Girl in the Afternoon (15 page)

The men stood silently facing each other. Auguste's large body had gone soft, his shoulders limp, his hands heavy at his sides. He could see how guarded Henri was, how frightened.

“Henri, my boy, please come in. Sit down.”

“No, thank you.” Henri shook his head. His eyes roamed the room: the huge desk, a leather book open on top, an empty glass, an inkwell, a cigar on an end table, flames leaping in the bright, warm fireplace, and Colette, staring from the painting on the wall. “I came because I must tell you why I left.”

Auguste clasped his hands behind his back. “That's very pragmatic of you. Why bother with petty formalities? Much better to get to it right away.”

He believed Henri had come to declare his love for Aimée. Possibly admit to improprieties with his daughter. For years, Auguste had convinced himself that this was the reason for Henri's departure.

“The night before I left, Colette and I spent the night together. She came into my room, and I let her in my bed.” It was devastating to say out loud. A hot grip wrung Henri's gut, and he stood as if stripped naked, knowing there was no tenable thing he could say in his defense.

He wanted to explain that he had not meant for it to happen. That he'd never even thought about it before that night. He wanted to say how dark and confused he was at first, how good it felt, how cold the house and how warm her body. He wanted to say,
You were always good to me, but you weren't my real family and I was always lonely, deeply lonely. And for a moment, that night, the loneliness went away.

But from the look on Auguste's face, it wouldn't have mattered. It was a betrayal of such magnitude that Auguste felt crushed by a blow that came at him from all sides. Instead of lunging at Henri, as he would have liked, he stepped away and sank into his chair, suddenly old, and very, very tired.

Quietly, his voice not sounding like his own, he said, “Get out of my house,” but the thought of Henri leaving after just this brief, pitiful moment together, was as devastating as Henri's admission.

What Auguste wanted was for the boy he loved to drop to his knees and beg his forgiveness, crawl to him weeping. He wanted to hear all the justifications Henri wasn't able to give. He wanted to hear Henri say it was just because he loved them all too much.

When Henri left, and his boy was gone, Auguste couldn't get up. He sat thinking that when someone disappears, when there are no explanations, there is at least hope, but when someone turns his back and walks away, there is nothing.

 

Chapter 17

Colette didn't know it was Auguste who grabbed her. He clapped a hand over her mouth and pinned her arms from behind, her wrists pinched beneath his hard fingers. She heard the bedroom door kicked shut, and then Auguste let go, spun her around, and shoved her so hard she stumbled, tripping backward onto the bed.

“Good gracious, what are you doing?” Colette struggled to get up, only to have Auguste push her back down, his hands landing just above her breasts, making the skin tingle. If it weren't for the terrifying look on Auguste's face, she might have thought this some new, licentious game.

For the last two hours, Auguste had been staring into the empty room imagining his wife with Henri, and now, all the rage Colette had thrown at him over the years, all the rage he'd let bounce off his head, off his heart, rose up like a roaring, blinding wave.

His wife had taken their son into her bed like a common whore. Whore wasn't even a vile enough word for it. But
whore
was what he shouted, coming at her with a raised hand, shaking, his eyes blurred, and ears ringing with the swell of anger. He was going to teach her a lesson.

Colette lay on the bed where he'd shoved her, one arm flung over her head, the other across her stomach. She did not make any attempt to rise. A hot flush covered her neck and face, and her breath came in quick, short bursts.

Auguste dropped his hand. He couldn't do it. He couldn't hit her, and as he stared down at her his heart broke. He knew he couldn't love her anymore. It made him feel as if he'd lost everything.

With alarming familiarity, his anger melted into desire. Intense desire. Instead of striking her he got down on his knees, reached his hands under her dress, and pulled down her drawers.

*   *   *

It
was over quickly. Auguste held a clump of her hair in one hand and gripped her chin with his other, his fingers digging into her jawbone. When he was through he let go and rolled onto his back.

