(Lest They Leave - Chapter 3)

[madscenes]

CHAPTER INDEX

CHAPTER 3




At the entrance of the Odéon Theatre, in the shadows of the large columns standing guard in front of the building’s façade, Charles held the door for her and let her step inside first, in her mink and her pale tea gown underneath. Sylvie felt almost nude in the company of these fancy, theatre-going ladies wearing form-fitted designer outfits in velvet and silk, strolling by, chatting in a crisp, Parisian French. Charles made no notice of it, be it her or them, heading directly for the box office where he simply gave his name, and suddenly Sylvie was a guest and allowed in his private loge, number 20 on the right side of the balcony, no ticket necessary. What was all the quarrelling for, then? When he could just freely bring whoever he liked.

Oh, but Sylvie knew. It was because he didn’t like her that much, really. She wasn’t his friend. She was his sister, and sisters were a different, more difficult matter. And if she knew one thing about her brother, it was that Charles didn’t want things difficult.

They’d both lived the simple life once, hadn’t they? Before the sky fell. Before the world tumbled down. Before the boat sank.

A part of her longed, as they ascended the stairs together that led to the next floor, to reach out and take his hand, walk next to him like little Sylvie, seven years old, to be directed, to be supported.

Maybe to give some kind of direction and support back as well. To make things simple for him, wouldn’t that be the berries? Yet, it was the one role she’d never been allowed to fill. First, their loss, otherwise shared, came between them, then the distance, and finally time, as complicating factors. She wasn’t seven any longer, she was twenty-two and he expected better behaviour from her. Balling her hands into fists in the cover of her sleeves, she stayed at his side, though, close enough for the soft hairs of the fur he'd had sent to Marseille one winter several years back, when they’d had a long stretch of terrible snowstorms, believe it or not, to brush the thick wool of his outer coat.

He sped up, Sylvie half at run not to fall behind.

Wait, she was desperate to yell, don’t leave me again.

The loge that was kept at his disposal when required, she’d learned from overhearing him speak to the gentleman at the box office, truly like the barons and dukes of past ages, was a snuck little space, just big enough for two people and a chaperone, if you didn’t mind it crowded. Charles told her to seat herself first, the chair nearest to the stage; the view was very good, only the closest corner of the stage floor obscured by the angling of the balcony itself. Both hands placed on the bannister, she leaned out a little and looked down at the influx of people filling the parterre, the sound of voices battling to be heard above one another like a loud buzz, words muffled, indistinguishable. She smiled. Thrilling, wasn’t it?

It seemed mademoiselle Eloisa Paolo could indeed gather a crowd. Sylvie turned towards Charles, who’d seated himself next to her quietly, in order to ask:

“Didn’t you get a playbill?”

“Know your Shakespeare, Sylvie,” he just replied, causing her to pout, then to laugh. Like he did! He glanced at her sideways, out the corner of his eye, as if he wouldn’t completely admit to looking. Her chest felt warm from a joy she could easily ascribe solely to being at the theatre. The aunties had found such frivolous activities a waste, if not exactly sinful. You wouldn’t believe the things people get up to in theatres, Marguerite would say, shaking her head.

Letting her eyes follow the elegant curve of the balcony aligning the inner wall of the house, seeing other people in the other loges, whispering to each other, sitting very close, Sylvie would be more than happy to believe what people got up to in theatres. After all, she knew her classical literature, Dumas Fils’ The Lady of the Camellias and yes, she knew her Shakespeare, too.

It was another kind of life, here. So different, so easy.

With a glance to the side at Charles, she found him ignoring her in favour of looking straight down at the stage, waiting for the curtain to go up. His face was unreadable. Or, at least, she didn’t know the language it spoke.

She thought of Eloisa Paolo and wondered how much she understood that Sylvie didn’t.

Eventually, after a final ring of the bell, the curtain went up, and the first few scenes played over, without Sylvie catching a single glimpse of red hair, though she was searching intently for it, for her, the woman who didn’t just accept men’s kisses, but took them for herself. Finally, however, in the scene that introduced Puck with how now, spirit! whether wander you, Titania proceeded to – in much the same way – take the spotlight from him, when she entered, stage right, with Oberon, a very muscular actor, his naked arms shining with glitter dust, coming in from stage left. Natural adversaries. As well as natural lovers, though the complex kind.

