Secrets of Paris (22 page)

“Let’s bring them up,” Michael said. He led Anne, Gaston, and twelve workers down an interior staircase.

“You are Charles Lebrun,” Anne whispered to him in English, so the others would not understand. “Architect to the King of France. You are directing this band of workers, from Reims, to install a great and marvelous table of the King’s choice. It must be perfect, because guess who’s coming to dinner?”

“The court’s greatest gossip?” Michael asked.

“Hush, don’t spoil it,” Anne said, sounding hurt. “Think of her as a reporter, a chronicler of that age.”

“Okay,” Michael said. Why had he called Madame de Sévigné a gossip, intending to be mean? He felt exhilarated; the installation of the information table meant more to him than any other part of the project. He had found the artisan, ordered it commissioned. Michael remembered all the cajoling he had done to convince the maker to abandon his other work to have it ready on time. It galled him that Anne would tell him to pretend he was Lebrun. That was it. Michael admired Lebrun’s work; who wouldn’t? But why would Anne suggest that Michael, at his moment of triumph, pretend to be an architect who had lived centuries ago?

Yet when the table was carried in four sections to the second floor and the protective wrapping taken away, when it was centered in the Salle des Quatre Saisons, she gasped.

“As Marie de Sévigné said of Louis the XIV’s apartment,” Anne said, “ ‘the furnishings are divine, utter magnificence everywhere.’ ”

“It is perfect,” Gaston said. “The best information center in the Louvre.”

The table was enormous: stately, simple, and long enough to hold a banquet for the court or all the brochures, maps, and booklets necessary to guide modern tourists through the vast Louvre. He would have liked to order a copy of the one gilded and carved with heads of dragons. The Ministry of Culture had balked at that, citing time and cost, chiding Michael to remember there had been a revolution.

“Now you must turn your attention to the paintings,” Anne said. “Poussin’s
Sacrament of Extreme Unction must
hang there.” She indicated the long north wall. “Settle for nothing less. Remember, Louis XIV’s Director of Fine Art would have made Poussin president of a French Academy in Rome if Poussin had not been old and about to die. It is imperative that you hang one of his finest works in here.”

Michael said nothing;
Sacrament of Extreme Unction
was the painting Pierre Dauphin guarded so zealously. Michael wanted it for his own reasons. First, because it was a prime example of Poussin’s work. Reminiscent of Michaelangelo in its foreshortening and the sculptural heft of its people, it had been painted by Poussin during his long sojourn in Rome. Michael felt moved by its subject—the ministration of last rites. Also, he liked the woman in it. Leaving the room, she glanced over her shoulder with a sad, secret smile that alternately reminded him of Lydie and the St. Pauli girl.

“I have a feeling I’ll wind up with
Apollo and Daphne
,” Michael said after a while.

Anne shook her head vehemently. “It is too late an example.
Exquisite in its way, but not representative. Poussin died before it was completed. Fight for the
Sacrament.
”

Barricades kept tourists out of the hall, but the workers’ activity attracted a certain amount of attention.

“Everyone wants to see what is happening,” Anne said. “I want to tell them: history is being made!”

Hearing that, Michael thought of Lydie, of how she should be here. He looked around, noting change: restoration of the mosaic floor; two walls, nearly complete, to redirect flow through the French painting galleries; signs done in words, not glyphs, hung where Michael thought they would best be seen. The workers swept shreds of paper into small piles. It was nearly twelve, time for their lunch break. Michael felt relieved they had finished the hard part before lunch, knowing they would return at two drowsy from red wine.

“I have to make a phone call,” he said to Anne.

“And I must go upstairs to work,” she said. She stood on her toes to reach her arms around his neck. She collapsed against him, pressing her pelvis against his. “My
zizi
remembers this morning,” she whispered. When he didn’t reply, she nudged him. “Say it,” she whispered.

“My
verge
remembers.”

She giggled. “You are so cute and embarrassed. So American!”

