Twilight

by Katherine Mosby

  It would be difficult, if not impossible, she knew, to get a job through an agency; French companies would always fill a vacancy with a citizen before a foreigner, and a man before a woman. She had no experience or particular gifts that would compel her consideration: her French was merely serviceable, her typing slow and she was already middle-aged. Moreover, she felt guilty about the prospect of taking work from someone who needed it more than she did, just as she had felt guilty when younger, prettier women had eyed her when she had walked arm in arm with Sven, as if she were taking from them something they had more right to and would better appreciate.

  Her best chance for employment would be to find an individual willing to let her work off the books. Though she had not yet been in France for a full year, Lavinia already understood how eloquent small sums of cash had been in securing the attention of minor functionaries; most people had a venal side that could be accessed if the proper protocols were observed. Gordon had been right about that. She could afford to work for just enough less to provide an incentive to hire her but she could only take on work in which her employment could be concealed.

  Lavinia remembered Mavis complaining frequently about how she was an invisible drudge, arriving after other employees had left, working in back rooms while cleaning crews emptied litter baskets and polished name plates. What Mavis had found isolating and anonymous was exactly what Lavinia required to establish a toehold which she could later parlay into something more rewarding. Even the prospect of the search galvanized her with a sense of purpose.

  As Lavinia pushed open the heavy door to her apartment building, she could hear Madame Luberon’s voice cutting through the shadows of the arched passage, coming from the kitchen window at which she usually sat like a sentry, observing all who entered with a critical eye. Lavinia hurried past quickly, noticing from the corner of her eye Monsieur Luberon seated at the small table, eating his dinner. The table was covered with a greasy blue and white checked oilcloth and flypaper dangled from the single bulb that illuminated his meal. Monsieur Luberon was shaking his head dismissively, sawing at a lump of gray meat with a large pocket knife, cutlery being an unnecessary nicety.

  As if addressing Lavinia’s thoughts, Madame Luberon was angrily, loudly insisting that her husband join a protest at the Place de la Concorde against the foreign parasites, Communists and Jews ruining the country, taking away the few jobs that still remained. A placard with the slogan “France aux Français” leaned against their door, waiting to be raised skyward.

  The pug proved easier to find than employment. Lavinia had begun to play backgammon with the wife of one of the American deputy consuls, having relaxed her prohibition on expats around the holidays when she’d allowed herself to attend a few parties at the Embassy. She was grateful for her immediate welcome and happy to be a fourth for bridge or a companion for matinees, or to sing in the chorus of Gilbert and Sullivan theatricals organized by the vice deputy’s wife. Lavinia discovered among them a collection of women with whom she could swap books and have lunch from time to time in the Bois de Boulogne. A few she liked well enough, such as Anne Aubretton and Lorraine Tyson, for ski weekends in Austria or sightseeing excursions to Mont Saint-Michel or Azay-le-Rideau. In Alice Baker, however, Lavinia found a close friend.

  Alice Baker was very delicate with huge blue eyes that gave her a cartoonish air of innocence she exploited whenever possible. She had a husband, older by two decades, a parrot and four dogs, one of which was a pug. It was Alice Baker’s love of animals, in fact, that had secured Lavinia’s friendship. Two of Alice’s dogs were blind, and the greyhound had been rescued from the track at Deauville.

  There was a litter, Alice said, waving away the maid who had just served them hot chocolate, that her butcher was trying to place.

  “Of course, he can’t keep them, le pauvre, but he has a heart. Always gives me extra bones for my little ones,” Alice went on, rubbing the head of an obese black poodle nestling at her feet.

  “He’s promised his daughter to wait until they are weaned, so she has a chance to find them homes. But it won’t be easy. They have no pedigree I’m afraid. I hope that doesn’t deter you.”

  “My own has never done me much good,” Lavinia replied, making Alice laugh and spill her hot chocolate on the lace tablecloth.

  “Don’t let the servants hear you say that,” Alice cautioned with a wink as she rang the bell for Lisette, “We’ve enough trouble with them as it is.”

