A Paris Apartment

by Michelle Gable

  Suddenly the wind picked up again. Luc’s hair flapped against his forehead and the tips of April’s ears began to sting. She looped the scarf back around her neck.

  “Well, I shall see you soon,” Luc said. “Enjoy the journals.”

  “Thank you, Luc. Again. For everything.”

  “It is entirely my pleasure. Anything to make a pretty girl smile.”

  With a little salute, Luc winked, spun around, and walked out of the courtyard, carefree and ever casual, never once turning back toward her.

  April watched as he paused at the gate to light a cigarette. The wind pushed the smoke, and the hint of his cologne, back toward April. Though filtered through distance and the remnants of tree blossoms still hanging on the branches, it was almost as though Luc were still there. April shifted on the cracked stone bench and waited for the wind to die back down. While pigeons picked at the seeds by her feet she untied the first stack. She had not yet read a word, but April was already smiling.

  Chapitre XXIX

  Paris, 15 October 1891

  Well, it’s done. I’ve moved on. I’ve moved up! A new apartment! Je l’adore!

  If I must: It is small and not so far from the old place, in more ways than one. Yet it is mine and it is warm and there is (nearly) room for all my gowns. Best of all, it is free. Pierre would not hear of me paying for it out of my earnings.

  Pierre, ah, Pierre. We had a delightful few weeks tooling around Paris, picking up gifts and jewelry, dining at the finest restaurants. But now he has departed to Argentina to deal with bat guano and ancillary matters. We are to marry when he returns, or so he’s decreed. Nothing can keep him from me, he says, except death. I’d never wish death upon the poor man, but I do hope he spends the rest of his days minding the guano.

  Don’t misunderstand. Pierre is a perfectly lovely individual but not someone I want to wake up beside every morning. I do not want to kiss that big, bumpy nose or touch those furry little ears each night before bed. He is an agreeable chap, but I am not yet eighteen, therefore unready to clamp down and cut off the rest of my life, especially if he’s providing the suture.

  Alas, I made many promises thus it will be quite the debacle when he returns. I can only hope he won’t. Based on what the girls in the old place said, men from South America never did. Of course, unlike theirs, my man was actually in South America in the first place.

  The girls from l’hôtel des femmes … Louise and Gabrielle and Aimée. I thought I would be sad to leave them. I expected to look back on our time with a mixture of smiles and tears. But as I packed my last trunk and slipped on my hat I was positively relieved to abandon that godforsaken place. When the girls gathered to bid me adieu I noticed how weathered they were, how utterly beaten down by this city and their occupations. Aimée in particular always looked beautiful to me. But when she moved into the dim light of the hallway for a final good-bye, the state of her face soured my insides. She looked old, crumpled. Makeup settled into her wrinkles like cracked mud in a dry riverbed.

  The old woman was right when she predicted high demand for my room. In the days leading up to my departure she was constantly negotiating with potential occupants, squabbling and squawking like a drunken chicken. I was the first person to leave of my own volition instead of being kicked out or dying some horrible syphilitic death. As a result the old bag was extra grumpy. It gave me great pleasure to sashay past with an “Au ’voir” and an Émilie-patented wink.

  I was all the way down the front steps, gone almost forever, when a gravelly little voice piped from beside a gas lamp.

  “Jeanne Hugo?” the mouse-woman said.

  I almost didn’t turn, certain my ears were playing tricks.

  “Jeanne Hugo,” the voice said again. “Daudet?”

  I flipped around, words at the top of my throat ready to fall out in the form of expletives. Then I recognized her, Marguérite, the waif who stood beside me at Jeanne’s wedding procession all those months ago. Her battered suitcase told me she was the warm body to fill my cold room.

  “Bonjour!” I said and reintroduced myself. “So nice to see you again.”

  Marguérite curtsied, of all things! Then she beamed up at me with that face—those perfect pink cheeks, her tiny white teeth, the large, wet, brown eyes. Here was a slip of a woman: tiny stature, tiny arms, tiny waist, tiny in every possible way except her bosom, which defied natural order. She looked like someone’s child. The rest of the girls looked as though they sprang from the cold, brown earth or were made in a factory under the most penurious of conditions. Marguerite was different. At that moment I felt the need to save her. I did not know I had it in me.