Colette closed her eyes. Her scalp hurt, and her face felt tender and bruised. Reaching down, she pulled her dress back over her legs. Her bustle was crushed beneath her, and she wondered if it was ruined, if she'd have to replace the whole thing, or if the steel might be reshaped. It reminded her of the first time a man had taken her to bed. It happened very much this way, and she'd lain just like this thinking of the most ordinary things. That man had stood above her, pulling his trousers back on, saying that he couldn't help himself because she was simply too beautiful. And wasn't it kind of him to show her how special she was?

She now realized it was in this same twisted way that she'd tried to show Henri how special he was, how much she loved him. That was all. She had not meant to hurt him, or anyone else for that matter.

Auguste lay next to her breathing heavily, his fury spent, sweat pooling at the hollow in his neck as he stared at the motif on the bed curtain. It was a repeating pattern of blue flowers circling a white buck being attacked by three white dogs. The absurdity of this, of covering their entire bedroom—curtains, coverlet, upholstered divan, and two upholstered chairs—in this grotesque scene made him laugh out loud, a sharp bark that cracked the silence.

He took a breath, and it was as if the teeth of those dogs were sinking into his own flesh when he asked, “Jacques is not mine, is he?”

Neither of them moved. There was no fire, and the room had grown cold. Colette thought of resting her hand on some part of Auguste, but couldn't.

“No,” she said, “he is not.”

They lay until the room grew dark, until not even the blue toile canopy was visible anymore. Eventually, Auguste sat up, grateful that Colette appeared only as a shimmering lump of white fabric. He could not have looked her in the face.

“Where does Henri live?” He stood up, pulled on his drawers and trousers, and straightened the frock coat, which he had not bothered to take off.

“Will you hurt him?” she asked.

“Of course not.”

Their voices were oddly kind, as if they knew what sorrows lay ahead, as if they both, in their own way, were sorry.

“Number 18, on the rue de Calais,” she whispered.

Auguste stepped into his shoes and stood over the bed. It hurt to breathe, as if the truth had cracked every rib in his chest. Colette had not moved other than to pull her dress down. She looked almost peaceful, lying still, her hair spread around her shoulders, dark as the night that had crept in on them.

“Have Marie make up a room for you,” Auguste said.

Colette didn't respond, but he could hear her breathing in the dark, a sound so soft and familiar it felt like a part of his own body.

He turned and left, imagining he'd spend the rest of his life listening for that sound.

*   *   *

Henri
sat at his table with the empty bottle of wine and the poem Colette had found spread in front of him. He had not read it since he was a boy, and he was surprised to find his mother's words familiar and comforting, not painful, like he imagined. It reminded him that things were not always as they seemed, and that love was slippery and changeable.

The knock startled him. It was late, and he wasn't up for seeing anyone, not even Leonie, but the lamp glowed brightly, and whoever it was knew perfectly well he was at home, so Henri answered the door.

It was the boy he noticed first. A pair of short, chunky legs and a head of pale hair dropped forward; he was sound asleep on Auguste's shoulder.

Jacques had fallen asleep in the carriage, and Auguste had been very careful not to stroke his hair, or hold his hand. That would have been too much. It was hard enough having the boy's warm body wrapped around his middle.

“Take him,” Auguste said, lifting Jacques through the air, the boy's limp head rolling back as he was clumsily transferred into Henri's arms. “This is Jacques. He's your son.”

Jacques's soft leather shoes bumped Henri's thighs as he hoisted the boy up, awkwardly, staring at Auguste, shock and confusion quickly turning to panic as the weight of this very real child settled on him.

Auguste cleared his throat, the emptiness in his arms a physical pain in his body. “You must give him your name, your real name. A man must know who he is; otherwise he has no place in the world.”

He could not look at Henri, or Jacques. He just shoved listless hands in his pockets, bent his head, and hurried back down the stairs.

As the driver slapped the reins on the horses' backs, Auguste smashed his fists into the carriage seat. He was an imbecile. It was freezing out, and he hadn't even remembered the boy's coat. He looked back at the window of the apartment, hoping Henri knew enough to cover the child properly in his sleep. He'd have Jacques's things sent over first thing in the morning—and currant jelly; Henri wouldn't know that the boy's favorite treat was currant jelly.

