I wanted to take him in my arms and whisper sweet nothings to comfort him. I wanted to tell him that I wasn’t Aurora. That I would never go for a swim in the ocean on a stormy night. That I would not make his life hell or martyr myself. But that I wanted to live a long, happy life at his side. Maybe we weren’t passionate about each other, but I would love him as he deserved.
However, the man smiling at me from across the teapot and its wisps of jasmine was not David.
“You believed me?”
He had the triumphant look of someone who had just smashed an insect under his shoe. And the insect was me!
“You believed my little story, didn’t you, Elle?”
Filled with rage, I remained mute. I was stupefied, baffled by his extraordinary duplicity. Had he really conjured such a dark tale just so he could watch me believe it, every single detail, like a fly caught in his web?
Louie was beside himself, gloating at how easy it had been to fool me. The spider’s silent laugh as it devours its meal.
“It’s so easy to get young women like you to believe a soap opera. A garden, a little music, a touch of tragedy . . . and you light up like a match. It’s almost too easy. No, but really, I’m touched.”
I was shaking but still managed to stand. With what dignity remained, I silently left the premises. I had to push through a group of Asian tourists who were blocking the alleyway.
“Annabelle! Stay!”
In spite of his lame leg, he ran to catch up with me. He reached for my arm, and I shrugged him off, despite the uneven terrain.
“Leave me alone!”
I was done. As far as I was concerned, he could tell his brother anything he liked. I would risk it. Putting David’s love to the test. The test of truth. But I was sure of one thing: I would not put up with Louie’s guileful behavior anymore. The cruel, wounded, failed man wouldn’t get anything more out of me. And he could write as many insane pages as he wanted—they would all end up in the trash unread. My thoughts would once again belong to me.
I broke into a light jog to put some distance between us. With his leg, he couldn’t keep up.
“I’m sorry . . . ,” he cried to my back. “Annabelle!”
It was unusual for him to call me by my first name. Still, it did nothing to slow me down. Nor did the gaping looks from bystanders. Without further ado, when I got to Rue Chaptal, I turned right and headed toward Rue Blanche.
But I had only gotten a few feet when my phone started to ring:
“David?”
“Hi, beautiful. How are you enjoying the touristy walk with Louie?”
“Er, I . . . It’s fine, everything’s fine . . . ,” I lied in a choked voice.
“Great idea, huh? Isn’t it a beautiful day?!”
“Yes . . .”
“I knew you’d love it. Louie is a really good tour guide.”
As he spoke, I sensed my pursuer gaining on me.
“Could I speak with him?”
“No . . . no, he’s in the restroom,” I breathlessly improvised.
“Oh, right. Not surprised. He’s kind of a girl in that department.”
“Do you want me to have him call you back?”
I prayed for him to accept, he who never had a second to waste.
“No, that’s okay . . . I’ll wait. It’s really nice to hear your voice during the day.”
Louie was now only two or three paces behind me. When he reached me, he grabbed my free wrist and his iconic face broke into a menacing smile. Surprised by his strength, I grimaced.
I let out a muted yelp in spite of myself.
“Elle? Elle, are you okay?” David worried on the other end of the line.
Answer him, the lame man exhorted with a look.
“Yes . . . It’s nothing, I just ran into a . . .”
“Into a . . . ?”
Louie reached for the phone without relaxing his grip on my arm. I couldn’t run or even yell at him. David would have heard.
“Hey, bro!” said the man with the cane, his tone disconcertingly light. “Yes, yes, everything is fine. Annabelle is a . . . an unfocused but curious student. She’ll know everything she needs to know about the neighborhood by the end of the day.”
He directed his words at me. What kind of message was he trying to convey?
They chatted for a few minutes about the station—some promotional project for the summer—and then at last Louie hung up, though he kept the phone in his hand. Meanwhile, he had not loosened his grip on my imprisoned wrist.
So I exploded:
“ ‘Sorry’? That’s the best you could do: ‘Sorry’?”
“I don’t like your tone,” he said sharply. “I just might have to call our dear David. I’m sure he’ll pick up since I’ll be using your phone.”
Today’s lies were nothing compared to the sick game he’d played with me the night before. I was ashamed to have participated and wanted to spit in his face.
“Go ahead! Go ahead, call him!” I challenged. “And while you’re at it, tell him about the things you do to his future wife in hotel rooms at night!”
“I doubt he car—”
“Oh, yeah, I think he’ll be fascinated! And don’t forget to tell him about the letters, too. I’m sure he’ll be delighted to hear that his own brother gets off on writing about his fiancée’s sexual fantasies!”
