Pam Rosenthal (11 page)

Telling it to such a pretty, eager face, with such a quick mind animating it.

The pleasure of writing the book, of course, had partly been the fun of boasting about his numerous conquests. While the art of it (if art there were) lay in a single sad irony: that when all was said and done he hadn’t conquered anything or anybody. Love—or the lack of it—had always conquered
him
in the end.

He’d never been the sort of person who needed much sleep. And so at Versailles, it had been his custom to return to his apartment at dawn and spend an entertaining hour or two scribbling down the pleasures and the woes of the night’s adventure. Writing had made him feel clean and powerful, his pen racing to tell the world his story—or at least the parts of it that his wit could encompass. But now, faced with an audience of one, he was less sure of what he really
did
have to say.

Looking into her eyes—and trying to avoid looking at her hands, her shoulders, her breasts peeping out of the top of her dress—he could only wonder how petty, how frivolous, how exceedingly shallow and trivial she must find him.

Because—right now, in his own mind—the dashing young courtier that he’d been two years ago seemed trivial indeed: a silly, randy, young beast, strutting through mirrored corridors like a turkey cock, prowling the huge chateau like a fox in a gilded henhouse. His affairs had been exciting, diverting—even more diverting when they’d been cold, selfish, and a bit cruel. But there’d always been a sameness to them. As though he’d been trying to fill some deeper need… But he wouldn’t speak of
that
. Not right now. Wouldn’t even take the time to wonder about it. Another time perhaps.

Right now, he had something else to tell her. Something he was purely and simply proud of.

“Well, you see,” he added casually (wondering immediately if his tone had been
too
casual), “Lafayette and the rest of us were considered glamorous heroes when we returned from America, and so it was easy…”

Her face lit up.

“So you did fight in America after all.”

Of course. He should have thought to tell her sooner. He’d almost forgotten how devoted she and her family had been to the American cause. She already knew the names of the battles: Brandywine, Valley Forge, Barren Hill; he held her spellbound for a pleasant few nights, describing what it had been like to fight in them.

Which led them to a discussion of the philosophies and thrilling new ideas at the heart of the American revolt. For she was familiar—at least as familiar as he was—with the words that had lit the sparks of the conflict. Her father’s shop had specialized, she told him, in the writings of the great revolutionary thinkers, Messrs. Jefferson and Franklin in particular. And pamphlets, too—piles and piles of brilliant, incendiary pamphlets—even those of the Englishman Tom Paine.

“Papa used to say that if the Americans could accomplish all that—and
they’d
started out as mere Englishmen after all—just think what the people of
France
could do if they set their minds to it. Just imagine how simple, to unseat those useless, petty aristo… Ah, but I beg your pardon, M-Monsieur—uh…Joseph. Of course I didn’t mean
you
.”

He’d laughed gallantly and waved away her apologies. “No, of course you didn’t mean
me
.”

But the moment stayed with him, keeping him tossing and turning for hours after Baptiste had taken her back to her garret room. It was as he’d suspected all along. She
didn’t
respect him. She thought him spoiled, selfish, petty…

Petty. What a vile word, Marie-Laure thought, to describe someone so intelligent, so delightful—and so heroic (fighting in America, no less) as well. She spent all the next day regretting what she’d said and wishing she’d thought before speaking. But she’d become so involved in the discussion that the words had simply slipped out, as though she were back at home, voicing an opinion at the family dinner table. “Petty” was Papa’s word for an aristocracy that lived selfishly and thoughtlessly off the industry of the rest of the nation. Papa, Gilles, the Rigauds—everybody at home had used such words, and much worse ones too.

And
their
ways of talking had been mild and measured, cultured and polite, compared to the pungent antiaristocratic invective employed every day in the dessert kitchen.

“They’re devils,” Arsène insisted flatly. “Every one of them.”

“Though in truth I wouldn’t mind working for the devil if he were a fair and generous employer,” Bertrande had replied.

“Which
they
manifestly are
not
,”
Nicolas had added, “but still, they do have the dignity of their position.”

“
Ah oui?
”
Bertrande had laughed. “Well, it’s not the most dignified part of them that we see when we empty their chamber pots.”

Bertrand’s
bon mot
had of course led to a series of jokes about which part—or which
parts
—of
the aristocracy Marie-Laure was likely to see during her nightly visits, always accompanied by uproarious laughter. As usual, she simply blushed and kept her counsel, though in truth she was becoming a bit tired of it all.

Still—she thought of the Gorgon’s meanness, Monsieur Hubert’s childishness, the Duc’s malevolent rants—in some ways her colleagues had described their masters with perfect accuracy. How could one not feel contemptuous of grown people who were so spoiled and thoughtless?

As if by tacit agreement, though, the servants were relatively gentle in their treatment of the Vicomte. For he at least
tried
to remember to say
please
and
thank you
—to
treat you like you might have some feelings of your own, as Louise had put it.

And now
, Marie-Laure thought,
I’ve insulted him myself.

Not that he’d really care what a scullery maid thought of him.

And yet he did seem colder and more distant for the next few nights, abruptly ceasing to speak of America and beginning a series of linked erotic stories instead. Amusing, rather wicked stories whose plots turned upon which lover could most thoroughly demolish the other’s
amour-propre
.

He didn’t narrate these stories, preferring to act them out as little dramas. She marveled at his acting skill. Yes, he told her modestly (a bit
too
modestly perhaps), amateur theatricals had been all the rage at Versailles; he’d been invited to play the male lead in one; the Queen, of course, had acted the female lead.

Anyway, he continued, such stories as he was telling these nights lent themselves well to dramatization, didn’t she agree?

