by Tessa Lunney
She pouted, sulky, and took out her knitting.
‘She’s with the cause,’ he said, ‘you can trust her.’
I nodded. They must be Communists – maybe they would know about the strikes and about Hausmann. I thought I was here about Ferny, but suddenly I wanted much more. How to get that without revealing that I knew nothing?
‘It’s your house, Monsieur Luc. Your turn first.’
He looked like he wanted to smile but his face prevented him. ‘Who sent you?’
‘Fern,’ I bluffed. I almost said ‘Ferny’ but checked myself at the last moment. Good thing too, as both Luc and Marie sat up straighter and looked at me. ‘He said that you would inform me of Hausmann.’
Marie looked at Luc, who stared at me. He started to fidget, his voice squeaking in panic. ‘This can’t be right—’
‘We had a meeting just . . . Fern said nothing—’
‘He would have mentioned something, surely—’
‘Or maybe . . . Luc, perhaps this is a test . . .’
‘Why would he test me, Marie? He knows how committed I am—’
‘But the plan – moved forward to – he said he had to have someone he could trust, someone who would lay down his life—’
‘Surely he knows I . . . but perhaps . . .’
I waited as they whispered to each other. I had my best bored Gallic face in place, which wasn’t hard as my nostrils flared and my lips pursed against the smell. But each line was a revelation. If their cause wasn’t Communist, it was certainly underground politics, possibly anarchist. They knew Fern well: Hugh Fernly-Whiting was clearly not just a bored aristocratic bureaucrat, it seemed that he was also a revolutionary, a political radical, a fomenter of trouble. Fern knew Hausmann, and One-Eyed Luc knew enough of Hausmann to accept an emissary.
Luc and Marie stared at each other in concern and Marie put her hand on his good arm. ‘I think we must, Luc,’ she whispered, ‘because if we don’t . . .’
He nodded and breathed in deeply.
‘I’ll get the brandy,’ she said.
‘So,’ he turned to me, back straight like the soldier he clearly still saw himself as, ‘forget the exchange of information; I’m at your command. You need to know about Hausmann.’
Luc took the brandy Marie offered and swallowed it in one gulp. I sipped mine slowly, using it to cover my surprise.
‘Hausmann contacted us about three months ago. We had contacted the believers on the western border last summer and told them of our readiness. After the war, we knew it couldn’t be long before the revolution began. We’ve spent the time recruiting – Marie came to us in that time.’ He exchanged a soft look with her. ‘Most of the people who came had just given up their loved ones to illness from the war. Broken hearts and broken faces, like me.’
‘Oh, Luc—’
‘Shh, Marie, it’s true. Fern came to us, not with a broken heart but with a message from Hausmann. We were to ready ourselves for the beginning. It would start in Germany where conditions were ripe – workers downtrodden, low patriotic feeling, ineffectual government. We would help spread the revolution to France and others would spread it to Belgium, Holland, Spain, and on. Hausmann is the coordinator with a direct link to Russia.’ His face lit up at this. ‘Hausmann will send us a revolutionary, someone who can help us to create the right conditions – someone who knows how to—’ He stopped himself. ‘Well, that’s secret business. But you must have read about the riots in Saxony.’
I nodded.
‘That’s Hausmann. That’s our man!’
‘You’ve met him?’
‘Oh no.’
‘We don’t meet him,’ cut in Marie.
‘He only speaks to a select few, the true believers. Fern is one of them. We’re lucky to have him with us.’
‘So if you want to send a message to Hausmann—’
‘We don’t send messages,’ said Marie, ‘we receive instructions.’
‘There’s never any question of us not carrying out our orders,’ said Luc. ‘We follow them to the letter.’
‘So that the revolution will come and then we’ll all have enough.’ Marie’s face lit up now. ‘Getting rid of the king a hundred and twenty years ago was only the first step. We have to be brave to take the next.’
‘Quite.’ I’d never felt so phlegmatically Anglophone. ‘I’ll speak to Fern about Hausmann. But tell me – how can you trust Fern?’
