Paris Red: A Novel (17 page)

When my mother would not speak to me. When my grandmother died. When my heart was broken.

So this time it is a different question I ask. This time I ask, “Is that how you see me?”

He says, “When you let me.”

I
t is after that painting
that I start wearing the black ribbon. Not just when I sit for him—all the time.

I do not know if it belonged to someone else or not—it was in his studio the day he painted my portrait. It does not matter. It belongs to me now.

Sometimes I tie it in front, the way it was in the painting, and other times I turn it into a choker with the ends trailing down my back. Sometimes I wear it in my hair. I wear it for days, until it smells of my skin and hair, and then I wash it out in my basin. Borrow an iron to iron it.

Of course he notices it. And of course he knows I took it.

“It suits you,” he tells me. That is all he ever says about it.

T
his time the photos he
shows me are not from Moulin. There is no art to it, no pretend poses of awkward girls with their skirts pulled up or side views of breasts. There is one focus only: the cocks of the men rising up into the women.

I know he shows the photos to me to shock, and they do. Even when I tell myself not to let it show on my face, I know it does. And after the first couple, I only half look.

It is not just the naked bodies that disturb me. The faces disturb me. A flat-faced woman who looks stupid or half-witted, and all the men with dark mustaches. It all repulses me. And I know that is part of it too: he wants to see my reaction.

After five or six photos I want to tell him to put them away, that whatever it is he wanted, he got. But then the photos change and for some reason I do not look away.

It is not the woman, who is prettier than the others, with flowers in her hair and some kind of necklace. It is the man. He is the reason I do not look away.

In the first photo he is in profile, and I can see his collarbone, the way the muscles in his neck lead down to it like cords. His hair is longish and brushed back, and he is handsome. Clean-shaven. Young. And his face. His eyes are downcast or facing the woman in all the photos, but you can still sense what his eyes are like. There is a calmness there.

In one photo he leans back in a chair, head propped up on one fist. He gazes down at the woman, who sits below him, sucking him. The look on his face is one of—not love, I would not claim that—but seriousness. Patience. Some kind of devotion.

“These aren’t like the rest,” I say. “The rest are fake.”

“You don’t think these are fake?”

“These two are lovers. Real lovers. Not just for the pictures.”

“Why?”

“Look at his face,” I say.

He watches me for a little while and then he says, “They could be lovers. Or you might just like him. Like the look of him.”

“I like his face.”

“Not his body? He’s got quite a cock.”

But I think the photos cannot show what is not there.

I think the sweetness and patience in the man’s expression come from whatever he feels for the woman and the body of the woman. It is not something a photographer paid for. But what he says is also true: I like the body of the man in the photograph. I like his bare chest and his thighs. His sex. But without the expression on his face I would feel nothing.

So I say, “Yes. I like him. None of the others compare.”

I face him when I say it and let his eyes read mine. And I can tell that I passed some kind of test. Because I told the truth. Because I was bold enough to tell the truth.

He does not know that I will think of the photos for a long time, or that I will picture the man’s face and neck and cock in my mind, over and over. I’ll think of it the same way I did when he said,
The redhead can take it
.

At first I could not believe the lewdness of his words, but in the days that followed, it was all I could think of. The way he looked at me and the way his voice sounded. It took me a while to understand my feelings, but then I did. As shocked as I was, his words also excited me. It is part of what drew me to him—that he would dare to say something like that. That he would say it to me and then watch my face.

What he said was crude. Raw. Yet once I heard it, I craved it.

N
ow when I walk down
the street I notice different things. Because of him.

How can it be that someone changes your eyes? The way you see?

Today it is a sign on a narrow strip of building that extends just beyond its neighbor, the brick only wide enough for single words:

I
am changing out of a
gold cloak at the end of one day when he says, “You can take a break tomorrow. I don’t need you. I have some other things I have to take care of.”

He says it as ordinarily as he would say any words, so I make my voice ordinary, too, and say, “A day off. That will be nice.”

