Authors: Michelle Gable
It took several days for us all to recover, even Boldini! He spent many long hours at the morgue, inspecting the bodies, trying to lift his spirits. I wonder what might’ve happened had Béa not survived. Could Boldini still tolerate this pastime of his? I would like to think the answer is no.
Béa is such a sweet child. The perfect baby, really! She hardly ever cries, and her appetite is not so voracious as to completely abuse my nipples. The little girl knows me. She knows I am her
maman
and loves to look up at me, staring intently with her dark brown eyes. It’s funny. They say all babies are born with blue eyes. Not my girl, not my Béa.
I cannot believe how scared I was to become a mother, to make this large jump into another life. Now that she’s here everything is different. I love her, Boldini loves her, and we adore each other. What began as an imaginable fiasco turned into something grand. As I look ahead into the new year, one that will close out a century, I feel optimistic for the first time in a long, long while. I have a lot to learn about children. Needless to say, so does Boldini! Alas, I think we will all get along just fine.
Chapitre LXIV
Paris, 1 July 1900
They say Jean-Baptiste Charcot has been busy sailing the Indian Ocean for the last year and that he’s due home any day. If this is true, I daresay he won’t recognize his city. Paris has been overtaken by the Exposition Universelle. I hardly recognize it myself!
Naturally, like the dutiful Parisians we are, we attempted to beat the prior world’s fair, the 1889 version which gave us the dubious La Tour Eiffel, that hideous iron lady. It is now 1900—a new century! What better place to display every modernization known to man than at L’Exposition? And I do mean
every
. If there is an advancement or experiment you wish to see, it can be found at the fair! There are X-ray machines and wireless telegraphy and even films with sound (no ether firebombs this time), plus automobile exhibits galore.
Naturally, for every salient, important exhibition sure to change the world, there are five completely inane. Of the hundred thousand demonstrations, at least half should’ve stayed inside the brain of the demonstrator! Surely the “Exhibit of American Negroes” did not need to come to fruition. And those silly “flying machines”? Really!
Paris doesn’t even look like Paris but instead a lady heavy-handed with makeup. The powers that be couldn’t let our lovely buildings stand for themselves. Oh, poor Haussmann! All that architectural genius only to have his work covered by facades! We look like a fat, overly made-up, overblown Venice.
Le Comte
took me to Venice twice, and it’s nothing spectacular.
The committee spent years determining this exposition’s
clou
, its signature building to compete with the La Tour Eiffel. Some even wanted to transform
la tour
itself. One faction suggested turning it into a 325-meter-tall woman with searchlights for eyes. During the fair, beams would shoot from her head and scan the crowds. In the end the committee came to its senses, slapped on a fresh coat of gold paint, and went to work constructing new buildings and bridges and palaces.
Today Béa and I attended the festivities with my dear friend Léon Blum. Boldini refused to go. He is interested only in the Olympic Games. It is, I suppose, preferable to corpse-viewing, although not by much. He says they will allow women to compete this year. Who has heard of such a thing? These are supposed to be athletic endeavors! Boldini’s favorite sport to watch is the ladies’ tug of war. For the men he prefers tennis.
Because he knew of Boldini’s exposition obstinacy, Léon Blum offered to escort Béa and me. Though I was pleased to be accompanied by such a learned and lettered man, going anywhere with M. Blum tends to feel like a statement. He is a Jew and a Socialist and about as pro-Dreyfusard as they come. It’s not that I outright disagree with Dreyfusard leanings. Indeed I was quite moved by Zola’s letter to the president. Poor M. Dreyfus! Jailed unjustly because he was a Jew! They are known to be a lying sort, but in this case the reputation did not seem to fit.
It is not that I care if I am mistaken for a pro-Dreyfusard. I merely do not want to be mistaken for one thing or another! In my line of work I must take caution when it comes to political stances. I cannot alienate my patrons. Nonetheless Blum is a dear man and was willing to take me where Boldini would not, which is all I ever really look for in another man. Aha!
Though Béa is now eighteen months old, she still has not learned to walk. A perfect reflection of her sweet disposition! She is contented to stay in one place and stare at the people around her. I am content to stare right back! She is so very beautiful. So serene! We are blessed to have a child who never cries. Boldini worries that she does not yet talk. I say, look at her father! He can go two weeks without saying a word to either of us. Sometimes I forget he is not her father by blood, so alike are they.
