Crossing on the Paris Page 3

  “Yeah,” replied his friend, nodding in mock seriousness, “it’s a mystery . . . like, where does the extra meat come from when your pecker gets hard?”

  His friend jerked his head up with a look of surprise, making his tall companion burst into laughter, clapping him on the back. Julie had to look away to hide her smile. Sailors! Had the soldiers in the trenches also joked around and laughed like that?

  Suddenly, a boater hat, perched carelessly on a man’s head down on the bow, was taken up by the wind. As it flew by, Julie stretched out her hand and caught it so effortlessly that the boys next to her stopped laughing at once and stared at her, as if she too had just come out of the sky.

  Julie was so small that people generally didn’t notice her at all, but when they did, they usually stared. Her hair was a remarkable shade of copper and, in sunshine such as this, had the metallic sheen of a well-polished kettle. Her skin, pale and delicate, had the translucent gleam of a pearl, decorated by nearly imperceptible swirls of blue and pink. Her brother Loïc used to say she looked otherworldly, like an angel or a nymph, or like Pygmalion’s statue at the very moment it came to life. But Julie was fully aware that what people were really staring at was the large birthmark that was wedged between her nose and her lip, perfectly outlining that tear-shaped groove in the middle.

  She watched as the boys’ gaze immediately found it, then bobbed back up to her eyes, embarrassed, yet unable to hide their distaste. This is how strangers had looked at her as long as she could remember; she was used to it.

  “Great catch!” the shorter boy said, a few seconds too late.

  She turned the hat around in her hands, shrugging off her skill. “I grew up with four brothers,” she explained.

  Already, the owner of the hat had made his way to where she was standing, brushing it off as if the air had made it dirty.

  “Thank you so much!” he cried. Though he spoke to her in French, his deep voice had a musical accent.

  He accepted his hat back with a small bow, then looked into her face. She noticed that his eyes did not dip down to her birthmark; they had not yet seemed to find it.

  “I bought this hat just this morning. A ridiculous purchase for an engine man.” He smiled and put out his hand. “I am Nikolai Grumov.”

  He was big and tall, reminding Julie of those strapping American soldiers she’d seen during the war who all looked as if they’d grown up on dairy farms, raised on milk and beef. Although he was probably just a few years older than she—maybe twenty-four?—his shaggy brown hair was beginning to recede. His tanned face, she saw, was lightly pocked. All in all, he had a ruggedness she found appealing. She shook his large, warm hand with a smile.

  “Julie Vernet. Pleased to meet you,” she said, stumbling slightly over her words. “I’m also working here on the ship.”

  “You must be in the service crew. We don’t get pretty girls down in the engine room.” Nikolai grinned.

  Julie, unused to attention from men, blushed and looked down. Suddenly, a loud honk blasted out, the first warning that the ship would soon be leaving the harbor.

  “That reminds me! I have to report for duty!” Julie said.

  She picked up her bag and, as she pushed away from the rail, looked back at Nikolai.

  “Maybe we’ll run into each other again?” she suggested shyly.

  “I sure hope so!” He winked, saluting with his boater.

  She scooted past him and went inside, feeling his eyes on her still. Inside the door, she paused and smiled to herself. This voyage might be a new beginning indeed. Julie then realized she had forgotten to wave a last good-bye to her parents. She took a deep breath—it was too late now; she would feel silly going back out on deck with that boy still there—and promised herself to write to them as soon as she had some free time. She put her bag over her shoulder and headed toward the female workers’ dormitory.

  Even though the ocean liner was huge, she knew where to go and made her way for the lower level. During her training classes—her weeks spent at the Centre d’Apprentissage Hôtelier—she had nearly memorized the layout of the entire ship. She had not learned much more, however, as the women on board did the same jobs they did on land: laundry, cleaning, child care, or working in shops and salons. The English lessons, a mandatory course for people working the French Line, weren’t so difficult for the people from Le Havre, which had been overrun with Allied soldiers during the war.

