Paris, 7 A.M.

by Liza Wieland

  The sound of the car horn that could take it all back. If the car that forced them off the road had made any sound before it appeared beside Louise’s car . . .

  They are listening for that.

  Margaret has closed her eyes.

  I thought so, she whispers. I think I knew all along. But nobody wants to say that. Even I don’t want to say it. What will I do?

  Your left hand will get the message, Elizabeth says. It will rise to the occasion. Literally. (This makes Margaret smile, just a little.) People will help you.

  I don’t want any help.

  Well, that will have to change.

  I think I’d like to sleep now.

  Margaret swings her feet off Elizabeth’s lap and onto the floor, moves to stand, tries to push away from the sofa with both hands. Sweat beads her forehead. Her face goes gray with pain.

  You can’t do that, Elizabeth says. I’ll help you to your room.

  She takes Margaret’s left arm, grasping under the elbow. She runs her right arm around Margaret’s waist. They pause together, as if waiting for music to begin a dance step.

  That’s good, Margaret says. Thank you.

  Margaret sleeps in the small maid’s bedroom. It has the feel of a ship’s cabin, though there is a large window with a view of the île de la Cité. The ceiling is quite low. A narrow passage runs from the door straight to the bathroom, between the single bed and the dresser. Margaret chose this room over the two larger bedrooms at the back of the house, even though they are quiet and face the courtyard. I like the confinement, was how she explained her choice. Restrained. I can’t roll around and hurt myself.

  Elizabeth understands perfectly. The room is a blank canvas, too, since no one bothers to decorate a maid’s room. That’s left for the maid to do herself if she ever has a spare minute. The walls gleam off-white, bare except for four nail holes and the shadows of the pictures those nails once held. It is interesting to imagine what the maid (whoever she was) would have wanted to look at in the few minutes between climbing into bed and falling into exhausted sleep. Not food. Not Venus borne on the half shell. Certainly not a wealthy Renaissance family with their adult-featured children and small, beribboned dog.

  This afternoon, the room looks more like a nun’s cubicle. Two nuns in the room now, one of them wounded. She helps Margaret into bed, turns to leave.

  Don’t go yet, Elizabeth. Not until I’ve fallen asleep. I’ve taken the pain pills, so it won’t be long.

  Of course I’ll stay.

  Sit here beside me.

  Elizabeth sits on the bed and Margaret curls around her, lying on her side, her knees bent and her hands clasped under her chin, as if in prayer, the lost hand covered by the good one. In three minutes, she is snoring gently.

  She watches Margaret sleep. Margaret is a beautiful sleeper (she is a beautiful everything), eyelashes spidering on her cheek, lips slightly parted as if anticipating a kiss, her breathing a little, bouncy hum. How strange, to be so good at something and never to know it.

  Elizabeth stands up carefully, moves slowly and silently toward the door, even though she can tell the pills have drawn Margaret into a deep slumber and it will be hard to wake her. She lets herself out, closes the door, and walks to the living room, to the large windows. Now the apartment belongs just to her, the early morning light making the same promise: this is yours, do with it all you can. She will walk to rue de Rivoli and find something nice for Margaret, a sweet, petits fours, profiterole, pain au chocolat, pain perdu. Lost bread. The shops will just now be unlocking their doors, though in the bakeries, the ovens will have been burning for hours, the bakers already done half a day’s work.

  She gathers her pocketbook, the shopping bag made of woven string, which appears as if it won’t hold anything much but expands to carry a week’s worth of meals. She lets herself out of the apartment, soundlessly. A Parisian marvel, this bag, a small delight. Elizabeth wants to make Margaret happy. She always has, and she always will.

  Outside, Elizabeth notices the translucent gleam of morning, and she wonders again how it’s possible that the first light of day is so pale. How is it that the sky goes from flat dark to this absolute white and then darkens again into blue? She wonders how to get that phenomenon, that question, into a story or at the very least into a letter to Miss Moore. What is the thing that happens at five a.m. when night goes to pearl? It would be lovely to stay in this moment for longer than a few minutes. The street is nearly empty, and so Elizabeth decides to take the roundabout way, through the place de l’Hôtel de Ville, passing the good bakery, the friendly one, where behind the counter there is a young woman with green eyes and hair black as coal.

