The Eleventh Year (33 page)

Alexandre put his arm around his wife, and she leaned against him. She felt an immense gratitude: He would take care of her. Alex was holding her by the shoulders and gently propelling her toward the front of the restaurant, where an open-air café stood connected to it.

Paul was sitting toward the right, under the canopy, with Elena. Lesley saw another free table not far, but not adjacent to theirs, and since she was ahead of her husband, she moved to it. She could feel Alex stiffen behind her. Lesley sank into the chair that Alex held out and bent her head into the upturned palms of her hands, as if to rest it. “Too much smoke, too much wine,” she whispered apologetically to her husband. “I'll feel better in a minute.”

“Jamie doesn't look well,” he commented. Lesley nodded but didn't look up. She heard the Paris night, noisy with cars and with the raucous laughter of passersby. Over the background she heard Elena's voice, cold and hard: “It isn't my style to ask a man to choose between me and another woman. He must do so of his own accord. But I don't have to stay.”

Paul replied, but Lesley didn't hear him. Elena said: “But I
do
have a choice: I can always walk away.”

She continued: “This dinner has been the most humiliating experience I've gone through since arriving in Paris. Lovely words—‘the proud father'! Must you go so far in your tastelessness?”

“Oh, darling—words aren't my forte, for Christ's sake! The words…just tumbled out. You know that it's you I love.”

Lesley couldn't bear any more of their conversation. She looked up, encountered Alex's face. He too had been listening. He stood up, held out his hand to her. In her ear, as he escorted her back to the table of guests, he said harshly: “The bastard.”

The words were unlike her husband. Lesley stopped, turned her face to him, saw the impenetrable quality of his gray eyes. “That's what he is,” Alex stated tightly. “And all of Paris knows it.”

She was almost frightened by the terse anger. Now she could envision Alex trying to kill Paul the day he had learned about Popov and the horses. Alex could be unforgiving. She felt a tremor pass through her. What if a man like that ever learned about her own past?

Jamie had now disappeared from the table. Lesley saw Elena returning, without Paul. Bertrand de la Paume was holding out a chair for her, bending over her with concern. Lesley excused herself to go to the powder room. Nobody commented that she and Alex had returned only minutes ago. She splashed water on her face, waited a few moments in solitary stillness. Now she felt ready to go back. She was pushing open the outer door when she saw that it was blocked by Jamie and Paul, standing together on the restaurant side. Lesley remained with the door ajar, unable to move.

“But the words—the theme—” Jamie was murmuring. Her lovely dress, Lesley noticed, had a stain down the front. It touched her. No matter how successful Jamie would ever be, she would have awkward moments.

Paul said irritably: “The words and theme just seemed appropriate, that's all. Don't read more into them. Parenthood is the last thing on my mind.”

“But you were very moving in your explanation of my book. Parenthood doesn't have to be like your mother, Paul. Or like my own parents.”

“Why are you saying this, Jamie?”

“Because, Paul, there's no going back. I'm pregnant.”

Lesley felt like a common eavesdropper on this scene. It was of such import, and of such intimacy. But she was also stunned. She hadn't thought Jamie was going to tell Paul—and certainly not on his evening of celebration. But it was true. His choice of words at dinner had led the way for a confrontation.

Lesley saw him clench his fists, hitting them against his muscular thighs. “You should have listened to me,” he stated. His face was white, unpleasant. “You fool,” he added, his voice chilling. “I told you—but you wouldn't believe me.”

“I'm going to keep this baby, whatever you decide,” Jamie announced. Her own voice was soft but steady. “It's not up to you.”

“And you're going to rear it—alone?”

“If that's how you want it.”

“I don't want a baby!” Paul cried. “And I don't want to marry you! I never lied to you about either of these matters. Now you think you've trapped me—”

“No,” Jamie countered. “Never. I loved you, and I wanted a child. But I certainly wasn't trying to force you to stay with me. I've never asked you for anything, Paul. You know me well enough to realize I'll never ask.”

“What are you telling me?”

“Simply this: You don't want the baby; I do. So tomorrow we can all start new lives. You can pack your bags and leave, and I shall manage. I'm resolved to have the baby, but it doesn't particularly matter whether or not I'm married. I wouldn't have gotten pregnant if I hadn't wanted to.”

