Paris: The Novel (35 page)

Whatever the papers might have said about the ugliness of the tower, one could see already that its huge, two-tiered archway was going to provide a magnificent entrance to next year’s exhibition. At 380 feet, the just completed platform was almost three quarters as high again as the towers of Notre Dame, and on a level with the highest cathedral spires in Europe.

All kinds of people were there, including the fashionable. Thomas and Luc stood near the refreshment tent. “I’ll introduce you to Monsieur Eiffel,” said Thomas proudly, “if he comes by.”

They’d been there about five minutes when Luc suddenly said, “Look who’s over there.” But when Thomas looked, he couldn’t see anyone particular in the crowd. “Over there.” Luc indicated a knot of well-dressed people. And then Thomas saw.

It was Édith. She was wearing a white dress that must have been given to her, since she could never have bought such a thing herself, and a small bonnet. She looked very pretty. Beside her was Monsieur Ney, and a pale woman in her late twenties who must, Thomas guessed, be his daughter.

“I’ll go and say
bonjour
to her,” said Luc.

“You can’t do that. She’s with Monsieur Ney,” Thomas cried. But Luc was already on his way.

Thomas watched, not knowing what to do, as Luc very politely took off his boater and bowed to Édith. He saw her say something to Ney, and then saw Luc bow to the lawyer and his daughter too. Then he saw Luc say something else, after which they all turned to look at him. Luc was smiling, indicating that he should advance.

When Thomas reached them, after a polite smile to Édith, he was careful to make a deeply respectful bow to Monsieur Ney.

“It is a great honor, monsieur, that you should visit the tower where I work.”

“I told Monsieur Ney that you had promised to introduce me to Monsieur Eiffel if he comes by,” said Luc. “And Monsieur Ney said that he hoped you would introduce him too.”

Thomas stared at his little brother, dumbfounded. He, a humble worker, was to introduce the rich lawyer to Eiffel? But he saw to his further amazement that Ney was smiling with amusement. Obviously this charming fifteen-year-old boy in a straw boater could get away with things that Thomas himself could not.

“Of course, monsieur,” he said, wondering how on earth he was to do such a thing.

“Do you know my daughter, Mademoiselle Hortense?” the lawyer asked.

“Mademoiselle.” Thomas bowed again.

One could see the likeness at once. The same long, pale face, narrow
body, slightly fleshy lips. To his surprise, he found the combination strangely sensual, and though of course he gave no outward sign, he wondered whether she had sensed it. She was dressed in pale gray. It occurred to him that the dress Édith was wearing might be an old one of hers. She did not smile, but observed him coolly.

Ney turned to Luc.

“And what do you do, young man?”

“I work mostly at the Moulin de la Galette on Montmartre, monsieur. But I run errands for people and perform services for them.”

“What sort of services?”

Luc smiled, and paused for just a split second.

“It depends what they ask, monsieur,” he answered quietly.

The lawyer looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, and Thomas had the sense that, in some way that lay outside his own experience, Monsieur Ney and his little brother understood each other perfectly.

He still hadn’t said a word to Édith, and was just turning to do so, when Luc nudged his elbow.

“There is Monsieur Eiffel,” he said.

He was walking by, not ten yards away. Thomas took a deep breath, and went quickly over to him.

“Ah, young Gascon. I hope you are enjoying yourself.” The tone was friendly, but indicated that he was busy. There wasn’t a moment to lose.

“Monsieur, I have my brother here, but also an important lawyer we happen to know, who wishes to be introduced to you.” He looked pleadingly at Eiffel. “His name is Monsieur Ney. I am only a workman, monsieur, and I don’t know how to do such a thing.” He indicated the Neys to him.

A glance at the lawyer told Eiffel that this was a man who might be useful. Besides, it was his day to work the crowd. Placing his hand on Thomas’s shoulder in the most pleasant way, he went over with him.

“Monsieur Ney, I believe. Gustave Eiffel, at your service.”

“Monsieur Eiffel, may I present my daughter, Hortense.”

The great man bowed over the hand she offered him.

“Monsieur Gascon here has worked for me since the days when we built the Statue of Liberty,” said Eiffel with a smile. “We are old friends.”

“And this is Mademoiselle Fermier,” said Ney in return, “whose aunt is my most trusted assistant.”

Eiffel bowed to Édith.

“Are you by any chance connected to the great Marshal Ney, might I ask?” Eiffel inquired.

“Another branch, but the same family,” said the lawyer.

“You must be very proud of him,” suggested Eiffel.

“I am, monsieur. His execution was a stain upon the honor of France. I visit his grave and lay a wreath each year.”

After the fall of the great emperor Napoléon, the royalists had sentenced Marshal Ney to be executed. He had faced the firing squad bravely, pointing out that he failed to see that it was a crime to command French troops against the enemies of France. Most Frenchmen agreed, and he had since been interred with every honor in the cemetery of Père Lachaise.

They spoke briefly about the progress of the tower. Eiffel said that he hoped to welcome both the lawyer and his daughter to the top of it after the completion. And he was about to depart when he glanced at Luc.

“You are the brother of this hero, aren’t you? I remember the day when you were lost, and your brother went to look for you.” He put his hand on Thomas’s shoulder again. “This is a loyal fellow. I hope you are grateful.”

“I am, monsieur.” Luc smiled charmingly.

