Girl in the Afternoon

by Serena Burdick

  She cut through a meadow that had lost its summer luster, past rows of mud walls tangled with massive grapevines, and out onto a road where she’d been directed by the porter at the station.

  A few kilometers down the road, she came to a stone cottage overgrown with Virginia creeper. When she stepped up to the door, an enormous black dog bounded out, barking uncontrollably. Leonie was right behind him, grabbing at the scruff of the dog’s neck, scolding in a deep, warning voice. Then she wrapped her arm around Aimée and pulled her through the door.

  “This is Laertes.” The dog had calmed down, and Leonie rubbed the back of his head. “He followed Jacques and me home from the village one day. Wouldn’t leave our sides, and then the butcher threw him a bone from his cart as he drove by, and this fool dog thought we were the source of food. We’ve been stuck with him ever since.” Leonie spoke with a quiver of nerves. “I don’t know where Henri and Jacques have gone to. They must be outside. Come, I’ll show you the house.”

  Aimée followed Leonie into the drawing room, Laertes sniffing her from behind. Leonie seemed nervous, almost skittish, and Aimée found she was nervous herself.

  “It’s not very large,” Leonie apologized, looking around as if this had just occurred to her. “But after our apartment, it feels utterly indulgent. All these rooms, and there’s a view of the river from the upstairs.”

  Aimée smiled, and told Leonie it was lovely, which it was. Humble, she thought to herself, but she didn’t mind that.

  The rest of the house consisted of a kitchen and dining room opposite the drawing room, and two upstairs bedrooms with a dressing room adjoining them. The bigger room was Henri and Leonie’s, with a bed in the corner for Jacques. The nude painting of Leonie hung—boldly, seductively—on the far wall opposite their bed.

  The smaller room would be Aimée’s, with a chair, a desk, a washstand, and a wardrobe. Her trunks had already been placed at the foot of the bed, and she wondered if Henri had done this for her, or if the porter had carried them up.

  She walked to the window—noting the tidy landscape on the wall opposite her bed. There was a view of the river, just as Leonie had said, and of a weedy garden with an ancient, knotty plum tree, the ground still littered with rotting fruit.

  On the train ride, Aimée had felt gloriously independent, leaving home, leaving her parents. How ironic it was that her sin was what had finally gotten her out. But now that she was here, it was impossible not to accept the full truth of her situation. She was utterly dependent, and there would be no privacy in this small house. If the winter wasn’t too harsh there was always the outdoors, but in her condition she wouldn’t be able to go into the village. She certainly couldn’t be seen at church. And her friend, who stood hovering in the doorway, was not just a friend anymore. Aimée was now beholden to Leonie; she would be the mother of her child. What a change in the roles they once held.

  “Are you all right?” Leonie asked, sensing Aimée’s hesitation, and wanting, very much, for her to feel at home.

  Aimée nodded, but she didn’t turn from the window. She’d just spotted Henri and Jacques coming up the path, both dressed in brown trousers and white shirts, Jacques’s wrinkled and spotted with grass stains. The boy was dragging a stick in the dirt and holding tight to Henri’s hand. They were talking excitedly, both faces lit up, smiling.

  It startled Aimée to see Jacques happy. She’d imagined him scowling and lonely. It had been only a few months since he’d been taken from his home. How quickly children accept what they’re given.

  “I hear Henri,” Leonie said. “Come, let’s go down. Jacques will be so excited to see you.”

  She hurried down the stairs, while Aimée paused to glance at herself in the mirror, smoothing her hair, aware of the change in her body, her fuller chest and rounder face. For once, she looked almost pretty.

  From the hallway, Aimée watched Leonie hold the door open for Jacques, who came skipping in with Henri right behind, Laertes leaping and wagging his tail. When Aimée stepped forward, Jacques halted at the sight of her. Then he spun around and buried his head in Henri’s legs.

  “Come, come,” said Henri softly. “It’s your tante.”

  They had decided to refer to Aimée as Jacques’s tante. It might confuse him at first, but he was only three years old; he’d quickly forget she used to be his sister.