So on this day, my arm looped through Blum’s and Mademoiselle Béa in her carriage, we went through the turnstiles and out onto the main grounds to see what Paris had on display. The papers did not exaggerate the crowds, the chaos, the performances. An entire section of the city was devoted to reenacting Victor Hugo’s works.
The largest crowd was at the “Human Zoo.” Why the exposition needed two Negro displays was beyond me. The spectacle immediately disturbed Léon, of course. He is a kindhearted sort and created no small scene, shouting about the mistreatment of the “animals.” I glanced around sheepishly, not sure if I wanted to stand solidly by his side or sneak off in another direction.
That’s when I saw her across the way: Jeanne Hugo Daudet Charcot. The last of her last names sent goose bumps along my skin. I looked down at Béa and back up at Jeanne.
“I’ll be right back,” I said to Léon, who was not listening to me at all. Off I wheeled us toward Jeanne.
“Ah, Madame Charcot!” I said as I accidentally bumped into her shoe with the wheels of Béa’s carriage. “I thought you would be viewing the Victor Hugo exhibit.”
“I lived with Victor Hugo,” she said, staring ahead and refusing to make eye contact. “I’ve read his works a hundred times.”
“Well, how special for you. I guess it’s good you were orphaned and had such an amazing grandfather to raise you.”
“It was special for me. Quite special.”
This sent a fire through my veins the kind of which I’d not yet felt. Normally Jeanne snubbed me or pretended she didn’t recognize my face. Now she goaded. The woman was goading me!
“So, how is that husband of yours?” I asked. “I hear he hasn’t been in Paris for about two years and some change.”
I rammed the carriage into her boot again, forcing her to look down.
“I hope he is well,” I continued. “The last I saw him was … let me think … my daughter was born in December. So, about March of that year? April? It was around the time M. Boldini was making your portrait. You were away from your apartment often. And a lovely apartment it is! The parlor especially. The rugs are quite soft.”
Jeanne turned toward me, eyes alight with flames and nostrils flaring.
“Is that your baby?” she asked.
“Yes, it is my baby,” I said as my heart filled with pride.
For a second it was not about flaunting our connection, the tentacles I now had into Jeanne’s life and home. Béa is a beautiful, precious child and not a pawn. Her paternity is of exactly no concern to me. As such I contemplated whether I should not have come over. Marguérite says I’ve been reckless lately, forgetful, unthinking. I’d dismissed her comments, as always, but now I had to wonder.
“I should have guessed,” Jeanne said. “That is some baby, sans doute.”
“You’re correct. She is ‘some baby.’ The most beautiful baby in all of Paris.”
“I saw you walk up with Léon Blum.” A wide, wicked smile broke out across Jeanne’s face. “It’s a shame your child has inherited his features. Those dark eyes, the nose, the general dirtiness that bespeaks a Jewish lineage.”
My mouth fell open. I did not know which insult hurt worst.
“This baby is beautiful,” I said again. “And she is not M. Blum’s. Though a woman could certainly fare worse!”
“Of course she is Blum’s. Why, just look at her! She has ‘Jew’ written all over her face. You can always tell a Jew by its face!”
I didn’t pause. I didn’t think. Instead I reached out and shoved Jeanne Hugo Daudet Charcot into the Madagascar pit, a muddy, man-made swamp where Negroes sat naked, chained to trees and gnawing on prey.
Bedlam erupted. Jeanne screamed and called for the police. Ten more people fell into the pit while trying to pull her out. I sprinted in the opposite direction.
After grabbing Léon’s hand, I hurried him and my daughter down the sidewalk and out of L’Exposition, Blum pontificating about the lack of humanity as we went. It was not until we were fully outside the gates that he realized there was no one left to hear.
As I caught my breath on the sidewalk, Béa peered up at me, squinting, smiling slightly at the fun and speedy ride. Léon was squinting, too, but from confusion.
“Madame de Florian,” he said. “Why all the commotion? The fast getaway?”
“I pushed Jeanne Hugo into the ‘Human Zoo.’”