After Eiffel had departed, Ney indicated that they also would be leaving. But it was clear that he was well satisfied with the service that Thomas had performed for him.

“Perhaps we shall see you again,” he remarked to Thomas. “And you too, my young friend,” he added to Luc.

During all this time, Édith had not said a word.

“You are looking very well, Édith,” Thomas said to her. “I hope your mother and your aunt are also well.” Receiving a nod from her he added, “Please give them my respects.” And it seemed to him that, perhaps, she gave him a smile.

He and Luc hung around the place for most of the afternoon. He introduced his brother to some of the men he worked with, and listened to the band. That night, Eiffel had promised a splendid fireworks display from the top of the tower’s platform. But before that, Thomas and Luc crossed over the river and went into a bar to eat. As they finished eating, Luc remarked: “I think that if you asked, Édith would go out with you again.”

Thomas looked at him thoughtfully.

“Why are you encouraging me to do that,” he asked Luc, “when you think she doesn’t like you?”

“Because I think you are unhappy without her.”

Thomas gazed at his brother fondly. Then he gently punched his arm.

“You’re a good fellow, you know,” he said.

“Me?” Luc considered, then shook his head. “Not really.”

“I think you are.”

“No, I’m not a good man, Thomas. In fact,” he paused for a moment, “I don’t even want to be.”

Thomas held up his glass of wine and looked over it.

“I don’t understand you, little brother.”

“I know,” said Luc. “Will you see Édith?”

It was late July when people started to notice that something was wrong at the Eiffel Tower. All Paris knew that it must be completed in another eight months. And it still had to grow another six hundred feet. Yet day by day, as people looked out toward the huge stump from all over the city, it hardly seemed to be growing at all. Rumors began that the great engineer had hit a technical problem. After so much work—and so much publicity—would the great exhibition begin next spring with a huge unfinished stump at the entrance? Was France going to be the laughingstock of the world?

Certainly young Thomas Gascon was worried.

And yet, despite his reverence for the tower and its designer, there were moments when he scarcely cared. He had other things on his mind.

It was the first Sunday in August when he and Édith went out for the afternoon together. She was coming from her aunt’s, so they’d agreed to meet on the corner of the avenue de la Grande-Armée. As the huge continuation of the Champs-Élysées swept down from the Arc de Triomphe toward the west, it reached the sprawling old village of Neuilly before ending at the huge wooded park of the Bois de Boulogne.

It was a hot summer’s day. A perfect afternoon to enjoy the delights of the Bois.

For when Napoléon III and Haussmann had come to the old hunting forest at the western edge of the city, they had known exactly what to do.

“I want something like Hyde Park in London,” Napoléon III had said, “but bigger and better.” Of course.

The Bois de Boulogne was considerably bigger than the English park. At its southern end they laid out the great racecourse of Longchamps, which was reached by a long and magnificent avenue. Together with Chantilly to the north of Paris, and Deauville up on the Normandy coast, it was to offer some of the most fashionable race meetings in the world.

If Hyde Park had the Serpentine water, the Bois had two artificial lakes, joined by a waterfall. There were scores of delightful alleys of trees. In the northeastern corner a children’s zoo had developed into an anthropological theme park where one could admire some of the picturesque cultures of distant lands.

This was where they started.

There were plenty of people there as they went through the turnstile. Some were families from the professional classes, with children in sailor suits and muslin dresses; others were small clerks and shopkeepers, others manual working folk like himself and Édith.

Édith was dressed in a blue-and-white dress which she had enhanced with a small hat with a ribbon around the crown. She carried a parasol. Thomas guessed that the hat and parasol might be discards from Mademoiselle Hortense. The effect was to suggest that Édith might belong to the class above her own. But he had often noticed that women tended to dress up more finely than their men. His own short jacket was clean enough, but his boots had never been shiny even before they became caked with dust. It suddenly occurred to him to wonder how his little brother would have dressed for a day like this.

Édith liked the place. There was a little Oriental temple, and a number of curious animals. But it was also clear that a large area was being prepared for a new display, and they asked a uniformed warden what this was going to be.

“Ah,” he said, with a twirl of his mustache, “that’s for the exhibition, the World’s Fair next year. Biggest show we’ve ever done. An entire village.”

“What sort of village?” Édith wanted to know.

“An African village. Native huts. The lot.”

“Any real natives?” Thomas inquired.

“But of course. They’re importing four hundred Negroes. At the last big exhibition, back in ’77,” he went on enthusiastically, “we had Nubians and Inuit Indians on display.”

“Like a zoo?” asked Édith.

“But of course like a zoo. A human zoo. And do you know, it brought in a million visitors. Think of that. A million!” Thomas had heard about the human zoos, as these exhibitions were called, that were to be found in several countries. But the scale of this one was certainly impressive.

“It will rival Buffalo Bill and his Red Indians,” the warden proudly declared.

As they left the zoo and started walking through the Bois, Édith turned to Thomas.

“Will you take me to watch Buffalo Bill when he comes?”

“Of course,” said Thomas.

He took note of the signal. When he’d waited outside the lycée the week after Bastille Day, he hadn’t been sure what to expect. She’d been cautious, and said she couldn’t meet him until early August, but she hadn’t said no. And now, after only an hour in his company, she’d just asked him to take her to a show the following summer.