April In Paris, 1921

by Tessa Lunney

  I could practically hear the laughter in his voice.

  I’m writing to you from a little table in the Old Quarter.

  I started. There are no old quarters in any city in Australia.

  The goats clatter over the cobblestones and the carpet sellers yell in time with the call to prayer. The smells are just as they were six years ago, four years ago, the coffee still like a bullet to the brain and the baklava so wet with honey it tastes like a dirty joke.

  I sat up and exclaimed so loudly that a man looked up from the street and waved his hat.

  Does your mouth hang open? Have you sat up straight, with that ‘What’s all this then?’ frown, at the mention of these un-Australian details? Have you said ‘What!’ loudly enough to make people look up from the street?

  What a cheek! He knew me too well.

  So you should. I’m not in Sydney – or Bathurst or even Melbourne – I’m in Gaza. By the time this letter reaches you, I’ll be almost in Paris. I’m coming to see you, Button. Well, to be more precise, I’m taking up a position as junior foreign correspondent for The Herald, to operate out of London but to cover all of Europe and the Middle East. Possibly also North Africa, but that depends on the senior correspondent. Possibly also small, bohemian studios in Paris – but that copy might not be written up until my memoirs. Not if you’re involved.

  I can give you all the details when we meet. I will only give you the details when we meet, in fact, so if you want to know where, when, how, then you’ll have to leave all of your arty parties and spend some time with me. I travel, and write, under the name Thomas Arthur, for reasons that you know full well. I don’t know where I’ll stay yet, but probably some dodgy hotel around Gare du Nord, which is where the train gets in from the coast – but you know this too.

  What do you say, Button? Feel like a ramble down rue de Rivoli with yours truly? Feel like a riotous night out paid for by our hometown’s most illustrious rag? Send me a telegram via The Herald – they’ll find me, wherever I am. If you don’t, I’ll come and find you, just like I used to – I’ll say, send me to the blonde Australienne! And the lads will know precisely where to find you. So you may as well send that telegram and turn up at the station and get ready to be on the receiving end of the biggest hug this side of the equator. It’s coming for you.

  I’m coming for you.

  Tom-Tom xxx

  My Tom-Tom. His name beat in my heart like a drum, a call to arms, the pulse of the dance. The last image I had of him was as I left Woolloomooloo dock. It had been an unseasonably cold December, so his collar had been turned up against the wind and his shoulders hunched as he glared at the departing ship. He hadn’t said a word on the tram to the dock. He hadn’t waved as the ship pulled into the Pacific. Had he known that he’d join me in Europe before long? Or had my departure challenged him, just as I had dared him to race further on my father’s horses, to leave the comfortable squattocracy for the city lights of Sydney, to leave university and run away to the war? He’d looked haunted on that dock, dark hair plastered to his face, as though my departure was a betrayal. There wasn’t a hint of that in this letter, just bright lines and sharp teases. The Tom-Tom of old, before the war made him fearful and thin, before his silence in the ship’s wake.

  He’d be here in a couple of days. The past four months suddenly felt like years. I wanted to know, right now, whether he still rolled his cigarettes in his left hand or if he now smoked a pipe, if he still liked his waistband to sit an inch lower than the fashion, if his cowlick still made his black hair pop out of its pomade and flop over his dark blue eyes. If the scars on his back had healed properly. If he still coughed. If he missed me.

  I started – how long had I been daydreaming? It must be time for me to get ready, and I needed a drink before I spoke to Fox. If Tom-Tom was almost in Europe, then I could help him, we could clear his name. But only if I showed up at the Rotonde at midnight.

  I rootled through my clothes again. Ivory silk was too pretty for night-time, but there was precious little else that wasn’t stained or stinking – I promised myself to do some laundry the next day – my navy blue chiffon would have to do. It was cut very modestly, with a high collar and long sleeves that buttoned at the wrists so tightly that I struggled into it. But of course it was semi-sheer, so the outline of my slip, camiknickers and garters was visible in the right light. My favourite kind of tease. I threw my opera cape over my faux-modest outfit, hopped into my boots – I had to have some warmth, after all – and clattered downstairs to the café.