Léon laughed.
“Well,” he said. “That seems a good place for her. But may I ask why?”
“I hate the woman. I truly hate her. She ruined my life before it began.”
I paused, sizing him up. If anyone might understand my plight it would be Léon Blum. Boldini had heard the story. He didn’t believe me. I told
Le Comte
, and he thought it was a joke. Marguérite knew and never expressed an opinion one way or another. And the nuns knew. Of course they knew. They were the ones who told me in the first place.
“Victor Hugo was my father,” I said.
He chuckled. Of all things, Léon chuckled.
“Do you find this amusing?” I asked and poked at his foot with my parasol. “Because it is the truth.”
“Forgive me, Madame de Florian, but I thought you were orphaned and raised in a convent?”
“Yes, orphaned, like Jeanne Hugo. The only difference was that Victor Hugo could only take one of us in. He chose her.”
I told him the story. I told him about the serving wench, my mother, who worked at Hugo’s estate on Guernsey. She was beautiful, with dark brown hair and even darker eyes. The moment Victor Hugo saw her step into the sunlight he fell instantly in love. It took almost a year for him to work up the courage to speak with her. He was so very good with words on paper, but those relayed face-to-face were another affair entirely.
Overtaken by his love for her, Victor finally wrangled the gumption to engage her in conversation. It was some trivial matter: a question about the weather or the price of butter. My mother found him endearing and a relationship was born. Though he was rumored to have a long-term mistress, the truth was Hugo had not smiled since his wife, Adèle, died, but now he smiled only for my mother. They were friends for a long, long time, several years in fact, before they consummated their romance in the usual fashion. It was so spectacular a moment that my mother had known instantly she was with child.
Despite the improper nature of the situation, both were happy at the news. They planned to marry once Victor had certain proprieties worked out. He was in a rather sad position following his wife’s untimely death. His beloved daughter—another Adèle—was relegated to an insane asylum. Both sons had recently died, and as a result his grandchildren were now living with him. It would not look very well for France’s favorite son to celebrate a marriage amidst all this. Plus there was the matter of the grandchildren. They needed time to adjust to the situation.
While Victor went to Paris to right these family constraints, my mother and her new baby remained behind. Unfortunately the longer Victor stayed in Paris, the more complex his situation, and the greater delay in his return to the island on which he was once exiled. Not the least of these complexities was his granddaughter Jeanne, then a most difficult and petulant toddler.
Soon my mother, Victor’s love, fell ill with tuberculosis. At Hugo’s behest the estate brought in every doctor available on the island. Alas, this was not Paris, and the medical community was therefore substandard. My mother passed away, leaving me alone with the other servants.
Hugo planned to fetch me from Guernsey and raise me as his own in Paris. Yet Jeanne forever got in his way, this granddaughter who was already two armfuls of trouble and then some. Before long Victor had a stroke. Destroyed by destiny, he had one burden too many, and, being the illegitimate child, I was the easiest to cast off. Not to mention that I served as a constant reminder of my mother, whom he missed to the point of pain.
To Paris I eventually went. But instead of taking me to the Hugo estate, Victor deposited me at the convent in which his mother had once sought solace. He did this even though he’d spoken out publicly against the Catholic Church. I suppose when you’re desperate you go back to what your mother first taught you. I wish I had that luxury.
Victor Hugo left me with the nuns and the nuns with enough money to care for me. He promised to return when I was older, when he had the situation with his granddaughter ameliorated. Jeanne was a treacherous young soul, an utter brat, who, when told of my existence, ran away from home and refused to come back until he promised she would never have to lay eyes on my face. Victor promised, but he thought it was temporary. He would get her to come around eventually.
Alas, he never had the chance. Hugo died but a handful of years later.
“And that,” I said, my cheeks flushed, voice stuck in my throat, “Is the story of my origins.”
“Well, that is an amazing tale.” Blum removed a silk square from his pocket and wiped his brow. “I always knew you were something special, Marthe, and now I know why.”
“Oh, Léon!” I cried, so grateful was I to have someone who didn’t laugh at the notion. “Thank you for your words!”
I flung myself at him and fell into his arms. He petted and kissed my hair.