Paris: The Novel (105 page)

“As it happens, I have seats this coming Saturday for the ballet. I told my son that he is to accompany me for his education. I don’t imagine you would be free at such short notice, but he would be eternally grateful if you would take his place.”

She thought for a moment, and smiled.

“The appointment I had can easily be changed.”

“Then I shall collect you at your house.”

Marc now joined them, and their conversation turned to the war. Marc gave de Cygne an amusing account of his efforts to build the fake model of Paris to deceive the German bombers.

“Construction was already well under way, you know, when the armistice came. Had the war lasted into 1919, I dare say we should have had a dummy Eiffel Tower in the sky.”

Roland was fascinated.

“We were quite unaware of all this at the front,” he remarked.

“It was a huge secret. Of course, it would only have taken one German plane flying over the place in daytime to see the two towers. The whole scheme was probably insane.”

“Talking of secrets,” Marie remarked, “there was a rumor in London that some of the French army had mutinied, but that it had all been hushed up. Did you ever see or hear anything of that, Monsieur de Cygne?”

Roland did not hesitate. Amazingly, the truth about the mutiny had never reached the press, or the history books. Those involved preferred to forget it, and the army was determined to help them.

“I did know about that business, as it happens,” he said calmly. “One prefers not to speak of it—even a hint of mutiny is embarrassing—but it was very limited, you know. A handful of incidents in a couple of divisions. The whole thing lasted only a day or two. Most of the army never even knew about it.”

“That’s what I heard,” said Marc. “Now I’ll tell you,” he went on cheerfully, “where there will never be a mutiny. And that is in the Joséphine department store. Thanks to my sister. She rules the entire staff with a rod of iron, yet they’re all devoted to her.”

Roland looked slightly confused. Marc saw it.

“Marie didn’t tell you that she runs Joséphine?”

Roland shook his head.

“She’s the big boss,” Marc continued with a laugh. “I often think she’s got the best business head in the family.”

Roland looked at Marie with astonishment.

“I had no idea you were so terrifying, madame,” he said with a smile, but she could tell that he was shocked as well as surprised.

“Does this mean, monsieur, that the invitation to the opera is canceled?”

“Not at all. Of course not.”

No, that would be rude, she thought, but I bet you wish you hadn’t made it.

She was glad that at that moment Claire came to join them. She was always proud of her daughter, but Claire was looking particularly elegant today, and she saw that de Cygne noticed it.

“I’ve just had an idea for the store,” Claire announced. She hesitated, and glanced at Roland de Cygne uncertainly. Marc laughed.

“Monsieur de Cygne knows how to keep a secret. Continue.”

“Someone’s just been telling me about a book called
The Phantom of the Opera
. And I suddenly thought, couldn’t we make it a theme for a set of window displays one day? You could do all kinds of things with a theme like that.”

“I don’t know this book,” said Marie. “Do you?” she asked Roland.

“I have heard of it, but never read it,” he confessed.

“I think that you are right about the possibilities, but wrong about the windows,” said Marc. “The story’s based on a very famous book called
Trilby
, where a girl is turned into an opera star by hypnosis. The hypnotist is named Svengali. That was a huge success in its day. The Phantom story features a monster who lives under the opera house, where the secret lake is. It was a serial originally, then a book. But it didn’t sell many copies. So I don’t think it’s well enough known, at present, to be a store feature.”

“That’s a pity,” said Claire. She turned to de Cygne. “You see, monsieur, all my life, nothing but rejection.”

“I cannot imagine anyone rejecting you, mademoiselle,” he responded gallantly.

“Isn’t he nice?” Claire said to her mother, who laughed.

Marc took de Cygne away now. “I’ve got a charming old historian, who’s writing about the ancient families of the Loire. He’d very much
like to meet you.” Claire went to talk to a young painter. Marie began to make her way through the groups of guests, nodding or smiling to those she knew, but feeling a little disengaged from the proceedings.

How strange it had been to encounter de Cygne again. It was quite agreeable, but it took her mind back to those days at the turn of the last century, just before she’d married, and for a moment or two, she found herself almost transported back to those days, and the people around her seemed to dissolve into the background.

She soon pulled herself together. There were people to meet, people who might be useful to the store. She looked around. As she did so, she noticed someone looking intently at the painting of the Gare Saint-Lazare by Norbert Goeneutte—her painting. The man had his back to her, but she was sure she knew him. He turned.

It was Hadley. The realization was so sudden that it made her gasp. Not only that, he was completely unchanged. If anything, he looked even younger. The same tall frame, the same mane of hair, the same eyes, gazing straight at her. Dear God, he was more handsome than ever.

Her heart skipped a beat. She felt the need for air. It was as though, by some strange magic, she was a girl of twenty again.

How was it possible? Had the meeting with de Cygne opened some mysterious corridor between the present and the past? Had she, in the middle of this party, unwittingly taken a journey in H. G. Wells’s time machine? Was she hallucinating?

His eyes were on her. Now he started to come toward her. Dear heaven, she was blushing. This was ridiculous. And yet, strangely, there was no light of recognition in his eyes. Had she turned into a ghost? No, he was going to introduce himself.

“
Je m’appelle Frank Hadley
.”

His French accent left much to be desired.

“Frank Hadley?” She said the name in English.

“Junior. My father …”

Of course. Everything suddenly made sense.

“You can speak English to me, Mr. Hadley. I am Marie Fox, Marc’s sister. I remember your father from many years ago. He knew my late husband too. You look just like him.”

“Oh.” He smiled broadly. “My father told me to contact Marc when I came to Paris, but he thought you lived in England, so I didn’t imagine we should meet. You fit the description my father gave me exactly.”

“Really.”

He smiled.

