To Capture What We Cannot Keep

by Beatrice Colin

  On Cait’s balcony, the wind seemed to pause, as if momentarily distracted. From the stables at the far end of the garden, a horse whinnied and another answered. In the east, the sky was a shade of slate, heavy with an approaching storm. The city air had turned thick and golden as syrup.

  She rose and was just about to head back inside when she looked down and saw a black cat leap from the lilac tree to the wall and then down onto the flower beds. It was so graceful and surefooted it seemed to know exactly where it was going. At the fishpond, it sat and just observed, its head switching back and forth as it followed the bright dart of orange beneath the surface of the water. And then, with one swipe of its paw, it scooped.

  By the time Cait had thrown on a nightgown and run down three flights of stairs, the cat was gone and the fish was lying motionless on the flag­stones. It hadn’t been mauled or bitten or even scratched; it was perfect. And yet the fish’s eyes had already clouded over; it had drowned in the sweet garden air.

  She was suddenly aware of a presence and turned. The housekeeper stood in the doorway staring at her in alarm. What was she doing, her face seemed to say, standing in the garden in her nightgown? Where was her sense of common decency?

  “Mrs. Wallace,” Alice’s voice rang out from inside. “Come and see.”

  There had been a delivery from the dressmaker’s. The French lesson for­gotten, Alice was standing in the hallway, a brand-new evening gown in her arms.

  “Isn’t it divine?” she said.

  But then she saw the expression on Cait’s face. “You hate it!”

  “No, not at all,” Cait replied.

  The dress was ruffled with a heavily beaded bodice. It was made of an amber silk brocade exactly the same color as the dead carp.

  12

  ____

  WHEN HE WAS IN PARIS, Gustave Eiffel lived in an apartment near l’Étoile. Although he’d lost his wife more than a decade earlier, he had never remarried. Instead he lodged near his daughter, Claire, and her husband, Adolphe, who worked with him at the firm. His other five children had mostly grown up or left home—the youngest was at boarding school. The Parisian apartment was cavernous, the furnishing tasteful, without any hint of the person who had chosen them. Like Émile, Eiffel was barely there. For the last few decades, he had spent most of his time traveling all over the world, to the Americas, Europe, and the Far East, visiting clients, proposing plans, or working on-site.

  Ever since Émile had started working for him, he had been struck by Eiffel’s single-mindedness. It wasn’t just about the money—there was more than enough—but the absolute faith he had in his own convictions. It was evident in his use of materials and his approach to building bridges, his courage with regard to challenging everything from the established order to the elements. Émile remembered the day when a riveter had fallen into the water from the Garabit Viaduct. Eiffel hadn’t hesitated before diving in to the River Garonne to rescue him.

  Modesty, however, wasn’t one of his attributes. At the time of its building, the Maria Pia Bridge over the Douro had the biggest span of any bridge ever constructed. But as Eiffel liked to point out, the lightness of its wrought-iron form meant that it wouldn’t spoil the view. The bridge was not only strong enough to withstand a hurricane-force wind but undeniably elegant. Eiffel was also a canny businessman. He courted journalists and persuaded them to write favorable articles about him and his work. He gave lectures. He printed handbills and distributed them. His growing reputation was such that he was invited to work on projects as far afield as Chile, Budapest, and New York. And now for the tower, the centerpiece of the World’s Fair, he had come home to France.

  The drawings for the tower had been made by Nouguier and Maurice Koechlin years earlier. Stephen Sauvestre, the architect, had added a few finishing touches. Despite competition in the form of a proposal for a three-hundred-meter tower made of granite with a huge electric furnace on top, Eiffel’s tower was chosen by the Exhibition Commission. The City of Paris would contribute one and a half million francs, Eiffel another five million, to cover projected costs, and in return, he would receive all income from the tower for the next twenty years. Koechlin, Nouguier, and Sauvestre would each receive a percentage of the profits, should there be any. It was a huge financial risk for Eiffel. It was quite possible that no one would be interested in the tower, let alone pay to ascend it.