  “Have you come for my room?” I asked.

  “Yes I have. I was so pleased to find a place,” she said, sounding like a little queen and not a bedraggled urchin. “Now I need to find work.”

  She glanced up the side of the building. My gaze followed and I caught a glimpse of Louise peering out her window. My heart skipped.

  “My dear girl,” I said, sounding like a mother though I have but a year or two on her. “Are you sure this is what you want? This hôtel? These people? I am leaving, you see. There is a reason.”

  “Am I sure?” She crinkled her face. “Well, my options are not exactly abundant.”

  “We make our own options,” I said and reached into my purse. “I want you to have this.”

  I pressed money into her hand.

  “I can’t—”

  “You can. Please, before you take a job or mire yourself in the vocations of these girls, consider the type of life you want. I hope this money gives you time to figure it out.”

  “And what do you do that allows you to hand money over to a stranger?” she asked. “Never mind, I already know!”

  “No!” I snapped. “It is not that. Have you heard of the Folies Bergère?”

  “The dance hall?” she asked, face springing to life once again. “I’ve seen the posters. Does it really exist? Are those beautiful girls really inside that building?”

  “They are,” I said. “Those girls and more. I know because I work there.”

  “You’re a cancan dancer?” Her eyes nearly leaped from their sockets. “How positively thrilling!”

  “No, nothing like that. I’m a barmaid!” My voice lifted to the sky. “It is a fantastic job.”

  “Oh.” She was palpably disappointed. Even her bosom dropped. “Well, thanks for the chat.”

  “Before you dismiss it, let me tell you this. To start, the dress is magnificent. The position pays well and I meet interesting people. Most importantly, it’s funding an apartment infinitely superior to this one.”

  Admittedly the job did not pay for the new apartment per se, but without the Folies Bergère there would be no Pierre and thus no new flat, so in the end it is really all the same.

  “Why are you telling me this?” Marguerite asked.

  “Perhaps there is a position for you.”

  The words flew out of my mouth like I’d so often seen mucus shoot out of Pierre’s nose when he laughed. I had no authority to offer employment. I barely got the job in the first place! If Marguérite strolled in, Émilie would either laugh furiously or toss me out on my nancy.

  “Really?” Marguérite said. “Do you think there might be?”

  “Of course.”

  A lie. Utter rubbish. In fact I would have wagered a month’s pay it would never prove true. Or it would prove true at my expense. Bien sûr, mademoiselle! We have a spot for you. In fact a barmaid has just been let go!

  “I am there most nights,” I told Marguérite, digging myself deeper but unable to stop. “Please come find me. I’ll see what I can do.”

  If not Émilie, I could count on Gérard, I reasoned. Though he had a tough exterior, he was easier to push over than the sickly cat who mewled at my windowsill each night.

  “Thank you,” Marguerite said, her eyes rounder and wetter than ever, so engulfing they might swallow the rest of her whole. “
I truly appreciate the gesture.”

  “Please come find me,” I reiterated. “I will expect you.”

  This was three days ago. Each night I move between bar and bottles. I smile and charm. I say the right things and turn the proper angles, forever making sure the light hits me in the ideal manner. While I flirt and pretend all is fine, the eventuality of Marguérite sits at the back of my mind.

  I should not have asked her to find me. It’s a nice idea that could quickly turn to trouble. I’ve already supplanted Émilie as the prettiest maid in the Folies. I’m no cancan dancer, but I do have a name, not to mention the ability to decide who gets to see up my skirts.

  Marguérite is rough and ragged, but beneath the grime she shines. A visit by a proper coiffeur plus a heavy dose of whitening wash, and young Marguérite might best me. I have come far, but the legs on which I stand remain wobbly. I am climbing but cannot yet see the top. Émilie grouses that I suck up all the attention, that her wages have declined precipitously since my arrival. In a few months I could be saying the same about Marguérite.

