Secrets of Paris (11 page)

Lydie smiled. “Please—don’t worry.” She wondered what sort of miserable signals she was giving out, that Patrice could see right through her.

“In that case, let’s crash the salon. I could use a nice cigar myself.”

O
N
T
UESDAY, WHEN
the Louvre was closed to tourists, Michael walked through the empty galleries with a blueprint rolled in his left hand. He envisioned where the information table would stand; in which direction the signs to bathrooms, the
Mona Lisa
, and the Way Out would point; the bold print he had chosen for the signs, copied from a seventeenth-century manuscript. This was not major change.

Back in New York he had imagined doing something wild, a design that would remind everyone that the Louvre had once been a palace. But George Reed had gotten the inside word: stay calm, no surprises, remember that the Louvre is a museum, an institution, not a palace any longer. Michael thought of Didier d’Origny, whose mentality was probably representative of the
French in general; Didier had liked Michael’s plans. Yet Michael knew the whole thing was political, that some French architect would probably be tapped to succeed him. He could imagine the French press treating it as the victory of France over America.

Footsteps echoed in a far-off gallery. The fact that they belonged to one person, not the hundreds he was used to hearing most days, made him take notice. He wondered whether it could be Anne. He had seen her earlier, heading up to the third floor. In the week or so since her fall, her bruises had faded. She had smiled, waved to him. She had looked pretty, dressed all in white, a ribbon tied in her hair. Seeing her, Michael had wondered why he never tried to talk to her. But of course he knew the answer: talking to her would be the first step toward giving in to his fantasy.

He was mulling that one over when Arthur Chase, a cultural coordinator from the American Embassy, entered the Salle des Quatre Saisons.

“Hey, Mike,” Arthur said, coming forward to shake hands.

Michael noticed his suit, cut in the square, comfortable American style, and felt too informal in his khakis and sports jacket. Arthur was about fifty, a college friend of George’s, and Michael knew George set stock in the way men dressed. “Do American diplomats get instant access to the Louvre?” Michael asked, hearing himself sound too jovial.

“It helps if you know the guard,” Arthur said. “Actually, I’m here for a meeting with a curator, but I wanted to see you first.”

“I’m just pacing out the information center that may never be,” Michael said.

“Don’t be too sure of that,” Arthur said.

“What do you mean?” Michael asked.

“I mean our cultural office is talking tough with their cultural office.”

“Listen,” Michael said, holding up the blueprint. “I hate to
think their arms could be twisted to accept a design they don’t like.”

“Your plans are not the issue,” Arthur said. “Your plans are fine. This is about not wanting an American architect to do this particular project. I thought George explained that to you. It’s just the French being macho.
Vive la France
, you see? I think everything would have been fine if the I. M. Pei pyramid hadn’t caused such furor. They’ve been setting you up to take a fall—a very quietly publicized fall, but one that would raise the spirits of legions of young French architects.”

“What has changed?”

Arthur checked his watch. “The curators here are starting to cooperate. Slowly but surely.”

“Are you positive?” Michael asked, suspicious of how casual Arthur sounded.

“I’m sure. You can get the contractors in here right away. Here’s my proof: call George when you get home and tell him what I said.”

Michael broke into a wide smile. Arthur, George’s old college friend, knew how nervous George was, how he would hang on every word of an explanation and transform it into a promise. “Really?” he asked.

“Really,” Arthur said. “Call George. And keep up the good work.” He waved and left the room. His footsteps echoed to nothing.

Michael knew where to find a phone. His sneakers made no sound as he ran past the main staircase, past the headless
Victory of Samothrace
. Lydie will like this, he thought, and he called her first. But she was not home. The phone rang and rang, its tone foreign, distinctly French. No phone ringing in the United States made a sound like that, something between a honk and a buzz.

Michael found his international calling card and dialed a lengthy series of numbers. He held the receiver away from his ear, waiting for the circuits to click and connect. The receptionist had
just told him George was gone for the day when Anne Dumas walked by.

“Anne!” he said.

“You look happy.” She smiled up at him.

“I am. My project is moving along a little better.”

“That is good news.” She touched his sleeve. “Come talk to me,” she said, and Michael knew that she had been waiting for this moment too.

She led him to a staircase in a private section of the Louvre and they sat on the cool steps. Michael’s elbows touched the stone wall on one side, Anne’s bare arm on the other. He sensed the bareness of that arm right through the fabric of his jacket. She smelled faintly of perfume; she wore no makeup, and Michael noticed the sun had lightened the tips of her short, dark hair.

“How is Madame de Sévigné today?” he asked.

Anne sighed. “She is fine, thank you for asking. It is such a beautiful day out, I think she must be sunning herself in the Tuileries. I sit in my office on the top floor, gazing at the Seine, I envy her for being so free on a summer day.” She laughed then, the cutest, most feminine laugh Michael had ever heard. “It is nice of you to play with me.”

“Play?”

“Yes, you know—humor me. When I write about history I pretend quite a bit. I pretend to know the person, I pretend to follow her around. Not everyone understands that.”

“Does Jean?” Michael asked.

