‘I did wonder if you’d ever been recognised.’
‘Never.’
‘It was such a famous trial—’
‘Famous in 1914. People forget.’
‘But you’ve been living in Paris all this time…’
Her smile widens: becomes wicked. ‘You’ve read The Art of Living Invisibly?’
‘No.’
‘No? The ancient Chinese text by the philosopher, Sun Tzu? It’s a later book. Perhaps you are familiar with his more famous companion work, The Art of War?’
‘No.’
She raises her eyebrows; then waves it away. ‘A surprising number of lessons we can apply to 20th-century Paris. You’ll have heard how, struck by the way a panda-bear fades into the forest of bamboo, Sun Tzu invented camouflage. But to my mind, the most important advice he gives to those seeking anonymity is the simplest: be eccentric, but not too eccentric.’
She nods as I think about it. ‘Take my hat. A relic. People look at it and think: poor thing. Clinging to her youth. They give me one swift glance and move on.’
I nod. Look down at my tape-recorder, because she really has embarrassed me this time.
She beams at me. ‘One other thing: Sun Tzu recommends particularly – I quote directly from the text – in the quest for invisible living, do not offend your concierge. You’ll come home and find her going through your underwear.’
‘They had concierges in ancient China?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she says. ‘They’re a universal plague.’
She holds my gaze for a moment longer. I feel myself go suddenly red.
Her eyes sparkle. ‘Admit it. The panda was a good touch.’
I don’t know where to look.
She says: ‘But how could I resist you? Such faith in the world.’
At 2 p.m. today, I was at my desk at Le Monde when the telephone rang.
‘A woman for you,’ said the switchboard operator – bored, Friday afternoonish. ‘Calling about your article. Says she has some new information.’
I was still scribbling on my yellow pad; a four o’clock deadline loomed.
‘Put her through.’
A hiss on the line; a crackle, and then the crisp voice, sounding as if it was coming from miles away: ‘Is this Juliette Blanc? The author of the article in last week’s paper, about the recent rediscovery of Petite Mort?’
‘That’s me.’
A breathy pause: high whining, ghost-voices brushing past.
‘This is Mme Roux, whom you mentioned in your piece.’
The phone clamped to my ear, some instinct forewarned me: don’t gush. Don’t say: I thought you’d be dead. Say what’s on your mind.
I said: ‘This is a surprise.’
A chuckle. Then she said: ‘Mlle Blanc, I wish to engage a person of vigour and conviction to write my memoirs. All about the film, and everything before and after. If this sounds like an assignment for you, please meet me at the Café Conti at five o’clock tonight. Café Conti, Place St André-des-Arts, 6ème. We will treat this first meeting as an informal interview of sorts. To see if we get on.’
She pronounced get on like an illness. I reached for a pen and paper, scribbled the address, and was about to ask any one of a hundred questions, when I realised the line had already gone dead.
25. janvier 1913
CAMILLE’S BREATHING stays steady. She is lying on her front: early light is creeping over her outstretched hand.
The mattress of my twin bed creaks as I pull out the little wallet from beneath it. Enough to get you started, Père Simon had said, dropping it into my satchel. You’ll want to address yourself to Studios Gaumont in the 19th arrondissement. Ask for M. Feuillade.
When I tiptoe to the door and look back, there is a gleam underneath Camille’s eyelids.
‘You’re running away,’ she says.
Then she just looks at me: long and solemn like when she was small.
PARIS!
2. février 1913
TO THE NORTH, the tip of Notre Dame’s spire rises, cut out against a dirty gold sky. The plume of Agathe’s cigarette smoke lifts next to it, a signal; it drifts away from the windowsill and curls out over rue Boissonnade, hanging in the space between our attic apartment and the roofs across the street. A premature sun is winking and struggling over the rooftops opposite, and in one of these gleams the smoke is lit orange for a moment, then vanishes.
Beside me, Agathe lets out a hiss of a sigh. She squints as she removes the cigarette stub from her mouth. She doesn’t offer me a final pull, but presses the stub delicately out on the window ledge – the broken sill leans, slack as a jaw and pockmarked from this morning ritual. And then, as it does every morning, the camaraderie of the shared cigarette vanishes, and hostilities resume. The sill jumps as Agathe lifts her meaty forearms from it, jolting my elbows; she turns and lumbers back into the salon.
