Afternoons in Paris Read online

  “A favor to Jules. His older sister has been most kind to me.”

  “Jules is a wounded soul,” she observed.

  “At last recovering. But he could not work both machines. And learning construction skills will be invaluable for me.”

  “A young man of good sense.”

  I thought that a man of any sense would avoid avant-garde theater. “I wanted to ask you about Inessa.”

  Now her expression, which had been tired and genial, her after-performance look, became sharp and interested.

  “Do you think she was ever onstage before?”

  “You mean, do I believe that she was a famous actress in old Russia or somewhere else to the east?”

  I nodded.

  “No—at least not on the stage. Film?” She pursed her lips and shrugged. “Maybe film, because the camera loves her. Even her press photos are magical.”

  “I saw a lot of Russian films in Berlin and many German productions, too. I know I would have remembered her face.”

  “Exaggerating one’s credits is not unheard of in our profession. But to be able to stand onstage virtually speechless as Human Hope”—here Mademoiselle gave a throaty laugh—“and not get booed off the boards, that is a gift of the theatrical deities. Too bad that the talkies are threatening. She has a face for the screen but not yet a voice.”

  “I think she may be a wounded soul, too,” I said, for even without words, Inessa projected a variety of emotions, all grounded by what might have been fear or sorrow.

  Mademoiselle Berger nodded. “Ah, perhaps that is why she and the eccentric Jules are now such friends.”

  “Jules is a romantic.”

  “Well, he has found himself a true belle dame, a woman of mystery, comme Cendrillon.”

  “Let us hope she is not sans merci,” I said.

  We had reached the nearby Metro, and Mademoiselle Berger stopped to light a cigarette before saying good night. I could see that her only concern was that interest in our mysterious Inessa should keep the troupe employed. I was in a different situation, having promised Madame Dumoulin I’d watch out for Jules. Building the machines and working them in performance and being admired were all good for him, but I was beginning to worry that Inessa might be another matter.

  Jules had been safe enough dreaming of his favorite entertainers, pasting their pictures in his scrapbooks and painting them on his kites. Now a genuine star had landed on his particular piece of earth, and he was entranced. He was with her as often as he could manage, and where Inessa was concerned, he showed a good deal of ingenuity. Nearly every afternoon, she had interviews and photo sessions, and Jules was her interpreter, her guide around Paris, her protector from overeager journalists and columnists.

  Come evening, they were at the theater. At the last possible minute, Jules stuck his head in her dressing room to wish her luck. He was always out of his machine in time to kiss her hand and to congratulate her after every performance. I could see that she trusted him and enjoyed his attentions, but as far as I could tell, she remained safe on her pedestal, or perhaps in her pumpkin, for Mademoiselle Berger’s reference to Cinderella was apt. As soon as the final curtain came down, Inessa threw her coat over her costume, stuck her feet into a pair of pumps, and without even removing her stage makeup, clattered down to the alley and into the cab that was invariably waiting for her.

  Who was inside? I skipped my bow one night and went straight out. The cab was already there. I pretended a great and absentminded rush, and I had the door open before the cabbie could protest that it was occupé. A tough-looking fellow in a rumpled jacket and a soft cap sat in the rear seat. He did not look flush enough to hire a cab, never mind to keep the meter running while Mademoiselle Inessa finished her curtain calls. His cap and the dark interior hid his eyes, but I caught a glimpse of a strong unshaven jaw and wide, thin lips.

  My heart jumped; the clothes, the jaw, and something about his rawboned frame reminded me strongly of both the lethal Igor and one of the Cossacks I’d seen near the Beehive. “Excusez-moi!” I drew back in the hope I would not be recognized.

  “This cab is taken,” he said. His French was heavily accented, and the accent was Russian. I apologized again and shut the door, just as Mademoiselle Inessa hurried from the theater. She gave me a wild, almost imploring look, then slipped inside. The cabbie immediately put the taxi in gear and pulled away.

  “Who is he?” I asked Jules the first time I managed to speak to him alone.

