ragpickers’ baskets, Vendôme columns and obelisks containing thermometers. I was trying to disappear, to make myself look like any of the men and women captivated by the glittering cornucopia of the arcade.
I followed her out into the boulevard Montmartre and down into the boulevard des Italiens, where she stopped at the Café des Invalides and took a seat at the window. I stepped into the dark corner of a shop doorway across the street. The reflections of carriages clattering by and parasolled women swam through the glass like fish. I crossed the road to see better and leaned against a wall just a few yards to the left of the window. It was six o’clock.
Gutell arrived from the other end of the street, entered the café, and joined Lucienne at the table. She stood to kiss his cheek; he returned the kiss, looking around anxiously. They were clearly not strangers. Through the frame of the café window, I watched him offer her a cigar and Lucienne wave it away. As they talked, the smoke from his cigar curled up and around them. He had the air of a dandy, despite his evident agitation.
Twenty minutes or so later they left the café together and I followed them down narrowing streets until finally they turned into a darkened alleyway, the passage des Petits-Pères, under lines of washing strung from the windows of upper lodgings. I waited at the corner, listening for their footsteps on the cobbles. I heard a bolt being pulled back, the creak of a large door opening and then closing. I glanced down the alleyway. It was empty, except for a cat and three mangy kittensthat were chewing over some rotting bones. The two figures had disappeared. My heart began to pound.
Venturing down the alley, I saw only one door large enough to have made the sound I had heard; it was made of dark wood, intricately carved, with two unpolished brass lion-head knockers, their manes rippling outward. It appeared to be the side door of what once must have been a building of some importance. There had been a sign here, but it had been wrenched off; I could see the holes where nails had been torn away, leaving a square of unblackened stone behind. I looked up. The windows were boarded over.
I sat on a wooden crate outside the door, under the third street-lamp from the east. Perhaps Lucienne would honor her promise after all. Those things she had stolen from me were probably in there, behind that door, in that very building. Despite her explanation, it made my blood boil to think of the damage she had done; how close I had come to losing everything. And so I waited, watching the washerwomen come and go, listening to fragments of their conversations, the humming of flies, and the intermittent screech of swallows gathering on the rooftops.
8
HEN THE DOOR TO THE STREET opened and she came out alone, something broke inside me. All my careful strategies collapsed. I pushed her up against the wall, unconscious of anything except the need to stop her from disappearing again. She did not struggle. I felt the sea-green silk of her jacket against my hands, felt the muscle and bone of her shoulders under my grip. I smelled the faint scent of her sweat, noticed the flushed skin that took the shape of an island on her left cheek. She kept quite still, tilting her head backward slightly, as if she was expecting me to hit her. Suddenly, with my face up close to hers, her mouth there, like that, I became confused and disoriented.
“Everything,” I said, “is ruined. I have no money, no job, and no prospects.”
“M. Connor. You are hurting me.”
“You have destroyed everything for me.” But I let her go all the same. She brushed her hands along her shoulders, smoothing down the folds of her jacket.
“I
told
you,” she said. “I tried to find you. You broke your promise.” She glanced nervously up the street. “You said you wouldn’t follow me. You have no idea how dangerous that was.”
“Dangerous?”
I could hear the sneer in my
I followed her out into the boulevard Montmartre and down into the boulevard des Italiens, where she stopped at the Café des Invalides and took a seat at the window. I stepped into the dark corner of a shop doorway across the street. The reflections of carriages clattering by and parasolled women swam through the glass like fish. I crossed the road to see better and leaned against a wall just a few yards to the left of the window. It was six o’clock.
Gutell arrived from the other end of the street, entered the café, and joined Lucienne at the table. She stood to kiss his cheek; he returned the kiss, looking around anxiously. They were clearly not strangers. Through the frame of the café window, I watched him offer her a cigar and Lucienne wave it away. As they talked, the smoke from his cigar curled up and around them. He had the air of a dandy, despite his evident agitation.
Twenty minutes or so later they left the café together and I followed them down narrowing streets until finally they turned into a darkened alleyway, the passage des Petits-Pères, under lines of washing strung from the windows of upper lodgings. I waited at the corner, listening for their footsteps on the cobbles. I heard a bolt being pulled back, the creak of a large door opening and then closing. I glanced down the alleyway. It was empty, except for a cat and three mangy kittensthat were chewing over some rotting bones. The two figures had disappeared. My heart began to pound.
Venturing down the alley, I saw only one door large enough to have made the sound I had heard; it was made of dark wood, intricately carved, with two unpolished brass lion-head knockers, their manes rippling outward. It appeared to be the side door of what once must have been a building of some importance. There had been a sign here, but it had been wrenched off; I could see the holes where nails had been torn away, leaving a square of unblackened stone behind. I looked up. The windows were boarded over.
I sat on a wooden crate outside the door, under the third street-lamp from the east. Perhaps Lucienne would honor her promise after all. Those things she had stolen from me were probably in there, behind that door, in that very building. Despite her explanation, it made my blood boil to think of the damage she had done; how close I had come to losing everything. And so I waited, watching the washerwomen come and go, listening to fragments of their conversations, the humming of flies, and the intermittent screech of swallows gathering on the rooftops.
8
HEN THE DOOR TO THE STREET opened and she came out alone, something broke inside me. All my careful strategies collapsed. I pushed her up against the wall, unconscious of anything except the need to stop her from disappearing again. She did not struggle. I felt the sea-green silk of her jacket against my hands, felt the muscle and bone of her shoulders under my grip. I smelled the faint scent of her sweat, noticed the flushed skin that took the shape of an island on her left cheek. She kept quite still, tilting her head backward slightly, as if she was expecting me to hit her. Suddenly, with my face up close to hers, her mouth there, like that, I became confused and disoriented.
“Everything,” I said, “is ruined. I have no money, no job, and no prospects.”
“M. Connor. You are hurting me.”
“You have destroyed everything for me.” But I let her go all the same. She brushed her hands along her shoulders, smoothing down the folds of her jacket.
“I
told
you,” she said. “I tried to find you. You broke your promise.” She glanced nervously up the street. “You said you wouldn’t follow me. You have no idea how dangerous that was.”
“Dangerous?”
I could hear the sneer in my
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