A Paris Apartment

by Michelle Gable

  But soon she would not be alone. The manic grinning might continue, but then they would see Luc. And all at once they would understand.

  Chapitre XLIII

  Luc sat across from her, flashing his wonky-tooth smile.

  “Bonjour, Avril,” he said. “I came as quickly as I could.”

  April noticed he hadn’t shaved that day, perhaps not even yesterday or the day before. As a result Luc now possessed an almost-beard, which only served to make his aggravating disheveledness all the more appealing. Even the pink-frocked women nearby, previously oblivious, had to sneak a glance.

  “You didn’t need to hurry,” she said, though was glad he had.

  Luc shrugged. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. After executing one of those weird palm-tapping maneuvers smokers so enjoyed, Luc slid a cigarette from its box and went to light it.

  “I didn’t mind the rush,” he said. “And thank you for always making yourself easy to find.”

  As April tried to avoid interpreting that particular comment, Luc cocked his head and looked down at her feet. Then slowly, slyly, he surveyed her legs. Suddenly April remembered she was in little more than a glorified beach cover-up. Not the most professional attire, but it was hot and she was “out of the office.” April did not expect to run into anyone who might notice her exposed legs, and definitely no one who would comment on them.

  “Cute dress,” Luc said with a smirk. “I like it.”

  “I’m sure you do,” she muttered. “Sorry. It’s hot. Marthe’s flat doesn’t have air-conditioning, nor does mine. I didn’t think I’d encounter any acquaintances.”

  “You are so defensive, ma chérie.” Luc blew a stream of smoke over his right shoulder. “‘Cute’ is a compliment in the English language, non?”

  “It is, sometimes. So, did you seek me out to see what I am wearing? Or is there another reason you’re here?”

  “The clothes are a plenty good excuse.” He sneered happily, eyes twinkling like a devil’s golden pitchfork. “But alas, non. I have some news. They’ve released Madame Vannier from the hospital. She is on the pathway to recovery.”

  “Really?” April popped up off her chair. “That’s fantastic news! Such vast improvement in a relatively short amount of time.”

  “No doubt thanks to your ardent praying over the last few weeks. I know you’ve been gravely concerned. I’ll extend to her your well wishes.”

  “Please do. And unlike yours, my sentiments are not facetious. So tell me, when can we see her?”

  “Not facetious, eh?”

  “How about tomorrow? Can we go see Madame Vannier tomorrow? It’d be perfect timing as Olivier is away for the weekend—”

  “Tomorrow? I don’t know, Avril, should we really wait that long? Perhaps we shall go now! We can beat her home!” Luc stubbed out his cigarette and winked. “A solicitor and an auctioneer, what a spectacular welcome home. It would likely send her right back to the hospital.”

  “All right, all right, I get it.” She rolled her eyes. “For the record, I still don’t think this weekend is an unreasonable request, but I will defer to your judgment.”

  “Ah, my dear Américaine. Always such the eager badger.”

  “You and your obsession with badgers.” April shook her head. “It’s a beaver. An eager beaver.”

  “Beaver. All right. Très bien. I like beavers.”

  “Oh, good god.”

  April tried to frown. She stared down at the table, giggles sneaking up her spine.

  “Are you feeling ill, Madame Vogt?”

  “Yes, quite. Monsieur Thébault, if not this weekend, when do you think we might meet with your client? And this has nothing to do with any beavers,” April said before he could interject. “I need to arrange my schedule.”

  “In a few weeks, perhaps?”

  “A few weeks?” April looked up.

  “Two, perhaps three. I’m going out of town for a spell—”

  “Luc, three weeks doesn’t work. I have to go back to New York in two. And that’s at the very outside. If I try to extend the trip yet again I will certainly be fired.”

  “You’re leaving?” Luc started. His eyes widened, and he blinked several times. “In two weeks?” The new cigarette he had begun to light now remained frozen in midair. Luc did not care about the potential firing, but this, this seemed to bother the perpetually cool M. Thébault.

  “Oui,” April said. “Two weeks is the edict. I’m sure you’re quite looking forward to the date. No more annoying Américaine hassling you about journals and letters and hospitalized old ladies.”

