Of Irish Blood (38 page)

“I am going to Berlin,” I say, “to visit Baroness Von Stuben, perhaps you know her?” Now he’s only getting every third word but the “Von” helps. And the
Gewürztraminer
, too.

He sets the helmet down and takes my hand across the table and lets out a burst of German.

“He wants to go up to your room,” the desk clerk says.

“Tell him that I checked out, that my train is leaving,” which the clerk does. Fluent enough German when he wants.

“But,” I whisper to the general, “I have a sleeping compartment on the Orient Express. A wagon-lits privee,” I say “Bed.”

He understands.

Annoying that he assumes I’m a loose woman, but helpful too. He hands me back my passport.

“We go,” he says.

He is surprised all I have is the train case but I tell him the rest of my luggage is on the Orient Express. He actually clicks his heels and grabs the case. I raise the parasol.

The train station is surprisingly busy for an Easter afternoon but again most travelers seem to be arriving from the east not heading there. How can I get away from this fellow?

Two Orient Express trains. One under a sign that says
DEPARTURE:
17:00
: BERLIN.
The other 16:00
: PARIS
. We move toward the Berlin train.

Now the German is shouting at a conductor something to the effect that Madame, me, insists on boarding the train now. After all, it is here and so are we. But the conductor’s arrogance matches the general’s.

“Ah, well.
Gewürztraminer
,” I say to the general, and lead him to a café.

Now what? I’ll have to board that Berlin train. And then …

“You must come with me to the baroness’s home,” I say, speaking very slowly. “She knows everyone. Probably even you or your wife.”

I give him a pencil and paper from my bag and say, “Please write your name.”

That slows him down a bit. However loose he thinks I am, he doesn’t want me blabbing to some baroness with who knows what connections. He downs the wine and orders another and another and another. Now he’s holding my hand as I watch the Paris train leave the station. Damn. But what could I do? Hit him with the parasol and run? Not really.

By the time “All aboard” sounds for the Berlin train he’s well and truly drunk and I’m not doing so well myself. We barely make it to the train. Any thought of using my privee wagon lits is gone.

The general hands me over to the conductor, who’s happy to deposit me in an empty compartment without checking my ticket.

It’s two hours and a nap later that I face the music.

The conductor assumes that I’m a stupid woman too tipsy to board the right train. He puts me off at Lucenay, and I doze in the waiting room until the Paris-bound night train puffs in.

Still enough
Gewürztraminer
on my breath to make my story of getting on the wrong train convincing and the conductor takes my ticket and says something like “Sleep it off, lady” in French.

Almost dawn when we arrive back in the Gare de l’Est, drizzling onto Madame Strasbourg atop the station.

“I did it,” I tell her. And saved my virtue though I have a terrible hangover. Not the first one to drink for Ireland I think.

Maud’s away in Florence so I go to the Irish College. Father Kevin is delighted with me. “And just in the nick of time, Nora. England’s forbidden the importation of any weapons into Ireland. Typical, they let our enemies arm themselves and make it illegal for us to defend ourselves. Thank God, you got the money there on time. The deal will be done, the guns bought. Now, to get them to Ireland.”

“Don’t look at me,” I say. “I’ve hung up my parasol.”

He laughs. “The
Asgard
is ready. But they’re going to have to evade the British navy.”

Oh, great, I think. I’ve taken all this risk and now the whole mission depends on a crippled woman in a sailboat. Well, at least Peter will be pleased I think.

“When will Professor Keeley arrive?” I ask.

“Postponed again, I’m afraid. Had a wire from Louvain. Professor Keeley’s helping the university secure their library and move the most valuable books and manuscripts. When war comes, looting will be the real danger.”

When war comes, not “if” anymore. But when.

I can’t resist telling Madame Simone that I’ve visited Strasbourg. “I wanted to be in the cathedral on Easter,” I say. I tell her how beautiful it was, lovely singing, the music, the pink stone.

“Now you understand
la revanche
,” she says.

Very few tourists come to Paris throughout the rest of that spring, afraid of marching armies.

Maud’s away for the whole month of May and there’s no sign of Peter Keeley. Father Kevin tells me “patience is a virtue” when I see him at Mass, which I find annoying. “Old cultures know how to wait,” he says. “While you Americans…”

I interrupt him.