  But I had to ask. I had to try and carry her along with me to this unknown place I’m trying to reach. It made me ill to think of that bitty mouse joining the ranks of les filles soumises. Oh, how that vocation decimates a woman daily, by degrees! Marguérite is so very slight, painfully frayed and thin. The men would wear her away to nothing.

  The truth is, from the moment I saw her I felt a kinship with Marguerite, a penchant toward the mothering of her, which, as the good Lord knows, is unexpected indeed. We are but a few years apart, but it’s as though someone sent her to me for safekeeping. And while Marguérite will likely prove competition, a girl cannot live on man alone. I want her with me.

  I think she feels the same; not about the men, but about the invisible tether, this tie between us. There is a reason she happened upon my room. There is a reason she listened as I told her what to do, and what not to. She will come, of this I’m sure. I’ve not yet warned Gérard. I can only hope there is room under his wing for the both of us.

  Chapitre XXX

  Paris, 2 February 1892

  I can’t remember the last time I saw the sun. It is frigid and bitter, and even the snow is colder than it ought to be. The mere act of stepping out of bed each morning is an exercise in determination. More than once I’ve contemplated walking to work with hot coals lining my pockets. Even Marguérite keeps the front of her bodice tied all the way up!

  It’s miserable, this shuffling from apartment to work and back again. The snow sticks on my boots, soaking all the way through to my toes. Somehow more snow ends up inside my shoes than around the edges. My apartment is warm, at least compared to my previous residence, but despite a near-constant shuttling of coal into the stove, it stays just damp enough that I can’t claim comfort.

  Marguérite and I sock up against each other at night. It is the only way to keep warm. Often, though, I must sleep alone. Marguérite’s hours differ from mine, given she is a showgirl and I a lowly barmaid. I smile as I write this, without the jealousy I anticipated when Marguerite announced her ascension to bona fide Folies Bergères act.

  As each day moves I am happy to be maiden to the establishment’s cancan dancers and contortionists. Marguerite is of the contortionist variety, hired because her bosom looks so fantastical when twisted around and pulled out beneath her armpit. I swear she’ll one day get stuck in that position! Alas, I have no special talent and no special bosom, so behind the bar I stay. Oh bien! Je suis heureux!

  Pierre continues to make threats of his impending return from South America while I continue to discourage him. Who wants to be in Paris in the wintertime? Pure drudgery! This part is no fabrication. I also express how keenly I believe a man should seek comfort when away from his beloved. Rumor has it the hired ladies in South America put the Parisian women to shame. I am waiting to be put to shame! Just waiting!

  Speaking of shame (or lack thereof!), I’ve struck up quite the friendship with Joseph Pujol. Folies Bergère patrons know him as Pétomane, the world’s greatest farter. As his poster proclaims, he’s the only performer who doesn’t pay composers’ royalties! When he sidled up to my bar and first told me how he earned a living, I did not believe him. Who would? Then I saw him onstage and, well, he erased my doubts. As well as my olfactory perception!

  Joseph is one of our most successful acts. People arrive two hours early lest they miss his performance or are denied a seat (or must take a seat in the front row—a most dangerous proposition!) You’ve never heard such laughter and applause as when he’s onstage. Not even with Marguérite’s twisting and salty, irreverent mouth! I guess, in the end, we are all still children at heart.

  What I love most about our beloved French flatulist is the company he keeps. I’ve never seen a greater collection of artists and luminaries as when Pétomane bends over and spreads his cheeks: Émile Zola and Edgar Degas and Edgar’s little Italian friend, the painter Giovanni Boldini. They all adore the man. And that makes him a recipient of the best of gossip.

  Joseph says Boldini in particular has taken a liking to me, he wishes to paint my portrait, even! Though Marguérite doubts this claim, instead believing that “Pétomane is farting out both ends, as usual,” I can’t say I would mind his liking or his artistic rendition, or both. He’s an attractive man and quite a reputable portraitist, or so they tell me.