  “Who is who?”

  “The man who collects Inessa every night after the perfor­mance.”

  “That’s Alexi. Inessa’s brother.”

  “Her brother?” Their appearance, manners, even her excellent accent and his coarse speech all told against this. He looked like a street thug; she looked like a princess. I couldn’t believe they were related, and I wondered if Jules did—or if he just wanted to.

  “Much older,” he continued quickly. “Very protective. The rest of the family was killed or exiled, which amounted to much the same thing at the time. Of course, their money was gone and their assets appropriated, so there were all kinds of difficulties leaving the Soviet Union. Alexi managed to get her out via Istanbul.”

  “She couldn’t have done much theatrical work in those conditions, could she?”

  “I believe that she was onstage as a child. No matter how bad the conditions, there was always theater. Aristocrat or commissar, there’s always someone who can pay.”

  I saw he was so completely enthralled that logic, even plausibility, had gone out the window. My erotic life being much less elevated, I found it hard to imagine his state of mind or to decide if merging lust and love in such a way would be desirable. And what about Inessa, whose heart was a closed book? I began trying to make conversation with her, but although I could see that she understood well enough, she responded only in the rote phrases that Jules had taught her would be acceptable for the press.

  “She feels safe that way,” he explained. “So many people want her to do this or that. Want her to say something interesting or shocking. Want to know her politics.” He sniffed. “I think Inessa would be happy never to hear of politics again: Red, white, Communist, Socialist, capitalist, czarist. All the same.”

  “And the brother?”

  “It’s not surprising that he has some rough edges. He was old enough to see action toward the end of the war, and he fought later near Odessa.”

  My thought was that more likely he was a gangster first to last. “It must be hard for them—financially, I mean.”

  “Inessa has patrons willing to take a chance on her future and help her now.”

  I wondered if that included Jules himself and guessed it probably did. Still, to be out in the world and feted for his work had to be a boost for him. Madame Dumoulin, who shared my anxieties, said that helping the young actress might be a good thing. “One forgets one’s own sorrows in someone else’s,” she said, as if she’d had experience along those lines.

  Besides, I had plenty to do with the machines and being the apprentice and charming Philip and enjoying the excitements of Paris. I’d have continued to mind my own business if I had not arrived at the theater one evening to hear Inessa say, “. . . hours and hours AND HOURS with Monsieur Matisse. I am exhausted.”

  Matisse! One of the art gods of the moment. “You’ve met Matisse?” I asked, deeply envious.

  She turned around and saw me. “Bien sure! Francis. This is the second time I pose. First time, not so bad. He takes a brush and black ink and—” She swept her arm in the air, expressive hands, flexible wrist, to show how the artist had covered a big sheet of paper. “There I am! Tres jolie.” A big smile.

  This was more animation than Inessa had showed me before. “You have been honored. Matisse is a great artist.”

  “Of course,” she said. “Without question. But today
was a portrait in oils. I am sitting still for hours in the smell of the—what is it?”

  “Turpentine. It is used to thin the paints and clean the brushes.”

  “It gives me the headache,” Inessa said. “I thought in Paris one dances and sings and enjoys life. In Paris, I sit all morning for painters, breathing up poisons and ruining my complexion. At night, I stand onstage and look to the heavens. I am forever tiring my derriere or my legs. I want to dance!”

  She took a nimble-footed twirl around the stage, provoking Jules to whistle one of the dance numbers so popular in the cabarets and dance halls. He held out his arms, and Inessa, already swaying to the tune, joined him to circle the stage in a lively foxtrot.

  “Keep the beat, Francis,” she called and broke off to snap her fingers until I began to clap in time. Around and around they went before she stopped and said, “Whistle me a Charleston.”

  “I can’t dance and whistle,” Jules said, laughing. But he found enough air to pipe up a jazzy American number. Inessa took center stage alone, raised her arms, and calling, “Clap, Francis,” launched into an enthusiastic Charleston, hair bouncing, feet flying, her face radiant. She continued until Jules ran out of air, and I lost the beat.