  She folded her napkin over the spreading stain and raised her hands in mock helplessness. Though she was much younger than her husband, it was said that she couldn’t have children. Watching Alice feed a glazed petit four to the greyhound, and then lift her finger to her lips conspiratorially, since her husband vociferously forbade this, Lavinia wondered if Alice’s solution to not having children was to stay one herself.

  “It’s not a concern of mine,” Lavinia repeated. It was frustrating to her that she always sounded so serious around Alice, unable to summon even an intimation of humor in her presence, as if Alice somehow laid claim to all the levity her drawing room could contain.

  “Well, I’m glad to hear it,” Alice said, wrinkling her freckled nose. “Bloodlines were all anyone was talking about in Berlin when we were at the Olympic games. It just about ruined our vacation. Harold thinks we should all be mixed up at birth. That way, we’d all be bound together by love, not separated by blood. Silly, isn’t it? But also oddly brilliant, just like Harold.” She laughed and pushed her chair back and rose.

  “Come,” she said, holding out her hand for Lavinia, “let’s go find you a puppy. Frankly, what with things being as they are, I’m afraid someone will take them home and make a tasty stew, just like they did during the Paris Commune.” She bent down to nuzzle her own pug dog. “Right, Moumou?” she cooed, letting the little black face lick her hand frantically, searching for a sweet. “Someone might make a little Moumou ragout!”

  Lavinia was usually embarrassed when adults spoke in baby talk but Alice escaped censure. Like the conversation one might overhear a child having with a doll, there was something winning about her lack of self-consciousness as she discoursed in silly voices with her different pets, oblivious to the judgment of others. Lavinia was also amused by the way the little dog turned its head to the side, the bulging gargoyle eyes beseeching, a paw raised in supplication as if responding to what had been said.

  Lavinia couldn’t help herself. She knelt down, running a stocking in the process, and reassured Moumou, “Don’t listen to a word she says. Such a thing could never happen,” Lavinia counseled. She felt foolish almost immediately, not because of how she had inflected her voice, but because she had spoken to the animal as though it were a child, and that seemed even more ludicrous. She stood up quickly and bumped against a chair, nearly knocking it over.

  “Oopsadaisy,” Alice said kindly, but that only made Lavinia more aware of how awkward she felt just then, towering over her diminutive hostess, her stocking laddering down past the hem of her dress. It wasn’t until they were in the back of Alice’s Daimler, winding their way through the less affluent arrondissements of the Right Bank, that Lavinia recovered her composure.

  “Of course, I’m just dying to see Josephine Baker,” Alice was saying. She had been chattering continuously since they got into the car. “I must be the only person in Paris who hasn’t, but I just can’t persuade Harold to take me. He’s been teased too much. Every would-be wit asking if he’s related, elbow in the side, ‘kissing cousins,’ wink, wink, ‘black sheep of the family.’ You can just imagine the drift. He’s plain lost his sense of humor about it.”

  Lavinia didn’t think Harold had much of a sense of humor to begin with, but she just nodded, and smiled and wished her own humor was more in evidence, though it was only a passing thought, not a piercing one. One of the appealing features of Alice’s company, besides her capacity to laugh and her oddball enthusiasms, was her genuine kindness; Alice never seemed to notice Lavinia�
��s failings. There had been a time in Lavinia’s life when she might have mistaken this for complacency or weakness but now she was merely grateful. She stretched out her long legs and sighed and let contentment surge through her like a shot of Armagnac, savoring the feeling of expansiveness that rose up giddily in her chest, like a trapped laugh.

  Out of the window she watched the rows of ancient buildings sagging crookedly against each other, the venerable beauty of their decrepitude marred only by the occasional drape of wash hung from a window rail or balcony. As the chauffeur steered them down the twisting streets to the home of Monsieur Minon, the butcher, and the puppy waiting for her to claim it, Lavinia mentioned her interest in finding work.

  “There’s plenty of volunteer work to be had, believe me,” Alice responded brightly, “all those refugees seeping in from Spain and Germany. Harold says they’re mostly Gypsies but still, they need all kinds of help. Just think about the little ones….” Alice trailed off, clearly not wanting to do the very thing she recommended. “Besides, I thought you were already giving the Ladies Brigade two afternoons a week.”