  From the lobby, Émile could hear the clatter and laughter of the scullery maids in the kitchen, the sound of a baby crying, and above it all, in a higher pitch, the chatter of a pair of songbirds in a cage. He found Gustave at the back of the house, working at a table on the terrace. Two of his daughters were with him, Claire and Valentine, each nursing inconsolable babies. The noise seemed to have little effect. Spread out in front of him were sheets and sheets of plans.

  “Working on a Sunday?” Émile asked.

  “Nothing major,” he said, rising to greet him. “Just an underwater bridge across the English Channel and a new Métro line.”

  This was also typical of Eiffel. He was often at work on half a dozen projects at once, each more technically challenging than the last. If it was too easy, he quickly lost interest.

  “And I hear that I may be asked to submit a bid for the Panama Canal.”

  Émile frowned. “Are you sure we should get involved with that?” he asked.

  “That’s exactly what we said,” his daughter Claire interjected.

  The French Panama Canal Company had been beset with problems ever since it had begun construction six years earlier. Thousands of workers had died on-site, in accidents or from malaria or yellow fever. Conditions were said to be atrocious. The contractor, Ferdinand de Lesseps, the man who had built the Suez Canal, had already spent millions that he had raised from French investors.

  “Lesseps has finally given up on his idea for building it all at sea level,” he replied. “At last they seem to have come around to my way of thinking. The only way to build it successfully is to use a series of metal locks, just as I told him in the first place. With your skills and mine, Émile, we could make it work. Could you take a look over the drawings before I submit them?”

  As Eiffel never stopped working, he expected the same from his employees. Like him, they put in twelve-hour shifts in summer and worked from sunrise until sunset in winter. Émile’s ears were full of the sound of the drill and the hammer. He even heard them in his dreams. When Émile didn’t answer, Eiffel put down his pencil.

  “Claire?” he called out. “Valentine? Could you make yourself scarce for a moment?”

  The two young women glanced at each other and then gathered up their babies and moved to a shady spot farther along the terrace.

  “Is anything the matter?” Gustave asked.

  For a moment Émile was silent.

  “All right. I’m worried,” he admitted. “About the construction of the tower.”

  Gustave raised his eyebrows. His pale blue eyes blinked once.

  “As long as each rivet hole is accurate to one-tenth of a millimeter,” he said, “then all will be well.”

  Émile took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead with it. The air above the city hung low and heavy. There were 2.5 million rivets. It was his responsibility to make sure that every single hole was exactly placed. And what would happen if they weren’t? On-site, iron girders of up to three tons apiece were maneuvered into place; if the rivet holes didn’t match up, then the pieces wouldn’t fit together. There would be no tower.

  His eyes still stung from the black dust that filled the workshop. His hair, his clothes, and his skin smelled of scorching metal and burning coal that no amount of soap could completely remove. Sometimes it seemed that they had taken on an impossible task. To build outward, to span a valley, to build a bridge or viaduct, was one thing, but to build up, to construct something so high, higher than anything ever built before, seemed like trying to articulate a dream. Even though he had designed it, he found it almost impossible to visu
alize hundreds of meters of metal struts beneath his feet and a view glimpsed before only from the gondola of a hot-air balloon.

  “Is it the Arrol boy?” Eiffel asked.

  Émile let out a brief sigh of exasperation.

  “That too! He’s hopeless.”

  He had put the Scot in charge of a tiny area of production. Émile had checked the work on the third day. He had used the template he had been given, but upside down. Consequently all the holes had been drilled in the wrong place. Almost every single girder had to be discarded. Émile had tried not to show his annoyance, he had tried to bottle his frustration, but how many pieces had gotten through without him noticing? How many would cause problems further down the line? Jamie Arrol, however, didn’t seem in the least contrite.

  “In Scotland, we do most of the drilling on-site.”

