It was not yet noon. Some had had a trifle too much to drink. Monsieur Monthier started to cry again, childish sobs that both repelled and touched me. Monsieur Helder’s mustache once again bobbed up and down. I made my way back to our house, where Germaine and Mariette were waiting for me anxiously. They wanted to know what was going to happen to them, to us, to the house. Germaine had been to the market. Everyone was discussing the letters, the expropriation order. About what this would do to our neighborhood. The market gardener pulling his ramshackle cart had asked after me. What is Madame Rose going to do, he had demanded, where is she going to go? Both Germaine and Mariette were flustered.
I took off my hat and gloves and calmly told Mariette to get luncheon going. Something simple and fresh. A sole, perhaps, as it was Friday? Germaine beamed, she had purchased just that from the fishmonger. Mariette and she scuttled to the kitchen. And I sat down, still calm, and picked up Le Petit Journal, like I did every day. Only I did not make out a word of what I was reading, my fingers trembled and my heart was pumping like a drum. I kept thinking about what Madame Chanteloup had said. Her street was safe. It was a few meters away, just at the bottom of the rue Erfurth, and it was to be safe. How come? How was this possible? In whose name?
That same evening, Alexandrine came up to see me. She wished to confer about what had happened that morning and how I felt about the letter. She rushed in as usual, a whirlwind of curls and a wispy black shawl despite the heat, kindly but firmly ordered Germaine to leave us, and sat next to me.
Let me describe her to you, Armand, as I met her the year after you died. I wish you had known her. She is perhaps the only sunshine in my sad little life since you left. Our daughter Violette is no sunshine in my life. But you already know that, do you not?
Alexandrine Walcker replaced the aging Madame Collévillé, as she was also in the flower trade. So young, I thought, when I saw her for the first time, nine years ago. Young and bossy. Barely twenty years old. She stamped around the shop, pouting and making scathing remarks. It is true to say that Madame Collévillé had not left the place looking particularly tidy. Nor cheerful, for that matter. Never had the shop and its premises seemed drabber and darker than that morning.
Alexandrine Walcker. Surprisingly tall, bony even, yet with an unexpected lush bosom that pushed up from beneath her long black bodice. A round, pale face, almost moonlike, that made me at first fear she was daft, but how wrong I was. As soon as she set her fiery toffee-colored eyes on me, I understood. They fairly snapped with intelligence. A small, buttonlike mouth that rarely smiled. An odd, turned-up nose. And a thick mane of glossy chestnut curls elaborately piled on top of her round skull. Pretty? No. Charming? Not quite. There was something very peculiar about Mademoiselle Walcker, I sensed that immediately. I forgot to mention her voice. Gratingly sharp. She also had the odd habit of pursing up her lips as if she were sucking on a bonbon. But I had not heard her laugh yet, you see. That took a while. Alexandrine Walcker’s laugh is the most exquisite, delicious sound you have ever heard. Like the tinkle of a fountain.
She certainly had not been laughing as she glanced into the tiny, dingy kitchen area and the adjoining bedroom, so damp that the very walls seemed to exude water. She ran a finger along the moisture, glanced at it doubtfully, and said, with that sharp voice:
“Has anyone ever tried to do anything about this?”
The meek notary who was accompanying us squirmed, not daring to meet my eye.
“Well,” I said brightly, “we were planning to, at one point. But Madame Collévillé did not seem to bother with the damp all that much.”
Alexandrine Walcker looked down at me with disdain, her eyebrows arched.
“And you are the owner, I believe. Madame…”
“Bazelet,” I stammered. Oh, my dear, she made me feel like a downright fool.
“I see. It is my belief that property owners should bother about damp. After all, you do live here as well, do you not?”
Without even waiting for my answer, she carefully made her way along the rickety steps to the cellar, where old Madame Collévillé used to keep her flower stock. She seemed unimpressed by the whole place, and later I was flabbergasted to hear from our notary that she had decided to take it on.
