The building looked deserted when he got there. He rang her bell, and no one answered. And then he rang at the concierge’s lodge. She came to the door and looked at him suspiciously when he asked for Natasha.
“Why do you want to know?” she asked him.
“I’m a friend of hers,” he said, stretching the truth a little.
“She doesn’t live here anymore. She moved a week ago.”
“Do you have a new address for her?” he asked, looking sorely disappointed. He had missed her.
“No, I don’t. And if you were a friend of hers, you would know it. I don’t know where she went. She didn’t tell me. She doesn’t get mail here anyway. It’s all for him.” He nodded, not surprised to hear it. “She sent everything away the day before she left. She just had a few suitcases with her the day she moved. And there was a Russian man with her.” Dimitri had come to help her with her heavier suitcases.
“Mr. Stanislas?” he asked, worried, and the concierge in the house dress and slippers shook her head.
“No. Another one.” That didn’t surprise Theo either. It was what his mother had said when they first talked about her. Women like Natasha had to move on to another man like the last one. It was the only way they knew to survive. And he didn’t condemn her for it. He just hoped that this one was a better man than Vladimir. It hadn’t taken her long to replace him. “He just sold the apartment,” the concierge volunteered then. “The maid left yesterday. She said she wouldn’t be coming back here.” He nodded, sad to have missed Natasha. He would have liked to say goodbye to her and to wish her well. But all roads from her past life were dead ends now. He had no idea where to find her, and no one to ask. He thanked the concierge and she closed the door soundly, and he walked back out to Avenue Montaigne, and wandered slowly toward the restaurant where he had had lunch with her. It felt like a thousand years ago, and had only been January. A lot had happened in seven months, and her life had completely changed.
He walked past the restaurant and smiled at the memory of her there, and wondered where she was now, and with whom.
He caught a flight back to Nice that night, with all the families leaving on vacation. People were wearing beach clothes on the plane. They all looked happy to be on holiday. And as soon as they landed in Nice, he got his car out of the garage and drove home.
—
Theo spent the rest of the summer painting furiously, and whenever his mother spoke to him, he said it was going well. She was back in full swing running the restaurant again. It was their best summer ever, and Gabriel spent many evenings with her there. In mid-August, she decided to close the restaurant for the rest of August and September, and possibly longer. She and Gabriel wanted to travel, but first she wanted to spend part of September with him in Paris, at his apartment. It was the first time she had ever done that. And the first time in more than thirty years she had gone back to Paris. Gabriel was thrilled. They had acted like honeymooners ever since they’d come back from Florence, and Theo was happy for them. He promised her he’d check on the restaurant and the house every day, and there were still two security guards there every night, and Maylis planned to keep them there. And before she left, she shared a new plan with Theo that she and Gabriel had been talking about for a while. She was thinking about closing the restaurant entirely by the end of the year, and turning the building into a small museum of Lorenzo’s work, which was what it really was anyway. And Gabriel was going to help her set it up.
“We’ll need someone to run it on a day-to-day basis. I don’t want to be tied down here all the time. We want to spend time in Paris, and be free to move around.” She sounded like a new woman, and was much happier than the old one who had mourned Lorenzo for so many years. And although she still honored him, Gabriel was her main focus now. She fussed over him like a mother hen, and he was thriving. And Marie-Claude was thrilled they would be in Paris together in September.
They left St. Paul de Vence at the end of August, and Maylis was excited about all the things she and Gabriel wanted to do in Paris, the exhibits she wanted to see, the museums she hadn’t been to in years, the restaurants Gabriel promised to take her to. And the day after they arrived and settled into his apartment, which suddenly seemed small for both of them but very cozy, they had dinner with Marie-Claude and her husband and children on Sunday night at Marie-Claude’s apartment. There was lots of laughter, and jokes, and good food and the children interrupting, and one of them brought a friend to dinner. Maylis made a hachis Parmentier for all of them that everyone said was delicious. She had learned to make it from the chef at the restaurant. They felt like a real family, sharing Sunday-night dinner together.