  Aimée crouched down. “Jacques,” she said in the same soft voice Henri had used. “I’ve missed you so very much.”

  Jacques pulled his head up, gave Aimée a fervent look, and buried it again in Henri’s legs. Leonie pried him from Henri and picked him up. Jacques wrapped his legs around her and threw his arms around her neck. It reminded Aimée of the first time she held him, and she felt a pinch of jealousy.

  “It’ll just take a little time,” Leonie said, stroking the boy’s blond hair. “Come, let’s get something to eat,” she whispered in Jacques’s ear and carried him into the kitchen.

  It was foolish to think Jacques would come running into her arms, but the rejection still hurt. Aimée stayed crouched until she felt Henri’s arm on her shoulder, his hand reaching to pull her up.

  He stood quite close, and Aimée noticed that the freckle under his eye wasn’t fluttering at all. His face was perfectly still, and this made her uneasy. Only it wasn’t just his calmness, but also the subtle tenderness between them in the way he held her hand.

  A bang came from the kitchen, possibly a pot falling to the floor. Leonie gently reprimanded Jacques, and outside the dog barked.

  “Henri?” Leonie called, and he dropped Aimée’s hand.

  “I’m pleased you’ve come,” he said.

  Aimée folded her hand against her skirt. “I haven’t decided if I’m pleased to be here.” There was a lightness to her tone that did not match how fast her heart was racing. “But, of course, I’m grateful.”

  Henri smiled and pulled off his coat. Aimée’s honesty never failed to surprise him. It’s how she’d been that first day when they’d met as children, dead honest and amusing at the same time.

  “Jacques will come around,” he said. “Leonie’s delighted you’re here. As you know, I’m not always decent company. Rarely even tolerable.” Henri—polite and self-deprecating—shrugged his shoulders.

  “Neither am I,” Aimée said lightly.

  Henri had the urge to hug her. Instead he hung his coat on a peg by the door.

  They walked down the hall, an ease between them that showed itself in the casual way they entered the kitchen, like old friends.

  Standing over the stove, Leonie noticed this, and it pleased her. She smiled, stirring onions in a cast-iron pan with one hand and pouring milk from a pitcher with the other. Her cheeks were bright pink, and it reminded Aimée of all the times she’d watched Leonie stir chocolate over her grand-tante’s stove.

  “Aimée, my dear, you must be famished. Please, sit,” Leonie said. “Supper’s almost ready. We never eat in the dining room. I can’t see the use of carrying everything that far. Besides, we were thinking of turning that room into a studio.”

  Aimée smiled. “A splendid notion. Although, I would love to get out of doors as much as possible before the weather turns.” She smoothed her hands over her stomach, an instinctive habit she’d recently developed.

  “Precisely what Henri said.” Leonie laughed and set the pitcher on the counter.

  Aimée noticed that even here, at the back of the house, the light coming through the windows was pure and lovely. The smell of onions browning in the pan and Jacques’s adorable voice pleading to stir were comforts.

  “Not now,” Leonie said. “Go sit next to your tante, or bring the spoons to the table.”

  Holding the spoons tight against his chest, Jacques circled the table, setting a spoon at each place, triumphantly placing Aimée’s next to her bowl, pleased enough to forget his shyness and confusion.

  They gathered around the table. Leonie ladled the steaming soup while Jacques ordered his papa to
guess the ingredients. With a stoic expression, Henri began listing items such as toads and tadpoles, Leonie piping in with a bird claw or a cat eye, and Jacques, laughing fitfully, asking for, “More, more.”

  Aimée was stunned by this familial ease and intimacy. She had an urge to laugh along, defying the restraint she’d been taught in the Savaray household. So this was family, she thought … it just wasn’t hers.

  As she reached for her spoon, she felt the almost indiscernible thump of a foot low down in her belly. And it was then that she understood, in a way she had not yet come to grips with, that that little foot wasn’t hers either.