  “Oh,” she said, laughing. “I need the jazz band and the Negro musicians.”

  “Instead,” I said, “you have painters.”

  “A dozen at least,” she said, joking, though a little shadow came over her happy face. “I must not talk of them,” she added quickly, “but I would trade them all for a dance band.” She snapped her fingers again in a jazzy rhythm and moved gaily across the floor.

  I thought that this was the real Inessa, not the timid and nearly speechless Human Hope or the press sensation with her memorized phrases. I was enjoying her carefree dancing and thinking that she might indeed have a future as an entertainer, before her phrase “a dozen painters” registered. That one or two might have seen the play and admired Human Hope was not unimaginable. A dozen was another matter entirely. I had a memory of my now-French uncle opening his notebook to write down the names of painters, and saying, “Stick with the gilt-edged ones, my boy.”

  It wasn’t possible that there was a connection. What did my uncle know about art but what I’d told him? And how could the seedy-looking Claude convince not one but a dozen painters to tackle a portrait—almost certainly for free? It was ridiculous. My fondness for Jules and my anxiety about his unsettled mind had set my own imagination loose.

  I looked at Inessa and Jules, dancing a slow waltz this time, happy for the moment in spite of her thuggish brother and the precarious life of Les Mortes Immortels and his wounds. But this time there was no lift in my heart. My uncle Lastings, in whatever disguise, existed on the improbable. As he told me in Berlin when I questioned a phony aid organization: It could have been real. My uncle Lastings could imagine whatever would bring him profit.

  It wasn’t likely, of course it wasn’t, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that my now-French uncle had entangled Inessa in one of his schemes. That could be dangerous for her, and if I was right about the thuggish Alexi, dangerous for Jules and for my uncle, as well.

  Chapter Six

  Philip liked to play at being jealous. I like older men, I really do, but I find them complicated. My taste is for sex plain and simple—well, maybe not entirely simple—but I can do without the drama, the make-believe, the heavy emotions. When it comes right down to it, I trust the body more than the mind.

  But Philip, as I said, liked to play at being jealous, which complicated my attempts to locate my uncle. Perhaps I should just have trolled the Dôme, Le Select, or, more likely yet, the Parnasse Bar with its demi-celebrity barman. But after seeing Alexi, Inessa’s supposed brother, I preferred the indirect approach. “Are we going to go look at that boule chest, Philip?” I asked one night.

  We were having an after-theater supper. Philip thought the play was rubbish, but he was thrilled to be connected to a theatrical sensation, and yours truly was thereby elevated from pickup to trophy. I was now always introduced not as, “Francis, who’s studying design,” but as “Francis—with Les Mortes Immortels. He works one of the machines, don’t you know.” This provided an opening for a discussion of the play—impenetrable—and of the machines—formidable—and Philip was sure to put in that “Francis worked closely with the set designer, too, and helped scale up the models.” From being only a step up from a rent boy, I was now on my way to artistic lion.

  Though I thought it would be a good idea if Claude was contacted by my friend Philip, he was having none of it. “Oh, I think not. Not with your present celebrity. Old Claude has an eye for a pretty boy. And especially a pretty boy with talent!” He gave me a roguish look and squeezed my knee.

  “What would a boule chest be worth in London?” I asked, hoping to distract him, because I knew quite well what he wanted: a jealous scene that would end with my leaving in a temper—most unfortunate as we had not consumed the promised mousse au chocolat that I had spotted on the dessert trolley—followed by frantic apologies from Philip and concluding with reconciliation in his big bed at the Hotel George V. If I had my way, I’d have gone right to the hotel and enjoyed myself before ordering up a mousse au chocolat from room service.

  Now Philip frowned. “Quite a bit. For the right customer. The Right Honorable—” He caught himself at the last moment. He did love dropping names, a habit at odds with a dealer’s necessary discretion. His compromise was to mention titles only or give a description focused on the client’s possessions, as A lady I’ve dealt with for years. Sèvres porcelain, my dear, famille rose by preference; she simply can’t get enough of it, accompanied by a smirk and a titter. “The Right Honorable loves ormolu. But it has to be the real thing.”