In spite of myself, I had puffed out my chest. My breasts seemed ready to explode. My nipples pointed through the thin cotton of my dress. They were as cold and hard as porcelain. Breaking the silence should have come as a relief, but instead it felt like I was in quicksand: thinking about the letters bothered me, but forcing them out of my memory would only make me sink further, until the point of no return.
Above all, do not think about his hand feeling them, pinching them like seeds in pulpy fruit, rolling them between his fingers until I feel that dual sensation of pain and pleasure, that intense, localized happiness just before it radiates throughout my body.
Anonymous handwritten note, 6/7/2009
HE MUST HAVE SENSED MY abrupt shift in attitude because he softened his voice, acting at once prouder and more determined. He let go of my wrist, now marbled and red-hued.
“I promise you, I did not write those letters.”
He spoke with such frankness that I no longer felt angry.
I hesitated before retrieving my silver notebook and opening it at random to one of the pages with its furious handwriting:
“So this handwriting . . . it isn’t yours? Look me in the eye, Louie, and tell me it isn’t.”
He let a few seconds pass before saying gravely:
“I’m looking you in the eye, and I promise you it isn’t. I’ll even do you one better: I’ll prove it to you.”
He produced a small black leather notebook and a ballpoint pen of the same color. Hovering the writing instrument over a blank page, he said:
“Please, dictate something for me to write.”
His initiative surprised me.
“I don’t know . . .”
“Anything, the first thing that comes to mind.”
“ ‘Aurora Delbard drowned at sea,’ ” I said at last, surprising even myself.
He stared at me for a moment, in what looked like a mixture of anger and admiration—at least I had guts—then transcribed the sentence without looking up from his notebook. When he’d finished, he handed it to me.
“There. You be the judge.”
Aurora Delbard drowned at sea.
I was stunned. To be sure, though blunter and more masculine, his handwriting was just as jerky as the one in my notebook. But the two could never be confused. This script was more rushed, with hardly a space between the words. It trotted breathlessly over the page. Meanwhile, my harasser’s writing was rounder, more legible.
I put the two sheets of paper side by side to better compare them. I also reviewed my memory from a few seconds before of Louie tracing the gilded point of his pen over his notebook. It didn’t seem like he’d been faking it. There was only one possible conclusion: Louie’s handwriting did not match that of my Ten-Times-a-Day.
All the crazy ideas that had been running through my head these past few days, all my anger, everything crumbled like a sand castle under a child’s foot after a long day at the beach.
“I’m confused, I . . .”
He looked pleased with himself.
Speechless, I stared into his eyes. I’d never before seen this smile on him before: somewhere between an apology and reconciliation. A Clooney smile, as Sophia, who loved to make celebrity references, would have said.
“Now that we’ve clarified a few things, I suggest we continue our stroll, this time on better footing. What do you say?”
A fist squeezed my stomach and told me to be careful; I shouldn’t take his sudden good mood for money in the bank. But the excitement in my breasts clamored for the opposite.
“I promise: no more tricks.”
What specifically did he mean?
“Not another lie for the rest of the day,” he clarified in a serious tone.
“Really?”
To be honest, at that moment, I only wanted one thing: to go home alone and never to see that abject creature for the rest of my life. I didn’t care if he was really the man behind my troubles or not.
But I knew that when I started my job at BTV, he would be there, in an office not far from mine. And at our wedding, now only a fortnight away. And then, year after year, unfailingly, at each family event. He was David’s brother, and I could not just erase him because I was angry. What would my future husband say if he learned that I had ditched his older brother simply because he’d played a tasteless trick?
“I’ll stick to my tour guide duties. There’s no way I’ll fib about the history of the neighborhood, and I know it better than anyone.”
It sounded arrogant, but I knew he wasn’t exaggerating.
Wary but calmer, I let him guide me through the streets of New Athens for the rest of our tour. He kept his promise and played his role as a talkative Cicero to perfection.
“Do you see the larger number over the other ones? Above the door?”
We were on Rue Blanche. I had indeed noticed that some of the enamel plaques on the buildings were abnormally large.
“Yes, it’s strange . . .”
“Today, it’s the only remaining sign that these were once brothels.”
“Really?”
He smiled at my naiveté but quickly sobered, as if afraid he might offend me again.
“The 1946 Marthe Richard law put a ban on houses of prostitution, but even before that, brothels had to be discreet. Unlike in Amsterdam, they were not allowed to put up obvious signs, and had to make do with decorations that could be easily recognized only by those in the know.”
“Like what?”
“The famous red lanterns, for example, along with more subtle things like frosted glass windows, a peephole in the entry door, or louvered shutters that always remained shut. The ‘Big Number’—which is eventually how these establishments came to be known—figured among these discreet signals.”