“Get to work.”

I do.

Madame Simone has no clients, but I’ll solicit some of my own, I think. I station myself with Louis at the Eiffel Tower. A gray-haired fellow with a bulging stomach approaches me and says he’d like a very special tour of Paris and winks. The German general all over again. I tell the fellow to get lost, which makes Louis laugh.

I decide to try to get work as a clerk in a bookshop and contact first Adrienne Monnier and then Sylvia Beach. But neither one has been able to open her shop.

“Want a secretarial position?” Sylvia asks me. “Edith Wharton is looking for someone.”

And so I go to see the famous Edith Wharton, despite the fact that I can’t type or take shorthand. If only Mame were here. A whiz on the typewriter, I think, and feel a kind of pinch in my heart. Awful that I’ll never see any of them again. Last week, I dreamed we were sitting on Aunt Kate Larney’s porch sipping lemonade while the boys drank their beer, just as it was the night of Tim McShane. Only in the dream, his Oldsmobile just drives by. I never take up with him. I woke up wishing the dream were the reality.

Edith Wharton lives in a grand apartment off the Faubourg Saint-Germain. Very classy altogether, but then she has family money. Couldn’t live like this from selling books. Now here’s a woman who has arranged life to suit herself, not derailed by passion, I think as her maid shows me into a sitting room.

I seat myself on what’s certainly an antique sofa, from one of the King Louis periods, I’d say. I pop up when Edith Wharton enters. Pleasant enough to me though a bit stiff and not pleased at all when I tell her I can’t type but am willing to learn.

She shakes her head and asks how do I plan to stay in Paris if I can’t support myself. I say I have to find some way because I don’t want to go home.

“None of us do,” she says, and then out of the blue tells me she’s managed to settle her husband in Boston and is going to live here on her own forever.

“I think, Nora, life can be a tightrope or a feather bed. I chose the tightrope.”

“Well,” I say, “that gives us something in common.”

I report back to Sylvia, who tells me Edith has just taken a lover at age forty-nine, probably her first real sexual experience.

“Who?” I ask.

“Some friend of Henry James,” she says.

Never too late, I think, and wonder if Peter Keeley will ever return.

15

JUNE 1914

“I have an opportunity for you,” Madame Simone says to me.

June now. I’m really worried. My savings are almost gone. No clients are coming to Madame Simone and fewer tourists are on the streets of Paris. The whole world seems to be holding its breath, listening for the first heavy treads of marching armies.

“Jeanne Paquin,” she says.

Madame Simone approves of Jeanne Paquin. Unlike Chanel, she is a designer in the grand manner, like Poiret and Charles Worth. I admire her fashions, too. The elaborate gowns are just simple enough to be beautiful. She and Madame Simone worked together as dressmakers at the House of Rouff as young women.

“I saw Jeanne yesterday. She wants photographs of her clothes to appear in
La Gazette du Bon Ton
,” Madame Simone says.

I know the magazine. Very fancy, very expensive, with color illustrations. And now, photographs.

“She wants to hire a photographer. I recommended you.”

“Thank you, Madame, but I’m not a good enough to … I mean, I’m only starting, I…”

“Make that your asset,” she says. “Say you have a fresh eye, new ideas. Besides, all the men will be fighting soon. Not bad to have a woman replacement handy.”

Fresh eye, new ideas, I repeat to myself as I walk to the House of Paquin on the rue de la Paix. Her shop is right next to the big boys’. No nonsense about Jeanne Paquin, Madame told me. And no small talk either.

“Be very direct with her,” she says. “Be American.”

That achingly blue sky blesses Paris only in early summer. Like Chicago’s short sweet season before the heat and humidity of July and August muffle the city. No Lake Michigan here, of course, so no cool breezes. Stop, Nora. I must not let myself dream about a city that I’ll never see again. What did Gertrude Stein say? “America is my country but Paris is my hometown.” Me too, Gertrude.

“Both she and Alice have gone to Spain, packed away their pictures,” Madame Simone said. “They think the Boche will not bother Spain.” So much for defending the old hometown. But then, lots of French people have left Paris, beginning the long
vacance
early enough to avoid the Germans. Gabrielle Chanel is waiting for the vacationers in Biarritz. I suppose even during a war the rich will still want new clothes.