Sure thing, she knew her Shakespeare.

And knowing Charles, Sylvie was still surprised they were both sitting here, now.

Throughout most of Puck’s chatter with the fairy, she’d dreamt herself away, admiring the fae court costumes, so airy, wings and all, but once the redheaded actress stepped out onto the stage, Sylvie’s attention was glued to her. The sensual mademoiselle Paolo, wouldn’t you say? She appeared in a long, suggestively semi-transparent garb, her hair hanging loosely down her back, seemingly melting into the light, shimmering fabric of which the costume that draped across her body was made, so the shape of her hips was showing, the fragile cut of her shoulders. She looked ethereal. A creature from another world, truly.

Distracted to a point where she couldn’t decide where to direct her focus, the actress or her brother, so she ended up stealing a few hidden looks at Charles under the discretion of the dark, before giving up and just watching the stage where Titania had broken out into her these are forgeries of jealousy monologue, Eloisa Paolo’s voice a little bit thin, a little bit frail, a little bit hoarse, but all the more enchanting for it. Had Sylvie ever witnessed anything more beautiful than this, than her?

No wonder her brother was dizzy with her!

The rest of the play passed in a blur, she simply felt so gay, so pleasantly content. Laughing at all the right moments, clapping when the rest of the house clapped, Sylvie wondered idly whether Charles was seeing this woman tonight. Whether maybe, maybe, maybe he’d bring her along as well, if she promised to be good, if she promised, she won’t notice me at all.

Even if they didn’t talk, even if they talked and didn’t get along, Sylvie could learn so much just from basking in Eloisa Paolo’s sophistication and elegance, she was sure of it, such sparkling confidence and sharp charm. The Italian actress seemed to embody everything Sylvie had yet to learn about Paris, about the world.

The curtain went down at long last, leaving her blinking as the lights came on, blinding her briefly. When she came to, Charles had turned towards her in his chair, looking at her with a darkened expression that conveyed displeasure of some kind; she didn’t know what she’d done to deserve it.

“Did you enjoy it?” he asked, addressing neither his evident anger nor acknowledging her obvious awe at the experience he’d given her just now.

“Yes,” she said, breathlessly, finding no other or more expressive response. Her brother nodded, once, curtly.

“Good.” He got to his feet and headed for the door to the loge. Where are you going, she wanted to scream at his back, don’t leave me, but instead Sylvie stood up as well and followed hurriedly.

“I saw you with her,” she finally admitted, making him slow down only a notch, but enough that she didn’t have to sprint to keep up on her shorter legs, the heaviness of her mink coat protecting her thin tea gown, from the draft near the floors and from the eyes of Paris’ big cheeses. “At the party. Are you going to see her now?”

He shook his head, not in a way that implied, no, but in a way that definitely said, yes, and you’re not coming. This time, it was Sylvie’s lips that thinned into a hard line. Reaching out despite herself, she grabbed his wrist, strong and stubborn between her fingers and she pulled him to a halt, abruptly. He turned towards her, at one and the same time surprised and not surprised. More than anything, he looked irritated.

“What?”

“Please, Charles, take me with you.”

“No. I’m sending you home with Edgar.” Edgar, the chauffeur. Sylvie watched helplessly as Charles yanked himself free and started towards the staircase, leading down. It went up before, now down. Never stationary. Never the same. Everything could change one moment to the next, the sky could fall, the world might crumble, the ship sink. She felt the tears like a pressure at the corner of her eyes that she fought back valiantly, retreat, retreat.

“Don’t leave me alone,” she called after him. It was borderline begging.

Halting, he stood for a long moment with his back to her, his shoulders up, his silhouette taut like a spring. She remembered how relaxed he’d been with the actress, how at ease. What did it take? What did she have to do?

Then, Charles turned around and looked at her. His eyes were dark, but he held out one arm and beckoned her to step up to him, so he could hold her by the upper arms. And because he beckoned, she came. And because she came, he held her. She licked her lips and looked down.

“Come,” he said.

With him, she knew if she knew nothing else, love was always an order.


~*~


The way to the dressing rooms was intricate and you needed to know how to navigate the theatre to find it, to not get lost underway or wander into some famous, though to her relatively unknown actor’s quarters by accident, by mistake.

But Charles, apparently, knew precisely where he was going.