I didn’t say anything. The rest of the tour dealt with the same theme of terrestrial love and questionable morals among the neighborhood’s past inhabitants: in Square d’Orléans, Louie once again referred to the unbridled passion shared between Sand and Chopin; at 8 Rue la Bruyère, he told the story of the poetess Marceline Desbordes-Valmore and her thirty-year adulterous relationship with Henri de Latouche . . . But the highlight had to be his impassioned description of the ladies of the night who had taken up residence by a neoclassical church while it was under construction:
“Their first clients were the construction workers; then, after the church was finished, they solicited the parishioners. They became known as the ‘lorettes,’ after the name of the church: Notre-Dame-de-Lorette.”
The structure rose before us: four Corinthian columns supporting a classically inspired portico.
“But I thought the area was rather chic?”
“The lorettes were chic!” he cried, defending them. “They were nothing like the cheap whores in the Bastille or Belleville areas who generally worked as linen maids or hat sellers, and hawked their charms to make ends meet.”
“And the lorettes were different?”
“Yes! Overall, they were girls of quality. They were educated, knew how to read and write, and were partially supported by their johns. For them, prostitution was more of a way of life than an economic necessity.”
“They were more like courtesans than prostitutes, you mean.”
I wonder if he spends a lot of time with girls like us, lorettes and Hotelles, like that stunning ethnic woman the other night at the gallery. Maybe he even frequents real prostitutes, the ones you can find in alleys near Bois de Vincennes for a quickie behind a rusty truck. What do men get out of possessing all these nameless, and practically faceless, vaginas? Does it make them feel stronger, more virile, more desirable? Honestly, do they feel transformed after sheathing themselves in latex and penetrating a woman, without emotion or feeling? Just an obedient pussy they’ll never fuck again?
Anonymous handwritten note, 6/7/2009—These are the kinds of questions men ask . . . He acts like he’s in my head; this time, he has everything all wrong.
MY SUCCINCT WAY OF PUTTING things made him laugh. For once, there was no hint of cynicism or manipulation. Meanwhile, tensions from our most recent spat seemed to have dissipated, at least as far as he was concerned. I wished I could have said as much . . . I was just playing my part as best I could, anxious for it to end.
“One might say, yes.”
WE SPENT HOURS OUTSIDE IN the sun. The day was filled with more stories and architectural details than I could possibly remember. It was difficult to admit, but I really did enjoy listening to Louie talk about the Venetian style of some of the buildings surrounding Place Saint-Georges, with all the medallions, friezes, and ornate columns. It was a stark contrast to the clean neoclassicism of Rue de la Tour-des-Dames.
At lunch, we had omelets in a brasserie called Le Central near Drouot. It wasn’t far from the antique stores where Sophia and I liked to window-shop. Strange coincidence: Louie stopped directly in front of Antiquités Nativelle. My favorite boutique. After looking for a moment, he made to go inside.
“Will you give me a moment?”
Without waiting for my reply, he stepped into the store. Powerless, my heart stopped when I saw him speak with the clerk, a small man in spectacles, and point to the silver comb I had been ogling for weeks. The one that had belonged to Mademoiselle Mars, my new neighbor, with a couple centuries between us.
It only took a few minutes, and he was back out on the street again, holding a hastily wrapped package.
“Here.”
I refused the gift with a decisive gesture.
“Louie . . . I can’t accept it. If David found out, he—”
He cut me off softly.
“There’s nothing strange or untoward about it, Elle. I am just following my brother’s instructions: take you on a stroll . . . and spoil you. He’s paying for everything, of course.”
It sounded like my fiancé, who must have given this temporary power to his brother unsuspectingly.
“In that case . . . I guess I have to accept.”
His eyes gleamed. Right, he was only following David’s orders, I thought. But the pleasure he derived was all his. He gave me the present, and in return I offered him my embarrassment and gratitude, two things he seemed to enjoy immensely.
“I have another errand. It’s not very pleasant. Would you mind waiting for me in that café? It will only take about a half hour.”
I FOUND MY USUAL TABLE at Café des Antiquaires really comforting after the tumult of the past several days. All that was missing was Sophia. Unfortunately, she wasn’t picking up her phone. I wanted to tell her about everything that had happened since we’d last talked. Instead, I settled into the familiar café’s cozy atmosphere and thought of how Louie’s crazy lies had clouded my haloed image of his brother.
Why had he wanted to trick me? What exactly was he getting out of these games? The influence he had on me was not enough to explain his apparent need to test my nerves every time we met.
