Crossing on the Paris Read online

  Vera made the knight walk over to Max and kneel before him. The boy looked at the painted features on the wooden head and nodded sagely.

  “He does look sad,” he said.

  “So the fairy, disguised as a princess, gently touched his cheek and said, ‘Smile, oh Chevalier of Melancholia!’ ”

  “ ‘Ow!’ cried the knight. ‘I can’t do it! It hurts my face!’ ”

  The puppet covered his face and the boy giggled.

  “Yes, you can, my good man. I will help you smile. And even laugh!”

  Vera made the princess puppet do a silly jig, go upside down and do the splits.

  “ ‘Ha . . . ha . . . ha . . . ’ Very slowly the knight began to laugh a slow, rusty laugh. A laugh that had been trapped inside a long, long time. ‘Ha . . . ha . . . ha . . .’ ”

  She made him walk around in a circle, his neck jutting out like a chicken at each “ha.”

  “For the rest of the summer the fairy stayed with him up in the mountains, taking walks, picking flowers, dancing and singing together.”

  Vera made the puppets dance and sing, hitting faint though piercing high notes followed by low, gravelly ones. Max’s eyes shone with delight.

  “When summer came to an end, the fairy said, ‘My dear Chevalier, the spell is now broken! You are free from the curse of sadness and can be happy as long as you live! However, I must leave you now.’ The princess puppet kissed his cheek and began to walk away. ‘No!’ cried the knight. ‘It is you who brings me happiness! I will be sad again if you go!’ ”

  The knight puppet implored her on one knee, his hands lifted in prayer.

  “ ‘But I have taught you to smile and laugh, to love the world, and to feel joy in your heart!’ ”

  The princess puppet pulled him to his feet, then Vera paused; her voice felt too tight to continue. A tear trapped in her lashes, she looked down at Laszlo’s grandson with affection. Enthralled by the story, he was staring at the puppets, his eyes wide, his mouth slightly open. Vera hoped that he would never make another person responsible for his own happiness.

  Emma didn’t know whether she felt touched by the tale itself or Vera’s sorrow in telling it. Remembering the old love letters, written twenty years past, she stole a glance at the elderly lady, wondering how their lives would be now if Vera had read them. Max too looked up at the puppeteer, confused by the story’s abrupt ending.

  “But, what happened then?”

  “Well,” Vera said with a stifled sniffle. “What do you think happened?”

  “The fairy . . . goes off to help other people with her magic. And the brave knight,” Max paused a moment. “He kills a dragon and takes its treasure!”

  “Just so!” Vera cried. “What a clever boy you are!”

  “You tell good stories! And really, you have the best toys!” Max said with admiration, sneaking another peek at the mechanical bank.

  “Thank you, young man. In fact, that is the real reason I’ve invited you over today. I’d like for you to have that old bank.”

  Max’s mouth fell open.

  “Really?” he asked, looking over at his mother for confirmation. When she nodded, he rushed over to the writing table and picked it up with both hands. “It’s heavy!” he said happily. He sat back in his chair, his new possession safe on his lap.

  “You know, Max,” Emma murmured to her distracted son. “Mrs. Sinclair here knew your grandfather Richter.”

  At once, he looked up at his mother, then at Vera.

  “Back when your father was just a little boy. He might have been about your age,” Vera said shyly; Emma’s revelation had come as a surprise. “We met in the mountains one summer.”

  “Like Daisy and the knight!” he said.

  “Oh, we weren’t as exciting as all that,” she said with a sad chuckle. “There was no fairy magic, no dragons killed. But your grandfather was a very fine man, Max. And he would have been delighted to have had a grandson such as yourself.”

  Max looked pleased for a moment, then turned to Vera with a serious expression. “May I ask you something?”

  Vera fidgeted on her chair; surely the boy didn’t think she was his grandmother! “Yes,” she breathed. “Of course, Max.”

  “Do you have any more centimes?”

  Vera threw her head back with a roar of laughter, which in turn caused a coughing fit.

  “We should be going,” Emma said, quickly rising to her feet. “Thank you for everything.”

