Paris: The Novel Page 21

  They reached the top floor of the house by a steep and narrow staircase. The passage was windowless, though some light came from a skylight at the end. Édith called out her aunt’s name a couple of times, but there was no reply. She turned to go back down the narrow stairs. But just before he followed her, out of curiosity, Thomas opened the nearest door.

  The room was almost bare. The window, which had surely not been cleaned that year, lacked any curtains. In several places, the walls were stained with damp. In the middle of the floor was an iron bedstead, painted black, covered with a red blanket under which, like a discarded garden rake, lay a bony old woman, whose gray hair hung in thin strands over the side of the horsehair mattress. She was very still. If she breathed, she made no sound. There was dust on the floor, but not a crumb to tempt a mouse. One thing, however, caught his eye. On the wall opposite the bed, in a thin metal frame, hung a cheap print of a Virgin and Child behind glass that had been polished till it gleamed.

  “Thomas,” Édith called, “what are you doing?”

  “Nothing,” he said, and closed the door. “Who’s that in there?”

  “Mademoiselle Bac. She’s very poor. Come.”

  By the time they got back to Aunt Adeline’s quarters, the lady in question had arrived there. She gave Thomas a brief look and having, he suspected, seen everything she needed to know, asked him to sit down.

  She went to the sideboard and picked up the bottle of cider.

  “Will you take a little cidre doux?” she asked him.

  “Perhaps the young man would prefer a cognac,” Édith’s mother suggested hopefully.

  “Non,” said Aunt Adeline firmly. “Cidre doux.”

  “Yes, thank you,” said Thomas.

  Aunt Adeline poured cider into small glasses for them all. She wore a starched white shirt and a long navy blue dress. Her dark hair was pulled back severely into a bun. Her eyebrows were thick, and her large dark eyes watchful.

  “Where do you live, young man?” she asked.

  “I lodge in the rue de la Pompe, madame. But my parents live in Montmartre.”

  “Not in the Maquis, I hope.”

  “In the Maquis, madame. But they are quite respectable,” he added. “They sent me to school and made me take up a skilled trade.”

  “I am glad to hear it.”

  “You have run this home for Monsieur Ney for many years, madame?”

  “I have. It’s a great responsibility.”

  “That’s for sure,” chimed in Édith’s mother, though Aunt Adeline tried to ignore her. “He started with a much smaller place, you know. He was a lawyer in the backstreets of Belleville then. Just two rooms in a tenement. One for Mademoiselle Bac, and the other for a widow whose husband left her quite a good little business. An ironmonger’s. But she couldn’t run it. No idea. He did everything for her. Ran the business, looked after her. And when she died, she left it all to him. That was the start of his fortune. Then he moved to a bigger place, near the Gare du Nord. And now this.” She nodded. “But he is very loyal. He always took poor Mademoiselle Bac with him. She started in a tenement in Belleville, and now she lives in a big house near the Arc de Triomphe!”

  “That’s enough,” said her sister-in-law.

  “He’s got brains, Monsieur Ney,” continued Édith’s mother, feeling rather pleased with herself. “I asked him once, ‘What’s the secret of the ironmongery business, Monsieur Ney?’ And do you know what he replied? ‘It turns out,’ he said, ‘that it’s nails.’ Think of that. Just nails.”

  She seemed finally to have exhausted her store of information. Aunt Adeline looked relieved. Thomas didn’t mind. He thought it was rather interesting.

  “Shall I tell you something about Monsieur Ney?” said Édith. “You’ve heard of the great Ney, who was one of Napoléon’s marshals?”

  “Of course.”

  “Monsieur Ney and he are related. Isn’t that right, Aunt Adeline?”

  “I believe it may be so. Monsieur Ney is too discreet to say it.”

  “And he runs a good business here,” said Thomas.

  Aunt Adeline gave him a sharp look.

  “Monsieur Ney is wonderfully kind,” she said with a hint of reproof. “No one who has the good fortune to come here need ever worry again.”

  “He’s an angel,” cried Édith’s mother, taking her cue at last. “An angel.”

  “And he has a daughter?”

