Hunting Ground (3 page)

The rush of garlic and bad teeth overwhelmed. There were clouds of cigarette smoke in her tiny cubicle. To sit all day in such a place … ‘That one,’ she shouted, when I asked for Janine. ‘Hah! She should charge for it. Then maybe she could pay her rent.’

The Himalayas of those stairs began. I thought to count them but soon gave up. The boards were old and dished, and when I reached the top floor and found the room, a note had been left for Jules.
À dix-sept heures, chéri. L’Académie Julian
. At five and one of the city’s long-standing schools for artists.
Chéri
…
la salope!
An art class at a time like this!

Jules, of course, hadn’t been in his office or anywhere near it. I had left a note for him, the suggestion of dinner together, but had they ever made love in that room of Nini’s? Had she cried out in ecstasy to paper-thin walls and flung her head from side to side as he’d pushed her to orgasm, eh? Hairs to hairs?

Above the sink, there was a mirror. Ages old and cracked, of course, but I remember looking at myself in that thing and watching the door behind, fearing it would open in a rush and they’d …

No thoughts of Jules, none at all but …

Later … that came later. Please, you must forgive me.

The silver backing had peeled. Smoke had damaged one quarter of it, and the half-moon of that burn had spread from the lower left out under the glass, brown against the peeling silver and the stains, so that my face appeared as if … I can’t say it, but I must! Tortured. There, at last, I’ve said it.

I had a lovely linen dress then, something very special.
Très chic
, you understand. Off-white, superbly tailored with an open collar that plunged to matching cloth-covered buttons, buckle, and belt. My waist was slim—how could it have been otherwise with all that slugging to do at the house and in the garden, the children, too, and an unfaithful husband?

I looked smashing in the dress. Half-sleeves, with cuffs, extended to just below the elbows so that the soft tan of summer was exposed. The band of my wristwatch matched the alligator leather of the handbag whose strap was slung over my right shoulder. The hat was fedoralike and in a soft beige. I had added a band of linen to match the dress. Like a lot of women then, I wore the hat tilted to one side with the brim pulled down a little so as to give that sense of mystery. No lipstick. Hey, listen,
mes amis,
I had good lips, nothing but the best; wore high heels, too, and a coat in case it might rain or get a little chilly.

My hair had been newly washed and brushed—held at the back with a barrette so that it fell to shoulder length but gave some fullness beneath the hat and was very fine, would take the sunlight and become a lovely soft amber, but there was no sunlight in this place. None. Small, pear-shaped earrings, encrusted diamonds, a gift from Jules’s father, were worn. Now why had that old man given them to me? Had I reminded him of someone or had he had a taste for me?

The earrings had been quite old. In my innocence, I had thought they’d been his dead wife’s.

Ten thousand francs? I wondered. Fifteen thousand … How much could I get for them with this war upon us? Let me leave before it became too late. Let me take the children to safety.

The shop was on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, not far from its intersection with the avenue Matignon. I remember thinking that I had to be by myself for a while, but when I came to the shop, those feelings left me. The window was magnificent.
Ah, mon Dieu,
such things. An Aubusson tapestry was draped over one corner of a Louis XIV lacquered commode. Fabergé and Lalique were cast among the silver and gold, the antique jewellery as if rained from the heavens. A bronze of Rodin’s was draped with pearls. Another bronze—much, much earlier, was by Orazio Mochi who had died in Florence in 1625. Chinese watercolours on rice paper were also there, with blue-white porcelain and jade figurines dating from thousands of years ago, while leaning against one of a pair of late Regency carved beech-wood armchairs, a splendid oil on canvas by Henri Fantin-Latour showed gladioli and roses. Another canvas occupied the opposite side of the window—Renoir’s
Vase des Fleurs
. Then at the back, raised on an inlaid lime-wood button box and framed by everything, there was a sumptuous nude by Luis Ricardo Falero.
La Toilette
. A dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty.

The man who had come to stand beside me took no notice of the nude but concentrated on a pair of Dutch parcel-gilt tazza made by Abraham van der Hecken in 1600. Amsterdam … Lovely things. Christ dividing the loaves and fishes. The one tazza was filled with a sultan’s spill of rings, necklaces, and brooches; the other lay on its side as if rolled about in the act of robbery, but why did he concentrate so hard? Why did he give that fleetingly triumphant grin, as if he’d been searching for something endlessly and had suddenly come upon it?