A nasal sound comes from the kitchen: it is Mathilde, our landlady, singing as she prepares breakfast for us. Agathe readjusts her dressing gown as she reaches the one plush chair in the tiny salon; she sits and snaps open Le Temps. I take my seat at the table, Mathilde’s song reaches a climax, and our meal arrives: thin porridge, borne aloft by Mathilde, like a waiter at a fashionable restaurant. ‘Et voilà!!’ she trills. The newspaper crumples as Agathe lays it aside; she lumbers over to the table; chink goes the bowl, set down on the table-top, and Agathe’s spoon is already ploughing a furrow through the food, ladling an enormous portion onto her own plate. As usual, she starts to eat straightaway.
Mathilde smiles apologetically at me, and whispers bon appétit. I dip my spoon into the porridge and try a few bites. Only once she is satisfied that I’ve started eating will Mathilde begin her own meal, stringy wrist lifting and lowering mechanically. Her gaze flickers between Agathe and me as she watches for the first sign of trouble.
Agathe’s hatred for me sprang out fully formed on my very first day at 14 rue Boissonnade. The three of us sat in the salon, starchy with formality; I squinted into a patch of afternoon light, my valise propped next to my ankles, as Mathilde’s hands writhed over each other in her lap.
‘We are constrained by circumstance, Mademoiselle Roux,’ she said, ‘to invite another lodger into our little family.’
Agathe sat looking out of the window, ignoring us, her face wreathed in smoke. It was six o’clock in the evening; her scarlet silk peignoir was stretched tight across her stomach, her face painted into doll-like lines.
With a little jolt I realised what she was.
Mathilde leapt to her feet: ‘Let me show you your new room!’
Though it was low-ceilinged, dusty, and filled with drab things, I exclaimed over its quaint charm. After years of sharing with Camille, I truly was a little excited at the prospect of my own territory; and I had little choice – my small fund would not stretch to anything better.
In the salon, I bent out of the window to admire the view; I did not notice how thin and grey the curtains fluttered in the evening breeze. I admired the room’s one ornament, a fine miniature on the mantelpiece. ‘My dear mother,’ Mathilde sighed, pressing a hand to her breastbone, ‘from whom I inherited the apartment.’ Agathe snorted, and I wondered whether we were thinking the same thing: that Mathilde had also inherited the beaky nose and querulous expression.
‘And what are you here to do?’ Agathe asked, turning to look at me for the first time.
‘I am going to look for an acting role, in the moving pictures,’ I told her proudly.
Agathe’s cigarette end glowed orange in the shadows.
‘And how are you proposing to do that?’ she asked.
The afternoon after my arrival at rue Boissonnade, I smoothed my best dress down in front of the rust-spotted mirror, stepped out into the waiting city and took the Metro to the 19th arrondissement.
At first I thought I had the wrong address: the north end of rue des Alouettes was a street like any other, with apartment blocks rising high on either side, cafés, even a
greengrocer’s. But as I walked along the buildings gradually gave way to tall grey walls, constructed in the modern style with cement brickwork. If I stood on tiptoe it was just possible to see the roof of a glass structure, like an enormous greenhouse – that must be the studio Père Simon had told me about – and next to it a factory chimney, puffing smoke into the crisp morning air.
If it was not what I had expected, then I supposed that every river had its source; I walked confidently along the edge of the wall until an opening presented itself – a wrought-iron gate flanked by what seemed to be one-storey cottages.
In my mind’s eye, there had been bustle and buzz. This place seemed deserted. Moving closer, I noticed a sign fixed to the door of the left-hand cottage that read CONCIERGERIE. I marched up to the door and rapped on it.
A slip of a man in a stained shirt and pince-nez opened it. Through the half-open door I saw a cluster of desks with men and women sitting at them; a woman pecked at an odd sort of machine with her fingertips, and the men lolled about, smoking and chatting.
I told him I had come to see M. Feuillade.
The man put his hand out, palm up. ‘Is he expecting you?’
