The Eleventh Year (27 page)

The truth was, of course, that he did possess greater knowledge of his country's politics than his wife did. It was, after all, his business! Tired, Alexandre's thoughts drifted to the doubtful condition of France today. He remembered the presidential election three years before: the Tiger, Clemenceau, had received the greatest blow of his career. After all he had done during the war, the people had turned instead to Paul Deschanel, the dapper President of the Chamber of Deputies. Unable to face the humiliation, Clemenceau had resigned the premiership, and it had been given to Alexandre Millerand, the man responsible for uniting the Centrists, Rightists, and members of the extreme Catholic Right into the Bloc National.

Nine months later Deschanel was in a mental institution and Millerand had replaced him as President. He appointed Leygues Prime Minister and kept the same cabinet. But at this the chamber had balked: Millerand was altogether too strong a President, like the Presidents of the United States. They had dissolved the Leygues government and in doing so had committed a serious error, for there were few outstanding leaders in the Bloc National, and Millerand had the will to push through the goals dear to his party. Leygues was replaced by a remarkable statesman, Aristide Briand, but Alex, like many nationalists, had resented the new premier's soft stand on the issue of German compensations, for Briand had been afraid that France would be left in an insecure state of isolation if she stuck to a hard line.

But Briand too had come and gone. The former President, Raymond Poincaré, was now Premier. He was a solid, uninspiring man, but he represented stability and order, and a strong front against the Leftists. In France, the deputies of the Chambre were elected in direct proportion to the votes they obtained, unless they could form a coalition. Only that way could they get a clear majority. The Bloc National had been founded on such a compromise. The Radicals, who represented the mainstream of blue-collar workers, along with Alex's party of conservative republicans and the ancient faction of Royalists, now all voted in a united front that held the majority. But the Left would not unite. There were those who favored Bolshevik partisanship, and others, such as the more democratic Leon Blum, who did not. Poincaré did not fear a Left that was thus divided. Instead, he concentrated on attempting to make Germany pay her enormous war debt. That he was not strong enough with his own government seemed a minor flaw if he could get the war debt taken care of.

Alexandre had been shocked by Lesley's disagreement that evening at the Marquise Casati's. How could she not see that France would collapse if the
Boches
did not do their duty by the Treaty of Versailles? All his life he had been forced to struggle to even out his father's debts, to curb his mother's and his brother's spending habits. Conservatism made him feel secure, protected from eventual ruin. He feared taxation, thinking it the first step toward Bolshevism and revolution. Thanks to Lesley's dowry and a well-heeled clientele, he no longer had to worry about poverty. One did not have leisure to be both a deputy and a successful attorney. He had handed over his practice to an associate, and his clients felt privileged that their lawyer was now a member of the National Assembly. But he did not feel total security—not so long as his country had not reestablished its economic strength. The latter depended on the Germans' reimbursement, which would be like new blood pumped into a weak, sickened body.

Annoyed as he had been at her remarks that evening, he felt sorry for his impatience with Lesley. More important, he felt a simple need as a man for the woman he loved. He went quietly to her room to be with her. It was late, but he hoped to find her in bed, reading, to catch the look of sudden joy on her face when he entered the boudoir.

He found the room in the half light of a candle. She lay sleeping facedown on the pillows. Gently he eased himself onto the bed and turned her over. The candle flickered, playing with her face, and he was moved by the small pointed nose, the closed eyelids. So young, his Lesley, his wife. Twenty-four, but with the innocent looks of a child.

He wished then, ardently, that she would resolve the issue of children with him; since she wasn't actively pursuing her career, that she would have his child. It made no sense, her reticence about children—it never had from the beginning, and it had now been three years.

He stroked her cheek, wanting to awaken her, suddenly needing to take her in his arms, to rock her back and forth until desire was born between them. But she did not react. Frustrated now, he laid her down, feeling the pinpricks of annoyance. He would blow out the candle, then, and go to his own crisp, empty bed.