But then he took to looking at me in the glass, and I had to quickly avert my eyes. I confess I found him attractive. It was exciting to have him look secretly at me. It made me momentarily forget the war, the worry, made me feel … Ah, how should I say it? Proud … yes, proud of myself for a change.

He was about …
mm,
thirty-four, maybe thirty-six? It was hard to tell. Tall and rugged of build, he had a carefree nature about him. The suit jacket was slung over the left shoulder, the shirt collar was undone, the tie askew. In many ways, I have to confess he looked somewhat English, not French, you understand. Italian? I wondered, but from the north, not the south. American … Was he one of those?

The wavy light brown hair was thick and curled about his ears. The brow was high and sloping back from eyes that squinted with mirth,
slanting away and slightly downward from a strong and prominent nose. The jaw was square, the chin also jutting out so that when he smiled, ripples folded and creased burnished cheeks to join the furrows that had burst from the corners of the eyes.

That smile … Tommy often gave it in the worst of situations. It was disarming, engaging—so many things, and one couldn’t always tell what was meant.

The lips were as wide as the chin and turned up at the corners a little. Manly lips, kissing lips, even then I noticed this. Most women do, isn’t that so?

We talked a little, neither of us facing the other directly, but he watching me in the glass—the war, what it must mean, Poland, that sort of thing.

I glanced at him several times, gaining confidence. Feeling better, more at ease, I thought, You devil, you’ve been undressing me, but had he really?

He mentioned my accent, and I told him I was half-French, half-English, caught in the middle of the Channel, so to speak. ‘My mother is from Provence, but I grew up outside of Paris, near Barbizon. In the summers, that is. In the winters, we lived in England. My father’s English.’

‘Care to tell me your name?’

His French accent was horrible. ‘Lily. Lily de St-Germain. My husband has a château in the woods to the west of Fontainebleau and just on the edge of the forest.’

‘How lovely.’

Until I die, I will remember those two words and how Tommy said them. Like a schoolboy, tickled pink that fate had brought us together.

Fate … Dear God, forgive us all.

We looked at each other steadily in the glass of that window. How can I ever express that moment? I
knew
—that’s all I can say.

‘I must sell my earrings,’ I said to break the impasse.

Quickly, I took them off, and he looked at them in the palm of my hand, was serious now and puzzled.

‘Why? They suit you. They go with the outfit. This guy will only cheat you at a time like this. He’s got buckets of that stuff.’

Tommy indicated the window. I shrugged and said, ‘I have to take my children to see my father in England before it’s too late.’

Though he nodded solicitously, he had to say, ‘Surely you’re not that broke?’

It was my turn to smile, and I did a little sadly. ‘Just because I live in a château doesn’t mean I’m wealthy.’

The husband then … You could see it in his eyes, though he had no wish to hurt me. ‘But your interest in this window? All these things. You appreciate them, Madame de St-Germain. You must be accustomed to such things.’

Had he been so wrong about me? he wondered. Had I misjudged him?

The shop was full of lovely things. Tommy circulated while I asked about the earrings. At a point in the discussions, he even leaned into the front window to explore something. This set the shopkeeper off and the man grabbed my earrings and went to speak to him.

They had a quiet talk. That smile, that grin broke over Tommy’s face as the shopkeeper’s voice began to rise and then to lift even further in, ‘
Jésus, merde alors,
I would not even
bother
to cheat the
salope
! Out, I tell you. Out! Tell the slut I’ve no interest in them. Thirty thousand francs? You’re crazy. Crazy like a horse that has had turpentine shoved up its ass!’

Red in the face, the shopkeeper roared back to me and shouted, ‘Stolen, madame? Not for anything would I buy these!’

He slammed the earrings down on the display case. Behind him the eyebrows arched as Tommy heaved a shrug and said, ‘Sorry.’

In anger, I snatched them up and fled. How could he have been so cruel to me, a perfect stranger, a mother of two children, a desperate woman?

