(Lest They Leave - Chapter 13)

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CHAPTER INDEX

CHAPTER 13




The sun had only just risen, it had barely released its drowsy grip on the horizon, bathing the Parisian rooftops in golden hues and a hint of orange, because it was going to be a warm day, the warmest this summer, it had been predicted in the newspaper that Sylvie had read over breakfast at the small, but luxurious hotel to which Eloisa had referred her.

When she had arrived long past ten the previous night, well-fucked and attempting not to let her nerves get the better of her, the receptionist hadn’t asked questions or voiced concerns, and once she mentioned Charles’ name, the elderly man’s face even lost all note of suspicion. Sylvie had been shown to a nice room, served tea before bed – and breakfast, as well as the paper, had been brought to her door before she was due to check out this morning. If this was the last thing that she let her brother pay for, it was at least helpful and of high quality.

Now, Sylvie had placed herself beneath the statue of London, Jean-Louis Jaley’s work, she remembered from her time at the academy, the façade of Gare du Nord a relatively quiet site at seven in the morning, but a few people were still going to England, just like her. The train would be full, the woman in the ticket office had warned, giving Sylvie the last two tickets to a two-person compartment that they had available, luckily reserved in her name the day before. Sylvie had nodded, but not cared. It only meant, understood.

Her two suitcases stood next to her feet, and she was clutching the envelope with the tickets in one hand, keeping a careful eye on the crowd that was mostly too small to even be considered a crowd. A man with a long baguette ran past her.

Their train was departing in twenty minutes, on the clock, she’d been cautioned as well. No dallying. The last thing she’d done the previous evening, before leaving Eloisa’s little worker’s house, was to tell her when they were departing. Be there with time to spare, Sylvie had said.

There’s never time to spare, Eloisa had replied in her typical fashion, but kissed Sylvie’s temple and sent her off. No one has that kind of change.

Sylvie had been filled with an indescribable, only slightly anxiety-laced joy, walking to the hotel. The same joy had still filled her, when she had taken a taxicab from the establishment and here, though at this point a certain sense of apprehension was beginning to overtake.

Fifteen minutes till the train left.

Looking in the general direction of Montreuil, past arrival hall and the tall, arched entrances to the station building, Sylvie frowned and wondered if Charles ever did return home in time to realise that Sylvie was missing, whether he came by Eloisa’s place in his search, if he was actually looking for Sylvie at all, after he’d found her to be obscene and disgusting. What had he said to Eloisa, then? What had Eloisa said to him?

Had Eloisa handed him back his clothes, first and foremost. Thank you for the lend, your sister’s fit me better, I found. With Eloisa, you couldn’t even totally eliminate the possibility. As Sylvie knew her, nothing was impossible to that woman, her Italian redhead. She was rare the way dinosaurs were.

Because they disappeared, she remembered suddenly. Everyone does, chérie, Eloisa had said, smiling.

Ten minutes till departure.

A certain dread filled her, it tasted like bile at the back of her throat. Sylvie scouted up and down the train station’s front, unable to catch sight of her companion anywhere, her hair would be a dead give-away, you’d think. With the sunrise for backdrop, she’d shine like amber held up to the light. Together, they’d be precious like jewellery, amber and gold. Together.

Five minutes until departure.

Sylvie began shifting from foot to foot intently, seeing the last people, maybe they were Englishmen, maybe they were just adventurers, run for the seven-twenty-seven train to London. A part of her told herself to run as well, she’d made a promise, with or without Eloisa, but another part of her, younger, desperate, fearing all the meanings of au revoir, couldn’t stand the thought. Of leaving when Eloisa still had three minutes to get here, two, one.

Inside, a whistle blew loudly, sharply, like the other woman’s laughter, always so raucous, and Sylvie stood with a suitcase in each hand, ready to go, but with no means to get there.

Au revoir, good girl, the actress had told her lastly, when they were parting in the doorway to her sky-blue house, the same colour as the heavens over Rome, no other place could match it. You won’t need to wait for me, don’t worry.