  I could see the lights of the cafés spill down the street. Tonight, it was La Rotonde that had the tables out the front with the artists and party people. The cafés were my second home. I knew that Madame Fujita had a one-eyed cat and the waiter Henri at the Rotonde had fiancée trouble. I knew where the Parisians sat, the Americans, the British and the Spanish, and the space this left for the tourists. I’d been here just long enough to be able to walk in and find a friend at any time of the day. Everyone was so excited to be in Paris, it was infectious; coffee saucers stacked up, wine flowed, we shared frites and baguettes and cigarettes from Turkey, America and Egypt. Soon the lights started singing, the accordion-accented jazz spilled out of the doorways, and multilingual chatter flared with the lamps. Did I hate Fox for spoiling this place with his assignations, or was I secretly glad that at least I had a spot of warmth in this cold work? I couldn’t decide, but the jazz set the pace and I walked faster towards my fellow travellers.

  North was there, as usual. She took off her hat to wave to me, showing off her newly bobbed hair. At that moment I loved her big gestures and big inheritance and bigger Francophilia.

  ‘What do you think, Kiki? Am I a modern American woman or what?’ She shook out her hair as I applauded. ‘Anyway, sit down. Have you met Hermine? She’s back from New York.’

  Dark-haired Hermine extended her hand, callused and covered in ink.

  ‘A ’andshake – it is the American way, no? New York was exciting, oui, but I’m so very glad to be back in my Paris.’

  ‘Aren’t we all.’

  ‘But you are Australienne, no?’

  ‘I was here as a nurse in the war.’

  ‘Ah.’ She clasped her hands and looked out at the street. That little ‘ah’ captured all the loss and grief that remained unspoken from the war. With that one sad syllable, a hard basalt feeling formed in my chest, as though a rock had lodged there, a rock as precious and opaque as the black stone in the ring on her gnarled finger.

  ‘Hermine’s an artist. Kiki, honey, sit down, I’ll order you a drink.’

  I checked my wristwatch. (It was slender and silver and delicately decorated with my father’s condescension. ‘Time to settle down, eh?’ he’d said, and laughed at his own joke. He never considered that I’d been working shifts as a nurse for years, with a watch permanently pinned to my uniform; time was anything but settled.) Eleven-twenty – I still had a while to wait.

  ‘You speak French?’ Hermine looked relieved when I nodded. ‘We had to leave for New York. Jules . . . he would have had to fight for Bulgaria. Unthinkable. So we waited—’

  ‘Jules is Jules Pascin,’ North interrupted in English. ‘Have you met him? He’s just a darling. So talented! They both are.’

  Hermine bowed her head at the compliment. The music inside flickered with the light over her coiled hair, her big, wide-set eyes, her long fingers. One eye rolled sideways, as though it looked to the past while she looked, through me, to the future. I lit up a cigarette and she took one with gratitude. Gitanes this time, to fit with my gypsy life.

  ‘We didn’t know, of course, what it would be like . . . I think if we had, we may have stayed, to help our people, to save this perfect city. But the Bulgarian authorities – truly, they are barbarous. Jules would’ve been blown up over Russia and I would’ve been left selling my work on the street like I did when I was twenty.’

  She looked down her long straight nose at me. ‘We never tho
ught that leaving would . . . we thought everyone would do it. Now we are back, we realise how many suffered.’

  ‘And how many never made it home,’ I said. ‘Apollinaire is still mourned. Perhaps you did the right thing.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Hermine sighed. ‘At least there is a home to return to. I feel for those whose home has disappeared – all these Russians – although there seems to be more than one type of refugee from this war,’ she continued, giving me a once-over. ‘Counts from Russia, fleeing the workers. Workers from Germany, fleeing the counts in their brown shirts. Society girls from Australia, fleeing . . . what, I wonder?’

  ‘Not brown shirts, just stuffed shirts.’ I raised my glass in a mock toast.

