by M. J. Rose
Charlotte, wearing a fetching verdant-green silk dress and hat that set off her blond hair, was leaning on the gentleman’s arm, flirting with him, while Julien walked alone. I felt a secret pleasure that not only did he not seem to be paying attention, he also didn’t look annoyed with her. Although even if he was jealous, he couldn’t very well show it, could he? She was helping him procure a commission; it wouldn’t do for him to make the gentleman uncomfortable.
All three entered the elevator. I watched the cabin rise, keeping sight of Charlotte’s emerald-green hat, which sparkled brightly like a bird’s wings as they ascended.
I thought of the last thing that Julien had said to me before he’d departed the previous evening . . .
“I will be at dinner tonight, thinking of you here, in bed, naked, like this.”
“Don’t go then. Stay with me here, naked, like this.”
“I am obligated.”
“Yes, you are obligated.”
But do you love her? I wanted to ask so I could understand. Love, or the lack of it, I wanted to tell him, was not a frivolous reason for making a decision about marriage. It was the only reason. Love, I wanted to shout, was the only reason to do anything. The only value worth living for. A goal truly worth making any sacrifice for.
But I just fingered the rubies around my neck and kept silent.
As the elevator worked its way up the tower, I climbed the stairs, my sensible boots making it easy to keep up a steady pace. In fact, I was able to outdistance the lift. When I reached the restaurant level and stepped off, I looked down and watched the emerald-green feathers rising, flying up.
Would they look around first or go straight to the restaurant? I had made a reservation and would simply wait and let them be seated first and then tip the maître d’ to make sure I wasn’t in Julien’s line of sight.
I positioned myself so I could observe them get off the elevator without them seeing me.
After emerging from the lift, they walked to the right, away from the restaurant and out onto the observation deck. Using the crowd to conceal myself, I followed. With all the people around, it was unlikely Julien would notice me, especially in my drab black pants and jacket and hat pulled down to cast my face in shadow.
The trio stood at the railing. Charlotte put down the straw basket she was carrying, bent over, and opened it. Withdrawing three champagne flutes, she handed one to the German and two to Julien. As she did so, she leaned close to him, brushing his arm with her breast. I bristled. No matter what he had told me, he was betrothed to her, not to me. She had the right to be this way with him in public. To lean on him. To touch him. And I did not.
Next she pulled a bottle of champagne out of the basket and with great ceremony proceeded to open it. At the end, she lost control of the cork, either by accident or on purpose to make the moment even more exciting. As it went sailing over the edge, she gave a shriek I could hear despite the crowd’s murmuring. It was a lovely sound—she was a singer after all—but at the same time it had an ominous tone to it, like one of the broken bells in the tower.
I caught sight of the cork as it arched over the crowd and then dropped. Peering down, I followed its trajectory. Would it hurt someone when it landed? There were a lot of trees below; most likely it would be caught in the branches of a chestnut or plane tree.
The dizzying view made me uncomfortable, and I stepped back from the edge. As I did, I bumped into someone. Turning around to apologize, I came face-to-face with my husband.
No. That was impossible. He was in New York. It was the dizziness. It was the shadows from the clouds. Indeed, he was similar in height and coloring, but his features were not the same and his eyes were kind. My husband’s eyes were intelligent and shrewd but never kind.
“Excuse me,” I said to the stranger.
He smiled and told me it wasn’t a problem, but he stared. It took me a moment to realize why. The juxtaposition of the feminine voice and masculine clothing had caught his attention.
I resumed watching the trio by the railing. Charlotte filled the glasses. The three of them clinked the flutes with a toast I was too far away to hear, and then they drank.
Keeping at Julien’s back so that he didn’t spot me, I inched closer. I wanted to listen to what they were saying.
The German was pointing out over the rooftops of Paris. “That is the street. Right there will be the finest store in all of this fine city. I want to be able to stand here and look out over Paris and see my store. Will you be able to do that, Monsieur Duplessi?”
They were all leaning over the railing now, looking far into the distance, toward the 5th arrondissement.
“Of course! The tallest, most fantastic store in the city!” Charlotte cried, answering for him.
The wind picked up, and I felt the first few drops of rain. But no one seemed to notice, or if they did, it didn’t dampen their spirits.
Charlotte pointed. “Is it right there? Next to the church? Will you sell hats? I love hats,” she sounded as if the champagne had gone to her head already.
“No,” the German said. He took her hand and moved to the right. “That street. Do you see it? There is a long row of uneven rooftops, like bad teeth.”
The wind grew stronger, but no more rain fell. It seemed to me that the tower was swaying. Some of the crowd noticed it, too. I heard comments of concern and surprise.
Another stronger gust caused a more obvious swaying that was disturbing enough for a surge of people to rush to the elevator. In the crush someone shoved me. I began to fall into the man in front of me. The stranger whom I’d thought looked like Benjamin. But at the last minute he moved, opening up a direct path between me and Charlotte. I was going to fall right into her as she leaned over the edge. I might throw her off balance.