It was exactly what Marie-Claude had hoped for her father for all these years, while Maylis had been worshipping at Lorenzo’s altar, and forgetting who was beside her. Maylis was fully cognizant now of how important Gabriel was to her and always had been, and how much they loved each other.
“Thank you,” Marie-Claude whispered to her when they kissed each other goodbye and Maylis thanked her for dinner.
“For what? I’m a very, very lucky woman,” she said, glancing over at Gabriel, who was talking to his son-in-law and his grandson. “Thank you for putting up with me for all these years. I was blind.”
“We all are sometimes,” Marie-Claude said, and hugged her again before they left.
—
The month of September was busy for them, with exhibits to see, places to go, and antique fairs they loved prowling, and they stopped at his gallery on Avenue Matignon often. His health had never been better, and they were both happy. They had plans to go to Venice in October, and Maylis told Gabriel she hated to leave Paris, and he laughed at her.
“Well, that’s a new song for you.” She was so relaxed and happy these days that he hardly recognized her. For years there had been an underlying sadness about her as she continued to mourn Lorenzo, now she had finally laid him to rest. She still cherished the memories and talked about him, and was dedicated to the body of his work, but he was no longer a saint, and her memories of him were more accurate and still deeply affectionate. But she was fully present in Gabriel’s life now, and had allowed him wholly into hers.
“Now, there’s something that might be fun for you,” Gabriel said one morning in mid-September, when he opened his mail and handed her a catalog. It was a sale of vintage and new Hermès bags, and the one on the cover was a gorgeous red. And when Maylis flipped through, there were Birkins and Kelly bags in every color, both alligator and leather. The sale was taking place at the Hôtel Drouot, the city’s most illustrious auction house, where they had fifteen auction rooms and forty-five auctions a week. Gabriel loved to poke around the exhibits where people could see the auction items before the actual sales. “Why don’t we stop by and check it out?”
“The prices are crazy,” she said wistfully, looking at the estimates. “They’re as expensive as they are new at Hermès.”
“Most of the bags at auction are new too,” he commented. He was familiar with the sales at Drouot and went often. “The only difference is that you don’t have to wait three years to get them.” Maylis was sorely tempted to take a look.
She left the catalog on his desk, and the following week, on a Friday, he reminded her that it was the day of the exhibition and asked her if she would like to go.
“I’m ashamed to say I would,” she said, looking sheepish.
“Don’t look so guilty,” he teased her. “You can afford it. If you find one you love, buy it.” She was interested in a beautiful black alligator Birkin, the red leather one on the cover, and a deep navy blue one. They were the size she liked and incredibly chic for her new Paris life with him. She hadn’t bought new clothes in several years, and didn’t need much in St. Paul de Vence, but he had been shopping with her and enjoying it since she got to Paris.
They went to the Hôtel Drouot that afternoon, amid the hustle-bustle of antique dealers running in and out and to look at the exhibit
ions, take notes, and decide what they would bid on at the auctions the next day. And it wasn’t all antiques. It was everything from vintage clothes to gardening equipment, military uniforms and insignia, contemporary furniture, Persian rugs, wine, old books, taxidermy, and anything one could imagine. If there was something you wanted to buy, you could find it at Drouot, and the auctions were exciting. Sometimes Gabriel bid on the phone, especially in art auctions, but he liked the thrill of the treasure hunt and introduced Maylis to its delights, as they went from room to room, through the exhibits for all fifteen auctions, until they reached the one with the Hermès bags. They were a feast for the eye, with beautiful handbags on display. She looked at several intently. Maylis said she didn’t like the ones with the diamond clasps, and they were ridiculously expensive anyway.
“Well, that’s fortunate,” he teased her about the bags with diamond clasps, “since they’re five times the price of the others.”