I shook my head – perhaps I hadn’t been clear – and told him I had come to ask M. Feuillade for a part in whatever film they were making.
The man pinched the blood from the bridge of his nose. ‘Perhaps you can explain this to me, Mademoiselle: how is it men and women train for years at the Conservatoire to become actors, and yet everyone who’s seen a two-reel at the funfair thinks she’s the next Bernhardt?’
In the room behind him, one of the men had lowered his newspaper and was staring at me over the top of it.
‘I’ve practised,’ I said quickly, ‘memorised the roles of Célimène and Phèdre and I am working on Lady Macbeth de M. Shakespeare—’
‘Bravo,’ he said, and made to shut the door. It closed, and closed some more; his beady eyes still wide and staring at me as the gap tightened – I put the toe of my boot between the door and the frame.
I said: ‘You don’t know what I can do.’
His face was startled; he chewed his lip. Suddenly the air fell out of him. ‘Mademoiselle, this isn’t the line of work for you.’ The mocking light had gone from his eyes; they were sad.
I pulled my toe back; drew myself up. ‘I want to see someone in charge,’ I said. ‘I want Feuillade.’
‘You’re talking to him.’ He slammed the door before I could do my trick with the toe again.
I waited for a moment; leant my knuckles against the door, rapped on it, a continuous hammering like a woodpecker’s.
‘Do you know where I can find the right people to help me?’ I shouted. Inside the room, there was just the sound of the woman typing, drowning me out.
Who could I ask for help? Père Simon? I couldn’t bear it. His poor, eager face, reading my letter of bad news.
To buy thinking-time, I walked along the quai de la Tournelle. It was early evening: barges were gliding downriver towards the dark struts of the cathedral, their captains perched on their roofs, still as the boats themselves. I crossed the bridge and wandered towards the Boulevard St Michel. The booksellers were closing the green doors of their boxes; I caught a flash as I passed of a series of postcards of Max Linder’s grinning face, along with other stars. As I lingered, the bookseller caught my eye. ‘Beautiful shot of Max?’ he asked, and when I shook my head, he plucked a newspaper from his rack and rattled it at me, ‘Max Linder, Mademoiselle! His new film is reviewed today in Le Temps! Two for one, let’s make that pretty face smile…’
I shook my head and walked smartly past: but at the next corner kiosk, I bought a copy of Le Temps, then ink, envelopes and stamps from the stationer on the Boulevard Montparnasse; hurried to my room, ignoring Mathilde’s piping voice offering a little restorative, and began to turn the pages. The articles about film were hidden at the back underneath the theatre reviews.
So that, in the early days, was my routine. Every morning I went out to buy Le Temps, and every afternoon, I directed a volley of enquiring letters to cinema stars, care of the relevant studio, congratulating them on their recent success and enquiring about roles in their next film; I planted a kiss on the back of each envelope and pushed it into the postbox on the corner of rue Boissonnade. At night, I lay awake, listening to the bored cries from Agathe’s bedroom and the heavy tread of gentlemen’s boots.
Two weeks passed and not a single reply. My anxiety grew: please let me not have to confront another studio face-to-face. The postman’s pitter-patter steps passed our apartment every morning; jealously, I heard him ring the buzzer of Madame Moreau’s apartment across the corridor.
The third week came and went. Over tea, I told Mathilde that I would pay her double-rent the following week. Though I tried to sound nonchalant, my cheeks coloured, giving me away.
Mathilde tilted her head to one side and looked at me brightly. Then she dropped her embroidery in her lap, put her hand onto my shoulder and squeezed it. Her grip was firm – quite unlike her usual quavering hands. I shrank back; surely she was measuring the flesh on my bones.
The day came when my fifth week’s rent was due, and still there had been no response to my missives. At four o’clock in the afternoon, I leapt out of bed, convinced I had heard the postman’s step on the stairs. I ran into the hall just in time to see that I had made a mistake: what I had heard was the door just shutting, and beyond it I caught a glimpse of Agathe’s bulk, her empty string bag whisking round the corner. Her heavy steps plodded down the stairwell. She must have got up early to go shopping.