  Max popped up beside his mother.

  “And thank you for my bank!” he said, cradling it against his chest.

  Still seated, Vera looked at the boy at eye level, then patted his head.

  “I have so enjoyed meeting you, Max,” she said, her voice now raspy. “Thank you, Mrs. Richter, for allowing me to see him.” The two women shook hands.

  When Max and his mother had left, Vera was astounded by the silence in the room. She didn’t hear the foghorn or the wind, only the boy’s absence. She would miss him, she thought, this boy she barely knew.

  “I think your fever has gone up, ma’am,” Amandine chided her mistress.

  After the guests had been gone only a few minutes, the maid had Vera back in her dressing gown, in bed, with a compress on her head.

  “Perhaps,” Vera said, “but I feel much better. Now, even in this storm, I think I can sleep.”

  Preparing the dining room had become a formidable task. Julie, nauseated and dejected, felt so weak that the stoneware dishes had grown surprisingly heavy. Slowly divvying up the plates, trudging from one place setting to the next, she could not stop thinking of Nikolai. She felt every ache in her battered body, felt the weight of the gold medallion on her chest, felt his rejection, and marveled at his idea of love. After her visit to the engine room a slow fury had begun seething inside her, an anger coupled with the shame of her own stupidity. Unfortunately, during a storm like this, it was not able to give her strength.

  Her second table set, she tumbled down on a bench at the third, unable to continue. She lay her head down and gently stroked the rim of the shallow dent in front of her. These were carved into the table to prevent the plates from sliding in bad weather. Putting her childlike hand inside the hollow, she thought she could have used some kind of restraint herself, something that would have kept her from falling. After a moment’s rest, she felt Pascal’s big, burn-covered hand on her shoulder.

  “Juliette!” he said. “You’re white as a ghost! Could you manage to eat something? Or drink? Tell me what you’d like and I’ll make it. Really, it would do you good.”

  She accepted a glass of water and took a halfhearted sip.

  “It seems that most of the passengers down here are feeling like you do,” Pascal continued. “The others will be able to handle tonight’s dinner crowd. You go lie down.”

  “Are you sure?” Julie asked hopefully. “But, what about Madame Tremblay? She’s already scolded me once today.”

  “Let me worry about that. Now, off to bed with you! And hopefully, by morning, you’ll be right as rain. Oh—well, forget the rain part.”

  The cook gave her a crooked smile and patted her head fondly.

  Julie was making her way down the metal corridor when she saw Simone bolt out of the dormitory, rushing toward the dining hall. Since she was already twenty minutes late to work, Julie was surprised to see that she’d taken the time to put on her sister’s powders, thick layers of lipstick and rouge. Maybe she had finally met a beau? One of the third-class passengers, no doubt.

  “Where are you going?” Simone stopped in front of Julie, eyeing her suspiciously. Did she think she was deviously heading back up to hatcheck?

  “I’m not well,” Julie said shortly. “Pascal thinks I need some rest.”

  “Aren’t you just everyone’s pet?” she said. Her bitter remark was followed by a sudden curl of her lips; her voice oozed with sweetness as her eyes narrowed. “Oh, by the way, I saw Nikolai this afternoon. He came up to steerage after the lunch
shift.”

  “What?” Julie put her hand on the wall to steady herself. “What did he say? Did he leave me a note?”

  “Why,” Simone said coyly, starting off again for work, “we didn’t talk about you!”

  Her mouth open, Julie watched the swing of Simone’s hips as she swanned off to the dining room. Breathing hard, Julie stomped back to the dormitory, confused. So, while she was below—looking for him but finding only that nasty mattress—Nikolai had been up here. He had come after all. Drained and queasy, she headed straight to her bed, but was distracted by the mess on Simone’s bunk. It was littered with makeup, street clothes, and a few pieces of costume jewelry. Thinking of her sly, tight-lipped smile, she wondered what Simone was planning. What had they talked about, if not about her?