Auguste remembered driving away from his son Léon's grave, Colette sitting across from him, irreparable pain on her face. He remembered Aimée's screams, and how he'd had to hold her in his lap for fear she might leap out of the carriage window.

He wondered how many children a man could lose in a lifetime before he no longer wanted to go on living. And as he drove away from Jacques, the river of sadness, which for years Auguste had kept underground, burst to the surface and turned into an insurmountable flood of grief. A grief that he would never, not even as a very old man, manage to overcome.

 

Chapter 18

No one had any idea Auguste had taken the boy.

As far as Marie was concerned Jacques was tucked in his bed where she'd left him. She had been too preoccupied with making up the guest room to tell him a bedtime story that night.

“You might as well know,” Colette had told her. “I've been banished from my husband's room. Strip the bed in the guest room and put on the linen sheets I like. You can take them off Auguste's bed. He won't know the difference.”

All Colette wanted was to lie down and shut her eyes. Normally, she would have gone into Jacques's room and kissed him good night, but after the day she'd had, she just wanted to sleep.

So the boy's absence was not discovered until the next morning.

At breakfast, all eyes were heavy. No one had slept well, and no one felt like eating, or speaking. Only the sound of a spoon clinking in a cup, the scrape of a knife against a plate, or the crunch of toast passed between them.

Aimée was not feeling well, and she took cautious bites of bread, thinking she might send Édouard a message postponing their session for the day. She didn't notice the shadows under her papa's eyes, or the small bruise on her maman's jawbone.

Sipping her black tea, unable to eat a thing, Madame Savaray looked from Auguste's creased brow to Colette's hard face, the silence between them so rigid an axe wouldn't split it.

The previous night, Madame Savaray had heard the bedroom door slam. Then, when no one came down to dinner, her stomach had done a quick flop, and she'd pushed her food away. She'd seen Henri duck out their front door earlier that day, and been filled with dread. Auguste was not a violent man, but she knew that men could be pushed to violence. It was not her place to interfere, and yet it took all the willpower she had not to burst into her son's bedroom. Willpower and a tall glass of brandy in the parlor with the door cracked so she could listen for sounds upstairs.

Now, looking at his exhausted face, she feared the worst had happened.

A light tap came at the door. “Come in,” Auguste said, roughly.

Marie stepped into the room, eyes wide and frantic under her crop of red bangs. “Pardon me for disturbing your breakfast,” she said, her voice trembling, “but I cannot find Jacques.”

Colette shot up from the table, and her napkin fluttered to the floor like a wounded bird. “What do you mean?”

“He wasn't in the nursery when I went to fetch him.” Marie was in a state of panic. Despite the family's loyalty, she'd lose her position if the boy managed to get himself lost in the streets.

Madame Savaray set her teacup in its saucer. “Did you look under the beds?” she snapped, warding off the truth, telling herself that this was not the first time Jacques had hidden. If Marie had a bit of sense she would have found the boy before telling anyone.

“He's probably in the pantry.” Aimée set her toast down and brushed the crumbs from her fingers. “Cook found him there a few days ago licking the last of the quince jelly from the jar.”

Marie nodded, wringing her hands. “That was the first place I checked. I've looked in the wardrobes, under every bed. I called and called.” Tears rolled down her swollen cheeks. “I looked under the stairwell, in the parlor, and the garden.”

“The boy is fine.” Auguste kept his eyes on his plate, his forearms on the table, his knife and fork held in each hand. “He is with his papa.”

Aimée looked at her papa, certain she'd misheard him. Madame Savaray rocked forward with a hand to her chest. Colette clutched the back of her chair, the room vibrating with an unnatural light, while blackness crept in at the edges of her vision.

Setting down his cutlery, Auguste pushed back his chair and stood up. “I brought him to Henri,” he said, avoiding everyone's eyes.

Colette couldn't breathe. The black ring was closing in, clamping down around her windpipe.