  I asked about this distinction.

  “Done by mercury plating. That’s the real ormolu, and it’s marvelous, gives a satin coating like no other. The French government outlawed the process early in the last century. Why? My dear, it was so toxic the workers took ill and died, but the plating was superb.”

  Though it sounded appalling, I said that I’d like to see some of it. Philip’s face grew stiff, but I’d known him long enough to spot the twinkle in his eye.

  “You young rascal, you fancy Claude! A bit rough and too long in the tooth for my taste, but for the undiscerning—”

  I saw there was nothing for it. I protested loudly enough and long enough to arouse real suspicion. The little scene culminated when I threw down my napkin and, with a regretful glance at the dessert trolley and an apologetic shrug for the maître d’, stormed out of the restaurant. Once on the street, I looked about for a little park or Metro stop or somewhere convenient for Philip’s semitearful apology. I had the routine down pat.

  Late that night at the George V, I judged the time was right. “I really should see a genuine example of ormolu. To complete my education.”

  “Certainly, Francis,” Philip said, finishing the last of his champagne—our quarrels tended to end with champagne. “I’ll give Claude a ring. Mind you, I’m not sure I’ll buy anything from him. I suspect he’s a bit of a bounder.”

  I could only add amen to that.

  The next afternoon, though, we arrived at a little close off the boulevard Saint-Germain, a rather better address than I’d expected. The main building was a respectable town house; the stable behind had been converted to a showroom, probably with an attached workspace, for there was a strong smell of thinner and oil paint.

  Claude met us at the door wearing a gray worker’s smock as if he’d just been polishing up the stock or doing some refinishing. He seemed momentarily surprised by customers but quickly switched into full dealer mode. “Welcome, Philip! And Francis, isn’t it? Come in. We’re in dishabille at the moment, what with moving in. I have a few choice things. Choice as you’ll see. Though for you, Philip, only the boule chest will do.”

>   That item was standing by itself, plump, shiny, and curvaceous with the famous—and to my mind, sinister—ormolu running up its legs like decorated stockings on a showgirl. It was certainly a fancy piece, and Philip did it justice, poring over it like a surgeon with a tricky op to prepare and pointing out the beauties of the inlay and the sheen of the metalwork.

  I feigned an interest I didn’t possess and slid away as soon as I could to look at the other pieces, chairs and tables mostly. I didn’t need an expert eye to see that they were vastly inferior to the boule chest that Claude and Philip were attempting to date. Philip thought post-1830, and Claude, quite naturally, was holding out for a date before the 1830 mercury process prohibition. I guessed that my uncle had purchased a load of cheap goods, then added the one genuinely valuable piece to lend luster to the rest.

  I worked my way through a thicket of chairs until I spotted a doorway open just a crack. The source of the paint smell? I glanced behind me. Philip had commenced what looked to be serious negotiations for the chest, and Claude was occupied. I eased the door open. Inside were two big open racks filled with canvases. From the smell, they were still drying. And the subject matter? I took a step inside but, as always, my uncle was watching his perimeter.

  “C’est privé!” called Claude, who wasn’t pleased at all.

  “Je suis désolé,” I said, but not before I’d caught a glimpse of a woman’s face done in Matisse’s bold purples, reds, and blues. Could that swath of creamy white be Inessa’s fair hair? I thought so, though at a quick glimpse I couldn’t be sure. “Your paintings are as interesting as your furniture. I couldn’t resist a look.”

  Despite this apology, he hustled over and locked the door, while Philip, who likes to show off his expertise, began discussing paintings as commodity. “Much more difficult to move,” he said. “Horse and hounds, stately homes and fine landscapes—I will take a flyer on those if the frames are good. Ancestor portraits? Your nouveau riche will sometimes go for a noble face to put over a mantelpiece. Sometimes.”