The Velvet Hours (27 page)

April 1940

I
wrote furiously to my father, but with letters censored, all I could say was this:

Please take leave. Grandmother is gravely ill. Come at once.

Over the next few days, I did not abandon Marthe's side. I listened to her labored breathing, heavy from the medication. She murmured words underneath her breath, as though she was revealing something from her dreams. Once she asked for candied oranges. Another time she cried out for Charles.

I felt her deflating within my fingers. I noticed the contrast from when I clasped Alex's hands, the warmth and pulse that pushed forth from the inside of his veins outward toward his skin. His vitality was palpable. But when I held Marthe's fingers, I had the sensation that it was only a matter of time before she was completely lost to me.

*   *   *

I fell asleep with my head pressed to the edge of her bed, my fingers numb from holding Marthe's hand in my own. Moonlight streamed into the bedroom when I awakened from my slumber. Marthe's eyes were now open. I heard her voice, barely audible.

“Solange.” My name seemed to catch in the back of her throat. She wiggled her hand from mine and reached for the glass of water that was on the nightstand.

She pushed herself up from toward the back of the bed.

“Please go to my dresser and open the top drawer.”

I did as I was instructed and walked toward the back of the room, where her wooden dresser with the ormolu handles and marble top was located. Perched on top were more Chinese vases and other painted figurines.

I opened the top drawer, but saw only folded corsets and other delicate undergarments.

“There is a leather folio underneath.”

I reached beneath the underpinnings and felt the straight edges of the folder and pulled it out.

“Good, good,” she said hoarsely. “Bring it here.”

I carried it over to the bed and placed it between her open hands.

She closed her eyes for a moment and patted it with her palms.

“This contains essential information for you, Solange. Inside are all my important papers and a few select things that are precious to me. You'll find the deed for the apartment, and now also my last will and testament. It's all been notarized by an attorney.”

She struggled to undo the cord tied over the folder. A cough escaped her.

“Here, let me help.” I gently took the envelope from her and unknotted the cord.

The folder was thick with papers. As she searched to find certain legal documents, she placed the other contents to the side.

I saw old black-and-white photographs and smaller scraps of paper, and my eyes strained to glimpse a better view.

“We can look at those afterward, but this is important, Solange. I don't know how much more time I have,” she said in a hoarse voice.

“This describes the contents of my estate. You'll need to bring the deed to my attorney, whose name is listed at the bottom of my will. He has drawn up the paperwork so you and your father will inherit everything that I own.”

“Grandmother,” I protested. “You shouldn't be speaking about these things . . . You'll be fine. You just need to rest.”

“I have always been realistic, Solange. That is why I sold my pearls all those years ago. And I was lucky enough to receive some excellent advice from a banker at one of my salons, who told me to put the money in rubber factories in South America. That is why I still have savings in the bank, even now.” She smiled weakly.

“I am happy to be leaving you and your father something to make your lives a bit easier . . .”

My eyes began to water.

“I have never had an easy time with children. When your father was born, emotionally I was almost a child myself.” She placed the folio to her side and a yellowed, faded envelope slid out from the pile of legal documents and bank forms.

Marthe saw my eyes gravitate toward the envelope. Two black-and-white photographs peeked out from the open flap and a small, unfinished pencil sketch.

She turned her head to see what had captured my interest.

“Ah, yes, the pictures.”

Marthe reached over and pulled the small formal portraits out of the envelope.

“This is Charles,” she said, handing me a photograph of a man in a black wool coat and top hat. He was as handsome as I had imagined, with sharp aristocratic features and dark eyes.

“It is hard to believe he's been gone now all these years.” She pressed a fingertip to his faded image. “He was only forty when he passed away. I became old but he never did.” She placed the photograph down and reached for the pencil sketch.

“He never had the chance to finish this . . .” Her voice broke off. “But I kept it all these years.”

It was the half-finished drawing of Marthe, her profile captured in a few shaky lines.

“You were fortunate to be captured by two wonderful men.” I placed my hand over hers.

She smiled and I could see she was forcing back her tears.

“And the other photograph; who is that one?”

She lifted the second portrait from the bed. This one was not of Charles, but rather of a couple with a small child. The woman, dressed in a somber black jacket and long skirt, held her hand over the child's shoulder. The husband, heavyset with light hair and a full beard, looked wholly different from the elegant Charles. But as he stared into the photographer's lens, his eyes appeared kind.

I studied each of the faces. And I knew as soon as I looked into the little boy's eyes exactly who he was.

“This one is of Louise Franeau and her husband. The boy . . .”

I interrupted her before she had a chance to answer. “The boy is Papa.”

*   *   *

Some people claim the dying can sense when their end is near. And clearly this was the case with Marthe.

“I was not a mother to your father, Solange, but hopefully in
my death I can afford you both some financial security. The money in my bank account will ensure you have a far more comfortable life.”

I clasped her hand tightly. I hated to hear her speak of her death like this.

“But I must ask you something, and I know it will sound terribly selfish . . .” Her voice broke off and she reached for a glass of water from the nightstand.

“This apartment . . . the portrait above the mantel . . . promise me you'll never sell any of it . . . that you'll keep it the way I've always maintained it.” Her eyes wetted. “I know it must sound foolish, but it's important to me.”

I was puzzled. “You want me to keep everything the same?”