Sylvie just followed along, trailing after him quietly, dutifully, catching glimpses of the reality that existed behind the heavy, velvet curtains dividing theatre from real life. A little man in tulle and fairy’s wings trailed past her. After him, came a tall man in a tight-fitting leotard, the bulge between his legs considerable. Although she quickly looked away, to be honest, she found it nothing short of delighting; a trip worth a thousand of the ones she’d taken over the past many years, roundtrip between Marseille and Paris.

The dressing room they eventually did arrive at was distinctive mainly because of the stacks of bouquets that lay piled up outside, all kinds and colours, though the red roses were in majority, Sylvie noticed. On his way over to the door, Charles nudged a big bouquet of some colourful exotic flower with the toe of his shoe, huffing a dry laugh to himself, before halting in front of the door, hammering on it twice.

It flew open.

She flung her arms around his neck, standing on tippy toe better to reach, but finding this no hardship at all. “Tesoro, it would have been awful if you hadn’t been here tonight! Did you hear Caron mess up that delivery. Ugh, awful, I say!”

Up close, Eloisa Paolo’s voice was even more distinctive, the hoarseness Sylvie had heard on stage was prominent, somehow more unguarded. Maybe she had just smoked? Could you give off so much sex appeal without the aid of alcohol or a cigarette? The hint of an Italian accent that crept into her pronunciation now had also been inaudible in her acting. Sylvie stayed very still, almost as if trying not to be spotted, but the truth was, she was dying to be seen. To be noticed by this woman.

“Ah, you brought a guest,” mademoiselle Paolo said, then, noticing Sylvie. Her eyes ran down over her form, the fur coat, open at the front because they’d been in a hurry leaving the loge, her thin day dress underneath. “And she’s dressed for afternoon tea, pity I have none of that here, but I do have a Dom Perignon waiting.”

Her eyes were pitiless when they met Sylvie’s. Chilling. They showed absolutely no mercy.

Unhooking the other woman from around his neck, Charles smiled, stiffly, yes, but he actually smiled and shook his head. This time it did mean no. “My sister, Eloisa. This is Sylvie.”

Immediately upon hearing this, mademoiselle Paolo relaxed, visibly, allowing her hands to be held by Charles, allowing him to kiss her knuckles, too. Sylvie smiled nervously and tried to pull her mink more closely around herself, to hide, although she liked being seen, and she liked being seen as unthreatening especially. She didn’t want to be any competitor of this woman.

“It was such a beautiful performance,” Sylvie began, not knowing what else to say.

The eyes of the woman that her brother called by her given name softened a little. As they looked at each other, Sylvie wished for nothing but to die then and there. Happy.

“When I didn’t know she was such a doll, Charles, it’s a sign that you need to talk about your sister more,” the actress scolded him, hitting his shoulder playfully. She then gestured for them to enter her dressing room, like some kind of secret signal you had to make yourself worthy of. A queen’s wave, enter.

France might not like its queens very much, but Sylvie did. Be they Austrian or Italian – or foreign and strange in some other way.

Walking in front of her, his arm around the redhead’s waist now, Charles gestured back at the flowers collected in front of her door, laughing in a low tone of voice. “Didn’t you like my present,” he enquired.

“My nose gets so stuffy,” she complained, but it was good-humoured and with only a little hint of the sharpness she had poured all over Sylvie before. As if, that little spark, she could never escape, it was ingrained in her person, it was part of who she was. Eloisa Paolo was a woman who ignited things and watched them burn.

Maybe it came with the hair colour.

They entered the dressing room which was wider than it was broad, mirrors on one wall, coatracks and shelves and closets along the other, a dressing table and a couple of chairs lining the mirrors, seats of which the actress claimed one, patting the other for Charles to sit down. He did, lounging, legs stretched out in front of him. Sylvie had never seen him slouch that way before.

Charles never lost his composure.

A tense silence filled the room, already piled high with boxes of chocolates and the champagne that mademoiselle Paolo had mentioned before. She began pouring glasses of the stuff, handing first Charles a coupe, then waving lazily for Sylvie to come closer, handing her one as well. Best out of three, she poured herself a glass to the brim, laughing slightly as she sipped it.