Not until the avenue Matignon did he catch up with me to put ten thousand francs into my hand and say, ‘The rest will come later, but let me buy them from you.’

I turned away, he touched my shoulder, gave a gentle chuckle—I can still hear it. ‘Relax,’ he said. ‘It was all just a game. I’m sorry I had to use you like that.’

What does one do in such a situation? I threw the money into his face, swung hard and fled.

* * *

Dust filtered through the warm, still air, caught in the slanting rays of the sun as the patient scraping of charcoal on drawing paper came into the silence and the leftover taint of fixative mingled with that of gum arabic.

I eased the door shut behind me but didn’t move away from it for fear of being noticed. There were perhaps thirty students at their easels, arranged in a semicircle about the model. This at a time of war.

Folds of white sheeting had been draped over a high stool and, on this, my sister sat with her toes touching the floor. Her slender legs were slackly parted, the arms stiffly at her sides so that the hands could grip the edges of the stool and hold the pose.

Janine’s shoulders were flung back, etching the sharpness of the collarbones. Her breasts were lovely—even now I must force myself to admit how envious I was. A suckling’s midnight snack, a lover’s feast! Plump but firm and round. Uptilted, the nipples flushed even in repose, no signs of a child yet. None of that swollen look, or of the aureoles enlarging. The waist was slender, the tummy flat, the hips but slightly flared. That gorgeous
cul,
that ass of hers, was all but hidden.

Every time I looked at Nini, I thought of Renoir’s painting of Jeanne Samary. Young and vivacious, those same dark, warm eyes, that same mop of dark black hair that was feathered over the brow and fluffed out in carefully contrived carelessness to emphasize the eyes.

Jeanne Samary’s expression was the look Nini would get when a young man who was foolish would dare to tell her she was beautiful. Nini would compress her lovely lips and stare openly at him. Silently, her eyes would ask, Well,
mon ami,
what are going to do about it?

The tangled nest of her
préfet
’s goatee seemed trapped, the mons pouting a little and wanting to be scratched, for Jules was standing at the back of the room, in the other corner. He hadn’t even noticed that I was there.

‘Lily, wait!’

‘No! It’s true. You
are
in love with her!’

He caught me on the stairs, gripped me tightly and as I wrenched away, I spat at him and raced for the street. Down, down the stairs … down …

Halfway across the Pont des Arts he caught up with me. My Jules. Handsome, arrogant, tall, and thin.

A barge passed beneath us, chugging slowly up the Seine, sending waves off its bow as his hand moved from my back up to my neck and into my hair. ‘
Chérie,
relax.’ Twice that afternoon I’d been told to do that! How could I?

‘Lily, listen to me. Nothing’s wrong. So I was looking at your sister. Would you want me to lose interest in such things?’

As if his
bitte
was in danger of falling off!

‘How are the children?’ he asked.

‘Fine.’

The last of the waves smashed themselves against the quays. Old men fished in the sun, one person sketched, and I couldn’t help but ask myself again, How could they do such things at a time like this?

‘What do you say we go to the hotel and settle this?’ he said.

‘So that you can pull me on like an old boot?’

‘Look at me,’ he said, and I knew that if I did, I would weaken. How can I describe it? Every time he smiled at me like that, a fire rushed through me.

He was tired and worried—I could see that at a glance. There were touches of grey in the tousled black hair that had receded a little but was feathered thickly and brushed well back. He had good, strong teeth, my husband. Very white and perfect. Jean-Guy had them, too.

Not for a moment did those dark eyes leave mine. ‘You’re not an old boot. Besides, those are usually far too loose.’

‘Unless they’ve dried out.’

‘Lily, Janine means nothing to me. How could she? Things have been hectic these past few months. I’ve had to take on two more classes and some of the administration. People keep leaving as they’re called up. I’m to do a national inventory of all the paintings and sculptures in private collections. Everything of importance must be listed with its value.’

‘The
Boche
won’t come here, will they?’

He didn’t shrug or even gesture with both hands but looked at me sternly and said, ‘The times are going to change because they must. Poland will be crushed.’

I hardly noticed how he had said it, but wish I had. Instead, I said, ‘I listened to the wireless last night. I think I should take the children to England until we see what happens.’