As he lowered his face to the dancing light, he noticed the bottle on the bedside table and picked it up. Aspirin. What good did aspirin do, anyway? He lifted the bottle to the candlelight. Those were not the aspirin he knew, those were cachets of veronal, hypnotics. So now she'd gone from aspirin to bromides. No wonder she hadn't awakened.

Uneasy, he pocketed the bottle, blew out the candle, and left the darkened boudoir, allowing the door to swing shut behind him. Inside his pocket the bottle of veronal cachets bounced against the muscle of his thigh. He tossed off the kimono bathrobe on his armchair and slipped into the bed that the chambermaid had warmed with hot coals. A warmed bed was not as good as Lesley's eager, receptive body, but it was, right now, Alex's only comfort.

E
lena spent
little time considering her appearance. It was her most valuable asset, and as an astute businesswoman, she played it for what it was worth. She could remember with poignancy a time when her intellectual faculties had been appreciated as equally extraordinary—when she'd sat in her father's study and listened to the arguing voices of Stolypin, the Minister of Education Ivanov, and the capable Kokovstev, then Minister of Finance. She'd absorbed their words and discussed them with her father afterward. Now she relied on the statuesque proportions of her figure and the Tatar planes of her sculptured face. She sat in the studios of the repulsive Chaïm Soutine, listening with an impassive ear to savage stories of their common Russia, recounted with a lascivious eye; of the outrageous Moise Kisling, rue Joseph-Bara, who drank until the wine dripped from his lips, while painting her nudity, long and stretched out, for the American tourists who purchased art like Ivory soap; of Antonio de Gandara, courtly and grand, who emphasized her dark eyes and full breasts and translated her onto his canvases as neurotic and beautiful; and of the Japanese Fujita whose good-humored wife Fernande served her copious portions of food from her native province of Picardie. In another time and place Elena would never have encountered these people. They would have been removed from her by class, education, religion, or accent. But now they provided her with funds on which to live and made her name infamous in society.

Some were quite interesting. José-Maria Sert amused her. He had painted the walls of the Cathedral of Vich and had led a life that, like his designs, was larger than reality. His wife Misia was a lady, a Russian-Polish-Belgian aristocrat who had once been a gifted pianist and who was now best friend to both Diaghilev and Chanel. Jacques-Emile Blanche, the son of a celebrated physician, delighted her with his gossip, and she enjoyed his lively Sunday receptions. She was well paid. She was a true professional. She posed exactly as directed, didn't speak or ask for food during a session, didn't spread rumors afterward. When a painter tried to approach her sexually, she always turned him down. It would not be politic to accept the advances of one and not another—better to be known as unapproachable when she was working.

She rented a small apartment on rue de Lubeck, off the Avenue du President Wilson, near the Trocadéro. It was badly lit but in a beautiful corner building of white sandstone, with sculpted doors and a balcony. Elena knew that it was imperative to live in the proper neighborhood, and although she possessed only a bedroom, living room, and little dining room, she lived just blocks away from the wealthy Varennes on Place d'Iéna. She could receive visitors without shame, and her maid, though she fell short of maîtres d'hôtel by the simple fact of her sex, was an impeccable woman from Tours, where the best French was spoken. Elena knew what counted and what didn't. Discretion counted; distinction counted; sexual mores outside of work didn't count anymore in postwar Paris, but one's choice of sexual partners did. A lady of breeding slept only with her equals. And Elena knew when and whom to accept. Discreet married bankers took her to Deauville for the weekend, and middle-aged deputies took her to Maxim's and bought her diamonds and furs. She allowed them access to her body in the same spirit that she allowed a painter's brush to copy the graceful curves of her breasts and hips: with detachment, a certain boredom, and the poise of a great actress. She was thirty-two years old, an elegant candle whose wick had rarely flickered.