  “That is correct,” said Aunt Adeline. “Mademoiselle Hortense is a charming young lady.”

  “She will inherit a fortune, and make a fine marriage,” said Édith’s mother.

  “No doubt,” said Aunt Adeline.

  Thomas wondered if any food was to be forthcoming. It didn’t look like it. And he was just wondering what he was supposed to do next, when there was a sound from the entrance. Aunt Adeline looked surprised. They heard a key turning in the outer door.

  “It must be Monsieur Ney,” she said. “He doesn’t normally come at this hour.”

  A moment later, there was a soft footfall in the passage, then a light tap at the door, which Aunt Adeline quickly opened, and the owner of the establishment entered the room. Édith and Thomas stood, and Édith’s mother, unable to rise quickly enough, conveyed from her chair by an obsequious bow her cognizance of the profound respect that was due to him.

  Monsieur Frédéric Ney was a small-time attorney of just under average height, but his presence gained its force from the fact that he was so remarkably thin, and that his pale face, which reminded Thomas of a fish, was too long for his body. His trousers fitted so tightly that they were almost like the stockings of the former age. His coat today was a dark chocolate color.

  He surveyed them all. Could some sixth sense have told him that an alien presence had entered his domain? His eyes fixed upon Thomas.

  “Bonjour, Monsieur Ney,” said Édith with a winning smile—and a faint upward twitch of the corner of the lawyer’s slightly fleshy mouth suggested that she was in his good graces. “May I present my friend Thomas Gascon. He works on Monsieur Eiffel’s tower.”

  Monsieur Ney inclined his head.

  “My felicitations, young man.” His voice was so quiet that Thomas had to lean forward slightly to be sure he heard. “Opinions may vary about the tower, but I believe that we must not be afraid of progress, so long as we never forget tradition.”

  “That’s for sure,” said Édith’s mother.

  “I took him to see Madame Govrit,” said Édith to Ney. “She doesn’t like the tower at all,” she added with a laugh.

  Again, the lawyer’s lip twitched.

  “Madame Govrit has a fine room, monsieur,” said Thomas, hoping to be agreeable. And he seemed to have succeeded, for the lawyer suddenly became quite animated.

  “It is indeed, young man, as befits a person of her station. I am proud to have such a room in this house. All our rooms, I hope, are satisfactory, but hers is, I may say, the best.”

  Thomas knew that he shouldn’t, but he could not resist.

  “I also saw Mademoiselle Bac. Her room was not so nice.”

  It was foolish of him to challenge Ney, but if he expected the lawyer to be embarrassed, he underestimated his man.

  “Ah, poor Mademoiselle Bac,” said Ney with a shake of his head. “She came to me many years ago, with little enough, but I took her in. And now …” He smiled. “It is I who pay for her food and keep.” He made a little gesture with his hands as though to say, “What can one do?”

  “He is an angel,” murmured Édith’s mother.

  “And I am sure that she is grateful, Monsieur Ney,” said Aunt Adeline, “even if she cannot express it.”

  “I am glad you say that,” Ney responded with feeling. “I am glad because there are two things in the world that I especially value.” He turned to Thomas. “Take note, young man, for these will see you safely through life. The first is gratitude. And I hope that all the residents here may have cause to feel gratitude.”

 
“There is nothing that Monsieur Ney will not do for them,” cried Édith’s mother. “Nothing is too much.”

  “I hope I provide everything they need, and more than that—if funds permit,” said Monsieur Ney. He turned to Thomas again. “The second quality, young man, is loyalty—such as I am fortunate enough to receive from Madame Adeline here. Gratitude and loyalty. These are everything.”

  Thomas had the feeling that if people were ungrateful or disloyal to Monsieur Ney, they might live to regret it.

  “Are you grateful and loyal?” Ney suddenly asked Thomas.

  “I am grateful to Monsieur Eiffel for giving me a job,” said Thomas. “I should certainly be loyal to him.”

  “Voilà. We are in perfect agreement,” said Monsieur Ney. He gave Thomas a glassy stare, then smiled at Édith. “What an excellent young man.” He turned to Aunt Adeline. “When I made my rounds yesterday, you may remember I was called away. And that is why I have come in today to see the three or four of our residents that I missed. Mademoiselle Bac was one of those.”