His sudden entry into the café whipped my face with cool air.
“There! It’s done. Are you ready?”
He was holding a red-and-white plastic bag on which was printed a signature uppercase letter D: Drouot, the mecca of auction houses. What had he needed to purchase that had been so urgent? The long shape of the package, stuffed with newspaper, did not betray its contents.
I kept my questions to myself and followed him for the last stretch of our walk, through the elegant Jouffroy Passage, another architectural symbol of Romantic Paris. 1846, read the clock overhead, at the junction of the passage’s L-shape. Like the clock and the wax statues in the Musée Grévin on our left, Louie seemed frozen in another time. Some of the people around us even stared at him as though he were a touristic curiosity, a vestige of turn-of-the-century dandyism.
“Are you coming back with me? I’m starting to feel a little tired . . .”
We had been walking since morning, and my request must have seemed legitimate to him because he agreed. A few paces farther, as we were stepping out onto Boulevard Montmartre, he hailed a taxi.
Ten minutes later, the car was starting up Rue de la Rochefoucauld, when I spotted a big-cylindered black motorcycle at the next intersection.
“Stop!” I said to the driver.
“It’s farther up, on Rue de la Tour-des-Dames, Mademoiselle.”
“Yes, I know . . . but could you leave us here, please?”
“Okay, it’s up to you,” he conceded, veering his white Mercedes toward the sidewalk.
Torn from his thoughts, Louie looked surprised.
“Is something wrong?”
“No, no, everything is fine,” I lied, feeling uneasy.
Then he saw him, too. A motorcyclist stretched across his mechanical monster, wrapped in a leather jacket, holding his helmet: Fred.
“You’ve gone pale, Elle. Is it because of that boy?”
“Yes . . . ,” I gasped, getting out of the vehicle.
“Who is it?”
“My ex . . . And he has no reason to be here.”
“Does he scare you?”
I stiffened. I didn’t know what bothered me more: the unexpected appearance of my ex or that Louie was there to see me so shaken up.
“No . . . no. But still, I’d rather go in through the back.”
There was a cul-de-sac on the north, at 56 Rue Saint-Lazare, that offered secret access to the gardens of the houses on Rue de la Tour-des-Dames. Only locals knew about it.
But Louie seized my arm, gluing his side to mine, and, with a determined look, dragged me toward the man who was waiting for us.
“You know, I get it. You’re not the kind of girl men let go of easily. But come on. Since he’s here, we are going to give him something for his money.”
Terrible idea!
Fred saw us and started walking in our direction with a quick and precise step. I recognized the look he usually had before a fight: his eyes and shoulders were low, his head tucked, his fists tight.
“So you’re the one?” he asked Louie.
“I am.”
Holding firm, Louie wasn’t the least bit scared. His look was one of aristocratic defiance. Spurred by Louie’s attitude, the motorcyclist thrust the palm of his hand into his opponent’s chest.
“You son of a bitch! So now you want the proletariat’s girls, huh? What, stepping on our backs all year isn’t enough? You have to steal our women, too?”
He was oozing hate. Fred thought he was talking to David, and Louie, being a gentleman, played along in order to protect me from my ex-boyfriend’s rancor.
Out of desperation, I grabbed Fred’s rock-hard arm.
“Fred! Stop!”
“This is your great love? Fuck, he’s a cripple!”
“Young man, you’ve gone too far.”
Now Louie approached him, brandishing his cane. Without thinking, I started screaming in the hope that Armand or someone else might hear and call the police.
“Stop it!”
“Oh, I’m sure all their fucking money helps when you close your eyes and open your thighs!” Fred spit, shielding himself with his helmet.
The cane came down hard on the visor, then again on Fred’s hand; he shrieked in pain.
“Fuck!”
Drunk with pride and pain, the wounded man charged at his opponent. Just then, Louie rummaged through the Drouot bag. He quickly withdrew a long, flexible object and swooshed a Z in the air. A riding crop!
He punctuated each word with the sharp sound of leather cutting through the air:
“Don’t you . . . come near . . . Elle . . . ever again! Do you understand?”
“Freak!” Fred bellowed, his tone markedly less proud.
It terrified me to see them on the verge of fighting. But I have to admit that it also struck an instinctual chord inside my animalistic female self: I wondered which of the two males would win the fight and throw himself on me. A fleeting desire crossed my mind to see them naked and tearing each other apart for me.
Anonymous handwritten note, 6/7/2009—“Animalistic female self ”? Who did he think he was? A superhero?
