Paris
JULY 1920
PARIS IS ONE OF THOSE CITIES THAT SEEMS LIKE IT’S ALWAYS existed. The ground of it is firm underfoot, it’s a place content in itself, sure-hearted. The people and the town are wound together and each enhances the charms of the other; both are at once heavy and light, which is a rare trick to pull off. I feel sure that Paris is where we were always meant to be and yet, also, I seem to float above it, as if I’ll never quite manage to worm down into the earth here and be firmly attached. The last time I was here I was but a girl, truly; I had no idea what life was about, or love. No clue of the troubles and tongue-holdings of a marriage, the heavy weight of the love for your own child.
I want a home now. Yes, I love the novelty of the wander about, the giddy feeling of everything being new and fresh. But, also, I’m dog-tired of existing as a temporary guest, of not owning the bones of anything except the ones that live inside me. My very guts yearn for a resting place, a spot that I can relax into and where I can call down a real calm onto myself. I’m beginning to wonder if mine isn’t a blighted wifehood. Is Jim’s need to roam and, now, to be where the literary men are, an enormously selfish thing? Do the children suffer because of their father’s obsessions and, also, because I blithely go along with whatever he suggests?
Mr. Pound has found us a place—a servants’ flat—in Passy. Our rue, rue de l’Assomption, is between the river and the Bois du Boulogne and, for position, you couldn’t fault it, but the place is hardly fit to wash a rat in. It’s cramped as a matchbox, there’s no electric light, few plates, and it’s on the fifth floor of the building. Lucia says the furniture is held together with spit and, true for her, there’s nothing but a crude collection of flimsy items that hardly hold our weight. We have the flat for three months and, then, who knows where we’ll fetch up.
“It’s like living in medieval times,” Georgie says, for it bothers him to use candles and oil lamps to read by.
“We will find a better place in the city, by and by,” his father tells him and I wonder ruefully what happened to our holiday in Britain or Ireland.
Mr. Pound, who cannot do enough—he says Jim’s a genius, no less—organizes a welcome party for us at the home of a Monsieur Spire, a poet. I put on my green silk dress, the ivory necklace, and a short satin coat that always makes me feel good and strong.
“Mamma, you look glorious,” Georgie says and his compliment buffs me to gold.
Lucia comes and runs her hand over the satin; she keeps stroking me, as if I were her pet, and she’s unwilling to let me go. I move toward the door where Jim is putting on his jacket and hat and she pursues me, her hand moving faster over me now, in little slaps that I know I’m meant to feel.
“Babbo’s waiting for me, Lucy,” I say.
She pulls her fingers away sharply and turns her back. This is Lucia—she often doesn’t protest in words, it’s all sullen looks and long stares, where it concerns me at least. With Jim she’s more forgiving, and he with her. He dotes on Lucia, forgiving her pettishness; I prefer to use a firmer hand.
“Good-bye, children,” Jim says. “Don’t stay up to ungodly hours.”
“We won’t. Bonne soirée,” Georgie replies.
Lucia keeps her back to us. “Good night, Babbo.”
I pause, my hand on the door and I can’t help myself. “And do you want to wish your mamma a pleasant evening, too, Lucia?” I wish she was as warm with me as she is with Jim; I can never figure out why she’s so cold with me when I’ve really done nothing to deserve it. “Lucia?” I say again.
“Leave her be, Nora,” Jim says, “she’s just tired.”
“Bold as brass is what she is,” I snap, tugging open the lock and stepping out.
MONSIEUR SPIRE’S PLACE IS RATHER GRAND; THE ROOMS FLOW into each other and the walls have gold stucco such as you’d see in a church or palace. There’s a big crowd of people gathered to meet Jim, but they huddle in groups and we stay back by the fireplace, clutching glasses of sherry and staring about us like a pair of gombeens. Jim doesn’t want to drink in case his tongue rattles too much and he says something amiss. Mr. Pound heckles him to have wine, which embarrasses Jim, but, luckily, he notices Jim’s discomfort and moves away. Around me I can hear conversations in French and I might as well be in the Tower of Babel for all I can understand. Pound comes over again to try to parade Jim around the room but, until a drink warms his gut, Jim’ll remain still and silent, this I know.
“Come back in a while, Mr. Pound,” I say, and he bows and joins a group nearby. I turn to Jim. “They’re all here for you, love.”
“And I’d rather be anywhere else.”
“Remember you came for this, Jim, to meet with influential people. It’ll be good for the book, so you’ll have to dive in.” He grunts and sips from his glass. “Look, go to the library that Pound showed us on the way in. Sit by yourself and have a good gulp of that sherry. When you’ve gained your courage, come back.”
He squinches his eyes and one hand tugs at his beardeen. “I will so.”
I watch him totter away, cane tapping the floor, and I see many eyes follow him. He makes a fine, if unsure, figure stepping down the room. When I turn back, there is a woman at my elbow; she’s dressed in a man’s velvet blazer and white shirt, with a flowing tie.
“Mrs. Joyce.” American. She extends her hand. “Sylvia Beach.” She grabs more glasses from a passing waiter and hands one to me. “Your husband writes dazzlingly, Mrs. Joyce.”
“Well, yes he does.”
