Nineteen

The life-sized Graces stood on a marble base so that Aglaia had to look up into them like a fourth party, a child approaching a trio of grown-ups who were companions of each other in an intimate alliance. They didn’t condemn or condone her intrusion; she was to them a specter, unseen and unheeded while their communion continued. The personification of grace, they were poised as if asking, “May I throw my spell around you, beautify you as I clothed the very gods?” Aglaia could sense their infinite waiting, triplets frozen in marble for all time, three persons chiseled from one substance. They were a tri-unity of personhood.

Aglaia wanted to lose herself in their lifelikeness, to wish them into reality. The pearly grey skin, bellies rounded and buttocks dimpled, dented under their mutual caresses. Did she see the throb of a vein in a neck, or a breast rise and fall? She almost smelled the heat of flesh. Could their noses smell, their tongues taste? She was nearly persuaded, but their eyes gave them away—sightless, flat, no markings of iris or pupil. Now that she studied them in the flesh, so to speak, she couldn’t differentiate them except by their props and their postures. The three faces could be one; there was little to set each goddess apart, and it perturbed her.

The Grace on the left peered downwards as if in expectation that a plant would sprout at any moment from the soil. She held a swag of flowers draped across her thigh and behind her derrière to wrap around one sister and up in an encompassing bond over the shoulder of the other, who stared out at eye level across the distance, the back of her hand pressed against the breast of the center figure, wrist softly bent.

But the middle Grace was the one that claimed Aglaia attention. The middle Grace stepped lightly on a jewelry box, like a victor claiming possession or a child at the beach sinking her toe in the sand. She held her chin high, gaze cast heavenward seeking the radiance of the sun or of her father, Zeus.

Aglaia knew her name—knew all their names, read many times since she first saw that postcard, murmured to herself on lonely nights. Thalia, on the left, was the goddess of the garden and all that flourished in nature’s abundance; she was given domain over the harvest and brought hearty nourishment to her sisters and all the gods. Euphrosyne, on the right, was the pleasure-giver, goddess of mirth and dance, the life of the party. But the middle Grace, Aglaia, was known as the most beautiful, the brightly shining one, the keeper of treasures.

Aglaia, her self-approved namesake and her idol.

Golden light flowed through the courtyard windows, bathing the Three Graces, coating their surface without breaking the barrier of their solidity or solidarity. Pradier had carved life onto them, told a story out of the marble and it was an enchanting story but incomplete, for he couldn’t breathe life into them. They were an unfinished covenant, a memorial. They were a tombstone like Lot’s wife, a pillar of salt languishing for the cities of destruction, blinded by the gods of their age as, perhaps, Mary Grace had been blinded.

For the first time since she was a teen, Aglaia began to second-guess her decision to change her name, her identity. She found herself inexplicably irritated by the marble statues, as lifeless as Pygmalion’s carving before its vivification, as Eve before hers. What had Aglaia, after all, expected from them throughout these years? Seeing the Three Graces in person, Aglaia felt the wind go out of herself.

At that moment, a breath on her neck brought her back to the present and sent a rush of heat to her loins. She stiffened without turning around—François had arrived! She must compose herself, relax her face as she’d practiced in the bathroom vanity before leaving the hotel this morning. She moistened her lips and fixed them in what she meant to be an alluring, Mona Lisa smile, and then she turned at the touch on her arm.

“So he didn’t show after all, did he? That’s men for you—fickle.” Lou, not François, stood before her. Aglaia surveyed the gallery, bewildered, and Lou continued, “Haven’t you waited long enough? We don’t want to miss our train to Versailles.”

“He’s only twenty minutes late.” Aglaia rubbernecked past Lou but the other woman moved to block her vision.

“He’s not coming, Aglaia.”

“He promised,” she said, then stooped to pick up her bag and the Bible resting on it, scanning the room again. Nonplussed, her own voice sounded naïve to her, even puerile. “He likely got caught in traffic.”

“Your Adonis isn’t coming.” It was a sneer this time.

Aglaia’s stomach lurched and she said, “What do you mean?” Involuntarily she recalled that myth: Adonis was conceived in passionate incest and died in the arms of his lover, Aphrodite, who sprinkled his blood on the ground so that wherever the drops fell, anemones grew. Wherever Aglaia’s thoughts of François fell, memories grew.

“You must get over this imbecilic obsession,” Lou said, rolling her eyes. “You can’t actually believe I managed to locate François in a city of ten million people with a few phone calls.”

Aglaia’s cheeks burned and Lou added with a snort, “François’s coming here was a joke, you idiot. Honestly, your gullibility knows no bounds. You’ve been so fixated on him that it’s been ruining your vacation—and mine—so I attempted to distract you, for your own good.”