It was important to be seen, frequently. She enjoyed the opera. Her admirers knew that. And so, toward Christmas of ‘22, an American art collector invited her to join him for a performance
of La Bohème.
She donned her latest gown from Lanvin and a full-length coat of black sable that had been sent to her by the ambassador from Italy, who had offered to set her up in a splendid town house for his exclusive pleasure. She had considered the proposition and then rejected it. As an occasional lover he treated her magnificently and didn't take her for granted. Why trade that in for being owned?

The American was of middle age and reminded her a little of Lesley de Varenne's father. She suspected he had never heard
La Bohème,
and found it boring. In the middle of the first act he left her in the stall to smoke a cigarette; and in the middle of the second she slipped out, smiling apologetically, because she had been up all night before sitting for Soutine and her head was hurting. In the corridor she leaned against the wall and relaxed, closing her eyes and listening to the strains of Mimi's trills, which always moved her.

Suddenly a voice broke into the music: “Elena! Are you all right?” and she felt a cool, strong hand on her bare arm. She shivered, opening her eyes with shock. When she saw Paul de Varenne, she was at once relieved and angry that he had caught her off guard. “Are you going to faint?” he asked, concerned. “You looked so far away….”

There was such a note of incredulity in his tone that she almost laughed. “Don't worry,” she replied teasingly. “You may affect most women that way, but not me. I know you too well!”

“You hardly know me at all,” he countered softly. He was looking at her with a speculative stare that annoyed her. He was intelligent like a street rat, and knew that he had caught Elena unaware. And he was intrigued.

She looked back, appraising his neat brown hair, his large eyes, his well-cut tuxedo. A handsome man, but one to stay away from. But she envied his mistress, Jamie Stewart, because she lived by her talent alone and managed to support herself, and supplement Paul's income too. With sudden jealousy, Elena thought: I'm not an artist, merely an artist's instrument, eminently replaceable. She could feel a sense of waste and of homesickness for the past. Paul was saying, lighting a cigarette: “You're a strange woman. Do you know that my brother can't stand you?”

“Why are you saying this to me?” she asked.

“Because it just entered my mind. Everything I like, he hates. I was thinking of how much I liked you.”

She nodded. “Thanks.” There seemed nothing else to say. She felt uneasy, wanting a cigarette. As if sensing her need, he offered her one and lit it for her. In silence they inhaled, and she felt him leaning against the wall alongside of her. His presence bothered her. He was too animal, his vitality almost palpable. Although they weren't touching, she could sense his body. He was intruding on her privacy and she resented it.

“You're with Bingham tonight?” he asked casually. She nodded. He smiled. “You want me to leave. Why?”

A vein started to throb on her left temple. “Elena,” he said. “I've known you for three years—or is it four? Without me you'd never have met the ones who pay your stipends. Why don't you trust me?”

“For several reasons. First of all, because you're too obvious. You won't let me forget what I owe you. Second, because I don't trust anybody. And last, because you're too much like me.”

He started to laugh. “I can never win with you!”

“And you love it. Jamie adores you and I don't. Jamie pays for your nonsense and doesn't ask you where you've been. But she's intelligent and holds your interest.”

“Jamie,” he said softly, “only holds some of my interest. Don't forget who she is, Elena. At times I find her lacking. She lacks a certain breeding.”

“You can't have everything,” Elena countered dryly. But she looked at him without hostility. He was vulnerable. He led a tangled life. He was insecure. She looked at him and saw a man her own age, who, like herself, wasn't an artist but made his profits from artists. Nobody knew who his father was, while she carefully hid from people what had happened to hers. Paul had been born in scandal and she had run away from it. He was, she thought, extremely attractive. There was such regularity in his features, and yet such a wild desire for living: raw and energetic. He belonged in the wilds of the steppe, or in the Caucasus. “Paris is too civilized for you,” she remarked suddenly.

“I know. But where else could I make a living? And where else wouldn't I be bored?”

His eyes were frank. She found herself looking at his lips. He had a cleanness about him that she appreciated. She could feel her palms moistening, and so she smoked and stared straight ahead of her, concentrating on the wall opposite them. She had to think about going back inside to Mr. Bingham.