“That’s absurd,” she said dismissively, but she found the three bags she wanted to bid on, and they agreed to come back the next day and attend the auction. The exhibition room would be dismantled then, folding chairs set up with a podium for the auctioneer, a long table with several phones for phone bids, and the auction would take place in the same room. And the day after, the same fifteen rooms would be flooded with new treasures on exhibit, and every other day, there were fifteen auctions. It was one of Gabriel’s favorite things to do, and he was proud of the spoils of war he had gotten there. He warned Maylis that it became an addiction, and she could easily believe it, and was excited about bidding on the three bags the next day. She was only planning to buy one, and they weren’t cheap. But all three were in perfect condition, looked like they hadn’t been worn, and were in their original orange Hermès boxes. And only the black alligator was liable to be truly expensive.
They arrived right after the auction began the next day. The items she was interested in were due to come up a little later, and they settled into their seats to watch the bidding, which was lively. They had started with some smaller items, and older, less exciting handbags. The alligator Birkins were the pièces de résistance of the auction, so they saved them for later to keep people in the room.
The navy blue leather bag came up first, half an hour later. It was very chic, and the bidding went higher than Maylis had expected. She raised her hand timidly at first, and then got braver as Gabriel watched her, smiling, and she was the underbidder, and didn’t get it. She whispered to him that she was saving herself for the red leather or black alligator, which she thought she’d use more, and he nodded approval. And as she spoke to him, she noticed a familiar face across the aisle. It was a young woman in a peacoat with her hair in a braid. She was simply dressed but looked chic, and Maylis couldn’t place her at first as she stared at her. She didn’t bid on anything while Maylis watched her, but was observing the sale intently. And then a few minutes later, Maylis realized who she was, and she whispered to Gabriel and nodded in her direction.
“That’s Stanislas’s mistress. I’m surprised she buys her bags here. He’d buy her anything she wanted.”
“Everybody loves a bargain,” he whispered, although the prices in the sale they were watching were anything but cheap. And several times when the prices went sky high, particularly the bags with diamond clasps, she saw Natasha smile and look pleased. But she never bid on any of them, and she wrote down the hammer price of every item in the catalog she was holding. Maylis commented on it to Gabriel, and he glanced at her too. Natasha didn’t notice them, she was too intent on the sale.
“She’s not buying,” Gabriel whispered to her then. “I think she’s selling.”
“Really?” Maylis looked surprised. “How amazing.”
“You’d be surprised how often you see people you know here, doing both.”
“She certainly doesn’t need to sell anything,” Maylis commented.
“Maybe he doesn’t give her enough pocket money,” Gabriel whispered back. “I’ve heard that a lot of the Russian girls sell the gifts that they get. They get a fortune for them. Some man they scarcely know gives them an alligator Birkin, and they turn around and sell it. It’s found money for them.”
“But she’s not a hooker, for heaven’s sake, she’s his mistress. And the way I’ve seen her dressed, he must be very generous with her. She wears couture from head to foot.” Gabriel glanced over at her, and she looked like any schoolgirl in jeans to him. She looked about sixteen. “Maybe not today,” Maylis commented, “but her clothes were the latest haute couture when she came to the restaurant. She must be incognito today, and trying to be discreet.”
The next item in the auction was one of the big guns, another alligator Birkin with a diamond clasp, and it went for twice what the others had, as two women battled over it, and when the hammer came down at a shocking price, Natasha was smiling from ear to ear. It confirmed Gabriel’s guess about why she was there, and Maylis agreed. She was definitely selling. And then the red bag Maylis wanted came up, and she got it, and looked at Gabriel, delighted. It had been a good deal.
“I told you you’d get hooked!” he chuckled as he watched her.
And when the black alligator bag came up, she bid timidly and dropped out early. The hammer was about to go down at a much higher price, when Gabriel stunned her and put up his hand. The black alligator bag went to him, as Maylis stared at him with her mouth open. He had paid a fortune for it.
“What did you just do?”