“A joke? You mean you never even spoke to him?” Aglaia asked, incredulous. “You lied when you knew how important this was to me?”

“You’ve had your nose stuck in that storybook,” Lou said, poking her index finger towards the Bible and then into Aglaia’s face, “while the culture of Paris is passing you by. It’s beyond me why you would choose some fantasy of romance over what’s right in front of you. You have a problem with dealing in real-life issues, Aglaia.”

Aglaia’s astonishment gave way to a fury she was only now admitting, though it had been simmering in her mind for days. “I have a problem with believing anything you say!”

“Don’t bellow at me, young lady. Show some respect—you owe me at least that.”

“I owe you nothing,” Aglaia said, her words chips of glass. “You monopolize my personal life, criticize my friends and family, bully your way into my trip to Paris, and now lie to me about talking to François. I’ve had enough of you!” Aglaia didn’t wait for a reaction but tramped away, tearing open the Louvre pamphlet to get oriented.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Lou snatched at her arm but Aglaia shrugged out of her grasp and picked up her pace, heading towards the baggage check to retrieve her suitcase. She had to get away from that woman.

But Lou followed her to the exit and outside of the museum, nattering at Aglaia about her lack of gratitude, about how Aglaia was beholden to her, and then—as though giving up—Lou said to her in a controlled sneer, “I suppose you think you can find your own way to Versailles? Good luck with that.”

Aglaia, still bold, asserted over her shoulder, “I won’t be following your agenda any longer, Lou.”

“Is that right? The fledgling is taking wing, making a break for freedom, is she?” Lou’s next words impaled Aglaia. “I suppose you’re rejecting my ‘agenda’ to get you a decent job, too? Watch yourself, girl, or you’ll find yourself pounding the pavement for any job at all. You’re nothing to Incognito but a glorified shop girl, yet you’d disregard the one break I’m offering you for significance in life.”

Aglaia almost stumbled. She hadn’t been thinking straight; she was messing up the deal with PRU. But she regained her equilibrium immediately. She wouldn’t be held ransom any longer.

“Don’t expect to see me any time soon,” Aglaia said, but she doubted she was heard. She knew Lou wouldn’t follow—was counting on it, in fact—but somehow the thought didn’t give her much relief.

Aglaia got lost in Paris. She rampaged off the Louvre grounds in a fit like none she’d thrown since her teens, and tromped directionless down this street and that in a temper of a workout. Why would Lou deceive her about meeting François? If she’d put her foot down and refused Lou’s accompaniment in the first place, her prospects for finding François on her own would have been better. Now, with her plane leaving in the morning, her chance was gone forever.

Furthermore, she was still laden with the Bible, which was jammed back into the suitcase that throughout her tirade had bounced along behind her and even rolled over the toes of a stylish office girl on her way home from work. That Bible had become symbolic to her of all the baggage she carried around. She’d hoped off-loading it on François would be a finish to things—an end to her memories of him and to the scraps of faith still clinging to the edge of her consciousness like lint from the dryer. But most of all she’d wanted to look him in the face again, to search his eyes for traces of that summer.

Aglaia stood at a crossroads nonexistent on her street map. She’d passed the Picasso museum a while back and the Pompidou Center long ago, but now not one of the fancy art nouveau Métro signs was in sight. The sun was getting low in the sky and she didn’t want to be left in some seedy neighborhood alone on a Friday night.

By the time she found her way beneath the sidewalk to the Chemin Vert station, her feet and her frenzy were worn out. She pressed her back into the sloping tile wall in front of the tracks and waited till the hollow hum proclaimed the train’s arrival, its doors opening with a sigh to exhale and inhale its passengers. A kind man slid over to make room for her, and she wedged her bag between her sneakers and gripped it with her jean-clad knees.

Aglaia drooped on the burgundy vinyl seat, her adrenaline depleted. Listless, she beheld the passing scenery through the window: the blackened walls lined with wires and graffiti, the flashes of waning daylight, the bright bustle at each momentary stop. Anaesthetized by the rhythmic rocking and clatter, she watched the station names pass by: Liberté, Maisons-Alfort-Stade, Créteil-L’Échat.

She was jerked alert by the laughter of a couple of rowdy teens and took note of the plan du Métro posted above their heads. She was almost at the end of the line and should return to a larger station near the center of the city to make her transfer out to the airport, she thought. Maybe she’d catch a few hours of sleep on one of the benches there before heading through security; she had no intention of checking in at the nearby hotel even though she’d lose her deposit for the last night’s room. She wasn’t ready to see Lou again and hoped to forestall facing the professor until boarding time.

