City of Darkness and Light (17 page)

I washed Liam and dressed him for bed. He no longer wanted to go down but to play, so we stacked blocks and played peekaboo for a while until I began to feel really hungry myself. My body was now ready to catch up after all those days without food. I went into the kitchen and looked at the remains of the ham, the bread, the eggs. None of them had much appeal and the bread was already too hard. I decided that I would put Liam down for the night and then treat myself to a meal out. The little brasserie at the bottom of the Rue des Martyrs had seemed wholesome enough. I put Liam into his crib, sang to him, and then when he fell asleep I tiptoed out. I didn’t like to leave him but no harm could come to him in a crib he couldn’t climb out of and Madame Hetreau was just downstairs.

Madame Hetreau must have been preparing her own meal because she didn’t leap out on me when I went past. Outside the street was bathed in deep twilight. The brasserie was still almost deserted at this hour. I scanned the menu for something inexpensive. The owner recommended his onion soup. I wasn’t sure that a soup would fill me up but when it came it was encrusted with bubbling cheese and crispy bread—hearty enough for a meal.

“Some wine, madame?” he asked, and not being too confident about the water in this part of the city, I allowed him to bring me an eighth of a liter. Then, already having been daring I ordered a coffee. “But you must have my baba au rhum,” the owner said. He had already plied me with questions as he served and discovered I was newly arrived from America and here alone. I couldn’t quite tell if he was being friendly or had something else in mind, but he brought the dessert and did not let me refuse. It was delicious and laced with rum too. I hadn’t quite counted on the alcohol in that dessert and was feeling pleasantly squiffy when I paid my bill and got up to leave. At that moment the door opened and a couple came in.

“Ah, there she is again, my little redhead,” said the man and I saw that it was the Spaniard, Pablo Picasso. With him was an olive-skinned girl, half a head taller than he was, with a scarf wound around her head gypsy-style and black flashing eyes. “You see, Fernande,” he said to her. “Now you see why I should like to paint her—such unusual coloring and a good strong jawline.”

The tall one glared at me in unfriendly fashion. “Only if you let Max paint me,” she said, and played with her scarf.

“You know what I have said to that,” he snapped. “Nobody else sees you naked. Don’t mention it again.”

“And yet you think you can paint other women and I won’t mind?”

“It is the head that interests me, you silly goose,” he said. “You can sit beside me, if you wish. And she is an American. A visitor. No threat to you.”

“She is no better than she should be.” Fernande was still glaring at me. “No respectable woman sits alone in the evening.”

“I assure you I do not want to sit alone,” I said. “I was supposed to stay with friends here, but something must have happened to them. They have vanished. Nobody has seen them.”

“Did you find your Mr. Reynold Bryce? Did he not know where they are?” Picasso asked.

“I—” I stopped, remembering the inspector’s desire to keep the murder hushed up for now. “I went to his residence but I was not able to speak to him.”

“If these friends are American, she should go to La Stein,” Fernande said. “That place is always full of Americans. So boring.”

I remembered he had mentioned something about La Stein that morning. “‘La Stein’—what is that?”

“You mean
who
is that,” he said. “She is an American lady. A rich American lady. She buys paintings. She bought one of mine so she must have good taste for an American. And there are always gatherings at her house.”

“Where is this house?” I asked.

“On the Left Bank, by the Jardin du Luxembourg,” he said. “Rue de Fleurus. What is the number, Fernande?”

She shrugged. “Why should I remember? I only went there once with you and it was boring. Nobody spoke French and they ignored me. Me, I do not like being ignored, especially by you.”

“As if I ever ignore you, my darling. You know I cannot bear to be parted from you for an instant.” He gazed at her with such intensity that I felt distinctly embarrassed.

“Rue de Fleurus,” I repeated, before they could fall into a passionate embrace, right there in the restaurant.

“Ask anybody. They will know the number. Her parties are loud and go on all night.”

“Thank you,” I said. My wine and the rum in the dessert suddenly made the room swing around. “I must go back to my son,” I said.

“If you decide you would like to model for me, you can usually find me at the café, if I am not working,” Picasso called after me. “And if I work, I’m at Le Bateau-Lavoir.”