Her gentle, quiet voice made him blink, step back. “You're telling me to leave?”

“No. But you won't be a father. So there is no alternative.”

There was a silence. Lesley felt it around them. Then Paul murmured, and she saw him avert his head: “It's up to you, Jamie. I guess you've made up your mind.”

“I guess,” she commented, “that you've made up yours.”

Jamie turned into the powder room, nearly pushing Lesley off balance inside. But Paul did not see his sister-in-law. He had walked away, and Jamie went to stand by the washbasin, supporting herself over the edge. There were no tears in her eyes. Lesley put her arms around her from behind, felt the new swelling of her friend's stomach. She rested her face on Jamie's back, holding her tightly. Jamie hardly seemed surprised by Lesley's presence, but after a moment she turned around and whispered: “It's all right. Don't cry, Les.”

And Lesley realized that her eyes were filled with tears.

T
he next day
Bouchard knocked on Lesley's boudoir door and said to her: “Madame has a caller. The Princess Egorova is here to see her.” He waited by the door, discreetly, while Lesley pinned a cameo to her silk blouse and ran a comb through her bob. She could see his reflection in the vanity mirror, like a penguin in black tails and white shirt, deferential, almost imperceptive. She thought: They all expect me to behave perfectly.

Lesley didn't want to face Elena. She felt angry, frustrated. She'd cared for Elena. But she loved Jamie. And because of Elena, Jamie's baby would be born out of wedlock. As she looked at Bouchard, she realized how Lady Priscilla must have lived her life. To everyone she appeared as Lesley now did to the butler, her face composed, like the cameo lady she was displaying on the frill of her jabot. But inside, silent battles were taking place. She answered, evenly, fearful that the anger would explode, and amazed at how easily she was controlling it: “I can't see her now, Bouchard. Please give me my note pad.”

The maître d'hôtel handed her the monogrammed velum, the gold pen, and she chewed on its end, thoughtful. Finally she wrote:

She reread what she'd written and handed the note to her butler. “This is for the princess,” she announced.

When he had stepped out and closed the door so gently behind him that she did not even hear his exit, Lesley remained at her vanity, feeling empty and numb. She closed her eyes. Several moments later there was another knock, and she whispered wearily: “Come in.” It was Bouchard again. He inclined his torso, like a graceful puppet, and handed her a silver tray on which lay a calling card, earmarked according to the Russian custom. Lesley could feel her heart pounding as she picked it up. Elena had written on the back: “I am shocked, Lesley, by your antiquated notion of right and wrong. You have hurt me deeply. But once a friendship has been ended on such terms, it has been ended for good. Neither you nor I shall ever be able to mend it.”

Lesley said, as she neatly tore the card in half and tossed it into her wastebasket: “Thank you, Bouchard.” And when she saw the door shutting, she looked at her arms. Goose bumps were raising the fine hairs, and she felt herself shiver.

I haven't merely lost a friend, she thought, aware that there was more than sadness in her heart. I have made an enemy.

E
lena applied
the black kohl to the underside of her lashes with a hand that trembled slightly from fury. Paul, sprawled on the bed, said quietly: “What do you care, Lena? She's just an unimportant little Milquetoast Miss, with great pretensions. Perfect for my brother. Let's forget them both.”

“But I can't!” Elena answered. “She threw me away like a piece of dirty garbage. I feel…
used.”

Paul said nothing. Elena was different from other people. She was feral and wild, with passions that swept over her like hot winds over the Russian steppe. The Russians—all Russians—possessed Rasputin's unbridled, elemental madness.

The sensuality around him smelled of musk, of her. She had furnished the apartment with lacquered red and black panels, and her sofa, chairs, and bed had smooth, modern curves that adapted to one's body. Instead of throw rugs she used leopard skins. He could smell rare flowers, different species of orchids, spread out in Oriental vases, and on the various coffee tables she had disposed gilded and silver frames with photographs: all of her, taken by Baron Adolph de Meyer, in dramatic poses; and small miniatures painted by Boldini

and Blanche, set up on tiny easels of dark, glittery wood or fine metal. There were colored throw pillows everywhere, of contrasting shades of purple, mauve, lilac, and aqua and bright turquoise. It was definitely not a Parisian apartment.

