The Eleventh Year (19 page)

E
lena remembered
Paris with the excitement of remembered glory. She had loved Paris during her adolescence. She had admired its beauty, been enthralled by its wickedness. For Paris, like Naples, had its seamy underside, its decadence and corruption. And Elena, though still whole and virginal at eighteen, had already possessed inside her soul the seeds of her own corruption.

Paris, with its stately buildings, had appealed to her esthetic sense of balance; but architectural beauty was unsurpassed in St. Petersburg, with its golden spires and onion domes. What really fascinated Elena, however, were the whores of Clichy, waiting under the streetlamps; the open-air cafés and bistros, filled with odd conglomerations of poor students, artists, and the well-heeled members of the upper classes stopping for a quick chat and a
café express.
She loved the mixture of rich and poor, of voices with the pure accent of Tours and the argot of the Parisian alleys. She found there a thrill that, as a protected little Russian princess, she'd never tasted during the normal course of her existence. And the naughty and bizarre were more intriguing than the proper and the clean.

Elena arrived from the Orient with enough money left over to settle at the Ritz. It lay in the heart of the most opulent block of the city; Van Cleef and Arpels, the jewelers, were across the square, and elegant arcades housed the most magnificent displays of clothing and furs. Galleries exposed Gauguins and Cézannes and the newest works of Pablo Picasso, the Spaniard who had become, even before the war, the rage of Parisian collectors. She took the smallest room available, but felt that from there, as an eagle from a high rock, she was overlooking the Paris in which she planned to make her life. Fate was smiling at her again. The possibilities were endless.

The first week she merely strolled about, crossing to the Luxembourg Gardens, looking at the distinguished women who walked by. She was thirsty for civilization, for style. Fashions had changed radically since 1908; now, with the end of the war, women once again thought of their clothes, but the shortages and restrictions had forever altered modes of dress. Loose, short chemise dresses abounded; coats were eight inches from the ground, hats were small toques instead of the wide-brimmed extravaganzas to which she had been accustomed. She wondered how she, so statuesque, would look in clothes made for women with sloping shoulders and tiny bone structures. At first she was dismayed: How to compete in a world of formless young hermaphrodites? For the first time in her life, her Amazonian proportions seemed unsuitable—and for the first time, too, she felt unsure of herself.

She went down to the lobby of the hotel and stopped in front of a display window and peered at a red velvet cushion on which had been propped an enormous sapphire surrounded by rubies and diamonds. The jewels were almost blinding. Elena hugged her cape of zibeline fur, which she had brought with her from Krasnoyarsk and had somehow managed to hold onto from city to city. It was, she knew, hopelessly out of style. But it was winter and better to go out in sable than to go out in cloth, no matter how used the fur.

She saw, through the reflection of the glass pane, two figures making their way through the lobby from outside, and, without much thought, she turned around, curious. Two young women, laughing, shaking the snow from their boots. Elena watched them as if in a trance. One was taller, voluptuous, pretty but without distinction. She had brown hair, thick, pulled into a knot at the back of her neck, and soft wisps had blown around her face with its straight nose, unpainted mouth, and blue eyes. Her black blouse coat had dolman sleeves cut in one piece from the rest of the material and was open to reveal a lavender shirtwaist blouse tied at the throat. The skirt was navy blue, tailored, and the boots were black leather. She was certainly fashionable enough; but something about her was ungainly. Perhaps, thought Elena ruefully, it was the sensuous curves of her body, which no longer went with the times.

Idly her eyes went to the other girl. Suddenly Elena came awake. This one was small boned, with bobbed red hair that fell in bangs over her forehead. Bright-green eyes, catlike, and a pert upturned nose made her resemble a fairy or a woodland nymph. Her three-quarter coat of deep emerald wool matched the little suit beneath it, and the boots were of maroon leather. A woman-child. Elena was bewitched, admiring. This, then, was the French girl of 1918. A hint of naughty freckles shone on her nose. The two young women were laughing, and then Elena heard them speak in English, a strangely accented English that made her blink for a moment in astonishment. Then they were
not
French! But not British, either. Americans? She was intrigued.

The two girls hastened toward the front desk, and the small redhead asked in perfect French: “Do we have any mail, Jean?”

“Not today, Mademoiselle Richardson.”

“Oh, well, it doesn't matter.” They were turning away, going to the lift. Elena felt like following them but remained glued to the floor. Lucky young girls, traveling, at ease in this luxurious hotel. She was suddenly jealous and angry. Once she'd come to Paris with her governess, and she'd gone to the Opéra. She bit her lip in frustration.

Suddenly the redhead was stopping, looking back, a perplexed expression on her face, and without warning, she ran back to where she had been standing. She was looking for something. Her friend joined her, and they scanned the carpet. “I don't understand,” the redhead was saying. “I must have dropped it, or left it in the taxicab.”

“I can't remember,” the tall one said.

Suddenly Elena approached the red-haired girl and asked in English: “May I help you?”

The girl was startled. Her small hand went to her throat, and she laughed, embarrassed. “Oh, it's just that I can't find my glove. Neither of us seems to be able to recall when I had it last.” She glanced down at her right hand, neatly clothed in tan kid leather, and shook her head with self-conscious amusement. “It's silly, isn't it? But they match, and I like them.”

“You didn't have it when you walked in,” Elena told her. “You weren't holding anything but your small bag, and one hand was ungloved. I know because I remember your ring: It went so perfectly with the rest of your outfit.”

The girl laughed. “Oh, my emerald! My father gave it to me on my sixteenth birthday.” She shrugged. “So I guess the glove is somewhere in the catacombs of Paris. Too bad. But it's not the end of the world.”