“Tell me about yourself, Sylvie,” she implored, in a way that made it sound less like a request and more like an order. Sylvie could understand how she had found Charles or Charles had found her, however which way, right? She swallowed heavily and couldn’t think of anything interesting to say. Catholic boarding school. A convent existence in Marseille. I speak perfect Marseillais, but my Parisian is so-and-so. That all sounded like a flat tire.

“I’ve never met a redheaded Italian before,” she ended up replying. This made mademoiselle Paolo’s face light up, amused and Sylvie thought she should always look like that, did Charles make her do so?

Folding his hands over his stomach, Charles snorted wryly, shaking his head. It undoubtedly meant no. “You don’t have to answer that, Eloisa,” he said.

“Why not? It’s true, after all, we’re very rare. Like dinosaurs.” The actress smiled and took a longer sip of her champagne, more like a gulp, a full drink. She was dressed in an oriental-inspired dressing gown and, it seemed, little else. Even her feet were naked. Sylvie blushed, but couldn’t help herself. She retorted, hiding her words in her champagne glass but not enough that they didn’t go the distance:

“But aren’t dinosaurs rare because they disappeared?”

Charles sighed, deeply, actively rolling his eyes, like he’d done when he was sixteen, she was seven and their parents were still alive, and why couldn’t he look like that more often these days? Why did she have to come here, stand in front of Eloisa Paolo and be humiliated, although she really didn’t mind. No, she really didn’t.

And Eloisa Paolo didn’t either, you could tell, because she responded in the most intimate, soft voice, a voice that sent shivers down Sylvie’s spine, making her breath catch and her skin prickle. She said, “Everyone does, chérie. At some point.”

“Oh.”

It felt like a secret, passed from one friend to another. Furthermore, it felt like care. Don’t let it sneak up on you. Don’t get hurt, don’t get eaten. Sylvie felt full of it. Suddenly, she didn’t just want to go home, she needed to. Catching Charles’ relaxed gaze, she walked over and gave him her saucer of Dom Perignon, smiling weakly and nodding towards the open door, where staff and cast were still milling about in the hallway.

“Is Edgar where we left him?” she asked.

“Yes.” A pause. “Can you find the way yourself?” His question begged, say you can, don’t ask any more of me.

Because Sylvie had seen how mademoiselle Paolo handled him, how she handled herself, so confidently and independently, she wanted to give him that experience, too. She wanted to free her brother, as much as she couldn’t bear the thought of letting him go. So, she nodded firmly, once, twice, looked over at the actress by his side, nodding, once, twice, a pleasure to make your acquaintance, mademoiselle, and turned for the door, left for the hallways and the lobby and the enormous stone columns outside, holding everything up, now that Charles had let go a little bit of his burden, at long last. She didn’t begrudge him that. How could she?

Edgar did indeed wait where they’d left him and the car, he was reading a newspaper in the driver’s compartment, but as soon as he spotted her, he jumped out and opened the door to the backseat. He greeted her, mademoiselle Gallard, and didn’t ask her where her brother was, which was a lucky incident, because she wouldn’t have been able to hold back the tears, if he had.

It was a quiet drive home to Montreuil. Wet, because of the late evening rain that started falling, soft and serene. Yes, that was the only reason it was wet like that.


~*~


Sunday was followed by Monday, and after Monday came Tuesday, came Wednesday, came Thursday, and as the week started, like a new chapter opening up on a blank page, she saw increasingly less of Charles at home. He had to go to work, of course, that part she was used to, even over Christmas and New Year, the accountants needed updates, numbers, statistics, the shops needed inspection and people must be hired, people must be let go. A business didn’t run itself, as it so happened.

Nevertheless, he made a habit of staying out late; she could hear him tiptoe through the hallways of the house long past midnight, and she couldn’t imagine what café required its storages checked at one o’clock, frankly. Remembering Eloisa Paolo’s hair, the colour of fire, fire that ate, people and places and time, she turned onto her side and pretended to be asleep, when he passed by her room to see if she was all right, like a little child in its crib. Did he also check on mademoiselle Paolo this way?

What part of her didn’t he check up on, might be the real question.

Stomach in knots, she lay awake long after that thought had passed through her mind. She imagined, long after Charles had crawled into bed and drifted off, too. Was she, then, the one watching over him? Would he still let her, when he wasn’t fast asleep and able to do literally anything else about it?