  Simone’s jealousy was out of control, going from tattling to insults to blatant lies. It couldn’t be true that Nikolai hadn’t asked about her. Had she accepted a note from him, just to destroy it? Or, when he had finally made his way up to third class, had Simone managed to make him forget why he’d come? Last night, he’d said he loved her. But, for him, was one working girl as good as another?

  Julie grabbed her Verne novel from her locker and lay down on her bed. Opening the book, she quickly found the two notes from Nikolai. She was angry with him, but even angrier with herself. Skimming the notes, with their Louis XIV handwriting and terrible spelling, she read the lines aloud in a sarcastic whisper.

  “ ‘When you caught my hat, it was a sign.’ A sign of my foolishness. ‘I hope Mary can melt your heart.’ My brain more like!”

  A letter from Loïc slipped out of the novel and, with a deep breath, she picked it up. She compared the old envelope, addressed in her brother’s cramped hand, sent from the trenches, to the notes from Nikolai. These clean, new ones had been written in the safety of an ocean liner to fool her into his arms. How Julie wished she still had brothers! Four brothers who could straighten out a scoundrel who dared insult their little sister.

  With tears in her eyes, she remembered a discussion she’d had with Loïc when they were about twelve years old. They were sitting on the dock, their legs hanging down, talking about a tale their father had told them the night before. “The Ridiculous Wishes” was about a poor woodcutter granted three wishes by a genie, but who makes such terrible choices that in the end his life is no better than it was in the beginning. There, under the sun, their bare shins occasionally spattered with seawater, they debated what the best, most risk-free wishes would be, ones that no genie could twist into something bad.

  “Gold!” Loïc had said, tossing a pebble into the sea. “How can you go wrong there? Or perhaps to find buried treasure on the banks of the Seine? That way, you could have fun and adventure as well as money.”

  “But in the stories, greedy wishes always bring bad luck,” Julie had countered. “I think the best bet would be to wish for a good job. You make your own money that way.” Looking out into the port, she’d pointed at an enormous ocean liner, the France. “Can you imagine working on board a ship like that? Talk about adventure!”

  After discussing the obvious wish for wealth, Julie had shyly mentioned her other, less practical desire: a man’s love and devotion. Loïc had teased her a bit, then thrown his arm around her.

  “I’m sure you’ll find a good man one day, Julie!” He’d smiled. “And if not, well, you’ll always have me!”

  Julie looked at Nikolai’s notes again, the scrolling curlicues, the flattery, his extravagant gift. It seemed her wishes had come true. She had the exact job she’d thought she’d wanted. However, far from an adventure, she found the work tedious, and life under the waterline, with no sun or air, wretched. As for the love of a man . . .

  She reread Nikolai’s words with a snort, and then balled the paper up in her hand, squeezing it tight. In the end, she had made ridiculous wishes like the woodcutter; she too had been fooled by the genie.

  With the seas in such a state, Constance was growing nervous alone in her cabin. Wiping the notions of sea creatures and impossible loves from her mind, she put on her hat and gloves and headed out. Unsure of where to go, she decided to start with the drawing room, hoping to see those amusing Brits. However, she was disappointed to find that almost no one had turned up for tea, and the ones who had all seemed stern and sullen. (Was everyone imagining giant cuttlefishes and icy waters? Or were they simply fighting impending nausea?) She debated having her hair done again, but, still pleased with her appearance, she didn’t want to risk it. She couldn’t venture outdoors in the storm, and, with the sway it caused indoors, she doubted any exotic sport—fencing or boxing—was taking place in the gymnasium. Running out of options, she eventually settled on the library.

  Arranging herself in a deep-seated armchair, she absentmindedly thumbed through the latest issue of Lady’s Companion and wondered what Serge was doing. Constance was disappointed that he hadn’t checked in on her and could only imagine what interesting procedures he was performing on which patients. She was terribly ill at ease. She couldn’t get the song “When the Lusitania Went Down!” out of her head, no matter how hard she tried to supplant it with the ditty “Fancy You Fancying Me.”

  She gave out a long sigh, tossed the magazine onto the table, then watched it slowly slide off with the roll of the ship. This wasn’t working; the library was too quiet and she had been alone with her thoughts long enough. Constance decided to move on.

