Girl in the Afternoon (30 page)

Henri put his hands on her shoulders. “I'm sorry,” he said delicately, leaning his head near her ear, the softness of his breath on her cheek. Aimée thought he was going to say he was sorry about Jeanne, but instead he said, “I'm sorry I left you.”

She turned around and looked at him, and it was not a look of gratitude or forgiveness, but one of crushing, insurmountable pain, and it was then Henri knew, for certain, what he had to do. He'd known since England, but hadn't been able to face it until now.

Taking Aimée's hand, he pulled her off the path into a grove of English hawthorn. Standing there, his shoes crushing the bright red berries that had fallen to the ground, he put his arms around her. Aimée did not resist. She sank into the warmth of his body, slid her hands into his, and let him kiss her. All of the things they couldn't say passed between them. It was an acknowledgment, a memory, an apology, and, finally, a pulling away, and a good-bye.

Henri did love her, Aimée thought. It was just a useless love. A love that had never been able to find a way out.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Then she turned and walked away, unaware that those were the last words she would ever speak to Henri, and that they would turn out to be the perfect thing to say.

 

Chapter 37

Leonie fought hard. But, in the end, after weeping and pleading, she gave in; there was nothing else she could do.

“Not tonight,” she begged. “Give me one more day.”

Henri agreed, holding her in his arms, promising they would be all right, while in his own heart he felt a shattering of regret. This was the exact undoing he had been afraid of in England.

*   *   *

The
next day, the family did nothing exceptional. Except, Leonie let Jeanne grate the chocolate into the pan over the hot stove, which she'd never allowed before, and she let her spread an extra layer of plum jelly on her breakfast roll. Later, in the garden, Jeanne was allowed to dig all she liked. Leonie watched her from behind the clothesline, pinning up the sheets, as she always did on Saturdays, not once scolding Jeanne for getting her dress dirty.

Henri stayed close to Leonie all day. He took her hand whenever she was near, gave her shoulder a pat, her waist a squeeze. Their contact was desperate and reassuring.

They had a picnic lunch by the river under the shade of a huge oak tree. Henri and Leonie watched Jacques and Jeanne slip down the muddy bank and splash each other in the water.

That night, Leonie made blackberry pie and cream for dessert. Then, despite Jacques's moaning, she gave the children their baths, which usually only happened on Sunday mornings. This, on top of the leniency and second helpings, did not go unnoticed by Jacques.

At bedtime he asked, “What's happening, Maman?”

Tucking the covers to his chin and kissing the top of his head, Leonie said, “Nothing, my dear,” wondering what lie she was going to come up with in the morning, and knowing that no matter what it was, Jacques would never understand. All she could hope was that he would forgive her, but she imagined that was far too much to ask.

Going around to Jeanne's side of the bed, Leonie smoothed her hand over her daughter's small forehead and sang her to sleep, remembering Jeanne as a wiggly baby who never wanted to be put down. She thought of the first time Jeanne said,
I love you, Maman,
and of all the times she had said it since, offering up her love so willingly, so innocently.

Not until Jeanne and Jacques were safely asleep did she let herself weep into her daughter's hair, rocking and humming. At three years old, Jeanne was the same age Jacques had been when he came to them. He had been too young to remember his previous life. Jeanne would forget too. As much as Leonie wanted to be remembered, it was a comfort to think that someday Jeanne would not miss her, that Jeanne might be spared that pain.

Henri had to pull Leonie away, undress her like a child, and tuck her into bed. He smoothed her hair, as she had done Jeanne's, and held her until she fell asleep.

Standing over his children, he had second thoughts. They were curled together. Jeanne's head was buried in Jacques's chest, and Jacques had his arm around her. Protecting her, even in sleep, thought Henri, as he pulled Jeanne away.

She slept on his shoulder as he walked down the dark road. The dry leaves crunched so loudly under his shoes he worried it might wake her. But her small body stayed limp, one arm thumping him softly in the back. It was cold, and he was glad he'd managed to get Jeanne's coat on even if he hadn't been so successful with her boots. Henri had no idea how he was supposed to get those tiny things on her feet, not to mention lace them up, so he'd just shoved them into the top of her suitcase and tucked Jeanne's stockinged feet inside his coat.