Friday morning, she woke up bleary-eyed, ugly dark bags beneath them and not even Claire’s most inventive methods to get rid of such things helped in the least. Charles had left the house before eight to do status reports with a newly opened distributor of the Gallard brand in the suburbs. Not that he told her about it, she learned from the gentleman himself, who straight afterwards found it necessary to call their home telephone line to schedule a new appointment, since monsieur Gallard had to be on his way so hurriedly. Sylvie took attentive note, then asked Claire to leave the message in her brother’s office where he would be sure to find it. Where nothing would get lost in transfer. If she hadn’t trusted the maid, she would have gone herself, in which case she’d have had to look at his books, his papers, his whole professional life, everything that constantly came between them, and she simply wasn’t in the mood. The blues lived under her eyes today and besides, it was Good Friday, lest she forgot, the dreariest and deadest of holidays, that kind of atmosphere had no business moving into her soul. None.

Around noon, she went to the garage where Edgar was always in some state of repair with the automobile, always in some process of fixing, preparing or cleaning the bodywork, polishing the compartments on the inside, too. He was working on the steering wheel when she arrived, wearing pristine, white gloves that would without a doubt show any spot of dust or dirt. She admired his dedication for a moment. It reminded her of the detail focus required when drawing, doing portraits and the sympathy it awoke in her was a nice change to the uneasy grimness she’d felt burdened by since she’d gotten out of bed.

“Mademoiselle,” he greeted her without looking up, wiping off the steering wheel in one long motion.

“Edgar, where would you go first, if you didn’t know Paris? What would you see?”

That got his attention. He lifted his head slowly and looked over at her, blinking owlishly behind his spectacles. “But you do know Paris, mademoiselle,” he tried to object. Sylvie just gave him a look; it said, wherefrom? He laughed nervously and climbed out of the car, the dirty cloth in contrast to his still snow-white gloves. He dropped the cloth in a nearby bucket and began pulling the gloves off, one finger at a time. They were neatly folded and pushed down the back pocket in his dress trousers.

“Well, the Eiffel Tower, naturally, but I’m certain you’ve already seen –”

“I would like to see the Eiffel Tower, if that’s where it’s at,” she told him, “Can you take me now?”

Luckily, he spent only five seconds staring at her, before he proceeded to frantically examine his pocket watch instead. Sylvie knew what he was looking for, what time does monsieur Gallard get off work? A greater riddle to her than to him, surely, so she commented with an affected cheerfulness:

“I don’t think Charles will need you to come get him until much, much later, Edgar.” Reaching up to fit her hat back into place with a hat pin, a lovely one with a glass pinhead shaped like an adorable, little monkey face, she continued, “Please take me.”

No one could say she didn’t come prepared.

The watch snapped shut with a metallic clink and he slipped the decorative piece of coils and gears into his breast pocket, cursing under his breath as he turned away from her. “Very well, mademoiselle, but you must speak my case, if I get in trouble.”

She laughed, and it seemed like such a silly relief to feel, the pearly sound of it, the way it bubbled in her chest. Hurrying up next to him and leaning in to plant a kiss on his faintly stubbly cheek, she promised, “I will be your witness, you have my word.”

The chauffeur opened the door to the backseat in response, bowing elegantly, his cap casting his face in shadow, though it didn’t hide his affectionate grin. Clearly, he would serve as the perfect guide for her, little Sylvie of seven who hadn’t been home since 1912 and who was going to marvel at that big, ugly, steel structure, right?

From here, it was just a matter of grown-up Sylvie playing along.


~*~


Although the Eiffel Tower had earned its place as a symbol of the city, it didn’t qualify as the most interesting attraction you could ever imagine. Especially when you had, indeed, seen it before. She went for a stroll among the tall, steel legs, in a gently fluctuating flood of other passers-by who were by birth or by claim more naturally Parisian than her and thus, of greater interest than Eiffel’s pointy structure whose most interesting function currently was as an advertising pillar. The tower didn’t wear Chanel or Dior. It didn’t pronounce anything the standardised way, it actually didn’t speak at all during the daylight hours. Unlike seven-year-old Sylvie, grown-up Sylvie was bored in a matter of minutes.

Bored and distracted. She kept thinking of Charles and in extension, of Charles’ Shakespearean actress.

Returning to the car after twenty dutiful minutes, she found Edgar at it with the newspaper again, licking his thumb whenever he had to turn a page. He was leaning against the hood of the vehicle, one leg popped up and his entire posture basked in quite a dapper air. Sighing loudly to call attention to herself, Sylvie waited for him to look up before she adopted a disappointed expression.