  Chapter 23

  The tight quarters and lack of privacy were new to Aimée, but she found a comfort in the small cottage, a sense of safety. Under Leonie’s bustling care, the house exuded warmth, every corner filled with laughter and Jacques’s bouncing enthusiasm.

  For a short while, Aimée felt like a part of their intimate sweetness.

  She resumed her painting, sometimes by the river, or near the mud walls, but mostly in the dining room Henri converted into a studio. Now, more than ever, she could see the influence of Édouard’s instruction in her work, and she thought of him with less bitterness, remembering what he’d exposed her to that afternoon on his divan. She wondered if he’d ever know she carried his child. She would never be the one to tell him.

  Aimée tried to paint Jacques, but he squirmed, hating to sit still for any length of time, so she gave that up. Leonie was still a willing subject, and Aimée found her even lovelier to paint in her own domestic setting. Aimée captured her leaning over the stove, shaping loaves of bread, and lounging on the sofa with Laertes at her feet, her eyes bright, lambent in the firelight.

  Henri also painted, but he stuck to landscapes, and—when forced indoors—passionless still lifes. He was not handling the arrangement nearly as well as the women. It confused him, all this gaiety, living with Aimée, and having Leonie in his bed at night. And the friendship between the two women, the looks, the outbursts of laughter, all that chatter, he felt somehow in the middle of it, and left out, all at the same time.

  What he wasn’t fully aware of, or not yet willing to admit, was how dangerous their situation felt. He cared deeply for Leonie. He didn’t want to hurt her, but quietly painting beside Aimée, seeing her every morning, hearing her in the next room at night, brought an arousing intensity and risk. When Aimée looked directly at him with her slippery, gray-blue eyes, made some bold observation, or smiled absently at her own wit, it brought back feelings Henri had swept aside time and again. As children, their closeness had felt natural. When he was a teenager, it both confused and comforted him in a way that often made him feel ashamed. He loved Aimée, but he had never imagined a future with her. It would have been impossible. Only here they were, their futures tied together indefinitely, and he couldn’t imagine his without her now.

  * * *

  As the tiresome winter days wore on, life became harder in the cottage. There was a shift in atmosphere, a subtle infusion of tension in the details of everyday life.

  First there was the bathing. The tub needed to be hauled into the kitchen. The water heated, dumped out, reheated—and, of course, the uncomfortable intimacy of disrobing just behind the kitchen door. The privy, which was outside, was absolutely freezing. Aimée had to get up at least twice a night, and the creaking stairs usually woke the entire house.

  Then there were the weekly letters Aimée wrote to her papa, fabricated stories of her time abroad that were sent to England where a friend of Henri’s forwarded them back to Paris with postage from London. It was overwhelming to think how much lying she’d already done. She knew very little of London, but had to be detailed enough to make it believable, which was getting harder and harder with the exhaustion of her pregnancy. Her legs were sore, her back ached, and her feet were too swollen for her slippers. Her stomach was being pressed up into her throat, and everything she ate burned her esophagus.

  Leonie did what she could to help. But she was also increasingly wary of what was going on around her, especially when it came to Henri. He’d stopped reaching for her at night, darted her kisses in the morning, and when she’d slip her hand into his, his fingers hung limp as a washrag. Once, when she’d teasingly sat in his lap at the breakfast table, he’d quickly pushed her off and made some excuse to get up. Leonie reminded herself that Henri could be fickle—he’d come around. No need to let a man’s mood get her down, because there was a baby coming, a fact that they were all too hesitant to mention.

  Leonie had her reservations about mothering someone else’s child, but she’d lain with Henri often enough to suspect something might not be right with her, and Aimée could be her only chance at a baby. Yet she and Aimée never spoke of this—not even in private—and this nagged at her. As far as Leonie was concerned, it wouldn’t do any good to ignore it, much better to face these things head-on.

  But Aimée wasn’t prepared to face anything, head-on or otherwise. Her very state of being felt altered. Everything was messy and confusing. From the beginning she’d shied away from Henri and Leonie’s kisses, trying not to notice when they held hands, or exchanged ardent, uncomplicated looks. It had been impossible to ignore the intimate sounds that came from their bedroom at night, and later on, the low, argumentative whispers.