Walking toward the pay phone, Michael wondered whether his embarrassment was particularly American, whether Didier or Gaston would feel ridiculous calling their body parts cute names in the middle of the day. In bed was a different story. Then that made him wonder whether he had created the embarrassment as punishment for thinking of sex with Anne before calling Lydie.

In any case, Lydie was not home.

“I
T MIGHT BE
possible,” Lydie said to Kelly. They sat in a café overlooking the Beaubourg Center. Lydie drank tea, Kelly drank Coke. “Mr. Morrison was nice on the phone, very sympathetic when I told him about you.”

“What did you tell him?” Kelly asked.

“That you are a Filipino, in Paris illegally, that I want to take you to the United States. I told him that you are my assistant.”

“Your assistant? How do I assist you?”

“That’s what we have to discuss.” Lydie spoke softly, in case some of the Americans jamming the café were embassy spies.

Kelly stared into her Coke, trouble evident in her eyes. “Lydie,” she said. She glanced up at Lydie, then averted her eyes again.

Lydie waited, holding herself back. She knew she could make this too easy for Kelly. She could imagine taking over, devoting herself night and day to Kelly’s cause as if it were a religious mission.
It would distract her from Michael, and when it was over, she would feel like a hero. But it was Kelly’s cause, not Lydie’s, and Lydie could only help her along with it.

“Lydie, what about my fish market?” Kelly asked after a moment.

“I don’t really expect you to
be
my assistant,” Lydie said, smiling. “It’s just something I thought up for the authorities. You can still have your fish market.” She withdrew some papers from her briefcase.

“Is that the petition?” Kelly asked.

“Yes,” Lydie said, handing it to her. A green-haired boy stood before them, juggling shoes. Four high heels and a man’s sneaker. Lydie couldn’t take her eyes off him, but Kelly was mesmerized by the petition. Her thumb traced the words “United States Department of Justice.” When he passed the sneaker, Lydie fished some francs out of her pocket.

“We have to fill that out,” Lydie said.

“It’s just four pages long,” Kelly said, sounding perplexed.

Naturally she would expect more, Lydie realized, watching her. A document that could change her life’s course, make her wish come true, should be many pages long. “Did you know that you have to be interviewed by someone from the embassy?” Lydie asked.

“I have heard that.”

“Mr. Morrison said that your being illegally in France causes problems. If you show up at the U.S. Embassy without a proper visa to be here, they have an obligation to report you to the French police.”

Kelly looked at her helplessly. “And they would deport me to the Philippines?”

“It’s possible,” Lydie said. “One option would be for you to return to the Philippines on your own, to file the petition there.”
This seemed impossible to Lydie; she hated to even suggest it, but Morrison had said it might be the best bet.

“I would do that,” Kelly said, a smile spreading across her face.

“What would happen if you went back?” Lydie asked, shocked by Kelly’s happiness.

“I would see my home and the rest of my family. But I would have hope of going to the United States. I would be a star in my province!”

Lydie regarded her. She rarely thought of Kelly as a daughter. In the back of her mind, she thought of Patrice and Didier as Kelly’s family. But seeing Kelly grin at the thought of her family made Lydie realize how far Kelly was from home, and how far she had to go.

“Kelly,” Lydie said. “Tell me how you got here—to Paris—in the first place.”

“I obtained a visa to visit Germany. It is much easier for Filipinos to visit Germany than any other country.”

“A tourist visa?” Lydie asked.

“Yes. Did your parents get to the States on tourist visas?” Kelly asked.

“No, immigration laws were much more liberal then. It was thirty years ago.” She watched Kelly, sensed that she was nervous, hesitant about going on with the story. “Don’t you want to tell me what happened?” Lydie asked.

Kelly shrugged, looked away. “Well, my brother, who was a chauffeur for the Philippine ambassador to France, smuggled me across the border in the trunk of his car.” She sipped her Coke, as if that were the end of the story.

“And then?” Lydie asked.