  As she was walking past the second-class bar, she heard laughter. She paused for a moment, listening to the muffled sounds of gaiety and remembering again the diversion she’d found with the English group the previous day. Why not, Constance thought to herself. Perhaps this was exactly what she needed.

  Constance opened the door and stepped inside. A chrome bar was wedged into a snuggly fitted room where a mirror was shining through liquor bottles, jiggling and clinking with the sea. Roosting on stools, leaning on the bar, four middle-aged men were drinking cocktails.

  At her entrance, they all turned in unison. Constance hesitated, looked back out the door, then stood still, smiling with embarrassed uncertainty. She hadn’t expected the group to be made up solely of men, but now that they’d seen her (and were watching her still), she felt even more awkward turning on her heel and walking out.

  “Hello! Hello!” The men burst out greetings in American accents. “Come in! Please join us!” they cried together.

  Constance shyly walked up to the bar, where one of the men offered her his stool.

  “I’ll have a cup of tea,” she told the barman.

  “Tea? No, have a cocktail with us! Let us treat you to something special!”

  Crowded around her, they all grinned playfully, their eyes shining. Constance shook her head, protesting mildly, but after a few minutes’ insistence, she finally agreed. After all, she could use the distraction.

  “Right then!” called one in a brown suit. “What would you like? Rum punch? A manhattan?”

  “For a day as wet as this, I’d recommend a dry martini!” said one with gray hair, raising his glass and laughing at his own joke. “Or, how about a white lady for the lady?

  “Hey, Lou-ee!” this one cried to the barman. Constance noticed the familiarity of his tone, as if this Paris bar had been his regular haunt for ages. She too had experienced the strange passage of time aboard ship, each day at sea equaling several years on land. “A white lady for our friend.”

  “Now then, what’s your name? Where are you from? Tell us about yourself!”

  Alcohol, it seemed, made one take shortcuts around routine civilities. Constance, however, was rather pleased to have such a captive audience.

  “I’m Constance Stone, from Worcester, Massachusetts,” she replied with a smile, as her drink was being served.

  “Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Constance Stone from Worcester, Massachusetts,” the gray-haired gentleman said with a wink. “I’m John Crenshaw and this here is Martin, Albert, and Cy. We’re all from New Yor
k.”

  Martin lifted his glass to make a toast: “To friends, old and new!”

  “Here, here!”

  Constance found the white lady, served in a long-stemmed glass and decorated with a cherry and a slice of orange, rather imposing. She balanced it in her hand a moment, trying to decide how to drink it without spilling the fruit into her lap. Finally she took a small sip, and though it was far too strong for her taste, she made a good-natured grimace, raising her glass to her delighted companions.

  Enjoying their martinis, the four men swapped travel anecdotes: amusing misunderstandings in foreign languages, mishaps on the railways, interesting characters met abroad. During their second round, Constance chimed in to tell them about the bohemian artists she’d met in Paris, making them laugh with her humorous descriptions of their eclectic fashions and untidy artwork. She didn’t mention her sister or her mission; none of that mattered here.

  Constance felt agreeably risqué, having a fancy drink (two!) in the company of men. So unlike her! She caught her own reflection in the mirror behind the bar, swinging her glass and grinning like the Cheshire cat. Constance hardly recognized herself. She glanced over at barman Louis and saw boredom in his heavy-lidded eyes, his utter lack of surprise at her inclusion in this group. How refreshing to be unknown.

  Suddenly the ship heaved and Constance, perched daintily on the edge of her stool, tipped over and onto the floor. The man introduced as Albert helped her up with a “No harm done?” but gray-haired John gave her a playful wag of his finger.

  “I think our white lady has had enough!” He laughed at her blush.

  She suddenly remembered her dinner plans and looked at her watch; quarter to seven. Serge was coming for her at eight.

  “Oh my!” she exclaimed, covering her mouth with her fingertips. “I do need to run! But, thank you, gentlemen, for a most amusing afternoon!”

  “Our pleasure,” they declared, tipping their heads, saluting her with a single finger.