As Madame Luberon shuffled away in her bedroom slippers, her husband’s coat hanging bulkily from her shoulders, she added with an air of authority, “Take rice and sugar and salt. Those are the staples she’ll most need to supplement a kitchen garden.”
Madame Luberon had a cigarette jutting from the corner of her mouth, her eyes squinting away the smoke, as she later pasted Lavinia’s photograph into a coupon book with a French name and an address in the same district as La Rêveline.
“You didn’t ask for this,” Madame Luberon said, pointing to a Carte d’Alimentation Individuelle, “but I threw it in for you anyway, because of the little dog. If you don’t have one with the same address as the carte d’identité it will look suspicious. Besides, you may need to eat.” Madame Luberon laughed harshly, letting a long head of ash fall from her cigarette. Then she coughed, a long phlegmy struggle for breath that left her slightly winded.
“I’ll keep the dog for you,” Madame Luberon said casually. Lavinia was surprised and touched by the offer. It brought to her eyes the tears she had refused to let Madame Luberon elicit in the past.
“Thank you,” Lavinia said. “I couldn’t bear to leave Boswell behind, but thank you.”
Madame Luberon shrugged. “I didn’t think so,” she said and then she turned away, and lumbered off, without saying good-bye.
“Your French is an abomination,” she added, as she walked away. “Wrap your throat with camphor-coated rags, and avoid any unnecessary talk along the way. Enough camphor so that you really stink, and then only whisper.”
“What else?”
“Pray,” Madame Luberon said, letting her door swing closed behind her with a thud that rattled its glass panel.
When Lavinia set off with Boswell and a small leather satchel, she wasn’t afraid, although she knew she should be. The moisture from all the recent rain made the air seem colder, and the horizon farther. The trip felt like an unfair obligation thrust upon her like Service du Travail Obligatoire. Lavinia had included in her luggage a copy of Madame Bovary, a book selected for spite.
Lavinia had no way of knowing that she would be at La Rêveline for much longer than a weekend. It hadn’t occurred to her that Céleste might have had a stroke by the time she got there, or that by caring for her, Lavinia would become invested with the same irrational love with which she might have tended a baby bird, but with a more profound implication.
Lavinia couldn’t foresee the way she would laugh with Céleste, or share confidences. She never imagined, as she walked away from Paris and farther from Gaston, in two pairs of socks and old hiking boots, that there would be no easy replacement to whom she could delegate the unlikely role that circumstance imposed, or that in caring for Céleste she would come to care about her with an increasingly fierce tenderness as Céleste’s health declined, and they abandoned all reserve with which they talked together.
Tucked within the pages of the book was one of the first letters Gaston had sent her, the only one from that time that had escaped her purge. When she’d found it, Lavinia read it over and over again, investing it with the power of a talisman, the significance of a sign. Just seeing Gaston’s handwriting had flooded her with emotions that clarified and complicated the situation.
Mademoiselle Gibbs,
I, who thought I knew so much about love, am in terra incognita, a landscape more wild and lovely than any I’ve walked before. Last night I wandered home along the Seine and marveled at my happiness.
For a moment near the Pont Neuf, I was overwhelmed: tears came to my eyes and my throat felt like it was parched. It was not just the relief of an answered prayer. It was awe for a bounty that so exceeded my imaginings that I could not measure in words what my heart felt.
It made Lavinia feel both beautiful and bereft. It made her realize the fullness of her humanity, and the price of love; that even if she had been raised by wolves, she was not one of them. In the end, that was enough to be true to, alone on the darkling plain.
Acknowledgments
I am deeply grateful to Marjorie Braman, who was magnificently patient and undoubting. I would also like to thank Jamie Bernstein, Jody Caravaglia, Anne Cherry, Miriam Clark, Bill Clegg, Anne Griffin, Lisa Gilbert, Beth McFadden, Dan Medcalf, Tom Rauffenbart, Helen Simonson, Gerry Wallman, and Matty Ward for cheering me on when I needed it most, and Andrea Barnet for the use of her studio. I also want to thank Kathy Robbins, and my mother for her support in the darkest hours. Aso Tavitian deserves so much thanks he gets his own sentence. I am indebted to all those who championed this book in any number of ways.
About the Author
KATHERINE MOSBY’s previous works include a collection of poetry, The Book of Uncommon Prayer, and two novels, Private Altars and The Season of Lillian Dawes, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. She lives in New York City and teaches at New York University’s Stern Business School.
www.kmosby.com Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
PRAISE FOR
Twilight
“Twilight is an old-fashioned novel in the most satisfying sense. Impeccably rendered, Katherine Mosby’s elegant, perceptive prose recalls Edith Wharton. A gathering sense of tragedy…provide[s] the story with a powerful forward thrust. Yet the greatest pleasures of this novel are sentences which evidence a fluidity and grace that is rare in contemporary fiction.”
—The Economist
“Mosby has written an intensely romantic middle-age bildungsroman…. Her prose reads like poetry—specific, beautiful, [and] full of rich, carefully chosen metaphors.”
—Washington Post
“Mosby sweeps us up into Lavinia’s world and holds us there…. We are held captive by every bit of it. One feels as if one has been given a new classic to enjoy.”
—Salon.com
“Mosby’s Paris is dark, seductive, and worth visiting. Three stars.”
—People
“Mosby should get a prize for nuance with the way she beautifully evokes both the twilight atmosphere of an illicit romance and a world fast disappearing.”
—Good Housekeeping
“Mosby has painted an achingly beautiful portrait of a woman hovering desperately on the edge of self-realization.”
—Booklist
“The story carries hints of Edith Wharton and Colette. Mosby, a seasoned novelist herself, demonstrates the same deft ability to parse character and create atmosphere.”
—Seattle Times
“Magical, too, is the spell cast by this book which combines the juicy thrills of a romance novel with the keen observations of a character study…. [Mosby’s] language is voluptuously precise.”
—More magazine
“The thrill of seduction and the ache of self-denial are among the bittersweet revelations of this graceful book.”
—O, The Oprah Magazine “Mosby’s characters are vivid and compelling with a richness of voice…. No doubt this novel is the work of a powerful talent who will surely be heard from again.”
—BookPleasures.com
“Mosby writes gorgeously. Her prose is rich and evocative. She gets the time and place exactly right. Her characters and their stories continue to haunt after the book is closed.”
—The State
Also by Katherine Mosby
The Season of Lillian Dawes
Private Altars
The Book of Uncommon Prayer (Poetry)
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
TWILIGHT. Copyright © 2005 by Katherine Mosby. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, t
ransmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © JANUARY 2008 ISBN: 9780061856877
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