  “Do you wish me to accompany you, Monsieur Ney?” asked Aunt Adeline.

  “No. There is no need.”

  “She always has her picture of the Virgin and Child,” said Édith. “Margot polishes the glass whenever she goes in. You know how Mademoiselle Bac always seems completely still, but I can see her looking at the picture.”

  “Religion is a great comfort,” said her mother with a wise nod of the head.

  “Indeed,” said Ney, as he stepped toward the door, and Thomas secretly wondered if the comforting picture would remain.

  “And Mademoiselle Hortense is well?” asked Édith’s mother.

  “She is.”

  “Ah,” said Édith’s mother, “she has everything. She is beautiful, she is kind …”

  Monsieur Ney left the room.

  A few minutes passed in desultory conversation, then Aunt Adeline pulled out a little silver watch on a chain and looked at it.

  “I have duties now, and Édith will be helping me,” she said.

  Thomas took the hint and began to rise.

  “Perhaps the young man would like to stay with me and have a cognac,” said Édith’s mother.

  Aunt Adeline looked at her as one might at a waterlogged old ship sinking inconveniently in a harbor.

  “Sadly, I have to go, madame,” Thomas lied.

  Outside in the street, he paused. He’d nothing special to do. Dusk would soon begin to fall. He went and stood opposite the handsome front door. Looking up, he was fairly sure he could identify the big window of Madame Govrit’s room. As for Mademoiselle Bac’s dingy attic, that would be up in the roof, toward the back, well out of sight.

  Judging by what he’d seen of Édith’s mother, he supposed the lodgings she and Édith shared were not a lot better.

  He walked back past the archway and turned the corner. This side of the building consisted of a high house wall, punctuated by some small, narrow windows, which continued as the courtyard wall. As he moved along the house wall, he calculated that just before the courtyard began, he must be level with Aunt Adeline’s quarters. Just above his head there was a small window that was slightly open. He guessed that it probably belonged to her kitchen. He paused there for a moment, wondering if perhaps he might hear Édith’s voice.

  But it was Aunt Adeline’s voice that he heard.

  “You heard him, ma chérie. That stupid comment about Mademoiselle Bac. He was just trying to be cheeky to Monsieur Ney.”

  “Monsieur Ney called him an excellent young man,” Édith’s voice replied.

  “Yes. Out of kindness to you. But he was not pleased, I assure you. And you cannot afford a young man who annoys Monsieur Ney.”

  Édith said something else, but Thomas couldn’t hear what it was.

  “My child,” answered Aunt Adeline, “I don’t care if the young man went to the moon to look for you. We have one fool in the family already. Forgive me, but that’s your mother. We can’t afford two. Let us not see this Thomas Gascon again, if you please. You can do better.”

  For the next three days, Thomas waited uneasily. He believed in fate. His parents might not like it, but he wanted Édith. Did she feel the same way?

  On Wednesday, he waited near the lycée in the evening. Édith and her mother came out together as usual. But instead of separating, they went home together, and not wanting to encounter the mother, Thomas hung back. If Édith caught sight of him, she gave no indication. The next night the same thing happened.

  Friday was a cold November day. An icy wind entered the city from the east. It hissed cruelly through the girders of the tower as he worked, biting his hands, and snaked down the boulevards, stripping the brown leaves from the trees.

  Work ended at dusk and as soon as he got across the river he found a bar where he could get a large bowl of soup to warm himself up. Then he walked up the rue de la Pompe. The lights in the lycée were just being extinguished as he got there. He was determined to speak with her this evening, whether she separated from her mother or not. But a few moments later he saw her come out alone. He went straight up to her.

  “Oh,” she said. “It’s you.”

  “Of course it’s me. Where’s your mother?”

  “She’s sick today.”

  “I’ll walk with you,” he said. Then, as they passed a bar, he remarked that he needed to warm up, and guided her in.

  “Only for a minute,” she said.

  They sat at a table and he ordered them each a glass of wine.