  ‘What’s wrong with a brown shirt?’ asked North. ‘I mean, sure, it’s dull, but—’

  ‘It is the terrible uniform of the new bullies in Germany,’ said Hermine. ‘Jules heard about them from his friends in Bavaria. These young men in their brown shirts, they beat up workers who strike, they stroll the streets with their batons and whack anyone they think might be Communist—’

  ‘They’re part of a political party,’ I added.

  ‘With one of those long German names that I can never remember.’

  ‘National Socialist German Workers Party,’ I said, draining my glass. ‘But I don’t think they have much to do with socialism.’ I had read about them in London whilst flicking through Bertie’s morning paper.

  ‘They have more to do with France than I would like,’ said Hermine. ‘You have heard of Action Française? My angry young nephew recently joined them—’

  ‘Isn’t that a nationalist group?’

  ‘More than that now. I had coffee with my nephew and he spewed forth invective on the government, Jews, the Church, French honour – truly, I was disgusted – and then some strange questions about how much my work would fetch at auction, whether it would fetch more here or elsewhere in Europe.’

  ‘Oh, politics.’ North sighed.

  Hermine started, then clapped her hands. ‘Exactly so! And all this talk is too bad, too sad, even for my French sensibilities. Tell me, how can you be another Kiki of Montparnasse?’

  I grinned. We talked about her work and all the artistic gossip from her time in America, about her upcoming exhibition in London: ‘The “Day-vid soh-loh”, they call it, in their English way.’ The street clattered with chatter. The light from the café played over the velvet and silk, the rough wool and corduroy of the sinuous, vital patrons. It teased our tousled hair and winter-pale skin. There was an undertone of chill in the air, but my drink’s blackcurrant kick warmed me almost to my fingertips.

  I was about to order us another round when the waiter Henri appeared at my shoulder.

  ‘Just who I wanted,’ I said, but Henri’s face was grave.

  ‘Mademoiselle, there is a telephone call for you.’

  ‘A telephone call? Here? How novel!’ North exclaimed.

  My desire for a cocktail vanished. I lit up another cigarette as I followed Henri through the crowded café to the back office. It was surprisingly quiet in here, as I could only just hear the noise from the kitchen and nothing at all from the bar. The walls must have been solid brick.

  Henri refused a tip. Something in his face, his manner, made me nervous. He gave me a look that was part pity, part fear, part protectiveness as he closed the door behind me.

  The receiver waited on the desk. I finished my cigarette, stubbing it out in the copper basin by the lamp before I picked up.

  ‘Darkling I listen,’ I said.

  He laughed, deep and rich. I hated that laugh, though it was exactly what I wanted. I heard him inhale and couldn’t help but see him at a desk, suit pressed razor-sharp, one of his favourite gold-tipped Sobranies between his thin lips. He used to make me collect the ends, as their glinting foil on the ground would reveal where he had been.

  I continued. ‘To cease upon the midnight with no pain—’

  ‘While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad in such an ecstasy! You could certainly choose a worse place to expire than Paris.’

  ‘Better than Flanders, at any rate.’

  ‘But thou wast not born for death, immortal Vixen.’

  ‘Because I’m part of the hungry generation?’

  ‘Because I need you. My heart aches.’

  ‘Then go to the doctor.’

  ‘Through envy of thy happy lot—’

  ‘I knew it—’

  ‘And being too happy in thine happiness—’

  ‘How can I be too happy, with you sniffing at my heels?’

  ‘Vixen, that’s unkind. Our first words in two years? Say you’re happy to hear from me.’

  ‘You’re happy to hear from me.’

  ‘That’s true. I missed my little Vixen.’

  ‘Not so little—’

  ‘You’ve grown fat?’ I heard him light another cigarette. ‘I didn’t think so. You’re too sleek, Vixen, too much the huntress.’

  ‘I hunt nothing.’

  ‘Not even young men?’

  ‘They’re cocks by the henhouse. No hunting involved.’

  ‘Ah, so you’re bored.’

  ‘Rubbish.’

  ‘I had hoped so. I’d hate to truly envy your happy lot.’

  ‘You’d hate nothing if it brought me closer.’

  ‘Too true, Vixen. It’s been two years—’

  ‘And four months.’ I cursed under my breath. Why did I have to remember so exactly?

