The Girl You Left Behind, Page 6

  He smiled at me then. He had the kindest eyes. 'That would be ... very generous. I'm sure I'll be able to do you justice on another occasion.'

  But Sunday was no better. I tried, I really did. I lay with my arm across the chaise longue, my body twisted like the reclining Aphrodite he showed me in a book, my skirt gathered in folds over my legs. I tried to relax and let my expression soften, but in that position my corset bit into my waist and a strand of hair kept slipping out of its pin so that the temptation to reach for it was almost overwhelming. It was a long and arduous couple of hours. Even before I saw the picture, I knew from Monsieur Lefevre's face that he was, once again, disappointed.

  This is me? I thought, staring at the grim-faced girl who was less Venus than a sour housekeeper checking the surfaces of her soft furnishings for dust.

  This time I think he even felt sorry for me. I suspect I was the plainest model he had ever had. 'It is not you, Mademoiselle,' he insisted. 'Sometimes ... it takes a while to get the true essence of a person.'

  But that was the thing that upset me most. I was afraid he had already got it.

  It was Bastille Day when I saw him again. I was making my way through the packed streets of the Latin Quarter, passing under the huge red, white and blue flags and fragrant wreaths that hung from the windows, weaving in and out of the crowds that stood to watch the soldiers marching past, their rifles cocked over their shoulders.

  The whole of Paris was celebrating. I am usually content with my own company, but that day I was restless, oddly lonely. When I reached the Pantheon I stopped: before me rue Soufflot had become a whirling mass of bodies, its normally grey length now packed with people dancing, the women in their long skirts and broad-brimmed hats, the band outside the Cafe Leon. They moved in graceful circles, stood at the edge of the pavement observing each other and chatting, as if the street were a ballroom.

  And then there he was, sitting in the middle of it all, a brightly coloured scarf around his neck. Mistinguett, her associates hovering around her, rested a hand possessively on his shoulder as she said something that made him roar with laughter.

  I stared at them in astonishment. And then, perhaps compelled by the intensity of my gaze, he looked round and saw me. I ducked swiftly into a doorway and set off in the opposite direction, my cheeks flaming. I dived in and out of the dancing couples, my clogs clattering on the cobbles. But within seconds his voice was booming behind me.

  'Mademoiselle!'

  I could not ignore him. I turned. He looked for a moment as if he were about to embrace me, but something in my demeanour must have stopped him. Instead he touched my arm lightly, and motioned me towards the throng of people. 'How wonderful to bump into you,' he said. I began to make my excuses, stumbling over my words, but he held up a great hand. 'Come, Mademoiselle, it is a public holiday. Even the most diligent must enjoy themselves occasionally.'

  Around us the flags fluttered in the late-afternoon breeze. I could hear them flapping, like the erratic pounding of my heart. I struggled to think of a polite way to extricate myself, but he broke in again.

  'I realize, Mademoiselle, that shamefully, despite our acquaintance, I do not know your name.'

  'Bessette,' I said. 'Sophie Bessette.'

  'Then please allow me to buy you a drink, Mademoiselle Bessette.'

  I shook my head. I felt sick, as if in the mere act of coming here I had given away too much of myself. I glanced behind him to where Mistinguett was still standing amid her group of friends.

  'Shall we?' He held out his arm.

  And at that moment the great Mistinguett looked straight at me.

  It was, if I'm honest, something in her expression, the brief flash of annoyance when he held out his arm. This man, this Edouard Lefevre, had the power to make one of Paris's brightest stars feel dull and invisible. And he had chosen me over her.

  I peeped up at him. 'Just some water, then, thank you.'

  We walked back to the table. 'Misty, my darling, this is Sophie Bessette.' Her smile remained, but there was ice in her gaze as it ran the length of me. I wondered if she remembered me serving her at the department store. 'Clogs,' one of her gentlemen said from behind her. 'How very ... quaint.'

  The murmur of laughter made my skin prickle. I took a breath.

  'The emporium will be full of them for the spring season,' I replied calmly. 'They are the very latest thing. It's la mode paysanne.'

  I felt Edouard's fingertips touch my back.