  “Yes.” Luc cleared his throat once, and then again. He ground out the cigarette he’d never smoked. “Lucky me. Well, then. I suppose we need to work fast.”

  “It would be much appreciated,” she said softly. Was it possible? Did he also view her departure with a discernible level of regret?

  Suddenly Luc stood. He looked flustered and rumpled in a way he normally never did. April followed suit, rising to her feet as she straightened her dress. It seemed about a foot shorter than it was when she put it on.

  “Well, I’d better be off,” April said, with a hopeful brightness, still tugging at the hem of her skirt.

  “Off to where?” Luc walked a few steps closer. Some part of his pant leg touched her knee.

  “I’m going to lie down for a bit.” She nodded toward the lawn. “Find an empty spot, read a few journals, and relax. It is not my forte, relaxing, but the day seems right for it and I don’t have many more hours left to lounge in the Parisian sun.”

  “Indeed you don’t.” Luc ran both hands through his hair and then hiked up his pants. “Well, allow me to escort you to the lawn.”

  “Merci.”

  “Come, my friend. Let’s enjoy the light.”

  Luc wrapped a congenial arm around her. As they walked beneath the arcades, April’s first reaction was to shrink, to shake him off. Two steps to the right and she might be out of grabbing distance. But something held April in place.

  “Do you come here often?” April asked, wincing, hoping the bad pickup line did not translate.

  “On occasion.” She felt his body smiling against hers, struggling not to take advantage of her verbal misstep. “And you?”

  “I came here all the time when I worked at the museum,” she said. “This was my escape.”

  “It’s a lovely space,” he said as they hooked left and stepped into the sunshine. “Victor Hugo once had a home on this lawn. Though I’m sure you already knew.”

  “Really?” April turned toward him, face wide in a smile. “I didn’t know. The Victor Hugo? Grandfather of Jeanne, Marthe’s archnemesis?”

  Luc laughed and patted her on the head.

  “Well, most people know him as one of the greatest writers and humanitarians of all time. But ‘grandfather of archnemesis’ is, I suppose, an alternate viewpoint.” He pointed across the lawn. “He lived in that building. It was once a private residence but now houses a museum dedicated to his honor.”

  “There’s a Victor Hugo museum?”

  “You have your Monticello, non? It is quite the same thing.”

  “Wow! I’ve probably been here five hundred times. I never had any idea.”

  April paused on a sunny length of grass that was also shade-adjacent in case she got too warm. With Luc standing so close, she was mostly too warm already.

  “All right,” she said. “This looks like a good place. What do you think?”

  “The best of the Parisian sun, no doubt.”

  April pulled a shawl from her bag and laid it across the lawn. She did her best to sit down in a ladylike, nonflasher fashion.

  “You are welcome to join me,” April said and then pulled back. She hadn’t meant to say that. “I mean, if you need an afternoon off.”

  “Need it? Yes. Alas I have an appointment.”

  “Oh. Okay.” April frowned. “I guess some of us have to work. Even on Saturdays. Thank you
for helping me find my perfect spot.”

  “It was my absolute pleasure. Madame Vogt.” He gave her a quick little salute. “Au ’voir. Until next time.”

  Wordlessly and with a slight frown, she watched Luc saunter away. He was distracted, something was not right. Luc never left without a proper good-bye. April touched her face, wondering if she’d done something to put him off.

  “Avril?”

  She jolted. He had caught her staring and was now walking back her way. What did her face look like? Was her mouth open? Her eyes glazed over? Did she look like a lovesick teenager? Or a serial killer?

  “Ça va?” he asked.

  “Yes, oui! J’ai la banane!”

  Had April learned nothing? J’ai la banane. Her regrettable colloquial expression: “I’m fine” and/or “I feel good.” Embarrassing literal translation: “I have the banana.”

  “Super,” he said and laughed. “The banana must always be had. I meant to ask. Do you have plans for the Fête Nationale?”

  “Bastille Day? Do you mean the actual day? Or the night before?”