I stood in the hall for a moment, willing a letter to appear. As I turned, disconsolate, I noticed that Agathe’s bedroom door had been left ajar.
A mere push with the tips of my fingers and it creaked wide open.
The room smelled of stale cigarette smoke. Cracks of light filtered through the shutters and laddered the chenille cover on a double bed. This was so vast it almost filled the room, leaving only enough space for me to stand at its foot. Beside my feet was an ancient blanket-box. I placed my fingers experimentally on the bed cover and pushed the springs, which protested. Then nothing: just the silence and the smoky smell. There was an ashtray on the bedside table, spilling over with old cigarette ends and fine grey dust.
I stroked the ceramic of the ashtray, but it was the bed that drew my attention back. I patted the pillow, then slid my hand underneath it and felt stiff fabric; drew out an enormous brassiere. Old sweat caked the material around the armpits; flaring my nostrils, I dropped it and slid my hand down underneath the pillow again.
Letters – a bundle of them, tied up with a faded red ribbon; but carefully, bound together twice over. I sank to my haunches and listened; hearing nobody, I slipped the knot and bent over the topmost sheet of paper.
It was just a few lines. The handwriting was ill-formed and masculine: all scratch marks and ink blobs. Darling, it began, do not be downhearted. When you’ve made your name, and you have finished treading the boards of the Comédie Française, the wedding bells will sound in Domrémy again. Remember the little house behind the orchard?
The date was from five years ago.
I thought how her slippers cut into her puffy ankles as she walked around the apartment.
A movement in the doorway: Mathilde stood watching me. She took in the letters, me.
‘You mustn’t think of it as a failure,’ she said. ‘We don’t all have the talents we’d like.’
She stood there, the silence stretching around her—
She opened her mouth: her lips hovered around a smile. ‘It isn’t such a bad life, dear. Food on the table, good friends all around. We are all friends at rue Boissonnade, aren’t we?’
The slap of an envelope onto the parquet in the hall.
Mathilde blinked, turned to look and was herself again. ‘Oh,’ she bleated, ‘we so rarely get any post—’
This morning, over breakfast, there is no way to te
ll whether Mathilde has told Agathe about my searching through her room yesterday or not. Agathe is concentrating on her share of the baguette, which she breaks into tiny pieces and eats. There are particles of leftover sleep around her eyes.
‘Here,’ I say, ‘take mine.’
She accepts it without even looking at me.
In my pocket is the letter that must take me away from all of this. This morning I could fly away, stepping off the windowsill and lifting, stretching my arms out to love the whole of Paris.
Something of this must show in my face, because Agathe leans in over the table. ‘Will you be going out to look for work this morning,’ she asks, ‘or do you have a scrapbook to fill?’
‘Actually, I have an appointment,’ I say, trying to keep my voice light.
Mathilde drops her spoon and leans over towards me, her lips stretching into a smile, and takes my wrist. ‘I have a feeling,’ she confides, ‘I have a feeling, Adèle, that this is going to be a very special day.’
Her touch makes my own fingers curl; I tug away, slip one hand into my pocket and feel the letter crackle reassuringly.
‘Well, good day,’ I say, rising from the table. As I walk towards the front door, I feel Mathilde’s gaze on my back, taking in my smart dress, the sway of my hips.
I pelt down the stairs three at a time. Monsieur Z lies in his usual tangled heap at the bottom of the stairwell, filthy rags concealing clinking, empty bottles. He raises his head and shouts his familiar greeting – ‘Trollop! Whore!’ – as I vault over him – and then, as usual, he cringes, a vision of terrified penitence. His cries fade siren-like behind me as I rush into the street: sorry, sorry, sorry.
4. avril 1913
THE COLOURS FLICKED ON: sunshine flared through the grubby windows, and the train surfaced at Vincennes, hissing as it came to a halt. I stepped down onto the platform and was immediately caught in a group of other passengers. All were women, and all dressed the same: dark skirts, dark hat, dark gloves. ‘Come on, Louise, it’s five to nine, you can walk, can’t you?’ tutted one, as another bent to tie her shoelaces. Chastened, Louise straightened up and the group hurried on.
Petite Mort Page 2