‘What?’ Luc looked shocked. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Fern came to you with a message from Hausmann. How could you trust he was a true revolutionary?’
‘Oh that’s easy,’ Marie looked relieved, ‘the same way that we can trust you. He knew the right names—’
‘And the knocks and the signals—’
‘And the Internationale and he had word from Russia—’
‘He’d been changed by the war too – but he had much better skills than, well, than some of us.’ Luc raised half a smirk at Marie. ‘We – I – grilled him for three days,’ he rasped. ‘He passed every test. He’s a man of the cause.’
Or a man with a mission. I smiled and finished my brandy.
‘And he said,’ Luc looked exultant at the memory, ‘he said, “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive – but to be young was very heaven!” It’s an English poet speaking of the Revolution, but it is perfect for this new revolution. Even after three days of interrogation he could quote poetry.’
Fern quoted Wordsworth, a Romantic poet just like Keats.
Thankfully Luc and Marie weren’t ones for chitchat and I left with only one farewell – ‘The next meeting is in two days’ time. We’ll see you there,’ Luc said, and handed me the address. I tucked it into my purse and clattered down the spiral staircase.
17
I’m Just Wild About Harry
I GOT TO MONTPARNASSE, even to my building, but I didn’t go all the way home. My feet ached from walking, but to lie down would mean trudging up four flights of stairs. To soak them would mean somehow getting hot water from somewhere and I’d have to pay for that. There was some post in my little letterbox, so I took the letters to Petit’s and settled into a back corner table. A letter from my mother that a quick scan told me was full of scolding, platitudes and complaints. A letter from the paper confirmed my pay, always a favourite, and there was a handwritten note in a vaguely familiar hand.
Kiki Kangaroo,
I want you to sit for me again but I will be away visiting Olga and Paulo today and tomorrow. Come the day after that. You know what to wear.
Pablo
Pablo would be away, but presumably his housekeeper would still be working in the apartment or nearby. Hadn’t Lazarev said to interrogate the housekeeper if I wanted the secrets of the house? There wouldn’t be a better opportunity. My aching feet would have to wait. I had to get to rue la Boétie.
‘He’s not here. You’re one of his models, yes? Come back tomorrow night.’ The housekeeper would have slammed the door in my face if I hadn’t caught it.
‘Actually, it’s you I need to speak to.’
I’d never seen anyone so short look so forbidding. Her manicured eyebrows framed eyes that glared at me. Her grey bun was held back tightly and her black dress encased her so thoroughly that it was hard to imagine a body underneath it. Her eyes were a pale grey, the type that looked ghostly or halfway to blind. All I could do was smile.
‘It’s for Pablo . . . but perhaps to your benefit too. May I come in?’
She stared for a moment more, then sniffed and let me through. She let the door bang shut. ‘What can I help you with?’
‘This hallway is pretty dark and unconvivial.’ It was spotless but cheerless, so unlike the studio. ‘Perhaps first we can sit down and share some tea. I have more than one question and my feet ache from walking all day.’
‘Your feet ache!’ she scoffed as she walked briskly into the kitchen. ‘Try being housekeeper to an artist and a dancer, at my age!’
‘It must
be difficult.’
‘You have no idea.’
‘Do you get to soak your feet at the end of the day? Is there hot water in this apartment?’
‘I should be so lucky!’ She was so efficient, it was amazing and slightly frightening to watch her prepare the tea with so much speed and so little joy. Lazarev was right: her grievances were present in every movement.
‘But sometimes, if they don’t stay up too late, I can fill a pan with water and sit with a book,’ she said, ‘which happens about once a month. Pablo was much easier before he married. He would let me go home at the same time regardless of how late he sat up drinking and talking. He even made me omelettes and coffee once, when I came in of a morning and he hadn’t been to bed at all. Me! His housekeeper! But that Olga, she wouldn’t deign to spit on me. She insists I stay at my post until they are all asleep and then insists on a clean kitchen the next morning. As though I’m an army of servants in her Russian childhood home. They don’t pay me enough for that kind of service.’
‘It sounds as though they’d have to pay you enough for two or three people.’
