The Missing Italian Girl

by Barbara Corrado Pope

  “I had no father,” Mme Roubinovitch continued. “Such things make us stronger, after they almost defeat us. The fact that you and I have become professors is proof of that.”

  “But are you saying we shouldn’t care about the lower classes?” Clarie’s heart pounded in revolt. She could not accept this. Not after what she had seen in the Goutte-d’Or. She was, after all, her father’s daughter.

  “No,” Mme Roubinovitch shook her head. “That is not what I am saying. However, I would advise you to choose your battles more carefully, because there are going to be so many. I expect a few will be pitched right here at our school in the fall. There are rumors of an all-women’s newspaper that will try to recruit my teachers as writers and supporters. Some in the press are hinting at revisiting the Dreyfus verdict. If that happens, we will again be under pressure not to recruit and keep our Israelite students. And through all this,” she said, sweeping her hand over the papers on her desk, “I must keep the Minister happy with us, while assuring him that I plan neither to ‘rein in’ my staff nor bow to prejudice.”

  “I can see you have a lot to deal with,” Clarie murmured, thinking that Bernard, too, had chosen the battles that were most important to him.

  “Problems enough, without one of my staff getting tarred by the black flag of anarchism.”

  Clarie stood up to leave. She shouldn’t have come. What if she had jeopardized her position at the school?

  But Mme Roubinovitch did not sit down, did not pick up her papers again, did not, by these actions, dismiss Clarie. Instead, she sighed. “Clarie Martin, I wish I didn’t like you so much. You are a fine teacher. A good colleague. Never forget that.”

  “Thank you.” Clarie realized she had stopped breathing. Her hands and face were covered with a thin veneer of perspiration.

  “And to say that you have courage does not mean that you have no fear. All of our boldest actions may cause us to fear their consequences. In your case, there is even the possibility of a physical threat. Since you came for my counsel, I can only advise you to talk to your husband as soon as possible.”

  “Of course, you’re right.” Clarie began to pull her gloves over her dampened hands.

  “I’m sure it won’t be easy. But he is no more your master than I am. Didn’t you tell me he gave up his judgeship to come to Paris with you?”

  “Yes, but that is what he wanted.”

  “I’m sure it was. I believe you told me he took the risk of giving up a prestigious position in order to do what he thought was right: help the oppressed.” Mme Roubinovitch paused. “Apparently,” she said with a rueful smile, “that makes two of you.”

  Clarie stared at her superior. Can one disapprove of something you’ve done and still admire it? Point to what you thought was dividing you from the person you loved most in the world, and aver that it is exactly what should bring you together? In the world that Clarie came from, the rush of emotion, the gratitude she felt at that moment would have led her to do something foolish. At the very least, try to take her superior’s hands and press them warmly. But this was not Mme Roubinovitch’s way. Her way was to make sure that lessons had been learned, admonitions had been heard.

  “We teach our students, we were taught at Sèvres, that our duty in life is to reach a greater and greater moral perfection. So much is changing in our world, with the talk of women’s rights and workers’ rights and the rights of Israelites, sometimes we are confused about what path to take to make the world better. I don’t think you’ve been wise, but I don’t think you have anything to be ashamed of. Courage is often foolish.” Mme Roubinovitch sat down, put on her glasses and raised her head. “Please find a way to keep yourself safe. I so look forward to seeing you back here in the fall.”

  Clarie thanked her superior again before turning and quietly leaving the room.

  She rushed down the stairs with every intention of quickly getting back to Jean-Luc. Her pace slowed as she traversed the corridor that led to her classroom. She could not resist going in. She lightly touched the wooden desks as she made her way to the front of the room. How she loved this place. The way the sun streamed in making her students’ faces glow with an eagerness to learn. How the Alphonsines in their black and white uniforms evoked the memory of her own desires and frustrations when she was their age. Her world had been much more limited, by the teachings of the nuns, by the prejudices about what women were capable of. She had struggled so hard to gain knowledge, wisdom, even a new morality. And her job, her wonderful profession, was to impart what she had learned to her students.

