Girl in the Afternoon (9 page)

A cool sensation ran along the ridge of Aimée's collarbone. “Where?”

“I went to Café Guerbois, and Café de la Nouvelle Athènes, just to be sure, but you were right, no one knew him.”

Aimée studied the painting she was working on of a young girl swinging open a garden gate. Until now, Henri had remained her ghost, undisturbed beside her. She wasn't sure she was ready for him to be real again.

Leonie began unlacing her boots. “I was hoping,” she said, “at the very least, someone might have heard of him and would know where to direct me, but no one had. I met a writer—grim, serious fellow—who suggested a few places.” She pulled her boots off and peeled her wet stockings over her feet. “I went to all of them, but there was no Henri Savaray to be found.” She stood up and laid the stockings on the back of her chair.

Aimée picked up a palette knife and began scraping off the girl's hands.

“I went all over the city. Places I'd never been before, and then, wouldn't you know it, last night I stopped in a café right off the Place de Clichy, just to get something to eat, and I asked this girl if she'd heard of him—lovely red-haired thing drinking all by herself—‘I have,' she says in one of those husky, untrustworthy sort of voices. ‘He owe you money too?' she says.” Leonie stood next to Aimée, watching her scrape away all her hard work.

Aimée moved from the hands to the girl's head, wishing she was alone in her bedroom. She would have liked to bury her head in her arms and weep.

“She told me he dined there nightly,” Leonie went on, excited. “I stayed just to get a look at him. I had no intention of speaking with him, but when he walked through the door that girl went right up to him, demanded her money, and then pointed to me and said, ‘She wants her money too.'”

Aimée put down her knife and studied the mutilated girl, her head gone, her hands cut off at the wrists.

Leonie had expected excitement, delight, or at the very least, gratitude from Aimée. A look of shock would have sufficed, tears, something. But Aimée just backed away from her canvas and sat down, her expression maddeningly unaffected.

“Can you believe all this time and he was right there?” Leonie raised her voice as if speaking to her
grand-tante
. “I must have walked by that café a hundred times.”

“You spoke to him?” Aimée asked.

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing at first. He just looked at me, bemused, and then told the girl he'd have her money next week, which was not what she wanted to hear. She practically took the door off its hinges on her way out.”

Leonie noticed the color had drained from Aimée's face. There was something unsettling in her expression. “Your brother's nice enough,” she said as if his niceness was what was at stake. “He came over directly and said he was sorry he'd forgotten such a lovely face.” Leonie smiled. “I told him he didn't owe me a sous, that that girl had confused me for someone else. He offered to buy me a drink, said it was the least he could do.”

“Did he?” Aimée tried to picture the Henri she remembered drinking spirits with Leonie, or the redheaded model. She couldn't.

“I had one glass and told him I had to get on home. He said he'd walk me, but I insisted on going alone.”

“What was he like? I feel he must have changed a great deal.”

Leonie shrugged. “Gentlemanly, but sober. He didn't talk much. I had to fill in all those blank spaces that are so uncomfortable when conversing with someone you don't know.”

Aimée got up and walked to the window. “Do you know where he lives?”

“No, I couldn't think how to ask.” Leonie went to Aimée. From behind, she put her steady arms around her. “Don't worry, love. We know where to find him now.”

*   *   *

The
Place de Clichy was busy with foot traffic. Steam rose from the damp pavement under Aimée's feet. The rain had stopped, but the wind picked up and pushed massive gray clouds across the sky. They made Aimée dizzy. Everything felt too close, the clouds, the people bumping her on all sides, her dress, her hat, her shoes, even her skin seemed to be suffocating her. Earlier, she'd stepped right into traffic and was nearly run over.

It was a relief to see Leonie standing on the corner of the rue de Clichy.

“This wind is ferocious!” Leonie shouted, holding on to her hat strings. “Come, it's this way.”

She linked arms with Aimée and steered her down a boulevard lined with gateways that led into dark, narrow courtyards. They stepped around the
marchand de fruits,
past the draper's shop and the herbalist, both holding tight to each other, Leonie out of excitement, Aimée for sheer stability.