République was an onslaught of activity when Aglaia disembarked. She minced past an Algerian beggar huddled at the foot of a column and stopped before a flautist, case open for change as he piped a cheery tune. Aglaia fished out a Euro and dropped it in, then turned back to the poor bundle of rags and gave him a few coins as well before she entered the stream of connecting passengers flowing through the tunnels and up stairways.

At last she broke through to the surface of the station, where shops were open for business. Aglaia grabbed a fast-food crêpe, as buttery and sweet as she’d imagined it would be, and then spotted an adjacent Internet café.

She should collect her e-mails at least once while in Paris, she thought, and waited her turn in line at the busy depot. It took her most of her prepaid ten minutes just to negotiate the foreign keyboard before she got to her inbox. A few messages hid amongst the junk mail but she clicked on the one with a startling subject line: Aglaia or Mary Grace?

Dear Ms. Klassen, it ran,

I read an article in Le Parisien about your meeting at the Musée de l’Histoire du Costume here in Paris. The photo was unclear, but your surname is the same as an old girlfriend’s of mine, also from the U.S. You must be Mary Grace Klassen, Joel’s sister.

Aglaia stopped breathing, her icy fingers inept on the mouse, all thumbs as she scrolled to the bottom of the message. Stunned, she read the closing line typed above the automatic signature and street address of the Tedious Beatnik Taverne:

Love, François Vivier.

This couldn’t be true! Was Lou up to her old tricks again, now e-mailing her under François’s name to mock her further? The English was excellent and the timing too coincidental. But returning to the body of the message, she became convinced that the author was no prank writer but her own François. She resumed reading.

I found your e-mail address linked to the Incognito site. You’re still sewing, I see! I still sing. In fact, I perform most nights at the cabaret I co-own. I’m sorry to have missed you while you were here. I could have bought you a drink, at least. I like your new name, Aglaia. It unstrings my limbs.

Flabbergasted that he’d remembered the poetry first quoted to her on the farm—that he’d written at all—Aglaia gaped at the monitor until the proprietor of the café walked by and tapped his watch in forewarning. Other clients were waiting. Aglaia scribbled the street name of the bar on the back of her hand before her screen blanked out.

Eb combed the crumbs out of his moustache with the fork Iona always thoughtfully packed in with his lunch. Tea at the office was never quite as refreshing as drinking it at his own table at home, but it helped his digestion and put a nice end to his break—taken later today than usual. As he was draining his first cup, his receptionist patched a telephone call through to his office.

“Mr. MacAdam? This is Naomi Enns.” He didn’t know the voice or the name. “I’m calling to locate Mary Grace Klassen—I mean, Aglaia. There’s been an emergency. I wonder if you know how to get hold of her in Paris?” She relayed to him the details of the family crisis.

“Leave it with me and I’ll tell her to phone home if I find her,” Eb said. He scrambled for the name and number of Aglaia’s hotel and placed the international call, but a sleepy front desk clerk informed him that both Aglaia and her companion had departed early that morning.

Her companion? Eb was disturbed that Aglaia shared her room with someone unknown to him while on her business trip, though she wasn’t breaking any company rules, strictly speaking. He’d never taken her for the sort that would pick up a stranger, but loneliness did odd things to a person. There was much that the lass kept from him, and why shouldn’t she? He wasn’t her father, after all, despite his paternal mindset towards her.

Eb dialed Naomi back and she answered on the first ring, breathless.

“It seems we’ll not talk to her till she’s back on American soil,” Eb said, dispatching the hotel clerk’s news but not, of course, mentioning his concern over the sleeping arrangements.

“Why would she check out a full day before she was supposed to leave for home?” the friend asked Eb. Then, in an aside apparently to one of her children, she rasped, “Sebastian, don’t let that dog in!”

“Aglaia should be boarding the plane in a matter of ten or so hours,” Eb said, hoping to soothe her.

“I suppose you’re right.” The woman sounded doubtful, the way Eb felt. “Do you have her arrival information?” Eb gave it to her and ended the conversation by wishing her luck, though he didn’t believe luck played any part in life.

Aglaia would be coming home to an emotional storm, unprepared. Concerned as he was, there was no use fashing about the situation—it was out of his hands. But he raised a silent prayer on Aglaia’s behalf as he replaced the receiver and settled back into his chair.

He lifted the teacup to his lips again, casting his gaze over the surfeit of books peopling his office, teetering on the shelves, cavorting on the floor—Bunyan and Chaucer, Bacon and Galileo, Hawthorne and Herodotus and Gerard Manley Hopkins.

He loved them all, every one of the “truths wrapped in fables,” as Pascal described human writings. But when it came to needing guidance—when Eb was troubled about something outside of his control—only one book allowed pure contemplation of the mind of God.

He opened his right-hand desk drawer and withdrew a copy now.