‘Exactly! Lemon biscuits or ginger? You’ll have the lemon; my sister made them, they’re much nicer. I mentioned a higher pay rate to Pablo and then an hour later Olga whirled into my kitchen yelling and screaming about my ingratitude, my poor attitude, my lack of professional pride. She even docked my pay! Pablo gave it back to me when she was out, but I mean! That woman is beyond the pale.’
I must have touched a nerve. I didn’t think it would be this easy to get her to talk, as she’d always seemed so dour when I came to model. I’d spent the walk over here thinking of persuasive sentences to charm information from her, but I needed none of them.
‘How long have you worked for Pablo?’
‘Oh, years now. I began to help him out when he lived next door and was just another artist come to make his fortune. He was always charming and he would find little treats for my Jean-Claude’ – the severe lines around her mouth softened momentarily – ‘my little son . . .’ A spasm went over her face, from sweetness to fear to sadness, before the severe mask came down. ‘Not that that woman, Olga, would ever let my son into this house, let alone speak to him—’
‘How old is your son now?’
‘Twenty.’ Her mouth was pinched. I waited for the motherly pride to pour forth but there was none.
‘Is he working in Paris?’
‘Yes, he’s . . . yes.’
I waited but after a moment she turned away from the table and began to tidy the kitchen. I took a guess.
‘Was he injured? In the war?’
Her shoulders hunched and she nodded.
‘I was there, with the soldiers,’ I said.
She turned and stared at me.
‘I was a nurse with the British Army. Sometimes I was behind the lines, sometimes I was right at the front. I saw . . . a lot of things. I know what it’s like, to come home and have to make a life again.’
‘But you’re not home.’
‘No, well, precisely. I couldn’t live where I was born. I had to make a life here. Anything else was just too hard.’
With that, she deflated in a rush. ‘He’s . . . he looks whole, a missing finger, a couple of scars, nothing serious. But his mind, his dreams . . .’ She bit her lip in an attempt not to cry. ‘It’s worse now than it was when he first came home. He has a job now, with other veterans, but how long will that last? He’s had so many. He can’t work some days, and then he loses his position, and then he gets desperate and does desperate things . . .’
‘And you have to pay for it.’
‘How can I? Of course I try, but he’s a grown man. There are just so many men like him and so few have any sympathy any more.’
‘Has he done something lately?’
‘What have you heard?’
‘Nothing. I’m guessing from the pitch of your anguish.’
She threw up her hands and sat down heavily. She reached into a hidden pocket and pulled out a tiny bottle. She poured two drops into her tea and offered it to me. Brandy, I could smell it from across the table. I smiled and shook my head.
‘He’s . . . he’s in with a bad crowd. Not criminal, at least not yet. He met them at work. But someone knows and I – they say . . .’
‘They’re blackmailing you,’ I said.
She nodded.
‘Who are “they”?’ But she shook her head.
‘Does it have anything to do with the missing portrait of Olga?’
Her eyes widened with fear. Bingo.
‘You know that Pablo has hired me to find the painting, yes?’
‘You’re not a model?’
‘Not only a model.’
She fidgeted with her cup. Poor woman, I hated to put this kind of pressure on her.
‘And I think you know how it left this building.’
She bit her lip and blinked rapidly.
‘I’m not going to report you to the police, or even to Pablo, but I need to know what happened to the painting. Pablo doesn’t care how it comes home, so long as it does. So . . .’ I pulled up a chair next to her and took one of her shaking hands, cold and worn to the bone. I rubbed it warm. ‘I need to know what you know.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Pablo doesn’t care—’
‘Not Pablo, the other one. He’ll kill me.’
‘Who?’
She shook her head.
‘He’s not here, he can’t know, he won’t get to you.’
‘How do you—’
‘I promise. Just tell me who.’
She heaved a sigh so enormous it became a hiccough. ‘It was one of Olga’s guests last week.’
‘A Russian?’
‘No. An Englishman. Ugly, scarred, with a limp. He came with a silly woman who is related to Olga, I think – she must be, as they didn’t come for the art. Neither of them can appreciate Pablo’s genius.’