  Julie went down various stairways, the air getting warmer and warmer, the drumming noise from the engines louder and louder, until she arrived at the tip of the bow. This area, which felt the ship’s roll more than any other, was used for storage, equipment, and housing women workers.

  She peeked into the female dormitory and saw a low-ceilinged room filled with bunk beds, lockers, and benches, all riveted to the checkerboard floor. Next to the dormitory, there was a dining room. Dim lightbulbs dangled over long tables and benches, from one slanted metal side to the other. A cheerless place for the female crew to spend their free time, eating, sewing, playing cards.

  As she walked toward her bunk, a few heads popped up and murmured greetings, which were barely audible over the dull drone from the engines below. Most of the women, however, were busily tying aprons and arranging caps, trying to get to their stations without delay.

  Julie smiled at the women she passed. At a glance, she could guess the jobs they’d been hired to do. The pretty girls, with stylish hairdos and delicate hands, obviously worked in the public eye, in the concessions, selling tobacco or flowers. Others, attractive still, but in a more practical way, were probably hairdressers or manicurists, or maybe maids or nannies for the second-class passengers who weren’t traveling with their own. The big, strong women were most likely washerwomen; their faces looked watery and worn, as if they too had been left to soak.

  Julie, considered too unsightly to work with the genteel passengers and too small to wash clothes, was put on maid service for the steerage class. Just as well. We are neighbors down here under the waterline, no need to go rushing about, all over the ship.

  She sat on her bed and opened her bag, thankful she’d been assigned a lower bunk. She brought out an intricate piece of white lace with a stylized V in the center and put it gently on her pillow, smoothing it with her hands. It was from her mother, a lace maker, and dated back from when Julie was a little girl. She could still see her younger mother tatting at the window and hear the sounds of the bone bobbins—click, click, clack—as she wove, plaited, and looped the strands together. That was before she’d gotten the arthritis.

  Almost everything—the collars, cuffs, coifs, the linens of all kinds—had been sold. Of course, that was the whole point! Though her work was done for the wealthy families of Le Havre, her mother managed to save a few pieces for her children. This one she’d intended for the future bride of her eldest son. Then came the Great War.

  Mme. Vernet lost her four sons, a boy each year, in chronological order. Jean François, the eldest, was killed immediately, in Lorraine, the very first week of the war. Émile fell at Ypres, then Didier at Verdun. They lost Loïc in 1918, right before the armistice. Although the war was won, the Vernet family had been defeated. Without a proper owner, this piece of lace was given, without ceremony, to her youngest, her daughter.

  “You might as well have this, Julie,” her mother had sighed, handing over the lacework, folded up in a tiny square. “Seeing as you’re leaving home.”

  Julie stored her other things in her locker—toiletries, undergarments, a book stuffed with letters—then pulled out the brand-new black uniform, so starched it smelled scorched. She thought again of her parents, also in black, standing silently on the dock, not touching each other. This is how it had been since they’d lost Loïc, their final sacrifice to the war.

  “Mademoiselle Vernet?”

  Julie looked up to see the frowning face of a thin, lined woman of perhaps fifty. She looked from Julie to her clipboard and back again. They were
alone in the dormitory; all the other women had reported for duty.

  “Yes?” Julie gave her a hesitant smile, causing the woman’s brow to furrow. She decided on a solemn look.

  “Yes, ma’am. I am your superior here,” she said, standing straighter. “Madame Tremblay, head of housekeeping.”

  “Sorry, ma’am.”

  “What are you still doing in here?” Mme. Tremblay tapped her foot impatiently. “Come now! Get your uniform on! You should already be in the steerage common room.”

  “Yes, of course. Ma’am,” Julie added quickly, as the head housekeeper whisked out of the dormitory.

  Angry with herself for having caused a bad first impression, she quickly buttoned her uniform, then began to put on her crisp white cap. Within seconds, Mme. Tremblay popped back into the dormitory.

  “Get a mop out of the utility closet. There’s some vomit here in the corridor,” she said, her sharp chin pointing toward the right.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Julie murmured with a slight frown. Having been hired to work in steerage dining, she hadn’t realized mopping vomit would be part of her job.