  She glanced at the empty desks. Would she ever come here again without thinking of Francesca’s daughters, girls excluded by the circumstances of their birth? How many girls like them would she ever be able to help? Clarie stepped back against the blackboard. She hadn’t been able to rescue Angela. But she could start with the one who remained, was alive, somewhere. If Mme Roubinovitch and Bernard had the right to see their battles through to the end, so did she. She could not give up her search for Maura.

  By the time Clarie returned to Montholon Square, Jean-Luc was a very cranky little boy. To placate him, she bought a baguette from the nearest boulangerie and tore off an end for him to chew on. Then she and Rose took turns carrying him through the sun-drenched busy streets. More contented, he gnawed on the bread in between pointing and naming what he observed over their shoulders: the potato in the cart, the hat in the shop, the boy selling a newspaper. Rose beamed and Clarie patted Jean-Luc’s back, both of them delighted at his pride in showing off new words. Telling Mme Roubinovitch the truth about the last few weeks had eased the tensions threatening to sap the joy from Clarie’s life.

  But the sight of her apartment building dampened Clarie’s spirits. It reminded her that the scarred man could be lurking nearby, and it drew her closer to the moment she would have to tell Bernard everything. She insisted on carrying her son up all three flights, since she was younger and stronger than Rose. When she reached her door, she could hardly breathe. Her chest had tightened up again. Stepping inside, Clarie set Jean-Luc down and gave him a kiss. “Want to go play with horsey before lunch?” she asked.

  He pulled on her skirt, urging her into the parlor as he repeated “horsey, horsey.”

  “Just a moment, Luca,” she said, tousling his hair. “I’ll be there in a minute. I promise.”

  His eyebrows came together and his lower lip stuck out in a pout as he considered this. Then he turned and toddled off toward the wooden horse. “Rose,” Clarie said, before her housekeeper left the foyer, “when we put Jean-Luc down for his nap, I have something to tell you.”

  Rose’s brown eyes searched Clarie’s. Her face, older and more wrinkled than it should have been for her fifty years, was filled with concern. Good Rose, faithful Rose, she’d never ask, she’d wait. She had waited. Clarie did not intend to discuss her disagreements with Bernard. But she needed to explain her mysterious comings and goings, and to make sure that Jean-Luc was safe. It was a beginning. Clarie no longer wanted to live in a home diminished by secrets.

  18

  THE MORNING CLARIE SOUGHT OUT Mme Roubinovitch, Séverine was watching men in bowlers go into the administration building of the Paris Gas Company. She stood in front of a haberdashery, across the street from the gilded entrance, wearing a chestnut wig and black-rimmed glasses. She also had on a wide straw hat belonging to her servant, Augustine, and a charcoal-gray dress, plain, save for the line of tiny buttons parading up to her chin. Being frumpy rather than fetching was her disguise.

  Suffocating under the high morning sun, Séverine consoled herself with the fact that she had suffered and survived much worse. Seven years ago, to report on the condition in the mines, she had climbed down a shaft fully garbed in miners’ helmet and overalls. She’d spent three sweltering hours amid the smoldering ruins left by a fatal explosion. Her article, “The Descent into Hell,” was her proudest achievement, the apex of a career dedicated to oppressed workers. Séverine s
ighed. Since then, she had aided a fugitive, marched on picket lines, and written countless columns seeking charity for those most in need. But nothing had compared to her heroism in the mines. Now, though, if she could catch a killer and prove the innocence of the Russian anarchist, she’d once again be the talk of all Paris.

  She took out a lace handkerchief and fanned herself, hoping she had chosen her vantage point well. The gates of the Gas Administration building faced a confluence of four streets. Her sources had said that the man at the back of the café lived in company housing. When he approached the lovely Clarie Martin at the Square d’Anvers during a lunch hour, he had worn a bowler and a vest. Her instinct and logic told her he was a clerk, worked for the Paris Gas Company, and would be traveling to work along the rue Condorcet. Her instincts were seldom wrong.