  Just before she’s reached the mairie, she hears the sound of footsteps—a crowd of people—and quick breathing. There is no one else nearby, and so she feels a vague dread, very small, a point really, at the back of her skull. She stops walking, moves closer to the mairie portico. A light shines from inside: someone here could help her if need be. She turns to face the sounds and sees not an attacker but Sigrid, her skin the same pearl as the dawn sky.

  I’m sorry to frighten you, Sigrid says. I was waiting . . . I have been waiting . . .

  You should have called, Elizabeth says. The words sound harsh, dismissive, and immediately she is sorry.

  I was afraid to disturb you. I heard about your friend.

  Close behind are four women, walking very fast, three in dark dresses and the fourth a bride. They stop, too, under the portico, very close to Elizabeth and Sigrid, all of them pressed into the shadows. The three attendants (they wear the same style of dress) talk at once, whispering, surrounding the bride, smoothing the folds of her gown, adjusting the veil. The bride is weeping, shaking her head. Non, non, she says. One woman runs her index finger slowly over the bride’s lips, a gesture that is both tender and electric, nearly unbearable to watch. Elizabeth hears her say the word pas, for no or not. She decides in that moment that the attendants are giving advice. Don’t love too much. Never give your whole self away.

  The attendants finish their million last touches and step away from the bride. They notice Elizabeth and Sigrid standing just beyond them, and one takes the bride’s arm, turns her around, a kind of silent presentation.

  Très bien, Elizabeth says. Bonne chance.

  Où est le bébé? the bride asks.

  Elizabeth says she doesn’t know.

  The bride stumbles a moment, but her face stays completely still, as if she is blind and deaf. A man in a soldier’s uniform appears. Green and gold medals shine on his chest. He wears a red képi on his head. He says nothing and does not smile. The attendants guide the bride past him, toward the lighted hallway.

  Just before they enter the mairie, an older woman rushes out of the darkness carrying a bundle. The bride lets out a tiny sob and opens her arms, clutches the baby to her chest. The woman puts her finger to her lips and hurries away.

  Elizabeth turns to Sigrid. She wants to ask what they have just witnessed. She wonders if Sigrid feels the same way she does, that some subtle violence is about to take place. The men must already be inside, waiting for the women and this child. They listen, for what Elizabeth is not even sure (a cry? gunfire?), but there is no sound other than the creak and distant rumble of a city coming awake. The fearful event must be unfolding rooms away, in the interior, the heart of the building. Though the moment appears to have resolved itself, her initial fear, a prickle of high-pitched dread, a whine, settles in her head, the back of her neck.

  I’m sorry, Elizabeth says. I ought to have called you.

  Is it very bad? Sigrid asks. What happened to your friend.

  I think it is. But we can’t let her know that.

  I am terribly sorry. I know you love her very much.

  It’s difficult to watch her suffer.

  In fact, it’s intolerable. Elizabeth thinks she will have to get out of Paris. She must go to the sea. And she will have to make the trip alone. Margaret can’
t go, of course, and probably Louise won’t want to. She’s having too much fun. Parisians treat Louise like a beloved pet, and she becomes more sleek and assured under their attention. Like a cat, and all of Paris is her sunny window. Elizabeth believes Louise will take her to Florida, but that won’t be for weeks.

  And Sigrid. Elizabeth looks at her now, as morning blooms around them. Sigrid’s creamy skin, her pale eyebrows and eyelashes—she looks completely unguarded, vulnerable, as if everything about her is out in the open, completely exposed.

  You can’t leave Paris, can you? Elizabeth asks her.

  It isn’t safe.

  I’m sorry.

  Are you going away again?

  I think so. Something is crushing me.

  Sigrid places her hand on Elizabeth’s shoulder. The gesture is neutral, utterly mystifying.