  He made a satisfied little murmur down the line. ‘It’s been too long. It’s time you sharpened those teeth.’

  ‘How did you find me?’

  ‘Tell me, is this just for me or do all your men appreciate such banter?’

  I didn’t like this turn to the conversation.

  ‘I know your London man, Captain of the Soho Seas, enjoys your repartee. But what about that handsome farm boy? Wouldn’t he prefer a little wife baking scones – or what is the Australian equivalent? lamingtons? – to a fiery-tailed vixen?’

  He wasn’t right, about either man, but that he knew about them at all meant he knew too much. I lit another cigarette; my nervous anger needed a physical outlet.

  ‘How did you get that handkerchief?’

  ‘I won it at White’s.’

  I choked back a gasp. ‘How did you know what to wager?’

  ‘We foxes have sharp ears, don’t we? I knew something like this would come along if I was patient. The previous owner had a loose tongue and several exploitable weaknesses.’

  ‘But . . .’ But this means he must’ve known about Tom for a long time, that he knew I had helped him to desert and escape back to Sydney. If he knew what to listen for – evidence of Tom’s innocence and who would have it – then he could well know everything. He knew enough, at least, to keep me on a very tight leash.

  ‘Yes, Vixen?’ I could hear the laughter in his deep voice. ‘Is there something you don’t understand?’

  I wanted to slam down the receiver, I wanted to interrogate him until he told me everything. He loved this, I hated it, but I couldn’t keep away. Even if I wanted to.

  ‘I don’t understand why you would wait this long to rein me back in.’

  ‘You’re not a horse, Vixen, even if you do have the bit between your teeth.’

  ‘If you know about the handkerchief, then you know about its owner.’ I wouldn’t mention Tom by name.

  ‘And the part you played in his treason. I do, Vixen.’

  A shiver ran over my skin. ‘You could have me put away.’

  ‘I could.’

  ‘So much power, Fox. Why wait to use it?’

  He paused. I could almost hear him think – to tease or tell the truth? I was so angry, so nervous, that I could hardly breathe.

  ‘Because I knew you’d come back.’

  ‘How—’

  ‘Once you’d rested, you would become bored and return to Europe. Life here is much too exciting. Life, here with me. I just had to w
ait until you knew it too.’

  I hated his games, but I couldn’t stop myself from playing.

  ‘How did you find me?’

  ‘Vixen’ – his voice dropped low – ‘do you really think I’d lose you? After all we’ve been through. You’re much too precious.’

  A tiny admission – this was as close as I’d get to a show of vulnerability from Fox. His next words would be a tease or a threat. I sighed.

  ‘Such a sigh, Vixen.’

  ‘What’s my mission?’

  ‘Nothing to sigh over.’

  ‘Why do you need me? Surely you have enough men to do this work.’

  ‘But they’re men, Vixen. They can’t get close enough to their prey.’

  ‘I see. And you have no other predators in your pay?’

  ‘There can only be one vixen, Vixen.’

  There was a strain in his voice that confused me. There could only be one vixen? That little vocal wobble, that was real. Surely that was not an admission of love—

  ‘Darkling, do you listen?’

  ‘With a pencil.’ I fished one from my handbag and took a sheet of paper from the desk.

  ‘Good. In some melodious plot of beechen green, with shadows numberless, there is a mole. The mole quite forgets the weariness, the fever and the fret, where men sit and hear each other groan, where youth grows pale and dies. More than ever seems it rich to die, not for the warm South, but for the lands forlorn. Tender is the night and he cannot see what flowers are at his feet. His plaintive anthem fades, his high requiem becomes a sod. The murmurous haunt of flies treads him down. The faery lands are too forlorn and the word will toll him back from thee to my sole self.’

  He paused. I heard nothing but his cigarette and the ticking clock on the desk.

  ‘Vixen?’

  ‘Why have you given me this mission in code? The war is over.’

  ‘And the new war has begun.’

  ‘Oh, please—’

  ‘I must protect my little huntress.’

  ‘You just want to play games with me.’