A New Customer
I
pasted calendar pages from a cheap almanac on the inside of my armoire door and marked the days after Vincent’s departure for Saint-Rémy. At first I drew the Xs with a shaking hand while blinking back tears, and a week after he left, the arrival of my monthly bleeding only made me cry harder. We’d made love that last night in his empty bedroom, and I prayed I’d be able to give him good news of a baby on the way. It was not to be.
As the Xs grew in number, my tears lessened, and the arrival of a pale yellow envelope never failed to cheer me. His letters weren’t as gushing and emotional as mine, that wasn’t his way. There’d be a paragraph about the weather and how he was feeling, several paragraphs about his work—his handwriting growing more untidy as he struggled to make his pen keep up with his thoughts—then, near the end, his reserve slipped and he said the things a lover should say. Those were the sentences I read and reread in the lamplight before I went to sleep; those were the sentences that helped me through the day.
Everything was going as well as it could. Until one night in June, when Françoise and I sat at the bar in the
maison
and I received an unwelcome surprise. “
Merde
,” I muttered when I saw the latest customer to walk through the door.
Françoise turned on her stool to look as well, then chuckled. “Too honorable, you said.”
Dr. Rey certainly attracted attention with his fine suit and expensive hat in hand. The Parisian
maisons
Jacqui had always boasted about—that was the sort of place suitable for a doctor, with elegant girls in elegant peignoirs, private
salons
, and champagne by the bucketful. Not Madame Virginie’s house, which, well-kept as it was, catered to workers, soldiers, and farmers. Men for whom two francs was a splurge and champagne a bourgeois dream.
I’d never seen Madame Virginie move so fast. She practically sprinted to the door to meet the new customer: fawning over him, gushing about the quality of her girls, waving for Suze, a pert brunette from Toulouse who’d replaced Jacqui. Dr. Rey greeted Suze with gentlemanly courtesy but surveyed the room to catch my eye, indicating to Madame I was the one he’d come to see.
“This is a good opportunity for you,” Françoise murmured. “Don’t forget that.”
I forced a smile as I approached the doctor and led him to a table. In a low voice he ordered our most expensive wine, the bottles of which usually gathered dust on the top shelf. When I went to fetch it, Madame Virginie caught my arm and told me to be nice. Do anything he wanted, get more francs if I could, get him to come back again. Shiny coins twinkled in her eyes. Served me right.
“I’m surprised to see you, Doctor,” I admitted as I poured our wine.
“If I may be frank, Mademoiselle, I’m surprised to be here.” He glanced uneasily around the room, at the prying looks of other customers. “I’ve never visited a
maison de tolérance
before, although naturally I have heard of such places.”
“A bachelor like yourself—not even in Paris? Surely you don’t hire a
courtisane
to come to your mother’s house,” I teased.
The composed surgeon of the Hôtel-Dieu disappeared as Dr. Rey blushed, shook his head, and picked up his wineglass to drink deeply. “Slowly, slowly,” I said and put my hand on his arm. He jumped when I touched him. “Why don’t we begin by you calling me Rachel? That feels more friendly,
non?
”
“Only if you will call me Félix,” he replied, still rosy pink. “‘Dr. Rey’ seems inappropriate under the circumstances.”
“Félix,” I repeated and gazed into his eyes. I seldom laid it on this thick, but I wanted to get it over with. If Vincent ever found out…
I must not think about Vincent. I must not think about Vincent
.
The doctor cleared his throat and took another drink. “How does this transpire?”
“We have some wine, we get to know each other”—I eased my chair closer—“and whenever you’re ready, we go upstairs. Unless you’re ready now?”
“We can talk first, that’s agreeable, Mademoiselle…I mean, um, Rachel.”
I sipped my wine. He sipped his. He studied the room; I studied his elegant hat on the table and wondered if he’d bought it in Paris. Or did his mother choose his clothes for him?
“Have you been to see Vincent?” I blurted.
Dr. Rey hesitated before answering. “I visited him two days ago. Ever since he received permission to paint outside the asylum, his state of mind has markedly improved. He showed me some of his new canvases.” Questions filled me, and I was about to ask them when the doctor stopped me. “Forgive me if I appear rude, but I did not come here to discuss Vincent.”