  The situation was unbearably complicated, especially because she and Henri were exchanging their own looks of private complicity. Aimée played at indifference, quietly angry at the feelings rising up in her. She’d started to direct her frustration at Henri, batting her brush in the air and hissing at him to stop distracting her.

  “Nothing can distract you,” he said once. “Not even me. I never could.” Standing in the studio, with the cool light surrounding them, Henri reminded her of the time she made him take his shirt off. “Not even my bare chest could distract you,” he said with a short laugh.

  This was too much. Aimée set her brush down, said she wasn’t feeling well, and went up to her room.

  After that she tried to tamp down on her unspoken emotions, leaving her painting the moment that breathless feeling came up. She’d lie in her room, stretched on her side, confined and enormous, and try very hard to think of what was ahead. But tucked away in the cottage it was impossible to make the birth of a baby, or her passage to England, seem real. All she could think about was Henri, and how, in a very short time, they would be separated again.

  Chapter 24

  April brought the first warm day of the season.

  Aimée and Henri took their paints and portable easels to the river and left Leonie and Jacques turning over dirt in the garden. Laertes followed, settling into a patch of sunny grass with his head between his paws. There had been heavy snowfall that winter, and the water was high, rushing with the force of spring. The sound was invigorating, as was the rich smell of the earth thawing under the sun.

  Henri painted the swelling river, silver in the sunlight, the low banks and the muddy fields. Aimée painted Henri at his easel, and the large poplar to his left, its branches dusted with delicate, moss-green buds.

  Her style had changed during her time here. It was lighter, more vibrant and alive. She was excited again by her work. She found the colors harmonious, her lines rich and authentic in their irregularity.

  She enjoyed painting Henri, watching him without having to divert her eyes as she captured the winter tone of his skin, his eyes reflecting the glint off the water, his long neck, and narrow, slightly stooped shoulders.

  “Do you remember the time my parents took us to Samois-sur-Seine?” she said, her voice breaking the silence that had been between them for hours.

  Henri smiled. “We stole that boat.”

  “You didn’t want to.”

  He looked over the top of his easel. “You would not be deterred.”

  “No.” She smiled. “I would not.”

  They went back to their painting, both thinking of that day, the fun of it and the freed
om. How they’d clambered past the tall pine trees growing out of the ravines, slipping, jumping from rock to rock. Aimée had spotted the boat first, and leaped into it despite Henri’s protests. He’d followed, secretly loving how brave she was. They’d thrown the rope off, pushed the oars against the mud, and lain down in the bottom of the boat, side by side, staring at the scattered clouds.

  “You know,” Aimée said, dipping her brush, her eyes on her palette, “I only painted because you did.”

  “That’s hardly the truth.” Henri leaned close to his canvas, dabbing green on white. “You were the one always dragging me into the studio when I preferred roaming outside, keeping me at it for hours. I would never have learned the discipline if it weren’t for you. You were always so determined and certain of everything.”

  Aimée brushed in an eyebrow, concentrating very hard. “I was never certain of anything. I just did it to be near you.”

  “Why did you keep at it then?”

  “After you left, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  Henri had stopped painting, and Aimée looked at him. His eyes were a spectacular blue. “I was good at it, and I wanted to be good at something.” She looked back at her canvas. She hadn’t filled in Henri’s eyes. Now she didn’t want to. They were such a painful blue. “I painted because there was nothing else,” she said, quietly.

  Under the bright sun, and rushing river, Henri felt reckless and impulsive. He wanted to take Aimée into the grass and make love to her. He wanted to show her that there was so much more.

  “I was wondering if anyone’s bothered to ask if you want to give up this baby,” he said.

  Aimée’s arms and legs tingled. The tenderness in Henri’s voice, the concern, made everything feel impossible. “It doesn’t matter what I want,” she said.

  Henri set his palette down and walked over. “I don’t want you to make a decision you will come to regret.” Reaching up, he slipped her paintbrush from her fingers.