“He said you were very beautiful.”

She stared in surprise, but there could be no doubt about it. He was flirting with her. The cheeky monkey. He was looking straight into her eyes now, and she realized that his own eyes were rather beautiful, and full of life. To her embarrassment—but she couldn’t help it—she felt herself going weak at the knees.

This was ridiculous. She could be his mother. She managed an entire department store.

“I’m going to be in Paris for some months,” he said. “My father gave me very clear instructions. He told me to learn French, and not to come back until I was fluent.”

The hint wasn’t blatant, but it was quite unmistakable. He was telling her that he had come to learn French, and that he was available if she cared to teach him.

They looked at each other. A couple of seconds passed. And then, suddenly, Marc appeared beside them, with Claire.

“Ah, Frank,
mon ami
,” he said, “I see that you have met my sister. Now let me introduce you to her daughter, Claire.”

Luc Gascon had started smoking during the war. It was the thing to do. Every
poilu
in the trenches seemed to have a packet of Gauloises in his pocket. The little blue packets and the strong, Turkish aroma of the cigarettes suggested comradeship. And they were supposed to steady the nerves. If a man were taken to a field hospital, like as not, the first thing the orderlies or the nurses would do was give him a cigarette. Luc had started smoking mainly because he was bored.

And he had just been smoking a Gauloise when he met Louise. It was at the cinema. As usual, it was his genius for making himself useful that enabled him to pick her up.

The Louxor wasn’t just any cinema. It had only just opened then, in 1921, but it had instantly become one of the exotic landmarks of Paris.

Sitting splendidly on its corner site on the boulevard de Magenta, a short walk east of the Moulin Rouge, the Louxor was a mock Egyptian palace worthy of the pharaohs or of Cleopatra herself. With its Egyptian pillars, its golden ornaments and richly painted walls, it reminded Luc of
those fantasy Oriental rooms in some of the most expensive brothels—if, that is, the brothel were on the scale of the palace of Versailles.

The cinema was often sold out, so Luc had not been surprised, arriving early one evening, to find twenty or thirty young people being sorrowfully turned away at the doors.

Why had she caught his eye? Because of her looks, of course. And she was alone. That was intriguing. But there was something else about her that aroused his curiosity. Something different. He decided that he needed to find out.

There are many kinds of womanizer. With some it is vanity or a sense of power, with others greed. With Luc it was that purest of all motives: endless curiosity.

“I am sorry you could not see the film, mademoiselle.”

“Yes. It’s annoying.” She was polite, but cautious. He had a sense that if he made one wrong move, she would freeze him out. But he also noticed her accent. Very pure. The best French, not even the slightly pointed enunciation of the Paris sophisticates. She might be from a very high-class French family, or she might be a foreigner who had learned the language in that environment.

“I haven’t got a seat either, but I am still going to see the film.” He smiled. “My nephew is the projectionist. I’m going to watch it with him, up in his little box.”

“Really?” She looked amused. “Then you are fortunate indeed, monsieur.”

He smiled, bowed, and started to walk away. Then he hesitated and turned. She was still watching him.

“Mademoiselle, I think there is room for one more person up there. If it would amuse you.” He shrugged. “You will be quite safe, I promise. And should my nephew, who is a good boy, be distracted from his duties by your beauty, one scream and the entire audience will turn around, while the management comes running.”

She laughed, gave him a quick, careful look, and evidently decided that he was respectable.

“Very well, monsieur, I accept the adventure. But if the film frightens me, I shall also scream.”

“Then thank God it is Buster Keaton,” he replied.

The girl’s mind was quickly set at rest when the man at the door greeted him politely,
“Bonjour, Monsieur Gascon.”

“My nephew’s up in the projection room? I’m going to take this young lady up there, if that’s all right.”

“Whatever you wish, Monsieur Gascon.”

When they got up into the projection room, and Louise encountered a most surprised young man of about her own age, who he informed her was his nephew Robert, Luc did not permit her to introduce herself at all, raising his hand and declaring: “This young lady is an angel who has come down to earth to watch the movie. When it is over, Robert, she will fly back to the heavens—though we may hope for her benediction before she goes.”

The evening’s entertainment consisted of two Buster Keaton movies. As the projection room was not very comfortable, Luc was glad that they weren’t watching one of the new epics—for he knew that Abel Gance in France, and von Stroheim in America, were both producing movies that would run for seven hours or more. The girl seemed to be enjoying herself, anyway.

When it was over, it was time for young Robert to go off duty, so Luc said he’d walk home with him as soon as he was ready to leave. Meanwhile, he escorted Louise down to the entrance, and said he hoped she’d enjoyed the show.

“Very much, monsieur. I’m not sure if I thanked your nephew properly.”

“I will do it for you.”

“He seems to have a limp.”

“He has a wooden leg, mademoiselle. He came by it honestly, serving his country in the war. He was working in the family restaurant, but I could see his leg was troubling him, so I was able to get him this job instead. I happened to know the manager of this cinema.” He paused. “We are going to have supper at our restaurant now, in fact, just along the street. If you would like to join us, please be our guest. We can find you a taxi to take you home afterward.”

“I mustn’t be too late. It would upset the elderly lady with whom I live.”

“Not a problem.”

A quarter of an hour later, Luc had her comfortably installed in the restaurant, eating a croque monsieur and haricots verts. Business was fairly quiet that evening. Édith came by to chat for a few minutes. “This is my sister-in-law, the mother of Robert,” he explained. “And how should I introduce you, mademoiselle?”

“Just Louise,” she said.

“Mademoiselle Louise, then.” He smiled. “Who speaks a French so elegant and so pure, that either she comes from a château or a manor house in the Loire Valley, or she was sent there by her parents to perfect her French.”