  'With the finest ankles in all Paris, I think Mademoiselle Bessette may wear what she likes.'

  A brief silence fell over the group, as the significance of Edouard's words sank in. Mistinguett's eyes slid away from me. 'Enchantee,' she said, her smile dazzling. 'Edouard, darling, I must go. So, so busy. Call on me very soon, yes?' She held out her gloved hand and he kissed it. I had to drag my eyes from his lips. And then she was gone, a ripple passing through the crowd, as if she were parting water.

  So, we sat. Edouard Lefevre stretched out in his chair as if he were surveying a beach while I was still rigid with awkwardness. Without saying anything, he handed me a drink and there was just the faintest apology in his expression as he did so, with - was it really? - a hint of suppressed laughter. As if it - they - were all so ridiculous that I could not feel slighted.

  Surrounded by the joyful people dancing, the laughter and the bright blue skies, I began to relax. Edouard spoke to me with the utmost politeness, asking about my life before Paris, the politics within the shop, breaking off occasionally to put his cigarette into the corner of his mouth and shout, 'Bravo!' at the band, clapping his great hands high in the air. He knew almost everybody. I lost track of the number of people who stopped to say hello or to buy him a drink; artists, shopkeepers, speculative women. It was like being with royalty. Except I could see their gaze flickering towards me, while they wondered what a man who could have had Mistinguett was doing with a girl like me.

  'The girls at the store say you talk to les putains of Pigalle.' I couldn't help myself: I was curious.

  'I do. And many of them are excellent company.'

  'Do you paint them?'

  'When I can afford their time.' He nodded at a man who tipped his hat to us. 'They make excellent models. They are generally utterly unselfconscious about their bodies.'

  'Unlike me.'

  He saw my blush. After a brief hesitation, he placed his hand over mine, as if in apology. It made me colour even more. 'Mademoiselle,' he said softly. 'Those pictures were my failure, not yours. I have ...' He changed tack. 'You have other qualities. You fascinate me. You are not intimidated by much.'

  'No,' I agreed. 'I don't believe I am.'

  We ate bread, cheese and olives, and they were the best olives I had ever tasted. He drank pastis, knocking back each glass with noisy relish. The afternoon crept on. The laughter grew louder, the drinks came faster. I allowed myself two small glasses of wine, and began to enjoy myself. Here, in the street, on this balmy day, I was not the provincial outsider, the shop girl on the lowest-but-one rung of the ladder. I was just another reveller, enjoying the Bastille celebrations.

  And then Edouard pushed back the table and stood in front of me. 'Shall we dance?'

  I could not think of a reason to refuse him. I took his hand, and he swung me out into the sea of bodies. I had not danced since I had left St Peronne. Now I felt the breeze whirling around my ears, the weight of his hand on the small of my back, my clogs unusually light on my feet. He carried the scents of tobacco, aniseed, and something male that left me a little short of breath.

  I don't know what it was. I had drunk little, so I could not blame the wine. It's not as if he were particularly handsome, or that I had felt my life lacking for the absence of a man.

  'Draw me again,' I said.

  He stopped and looked at me, puzzled. I couldn't blame him: I was confused myself.

  'Draw me again. Today. Now.'

  He said nothing, but walked back to the table, gathered up hi
s tobacco, and we filed through the crowd and along the teeming streets to his studio.

  We went up the narrow wooden stairs, unlocked the door into the bright studio, and I waited while he shed his jacket, put a record on the gramophone and began to mix the paint on his palette. And then, as he hummed to himself, I began to unbutton my blouse. I removed my shoes and my stockings. I peeled off my skirts until I was wearing only my chemise and my white cotton petticoat. I sat there, undressed to my very corset, and unpinned my hair so that it fell about my shoulders. When he turned back to me I heard him gasp.

  He blinked.

  'Like this?' I said.

  Anxiety flashed across his face. He was, perhaps, afraid that his paintbrush would yet again betray me. I kept my gaze steady, my head high. I looked at him as if it were a challenge. And then some artistic impulse took over and he was already lost in contemplation of the unexpected milkiness of my skin, the russet of my loosened hair, and all semblance of concern for probity was forgotten. 'Yes, yes. Move your head, a little to the left, please.' he said. 'And your hand. There. Open your palm a little. Perfect.'