  “The ship hasn’t even left yet and someone’s already thrown up!” Mme. Tremblay rolled her eyes, then disappeared again.

  As she was tying her apron, Julie thought she could sympathize. The heavy, unsavory air smelled as if it had already been breathed in by others, by people with tooth decay or head colds.

  Suddenly she heard a muffled cheer from the decks. The Paris was pulling away from the pier, leaving the harbor. She felt a sudden lurching, as if the tide were tugging at her center of gravity; as big as it was, she could feel the ship moving, especially from there at the bow, right above the engines. Even as an island girl, she was unprepared for this motion, this roll, and held fast to the metal bedpost. Already too warm, Julie began breathing hard.

  Vera lay nearly motionless on the bed with her dog at her feet, her eyes closed, trying to ignore the racket from the deck. Suddenly, it was amplified to its highest possible pitch, with firecrackers, hoots of laughter, and some three or four cheers repeated manically:

  Bon voyage! Vive la France! Vive l’Amérique!

  She understood what this meant and tried to feel, through all the liner’s layers, the gentle motion of a ship leaving port. Vera thought she could detect it—like once in Crete when she felt the smallest shimmer of an earthquake—and was relieved when, little by little, the excited crowd drifted away from the decks, looking for the next bit of adventure.

  This was her tenth crossing, her tenth great transatlantic ship. Sitting up on the bed, she opened her eyes and looked around her room, her lodgings for the next five days. She raised her eyebrows in surprise at the sight of a telephone on the table, then sighed. This was not nearly as majestic as the France had been on her last crossing, eight years before. Inspired by the palace at Versailles, that elegant old steamer, with its gilt fireplaces, beautiful beveled mirrors, and carved dressers was a floating piece of art. This ship was much more modern; the lines were sleek, simple, and certainly not Vera’s idea of sophistication. Another sign of the times. Or the fact that she was getting old.

  She bent over and scratched her sleeping dog under her graying chin. They had gone through a similar evolution, she thought, the same aging process: passionate in their youth, haughty and irascible in middle age; now they were both prone to sighing and lethargy. A black Scottish terrier, she had started her life with the dignified name of Bête Noire. Charles thought it a pretentious name for such a little trollop, and she was soon demoted to Bibi.

  She thought again of Charles, and how pleased she had been when he had insisted on taking the train to see her off in Le Havre. After all the years she had lived in Paris—thirty-one to be exact—Vera had scores of acquaintances, was a member of various circles, and had many loyal devotees. But Charles was the only person she would miss.

  She’d met Charles Wood when she first arrived to Paris. A cousin with British in-laws had given her a letter of introduction and he’d invited her round for tea. Fashionable and attractive, they were both just over thirty, single, independent, and sparkling with joie de vivre. That same day, they went from having tea to dining out, then off to the cabarets for champagne and dancing. They spoke honestly about their lives—the very first time they met! She told him about her absent parents and poorly chosen husband; he told her about his aristocratic but emotionally crippled family. When he took her home at dawn, he whispered in her ear: “My dear Vera. I suppose you could call this love at first sight. Ah, if only you were a man!” provoking a fit of laughter that left them both with aching sides.

  For decades, Left Bank society considered them a couple—at least on seating charts for dinner parties—and they were a highly sought pair. During the war, they had even lived together. Too old to serve Britain, Charles had served Vera, foraging good cuts of meat and coffee from his black market sources, keeping her in firewood, holding her close during zeppelin air raids over Paris, and always, always making her laugh with his dry, unpredictable wit.

  After all her experience with the opposite sex—an absent father, a temporary husband, a dozen or so lovers—it was Charles who held uncontested claim to her heart, in spite of the fact that he wasn’t attracted to women. It was not an unrequited love; it was mutual, rich and true. Of course, like Vera, Charles had his lovers. Sometimes he would disappear for weeks at a time, only to return with a devilish grin and occasionally, depending on whom he had been with, booty to share: an ancient bottle of Bordeaux; a crate of pomegranate; chocolate truffles, handmade in Bruges. Unlike Vera, who enjoyed discussing her male friends with him, examining their failings and virtues, Charles never spoke about his secret companions. Both of them understood, however, that lovers were transient. The solid, lasting relationship had always belonged to them. Vera thought of him standing on the dock, his last sweeping kiss, and bit her lip. What in the world was she going to do in New York?