As soon as she moved into the flower shop, a dazzling transformation took over. Remember how Madame Collévillé’s shop always looked gloomy, even at high noon? How her flowers seemed classical, colorless and, let me admit it, trivial? Alexandrine arrived one day with a team of workers, sturdy young fellows who made such a terrific racket—crashes, bangs and hearty laughter—all morning long that I sent Germaine down to see what the fuss was about. As Germaine ended by not coming back at all, I ventured down myself. I was astounded as I stood on the threshold.
The boutique was inundated with light. The workers had gotten rid of Madame Collévillé’s dreary brown drapes and gray finishings. They had scrubbed all traces of dark and damp away and were painting each wall and corner over with a luminous white. The floor had been polished and fairly gleamed. The partitions separating the shop from the back room had come down, making the place twice as large. I was greeted cheerfully by the young men and could tell why Germaine had taken her time about coming back up, as they were indeed a handsome bunch. And most jovial. Mademoiselle Walcker was in the cellar, bossing another young man around. I could hear her strident voice from where I stood.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, young man, that spot will need another go. Don’t sigh like that, now, you know as well as I do the job is not finished. So get on with it, pray. We haven’t got all morning.”
When she saw me, she nodded curtly, and that was it. Not even, Good day, Madame Bazelet. I sensed I was de trop and took my leave, feeling as humble as a servant.
The following day, Germaine breathlessly told me I must come down at once and take a peek at the shop. She sounded so excited that I hurriedly put my embroidery away and followed her. Pink! Pink, my love, and a pink like you had never imagined. An explosion of pink. Dark pink on the outside, but nothing too audacious or frivolous, nothing that made our house look indecent in any manner. A simple, elegant sign above the door: “Flowers. Orders for all occasions.” The window arrangements were adorable, as pretty as a picture, trinkets and flowers, a profusion of good taste and feminity, the perfect way to catch a coquette’s eye or a gallant gentleman in search of a becoming boutonnière. And inside, my dear, pink wallpaper, the latest rage! It looked magnificent. And so enticing.
I knew nothing about flowers, and neither did you, and Madame Collévillé’s humdrum taste certainly had not taught us anything. The shop brimmed over with flowers, the loveliest flowers I had ever seen: divine roses of the most unbelievable hues, magenta, crimson, gold, ivory; gorgeous peonies with heavy, droopy heads, and the smell in that place, my love, the intoxicating, dreamy perfume that lingered there, velvety and pure, like a silken caress.
I stood, entranced, my hands clasped. Like a little girl. Once again she glanced at me, unsmiling, but I caught a twinkle in those astute eyes. And then it seemed to me that her lips were quivering with amusement.
“So my landlady approves of the pink?” she murmured, rearranging bouquets with quick, deft fingers.
“It is lovely, mademoiselle … Lovely pink,” I mumbled.
I did not know how to treat this haughty, prickly young lady. I felt shy in her presence, at first.
It was not until a full week later that Germaine came into the drawing room with a card for me. Pink, of course. And the most delicate scent emanated from it. Would Madame Rose care to drop in for a cup of tea? AW. And that is how our wonderful friendship started, nearly a decade ago. Over a cup of tea and roses.
I SLEEP NOT TOO badly down here. But even on the good nights, the same dream awakens me. It is a brief but hellish moment, when I am brought back to an agonizing instant I still cannot bring myself to voice and that you know nothing about.
I have been prey to this precise nightmare for
the past thirty years. I must lie very still, wait for my beating heart to calm down. Sometimes I feel so weak that I need to reach for a glass of water. My mouth is parched and dry. This nightmare happened in your day, whilst I slept by your side, but I always managed to hide it from you.
Year after year, the same images come back, relentless. It is difficult to describe them without the fear sliding back to me. I see the hands prying the shutters open, the silhouette slithering in, the crack of the stairs. He is in the house. Oh, Lord, he is in the house. And the scream wells up inside of me, monstrous.
BACK TO THE DAY the letter came, last year. Alexandrine wanted to know of my intentions. She bombarded me with questions as I sat quietly in my chair, my embroidery in my lap.