“Yes, in this way, the best parts of me will still exist as I had lived.” She reached for the book by her bedside. “
Pour vivre heureux, vivons cachés
.” She whispered it as though it was a motto she had often repeated to herself. “To live happily, live hidden,” and a palpable sense of calm came over her as she said the words.

What I realized at that moment was that my grandmother believed that as long as the apartment remained the way she had created it—her portrait above the mantel, her collection of porcelains, and the other pieces of art she had hand selected—she was convinced her memory would also not be extinguished.

But what she failed to see was she had already ensured her immortality. She had shared her life story with me, and her words were pressed into me forever.

*   *   *

My grandmother died two days later, with Giselle and me by her bed after the doctor had arrived and given her a final dose of morphine.

I did not let go of her hand until after her body had grown cold.

Afterward, I wrote to father notifying him of Marthe's death and imploring him to let me know if he was safe.

But again my telegram remained unanswered.

*   *   *

Giselle said she didn't trust the undertaker to prepare Marthe as she would have wished for her burial. So she packed a small satchel full of Marthe's favorite lipstick, her dusting powder, and her tortoiseshell combs.

She did not ask me to join her, and I was glad for that.

I was grateful for Giselle's offer. She asked if she could use one of Marthe's better dresses, and we both agreed it would be beautiful to send her off in the one of pale lilac that she had worn so often. We also placed Charles's gold pocket watch between her folded hands.

But I noticed her pearls were missing from her neck.

“What happened to the pearls, Giselle?” I had never seen Grandmother without them, and I grew immediately concerned.

“I removed them and put them away for safekeeping.” Giselle walked over to the bureau and lifted a leather box from the marble surface. “Here, I was saving them for you. She would have wanted you to wear them.”

A wave of sorrow passed through me. Knowing that the pearls were in the case made Marthe's death that much more real to me.

I reached for the box and gently opened the lid. The necklace's original emerald-and-diamond butterfly clasp twinkled as if it were communicating a bit of Marthe's mischief.

“Let me help you put them on, mademoiselle,” Giselle offered. “Now you'll always have a part of madame close to you.”

I brought my hands behind my neck and lifted my hair. Giselle draped the necklace around my collarbone, and then fastened the clasp behind my neck.

The pearls felt cool against my skin, and the weight of the small
butterfly clasp took me by surprise. Grandmother almost always hid it behind her hair, as though it were her little secret.

The memory of my grandmother's unique and independent spirit flowed through me as I touched the pearls. The necklace, even though not the original strand Charles had bought her, was a tribute to Marthe's strength and resilience. I would carry her memory proudly as I wore her elegant pearls. I would even keep the emerald butterfly behind my hair, a secret of my own, its jeweled wings resting against the nape of my neck.

*   *   *

It was Gérard, the concierge, who helped make the arrangements with the undertaker.

This gentle man, who had lived in the ground-floor apartment and whose father had once helped bring down a gravely ill Charles from Marthe's apartment, now assisted me with Marthe. The irony did not escape me.

“Anything I can ever do to help you, mademoiselle,” he said as he lifted his hat.

“You are too kind,” I told him. “You are so much more than a concierge, I can see why both Giselle and my grandmother held you and your father in such high esteem.”

“My father always said that the concierge was the gatekeeper to the building.” He paused. “Being a concierge is not just receiving packages. I have a sense of responsibility to be aware of who enters and exits the building. Knowing I could help your grandmother one final time is not only my duty. It is my honor.”

*   *   *

Three days later, as it poured sheets of rain, a dark funeral cortege escorted Marthe to the Père Lachaise Cemetery.

When I called Marthe's attorney, as she had instructed me to do
immediately upon her death, I was informed that she had bought a graveside plot for herself several years earlier. But what came as even more of a surprise to me as Alex, his father, Giselle, and I arrived at the gravesite and stood there waiting for the casket to be lowered into the ground, was that there was already another engraving on the polished headstone.

I walked closer and made out the name.
Odette Rose Beaugiron 1869–1874
. Marthe had never mentioned to me that she had secured a plot in Paris's most elegant cemetery for her sister, or that she had the girl's name etched on the headstone that one day would also be engraved with her own. But now, as I saw Odette's name incised into the dark, wet granite, the gesture struck me deeply and my tears began to flow.

I felt the touch of Alex's hand on my waist. I turned to face him, and just seeing his eyes soft with compassion soothed me.

“Come,” he whispered as he ushered me around the hole of earth that had been excavated in anticipation of receiving Marthe's casket.

I had arranged with the undertaker for a secular burial. Since Marthe had never been married, explaining my own relation to her would expose that she had given birth to my father out of wedlock, making it difficult to secure a priest.

So we stood there, Giselle, Alex, Monsieur Armel, and I. Marthe's final companions, waiting to say our final good-byes, as two men in work clothes hovered close in anticipation of when they would be needed to lower the casket into the earth.

Giselle had arranged to bring the flowers. Clasped between her hands, she held two bouquets. One with roses, the other a tight cluster of violets.

I took the violets, knowing it was Grandmother's favorite flower, and placed them on top of the casket; then Giselle followed, placing hers. We stood there for several minutes before departing, the petals quivering in the rain, and tried to push out of our mind the sight of her casket being lowered by ropes into the wet earth.