She'd dropped her spoon at breakfast, then had considerable trouble with the pins in her hair, and couldn't seem to fasten her boots. It was ridiculous, her flustered insecurity, this giddy, feverish anticipation.

Eventually, the large, glass shop windows gave way to smaller, darker ones. The street grew narrower, the buildings tight together. They stopped in front of a small café with a sign above the door that read
Café
Gravois
. Aimée glanced through the densely paned window and immediately snapped around.

“I can't go in there,” she said.

“Of course you can't.” Leonie pulled her into a dark doorway. Far away a clock bell tolled the hour. “But, I can.” She righted Aimée's hat, which had blown sideways. “That redhead said he dines here nightly. If he's not here already, he'll be here shortly. Wait for me. I'll tell him there's someone who wants to see him and bring him out.”

Aimée shook her head. “I can't do this. Not here.”

She stood frozen with misgiving. All day she'd been nervous, but also thrilled. What she felt now was cold dread, a fear that her love would be dug up from where she'd buried it, brushed off and shown for what it really was: a lonely, one-sided affair. A fatuous, silly girl's fantasy.

“Here's as good a place as any. He's your brother. I don't know the circumstances of his parting, but if I had me a brother, I would want to see him and set things right,” Leonie said with hands on her sturdy hips.

Aimée wished that none of this was happening. What if he didn't want to see her? What if he walked away?

“Ask to sit for him,” Aimée said impulsively.

“What?”

“Tell him you need work. Ask to model for him.”

Leonie dropped her hands. “He doesn't pay,” she said flatly.

“I'll pay you.”

Both girls were silent.

Aimée lowered her head. “I'm afraid he won't want to see me.”

It upset Leonie, seeing Aimée so unraveled. Usually, her friend was as strong as she, and Leonie preferred a strong woman to a weak one. Aimée was not someone she was prepared to take care of.

“I don't see what good will come of my sitting for him,” she said.

“You can see what he's like, tell me about him. I just need more time.”

Something felt amiss to Leonie, but she agreed.

Aimée took her friend's hand and kissed it. “Thank you,” she said.

Leonie shrugged, and together they stepped back into the wind.

 

Chapter 10

While Leonie modeled for Henri, Aimée spent her days at the Académie Julian, and in the garden of a rich client of Édouard's who hired her to do a portrait of his wife. Édouard had arranged it before he went to Argenteuil, and Aimée was grateful for the distraction, even if her mind was always in that café.

At dusk on an evening in June, Aimée left Monsieur Chevalier's verdant summer garden, where she'd spent all afternoon failing to please the man. Somehow he thought it was possible for his hideous wife to look pretty in pastel, which it was not. Agitated, Aimée sent her supplies home in the carriage and left on foot.

It was a warm, clear evening. All day she had felt an aching restlessness. She walked toward the rue de Clichy, and this time, when she came to the Café Gravois, she did not duck into a doorway. She stood right in front of the café window feeling impulsive, as if she might do, or say, anything. The stone necklace felt weighty against her skin. She knew it was superstitious, but she hadn't taken it off since she found Henri's painting.

It only took a minute to spot him. He wore the same collarless waistcoat he'd worn years ago, and she'd recognize the stoop of his shoulders anywhere.

Everything fell away then, sounds, smells, even the pitiful moan of a drunk slumped over in a nearby doorway. Through the streaked window, Aimée could see Henri's hands. They were unusually small, especially compared to her papa's, but that place that flared out between his wrist and thumb, wide and strong, had always gotten to her. One of his hands rested on the table, while the other gripped the spoon he dipped into his soup. His head was bent over his bowl so she couldn't see his face, but his hair was the same pale brown, although longer and curlier than she remembered.

She stood in full view, conscious of the tavern maid clearing empty dishes and the filthy cigar ends that littered the tables, but she looked only at Henri.