Waiting, standing exceedingly still in the same place, unmoving, Sylvie kept watching the square in front of the building, slowly becoming busier as the clock approached eight. People were bringing breakfast for their travels, the smell of breads and cakes was heavy in the air, heavier than Eloisa’s perfume, maybe, Sylvie couldn’t recall. The jasmine had blossomed yesterday, today was a different date.

It had been too long.

There was no time left. No change.


~*~


For hours after that, the clock struck nine, ten, eleven, Sylvie stayed in that same spot. She was tired, she was thirsty, she rested her legs by sitting on her suitcase, changing between them not to bend them completely out of shape, but she didn’t move. Just in case. Just in case Eloisa was going to come, be late, chime like a bell upon arrival, let’s catch the next one, chérie, or the one going to Vienna, or the one to Rome.

Nothing compares to the sky over Rome, she’d said, after all.

Yet, half past eleven, she knew the precise moment, because the clock above the main entrance to the station had just struck half-time, Eloisa still hadn’t showed up, and Sylvie was fighting back tears, realising she would have to crawl back to Charles’ house, her parents’ once – and would she have run, if it had still been theirs? Slowly, she got to her feet and picked one at this point slightly worse for wear suitcase in each hand.

Where else could she go, really? She only had the change in her pocket, and as Eloisa had proven so definitively, it wasn’t enough. To take her anywhere.

To change anything.

Behind her, someone broke into a spurt, she could hear the heavy footfalls galloping over the square, but she didn’t turn to look. So many people were running for things today. She’d been one of them until the break of dawn. Then, she’d stopped. Waited. Oh, Sylvie was tired of waiting.

“Sylvie!” His voice rang out. “Sylvie, God damn it, Sylvie, Sylvie!”

She didn’t even have time to stop of her own accord, before Charles was up on the side of her, grabbing her arm and pulling her up in front of him, her suitcases clattering to the ground, heavy thuds, thud, thud. She whimpered, but he didn’t seem to notice, staring down at her, his hair an unruly mess and his eyes wide, bloodshot.

Never before had she seen her older brother lose composure this way.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” From yelling, he went to whispering angrily, his breath hot on her face, he was leaning that close in over her. They were both aware he had made quite the scene, but he didn’t seem to care and neither did she, for that matter. She blinked up at him tiredly, thinking maybe he’d prevented Eloisa from leaving, maybe he was the reason… Maybe…

“Have you seen Eloisa?” she asked rather than answering. What did she think she was doing? She didn’t know anymore. She had no idea, and wasn’t that supposed to be thrilling?

Well, it wasn’t.

Starting to drag her along, effortlessly picking up both her suitcases in his other hand and oh, to be a man with that kind of strength, right, Charles set off in the direction of the road, on the opposite side she recognised his car, parked there, people honking and yelling when they had to steer around it. Edgar was nowhere in sight. Had he fired him already? Sylvie’s stomach clenched.

“Eloisa? Why do you… No.” He sounded distracted, but they were also crossing the road and he was pushing her ahead, to avoid her getting hit by a passing automobile. Then, once they’d made it to the other side, his voice hardened and he carried on, “No, I only got home from the Dubois manor a couple of hours ago. I’ve been busy looking for you.”

Once again, he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her over to his car, Edgar’s pride, but Edgar wasn’t there; so, Charles threw the suitcases in on the backseat one-handedly, they made a right ruckus, before he finally pushed her head down and forced her into the passenger seat up front. Sylvie didn’t fight him. She had fought, she’d fought too long a time, it felt like, and it hadn’t helped. Here she was, wasn’t she? Ready to start over.

Back to the beginning. The house full of ghosts and misunderstandings.

“You really haven’t seen Eloisa?” was her feeble attempt at holding on to the purpose she had felt, just a few hours ago. Her voice shook. Charles shut the door behind her, went to turn the hand-crank and finally took the driver’s seat on the other side after that, more honking as he opened the door, forcing people to move around. While he seated himself, she could tell, he was watching her out the corner of his eye, an unreadable – always unreadable – expression on his face. Deep, dark, but softer than usually. The same way she’d never seen him less than pristine in public, she’d never seen her brother soften. Least of all for her.