She supposed that she did agree. In any case, he was certainly effective, both as himself and as a series of haughty ladies, whispering endearments (“I shall await you breathlessly”) and then appending cynical asides (“and you’d better be as good as they say you are, Monsieur”). Mincing and simpering, he managed to look absurdly effete and thrillingly handsome at the same time—his black eyes burning in a livid face that the candlelight had turned white as rice powder.

But even as she laughed, she wondered why he’d want to present himself in such an unflattering mode. It was almost as though he wanted to punish himself—and her too, by making her his witness.

Or perhaps the message lay buried in the prologues that he used to set the scenes. He always insisted on the same point: every woman he’d seduced had been a great beauty a well-married noblewoman or a notorious courtesan—“which comes to the same thing, you know”—a woman of lofty station, “higher than mine, if possible; I made it a point of pride never to take advantage of a woman of lower birth than myself.”

He reiterated these words as though they constituted a principle of egalitarian virtue. And she supposed that in some ways they did. But they hurt nonetheless.

Yes, yes
, she wanted to scream.
Yes, I know, Monsieur. Yes, you needn’t repeat yourself. For you have made it purely and absolutely clear—transparent as crystal—that you would never lower yourself to touch someone like myself.

Or that if you did—when you did, because you
did
, you know, even if you’ve forgotten that you
did
touch me—it was only to protect me. Your embrace, your kisses—yes I know, they were nothing but amateur theatricals. No real passion (well, except on my part); on
your
part was simple generosity: the benevolence that any liberal aristocrat might extend to a worthy commoner. Nothing more than a momentary instance of noblesse oblige. It was only…charity.

She was beginning to think that her nightly visits weren’t worth the anguish they caused her; she might prefer taking her chances with the Duc or the Comte Monsieur Hubert (for surely they’d have forgotten their moments of lustfulness by now). But just when she didn’t think she could bear it, he left off the erotic stories as abruptly as he’d begun them.

“Because I’ve been awfully rude,” he said to her one night, “monopolizing the conversation and not giving you a chance to tell me about yourself.

“And anyway,” he continued—how lovely, she thought, to see his mischievous grin again—“I’m tired of hearing myself talk.”

But she didn’t have anything interesting to say, she protested. Her life at home…well, he’d already seen the drabness, the sameness of life back home in Montpellier. Days in the bookshop, meals with Gilles and Papa. And Mamma, of course, when Mamma had been alive.

“You saw your parents every day.”

“Well, we could hardly help it, could we? You know how tiny the house is…um, was. There was barely room for the books, not to speak of the people. We children were always under foot, giving Mamma and Papa headaches. And worse, sometimes…”

She had to smile here.

“…oh dear, I’d almost forgotten. You see, there was a period when Gilles and Augustin were mad for scientific experiments. And they used
our
kitchen, of course. The Rigauds’ cook had already chased them out of her domain, but Papa believed in encouraging children’s intellectual curiosity, and Mamma believed in the wisdom behind Papa’s eccentricities…”

She laughed and so did he. The evening passed quickly and pleasantly. He was a charming listener, she thought later, his quick nods and sudden smiles inspiring her to turn the silliest of domestic mishaps—bad smells and exploding kettles—into knockabout comedy.

She searched her memory for more stories to tell him. He seemed to enjoy hearing them, and she found it soothing to remember Mamma and Papa so happily. And if there had been a note of wistful envy in his comment that “you saw your parents every day,” he made sure never to show it again.

Once she even confided some of her plans for the future. He didn’t say a great deal, but at least he didn’t laugh at her. “Yes,” he said quietly, “I think you’d be able to accomplish that. Well, you’re a very impressive girl, you know, Marie-Laure.”

They became comfortable together, so comfortable that by late August they sometimes simply spent the evenings reading books from his shelves, each of them illuminated by a different halo of candlelight, both of them isolated in their own worlds of the imagination—separated and yet bound together in an easy intimacy.

Every so often one of them would break the silence, commenting upon a passage or even reading it aloud. They argued sometimes, but more often they found themselves in agreement, for they both preferred wit to sentimentality and liked a spare style instead of a florid one.

“You’ll enjoy this,” he or she would say. And the other
would
enjoy it, too. They laughed sometimes at this uncanny ability to know what each other would like. It was almost a shared instinct, a miraculous correspondence of taste and sensibility.

And yet she’d failed in her quest to discover his hidden stories; in truth he was as much of a stranger as he’d ever been. She was as confounded by his moods now as she’d been in Montpellier, as ignorant of his real emotions as when she’d first begun visiting his room.

A frighteningly attractive stranger, of course: most attractive, perhaps, during these quiet, companionable, readerly evenings, when the sudden flare of a guttering candle on his cheekbone would cause her belly to tremble and her thighs to tighten.

She tried to suppress her body’s unruly behavior. But as this quickly proved impossible, she could only endeavor not to become too accustomed to his presence.

These nightly meetings wouldn’t go on forever. The Duc would die soon enough; nowadays everybody knew just how ill he really was. And then—well, the gossips in the dessert kitchen agreed that the family would marry Joseph off as quickly as they could, especially since some spectacular offers had recently arrived from Paris.

She tried not to listen to these discussions, but the provisions of the marriage deals—fabulous one-time gifts and princely yearly allowances—lodged unpleasantly in her thoughts nonetheless.

And so now when she visited him, another shadowy entity seemed to materialize in the bedchamber. Was it the inescapable presence of his future wife? More likely, she thought, it was simply the dark shape of his impending departure.

Watching him turn a page or smile at a well-constructed sentence, she’d be seized with sudden vertigo, as if the space of the room were reshaping itself, the short distance between armchair and window seat expanding to become an awful, unbridgeable chasm. The few feet of warm empty air between them could have been the span of an ocean. Because any distance was too long, she reflected, when it interposed itself between two physical bodies that oughtn’t to be separated at all.