I follow a maid up a stairway past the hushed rooms where clients view Madame Paquin’s creations. Polished marble floors here, Oriental carpets, and on the walls, enlarged illustrations of Madame Paquin’s designs. Farther up the staircase, elegance turns utilitarian. Women bend over sewing machines, their feet ride the treadles, marching in place. Madame’s office is on the top floor. A skylight lets in that blue sky. Even here, in the outer waiting room, I can see the yellow-green tops of chestnut trees.

I don’t wait long. Madame Paquin has strong features. Her dark hair’s dressed in elaborate curls. She sits at a desk that might have come from Versailles, wearing a dove gray jacket with tucks along a bodice that even Madame Simone couldn’t copy.

And she’s not alone. A fellow sits on a settee across from her against the wall. He stands when I come in. A French gentleman, I think. Though his suit’s a bit big on him. And when I look down at his shoes, I wonder. Madame Simone says shoes tell all. His shoes are wingtips like my brother Mike wears. But I’m not going to start thinking of Mike now.

“Sit down, sit down,” Jeanne Paquin says. “Now, Madame Simone tells me you are her client’s photographer and that you have a sense of women and clothes.”

“Well,” I say, “I have been taking pictures of her clients in her designs.”

Jeanne Paquin stops me. “I do not wish to talk about Esther’s ‘designs.’”

I have to speak up. “Madame Simone doesn’t copy you. You are a great couturier who inspires her and…”

“Didn’t you hear me? We are not talking about Esther. I understand but I do not applaud.”

The young man pretends he’s not listening. Polite, well-bred, despite his shoes.

Jeanne Paquin points to a magazine open on her desk. It’s
Art et Décoration
, another very fancy French publication. She pushes the magazine over to me. I see a full-page photograph, very dramatic, of a woman in a gown by Paul Poiret.

“What do you think?”

“It’s wonderful,” I say. “A famous photograph. The lighting, the placement of the woman makes it look like a painting. And did you know the photographer’s an American?”

I stop. Of course, she knows.

“I’d like pictures of my collection
comme ça
,” Jeanne Paquin says.

“Then hire the photographer. He lives in Paris, though I’ve never met him,” I say.

“I have offered him,” Madame Paquin says, “and have been refused.” She looks at the fellow sitting on the settee, who speaks to me.

“I told her I just can’t. I’m getting frantic letters from my mother, terrified about the war. Everybody in Milwaukee’s afraid their neighbors will turn on them if there is war with Germany. Even though we’re from Luxembourg, everyone assumes we’re German.”

“Milwaukee?” I say. “So you’re…”

He sticks out his hand.

“Eddie Steichen. Nice to meet you. I didn’t get your name.”

“I’m…” But who am I? Nora Kelly from Chicago? Not anymore. If this fellow’s going home to Milwaukee, he’ll be passing through Chicago. Who knows who he knows?

“I’m Kelly,” I say. “I only use the one name professionally.” Sounds lame, even to me, but he smiles.

“And from Chicago,” he says.

Oh, dear God, he knows.

“I can tell from your accent. Nobody flattens those ‘a’s quite the same way.”

I smile. After all, there are thousands and thousands of Kellys in Chicago.

“And you’re staying here?”

“Yes, I am,” I say.

“But won’t your family be concerned? Looking for you?”

And then doesn’t he stand up and sing the first line of my song? “Has anybody here seen Kelly?”

Flummoxed altogether is Jeanne Paquin, especially when I get up and join in “K-E-double-L-Y. Has anybody here seen Kelly? / Have you seen her smile.” We sing together:

“Oh, her hair is red and her eyes are blue. / And she’s Irish through and through. / Has anybody here seen Kelly? Kelly from the Emerald Isle.”

We laugh and applaud each other. I do love Americans, I think. I’m sure Jeanne Paquin is going to throw out both of us, but she more or less pretends nothing’s happened, and we sit down.

I say to Eddie, “You know I can’t replicate that,” pointing to the magazine. “I mean, you’re a real artist.”

“Show us some examples of your work,” Madame Jeanne says.

“I couldn’t, I’m…”

“Come on, Kelly, an artist can’t be humble,” Eddie says.

I open the envelope that I’ve been clutching and take out some of the shots of my ladies taken at the Eiffel Tower. The Distortions, as Louis calls them.