I toyed with the stem of my glass. “I’m the one who’s rude. I apologize.”
“Ce n’est rien.”
His voice was kind. “I know how difficult this must be for you.”
Vincent’s being in Saint-Rémy or my entertaining his doctor? I didn’t know what to say, so I shrugged. Silence fell upon us once more.
“Salut, Docteur!”
came a loud greeting from across the room, and a weathered man in clothes still dusty from the fields hurried to our table. “Never seen you here before. D’you remember me, Jacques Perrot? You fixed up my leg a couple of weeks ago.”
Dr. Rey looked more embarrassed than I would have thought possible. “Yes, of course, Monsieur Perrot, good evening. How is your leg?”
“Right as rain,” the man said and did a little jig. “Thank God too, ’cause the harvest just started. Don’t know what we’d do if I couldn’t help with the reaping. I sure do owe you.” Dr. Rey murmured it was his pleasure, and Monsieur Perrot finished chatting with a hearty “Good seeing you, Doctor. You have yourself a good night, now.” He winked at me, and I thought the poor doctor would bolt for the door.
“Mademoiselle, perhaps it’s a convenient time to adjourn upstairs?” he asked once Monsieur Perrot returned to his own table and his own
fille
. “Forgive my haste, but—”
“It’s all right. I understand.” I stood and held out my hand, which he looked at curiously before taking. Plump and soft, this was the hand of a man who handled nothing but books and medical instruments. Not a man who hauled canvases and held brushes all day, and who had a permanent callus on his left thumb from clutching a palette.
“It looks like an ordinary room,” Dr. Rey said in surprise when we arrived upstairs.
I laughed as I lit the lamp and pulled back the covers. “What did you expect?”
He smiled a little. “I don’t know. One hears curious things about…” He coughed and reached in his waistcoat pocket. “Do I pay you now, Mademoiselle?” he asked, then apologized for sounding too abrupt.
“You can pay me now if you like. Five francs.” No dithering, no bargaining, he just handed me a banknote and I gave him change. Three francs into my little box, two for Madame Virginie. “Why don’t you sit down and make yourself comfortable, and tell me what you want.”
He looked anything but comfortable as he took a seat. “The usual thing, I suppose.”
I sat on his lap, and he flinched. “Now, now, you must relax,” I urged as I untied his cravat and started unbuttoning his waistcoat. “You act like you’ve never been with a woman before.” He turned as red as a nervous teenager. “Oh, gracious. Really?”
“I presume that poses no difficulty,” he said stiffly, “but if you’d rather not—”
My hands returned to the business of undoing his buttons, and I gave him a reassuring smile. Why on earth hadn’t I brought the wine upstairs? “I said, call me Rachel. We’ll have a lovely time.”
It was strange knowing he was a doctor. As I undressed for him, I tried not to think about the embarrassing twice-monthly examinations when Dr. Dupin checked us for diseases:
Knees up and spread your legs, please, Mademoiselle. Very good, you’re healthy. Next!
Surely Félix wouldn’t be checking my health as we went along, but at the moment, he wasn’t even moving.
I lay down and stretched my limbs, patting the bed as if I couldn’t wait for him to join me. He allowed himself to touch me then, but in a clumsy, self-conscious way. If Vincent looked at me like I was a work of art, then Félix was looking at me like some bizarre laboratory specimen, something he’d read about in books but wasn’t sure what to do with in real life. I showed him where and how he should touch me, gasping and moaning at the right places so he’d feel he was doing it correctly. He was a quick learner and managed just fine, but it was all rather clinical.
“Merci, Mademoiselle,”
he mumbled afterward, clearly uncertain of the etiquette in such a situation but trying to be polite.
“That was very nice,” I told him.
He looked as if he’d been given good marks in school. “May I see you again?”
I remembered Françoise’s words about a good opportunity and thought fast: five francs a visit, three francs of it mine. Suppose he visited once a week, that’d be twenty-four francs before Vincent came home. Unless he visited more frequently…and what if Vincent needed his help…?
“As often as you wish,” I said with a stroke of his cheek. “I’d like that very much.”
I felt a pang of guilt at the look on his face. Bless his heart, he believed me.
When Félix returned a few days later, he was not empty-handed. “You brought me flowers?” I asked in dismay. That was Vincent’s job, Vincent’s right. Vincent always picked his own flowers too, he didn’t buy ready-made bouquets from the
fleuriste
.