  “That may well be,” Émile had replied. “But for this project we have decided to drill at least sixty percent of the rivet holes in the factory. Not only will it be faster to assemble on-site, it is also safer and quicker. It is imperative that we finish on time.”

  Jamie Arrol had yawned and sat down on a workbench.

  “Are you well?” Émile had asked.

  “Just tired,” he had replied. “Burning the candle at each end, as they say.”

  After that, Émile had asked the foreman to double-check all the work he had supervised and report back to him.

  “Am I being demoted?” Jamie Arrol asked. “Is that it?”

  It was certainly an idea, an idea that suddenly appealed to Émile.

  “A sideways move,” he had told him. “Come and see me tomorrow in my office on Monday. I have another role for you.”

  It was a lie. He had no idea what he would do with him.

  “Fire him,” suggested Eiffel, “if he’s hopeless.”

  He nodded. It was the obvious solution.

  One of Eiffel’s grandchildren, a girl of about four, came running over and climbed onto Émile’s lap.

  “Did you bring me some chocolate, Monsieur Nouguier?” she asked.

  “I did, Geneviève, but your grandfather ate it all!” he replied.

  She stared at Gustave, who pretended to look guilty.

  “But I brought you something else,” Émile said.

  “What?”

  “Tickles,” he replied, and started wiggling his fingers.

  The child squealed with laughter as she clambered down from his lap again.

  “Bring me some next time,” she said, once she was out of his reach. “And don’t let Grandpapa eat it.”

  “I won’t,” he replied. “I promise.”

  “Geneviève,” called her mother, “what are you doing?”

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “Come here and stop bothering the grown-ups.”

  They both watched as the girl ran back to her mother.

  “Children like you,” Gustave said.

  “The feeling’s mutual,” he replied.

  But even the child couldn’t alleviate his obvious unease.

  “So as we were saying,” Gustave continued, “you’ll get rid of the hope­less Scot. Tomorrow.”

  “It’s not that . . .”

  “You have the authority,” he said softly. “I give you the authority!”

  Émile shook his head. “It’s the tower—it’s never been done before.”

  “But that doesn’t mean that it will fall down,” Gustave replied. “Paris has never seen wind speeds of one hundred fifty miles an hour, but we have calculated for them.”

  “Yes,” he admitted, “we did.”

  “Because its real strength is in its voids,” he continued. “The wind will have virtually nothing to hold on to. It will pass straight through. You know that.”

  “A building without a skin.” Émile nodded.

  “As light as a single apartment block.”

  “But what if we have neglected something we don’t even know about?” Émile blurted out. “What then?”

  A maid appeared with a jug of ice water and two glasses on a tray. Eiffel poured.

  “So you love children. Then why not marry and have some of your own?” he asked as he handed Émile a glass.

  “With respect, what has that got to do with anything?”

  “Mistresses are all very well, but relationships without foundations . . . structurally speaking, they are unstable. Especially if the mistress in question is already married.”

  Émile had never spoken of his private life to Gustave. Was he referring to Gabrielle? And if so, how in the world had he found out about her?

  “It took me five attempts,” Eiffel went on. “I was turned down four times by four different women. My family wasn’t of the right class, too nouveau riche. Finally I found Marie. I wooed her. I left nothing to chance. I calculated every single permutation, every risk factor. I had set my sights on her and I would not give up. Finally, she accepted my proposal.”

  Émile remembered Marie. She was always surrounded by children. Her death had been a shock to everyone. She was so young, so full of vitality.

  “But then I learned something I had not expected,” Gustave went on. “Once I was married, I learned that every day you move into a new dominion, none of it chartable, none of it able to be calculated in advance. Some are easy, some not. Who can know what it feels like to hold your own child? Who can imagine your son growing taller than you? Or for your daughter to weep and to know that there is nothing you can say that will make her feel better?”

  What was he trying to tell him? That this wasn’t about the tower at all. Émile was silent for a moment and then drained his glass.