“It’ll look great on you when you’re here with me,” he told her, and after the auction, they lined up to pay for what they got and collected both bags in their original boxes. And as they waited, Maylis noticed Natasha again. She looked different than she had before, at the restaurant. She was wearing no makeup, and she blended into the crowd. Maylis glanced around for Vladimir but didn’t see him, and she wondered if he knew Natasha was there selling her Birkins. It seemed odd to her. And after the auction, Natasha didn’t collect any purchases. Instead she put her catalog in the plain black leather Birkin she was carrying, with discreet black hardware, pulled up the collar of her peacoat, and scurried away looking pleased.
“I wonder what that’s about,” she commented to Gabriel, and then thanked him profusely again for his extravagance. And then she had a thought about Natasha. “I don’t think we should tell Theo we saw her,” Maylis said quietly. “He was torturing himself about her for a while, that whole thing about being obsessed by unattainable women. He seems to have gotten over it, but I don’t want to get him started again,” she told Gabriel, and he nodded.
“I won’t say anything. Promise. She’s a beautiful girl, though.”
“Of course she is. She’s a billionaire’s mistress, and that’s what she’ll always be. That’s how it works. She has no use for a boy like Theo.” He was no longer a boy—he was a thirty-one-year-old man. “And obsessions are a strange thing. He painted a beautiful portrait of her, and I think he gave it to her.”
“I remember it. I told him to put it in the show. It was one of his finest pieces. For an artist, obsession can be a good thing.”
“But not in life.” She wanted her son to be happy, not tormented over a woman he couldn’t have. And she had no intention of telling him she’d seen her, for fear it would cause him to obsess about her again. And whatever she was doing there, buying or selling, had nothing to do with them anyway.
Maylis left the Hôtel Drouot looking very pleased. The bag Gabriel had bought her was a beauty, and had never been used.
“I like Drouot,” she said happily to him in the cab on the way home. And he promised her they’d come back again. Paris was turning out to be a lot of fun after all.
—
And on the Metro on the way back to the seventh arrondissement, Natasha was looking at the catalog and smiling too. She could live for a long time on what she’d just made at the sale that day, and little by little she was feeling more secure. Her new life was going well.
&n
bsp; Chapter 16
As she had done with the apartment on Avenue Montaigne, Natasha kept adding to her tiny apartment on the rue du Bac, just on a smaller scale. She found some unusual items at Drouot, some jades to put in her bookcase for an absurdly minimal price, a terrific Italian table and chairs for her kitchen, even a painting or two. None of it was expensive, but it had a good look, and she applied her own sense of style now to cheap things the way she once had to expensive ones, and she had created an atmosphere that she loved.
The sale of her haute couture clothes at Drouot had gone well. It had exceeded all their expectations, and between the Hermès sale and the haute couture sale, she had enough money in the bank not to worry for quite a while and to support herself. And she intended to work. She was going to look seriously after the first of the year. She had made enough on what she’d sold to coast for a few more months, while she adjusted to her new life.
She loved her course on twentieth-century modernism. It had just started that week and was exactly what she’d wanted. Everything was going well for her, and she felt more like her own person every day. She was still ashamed of what she’d done for the past years—it suddenly felt like prostitution to her, but it hadn’t seemed that way at the time. She had to learn to forgive herself and move on, but at least she was proud of her life now. She was starting all over again. And the truth was that she would never have been able to get out of Moscow without Vladimir, and might have died of illness or despair.
She didn’t miss the clothes or jewelry she had sold, or her life with Vladimir. She had never heard from him again since he left her on the quai. And she was relieved that she had never run into Yuri again. He had no idea how to contact her, so he couldn’t repeat his offer. She had gotten a new cellphone with an unlisted number. She never used it, she had no one to call, but she had it in case she ever needed it. And even without Vladimir, she still lived in a totally isolated world. She had no friends yet, but she had been busy building her nest for the past four months. The rest would come in time.
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