luca in Bernard’s arms, buying a treat from the ice cream man, picking up a roast chicken fo
r dinner, reading, laughing, enjoying each other. On Sundays Paris always looked brighter. There was less hustle and bustle, fewer people and carriages hurrying from one place to another as if their life depended on it, more time to see the city with the wonderment of a child.

  That Sunday, Clarie sighed with contentment as they headed home after the park. She listened as Bernard and Luca tried to decide what they should buy to have with their cold chicken. Tomatoes were not yet ready, but strawberries were still available. Clarie listened with pleasure as Bernard tried to teach their son about the seasons.

  “Summer is the hot time of year,” she explained to Jean-Luc, whose head was bobbing over his father’s shoulder. “Don’t you feel hot?”

  “No,” her boy shook his sweaty head. When they stopped at a corner, she smoothed away some of the dark curls from his drowsy damp brow before kissing his sticky little hand.

  “Or tired, after all that swinging?” she asked.

  “No!”

  She walked a little forward to catch Bernard’s attention. “I think it’s time. You take Luca and I’ll do the shopping.”

  “No!”

  She and Bernard both laughed. Luca was getting to an age when it was harder and harder to hide their intentions from him.

  “And when you wake up, my boy,” Bernard said to console him, “we’ll have chicken and strawberries.” Bernard picked up the pace as they approached the rue Condorcet. “Wave to your Maman,” he said, before leaving Clarie behind to do the marketing.

  She watched as “her two men” started back to the apartment. Chicken and strawberries. Bernard was in a good mood. While Luca was sleeping, they’d talk about going to Arles in August, and Clarie planned to broach the subject of inviting his mother to Paris for a week in July. Free from schoolwork, Clarie was fully prepared to host the sometimes difficult Adèle Martin. If Bernard balked, she’d remind him that family was important and how helpful his mother had been when Henri-Joseph died.

  Those last words always brought her up short, making her gasp as if someone had pulled a rope around her throat. We have Jean-Luc now; he is thriving. After standing stock-still, in the midst of jostling shoppers, she exhorted herself forward. She had to get to the rôtisserie before the early Sunday closings.