“Not interesting enough for you, mademoiselle,” Edgar wanted to know. Was he teasing her? That ganef! She smiled, looking down rather than shaking her head.

“It was okay. Like an animal at the zoo that refuses to move; it could’ve been a greater thrill, sure, but at least it wasn’t hiding.”

“No, it’s there, all right,” he replied. The paper was folded twice over, neatly, like the gloves earlier. “Is there something else mademoiselle Gallard would like to see?”

She felt elated that he asked, that he wasn’t busy hurrying her home, because at some point her older brother would need his services. Beaming, she raised her chin again and then, felt for the rumble in her stomach. She’d left the townhouse without a bite to eat, although Claire had tried to insist, as much as any maid could insist on anything in the household she served, and the consequences of not listening to her no doubt sage advice were audible to Sylvie now. To them both, it seemed, because Edgar raised one eyebrow, tutting slightly and pushing off the car. “Hungry, mademoiselle?”

Well, it appeared that it was no secret now, didn’t it?

Laughing, she brushed down the mint green day dress which she had had Claire fetch out of her collected wardrobe this morning, because dark circles around the eyes had to be countered with pastels and pretty, lightweight designs, evidently. The fabric had a pattern of large florals down one side. Pale pink. A very April-esque colour combination. Her high-heeled shoes were pink, too. The nude blush of a ballerina’s toe shoes. If people stuck to admiring her outfit, she could certainly afford to go to any fine café and have lunch. So, she nodded. “Is there a nice place nearby?”

Edgar thought for a moment. “If you want to see more of Paris’ attractions, mademoiselle, the Café de Flore is a stone’s throw away, right over at Saint-Germain. With traffic and such, it’s a twenty-minute drive at the most.”

Oh? They were still playing her silly game? Sylvie was delighted! Clapping her hands excitedly, she headed for the back of the automobile, waiting patiently for the chauffeur to follow along and open the door for her. “Actually, I’ve never been before,” she said as way of reply. Yes, it meant. Take me away.

Café de Flore was quite busy, when she got there, little more than fifteen minutes later. All the tables outside were full, seeing as Good Friday came with the first spot of cloudless blue sky and bright sunshine that they’d had in weeks, so she’d heard. Sylvie went in, scouring the coffeehouse – another distributor of the Gallard coffee brand, she could tell from the large roasting stations – for somewhere she might sit. Every table was already occupied by one or more guests and while, in Marseille, she might gladly have approached one of the single occupants, inquiring whether she could sneak a seat, she was reluctant to do so in Paris. The Parisians were not famous for their hospitality, take her brother as an example, sullen and impatient, right?

Not like she would take that kind of attitude from a stranger.

About to give up, turn around and head back to the car, to Edgar who would proceed to take her home and that adventure would be over, far too soon, a waving arm caught Sylvie’s eye and she halted to look towards the very corner of the establishment where, next to the large windows and with his coat sprawled out over the whole red-upholstered bench, Armand Dubois was sitting alone, papers spread out over the table in front of him, a pot of coffee standing, would be her best guess, untouched off to the side. It was a picturesque sight. She might have made it into an illustration, on any other day than this.

“Armand,” she greeted him upon drawing nearer; he’d already gotten to his feet, inclining his head at her politely. When he repeated her given name back at her, it sounded slightly stilted, slightly awkward, as if he hadn’t gotten used to the concept of not calling her, mademoiselle Gallard, though she imagined he called her brother, Charles. The difference between people, you’d better believe. Nevertheless, he stuck with a stubborn insistence to the casual ‘you’ and kept to their agreement, no complaints.

“Please sit,” he told her, moving his coat away from the bench, so there was room. A little bit overwhelmed by the sudden proximity, she stuck to the edge of her seat and wondered how evident the bags under her eyes were currently. Had the chilled tea before breakfast helped at all? The cucumber slices later? Had any of it? But as if he’d read her mind, he carried on, “You look lovely today.”

She smiled at him, gratefully. “You as well, very spiffy.” He was dressed in a tweed-fabric suit, browns and greens, very in time with the season. His hat, sitting next to her thigh currently, was a dark brown fedora. My nice and bright and ducky gentleman, she thought to herself, without knowing why. It must be that kiss.