  As he began to paint, I watched him. He scanned every inch of my body with intense concentration, as if it would be unbearable to get it wrong. I watched as satisfaction inked itself on his face, and I felt it mirror my own. I had no inhibitions now. I was Mistinguett, or a street-walker from Pigalle, unafraid, unselfconscious. I wanted him to examine my skin, the hollows of my throat, the secret glowing underside of my hair. I wanted him to see every part of me.

  As he painted I took in his features, the way he murmured to himself while mixing colours on his palette. I watched him shamble around, as if he were older than he was. It was an affectation - he was younger and stronger than most of the men who came into the store. I recalled how he ate: with obvious, greedy pleasure. He sang along with the gramophone, painted when he liked, spoke to whom he wished and said what he thought. I wanted to live as Edouard did, joyfully, sucking the marrow out of every moment and singing because it tasted so good.

  And then it was dark. He stopped to clean his brushes and gazed around him, as if he were only just noticing it. He lit candles and a gaslight, placing them around me, then sighed when he realized the dusk had defeated him.

  'Are you cold?' he said.

  I shook my head, but he walked over to a dresser, pulling from it a bright red woollen shawl, which he carefully placed around my shoulders. 'The light has gone for today. Would you like to see?'

  I pulled the shawl around me, and walked over to the easel, my feet bare on the wooden boards. I felt as if I were in a dream, as if real life had evaporated in the hours I had sat there. I was afraid to look and break the spell.

  'Come.' He beckoned me forwards.

  On the canvas I saw a girl I did not recognize. She gazed back at me defiantly, her hair glinting copper in the half-light, her skin as pale as alabaster, a girl with the imperious confidence of an aristocrat.

  She was strange and proud and beautiful. It was as if I had been shown a magic looking-glass.

  'I knew it,' he said, his voice soft. 'I knew you were in there.'

  His eyes were tired and strained now, but he was satisfied. I stared at her a moment longer. Then, without knowing why, I stepped forward, reached up slowly and took his face into my hands so that he had to look at me again. I held his face inches from my own and I made him keep looking at me, as if I could somehow absorb what he could see.

  I had never wanted intimacy with a man. The animalistic sounds and cries that had leaked from my parents' room - usually when my father was drunk - had appalled me, and I had pitied my mother for her bruised face and her careful walk the following day. But what I felt for Edouard overwhelmed me. I could not take my eyes from his mouth.

  'Sophie ...'

  I barely heard him. I drew his face closer to mine. The world evaporated around us. I felt the rasp of his bristles under my palms, the warmth of his breath on my skin. His eyes studied my own, so seriously. I swear even then it was as if he had only just seen me.

  I leaned forwards, just a few inches, my breath stilled, and I placed my lips on his. His hands came to rest on my waist, and tightened reflexively. His mouth met mine, and I inhaled his breath, its traces of tobacco, of wine, the warm, wet taste of him. Oh, God, I wanted him to devour me. My eyes closed, my body sparked and stuttered. His hands tangled themselves in my hair, his mouth dropped to my neck.

  The revellers in the street outside burst into noisy laughter, and as flags flew in the night breeze, something in me was altered for ever. 'Oh, Sophie. I could paint you every day of my life,' he murmured into my skin. At least I think he said 'paint'. By that stage it was really too late to care.

  5

  Rene Grenier's grandfather clock had begun to chime. This, it was agreed, was a disaster. For months, the clock had been buried underneath the vegetable patch that ran alongside his house, along with his silver teapot, four gold coins and the watch his grandfather had worn on his waistcoat, to prevent it disappearing into the hands of the Germans.

  The plan had worked well - indeed, the town crunched underfoot with valuables that had been hastily buried under gardens and pathways - until Madame Poilane hurried into the bar one brisk November morning and interrupted his daily game of dominoes with the news that a muffled chime was coming every quarter of an hour from underneath what remained of his carrots.