‘But the Englishman could.’
‘The Englishman could only appreciate how much one of Pablo’s paintings is worth on the black market. He came in here—’ Her voice tightened but she swallowed some more tea and pressed on. ‘When the others were gone, when Olga and Pablo were out, he came in and told me all about Jean-Claude, things I didn’t know, things that would get him into terrible trouble if the police found out . . .’
‘What did he make you do?’
‘He made me . . .’ She shook her head. ‘I’m so ashamed – but my son, I had to – sorry, sorry. He made me give him the portrait of Olga – that is, give it to my son, Jean-Claude, to give to him . . .’ She started to cry then, sniffing, her clean, pressed hankie rapidly becoming limp with tears.
I poured her more tea and pushed it towards her.
‘Never, I’ve never done anything like this before, not in all my years, I wouldn’t—’
‘This Englishman, he had a limp and scars, you say?’
‘And some missing fingers. I don’t know his name, but the woman he came with had a flower name, something pretty; it didn’t suit her.’
Who else could it be but Violet and Fern?
I kissed the housekeeper on both cheeks. ‘You’ve been an enormous help.’
‘You know who he is?’
‘I do, and he’s a rotter,’ I said. ‘Now, tell me what I can do to help you, Madame . . .’
‘Just call me Céline,’ she said and sniffed. ‘I don’t need any . . . well, my Jean-Claude needs help, but how . . .’
‘I know a nurse who works with veterans. There might be a doctor at her hospital who can help with his dreams.’
Céline nodded, again on the edge of tears. As I turned to go, she grabbed my arm. ‘I’m sorry, I—’
‘Desperate times,’ I said with a smile. ‘But I’ll be back for more of those biscuits.’
IT WAS DUSK, that time when the horizon dissolves and my thoughts, my inhibitions, my skin along with it. The street lamps splashed their gold along the Montparnasse footpaths,
mixing with the brass and bronze from the bars, cafés, and hotels. I buzzed, my heart pounded, I was scared and excited. My thoughts chased each other as I hurried to my apartment. Would Fern and Violet be at the party tonight? I couldn’t remember who was throwing the party, but they always seemed to turn up wherever there was free food.
The stairs inside my building were dark but I knew them well enough to hurry up to the top floor. I lit my candles in their wine-bottle holders, I shucked off my shoes and coat and sat in my favourite position, leaning against the window frame, legs hanging into the street, glass of wine in one hand and cigarette in the other. The candlelight reflected in the bottles and windows, imitating the twinkle and sparkle of the night city at my feet.
I searched my notebook where I kept all my work notes and invitations. The party was at Harry’s. I swore loudly – tonight, of all nights, I needed a party of stuffed shirts and know-it-all men, not brilliant women – until I realised that this was a benefit for the ambulance drivers, to showcase Wendy’s work, and there’d be a lot more people there than her Sapphic Ambulance Corps. That’s why she had invited me: ‘You can write about it in your column, darling. There’ll be a Rothschild there and a couple of duchesses, I’ve promised them first peek at my Cézanne . . . well, Wendy’s Cézanne. It’s all for a good cause!’
I wondered how well Maisie and Harry would get along. After two glasses of champagne, I imagined they’d get on famously.
MAISIE HURRIED TOWARDS ME as I waited under the lamplight. I wore a new dress, silver satin with silver beads, sleeveless and low cut and short. The dress was cut on the cross so the satin flowed like water over my curves. It was a warm night, so my velvet opera cape was open, my star-shoes winking at the beads, my blonde bob adorned only by a diamanté comb. I’d had two propositions already, but in this part of town that was almost unavoidable. I sent them off with a rude gesture and a sharp, ‘Not for sale.’ I’d also been approached by a cigarette seller, a boy with bright red hair, who walked up to me so pointedly that I wondered if he was my new watcher. I bought a packet from him, Players Navy Cut with the hero sailor on the front. As Maisie walked in and out of the lamplight, I could see that she wore a long dress of dark green silk under her fur-trimmed black coat, and patent leather black shoes and green cloche hat decorated with a feather. She waved with her hat as she hurried.