All at once Paul's hands were on her shoulders, and he was turning her around. They were of about equal stature, and their eyes met. She could feel her heart beating and the silence between them. Then he kissed her, pressing her against the wall, and she dropped her cigarette on the rug and heard him crushing it out with his boot. His tongue tasted of tobacco and grass. It reminded her of the green, uncut grass of the Crimea, where she had spent summers as a child. She felt her throat constricting. She hadn't been kissed this way by anyone in a long time.

When he finally released her, he drew a question mark in the air. She understood. “Tomorrow, at four o'clock. Come to my apartment.” Then she strode away from him, her cheeks burning and her knees shaking.

Her father had made good decisions and disastrous ones. She thought, trying to block Paul de Varenne from her mind: His daughter has just made a colossal mistake. But at this point it didn't matter any more; the race had already started and the bet had been placed.

J
amie typed
, her thick brown hair pinned up somewhat haphazardly, Paul's bathrobe tied loosely at the waist. Beside her lay a ream of onion-skin sheets, and as she worked, she stopped, pulled out the page in progress, and corrected in longhand an isolated word or phrase that seemed “wrong.”

She had feelings about words, about how they fit together. Words described an atmosphere, they mirrored it as well as the colors on a palette. It wasn't true, she thought, that music was the purest of all art forms, coming from the ears straight into the soul, and that the visual arts were second, needing only partial interpretation before conveying their intent. Writing, she believed, was the purest. Choice and positioning of words gave one an absolutely unambiguous sense of what the artist meant.

It was working. She finally knew it. The novel was taking shape, her characters living and breathing on their own. She pushed a lock of hair from her forehead, realized she was perspiring, and sat back, suddenly drained and tired, her back aching. But it was good fatigue, the fatigue of accomplishment. Melanie was real. Melanie was a little like herself; a girl from the Midwest whose father was unknown, who had created herself from nothingness, gone to Europe to “make good,” and ended up encountering the fascinating people who filled the Paris of today—the high-living Americans, the bohemian French, the exiled Russians. Melanie was also a bit like Elena Egorova, a woman who fascinated Jamie because, in every fashion, they were opposites. Melanie had no particular talent, but she wanted to arrive, to be one of the glorious and the glamorous. She had married a wealthy man without loving him and then fallen in love with a poor young artist. Jamie liked Melanie, understood her. Jamie knew that she herself had talent and also knew that nobody would ever buy her, that her own life would never become a trap like Melanie's and Elena's. She'd seen Elena at parties: extraordinary in her beauty, elegant in a startling way, but not happy and always restless.

The front door was unlocking, and she looked behind her, her face suddenly expectant. She stood up, feeling that marvelous quivering throughout her body that Paul's presence caused her. It was as if her entire being were stretching out to him, the blood flowing out toward his own body, nerves tending toward nerves. One could only love like this once in a lifetime. And even if the love wasn't returned, the sense of belonging was so great, so overpowering, that it made the suffering worthwhile.

“What's new?” she asked, taking a few steps toward him.

“Nothing much. Went to the Serts' this afternoon.” He appeared preoccupied, exhausted, and sank into one of the low armchairs. She went to sit on its arm, to be close to him, and ran her fingers through his hair.

“They're odd people,” Jamie commented. “I don't feel comfortable with them.”

He looked up, smiled briefly. “You wouldn't. Misia holds court. That isn't your manner.”

She asked: “Do you wish it were?”

He raised his eyebrows, considered, then laughed. “No. You are beautifully, uniquely you. The opposite of what I thought could draw me to a woman. Then why is it that I like you so much? Because I do. You know that.”

She forced herself to smile. Yes, of course she knew that— but it wasn't love. At least he was honest with her and wasn't pretending.

“What's new
with you?”
he asked, taking her chin in his fingers and looking at her with genuine interest. He cared.