The expression on his face said that he was thinking of the same thing. “What a coincidence,” he observed.

“Utterly,” she responded. “When I got up this morning, I felt like I might as well give up my spirit along with Christ. I’d never imagined I’d be sitting here.”

He laughed. It looked like he was mostly doing it despite himself. He had a surprisingly deep timbre to his voice. Sylvie cocked her head slightly to the side, slowly reaching up to pull the hatpin from her cloche hat, dyed a pretty, slightly deeper green than her dress, and remove it from her head, fixing up her bob one-handedly. The hat took a seat alongside Armand’s on the bench next to her. Meanwhile, Armand reached for the coffee pot, pushing his own untouched cup towards her side of the table with his free hand, deftly avoiding his own trail of papers. “We must get you some coffee to liven up your spirits,” he suggested, though with him it was clearly an offer, not an order. She liked that about him.

Still, she frowned for a moment. “Is it our own blend,” she asked. He nodded, not quite getting her drift immediately, though when she said, “Then, I’ll pass,” holding her flat hand over the cup, before he could pour her a serving, he looked at her for a long moment and, unquestioningly, sat aside the pot again. All right, it meant. All right.

Her nice and bright and ducky guy, he got it.

Folding her hands in her lap, she looked around the café. A broad line of mirrors divided the opposite wall in two distinct parts, an upper and a lower one, and she could see herself reflected in the glass, ah, she didn’t look too bad, did she? Turning back towards her companion, she remarked, “I like it here; someday, I’d love to sketch such a place. Exactly while it’s so lively.”

With a surprised raise of both eyebrows, he asked, “Are you an artist?”

And, as payback for his question at the party last weekend, where she hadn’t known who the redhead cooing all over her brother was, she almost enquired, don’t you know? Because, surely, such a little thing, Charles would have told him. Then again, Eloisa Paolo hadn’t known she was lovely.

Charles clearly didn’t talk about her much, if at all. And that thought was really much too gloomy, so she didn’t ask, in the end.

Instead, she nodded in affirmation, “I attended the art academy in Marseille. I paint, mainly.” Though, of course, that meant she drew some, too. There wasn’t one without the other. Certain things were just like that, right? They came in pairs or more.

“Any particular style,” Armand wanted to know, making her realise that maybe he actually knew a thing or two about art. He did strike her as the type, unlike Charles who, you couldn’t convince her for a minute gave a flying fart about mademoiselle Paolo’s acting. Although, for some reason, this idea also made her sad, the smile she sent Armand turned only wider and brighter.

“Surrealism.”

“Like Dalí.” He did know a thing or two about art! What a good man!

“I’m no Dalí,” she replied.

“Give it time,” he assured her. Sylvie could have fallen, both arms around his neck then and there. He seemed to notice, abruptly getting to his feet and beginning to wrap up in his scarf, shrugging into his coat and finally, bending down for his hat next to her legs. His fingertips brushed her thighs on the way, very briefly.

Not to mention, how lonely her hat looked, once his was gone. Her hands in her lap were wringing together something awful, was he leaving? Weren’t they having fun? She’d thought…

“Could I convince you to go for a walk with me?” he continued, however. His casual ‘you’ had grown a little more relaxed in the interim. Intimate.

Sylvie didn’t ask where. Truth be told, she didn’t care one wit. “Naturally,” she said and fastened her own hat as well, back on her head, the little monkey head pinhead askew above her brow. He led her around the table by her hand, then extended his arm to her and she grabbed it eagerly.

Au revoir, Café de Flore! Someday she’d bring her sketchbook here and sit in that corner with him and his face wouldn’t be in the picture, but his presence would. The same way you couldn’t truly draw the light, but you could draw the shadows it cast.

What a day of contrasts it had been, so far.


~*~


Across the street, a small square had been generously planted with flowers that were budding this late in spring, as well as clutches of thick greenery, a few trees, all of it sectioned with fences and little gravel pathways. Armand took her there, and they walked the rounds multiple times while chatting away. At some point, she stopped counting how often they passed by the steel fountain of water, shaped like an old-fashioned water pump, that had been erected in the middle of the courtyard. They simply kept on going, side by side.