  Though April knew the holiday itself was on July 14 and most celebrations occurred the previous evening, she did not know why she asked for clarification. Plans weren’t abundant on either day, and in fact April didn’t have plans at all that week. Or the week before. Or the week after. Her only plans at all in July involved shoring up provenance and boarding a plane into an unknown future.

  “Either way,” Luc said, shrugging.

  “The thirteenth is my birthday,” April blurted. “Wait, I mean it’s not.”

  Her face went crimson. Oh, how she wanted to grab the aforementioned banana and shove it into her mouth so she’d stop speaking!

  “I’m confused. Is it or is it not your birthday?”

  “Fine. Yes.” She exhaled. “It is my birthday. I’m turning thirty-five, officially middle-aged, hence my reluctance to cop to it.”

  “You are only going to live until seventy?”

  “If I’m lucky.”

  “Well, this is perfect. I think you need to experience the quintessential Fête Nationale to celebrate your entrée into ‘middle age.’ Le bal des pompiers. What do you think?” The twinkle in his eyes was suddenly back.

  “Le bal des pompiers? I don’t know, Luc.”

  April had lived in Paris several years, over several Bastille Days, but she’d never been to a fireman’s ball. She planned to attend one her last summer in the city, but when her museum closed April was eager to flee all reminders of her failure. She’d meant to come back in a few weeks, after she found a new job and could properly show her face. But April met Troy and plans changed. Then again, when she met Troy it was not merely the plans that changed. It was everything.

  “You don’t know what?” Luc said. “It would be the ideal way to spend your birthday.”

  April started to refuse his offer but thought better of it. If there was one thing she needed most right now, it was a bit of dancing and laughter … plus, always, champagne.

  “You know what?” she said. “I’d love to. Yes. Bal des pompiers. Sounds like a blast.”

  “A blast?”

  “Oui. But you’d better make sure I don’t have too much champagne lest I start feeling revolutionary and subject you to random musical numbers. I do a fantastic rendition of ‘Lovely Ladies.’”

  “‘Lovely Ladies’?”

  “You know, from Les Miz? Victor Hugo?” She pointed toward the building in which Jeanne’s grandfather once lived. “Must I sing a few bars for your edification?”

  “I did not realize you were an actress. It is with great difficulty I try to picture you onstage.”

  “One does not need to be an actress to do a rendition.”

  “Okey-dokey.” He shook his head. Crouching down on her blanket, Luc took one of April’s hands in his. She looked down, noticing how smooth and hairless her skin appeared next to his, like a child’s. “It is set then, lovely lady. Le bal des pompiers with your solicitor.” He kissed her hand, then released it to the ground. “It is … what do you call it? ‘Booked’?”

  “Yes. ‘Booked.’” April wasn’t sure if the words actually managed to make it all the way out of her mouth.

  Luc nodded, that forever-smirk firmly attached to his face. A chunk of black hair fell across his forehead.

  “Perfect,” he said, brushing his fingers along her arm before pulling away for good. “I look forward to it. Au ’voir once again, ma chérie. We will see each other soon.”

  Chapitre XLIV

  Paris, 10 May 1894

  Even so many months later I can hardly step into Maxim’s without fear of seeing Joseph Pujol. Oh how quickly our relationship soured. How rapidly he’s fallen from the city’s graces! The world’s most famous farter, once the Moulin Rouge’s premiere act and now Paris’s social pariah. He blames me, but it was his idea in the first place!

  I only asked for help. I did not ask that it take a specific form. I did not ask for an impromptu farting exhibit with the highest fees he’d charged to date. When Pujol announced his plan he never once mentioned it violated his exclusive contract with the Moulin Rouge. He never mentioned they might sue him for damages!

  M. Pujol is now in a horrible position. The Moulin Rouge took all they could, and his solicitors grabbed the rest. I gave back what remained of the show proceeds, but I could not very well ask my former landlord for a return of rental payments. He does not care if the money came from bar wages or a whorehouse or an illegal farting show. He received the money and the money he will keep. I’m not even a tenant anymore!

