Crossing on the Paris (5 page)

“Sorry, ma'am.”

“What are you still doing in here?” Mme. Tremblay tapped her foot impatiently. “Come now! Get your uniform on! You should already be in the steerage common room.”

“Yes, of course. Ma'am,” Julie added quickly, as the head housekeeper whisked out of the dormitory.

Angry with herself for having caused a bad first impression, she quickly buttoned her uniform, then began to put on her crisp white cap. Within seconds, Mme. Tremblay popped back into the dormitory.

“Get a mop out of the utility closet. There's some vomit here in the corridor,” she said, her sharp chin pointing toward the right.

“Yes, ma'am,” Julie murmured with a slight frown. Having been hired to work in steerage dining, she hadn't realized mopping vomit would be part of her job.

“The ship hasn't even
left
yet and someone's already thrown up!” Mme. Tremblay rolled her eyes, then disappeared again.

As she was tying her apron, Julie thought she could sympathize. The heavy, unsavory air smelled as if it had already been breathed in by others, by people with tooth decay or head colds.

Suddenly she heard a muffled cheer from the decks. The
Paris
was pulling away from the pier, leaving the harbor. She felt a sudden lurching, as if the tide were tugging at her center of gravity; as big as it was, she could feel the ship moving, especially from there at the bow, right above the engines. Even as an island girl, she was unprepared for this motion, this roll, and held fast to the metal bedpost. Already too warm, Julie began breathing hard.

Vera lay nearly motionless on the bed with her dog at her feet, her eyes closed, trying to ignore the racket from the deck. Suddenly, it was amplified to its highest possible pitch, with firecrackers, hoots of laughter, and some three or four cheers repeated manically:

Bon voyage! Vive la France! Vive l'Amérique!

She understood what this meant and tried to feel, through all the liner's layers, the gentle motion of a ship leaving port. Vera
thought she could detect it—like once in Crete when she felt the smallest shimmer of an earthquake—and was relieved when, little by little, the excited crowd drifted away from the decks, looking for the next bit of adventure.

This was her tenth crossing, her tenth great transatlantic ship. Sitting up on the bed, she opened her eyes and looked around her room, her lodgings for the next five days. She raised her eyebrows in surprise at the sight of a telephone on the table, then sighed. This was not nearly as majestic as the
France
had been on her last crossing, eight years before. Inspired by the palace at Versailles, that elegant old steamer, with its gilt fireplaces, beautiful beveled mirrors, and carved dressers was a floating piece of art. This ship was much more modern; the lines were sleek, simple, and certainly not Vera's idea of sophistication. Another sign of the times. Or the fact that she was getting old.

She bent over and scratched her sleeping dog under her graying chin. They had gone through a similar evolution, she thought, the same aging process: passionate in their youth, haughty and irascible in middle age; now they were both prone to sighing and lethargy. A black Scottish terrier, she had started her life with the dignified name of Bête Noire. Charles thought it a pretentious name for such a little trollop, and she was soon demoted to Bibi.

She thought again of Charles, and how pleased she had been when he had insisted on taking the train to see her off in Le Havre. After all the years she had lived in Paris—thirty-one to be exact—Vera had scores of acquaintances, was a member of various circles, and had many loyal devotees. But Charles was the only person she would miss.

She'd met Charles Wood when she first arrived to Paris. A cousin with British in-laws had given her a letter of introduction and he'd invited her round for tea. Fashionable and attractive, they were both just over thirty, single, independent, and sparkling with joie de vivre. That same day, they went from having tea to dining
out, then off to the cabarets for champagne and dancing. They spoke honestly about their lives—the very first time they met! She told him about her absent parents and poorly chosen husband; he told her about his aristocratic but emotionally crippled family. When he took her home at dawn, he whispered in her ear: “My dear Vera. I suppose you could call this love at first sight. Ah, if only you were a man!” provoking a fit of laughter that left them both with aching sides.

For decades, Left Bank society considered them a couple—at least on seating charts for dinner parties—and they were a highly sought pair. During the war, they had even lived together. Too old to serve Britain, Charles had served Vera, foraging good cuts of meat and coffee from his black market sources, keeping her in firewood, holding her close during zeppelin air raids over Paris, and always, always making her laugh with his dry, unpredictable wit.

After all her experience with the opposite sex—an absent father, a temporary husband, a dozen or so lovers—it was Charles who held uncontested claim to her heart, in spite of the fact that he wasn't attracted to women. It was not an unrequited love; it was mutual, rich and true. Of course, like Vera, Charles had his lovers. Sometimes he would disappear for weeks at a time, only to return with a devilish grin and occasionally, depending on whom he had been with, booty to share: an ancient bottle of Bordeaux; a crate of pomegranate; chocolate truffles, handmade in Bruges. Unlike Vera, who enjoyed discussing her male friends with him, examining their failings and virtues, Charles never spoke about his secret companions. Both of them understood, however, that lovers were transient. The solid, lasting relationship had always belonged to them. Vera thought of him standing on the dock, his last sweeping kiss, and bit her lip. What in the world was she going to do in New York?

Glancing around the room again, she saw her bags had been
delivered, neatly placed in the corner. The set of six trunks constructed a pyramid, with a triangular carpetbag forming the apex. Vera was sentimental about these old steamer trunks—over twenty-five years old by now—and would not consider replacing them. Her young secretary, Sylvie, oblivious to their charm, had periodically urged her to buy new ones, but Vera had long resisted. Their beige and brown sides were covered with stickers from journeys past—ports along the Mediterranean and the Scandinavian seas as well as those of the French Line: New York/Le Havre. Most of these stickers were now faded and half-torn, the newest ones already two years old.