Then he looked up, right at her, and she quickly backed away, not sure if he'd seen her, and if he had, not sure he recognized her. She was halfway down the block when she heard her name, low and questioning. “Aimée?”

When she turned, he was only a few yards away. He wore no frock coat or hat, but his shirt was starched and his waistcoat buttoned up.

“Aimée?” he said again, as if still unsure.

“Hello, Henri.” A nervous, twitchy smile spread across her face. This simple greeting seemed, somehow, ridiculous.

“I was wondering when you'd come,” he said, his voice smooth, its seriousness achingly familiar.

“Oh?” Aimée dug her nails into her palms.

“Yes, ever since I first met Leonie.”

Aimée dropped her eyes to the cobblestones between them.

“Do your parents know?” he asked, and she looked up, hurt that he'd question her loyalty.

“No.”

They stood in silence, each wondering what to say as the sun slipped away and the sky became a blanket of purple, smooth as velvet, one bright star appearing in its depths.

All those years together during their childhoods, all those hours painting in each other's silence, didn't make this any easier.

Finally, Aimée turned, slightly, as if she meant to leave, then turned back. “How did you know, when you met Leonie?” she asked.

Henri smiled, and it reminded her of that first time she'd seen his smile, how it transformed his face into something dear and lovable.

“I saw your painting.” He sounded amused at the obviousness of this. “At the salon.”

Aimée gave a short laugh. “Of course. That never occurred to me.”

“I wondered if it was a coincidence. But when Leonie asked if I was looking for a model, I was certain you were behind it.”

“Then why did you say yes?”

A lightness had sprung between them, a familiarity they'd slipped back into.

“Because she's a find. I was shocked you were willing to give her up, when you could have easily come yourself.”

They moved closer as they spoke. Aimée could smell the wine on Henri's breath and the slight scent of resin that came from his clothes. She glanced around the dark street. The gas lamps were being lit, breaking the night shadows into isolated pools of light.

“We've moved,” she said. “We had to leave Passy during the attack of the Communards. A shell exploded on the Madeleine. Shattered all our windows, took down every curtain and picture, covered everything in heaps of plaster.”

Henri slipped his hands into his high waistcoat pockets and tucked his elbows in like a bird tucking in its wings. “I went past the house a few years back,” he said, adding quickly, “I just wanted to see it again,” implying that he had not gone to see her.

“Why?” Aimée could hear her anger. “Why would you want to see it again?”
When you didn't want to see any of us
.

The ease between them slipped away as quickly as it had arrived. Henri shrugged and looked down, the soft pouch of skin under his left eye fluttering. Aimée watched the small freckle near his cheekbone tremble and jump like a fly. It used to bother her, that leaping freckle, but now she hungered to press her finger against it, to still his nervousness, and feel how warm and real he was.

Henri glanced at the café door. “I should get back. The proprietress will think I've run off on the bill.”

“Yes, of course,” Aimée said, that small space between them vast and impassable.

Henri did not offer to see her home. “It's getting dark,” he said. “You should get a cab.”

She nodded. “I will, thank you.”

He turned to go, and Aimée pressed her hands to her sides to keep them from flying out and hanging on to him. “May I come to your studio?” she asked. “I would like to see what you're working on.”

Henri hesitated, and that hesitation cut straight into Aimée's heart. “Leonie has the address,” he said.

In the doorway he turned. “I hate to ask you to be dishonest on my account”—he wouldn't look at her—“but I would be immensely grateful if you did not mention this to your parents.”

Aimée tried to reply, but her throat was dry, and she couldn't find her voice. All she could manage was a nod.

*   *   *

It
was midmorning, and already the sun was scorching.

Aimée stepped off the rue de Calais into a small courtyard, pressing a gloved hand to her nose to block the nauseating stench of manure. The concierge stood in an open doorway fanning her apron and gazing at a flock of swallows rising from the rooftops.

“Pardon me,” Aimée said, and the woman pulled her gaze down, looking as if Aimée had spoiled the one peaceful moment she was likely to have all day. “I'm looking for Henri Savaray.”