  “I was actually not thinking about volunteer work,” Lavinia said quickly, not wanting Alice to lose her buoyancy, which sometimes seemed alarmingly fragile.

  “You mean have a business? Like that Beach woman with the moldy bookstore and lesbian friends?” Alice laughed, recovering her ingénue’s delight. Then she arched her pale eyebrows with genuine concern.

  “You still have your income, haven’t you?” she whispered discreetly, even though the glass partition separating them from the chauffeur was always raised because Harold’s job required privacy.

  “Oh no, it’s nothing like that,” Lavinia hastened to reassure her, knowing full well that if she had been in need of money she would never have asked nor would Alice ever have given it. They were very close, but not close enough for money to pass between them. She was relieved, however, that the conversation was interrupted by their arrival at the undistinguished building in which the butcher made his home.

  The chauffeur pulled the Daimler up onto the sidewalk and then stepped out of the car to press the door buzzer while the ladies waited in the backseat. After a few minutes, Sévérine Minon, a skinny eight-year-old in a Catholic school uniform, brought down the squirming, yapping puppies in a wicker basket and placed them in the capacious footwell of the backseat.

  Lavinia knew at once which one she wanted; it was Alice who detained them for almost half an hour while she nuzzled each of them, cradling them in succession in her arms like an infant, and letting them climb on the leather seat and snag the expensive fabric of her dress.

  “Do you think Harold would ever forgive me if I brought one home?” Alice asked, but Lavinia was spared having to render a judgment. One of the puppies started to pee in the car and that brought Alice back to her senses as quickly as a slap. She tried to hold the tiny thing out of the window so as to direct the stream of urine into the street, but it was squirming, paddling in the air with its paws, splattering the car door and the little girl standing beside it, who had been regarding herself in its reflecting sheen.

  The chauffeur, who had been waiting across the street, leaning against the wall smoking a Gitane, rushed over immediately. Without the slightest flicker of expression, he removed first the incontinent puppy from Alice’s hands, and then the wicker basket with the rest of them, which he relayed into the arms of the little girl whose face by contrast with his own was a maelstrom of emotion.

  “Oh dear,” Alice fretted, daubing at her blouse with a handkerchief. “I hope it’s not ruined. I’ve only worn it once.” The chauffeur had already extracted some rags from the trunk and was wiping down the car door with short, quick movements that conveyed an annoyance he could never voice. He had handed Lavinia a newspaper for her lap before he gave her the puppy back, its paws rubbed clean with his handkerchief, which he did not return to his pocket but to the trunk of the car. When he had finished cleaning the Daimler’s door and returned to the driver’s seat, Alice leaned across the backseat and cupped her hand around Lavinia’s ear, whispering breathily, “He’s not supposed to smoke on the job. He burned a hole in one of the uniforms and Harold had a fit because they’re tailored in London. Also, it’s unseemly, but I think the expense is what really bothered Harold. I never say anything though.”

  Then Alice slid over to her side of the backseat and looked at her watch and sighed. “We’d better get back. It’s almost time for cocktails. The Dunbarts are stopping by for dinner and so is Theodora Althorp, and I can’t stand her. I’d make you stay but you need to get your little friend home.”

  Alice rapped on the glass for the chauffeur’s attention and when he turned around she held up her coin purse and pointed at the little girl who stood on the sidewalk, still holding the wicker basket of puppies. Alice lowered the partition and instructed the chauffeur to give her something.

  Dutifully, he got back out of the car and walked around to the curb and unceremoniously dropped a few francs into the basket, as if giving alms to a beggar. Sévérine Minon’s lip was puffed out and trembling, and she was doing her best not to cry. Suddenly Lavinia knew she had taken the little girl’s favorite.

  “I should have known you’d pick the runt, Lavinia,” Alice said, rolling down her window. Then she leaned her head out slightly and said to the chauffeur, “Encore plus,” and the chauffeur reluctantly withdrew from his pocket more coins, dropping them into the basket one by one, looking back at Alice every few francs until the sum was sufficient and Alice nodded her head.