I thought that any woman who went to model for Picasso would be taking her life in her hands. And I smiled until those words echoed in my head. Had Sid and Gus taken their life in their hands doing something foolish? These people in Paris were not like New Yorkers. They were passionate and wild and jealous. They spoke of duels and pistols. And one of them had killed Mr. Reynold Bryce, a respectable American, in his own home.

I pulled my shawl around me, bid everyone a hasty good-night and hurried home. The Rue des Martyrs, where it met the boulevard near Pigalle, was now coming to life. A girl wearing a short skirt and showing black fishnet stockings almost up to her knee was leaning against a lamppost on the corner. A couple walked past, arms entwined about each other. A group of young men came toward me, singing lustily—something about “
Auprès de ma blonde, qu’il fait bon dormir,
” meaning “It would be good to sleep next to my blonde”? Such things would never be heard in New York.

They called out to me as they passed on the other side of the street. “Hello,
ma belle.
Come with us. We go to the Moulin Rouge. Come and dance and drink.”

I ignored them, suddenly feeling alone and vulnerable. I heard ribald comments as I fled toward my front door and went inside. Madame was back on alert this time. “You’ve been walking the streets, I see.”

“I had no food for my evening meal. I needed to eat.”

“It is not wise to wander the streets alone in this part of the city,” she said. “People will get the wrong idea about you.”

“I’ll remember that. Thank you.” I gave her a civil nod. As I went to walk past her up the stairs she called after me, “How long do you think you’ll remain here to see if your friends will return?”

“Until I find out what has happened to them,” I said. “You told me that the rent had been paid until the end of the month so it doesn’t really concern you whether anyone stays in their apartment or not, does it? Good night, madame.”

Then I stomped up the stairs. I had had a long, frustrating, and frightening day and I was not prepared to tolerate Madame Hetreau’s attempts to intimidate me.

Seventeen

I awoke to wind rattling the shutters. Outside clouds were racing across the sky bringing the promise of rain. Not an auspicious start to a day when I would be roaming the streets once more. Liam was awake and full of energy, babbling noisily and wanting to get up and going. I took him with me down the five flights to buy our breakfast. The baker made a big fuss of Liam and put a sweet roll into my bag for him. “You have cheered up Madeleine marvelously,” he said. “She had not recovered her full strength after the birth of the baby and had lost her joie de vivre. Last night all she could talk about was your son and how funny and clever he was.”

“I was delighted to find her,” I said. “It would have been a huge problem to carry my son around with me all day.”

I told him I’d be bringing Liam over later, then went to buy food for my evening meal. Meat was horribly expensive so I settled on a piece of fish and some more cheese. I gazed with awe at the selection of cold meats, cheeses, and pátés. Since I didn’t know the names of any of them I could only point, feeling like an idiot. Then up the stairs again for a good breakfast. The fact that there was still no telegram, no communication at all from Sid and Gus only reinforced my fear that something terrible had happened to them. Even someone lying in a hospital bed can arrange to have a telegram sent. This had to be more than a simple accident or missed train or even a sudden sickness. Were they prisoners or no longer alive?

It was almost a physical pain to let this thought enter my head. Sid and Gus had become the sisters I never had. I couldn’t bear it if anything had happened to them. But there was also fear for myself. What was I supposed to do alone in a strange city? Would Daniel rather that I returned to New York or that I stayed on here alone? Then there was the question of money. I had a little to keep me going, but not enough to pay rent for months to come. Ah, well, I thought with a grim smile. I could always become an artist’s model. It appeared my face and coloring might be in demand. This ridiculous notion cheered me up a little. I fed Liam some mashed carrots, dressed him for the day, left his dirty diapers soaking in a pale of borax, then carried him over to Madeleine. She did indeed seem pleased to see me and I lingered longer than I really wanted to, chatting to her, answering her questions about New York and my life there. She was intrigued to know that my husband was a policeman.

“But that is so dangerous, no?” she asked. “I would be in fear every time he left me. You must be a brave woman.”

“No,” I said. “I am also in fear, but it is his job. Right now I worry about him all the time. I hate to be so far away from him.”

“Then why did you abandon him and come here?”

“I had to leave the city because bad men were making threats on the life of me and my child. They blew up our house and killed my sweet servant girl.”