“Oh, Jean.” Anne sighed. “He understands, but it makes him impatient. Although we have taken a house in Brittany for August, I am thinking of not going. We are not getting along.”

“That’s too bad,” said Michael, feeling his heart beating hard inside his chest.

“Don’t feel too sorry for me. Where will you and your wife go for August?”

“We’re staying in Paris.”

Anne leaned toward him, touched his sleeve again in a way that seemed to Michael shy and charming. “Ah, my fellow prisoner of the heat. You know that Paris in August is unbearably hot? Do you swim?”

“Yes, but not in the Seine,” Michael said, knowing the remark was stupid as soon as he said it.

“Actually one can swim
on
the Seine—at the Piscine Deligny. Do you know it? It’s that great barge tethered to the quai, across the Pont de la Concorde.”

Michael knew it; Lydie called it the “Floating Pickup Joint” because the one time they had tried to swim there the entire pool had been packed with attractive people standing in chest-high water. None of the lanes were free for swimming. The impression was of bodies slick with suntan oil, a cacophony of voices, the water turquoise and sparkling.

“I don’t think it’s possible to swim at Piscine Deligny,” Michael said. “To wade, yes.”

Anne laughed. “Oh, did you go there on a Saturday or Sunday? It’s terrible then. Instead you must go early on a weekday, because then it is empty. I go three mornings a week and swim laps. You should try it.”

“Maybe I will,” Michael said. He stared at Anne, willing her to look at him. If she did, he would kiss her. But she seemed to be gazing at his hand, at the fingers of his left hand. One of which wore a wedding ring.

Lydie had to pass the Louvre to get to d’Origny Bijoutiers. She glanced up, wishing she had time to stop in to see Michael, but she was nearly late for her appointment with Didier. That sort of
unplanned visit was the sort of thing Michael loved, the sort of thing they had done constantly when they were first married. But Lydie didn’t berate herself, the way she would have just days ago, before dinner at Patrice’s. She felt good, excited about her meeting; she didn’t want to waste time feeling sorry for anything. She just hurried along, wondering how the meeting would go.

The d’Origny offices overlooked the Place Vendôme, the view from the front window bisected by the great bronze column. To Lydie, this was the most refined spot in Paris. The architecture was grand and pristine and uniform. Across the Place stood the Ritz. She crossed her legs and imagined her stockings were real silk. Except for the receptionist, Lydie had seen only men so far, and it struck her as funny that a jewelry company would employ no women.

“Madame McBride?” the receptionist said after five minutes. She tilted her head in a discreet manner and led Lydie down a walnut-paneled corridor to an office with an even larger window facing the Place.

“What a view!” she said to Didier, who was coming around his Louis XVI escritoire to kiss her cheeks. He seemed to bend from the waist, he was so tall. His black suit was impeccable, certainly custom-tailored, the perfect garment to wear to an office on the Place Vendôme.

“You know, it is beautiful,” Didier said, frowning as he faced the window, “but it is a fucking bore. Nothing happening out there. Just rich Americans going in and out of the Ritz.”

Lydie laughed. “Rich Americans crossing the Place to buy baubles from you.”

Didier scowled. “You would think so, but they come into the store looking for trinkets—little things like keychains and money clips that would make souvenirs for the people back home.” Then his face relaxed into an easy smile. “But some want the big pieces. More Japanese and Arabs than Americans, these days.”

“So, how can I help you?” Lydie asked.

“We just fired the man who was going to direct our next series of advertisements, and I would like you to take over.”

“What was wrong with his work?”

“Everything,” Didier said. “And I’ll tell you, we’re willing to sink a lot of money into these ads. We want to update the company a little. I’ve finally convinced the board that our image is too staid.”

“Did your father start this business?” Lydie asked.

“My father’s great-great-grandfather started it. He was jeweler to the last King of France. Yes—many of the crowns and scepters you see in the Louvre were designed by our house.”

“And the offices have always been in this building?”

“Oh, yes.” Didier laughed. He motioned Lydie to a tufted satin sofa and sat beside her. He lit a cigarette. “But of course the Place was not always so grand. It was just a swamp, and monks used to come here to bugger each other. They were cruising through the mud for pickups. You know, there were a lot of monks in Paris in those days, and many of them had their dwellings on the Rue de Castiglione, which then was just a dirt path. The intellectual monks on one side, and the brute monks on the other side. They drove each other crazy.”

“With lust?” Lydie asked.

“Absolutely,” Didier said. “Those guys were always getting it up the ass.”

Lydie smiled, a little shocked that Didier would say such rude things about monks. She watched him reach for a black lizard portfolio and spread some photographs across his knees.

“These are the pictures I was telling you about,” he said. Lydie examined the photographs, which showed set and unset jewels arranged on abstract forms covered with black velvet. A diamond and ruby tiara; a necklace of important sapphires; two unset diamonds; a brooch of diamonds and sapphires in the unsettling
shape of an eye. All were wedged, nestled, or draped within folds of black velvet in a manner Lydie supposed the stylist had intended to be sensual.

“It’s a little unimaginative,” she said.

“It’s a bore,” Didier said. “It’s like going into a jewelry store and asking to see the rings and watching the salesman hold out the display case.”