I twisted to the right, falling instead into a middle-aged woman holding a child’s hand who was beside me and nowhere near the ledge.
“Be careful!” she shouted as she pulled her child closer.
I stood, turned around, looked for whoever had jostled me to complain. But no one around acted in the slightest way responsible. I had no idea who it had been.
At the railing, Charlotte, Julien, and the German were still looking out over the city, oblivious to my mishap and how close we’d come to disaster. Neither the strong winds nor the tower’s tremble seemed to be troubling them. Charlotte, still leaning, was now using her champagne glass as a pointer and swaying in rhythm with the tower, as if the wind were her dancing partner.
Julien pulled a notebook from his pocket and sketched rapidly, while the German looked on, lavishing praise.
Fat, cold raindrops began to fall then, enough so that the two men inched away from the railing and moved closer to the restaurant and shelter so Julien could keep drawing.
Charlotte, however, remained, still leaning over, still looking out, as focused on the city as the men were on the sketch.
A woman struggling to open her scarlet umbrella asked me to help. Taking the frilly contraption from her, I tried to release the catch while a squall pushed against my efforts.
Just as I was about to give up, the wind moved direction. At my back now, the gusts helped and the umbrella opened quickly. Suddenly, with a force that took me by surprise, the wind flew into the open canopy and stole the whole umbrella from me.
It flew, like some odd bird, through the air, right toward Charlotte, as if aiming for her specifically.
“Watch out,” I shouted over the rain.
I’m not sure what she heard, but she turned, saw the umbrella, moved to the right, giggled, and, following its trajectory, tried to grab it. What was she thinking? It was just some stranger’s red umbrella.
Teasing, the wind blew the elusive silk parasol back to her and then away in the other direction. Charlotte laughed, making me think of a kitten playing with a ball of string.
The sky blackened. In the distance thunder rumbled. The wind blew the umbrella back toward Charlotte, who, reaching for the wayward instrument, stretched out her hand and leaned all the way forward.
Too far forward.
I rushed toward her, reaching out to help her, to stop her, because I could see what was going to happen and I couldn’t allow it. To my horror my fingers grasped only air. Impossibly, in one quick and terrible instant, she’d gone over the tower’s railing. The parasol along with her, winging its way through the charcoal sky, picked up by drafts of air, dancing still. But Charlotte did not dance. She fell straight down, hurtling toward the crowd and the hard pavement below us. She fell fast, becoming smaller and smaller, while all I could do was watch.
A scream rent the air. At first I thought it was Charlotte but then realized I was the one screaming. She was laughing, drunkenly, hysterically, pathetically, and the sound of it rose up on the wind and splashed my face along with the cold, cold rain.
Chapter 27
I arrived at the bottom of the tower, shaking and disoriented. I looked around, trying to figure out which direction to take to leave, to make my way to the road, to find a carriage, to go home.
There were so many people milling around I couldn’t see any street signs.
To the right, at least a dozen uniformed officers had formed a barricade and were blocking off a section of the plaza. Was that where Charlotte had fallen? Was her body there on the pavement? I tried to see through their legs, but they had formed too solid a wall. Standing on my tiptoes, I searched for a glimpse of Julien between their starched caps. I didn’t see him, but I did catch sight of the German.
Then one of the policemen shifted position and nothing but uniforms were visible.
Not knowing which way to go, I decided just to walk in the opposite direction from the disaster site. I would be able to find a carriage on any street. It didn’t matter if it was in the opposite direction from La Lune. Heading a few blocks out of the way was of no importance now. I needed to get home. Everything would be all right once I got home.
I began to walk, two terrible words going around and around in my head, in some crazy rhythm that wouldn’t abate.
Fire, fall . . . fire, fall . . . fire, fall . . .
There was no avoiding the awful truth. The fire had been her first attempt. This had been her second.
My legs were shaking so badly each step seemed to take forever.
I began to notice more police had arrived. Or had they been there all along? Dozens of them, their hats standing out like white caps on a stormy sea. It appeared the gendarmes were stopping random people and asking them questions.
What would happen if they interrogated me?
Nothing, I reassured myself. I had nothing to hide. No reason to be so nervous, to be this nervous.
Trying not to attract any attention, I continued moving through the crowd, heading toward the street. Despite my efforts, one of the gendarmes focused on me. I bent to pick up an imaginary something from the ground.
How was I going to answer his questions? I didn’t even understand what I’d seen. I was only sure of what I’d felt—someone in the crowd had shoved me; the wind had pushed me. Such a strong wind. It was the wind that had picked up the umbrella. Why had Charlotte been determined to grab it? Had she drunk too much champagne?
“Monsieur?” The policeman blocked my path.
I stood up and looked at him, meeting his glance, at the same time pretending to put whatever I’d picked up from the ground into my pocket.
“Oh, excuse me, Mademoiselle.” He was embarrassed to have gotten my sex wrong.
“That’s all right.”
“Were you up on the terrace?”
I nodded.
“You are aware of what happened?”
“It’s so terrible,” I said, my voice breaking.
He gave me a sympathetic nod. “It is. Did you witness the accident?”