  According to Proust (the world’s foremost gossip), Boldini came to prominence during the 1889 Exposition Universelle, where he served as commissioner for the Italian section. I was only fifteen at the time, and although Sœur Marie took me to the fair, I only cared about witnessing the new, much-maligned Eiffel Tower. What convent-raised child wouldn’t want to see the “Tower of Babel” live and in person? There was such controversy over the damn structure I’m surprised the Italian, Boldini, earned any recognition at all!

  As the story goes, at the time of the exposition, Boldini had been in Paris some time, having taken over M. Sargent’s studio a few years before. Apparently Boldini was quite famous in London before arriving in our fine city. I have not confirmed the veracity of this gossip, but, truth be known, his association with the beloved farter gives him the most cachet of all!

  M. Boldini is a funny little man, nervous and cantankerous. Yet there is something lovely about him, those high cheekbones and forehead, the slender features, and his arresting blue eyes. He is quite a bit older than me, than Pierre even, yet he is somehow youthful. Perhaps it is the tantrums he so loves to throw! So fussy, that man. I swear he yells when he doesn’t like the way the wind blows!

  Boldini comes around my station at least three times a week. According to Émilie, he often appears when I’m not present, leaving nary a franc for the gal. C’est la vie! Instead of patronizing Émilie’s station, he loiters for five or ten minutes and leaves without taking a sip of alcohol or a bite of food. “Farting out both ends,” Marguérite? I think not.

  I must take caution, though, as M. Merde is a beloved patron of les Folies. I cannot be sure whether he corresponds with Gérard or the other fellows who so often ask after his well-being. My directive is to flirt with the guests, but Gérard would not want me to betray Pierre. I cannot afford to lose my apartment, or my monthly stipend for that matter, particularly when Boldini’s financial picture is so unclear. I’m never sure whether he is flush or completely destitute. He is a difficult person to understand, which, of course makes me want to understand him all the more.

  Chapitre XXXI

  April hadn’t planned to go back to work. But Boldini? The flatulist? Monsieur Shit? April couldn’t shove them into her tote, not to be touched again until tomorrow.

  Marthe’s flat was two blocks from April’s. She could stop by. Maybe she’d find something she hadn’t noticed before. Maybe she’d see an old piece in a new light. Maybe April would finally do something other than wait for Troy not to call. At almost thirty-five years of age you were supposed to be done waiting for the phone to ring
.

  So with the journals tucked safely in her bag, she returned to the apartment. Climbing the stairs, April mentally prepared herself for the cluttered, discombobulated mess that somehow surprised her every time. She would begin in the dining room, she decided. There was a stack of mismatched chairs requiring explanation.

  The front door was unlocked. When April stepped across the threshold she wondered for a second if she’d walked into the wrong place. The mismatched chairs had disappeared, along with 95 percent of the dining room pieces as well as everything from the antechamber and hallway. April’s first thought was to call the gendarmes: They’d been ransacked.

  “Olivier?” she said, voice echoing against the emptiness. “Marc? Where are you?”

  “Back here!” Olivier called. “In the master!”

  April’s boots clopped across the floors. She found him, as promised, in Marthe’s room. He was carefully trying to peel paper from the walls.

  “Bonjour, April,” he said. “How are you this afternoon? Sorry it’s only me. Marc is at a meeting. You have a funny look on your face. Have you noticed these wall coverings? They’re Dufour. We could get one thousand euros a panel if we’re meticulous in its removal.”

  “The apartment!” she yelped. “It’s empty!”

  “A little easier to make your way through, non? Another truckload is on its way to the warehouse as we speak. Cleared out a mess of things to make room for these properties. Soon we’ll be ready for staging and photographs. September will be here before you know it.”

  April tried not to panic. She’d already made her feelings known. Hired hand that she was, April had no jurisdiction over the manner in which the auction might take place. But this was going too fast. It was all going too fast.

  “Before catalog copy is finalized I think the team should read Madame de Florian’s journals,” April said and touched her bag. She wasn’t ready to bring them out of the warm circle created by the knowledge only she and Luc shared. Alas, time was not on April’s side. As Marthe herself would and did say: J’ai d’autres chats à fouetter. She had other cats to whip. Clandestine reading was not on the docket.