“No, I said.” His voice was firm, in comparison. He took the steering wheel and turned on the ignition, taking the car out into the steady flow on the road. More honking. A man yelled. Sylvie stared straight ahead. The clenching in her belly had turned into knots, her heart beat slower, too slow.

“She promised…”

Another long look her way. This time, she caught him looking, and he didn’t try to pretend he hadn’t, instead slowly turning his attention back on the road. “Forget about her. We’re going home.”

Home? Where? Where was home? She’d never felt more at home than at madame Roux’s big townhouse, and she was convinced that wasn’t where they were going, most likely Charles didn’t even know or care it existed. He wouldn’t bother to learn, either, and she certainly wasn’t going to tell him. Sylvie had betrayed enough secrets already. The few she was left with, she had to honour.

They slowly headed back to Montreuil, to the fake Coffee Baron’s fake manor house, and Sylvie was quiet for a while, simply looking out the window at the familiar scenery of Paris passing by outside. To think, she would feel that this was a familiar place so soon after she’d arrived, knowing nothing, knowing less than nothing. And to think, she was feeling blue now that she wouldn’t get to leave it all behind, after all. That she didn’t get to be a stranger somewhere else. Be new and fresh and untried somewhere else. But if nothing else, she would’ve had Eloisa. At least, she would’ve…

Absolutely. She would have.

Her eyes filled with tears, and she didn’t try to hold them back, crying silently in the front seat of the automobile taking her back to everything she’d wanted most to escape. Including the Sylvie Gallard she’d been, living there. That sorry creature.

In her lap, her hands were fidgeting, fingers trembling slightly. “Charles,” she said his name carefully, and he showed her enough respect to turn his head to look at her, “I’m not going to marry out of convenience. No matter what.” Even returning to that life, there were things she wouldn’t go back to. Old Sylvie with the old Sylvie’s ambitions and dreams was as dead as their parents were.

Their eyes met briefly, then he had to focus on driving again. “Then don’t,” he replied, curtly. “I’ve fixed it myself.”

Had he spent all night with monsieur Dubois, if he’d only just returned from there now, like he said? And with Armand? What kind of solution had they settled upon, if Charles couldn’t secure his access to the Dubois plantations via marriage, how had he done it? What deals had he struck? What sacrifices had he been forced to make? Sylvie looked down at her hands, still fidgeting, still cold and trembling, even in the rising midday heat.

Was that the thing they could finally look at eye to eye, her brother and her? Sacrifices made. How silly, wasn’t it? How stupid.

How unfair. Hadn’t they lost enough? Both of them.

“If it’s fixed,” she said after some time. They were leaving inner Paris, the suburbs less heavy on the traffic, fewer cars, the countryside was closer by, so there were still horse-driven carriages passing in these parts. “Why did you come for me? You don’t need me.”

Her voice sounded cold, neutral, painfully neutral. The rest of her was cold, too, at this point. And neutral, painfully neutral. The kind of perfect equilibrium you only strike with the same heavy burden on each arm, wouldn’t he know that state of being? He’d held up the world for her, for years. Still, Sylvie had realised that she wanted another world than what he was offering. Maybe she always had. Maybe she’d always wanted impossible things.

Things that didn’t exist. Things that didn’t exist, anymore.

Charles was holding the car back while a police officer directed the traffic the other way at a junction, and they both watched the man wave his arms in gestures that meant, go, halt, wait, but Sylvie was done waiting. She looked at her brother, finding him looking back at her with not only the earlier softness, but something pained, something knotted and clenching, like her stomach had been until she stopped feeling most of her body. Until it all faded into greyness. No colour. No face.

It lasted only a second, then it was their turn to drive, and he hit the accelerator, speeding up quickly. His eyes were back on the road, when he said:

“I promised Maman and Papa to take care of you.”

She stared ahead of her. Take good care of your sister, their mother had said, kissing him on both cheeks. And to Sylvie, be good until we see you again.