In the past, she would have needed most of these trunks just for the social activities on board, where one would change clothes—for meals, strolls, dancing, games—at least five times a day. On this crossing, Vera had no intention of wasting such time on her toilette, but had needed the larger trunks to move some personal items from her Paris home. She did not ship anything back to New York, deciding to limit her packing to the space available in the weather-beaten trunks. These past few years, especially after the war, she had discovered that things—most things, anyway—were not so important after all.

Amandine, already half-asleep in the armchair, suddenly shifted, then licked her dry lips with closed eyes. What a pathetic little threesome we are, Vera thought, listening to Bibi's snores. Three old ladies, torpid and sluggish, feeble bears in a perpetual winter.

“Amandine,” Vera called softly, rousing her at once. “Pass me the bag, please. Yes, the one with the books. Now, you may go and get yourself settled in. Your room is right next door, none of that running from first to second class on the
Paris
.”

She smiled to herself, imagining slow Amandine at a full run.

“You're sure you don't need my assistance?” the old servant asked. “I could hang your dresses, unpack your shoes . . .”

“No, thank you. I'm not going to worry about clothes for now,” Vera answered. “Just the
thought
bores me! Why don't you relax for a while? I'll let you know if I need anything.”

Amandine went to the conjoining room, giving Bibi a pat on the way out.

Vera began unpacking the carpetbag. First, she took out a small portrait of herself, framed in dark mahogany. Vera gazed at it, remembering the day she'd had it done. She was in her late thirties then, and Charles had suggested—dared her, more like!—she sit for that dwarfish painter with the enormous lips.
Quelle aventure!
The two of them had climbed the steep hill to Montmartre in the rain to meet the grotesque little man, and they all ended up getting quite tight on anisette (or was it absinthe?!). He had produced, in just an hour or so, an oil pastel likeness of her.

That painter (what was his name again?) later became quite famous and then died young, much younger than she was now. He hadn't liked them, had sensed they were mocking him, and had overcharged her (at least he reckoned he had). And, at the time, Vera hadn't liked the drawing. He had exaggerated all her defects—her long nose, angular face, sharp chin—deriding her in return. But now, in the drawing, she saw the woman she used to be—attractive, proud, self-possessed, somewhat mischievous, even—and had a great affection for it.

She leaned the framed picture on the bureau in front of the mirror, then slid it to the side, taking in both images—the drawing and her reflection—at the same time: the woman in her prime alongside the woman in decline. Vera looked at the latter critically; this thinness had exaggerated her wrinkles, leaving her skin with nothing to do but to hang. She tilted her head back slightly and looked at her neck. “You have a lovely neck,” her grandmother had told her once, the only compliment she had ever given her. Now it looked as if a group of tiny adventurers had scaled it and, from the hollow under the chin, had thrown a rope ladder down to their less
vigorous companions. What might they do once they all reached the top? Paddle up the ear canal into her brain? She imagined minuscule Verne characters manned with ropes and pickaxes, in search of a center. It certainly felt that way more and more these days.

She took a last sentimental glance at her portrait, at her former self, then looked out the window, which, she noted with approval, was larger than the portholes she was used to. Although they were already surrounded by water, having left the coast behind, to her mind, they were not yet “at sea.” They would still be stopping in Britain before truly beginning the crossing. Le Havre, Southampton . . . how provincial it sounds! Really, it should be called the Paris, London, New York Line, which would be every bit as accurate.

Vera continued unpacking. She pulled out her toiletry kit, opened it, and peered inside. She had half a mind to apply some Ferrol's Magic Skin Food (“for filling out wasted necks!”) but knew it was pointless. With a slight snort, she stashed the toiletries away in the drawer and looked back inside her bag.

Here was the book Charles had given her for the voyage, a slim volume of poems by a Greek acquaintance of his. She noticed with a smile that he had taken the liberty of turning down a corner to mark a page. Ah, a poem not to be missed. Well, she would save it for the last day, then send Charles a wire saying she had just seen it. Or, perhaps she would use this telephone! Chuckling to herself, she tried to imagine what could possibly be so urgent that one would need to telephone from the middle of the sea.

Finally, Vera took out her journals, three heavy volumes, and lay them neatly on the small writing table. Then, from a pocket in the side of the bag, she brought out her fountain pen, placing it carefully on top of the pile. She had written every word with that pen; in fact, it was the pen itself that had given her the idea of writing her memoirs some seven years ago.

It had happened just a few months before the war. She was on the train returning from a dreary weekend at Deauville, the de rigueur holiday resort on Normandy's flat, gray coast, which had deviously slipped its way into the itineraries of the fashionable set. That particular weekend had been especially dull, as the horse races had been rained out.

They had settled into their first-class compartment for the six-hour journey back to Paris; a drowsy lot even then, Amandine was asleep on her shoulder, and Bibi on her lap. She herself was feeling very relaxed—an English nanny couldn't rock one to sleep any better than a French train—when, an hour into their journey, a distinguished-looking gentleman came into their compartment. He sat down on the empty seat in front of them, took off his hat, and smiled, bowing his head politely in her direction. He then rustled in his bag until he found a book, put on his glasses, and began to read.

Feigning sleep, she watched him through half-closed eyes. She could see from his clothes that he was not French and his skin was darker than those pale Europeans of the north. His hair was turning silver, there was a bit of white in his neatly trimmed beard, but over his deep brown eyes, his thick, perfectly arched eyebrows were still black.