On the train, Henri stowed the bag along with Jeanne's hatbox with the birthday hat from Jacques. Henri shifted the sleeping girl from his shoulder to his lap where she curled up with her feet on the empty seat next to him. He brushed his hand over her hair and watched dark objects rush past, his heart tied up in knots.

When the train stopped Jeanne sat up, her eyes wide and startled. “Where are we, Papa?” she asked, and Henri told her to shush, everything was all right.

He carried her off the train, certain she'd be fully awake now with all the banging and screeching, but as he walked through the bright, gas-lit streets, her head fell forward on his shoulder, and she slept again.

It was a little past ten o'clock when Henri arrived at the Savaray home. Marie answered the door, anxious because of the hour, but even more so when she saw the child.

“Please, monsieur, come in. That little one will catch her death of cold,” she said.

“I'll wait here.” Henri cupped the back of Jeanne's head. “I'd be grateful if you'd fetch Auguste, straightaway.”

Auguste was about to climb into bed but instead found himself standing on the doorstep in robe and slippers, the gas lamp casting Henri's long, dark shadow in front of him.

The child in Henri's arms was startling. “You must bring that child in. The wind is biting,” Auguste said, holding his robe closed with both hands.

Henri shifted Jeanne off his shoulder and held her like a baby against his chest, her small body curled into a ball. “This is Aimée's child, your
petite-fille,
Jeanne Savaray.”

The wind lifted Auguste's hair, and he felt the cold against his scalp. “She is yours?” he said, astounded.

“No,” Henri answered. “Monsieur Manet's, but he knows nothing of her.”

How could this be? Auguste tried to calculate the child's age, ready to deny any responsibility, but then it hit him; Aimée, naked in Édouard's studio, his maman coming to him at the factory insisting on Aimée's departure. He put a hand to his head. This was why she'd gone to England. How idiotic of him not to suspect.

“You took the child?” he said, not accusing, but awed. “You've raised her?”

“Yes.”

The irony of this, Henri standing with this child just as Auguste had stood with Jacques, did not go unnoticed by either of them. Nor did the coincidence of each of them having raised a child that did not rightfully belong to him. They looked at each other as if to say,
Yes, I know how painful it is, how intimate and fragile a man's relationship with his child can be, and how little say we have in the end.

Henri passed Jeanne to Auguste, who held the sleeping girl effortlessly in his large arms.

That moment of letting go, the sudden weightlessness in Henri's arms, was disorienting and made him feel strangely unburdened, cleared of shame.

He pulled his coat closed. “I went back to England. My father is dead.” The wind settled, and a shudder went through the trees, a soft rustle, and then silence. “It's a wretched thing to admit, but I was grateful. I didn't want to face him.”

Auguste stepped forward with the child directly between them. “I must confess something to you.” He leaned closer to Henri. “A few years after you came to us—you were twelve, I believe—your father wrote and asked for you to come home.”

Henri could smell the cigar on Auguste's breath. He remembered walking into the Savaray dining room one night as a boy, long after he should have been in bed, to find Auguste sitting alone at the table, a glass of red wine in one hand and a cigar in the other. Instead of scolding him, Auguste had said,
Pull up a chair, my boy, and keep me company.

Henri took Jeanne's hand and let her fist curl around his finger. The strength in that small hand was remarkable. “Why didn't you send me home?” Henri knew the answer, but he wanted to hear it from Auguste.

“I simply couldn't let you go.”

Wetness touched Henri's cheeks, and he looked down, embarrassed, peeling his finger out of Jeanne's grip. He looked at the shadow of his legs, two dark shapes against the flat stone, cut off at the knees by Auguste's slippers, the pointy, upward tilt of the toes like the bow of a canoe. Below his robe, Auguste's ankles were bare. Henri wondered if he was supposed to feel some sort of comfort, or gratitude, knowing his father wanted him after all, but he only felt a deep sadness. It made no difference now. He didn't have his father then, and he didn't have the man he used to call
Papa
now.