  Glancing around the room again, she saw her bags had been delivered, neatly placed in the corner. The set of six trunks constructed a pyramid, with a triangular carpetbag forming the apex. Vera was sentimental about these old steamer trunks—over twenty-five years old by now—and would not consider replacing them. Her young secretary, Sylvie, oblivious to their charm, had periodically urged her to buy new ones, but Vera had long resisted. Their beige and brown sides were covered with stickers from journeys past—ports along the Mediterranean and the Scandinavian seas as well as those of the French Line: New York/Le Havre. Most of these stickers were now faded and half-torn, the newest ones already two years old.

  In the past, she would have needed most of these trunks just for the social activities on board, where one would change clothes—for meals, strolls, dancing, games—at least five times a day. On this crossing, Vera had no intention of wasting such time on her toilette, but had needed the larger trunks to move some personal items from her Paris home. She did not ship anything back to New York, deciding to limit her packing to the space available in the weather-beaten trunks. These past few years, especially after the war, she had discovered that things—most things, anyway—were not so important after all.

  Amandine, already half-asleep in the armchair, suddenly shifted, then licked her dry lips with closed eyes. What a pathetic little threesome we are, Vera thought, listening to Bibi’s snores. Three old ladies, torpid and sluggish, feeble bears in a perpetual winter.

  “Amandine,” Vera called softly, rousing her at once. “Pass me the bag, please. Yes, the one with the books. Now, you may go and get yourself settled in. Your room is right next door, none of that running from first to second class on the Paris.”

  She smiled to herself, imagining slow Amandine at a full run.

  “You’re sure you don’t need my assistance?” the old servant asked. “I could hang your dresses, unpack your shoes . . .”

  “No, thank you. I’m not going to worry about clothes for now,” Vera answered. “Just the thought bores me! W
hy don’t you relax for a while? I’ll let you know if I need anything.”

  Amandine went to the conjoining room, giving Bibi a pat on the way out.

  Vera began unpacking the carpetbag. First, she took out a small portrait of herself, framed in dark mahogany. Vera gazed at it, remembering the day she’d had it done. She was in her late thirties then, and Charles had suggested—dared her, more like!—she sit for that dwarfish painter with the enormous lips. Quelle aventure! The two of them had climbed the steep hill to Montmartre in the rain to meet the grotesque little man, and they all ended up getting quite tight on anisette (or was it absinthe?!). He had produced, in just an hour or so, an oil pastel likeness of her.

  That painter (what was his name again?) later became quite famous and then died young, much younger than she was now. He hadn’t liked them, had sensed they were mocking him, and had overcharged her (at least he reckoned he had). And, at the time, Vera hadn’t liked the drawing. He had exaggerated all her defects—her long nose, angular face, sharp chin—deriding her in return. But now, in the drawing, she saw the woman she used to be—attractive, proud, self-possessed, somewhat mischievous, even—and had a great affection for it.

  She leaned the framed picture on the bureau in front of the mirror, then slid it to the side, taking in both images—the drawing and her reflection—at the same time: the woman in her prime alongside the woman in decline. Vera looked at the latter critically; this thinness had exaggerated her wrinkles, leaving her skin with nothing to do but to hang. She tilted her head back slightly and looked at her neck. “You have a lovely neck,” her grandmother had told her once, the only compliment she had ever given her. Now it looked as if a group of tiny adventurers had scaled it and, from the hollow under the chin, had thrown a rope ladder down to their less vigorous companions. What might they do once they all reached the top? Paddle up the ear canal into her brain? She imagined minuscule Verne characters manned with ropes and pickaxes, in search of a center. It certainly felt that way more and more these days.