“I—I thought all ladies liked flowers,” Félix said in obvious confusion, his hand dropping to his side.
Think about the money. Think about Vincent. This man can help Vincent
.
I confused him further with a dazzling smile as I took the bouquet in my arms. “I was surprised, that’s all. No one brings me flowers anymore.” He gallantly said he’d bring flowers whenever I wished, and I pretended to think that a good idea.
He was more relaxed that second visit, telling me stories about working at the hospital and his journey to Paris. Upstairs he surprised me with a new boldness—had he written notes in a case diary for further study? Looked things up in his medical books? I choked back a laugh at the thought. That night he wanted practice in helping a lady disrobe, and as he puzzled over the hooks and eyes of my corset, it occurred to me I was doing his future bride a tremendous favor, whoever she might be. Indeed, the arrangement benefited almost everyone, or so I told myself as I tucked away his five francs.
Until Félix’s third visit, when he tried to kiss me.
“What’s wrong?” he asked with concern when I turned my head on the pillow to avoid his mouth. I patiently explained that I didn’t let customers kiss me, and his tone changed as he asked, “Does Vincent kiss you?”
“He’s not my customer.”
“I see,” Félix said, and rolled off me to get dressed.
“You don’t have to leave. There are plenty of other places where you can kiss me.” He didn’t respond, only kept dressing, and I sighed. “Do you want your money back?” He told me to keep it and was gone before I could say anything else.
I thought that was the end of Dr. Félix Rey. Part of me was relieved, but the rest of me fretted about the money—so much money! I even wondered if I
should
kiss him. No, I told myself firmly, only Vincent. This man will not buy me. Anyway, he won’t come back.
But he did come back, and he brought another gift.
“A new hat!” I plunged my hands into the tissue paper and withdrew the bonnet from the gaily striped box. Oh, it was lovely, quite the loveliest hat I had ever seen. Dove-gray satin and pink tulle, soft pink feathers and a pink rose tucked to the side—he must have gotten it at the milliner’s shop downtown near the Place de la République, he must have paid twenty or thirty francs. More money than most people saw in a week.
“I hope you like it,” he said a little timidly, as if he wasn’t sure what I’d say.
“Oh I love it, thank you, but it’s so expensive, I’m not sure I should accept—”
“You would honor me by accepting it. Please try it on.”
“My hair’s not fixed right for a hat like this,” I said but perched it on my head anyway.
He smiled. “It suits you. I must admit, I know little of ladies’ hats, so the
marchande
in the shop was obliged to assist me.” He dropped his voice so no one could overhear. “I’m sorry about what happened the last time. I hope you can forgive my insensitivity.”
I took off the hat and held it in my hands, looking at it rather than him. “Félix, I must explain something to you. I—”
“Explanations are unnecessary. I know the nature of your relationship with Vincent. I do not seek to take you away from him, but I hope you will permit me to see you while he is in Saint-Rémy. You’ve brought something to my life that was sorely lacking.” I asked what on earth that could be, and he replied, “Excitement, spontaneity…taking off my cravat and enjoying pleasant diversions instead of keeping my head in books all the time.”
“When Vincent told you that, I don’t think he meant do it with me.”
“He need never know. May I keep seeing you?”
I stroked the satin of the hat, smooth and cool beneath my fingers. Such cunning feathers. Such handsome material. I imagined the
modiste
crafting the hat in the backroom of the shop, choosing from the bolts of fabric on the shelves, then from a collection of ribbons and flowers. The
marchande
putting it on a stand in the window, turning it just the right way to catch the light, later wrapping it in tissue paper just for me.
If I keep seeing Félix
…I pushed the thought away, but the truth remained: his money was useful, and so was he.
“Vincent
must
never know,” I corrected. “And when he leaves Saint-Rémy—”
“It will be over. I understand. Will you honor me by accepting my company as you have my gift?” He kissed my hand at my softly spoken yes. No one had ever kissed my hand before. Not even Vincent.
After Félix left that night, I tucked the hat back in its tissue, then reached for pen and paper to write Vincent. I intended a gay, cheerful letter saying nothing of my new customer, but the stripes of the hatbox taunted me.