“He has disappeared, it seems.”
“Jim can be a little shy of company, he’s gone to gather himself.”
She looks alarmed. “Gone outside? Gone away?”
“No, no, he’s skulking in Monsieur Spire’s library, afraid of his life he might have to talk to someone.” I smile. “If you’ll go easy on him, I’ll take you to him, Mrs. Beach.”
“Miss Beach.”
I nod. “And you can call me Nora.”
She walks ahead of me, talking back over her shoulder. “You have children, Mrs. Joyce?”
“Yes, a boy of fifteen and a girl of thirteen. They’re a harlequin pair, I have to say, Miss Beach, as opposite as night and day. Jim says Jane Austen named them—he calls them Sense and Sensibility.”
Miss Beach laughs and whirls around to face me. “How charming! And which is which?”
“Giorgio is Sense. Lucia is the other.”
She walks beside me now. “Do you enjoy Miss Austen’s novels, aren’t they a hoot?”
“Well now, I’m more for penny dreadfuls and romances, myself. Them or the Daily Mail.”
She spurts a laugh, then says, “Quite right.”
We get to the library door and Jim is within, examining a book. Miss Beach launches into the room.
“Is this the great James Joyce?” she asks.
Jim holds out his hand and says, “James Joyce.”
“Miss Sylvia Beach, sir. A great admirer of Chamber Music and A Portrait of the Artist and the extracts I now read in the Little Review. They’re extraordinary, you know.” She drinks some sherry and examines Jim. “You’re a modern man, Monsieur Joyce, and your art reflects that well.”
Jim gives her a little smile, warming to her; he’s a great fellow for praise. “And what do you do in Paris, Miss Beach?”
“I have a bookshop on rue Dupuytren.”
“Booksellers do mighty work,” he says. “What’s the name of your establishment?”
“Shakespeare and Company.”
Again Jim smiles. “A fine name for what, no doubt, is a fine establishment.” He takes out his tiny notebook and writes in it, the name of the shop and its location, presumably.
“Please come by and see me there. Don’t feel you need to buy anything. I lend books to writer friends as long as they can keep them clean.”
I step fully into the room. “Oh, Miss Beach, he’s very respectful of books. You wouldn’t know Jim had read a book at all, he’s that careful of them.”
A dog barks somewhere in the Spire flat and Jim leaps like a chivvied cat. I go and put my hand to his arm. “It’s all right, love.”
“Is that dog here?” Jim says to Miss Beach. “Is it fierce?”
She looks bewildered. “I think it is here; Spire has a dog, for sure. Let me go and tell him to keep it locked up. You’re not fond of our canine friends, Mr. Joyce?”
Jim strokes his goatee. “I was bitten on the face by a dog as a child, Miss Beach. I wear these whiskers to cover the scar.”
The pair of them stand gawping at each other, awkward as strangers at a wake. Miss Beach swivels toward the door then turns back. “You can receive your mail at Shakespeare and Company, Mr. Joyce, if you like. Others do.”
“That would be convenient.”
Miss Beach smiles and studies Jim as if he were the rarest of specimens and he peers back at her and smiles, too. They shake hands then, like two businessmen concluding a deal, and Miss Beach looks between the pair of us and says, “Shall we rejoin the party?”
“Yes, let’s,” Jim says, eager as a girl, a grin wreathing his face.
I think Miss Beach already likes Jim enormously, and I can tell by his manner toward her that he likes her, too. Perhaps we’ll make some friends and settle in Paris after all.
IT’S THE MORNING AFTER THE PARTY AT MONSIEUR SPIRE’S AND Jim puts on his blue serge suit and black hat to go to Shakespeare and Company and those hideous plimsolls he insists on wearing, despite Georgie having given up his boots to him.
“Put on the boots,” I say.
“I feel like a Dutch boy in his daddy’s clogs in them, they’re huge on me.”
I sigh. “But them dirty auld canvas shoes, Jim. They’re a fright.”
“Nobody cares a whittle-whottle what I wear, Nora. They care only for what I write, and what I might say about other writers, which will be very little.”
“Oh, go on.” I kiss his cheek and wish him well and off he goes, doing a Charlie Chaplin walk—toes up, arms and cane swinging—to make me laugh.
He’s back within a few hours and I’m surprised to see him return so soon.
“Well?” I say. “How did you get on?”
“Grand.” He holds up a book. “I borrowed this.”
I take it out of his hand. “Riders to the Sea? Sure we know this one, Jim. What did you take this for? You might’ve got a new one.”
“I was confused. Miss Beach is very, I don’t know, very American, all fuss and bonhomie. My mind got addled and I just picked the first thing I saw.”
“You like her, Jim?”
“Yes. She’s openhearted, kind too, I think. She introduced me to her friend, a Mademoiselle Monnier, another book shop proprietor. I think, Nora, that they might be sapphists.”
“Well, Miss Beach’s outfit the other night was very masculine, all right.” We look at each other and giggle.
“She says she will help us find a better flat. And she’ll keep an ear out for English language students for me, too. What luck to have met her so soon. Miss Beach is one of those born to help others, it seems.”
I put my arm around him and kiss his neck. “And you, my love, have a gift for finding just such helpers.”