Like a dam breaking, she started crying, really crying. It wasn’t the stoic, elegant kind of crying she’d done a few minutes ago, this was desperate and mournful, the tears of the defeated, the one who didn’t win the game, no prizes, not even any for consolation. Sylvie pressed her hands to her eyes, shielding herself, feeling how the automobile bumped and accelerated, slowed down, accelerated again, but she didn’t know where they were, she didn’t care where they were going.

Au revoir never meant, see you again. It always meant goodbye, when people said it to her. Why?

The hand, Charles’, huge and coarse, it had to be his, there was no one else in the car, came from the side, finding a place on her shoulder, like a comforting warmth and weight, securing her in her seat. Charles gave her upper arm a squeeze before releasing her, but he didn’t say a word. They both had fifteen years of training in not saying anything of essence to each other, that kind of education would take a long time to unlearn. She wondered, quietly, her breathing slowly returning to normal, whether he wanted to unlearn it. With her.

Strangely enough, she didn’t doubt that she wanted to, herself. It was change. The very thing she’d been running towards, right?

No matter what Eloisa said, they had time. She thought of the actress then, and her stomach clenched a little bit once more, but at least it existed. At least, she wasn’t driving around with a big hole in her.

“Can we stop by Eloisa’s place?” she asked, tentatively. She didn’t look at him. He didn’t look at her, or she’d feel it, definitely.

“Would it settle your nerves?” he responded. They were going in the opposite direction, away from inner Paris where Eloisa’s worker’s house was located, she knew. Just as she knew she was being difficult, she was being terribly demanding, but Charles was still asking. He asked because he cared, didn’t he? Sylvie bit her lower lip. Blinking, once, twice. She loved that he cared. Please, she wanted to say, let’s go, let’s go, together. Instead, she said:

“Yes.”

“Fine,” he replied and turned the automobile which, to Edgar’s dismay, wasn’t a 5CV, at the next junction. They drove as fast as the older model would allow. It was fast enough.

You’re wrong, Eloisa, Sylvie thought, sitting wordlessly in the passenger seat, looking out to the side that was hers, pavement and tall buildings in her immediate line of vision, many familiar sights.

We might not have that kind of change, but we can make enough to get by.


~*~


Edgar hadn’t been fired. He was waiting back home in the garage, ready to take the automobile off Charles’ hands, the moment he stepped out. Seeing Sylvie with him, the chauffeur looked visibly relieved and awkwardly patted her arm as she walked by.

“Good to have you back, mademoiselle,” he said, but fell quiet as Charles gave him a sideways look. Sylvie grasped for Edgar’s hand, however, and gave it a quick squeeze.

“Thank you,” she said. For everything, she meant. She had to say something, it was this or the silence – and the silence took up enough space as it was.

The silence had moved into Eloisa’s house, too, besides. When they’d arrived, the door had been locked and everything seemed quiet and untouched in there. No one opened when they knocked. She left in a hurry this morning, an old woman said, walking by with a basket full of apples hanging over one arm. The good mademoiselle Actress, I don’t think she’s returned yet.

In the end, Charles called the police, but they couldn’t find any trace of her. It was like Eloisa Paolo had never existed before Paris and didn’t exist outside of it. It was like Eloisa Paolo had simply vanished into thin air. The theatre she had been hired by, decided in a pinch to give her role to the substitute. People still came, now it was a spectacle, after all, it was a mystery! Where had the Italian actress gone?

And Sylvie? Sylvie kept her secret, about Elisabetta Paolo at the other end of the line, and she noticed that Charles did, too. It was one thing they looked at the same way, Eloisa’s enigmas.

The days passed and as they did, she stopped waiting, she simply gave it up. She stayed mostly in the house, having resumed her work on The Faceless, gradually adding features onto the naked face, giving it brows, giving it eyes, nose, mouth. It no longer looked like an unfinished puppet, but instead like someone tangible, like someone who lived. The features were recognisable as well, but mixed. It was her, and more than her, at the same time. Sensitive eyebrows, blue eyes, a mouth that was sharp-edged and slightly sardonic when it smiled. A strong jaw, more prominent than what would be considered attractive on a woman.

The Faceless was more than just her own manner but then again, Sylvie was more than just herself. She’d come to understand that.