“
Mon dieu,
you poor little one,” she said. “How tragic for you to be alone like this. You and I will be friends, no?”

And she held out her hand to me. I took it, feeling the warmth of that chubby, work-worn hand in mind. “Thank you,” I said and blinked back tears.

Liam was already delighted to return to his Noah’s ark so I tiptoed away and off I went. My mention of Aggie had me thinking of her again. My present worries had pushed her loss from my mind, but now I pictured her in stark contrast to the round and healthy-looking Madeleine. Poor little Aggie who never had a chance to know joy in her life. And the guilt flooded over me again.

I thought I caught a glimpse of the group of young artists sitting in the Nouvelle Athènes. I wondered when they got any painting done. I asked the man in the ticket booth at the Métro station for directions to the Jardin du Luxembourg. He told me to change to Line 1 as I had done the day before, to get out at Châtelet station, cross the Seine, traverse the Île de la Cité, cross the second bridge until I came to the Boulevard St. Michel. If I followed that I should come to the Jardin. It seemed like an awfully long way. I just hoped I located this rich American called Stein quickly and that she hadn’t also decided to vanish. I tried to remember whether Sid or Gus had mentioned her in any of their letters. An American art collector and a female one at that was just the kind of person whose acquaintance they would have sought, surely?

I came out of the Métro at the Châtelet station to find it was already raining. I opened my brolly and headed for the bridge across the Seine. Holding it tilted down against the wind and rain I almost didn’t notice the magnificent fortress on the other side of the bridge and had to stop—windswept and rain blown, midway over the Seine—to admire it. There were mutterings of annoyance while the crowd had to part around me but I didn’t care. As I continued I passed between imposing yellow stone buildings, one with an arched gateway and sentry boxes beside it, the other with columns and a gilded portico. I took them for palaces until I read that the one with the arch was the Prefecture of Police. This then was where Inspector Henri said he could be found. And the one opposite was the Palais de Justice. I was glad I wasn’t a criminal. The French clearly took their justice seriously.

I had forgotten that this was an island, or not quite understood the Métro man’s directions because I was surprised to come to another bridge over another branch of the river. There were houseboats lining the bank, children playing in the rain on one deck, a line of laundry hanging limp and sorrowful on another. Bateau-Lavoir, “laundry boats,” I said to myself remembering the name of the building where the artists lived in Montmartre. Then I was on the Left Bank and the feel of the city became quite different from the elegance of the Right Bank I had encountered the day before. This area was full of students, lively young men gesticulating as they walked and talked, smoking little brown cigarettes, with books tucked into their jackets to keep them from getting wet. And on kiosks and walls there were placards advertising cabarets, or with cartoons containing political messages on them. Then there was one that had
Justice for Dreyfus
written across it in bold black letters while over it someone had painted in bright red paint
All Jews Out of Paris.
I remembered the young artists talking about the anti-Drefusards and saw that it was indeed a topic that was dividing the city. I passed several more such posters as I went down the Boulevard St. Michel, most of them with a message of hate painted over them. I wondered how many people could possibly agree with this foul sentiment. Enough to deface every placard, I thought.

I stopped to ask about the Rue de Fleurus and learned it was on the other side of the park. On a sunny day I would have welcomed a stroll across such delightful gardens but walking beneath chestnut trees that dripped rain onto me was not quite as desirable. The park was deserted apart from a couple that huddled together under his rain cape and a nursemaid who was stoicly determined to give her young charge his daily fresh air, no matter what the weather was like. There were miniature waves on the boating lake. The carousel stood idle. I was feeling thoroughly damp and bad tempered by the time I finally reached the other side of the gardens and located the Rue de Fleurus.

This was also deserted. I had hoped to find a neighbor and ask where Madame Stein might live, but nobody was venturing out. It was another typical Parisian street of uniform stone buildings and ironwork balconies, as if one giant hand had designed a whole city in one fell swoop. Of course I found out later that this was true. In the mid-nineteenth century the emperor Napoleon III had decided to tear down the unsanitary and crowded medieval city and asked Baron Haussmann to modernize it. Haussmann created the wide, treelined boulevards and uniform style of buildings that make the city so unique and attractive.