“No, I didn’t. I was on the other side of the balcony.”
He was trained to know when people were telling the truth. Would he know that I was lying?
“And so how is it you know what happened?”
“On the steps . . . it’s a long way down . . . there were people who saw it and were talking about it . . . Is it true what they said? A woman fell to her death?”
Was he looking at me strangely? Had he guessed? Did he think I had been involved? Had I somehow implicated myself? But I hadn’t been involved. There was no way I could be found guilty. It was not me. I had not touched Charlotte. I had nothing to do with her accident.
“So then, you didn’t actually see anything?”
“No, nothing but the crowd surging toward that side of the terrace.”
“Thank you then.”
I turned.
“One more thing.”
My heartbeat quickened.
“Yes?”
“May I have your name?” He had taken out a pad and a pencil.
“My name?”
“We need to keep a record of the eyewitnesses.”
“But I didn’t actually see anything,” I insisted.
“A record of people on the platform.” His pencil was poised; he was waiting.
“Of course. My name is Eloise Bedford,” I said, giving him the name of the same girl I’d gone to school with whom I’d used in another lie the day I’d applied to the École des Beaux-Arts.
Closing his notebook, he moved on.
I tried to keep my pace calm and not hurry as I kept walking. Fire, fall. Fire, fall. I wanted to run. I could barely breathe. My clothes were drenched in sweat. I was shivering. And still I had to keep going at an even gait. Fire, fall. Fire, fall.
Chapter 28
It was the accident, not my grandmother, I thought of during the carriage ride from rue des Saints-Pères to Dr. Blanche’s clinic in Passy. I could think of nothing else. I kept seeing Charlotte falling. Kept remembering the policeman questioning me. Kept wondering how Julien was.
I had not heard from him that night. Or the next day. Of course I hadn’t. He would have been in shock. Then plunged into mourning. Any strength he had he would need to devote to helping Charlotte’s father cope. As the cab traversed the city, I wished I were on my way to him. How was he faring? How was he enduring the solemn ceremony of his fiancée’s funeral? I’d thought about attending, to be with him, to offer support, but he had not come to me, and under these circumstances I did not think I should go to him unasked.
This was the fourth death that had touched my life in so very few months. My father, my grandmother’s uncle the doctor, our cousin Jacob Richter, and now Charlotte. Too many deaths. Too close together.
As I alighted from the carriage, I noticed Dr. Blanche was coming down the street, and we reached the front door at the same moment. Greeting me warmly, he said, “Your grandmother is doing so well, Mademoiselle. I think you’ll be delighted.”
As we walked down the hallways toward her room, he explained some of the treatment she’d been getting and how responsive she was. “She’s even started flirting with the male patients, which is a very good sign.” He smiled.
When I entered Grand-mère’s room, her face did indeed light up. No longer confined to her bed, she was sitting at the table set for tea, presumably for my visit. I was delighted and relieved to see she appeared rested and much better groomed. Her hair was clean and up in a twist, and she had on rouge and lipstick and was dressed in a salmon silk morning dress I’d brought from home the last time I visited. The change in her since then was astonishing. This was my grandmother again, not a deranged stranger. Tears filled her eyes as she looked at me.
Had I ever been as happy to see anyone?
I took her hands and leaned down. She kissed me. I wasn’t sure if it was her tears or mine that wet my cheeks.
“Your perfume smells wonderful, Sandrine. I don’t have any perfume here. Can you bring me some? And my tortoiseshell combs.”
“Of course.”
“Sit down, mon ange. They have made a tea for us.”
She poured with a hand that trembled only a bit, and I relaxed seeing how much herself she was.
“Dr. Blanche said that I might be able to go home in another two weeks or so.”
“Not soon enough,” I said.
“Is the apartment all right? Is everything running smoothly?”
“Of course,” I lied. I wasn’t ready to tell her I’d moved back into the house for fear I’d set her off. It was too good to have her back, sane and calm. “I’ve even been keeping the salon afloat.”
She smiled.
“All your beaus miss you and wish you well.” From the bag I’d brought, I pulled out a box of chocolates from Debauve and Gallais, the oldest chocolatier in Paris, which was just a few doors down from La Lune. “Monsieur St. Simone sent you these.”
“How very thoughtful.” She took the beautiful cream-colored box with its gold-and-navy insignia and gazed at it like a fine jewel. The ribbon was ornate, navy satin embroidered with gold fleurs-de-lis, and she traced the decoration with her forefinger, for the moment lost in thought.
“Dr. Blanche said that I might be able to go home in another two weeks or so.” She repeated what she’d said before but whispered it this time, and I wondered how many times a day she soothed herself with that single thought.
“Would you like a chocolate?” I asked.
“Perhaps later.” She placed the box on the table, picked up her teacup, and took a sip. She turned back to me, watching me carefully, as if searching for something in my eyes. She frowned. Shook her head. “I am worried for you.”
“No need, I’m fine.”
“But you are lying to me. You moved into the house.” Her voice quivered.
“How did you know?”
“Alice came to visit me yesterday.”