  It’s as if the growing daylight makes Elizabeth’s path clear, certain. She will go back to Douarnenez. Or to Saint-Malo. Or maybe to another town, the one Seurat painted, in Normandy, sailboats in the dotted bay. Elizabeth thinks she would like to get out on the water, look back and see all of France before her. The Seine is decent water, but there’s no horizon. You can cross a bridge and have half of it behind you, but you can’t stand and look at it all day—you’ll either block traffic or be taken for an idiot or both.

  Tell me before you leave, Sigrid says.

  I will.

  Sigrid steps away from the mairie, turns north again toward the river.

  When Elizabeth returns to the apartment, Margaret is still sleeping. Louise also has come back. Her coat reclines along the sofa, glossy with appreciation. If you put your face close to the coat, you would hear it purring. Elizabeth makes herself a cup of coffee, consults the train schedule in the kitchen drawer. Trains run north from Gare du Nord and Gare Saint-Lazare. She could arrive in Caen in two hours. A bus or taxi to the seaside. Someone would know of a nice town with a good hotel. She is not really afraid to travel by herself—in fact, she would welcome that lovely suspension between cities. But arrival and then finding herself alone, that’s another thing entirely. She sits down at the kitchen table, feels the apartment breathe. Women sleeping, separate in their beds, the beauty of it, faces slack, their dreams tumbling and curdling in the air above their heads.

  Elizabeth knows the real reason she can’t go alone. She will not even make it out of the bar at the train station. She will stay and drink until someone has to come and bring her back to this apartment. She will drink to all of it. She will raise glass after glass, beguiled by suitcases tucked under tables, the alert gaiety of travelers, their eyes glazed here in the place between home and destination, eyes on the departures board, eyes on clocks.

  The clocks. Then she knows: Clara. Clara will go with her. Some time ago, and now just recently Clara mentioned a trip to Normandy. Clara is always eager to escape.

  Elizabeth knows the telephone number by heart.

  Elizabeth, Clara says, and her voice softens. How lovely of you to telephone. How is Margaret?

  It’s a hideous situation, Elizabeth says. She’s had some setbacks. She’s in a great deal of pain. There was an operation last week to sever nerves.

  Clara’s sigh could have come from the mourning doves pacing the roof outside.

  But, you see, she doesn’t need me every minute. Louise is thinking of making a trip to Florida, to buy property. I’d like to get away.

  Clara offers her country house, near Versailles, but Elizabeth hears a reluctance in her voice, a little tease. She says no, thank you.

  I want to go farther. The coast. North. Normandy. The trip you mentioned.

  Clara’s voice turns bright. Of course! I know a town, Arromanches, up quite a steep hill, so there’s a marvelous view of the sea, and a comfortable hotel.

  She wants, Elizabeth believes, to be asked but fears she won’t be. They talk about how the weather might turn, the storm season, and Elizabeth wonders if she really and truly wants Clara to go with her. But she does. The idea fills her with such calm: Clara will direct them here and there. The hotel will be fine, the restaurants excellent. Walking beside the sea will be splendid, the hikes not too difficult or tiring. Clara will know how to rent a sailboat, and she will let Elizabeth steer.

  Will you come with me? Elizabeth says finally. Or take me along with you?

  Clara does not speak. The silence lasts so long Elizabeth wonders if the connection has been broken. She wonders if she’s got it wrong, that a journey with Elizabeth is really the last thing Clara wants. Then she hears a tiny gasp, almost a sob.

  Of course, Clara says. I’ll book the train. When shall we go? And the hotel. I’ll phone right away.

  I’d like to go right this minute, Elizabeth says.

  Clara laughs. I know, but we can’t do that, she says. She sounds like a mother talking to a fanciful child, wishing she could make the fancied thing happen.

  Elizabeth listens to the voice, the tone and style that have always been Clara’s: a grief-stricken person struggling to be sensible. She wants Clara to go on talking, maybe forever. That will be the pleasure and the wonder of this trip. Clara’s talking.

  Meet me tomorrow, Clara says. Café Varenne. On rue du Bac. To plan our little journey.