  As the car drove off, Alice reached out her hands for the pug settled in Lavinia’s lap. “Okay, let’s see what you’ve got there,” she said, and Lavinia handed her the little dog because she couldn’t very well say no, no matter how much she wanted to. Her lap was warm where its belly had pressed against her, emanating the smell of wet hay, and old shoe, which Lavinia associated with truffles and the dark crumbly earth in which they were found. As she lifted up the puppy to give it to Alice, it felt so small and defenseless, snuffling at her hand in confusion and breathing moistly on her fingers, that Lavinia felt a pang of anger at Alice for disturbing it.

  Alice examined the dog’s rear and said matter-of-factly, “It’s a boy. Do you have any idea of what you’ll name him?” She picked a shred of newspaper off the pad of a back paw and added, “and the little fellow is a Communist, judging from what he reads. Harold says you can tell the politics of a café by what newspapers are torn in strips for use in the WC. It’s the management’s way of disrespecting the views it doesn’t like. Do you think that could be true? It doesn’t sound at all clean!”

  Alice kissed the dog’s snout and handed it back to Lavinia, who was perched awkwardly, trying to look casual, her hands itching to have the animal back.

  “Look,” Alice said, “the little thing can’t take its eyes off of you. I’ll bet it won’t let you out of sight once you get it home.” Lavinia smiled. “Then I guess I’ll have to call him Boswell,” she said.

  With Boswell, Lavinia discovered a kind of love she had not expected to feel once the possibility of children became improbable. Because he was the runt of the litter, Boswell was sickly, and required in his first few months all the care of an infant. Lavinia gave him medicine from an eyedropper and boiled chickens down to a dark broth to fortify his food. She spent afternoons with him on her lap, wrapped in a cashmere sweater, while she waited in the outer room of the veterinarian’s office.

  She paid close attention to his stools, monitoring their consistency and color for clues to his health, noting the amount of water he passed and checking his weight every day by weighing herself twice, first without Boswell and then with him. She boiled rice and pressed it through a strainer and fed it to him on her finger tip when he wouldn’t eat his food. Boswell repaid her devotion by becoming her shadow.

  Even Madame Luberon was moved to comment on it: “C’est pas normal, ça! Il est comme un petit amant” she said, noti
ng his ardent attention to Lavinia, and there was an air of wistfulness lurking behind her usual bristle. Eventually, and it took many months, Madame Luberon began patting Boswell on the head while Lavinia collected her mail. Madame Luberon bent over heavily and when she was as close as she could get to eye level, she told Boswell how monstrous his looks were while she scratched his ear, making his corkscrew tail vibrate with pleasure. From then on, Madame Luberon never failed to greet “Le petit monstre” as she called him, lavishing an affection on the dog that never managed to increase her civility to Lavinia.

  By then, Lavinia didn’t care. She had learned not to take any of the rudenesses to heart. She had come to recognize it as a kind of game the French liked to play. It was a form of hostile flirtation, creating an intimacy while maintaining a pointed privacy. As with bargaining, the better the opponent the more entertaining the sport was. The less she cared, the more respect Madame Luberon felt for her which could only be expressed through further rudeness.

  Monsieur Druette, at number 37, had been rude too, when Lavinia had inquired about the note he’d written advertising a position for an assistant. Monsieur Druette, however, was brusque in a dismissive way that did not suggest a desire to engage wills. Not only did he refuse to give Lavinia work, he refused to even tell her what kind of work she was being denied. “C’est impossible,” he said, explaining no further. Lavinia persisted. She no longer was considering the possibility of the work—Monsieur Druette was clearly such an unpleasant type no wage would be adequate inducement to return, but it infuriated her to be treated ill by him.

  Monsieur Druette, sallow and bitter, bent in the slouch that marked so many functionaries in the lower bowels of government, was an easy type for Lavinia to bully because she could sense a fear of assertive women. She stood in front of the door and stared him down while he gesticulated his regrets, wagging his head and shrugging his shoulders, palms up. Lavinia knew that if she were to be imperious he would wilt. She was better dressed than he; his suit was shiny with wear, his shirt frayed at the collar, but more intimidating perhaps, she was significantly taller. Finally, to be rid of her, Monsieur Druette gave Lavinia the name of a man he had run across who had in the past needed an assistant and, for all Druette knew, might still.