“But where are you going to go?” she asked worriedly. “To your daughter’s? That is certainly the wisest move. When do you envisage your departure? Can I be of any help?”
I went on embroidering, calmly, trying not to let her guess the turmoil within me, the flutter of my heart. She put her hand on my arm, forcing me to look at her. Yes, she was that kind of person, you see, she demanded full attention.
“Madame Rose, I will surely find another position along the new boulevard, I am not afraid. It could take a while, as I am not as young as all that, getting on for thirty, am I not, and husbandless to boot!”
I had to smile at that. I knew she had enough energy within her to start all over, husband or no husband. She sighed, plucking at a loose curl of hair.
“I’m so fed up of people asking why I have no husband,” she muttered fiercely, lowering her voice so that Germaine could not hear from the next room. “Really, people should stop nagging about why I am not married. Being an old maid does not bother me in the least, I have my flowers, and I have you, Madame Rose.”
I listened to her, as I always did. I had become accustomed to her shrill voice. I rather liked it. When she stopped talking at last, I told her quietly I had no intention of moving. She gasped.
“No,” I went on, impervious to her rising agitation, “I am staying right here. In this house.”
And thus I told her, Armand, about what this house meant to you. I explained you were born here, as your father was before you. And his father, too. I told her this house was nearly a hundred and fifty years old, and had seen several generations of Bazelets. No one else but the Bazelet family had lived between these walls built in 1715, when the rue Childebert was created.
These past years, Alexandrine has often asked about you and I have shown her the two photographs I possess and that never leave me. The one of you on your deathbed, and the last one of you and me a couple of years before your passing away, taken by the photographer on the rue Taranne. In that one, you have your hand on my shoulder, you look terribly solemn, I am wearing a coatdress and sitting in front of you.
She knows you were tall and well built, with chestnut hair, and dark eyes, and powerful hands. I have told her how charming you were, how gentle yet strong, how your soft laugh filled me with delight. I have told her how you used to write little poems for me, how you would slip them beneath my pillow, or in my ribbons and brooches, and how I treasured them. I have told her about your fidelity, your honesty, and that I had never heard you utter a lie. I have told her about your illness, how it came upon us and how gradually it took its hold, like an insect eating away at a flower, ever so slowly.
That evening, I told her for the first time how the house gave you hope during those last, difficult years. Being in the house was the only way to help you feel sheltered. You could not envisage leaving it even for an instant. And now, a decade after your death, I perceive that the house holds the same allurement over me. Do you understand, I tell her, do you see now that these very walls mean so much more to me than a sum I am to be given by the Préfecture?
And, as ever, whenever I mention the Prefect’s name, I give full vent to my withering contempt. Tearing up the Ile de la Cité, heedlessly destroying six churches in the process, ripping apart the Latin Quarter, all for those straight lines, those endless, monotonous boulevards, all the same, high, butter-colored buildings, identical, a ghastly combination of vulgarity and shallow luxury. The luxury and emptiness that the Emperor wallows in and that I abhor.
Alexandrine rose to the bait, of course, as she always did. How could I not see that the great works being done to our city were necessary? The Prefect and the Emperor had imagined a clean and modern town, with proper sewers, and public lighting, and germ-free water, how could I not see that, how could I not agree with progress, with cleanliness, sanitary matters, no more cholera. (At that very word, oh, my dearest, I flinched, but said nothing, my heart fluttering…) She went on and on, the new hospitals, the new train stations, a new opera being built, the city halls, the parks, and the annexation of the districts, how could I be blind to all that? How many times did she use the word “new”?
I stopped listening to her after a moment, and she finally took her leave, as irritated as I was.
“You are too young to understand how I feel about this house,” I said on the threshold. I could tell she wanted to say something, for she bit her lip and thus prevented herself from uttering a single word. But I knew what it was. I could hear her unspoken sentence floating in the air. And you are too old.
She was right, of course. I am too old. But not too old to give up the fight. Not too old to fight back.