He was interested in knowing whether she had seen Eloisa Paolo on stage yet, her play was closing in less than a week; otherwise he would be happy to take her to a performance. Like earlier, it was an open offer, not an order. He wouldn’t tell her where to go, who to be, whom to be with. And like earlier, she liked that about him a lot.

Sylvie told him about her encounter with mademoiselle Paolo in her dressing room, which made him chuckle and there was a brief second when she felt a clutching jealousy in the pit of her belly, should he be chuckling out of affection, but Armand looked down at her, like he knew, then said in a quiet tone of voice:

“I admire your brother for many reasons, but the fact that he can stand the absent treatment from such a woman is my biggest reason for admiring him. I’m not the kind of man, cut out for that.”

What kind of man are you, then, she thought to herself, but didn’t word the question, instead commenting in a light tone of voice: “She’s fun, though. And very beautiful. What’s not to like?” When he didn’t answer for a moment, she didn’t pressure him. Her hands were clasping his arm and their shoulders bumped as they fell into step next to each other for every couple of feet they covered. It was comfortable. Nice. Nice, bright and ducky.

They passed the fountain an umpteenth time and at this point, Armand pulled them to a halt. “Fancy a drink?” he asked.

“Here?” was her answer. He tugged one hand up into the sleeve of his coat and stepped closer, wiping the spout of the water pump thoroughly with the thick fabric, then gestured at the fountain, like an invitation. After you, mademoiselle. Sylvie laughed, bending over and cupping her hands beneath the spout, glancing up at him with her eyebrows all up beneath the hem of her hat. Like a challenge.

Armand began to pull the pump, cold water spewing out everywhere, her shoes were getting drenched, but her hands were also full and if she drank, it was chill and fresh – and Sylvie laughed, and she drank, and she laughed, and she drank until her stomach hurt. She could feel the way he was watching her the entire time, not laughing with her, but sharing a sliver of her experience, nonetheless. It was difficult to explain.

Suddenly, mid-pump, he said, “Could I invite you to my parents’ Easter dinner on Sunday? Would you come, if I got permission from Charles?”

The water kept flowing, and her hands remained hollowed and holding the chilly crystal-like liquid, but she wasn’t drinking anymore, Sylvie was looking up at him, astounded. This was like something out of the books. The romantic novels that made for the only kind of romance not frowned upon at home with the aunties in Marseille. She’d read so many. In lieu of better. Tragic love stories. There were never any happy endings to find there.

However, this was Paris, another life entirely, and she looked at him now, straightening up slowly, emptying the remaining water between her palms out into the tub at the base of the fountain and curling her hands into fists at her sides. They were wet and cold where her fingers rubbed together, her skin felt clammy.

Charles would be so pleased, if Armand showed up at his door and asked his permission to have Sylvie meet his family, like he would do any girl’s parents, if that girl had parents to ask. This girl simply didn’t. Sylvie remembered Charles’ insistence on introducing them to each other, she remembered her own desperation to be a recipient of that approval, to see his satisfaction, when she could make him content in no other way. Yet, it was the act of marrying someone else, thus being gone from his life, that would satisfy him, finally.

Her nails were digging into her palms, her fists were so tight, so tense.

Opposite her, Armand was beginning to look slightly worried, having long since stopped working the fountain. She swallowed hard and took a deep breath, to steel herself. Was it a rebellion to want Charles’ plans to succeed still, to look at Armand and think, won’t you make me happy? But no longer to do it for Charles’ sake. To do it for herself? Was that a revolt? Sylvie met Armand’s eyes and felt her own face soften, but the softness was contrasted, too, by a simmering hardness, darkness.

Could this be the kind of woman he’d be able to stand the absent treatment from? Could she be that?

Hearing herself reply, “I would come even if he didn’t give his permission, I would come more gladly, if you didn’t ask him at all,” Sylvie thought, ask me, ask me, ask me.

Features settling into a more neutral expression, no frown, no worry, things that give you wrinkles, Armand took her in, her soaked shoes, her pale, freezing hands, her shining lips, doused in water, and he asked again: “Would you come?”

“Yes,” Sylvie said.

He smiled.

“I’ve ruined your shoes, I believe,” he responded. Sylvie shook her head, not in any way that negated his observation, because he really had, it just didn’t mean anything, and walked over to him, grasping his arm again. The fabric of his coat was warm, woollen and dry.

“No matter, I’m not getting home on foot.”