  “It’s good to see you,” he said. “I was glad to meet your family.”

  “Yes.”

  “What are you doing this Sunday?”

  “Looking after my mother probably.”

  “We could meet for a short while, perhaps?”

  She hesitated.

  “I don’t think so,” she answered. “Everything is difficult at the moment.”

  “You haven’t time to see me?”

  “Not at present. I’m sorry.”

  “Do you want to see me?”

  “Of course, but …”

  He understood. He had thought that this was the woman whom fate had chosen for him. He had felt it to be so. Yet it seemed that his belief had been nothing but a foolish illusion.

  That was bad enough. But why was she rejecting him? Because her aunt didn’t approve of him. Because Aunt Adeline thought he was stupid. Because he had not shown enough respect to Monsieur Ney. And the fact that she was right, that he shouldn’t have blurted out his foolish comment, only made his sense of resentment worse.

  “Your family don’t approve of me,” he said.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t say it, but it’s the truth.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Tell me,” he asked, “are you going to live your entire life under the thumb of Monsieur Ney?”

  “He employs Aunt Adeline.”

  “To help him steal money from a lot of helpless old women?”

  “No.”

  “Yes. That’s what he’s doing. And if you spend your life working for him, that’s what you’ll be doing.”

  “You think you know everything, but you don’t.”

  “You think he’s going to look after you? You think he’s going to look after your aunt? I’ll tell you how she’ll finish up. Like Mademoiselle Bac.”

  “You don’t understand,” Édith suddenly cried out. “At least Mademoiselle Bac has a roof over her head.”

  He shrugged.

  “I’d sooner be in the gutter.”

  “You probably will be. My aunt’s right. You’re a fool.” She got up. “I have to go now.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I have to go.”

  So Thomas sat there feeling very angry, and it did not occur to him that when she was twenty yards down the street Édith had burst into tears.

  That winter seemed long to Thomas Gascon. He was high above the Paris rooftops now, on th
e cold, iron tower. As he gazed down, gray day after gray day, the winter trees by the building site, and the long sweep of the Seine, looked bare and sad.

  The work was hard. When the creeper cranes raised each section of the iron framework into place, the workmen swarmed over it. The sections came from the factory held together with temporary bolts, all of which had to be replaced with rivets.

  It took a gang of four to rivet. First, the apprentice heated the rivet in a brazier until it was almost white hot, and swollen. The holder, wearing thick leather gloves, picked the rivet up with a pair of tongs and fitted it into the hole that was perfectly aligned between the metal girders or plates to be joined; then he’d block it in place with a heavy metal counterweight while the first of the two strikers would use a hammer to fashion a broad head on the other end of the rivet. Last, a second striker with a heavy sledgehammer would hammer the rivet down. As the hammered rivet cooled and shrank, it would grip the metal plates together tighter and tighter, finally exerting a force of three tons.

  Each team had its own particular hammering sound, so that the men themselves could often tell without looking exactly who was working at any given moment.

  The work was intense, and come rain, sleet or snow, it went on, eight hours a day.

  Thomas was a striker. He usually liked to work with open-finger gloves, warming his hands from time to time with the heat from the fires used to heat the rivets. But he was obliged to abandon them for leather gloves, and often his fingers were numb. When the wind got up, it lashed his body as mercilessly as it would a sailor up a mast.

  Early in the new year, however, the work of the flyers changed. For now they began to construct the tower’s massive platform.

  To Thomas, this felt quite strange. It was as if, building a table, he had suddenly moved from the vertical confines of the leg to the vast horizontal space of the tabletop.

  “It’s more like building a house,” he remarked. A house in the sky, to be sure—or rather, an enormous apartment block, constructed of iron.

  The base of the platform was nearly two hundred feet in the air. In the central pit underneath, a huge square of scaffolding rose from the ground like a tree trunk, with branches spreading out to the underside of the platform’s edge, so that away from the platform’s center, he was still looking down at an almost uninterrupted vertical drop. But he noticed that, since his eye was constantly led to look across the growing horizontal floor of the platform, he was hardly aware of the chasm below.