I do not let anything show on my face.

When he kisses me goodbye and walks me to the door of the studio the way he always does, I can see he is already gone. Already absent.

I do not know how I feel anyway. Something about hearing him say
I don’t need you
upsets me, but I tell myself it is about work only. That when I had the day off from Baudon I was happy.

So the next morning after I go to Raynal’s for breakfast, I set out walking. I tell myself I have the day to myself to do as I please. At first it is fine because I think about everything that has happened with him, and how I feel closer to him than I ever thought I would, that it gets easier to talk each time we see each other. I like the days spent in the studio, the quietness but also the intensity.

A place could not be more different from Baudon than his studio, and my days could not be more different than they were.

But all I have to do is flash upon Baudon, and I begin to think about Nise, too. I think about the lie I told her, I think about money, and I think about how all the money I now have comes directly from him. He makes a point never to count coins into my hand—the francs are always waiting on the table, stacked neatly. I do not know if he does that for me, so I can take the money freely from the table and not directly from his hand, or if he does it for himself so he does not have to put the coins into my hand.

Probably he does it for both reasons.

It all begins to run together, the lie and Nise and the money he leaves counted out for me, and even though I am walking down streets, it seems like I am walking inside my own thoughts. I know it will not help if I sit down or turn around and go back to La Bruyère, though, so I keep on. In a little while I decide to go by Baudon to see if I can catch Nise, and once I decide that, some of the swirling inside me stops.

By the time I get to Rue Pastourelle it is almost lunchtime, and this time it is me hanging about in the street, waiting, the way he used to. I stand on the corner opposite the side of the street that Baudon is on, and I stand halfway down the block past where the soup seller has set up. I feel odd about being there, but I think about what I want to tell Nise and what I want to ask. Mostly, I just want to catch sight of her. See for myself that she is all right.

When a group of women comes walking down the street from the side entrance, it takes me only a second to spot her. She is with a couple of the apprentices and Toinette, who worked at the table beside her. The four of them walk together to buy lunch, and it is Toinette she talks to. A few feet away from the soup seller, she and Toinette play-fight, jockeying to see who gets in line first, elbowing each other, talking and laughing.

I see all of that and I hear her laughing with Toinette before I turn away, before I move quickly on down the street, before anyone sees me from across the way. And something in me stings for the second time since he told me
I don’t need you
, though I do not know why I should feel that way. What did I expect? That she would be walking by herself? Nise and I were always friends with Toinette. Always.

When I am safely away, I wonder if I really meant to talk to Nise anyway.

I thought I had something planned, but now I do not know what I would have said. Would I have shown her my new dress, bought because I wanted something that didn’t have the armpits rotting out from so much washing? Told her about the sketches he did yesterday of me holding a guitar, as if I were some kind of singer?

It all seems so foolish I can barely stand it. I seem so foolish I can barely stand it. But I do not let myself think anything more until I get farther away.

I do not know how long that swirling feeling goes on. I do not even know it has stopped until I am walking down one street and realize that the conversation I have been having in my mind all morning has stopped repeating. When I hear the silence in my head, I slow down.

I wanted to go to Baudon to see her and speak with her. I thought I would know what to say. But something about seeing her with Toinette and the other girls—something about seeing them all together, and me being on the other side of the street, standing alone in the middle of the day with nothing to do—it took the courage from me. She would have teased me about my new dress, or what I was doing alone if I was now with him, or she might have been angry with me, and that might have been good. Maybe if she teased me or been angry it would have righted things, would have paid me back a little for my lie. And if I had picked any other day maybe that would have been fine, I would have gone up to her and let her tease me.

But just now I could not. Not with Toinette there. Not on a day when I feel so odd and out of place.

And I tell myself,
At least you saw her, and now that you know she is all right you can let go, you can
. But before I let go I know there is one more thing I need to think of. About her and about me.

Right after I moved into the room on Maître-Albert with Nise, something happened that I could not explain. I did not understand at the time, but Nise knew. And then I knew, too.