THE LOUD NOISES OUTSIDE have stopped for the moment. I can creep around safely. But the men will soon be back. My hands tremble as I handle the coal, the water. I feel fragile this morning, Armand. I know I do not have much time. I am afraid. Not afraid of the end, my love. Afraid of all I need to tell you in this letter. I have waited too long. I have been cowardly. I despise myself for it.
As I write this to you in our icy, empty house, my breath streams out of my nostrils like smoke. The quill on the paper makes a delicate scraping sound. The black ink gleams. I see my hand, its leathered, puckered skin. The wedding ring on my left hand that you put there and that I have never taken off. The movement of my wrist. The loops of each letter. Time seems to slip by, endless, yet I am aware that each minute, each second, is counted.
Where do I begin, Armand? How do I start? What do you remember? Toward the end, you did not recognize my face. Docteur Nonant had said not to fret, that this meant nothing, but it was a slow agony, for you, beloved, and also for me. That gentle look of surprise whenever you heard my voice—“Who is that woman?” I heard you mumble, over and over again, gesturing toward me as I sat stiff-backed near the bed, and Germaine holding your dinner tray would look away, crimson-faced.
When I think of you, I will not drag that gradual decline back to me. I want to think about the happy days. The days when this house was full of life, love and light. Those days when we were still young, in body and in spirit. When our city had not been tampered with.
I am colder than ever. What will happen if I catch a chill? If I fall ill? I am careful as I move about the room. No one must see me. Lord knows who is outside, lurking. As I sip the hot beverage, I think of the fateful day the Emperor met the Prefect, for the first time. 1849. Yes, it was that year. That same terrible year, my love. A year of horror for us two, for other reasons. No, I shall not linger on that precise year at present. But I shall return to it when I feel I have mustered enough courage.
I read a while ago, in the newspaper, that the Emperor and the Prefect met for the first time in one of the presidential palaces, and I cannot help but think what an interesting contrast they must have made. The Prefect and his towering, imposing stature, those wide shoulders, that bearded chin and those piercing blue eyes. The Emperor, pale and sickly, his slight figure, his dark hair, his mustache barring his upper lip. I read that a map of Paris took up an entire wall with blue, green and yellow lines cutting through the streets like arteries. A necessary progress, we were all informed.
It was nearly twenty years ago that the embellishments of our city were imagined, thought o
ut, planned out. The Emperor and his dream of a new city, modeled, you had pointed out over your newspaper, on London and its large avenues. You and I had never been to London. We did not know what the Emperor meant. You and I loved our city as it was. We were Parisians, both of us. Born and bred. You drew your first breath on the rue Childebert, and I, eight years later, on the nearby rue Sainte-Marguerite. We rarely traveled, rarely left the city, rarely left our area. The Luxembourg Gardens were our kingdom.
Seven years ago, Alexandrine and I, and most of our neighbors, walked all the way, over the river, to the place de la Madeleine, for the opening of the new boulevard Malesherbes. You had been gone for three years. You cannot imagine the pomp and ceremony of that event. I believe it would have made you very angry. It was a broiling summer day, full of dust, and the crowd was immense. People were sweating under their finery. For hours we were pushed and crushed against the Imperial Guard lining the premises. I longed to go home, but Alexandrine whispered to me that this was an important scene to witness, as a Parisian.
The Emperor arrived at last in his carriage. Such a puny man, I noted, and even from afar his skin had a yellowish, unhealthy hue. This was not the first time I laid eyes on our Emperor, as you will recall. Remember those flower-strewn streets after his coup d’état? Meanwhile, the Prefect awaited patiently in an enormous tent under the merciless sun. This was not the first time I had seen him either. He too, like the Emperor, was fond of parading, of having his portrait printed in every single newspaper. After eight solid years of demolitions, we all knew, as Parisians, exactly what our Prefect looked like. Or the Baron, as you preferred to call him. Despite the grueling heat, endless self-congratulatory speeches were given. The two men bowed to each other over and over again, and other men were called to the tent and made to feel most important. The oversized curtain masking the opening of the new boulevard swung open majestically. The audience cheered and clapped. But not I.