Weeks later, after the ache in her stomach started dying out a little, it only clenched when she remembered, and she tried to look forward rather than back, Armand came by their house, Charles showing him out into the garden where Sylvie was painting a motif of roses under a huge parasol. He looked at the painting for a while, saying nothing. Maybe waiting for her to initiate, but Sylvie had lost her taste for initiation.

Trains would depart without her, and her travel companions would never arrive. When she started things.

“Will you come back and finish my portrait at some point?” he asked, then, realising that she was stubbornly refusing to speak. Stubbornly, and fearfully. Trust Armand to know this and to understand it. The difference.

“Do you want me to come back and finish your portrait?” she answered, and they were playing their well-known game again, where he asked in the general sense, and she asked in the specific. It made him smile. Because he smiled, she couldn’t quite help herself.

Sylvie liked this, it felt safe and familiar. It felt nice and bright, like him.

“You know I do,” he replied, his tone of voice open, honest. There was a moment where they both remembered last time that they’d been honest with each other, the proposal, the rejection. There were no ill feelings between them, evidently, but it still hung there, mid-air, like something oppressive and heavy. Something that made him look at her differently. Something that made her look at herself differently, too.

In the meantime, Charles had bought stocks in the Dubois coffee plantations and owned almost half a share in their business now. He visited monsieur Dubois frequently as a result, business dinners, cognac meetings, Sylvie wondered whether he was still thinking about Eloisa at all. Not those kinds of lovers, the Italian actress had told her, the first night.

Apparently, Sylvie and she hadn’t been either.

“I’ve been told I don’t know anything,” she said to Armand now, returning to her correction of a rose petal gone wrong. The texture was off, it wasn’t smooth and dewy. The shadows fell at a bad angle.

“I think she was the one who didn’t know anything,” Armand said, catching Sylvie’s gaze and holding it. The fact that he didn’t skirt over Eloisa, that he didn’t ignore her existence, that he gave her an identity and a place between them made Sylvie blink back tears and she put the brush down, leaving it in the jar of water to loosen the paint.

“Maybe neither of us knew,” she remarked, turning towards him slowly. He was not a tower over her, but he was a safe place, and she had so few of those left, which was why she rarely left the house now. No tourist trips with Edgar anymore. No theatre attendances with Claire, although Charles had asked about it. Take the maid.

No, Sylvie had said.

Part of her was afraid what would happen, should Eloisa come back, and she wasn’t there to welcome her. The rest of her, however, the sensible parts were afraid she’d be saying goodbye to everything, everyone, upon stepping over the threshold of her childhood home again. The rest of her had learned, she only had what she could see and touch in the moment. So, she liked to stay in the moment. She liked to stay with the things that mattered, wherever those things were. Here.

And here Armand was, visible and tangible and significant. Until he was inevitably going to leave again.

Au revoir always meant goodbye, in Sylvie’s world and Paris was Sylvie’s whole world now. She’d been called home.

Looking at her for a long time, Armand seemed to study her in return, like payback for all the hours he’d sat for her. Just sat, quietly, being looked at. Well, the sensitive sway of his eyebrows, the firm line of his nose, his soft lips, she knew those firsthand, didn’t she? She had experience. Now he was turning the tables, and she was the one being studied, being known. She liked that, she liked it a lot. It made her smile.

Armand nodded his head, then, like it was his sign, his cue. Like in the theatres. Ah! The theatres. Her smile slowly faded.

“Ask me about Morocco,” he said as he noticed, and it was the first time she’d heard his love spoken in commands. Softened somewhat at least by, “I want you to know.”

Realising that the time she’d waited so patiently for had come, Sylvie held his gaze and asked, phrasing it like an order as well, because she was done bowing to the demands of men, be they Charles, be they him. “Tell me about Morocco, Armand,” she said.

Again, he nodded, like deciding for himself, deciding something important. He watched the roses she had been painting as they swayed softly in the breeze. After only a second’s hesitation, he reached out and took her hands, they felt always cold these days, and his grip was warm, but gentle. Respectful. “I had a sister,” he said finally, and how long hadn’t she wanted to know about this. “Amèlie. My parents wanted to take over business up north, so we moved from Abyssinia to Morocco. Although we experienced several set-backs, our business flourished regardless, but then Amèlie became ill with cholera.” He fell silent.