  She spotted him striding up the street, a head above most of the others, as if he were a man with important business to transact, instead of a clerk about to add a column of figures on someone’s gas bill. After he turned into the gates and was safely inside, Séverine slipped her magnifying glasses into the purse dangling from her wrist, crossed the street and, lifting her thick skirts just a bit, set out for the rue Rochechouart. This led, halfway down the block, to the Cité Napoléon, Paris’s only government-sponsored worker housing.

  Before ringing the bell, she gathered herself, getting her story straight. Somehow she was going to have to find someone in the complex who knew the scarred man.

  The concierge, a big woman with haughty suspicion written all over her coarse features, opened the door. The facts that she was wearing shoes rather than slippers, that her broadcloth dress was neat and pressed, and that she needed no apron to fulfill her duties indicated the relative importance of her position.

  Séverine thrust out her hand and introduced herself as Augustine Petitbon, a reporter for Le Temps, the most staid newspaper in Paris.

  “I haven’t heard anyone was coming,” the woman answered, keeping her hands firmly planted on her ample hips.

  “You haven’t?” Séverine said, feigning surprise. “We understand that you are doing such an excellent job, keeping things in order here. A good report in our paper will assure that the municipal council continues to fund you at the rate you deserve.” Séverine loved playing roles. And this certainly was one. She was sure she wouldn’t like the model housing. None of her anarchist friends would dream of living in it, because all of its well-known benefits—the baths, the laundry, the drying room, the child care, and the spacious grounds—came at a price: surveillance, discipline, even a ten P.M. curfew. The concierge, along with a city-appointed inspector and a doctor always on call, had to be chief among the disciplinarians.

  Seeing that the woman was softening, Séverine added more sugar. “To tell the truth,” she said, which was hardly the truth, “I accepted this assignment because I so wanted to see the grounds and the buildings for myself and to talk to some of the staff who have made this such a good place for our workers to live.”

  Without saying another word, the concierge stood aside and allowed Séverine to enter. “I don’t have time to take you around,” she said gruffly, “but I can get one of the charwomen and maybe the doctor is free.”

  Séverine went into the long entryway and walked up to peek at the courtyard, which was surprisingly green and lush with trees and shrubs. “How lovely,” she remarked. “You must be so proud.” Seeing the four separate buildings that comprised the complex made her heart sink. She’d have to get lucky. Or be very clever.

  “Do you distinguish by employments, here?” she asked. “Do the lamplighters and stokers and clerks all live on separate floors?”

  “No,” the concierge grumbled. “It’s according to what they pay and if they have children. Let me take you into this building. It’s our best. We’ll see if a char is around.”

  The big raw-boned woman trudged into a hallway that was as surprisingly pleasant as the courtyard. The building was made up of parallel rows of apartments reached by a series of bridges. This allowed the overarching skylight in the roof to illuminate every floor. Séverine took out a notebook and made a scribble she hoped her companion would take as a note. “Clean and impressive,” she remarked. At least she would not slip on a potato peel on a darkened stairway.

  The concierge’s only response was to yell for a Louise. A head popped up by the railing on the second floor. “Yes?”

  “Someone who wants to be shown around.”

  Séverine was already resigned to the fact that this concierge, unlike most belonging to her profession, was not a gossip. She had to hope the chars were more talkative.

  “I know you’re busy. I’ll be fine,” Séverine said, eager to please and get rid of her severe escort. “Thank you.” Before the concierge could respond, Séverine was on her way up.

  Louise, in her fifties, short-haired, almost balding, and portly, was talkative, but, at first, not very helpful. Masking her purpose, Séverine began by asking the charwoman if she knew any stories that would amuse her newspaper readers, how families got on here, what it was like to bathe and to do the wash in a model community, and how she felt about the ten P.M. curfew. Louise had opinions on everything, especially the families. “Little devils,” she called their children, resentful of the dirt they dragged in and the noise they made.