  Elizabeth arrives twenty minutes early to have a drink by herself, to prepare for the great storm that Clara can sometimes be, the formidable comtesse de Chambrun. She settles at a table by the front window, next to two women. She orders a whiskey and soda, and glances at a newspaper someone has left behind. La France est le poids decisif pour la paix ou pour la guerre.

  How would you like love to be at the end of your life?

  Elizabeth listens as one of the women, an American, asks this of the other. She believes they do not intend to be overheard.

  Calm, the other woman says.

  Not me, the first woman says. I want a perfect riot.

  Well, her companion says, then I imagine you’ll be divorcing James.

  No, not yet. First I’ll try to set him on fire.

  The women nod. They clasp hands across the table, furtively, then let go as if they’ve received an electric shock.

  Elizabeth pictures the burning man, burning James. How quiet he is. Just a crackle now and then. The women are still not speaking. They gaze at each other. At any moment, she imagines, they will rise abruptly, scatter a few francs on the table, leave the café. One of them has rooms nearby.

  But they don’t move. Silently, Elizabeth urges them out the door. Go now. The older woman sighs, drops a cube of sugar into her steaming cup.

  Tell me about marriage, the younger woman says.

  Well, it gets better, and then it gets different. Actually, I read that somewhere, and it feels true.

  That’s what I was afraid of.

  The women smile. Elizabeth can’t stop watching them, even though any second now they will notice her staring. She drinks them in, fills herself with the puzzle, theirs and her own. What is it, she thinks, that we are all working out here?

  I sent you telegrams, the younger woman says. Did you get them all right?

  I received two, the older woman says.

  I sent four. Did the package from Istanbul arrive?

  No. So much gets lost in the mail, Elaine.

  Elaine stares, disbelieving.

  Elizabeth can tell the older woman is lying about the package from Istanbul. Elaine thinks this is the worst moment of her life, but it won’t be.

  Margaret once told her a story about going to a bridal shop with her cousin and her aunt. Before her cousin’s fitting, they watched a mother and daughter. The daughter was quite young, a bit plump, very happy to be engaged to be married. Engagement to a man had made her beautiful. She tried on dress after dress. In each one she looked increasingly lovely. And she knew this, the daughter, knew it deep in her heart. For the first time, happiness had cast its spell, transformed her into the most gorgeous woman in all of New York City.

  It sounds like a fairy tale, El
izabeth said.

  Just wait, Margaret told her.

  The mother, though. The mother’s expression never changed. No, she said, just the one word, no, each time, to each dress while her daughter blossomed, shone, diminished the women of Manhattan. Five times for five dresses. Finally, after the sixth no, the daughter’s face went blank. Not sad. Just nothing. Margaret had to leave the shop.

  To kill your child like that, she said to Elizabeth. I still see that dead face. It is as much a crime as with a knife or with bullets.

  Elaine is being killed this way, Elizabeth can see. Murder by repeated small refusals, murder by silence.

  You are there, Robert wrote on a postcard (not the last one). I am here. I remember.

  Elizabeth did not write back.

  * * *

  Clara arrives in a swirl of cape, midnight blue, wearing a hat pierced on one side by a peacock feather. Elizabeth is not at all surprised to find she knows Elaine and her older companion, called Susan, from the American Library. Clara stands beside their table. She acknowledges Elizabeth barely, with the smallest incline of her head, a gesture that seems to say, Just sit there for a moment and listen.

  We were just talking about the end of our lives, Elaine says.

  Really? Clara says. Did you get some notice?

  No more than anyone else, Susan says. It’s an amusing topic, don’t you think?

  I find myself thinking a bit more about the end of the world, Clara says.

  Of course, Susan says.

  You’ve been away from Paris quite a bit, haven’t you? Elaine asks Clara. Dorothy’s been running the library all by herself.

  And doing a marvelous job, Clara says. She was a find, wasn’t she?

  Yes, but we miss you. Are you traveling with the count? But no, my brother says he dines at Josephine almost every night.

  Elizabeth watches Clara. Her smile does not waver.

  I travel when I can, Clara says. It’s one of life’s last amusements, isn’t it?

  Where should I go then? Susan says.