  “But I know bridges,” Gustave continued. “And this is just a bridge of a different shape.”

  Émile closed his eyes and laughed. This was why he loved Gustave. He never knew what he was going to say next.

  “Do you have any more illuminating advice?” he asked.

  “I hear the Arrol girl is unmarried,” Eiffel teased. “Her brother may be no good, but she may be a better fit. Rich too, by all accounts.”

  Émile placed his empty glass on the table.

  “Well?” Gustave asked.

  “You want me to fire him and marry her?”

  “Might be an idea.”

  “I should get back to the factory.”

  “Don’t leave it too late.”

  “The factory won’t close until sundown,” Émile replied.

  “You know that’s not what I mean.”

  Émile took a cab to the Place d’Anvers in Montmartre and walked up the hill. The narrow streets were full of noise and stale air and the smash of bottles on the cobblestones. Couples hunched in doorways or stumbled up staircases open to the elements. High, high above, through an open window, he heard the slap of a hand on skin followed by a gasp of pain, or possibly pleasure.

  The shepherdess was still waiting in the doorway, almost as if she had never left it. She saw him and her mouth pulled into a small smile.

  “You’re a little late for class,” she said.

  He walked toward her and looked down into her face.

  “I’m not here for class,” he said.

  She laughed a coquettish laugh, short and hollow.

  “Why not come to my studio?” she said. “It’s en plein air.”

  “As long as you promise not to mention Poussin,” he replied.

  Against the cool stone of the Abbey, the shepherdess lifted her skirts. She was naked beneath. He ran his hands down her thighs.

  “Turn around,” he said.

  As the nuns sang and the lights of the city flickered in the dusk below, he suddenly remembered the Scottish woman’s name.

  “Caitriona,” he whispered.

  “It’s Jeanne,” the shepherdess whispered. “Go on, then. I’m waiting.”

  Émile blinked twice and the scene seemed to change before his eyes. The damp wall, the stink of a latrine, the dirt underfoot, and above it all the thin, lonely lament of the nuns
. What was he doing? He pulled down the woman’s dress and extracted a note from his wallet.

  “Here,” he said. “Is that enough?”

  She turned around, then frowned at him. “I charge more,” she said. “For this sort of art.”

  As she held her hand out for another note that she knew would come, the shape of her face rearranged itself into another face: Gabrielle’s.

  He stepped back.

  “You need a doctor, not a model,” the woman said as she slipped the money down the front of her chemise. “Now, Poussin, there was a real man.”

  13

  ____

  IT WAS THE END OF the season, the Fourteenth of July. The air was full of pale dust and horse chestnut pollen—a soft green haze that settled over every­thing, covering statues and park benches, headstones and café chairs. No one minded, no one cleaned; it was almost August, when Paris would close, paper blinds pulled down over every window to curl and bake in the heat of the midsummer sun.

  According to Le Figaro, the celebrations for Bastille Day would have a Venetian theme. There would be gondolas on the Seine, two open-air masked balls, one outside the Bourse and one in front of the Opéra. All the bridges would be decorated with ribbons and flags and flowers. Once it was dark, as well as thousands of extra lamps being hung between the Avenue de Champs-Élysées and the Place de la Concorde, a vast fireworks display would take place at Trocadéro. Not everyone, however, would be celebrating the anniversary of the French Revolution. The Third Republic, the current government, was still called La Gueuse, or “the slut,” by the monarchists. Traditionally, they closed their shutters and spent the whole of the Fourteenth of July in the dark, as far away from the festivities as possible.

  Jamie had been given the day off and lay in bed until ten a.m. Over break­fast, they planned out what they would do; the parade, then possibly a ball.

  “At last,” Alice said. “An occasion! One hopes it will be better than the last one.”

  “You didn’t object,” replied Jamie. “And I thought you liked ballet.”

  “I don’t think anyone was there for the dancing, Jamie,” she replied. “Especially not you. Remember?”