His introductory use of the past tense seemed to make the rest very clear, and Sylvie tightened her hold on his hands to indicate, you don’t have to say it, I know what it feels like, having to attest the death of loved ones. Still, he did, he said it. And afterwards, she wanted to tell him, she was proud.

“My father lost the will to keep fighting the continuous resistance among the locals after that, and we were forced to leave the country.” His fingertips dug into her palms. It felt like a cramp, the involuntary convulsion of muscles. Sylvie knew, anatomy classes and all that; the heart was a muscle as well. “Her grave is still there.”

It was Sylvie’s turn to nod. Her turn to understand. The unvisitable grave. Her parents were buried in the deep, it was a difficult feat going down there, too. The Atlantic didn’t take live visitors. But how often hadn’t she wanted to? The roaring waves in her painting of The Faceless were a testimony to that.

Now, Armand was making his own testimony. He was making it to her. She was his canvas. Later, she would apply it to the roots of the trees in his portrait, he would stand on that foundation, under those ceilings. She raised his hands to her face and kissed his knuckles.

“I’m sorry, Armand.”

“You remind me of her,” he said, his smile burdened, the weight of the world, all over. Charles carried it in his arms; apparently Armand carried it in his mouth.

We’re all living with ghosts, she recognised from that single observation. She was, Armand was, Charles was. Why would Eloisa run, if not from ghosts of her own? But if they lived with ghosts, it became ever more important to be alive, right, to stay alive.

Ever more important.

Sylvie felt the smile come on, curve on her lips, and she let it grow wide, she beamed at him like she hadn’t beamed for weeks at this point. Ever since that London train departed without her, and Eloisa disappeared some other way, like everyone does, she’d said. Since then, Sylvie hadn’t beamed this way, feeling in any manner ready for the maybe cruel but definitely real world on the other side.

As an artist, she created new and changing realities in her work all the time. Reflective and nostalgic or terribly exciting. And art was a mirror of life, sure, yet mirrors meant nothing until you looked into them. So, if she didn’t want people to leave, supposedly, as long as they gave her the chance, she should just follow. She should choose what world to inhabit. What side of the looking glass. Yes, she should pick her horizons, like battles. Like she had come to Paris on Charles’ orders. She’d accepted almost all Armand’s invitations. And she had stayed, when Eloisa left. Despite Eloisa leaving. Meaning, her instincts were right, they were good, and they were true. It was only natural not to want to be alone.

To go very far, for togetherness.

Releasing Armand’s hands, she buried her fingers in the front pockets of her smock, straightening up. The next thing she said wasn’t an order, although it sounded like one. It came out as a request, “Ask me again.”

Please, she meant. Propose, and I will accept. I always wanted to, but I ran the wrong way. I chose the wrong world. The wrong side. That was her mistake, the mirror image tricked her, the light did; she followed someone who didn’t mean to give her a fair, fighting chance, naively thinking the two of them were those kinds of lovers.

Thinking the two of them could be together, in any sense that counted.

These impossible things.

He understood, she hoped. He had a gent somewhere, himself, he’d admitted, and hopefully not a gent who was going to run like she had, and Eloisa, too. Even so, he had someone he couldn’t love publicly; it was like that, Armand sympathised. He’d recognise her entreaty here for what it was, wouldn’t he? A plea.

His reply didn’t come immediately, a shuddering moment went by but as expected, neither did he let her wait for long; Armand Dubois didn’t have that kind of temper. “Will you marry me?” he asked.

Because clearly, he always did. Understand, her nice, bright and ducky guy.

The smile she managed was smaller, holding a sliver of persistent unwillingness. Although she had no doubts about her answer, there was only one option left, after all, she still had to know. She had to know what she was saying yes to.

“Will we live true?”

There was no pause this time. The waiting game was over.

“That’s up to us, Sylvie,” he said.