Kelly shrugged. “The ambassador was returning from a vacation in Bavaria. Paul Anka was driving him and his family in the limousine. We had planned the whole thing by letter, when I was
in the Philippines, waiting for my visa. So, I landed in Berlin and found the bus to the Black Forest. And Paul Anka was waiting for me at a certain hotel.”

Kelly spoke in her usual shy voice, without any obvious emotion, as though the story embarrassed her. The way she told it seemed designed to prevent Lydie from feeling sympathy for her.

“How far did you ride in the trunk?” she asked.

“Many miles,” Kelly said. “Don’t feel sorry for me, Lydie. I did it because I wanted to—to get to Paris, it was worth it.”

At that moment, sitting in the café, Lydie wanted more than anything else for Kelly to get to America. She added it to the list of what she had always wanted most in her life: a happy family, an Alfa Romeo, the cover story in
House & Garden
, Michael.

“I didn’t mean to make you so sad,” Kelly said.

“It’s not just you,” Lydie said. “I’m having a hard time myself right now. Is your brother still the ambassador’s chauffeur?”

“Yes, but there is a new ambassador, who flies whenever he leaves France. So Paul Anka no longer crosses the border. Also, he works only part-time because there is not so much driving. Before, under the old administration, his duties included doing errands for President and Mrs. Marcos.”

“Like what?”

“Many things to buy in Paris!” Kelly said, giggling, perhaps relieved to change the subject. “Boxes and boxes of handkerchiefs from Nina Ricci. One box per week! One hundred socks each month from Charvet.”

Lydie laughed along. “I’m going to file you as an H1—an alien of distinguished merit and ability,” Lydie said.

Kelly smiled, suspicious. “What do you mean?”

“The other categories cover unskilled laborers, and there are already plenty of those in the United States. If we want to succeed, we must be creative. I have to file an affidavit stating why you have
distinguished merit and ability, why you are the only person suitable for this job. Otherwise, the government will tell me to hire an American. I have to swear to it under penalty of perjury.”

“You could go to jail. Are the jails bad in the United States?”

“Not as bad as some places, but I don’t want to go to jail anywhere,” Lydie said. “Besides, by the time we complete the petition, we won’t be lying. We must discover your specialty, the thing no one else can do as well. Something that I would be willing to pay you for.”

“I know fish,” Kelly said seriously.

“Unfortunately, I don’t So we’ll say you are indispensable to me. You’ll have to learn my tastes. When a magazine editor gives me an assignment, I send you out looking for props. You’ll have to learn what I like.”

“How will I do that?”

“I’ll give you some clippings, of pieces I did in the past. And maybe you can help me with the ball for Didier.”

“Patrice will return to Paris soon,” Kelly said sadly. “She is my only worry.”

“Well …” Lydie said. “I’ll talk to her.”

After she finished her Coke, Kelly stood to go. Her eyes darted from the vicinity of Lydie’s head to the ground. Could she be waiting to be dismissed? Sometimes she acted like a servant; other times she seemed comfortable as Lydie’s equal. It bothered Lydie to think Kelly would play a subservient role in order to get what she wanted. Or did she really believe that her manner pleased people?

“What is it?” Lydie asked.

“May I go now?”

“You don’t need my permission to leave,” Lydie said. She wanted disappointment to come through in her voice; she wanted Kelly to drop the act.

Kelly’s face went white. “I’m sorry … I didn’t mean …”

“That’s okay,” Lydie said quickly. “I didn’t mean it to come out that way. ’Bye, Kelly.”

“ ’Bye, Lydie.” Kelly took a few steps backwards, then turned toward the Métro.

Lydie was going haywire. She chewed an ice cube, watching a turbo Saab back into a parking spot. She replayed the last scene in her mind, listening to her own cold, haughty words: “You don’t need my permission to leave.” Ten minutes ago she had been on the verge of weeping for Kelly and her hardships, seconds ago she had practically accused her of manipulating Lydie to get what she wanted.