  I’ve tried to rectify the situation. Every day I beg Gérard to give Pujol a show at the Folies. He’d worked there before. But who wants to hire a man known to betray his employer? A man who already left your establishment once in pursuit of higher pay? He already had some of the highest royalties to begin with. It is all so disastrous. I fear Pujol will soon resort to street-corner flatulence. How undignified, and what a fall from grace.

  And it gets worse. Boldini is suddenly off my charms. He won’t even acknowledge me! I’ve knocked on his door. No answer. I’ve left notes asking him to call on me, at home or at the Folies. No response. I’ve waited in the alley behind his studio, which resulted in him tracking down a gendarme to accuse me of assault.

  “This lady tried to rob me!” he cried. “She’s an opium addict and a thief, and you should incarcerate her immediately!”

  Guess which favored barmaid missed her shift at the Folies because she was fermenting in the Paris jail? I should invoice Boldini for lost compensation. At least someone (Boldini, I hope) alerted Montesquiou to my predicament. Le Comte loves a girl in trouble, or a boy or goat for that matter, and was all too thrilled to come to my rescue. I could not have made myself more appealing if I’d dipped my body in gold and affixed diamonds to my eyelashes. Paris’s favored dandy cheerily paid for my release, sporting his favored pistachio velvet waistcoat, bien sûr.

  I suppose it is time to accept the truth: This is the end of us. No more Boldini. No more lazy mornings in his studio. No more evening strolls through his courtyard and out to the Luxembourg Gardens. At least paint-fume headaches and artistic tantrums will also disappear from my daily routine, a bittersweet result to be sure. The love we’d built over the months is now gone, as if it never happened in the first place. Marguérite says I’m being overly theatrical, that it will all work out in the end. But, truly, what other eventuality can one assume when one’s lover has her arrested and thrown behind bars?

  Already I miss Giovanni’s company. I miss his funny, grumpy ways. I feel robbed of a relationship that meant a lot to me. Also, I feel robbed of an explanation. All this robbing … perhaps I should call the gendarmes on him! Boldini never warned me he was fed up, incensed, ready to part ways. At least Pierre offered that dignity. I asked Giovanni if he was mad about the Pujol farting debacle or whether it had to do with Montesquiou. He refused an answer, saying I shouldn’t have to ask
. That he could have saved me from either or both situations is entirely lost on him.

  Since he does not afford me the luxury of an explanation, I can only assume this is about Montesquiou, the Pujol business being less personal and less involving illicit deeds (farting shows excepted). Boldini is jealous of our relationship but I cannot figure why. I proposed to the silly little portraitist and he would not have me! After his refusals and the Pujol nonsense I really had no choice. It is mostly a business arrangement, and anyway a lady could do worse than hitch herself to Le Comte! It is not my fault Boldini has failed so many times to paint him.

  “I thought you had standards,” Giovanni snarled when he first heard of my situation with M. de Montesquiou. “Have you forgotten the hours we’ve spent slandering the man?”

  “Slandering”? We were not that cruel! Granted, we’ve exchanged quips at Le Comte’s expense, but all of it humorous banter on the subject of a man who begs to be talked about. It’s true, Robert can be a bit of a dullard and would never love a single soul as much as he loves himself. But he knows all this! He would laugh at the jokes, too. So, then, what’s the harm in repeating these things and then proceeding to his bed? This is my survival we’re talking about. I wish Giovanni could understand.

  Chapitre XLV

  Paris, 2 June 1894

  Le Comte is not so bad.

  Boldini: “If you must keep saying he is not so bad then he is quite so.” Giovanni is talking to me now, at least, even if it is only to peck at my decisions while offering me no other choice.

  We can all agree Montesquiou is a half-baked conversationalist. He strives for literary and artistic achievement, but his grandest contribution to date is what critics called “a ponderous volume of utterly incomprehensible poems.” But thank heavens he does have other fine attributes. He knows how to thrill a lady, unsurprising what with all that experience, not to mention the man looks positively exquisite at dinner tables or sitting in the parlors of learned and titled men. He is infinitely more presentable than Giovanni, though that is a low hurdle to be sure.