  “What about the bachelors?” Séverine asked, circling closer to the information she needed.

  “Bachelors,” Louise said with a knowing smile. “You want to know about bachelors, don’t ask an old married woman like me. Go upstairs to Elise. She’s probably doin’ the toilets by now.”

  Something in Séverine’s expression must have alerted Louise that she had made a slip, for as Séverine turned to go up the stairs, the charwoman caught her by the sleeve. “You ain’t going to repeat what I said, are you?”

  “Heavens, no,” Séverine said innocently, as she wriggled away. “I just need to see more of the building.” And she needed to get to this Elise before Louise could warn her friend that she had given her away.

  When she reached the landing of the next floor, she saw a charwoman on her knees, scrubbing.

  “Elise,” she said softly.

  “Yes?”

  “May I speak to you?” Séverine said, approaching her.

  With some effort the woman got to her feet, dropped the rag she had been using in the bucket and left the cloth she had been kneeling on beside it. She wiped a lanky strand of mousy brown hair from her eyes and pinned it into her scraggly bun. She had a pockmarked face and sad gray eyes. Although she was probably barely thirty, about the same age as the vibrant Clarie Martin, she looked worn down.

  Séverine introduced herself as Augustine Petitbon and said that she had come to learn about the charwoman’s routines and work at the Cité Napoléon.

  “You can see it,” she responded with a weary wave of her hand. “The stairs, the hallways, and the toilets at the end of each hall, four on each floor.”

  “Do you live here?” Séverine asked, taking out her notebook, calculating that this question could lead to revelations about the woman’s life.

  “Yeah. Over there.” Elise gestured toward a door across one of the bridges.

  “Alone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Could I see your apartment?” A private place for a private talk.

  The woman shrugged. “I’ve got work—”

  Séverine reached in her purse and took out a five-franc note. “Can I tell you a secret?” she said, raising her eyebrows.

  “What?”

  “I’d be willing to pay for some information.”

  Elise stared at the banknote, which easily represented a few days’ work. She met Séverine’s eyes and nodded. “Let me dump out the pail, and I’ll take you to my place.”

  Elise bent over, picked up her knee rag and her bucket, and plodded to the communal toilet at the end of the hall, where she wrung out and folded her rags and poured out the dirty water. Watching the
se slow, deliberate movements took every iota of Séverine’s patience. She fingered the money and prayed the woman knew the right bachelor.

  Wiping her hands on her apron, Elise led Séverine across a bridge to her apartment. It was a single room with a one-burner stove, a window, and two gas lamps on the barren walls. There was a narrow bed and a wooden table with three rickety chairs, a pantry and armoire. Aware that Elise was observing her, Séverine felt compelled to remark that it was very nice.

  “I’ve worked here five years. I’m saving to get a room with a fireplace. It’s cold in the winter,” she said, standing before Séverine, waiting to be handed the banknote. Once she got it, she went over to the table and wearily dropped into a chair. Séverine took this as a tacit invitation to join her.

  “Well, then,” Séverine said, as she sat down, “let’s get started. What’s it like to live among bachelors who work for the Gas Company?”

  Elise glanced aggressively at Séverine. “You’re not from the Moral Police, are you? Or sent by that building inspector?”

  “Of course not!” If only this Elise knew the history of Séverine. She was as far from the Moral Police as you could get. But how to convince her? Séverine retrieved another wrinkled five-franc note from her purse. She assumed the inspectors did not give or take bribes. “Look,” she said, taking a chance by changing her story, “I’m not really reporting on life at the Cité Napoléon. I want to write a series on the violence that men do to women, and women do to men. It’s going to get some people angry, so I need you to keep what we say just between us.”

  Elise’s eyes roved suspiciously between the money and Séverine’s face.

  Séverine bit down lightly on her lip before taking the plunge. “I’m particularly interested in finding out about the man I’ve seen going into the Gas Company, the one who had acid thrown in his face.”