  'I can hear it, even with my ears,' she whispered. 'And if I can hear it, you can be sure that they will.'

  'Are you sure that's what you heard?' I said. 'It's so long since it was last wound.'

  'Perhaps it is the sound of Madame Grenier turning in her grave,' said Monsieur Lafarge.

  'I would not have buried my wife under my vegetables,' Rene muttered. 'She would have made them even more bitter and wizened than they are.'

  I stooped to empty the ashtray, lowering my voice. 'You will have to dig it up under cover of night, Rene, and pack it with sacking. Tonight should be safe - they have delivered extra food for their meal. With most of them in here, there will be few men on duty.'

  It had been a month since the Germans had started to eat at Le Coq Rouge, and an uneasy truce had settled over its shared territory. From ten in the morning until half past five, the bar was French, filled with its usual mixture of the elderly and lonely. Helene and I would clear up, then cook for the Germans, who arrived shortly before seven, expecting their food to be on the tables almost as they walked through the door. There were benefits: when there were leftovers, several times a week, we shared them (although now there tended to be the odd scraps of meat or vegetables, rather than a feast of chicken). As the weather turned colder, the Germans got hungrier, and Helene and I were not brave enough to keep some back for ourselves. Still, even those odd mouthfuls of extra food made a difference. Jean was ill less often, our skin began to clear, and a couple of times we managed to sneak a small jar of stock, brewed from the bones, to the mayor's house for the ailing Louisa.

  There were other advantages. The moment the Germans left in the evenings, Helene and I would race to the fire, extinguishing the logs then leaving them in the cellar to dry out. A few days' collections of the half-burned oddments could mean a small fire in the daytime when it was particularly cold. On the days we did that, the bar was often full to bursting, even if few of our customers bought anything to drink.

  But there was, predictably, a negative side. Mesdames Durant and Louvier had decided that, even if I did not talk to the officers, or smile at them, or behave as if they were anything but a gross imposition in my house, I must be receiving German largesse. I could feel their eyes on me as I took in the regular supplies of food, wine and fuel. I knew we were the subject of heated discussion around the square. My one consolation was that the nightly curfew meant they could not see the glorious food we cooked for the men, or how the hotel became a place of lively sound and debate during those dark evening hours.

  Helene and I had learned to live w
ith the sound of foreign accents in our home. We recognized a few of the men - there was the tall thin one with the huge ears, who always attempted to thank us in our own language. There was the grumpy one with the salt-and-pepper moustache, who usually managed to find fault with something, demanding salt, pepper or extra meat. There was little Holger, who drank too much and stared out of the window as if his mind was only half on whatever was going on around him. Helene and I would nod civilly at their comments, taking care to be polite but not friendly. Some nights, if I'm honest, there was almost a pleasure in having them there. Not Germans, but human beings. Men, company, the smell of cooking. We had been starved of male contact, of life, for so long. But there were other nights when evidently something had gone wrong, when they did not talk, when faces were tight and severe, and the conversation was conducted in rapid-fire bursts of whispering. They glanced sideways at us then, as if remembering that we were the enemy. As if we could understand almost anything they said.

  Aurelien was learning. He had taken to lying on the floor of Room Three, his face pressed to the gap in the floorboards, hoping that one day he might catch sight of a map or some instruction that would grant us military advantage. He had become astonishingly proficient at German: when they were gone he would mimic their accent or say things that made us laugh. Occasionally he even understood snatches of conversation; which officer was in der Krankenhaus (hospital), how many men were tot. I worried for him, but I was proud too. It made me feel that our feeding the Germans might have some hidden purpose yet.

  The Kommandant, meanwhile, was unfailingly polite. He greeted me, if not with warmth, then a kind of increasingly familiar civility. He praised the food, without attempting to flatter, and kept a tight hand on his men, who were not allowed to drink to excess or to behave in a forward manner.

  Several times he sought me out to discuss art. I was not quite comfortable with one-to-one conversation, but there was a small pleasure in being reminded of my husband. The Kommandant talked of his admiration for Purrmann, of the artist's German roots, of paintings he had seen by Matisse that had made him long to travel to Moscow and Morocco.