“I suppose I wouldn't have gone back,” he said.

“You might have. The point is I never gave you the chance to decide.”

“I only went back to England because of what you said the night you brought Jacques to me, about giving him his rightful name, about his needing a place in the world.”

“Then he is an Aubrey now.”

“We both are.”

“That is good,” Auguste said, but what he felt was the definitive sting of loss that no son would carry his name.

Jeanne stirred, and Auguste looked at her. Here was a new life. A beginning. He could tell by the weight of her that she was as hearty a child as Aimée had been, and he felt a surge of joy.

For a few minutes the two men stood in silence. Each thought of reaching out and shaking a hand, but neither did.

*   *   *

Aimée
was asleep when her papa entered her bedroom, and she did not wake up when the sheets were pulled back and her child placed next to her.

Auguste was careful to tuck the blankets back up so neither one of them would get cold. For a few minutes he stood and watched them sleep. Jeanne looked very much like Aimée, lying on her pillow of dark curls, but Auguste could also see Colette, something about the almond shape of Jeanne's closed lids. He imagined, when she opened them, there would be gold flecks in her eyes.

When he closed the door, Aimée rolled over. She did not fully wake, but lingered in that space between sleep and dream. She heard the sound of Jeanne's breath and felt the warmth of her small body, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world, dreaming her daughter beside her.

Jeanne stirred and whimpered, and Aimée pulled her against her soft stomach. Deep down they both felt a familiarity, a remembering of those first two weeks together.

Later, when Aimée woke, the sky a thin, shifting gray like her eyes, she would weep silently, not wanting to wake the sleeping child, not wanting to wake herself.

*   *   *

Aimée
wandered over the bridge to the Île Saint-Louis and down the narrow street that runs along the Seine, the shutterless windows of the ancient houses reflecting the glinting water in their glass. Great river barges floated by, large and languid, loaded with sacks and barrels. There was a shout from a laundry boat and a reply from the shore, a man jumping and waving his arms from the narrow embankment, a quarrel breaking out behind her, and the laughter of children coming from ahead.

September had always been Aimée's favorite month, when the heat eased and a hint of cooler weather was in the air, a reminder of winter, but nothing too pressing, as if there was still time for something more.

Aimée thought of Édouard Manet. A year ago she heard he was painting fog. Apparently, he managed to have all the trains delayed at the Saint-Lazare, and the engines stuffed with coal so that when they started the air would be thick with steam. At the time Aimée had thought,
How arrogant of him. How pretentious
. Édouard getting whatever he wanted. Stopping trains for his own convenience when there were people who actually needed to get somewhere. But now, with the dank, familiar smell of the river, and the cool fresh air in her face, old sensations came back, and Aimée thought that it was equally inventive of him, resourceful and confident.

She looked across the water at a wide strip of beach where lean boats snaked to the shore, women and children, ankle deep in sand, unloading baskets.

For years, all Aimée had ever been able to see was what Édouard had taken from her. Now, thinking of her time in England, of all her hours spent painting, exhausting herself beyond reason, but finding a thrill in it, she was able to see that Édouard had given her exactly what she needed to find freedom in her work. She had come to love the deceptively warm one-dimensional lives she created.
Paint entirely from within yourself,
Édouard had said. And she had. These past few years that was all she'd done.

Back at the house, Aimée went to her studio for the first time since the day her papa slashed that penknife through her painting. It smelled stale, like plaster and old books.

Through the open door she could hear Jeanne talking to Madame Savaray who was laid up in bed in the next room. Jeanne had spent the first weeks in her new home crying for her maman. Now she wouldn't stop talking. With an earnest, slightly desperate expression she talked about her home, describing the fields and the river and garden, telling them all about her maman and papa. Only once did she speak of her brother. “He's waiting for me,” she said with a nod. “He always waits for me, even when I'm slow.”