“Thank you for helping us,” the tall one said, smiling shyly. Her eyes were actually quite beautiful, an unusual hawthorne color, pure and direct.

The small girl extended her hand and said. “I'm Lesley Richardson, and this is my friend, Jamie Stewart.”

“I'm delighted. Elena Egorova.”

They shook hands and then an awkward silence fell upon them. Elena was opening her mouth to invite them to tea, when the redhead said: “We really must go. A friend is taking us to dinner, and we've got to change.”

“Perhaps we'll see you again, Miss Egorova,” the tall one stated.

Elena nodded. “Certainly. Have a pleasant evening, Miss Richardson, Miss—Stewart?”

She watched as they moved away, forgetting her immediately. Elena felt suddenly empty, without purpose. She sighed, hearing them laugh as the elevator man helped them into his cage. Somehow she had not wanted the tall one to stay, only the small redhead. She wouldn't have minded chatting with her a bit. There was an air of distinction about her that meant breeding. Most Americans didn't have it: her friend, for example. Elena, in fact, had already forgotten what she looked like. But the other one—Melissa? Lissy? Lissy Richardson, worth learning who she was.

Elena straightened her cape, took a deep breath. There was work to be done in this city, if she wanted to meet the right people.

C
harlotte von Ridenour de Varenne
sat back on the velvet cushions and propped a small embroidered pillow between her sacroiliac and the back of the sofa. This made her feel better. Lately pains had come and gone: arthritis. She closed her eyes, opened them again, and declared: “It's annoying, Paul. I have no reason to receive these upstarts.”

“Oh, but you do, Mama,” her son replied, and there was a glint of humor in his eyes. “Miss Richardson is well worth knowing. Her maternal grandfather is an English peer, and we all know how much you love our British allies.”

Charlotte wet her upper lip with great, precise care. “Lesley Richardson is part English?”

“Yes. And her father has a most amusing job: He makes what they call ‘advertisements.' Propaganda, you know.”

“Oh? That's quite the coming thing. What is she doing in Paris, this new discovery of yours? And…Paul . . .”

He had stopped smiling, and a hard expression crossed his face. He knew she was thinking of Martine, condemning his affair with her. “Lesley is an art student, and Jamie, her companion—her friend—is…I can't really remember.” But he could, of course. Jamie's red cheeks, her bright eyes, the way her breasts rose and fell when she laughed—that nervous laughter. He remembered Jamie as one does a captured bird. He remembered Jamie and the memory appealed to him, whetting a certain appetite. But Lesley was different. An odd girl. Passionate, or cool? Intriguing.

“Anyway, I've invited them, Mama. I'm taking them both to the Tour d'Argent for dinner. But I'd like you to meet them first. They'll be arriving at any moment.”

“You're most cavalier with my time and my residence.” Irritable, she looked away. Then he could feel the anger subsiding inside him. Martine, after all, no longer was much in his life. Lesley: Think of Lesley, the lively red hair, the small, well-formed body. Or…Jamie. He dismissed the latter thought as he took the glass of cut crystal from the coffee table and drank a swallow of dark port. His mother. They had their moments, never really giving in. He sometimes hated her. The one who really hated her was Alex, of course. It was obvious to everyone and seemed almost to amuse Charlotte. Paul sometimes enjoyed her. He wondered, once again, who his father was. It was a never-ending charade that sometimes obsessed him. But he knew that he would never ask, and that she would have refused to tell him. He admired her great airs and her still remarkable beauty, more striking now that she was fifty-four with white hair and white skin, blue eyes and black, arched brows. She'd never been ashamed, and he envied her. She was a woman without a conscience.

They heard the maître d'hôtel letting in two ladies, and Paul relaxed, preparing to enjoy himself. It was only later that he tensed, when Charlotte announced that his brother was going to join them. He hadn't wished to share his American discoveries with Alexandre, and when the sound came of the front doorbell ringing again, he could not hide a frown of displeasure.

Emotionally, Alexandre had been at loose ends. Paris was changed. The war had rallied together the conservative elements that made him feel secure. He had found his business flourishing. French industrialists wanted to conserve their assets. Now that the war had transformed France from a creditor nation to that of a debtor, the rich were afraid of an inevitable income tax. Anything was better than that. Alexandre, always afraid to lose that which he had acquired with such difficulty, guarded his money carefully. One would have to make certain that the Bolsheviks, who had overthrown the tsarist regime, would stay as far from France as possible, and prevent the Socialists and Communists in his country from forming an alliance and winning seats in next year's elections. Alex felt confident that the conservatives would win; and, like his clients, he believed that France would prosper. If she owed a national debt, this had nothing to do with personal gains on the part of private capitalism. And besides, the Treaty of Versailles had clearly delineated the enormous reparations that would have to be paid by the
Boches
to replenish the coffers of France, whose east and north sectors had been almost totally devastated.

Alexandre knocked on the door to the vast living room, where he had heard his mother's voice mingling with other unfamiliar voices. He swung open the large screen doors and saw Charlotte on the sofa, her feet propped up by an ottoman. Her white hair was swept into a chignon, and she wore her most magnificent string of diamonds around her long neck. Her hands were covered in rings. She turned to him and smiled, the brilliant smile of a young woman. It didn't fool him: If she was making him welcome, it was for a reason of her own.

He bowed, walked in, took his mother's hand and brought it ceremoniously to his lips. “Alex,” Charlotte was saying, “I want you to meet Miss Lesley Richardson, from America. And Miss Stewart.”

Alexandre allowed his eyes to meet those of the redhead, and he saw her delightful smile. She extended a small hand with an emerald ring. He took the hand, brought it to his lips, met her eyes. She was beautiful, precious. “Miss Richardson.”