AS FRED BACKED AWAY, THE tip of the crop whipped his face, leaving a red welt—striking but superficial, judging from the lack of blood. Nevertheless, it convinced him to back off. Humiliated, he drew his hand to his face and staggered toward his motorcycle, a wild look in his eyes. Without stopping, he started the engine and got ready to leave.
But Louie didn’t seem satisfied with his victory. He continued to threaten the other with his riding crop, whipping it all around. It wasn’t until the motorcycle roared off in the other direction that he seemed to remember the person for whom he’d fought this battle. He collected his cane from the ground and approached me, acting more sheepish than boastful.
“I am sorry . . .”
“Don’t be.”
He took my hand, turned it palm up, and ceremoniously placed the leather crop in it.
“What are you . . . ?”
“It’s your second present. Though I hadn’t planned on using it before giving it to you.”
“It’s wonderful.”
But what am I supposed to do with a riding crop? I wondered.
“It once belonged to an elegant English woman in the 1850s,” he added hastily. “At the time, that kind of accessory was very fashionable. Even for women who didn’t ride.”
“Thanks . . .”
Two presents, one rescue . . . Despite his unpredictable behavior, as well as the odious way in which he was blackmailing me, I could not leave my hero of the day without thanking him. As I kissed him chastely on the cheeks, he put one of his soft, elegant hands on the nape of my neck. For the second time, I could smell his cologne: the fight had dissipated the scent of lavender, accentuating the notes of vanilla. I hated to admit it, but it was delicious. And together with the feeling of his fingers on my skin, it made me shiver, softly at first, then with increasing intensity, in waves that ran from my neck to my pelvis. Was it possible to come by stimulating as unlikely an erogenous zone as the neck?
I didn’t wait to find out. I detached myself from him, my forehead burning, my gaze wild.
“Are you okay?” he asked, worried.
“Yes . . . I’m fine. Just a little shaken up.”
I pointed to the road where Fred had taken off on his motorcycle.
Armand had heard the racket and come out to meet us.
“I’m leaving you in the best hands in Paris.”
“Yes, I know,” I agreed. “Armand is—”
“What happened?” interrupted the butler, fraught with worry.
“Good-bye, Elle.”
Louie was already leaving. His limp looked worse, and he seemed to need his cane more than ever. Where and how had he hurt his leg? Wasn’t he just a faker, an actor seeking to perfect his character? Wasn’t the handicap just an eccentric accessory?
Armand helped me up the front steps as though I were wounded. I could have put up a fuss and pretended that I was in full possession of my faculties, but he still would have insisted on supporting me against his surprisingly robust shoulder.
When I saw the missive on the console, I thought I would really faint: a second silver envelope that looked just like the first.
“Who left that here?” I asked weakly.
“I don’t know. I found it in the mail this morning. Is there a problem?”
“There’s no stamp.”
“Oh . . . I hadn’t noticed.”
“You didn’t see who left it?”
Not Louie, I realized, since he hadn’t left my side all day.
“No. I’m sorry . . . Is everything okay, Mademoiselle?”
“Yes, yes . . .” I forced a smile. “Thank you, Armand.”
I waited for him to turn around before opening the envelope. As before, it contained a key to a room at the Hôtel des Charmes, as well as a handwritten note and a printed card. Clearly this was becoming a ritual.
Tonight, ten o’clock,
the usual place.
Bring your equipment.
My equipment? What did my mysterious correspondent mean?
I was looking at the printed card . . .
2—Thou shalt awaken thine senses.
. . . when Armand came back to the hall.
“With all the commotion, I forgot to tell you . . .”
“Yes?”
I quickly hid the little card behind my back, like a schoolgirl caught doing something wrong.
“David invited some people over for dinner tonight. At nine o’clock.”
“Dinner?”
Well, that decided things, much like an alarm clock wakes you from a bad dream.
“He wants you to meet some important people at BTV. Your future coworkers, in a way.”
But not Louie, I thought. I agreed hoarsely.
“Okay.”
“Nothing formal,” he reassured me. “A little dinner between friends. They’re all really close to David. It’s sort of his intimate circle.”
I understood perfectly, and my throat went dry: this dinner would be a kind of test. If I wanted to be accepted by the higher-ups at the station, it would have to be a success. I had to be brilliant, but without overdoing it. Smart, but without overshadowing the other women present. Happy, but not hysterical. And under no circumstances was I to play the role that my imminent marriage entailed, that of the lady of honor. I had to be professional, not silly.
“I’ll take care of everything. All you have to do is be beautiful.”
Reflexively, I searched through my dress pocket. I had forgotten about it all day, and yet it had never left me. It weighed heavily on the light fabric: the big, jagged key that would unlock a whole new world, about which I still knew nothing.