“Used,” he repeated softly. Lesley had taken sides because of Jamie. As always, he felt a point of guilt, thinking of her. He hadn't really wanted to leave her. They'd had a pleasant life. Jamie didn't suffocate a man. Elena, on the other hand, was overwhelming. She used up all his emotions, all his physical juices. He loved her so totally that to give her half measure would have been cheating himself, like turning down a banquet of his favorite foods. But he'd been cornered. Everything had closed in on him at once: Elena's need for him to make a decision and Jamie's revelation. Still—

“What are we going to live on, Paul?” Elena asked. Her tone of voice was nettled, annoyed. “You're working less and less.”

“But you
aren't.” He felt prickles of irritation. “What do you expect of me?” he blurted out. “You knew my financial situation from the beginning. It was your choice!”

“It was also yours! I didn't ask you to live with me. You wanted to do it!”

They faced each other, angry voices jarring one against the other. He was perspiring now, his adrenaline pumping. He loosened his tie, opened the top button of his shirt. Undoubtedly he'd wanted to live with her. But she'd pressured him, and what else could he have done? On a wave of resentment, he exclaimed: “Why must you needle me, Elena? Can't you love me without always thinking of your checkbook?”

“One of us has to be practical,” she said. She was pressing her lips together, ostensibly to spread the rouge, but really to quiet the trembling. “You don't seem to realize,” she started again, making her voice even and composed, “that no one's going to be helping me anymore. We're living like a married couple, Paul. All that lacks is the license.”

“And that's suddenly become important to you? You want to get married?”

“Of course not. But the fact is that we are now out in the open. How do you think I've paid for all these things?” She waved to include the room in a sweeping gesture. “Not from my sittings alone! I've been able to purchase the basics—that's all. Now we're going to have to keep up a style for which funds are severely lacking.”

His pulse was still beating rapidly at his temples. He didn't stop to analyze why he felt insulted. But he couldn't look straight at her. The sight of her throat, exposed and white, reminded him of a forest doe, poised to run. She was a woodland animal, needing to be kept warm, and the vulnerability clothed in hardness suddenly became apparent. She posed as a predator, yet she was the prey—prey to needs that to some were luxuries, but to her were essentials, like warmth and food. He stared at a small gold clock of Florentine design on her bedside table and wondered who had given it to her, and how much it had cost. It was a precious antique. Elena was the sort of woman to whom men gave things.

Now he knew why he was angry. “I can't become a slave to Bertrand just to keep you in silks and rubies,” he retorted.

“But you need the same things! Your brother's the ascetic; he could live like a monk, yet Lesley's dowry keeps him in that monster of a house Place d'Iéna. The roles should be reversed.” She was bitter then. “I always despised him. Now I see that they do belong together. She's as soulless as he is!”

Surprised, he noticed the sting in her voice. “I wish,” he murmured, kind now, “that you wouldn't take Lesley's action with such intensity. She's a girl who served her purpose. My mother wanted her married to Alex, so that her father's and grandfather's money could be used to maintain us all. But in her own right she's of no consequence.”

He saw Elena's eyes becoming thoughtful. There was a hardness to the look. She asked: “Your brother loves her though, doesn't he? I mean—he didn't marry her just to please your
mother?
He doesn't strike me as the sort of person who is that devoted to Charlotte.”

“Nobody is,” Paul replied easily. “But nobody quite ignores her, either. My brother is her only means of support. It's been years since she ate up what little my…father left her.”

“The noble Alexandre . . .” Then Elena added: “Does he love her more than his first wife? The one who ran away?”

“Why are you so curious? My brother doesn't interest me. I only care about whether he'll pay the bills. And lately he hasn't been doing it.”

“
I
only care about that too.” He saw the corners of her mouth twist upward. But it wasn't a happy smile.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that Lesley told me something, in confidence, awhile back. But if Alexandre were to learn of it, he'd have to leave her.”

“And?”

“And you could go there tomorrow, and tell the lovely Marquise that unless some…help…is forthcoming, her husband will know all.”

He'd been wrong: She wasn't remotely vulnerable, like a doe! She was the hunting dog, relentless in its pursuit. For a moment he hesitated, imagining Lesley. He'd liked her when he'd met her, had even toyed with the idea of sleeping with her. But she'd always been so obvious in her distaste for him—and later, in her outright hatred. She was Jamie's friend, judging him, condemning him. She was like Alexandre: without compassion, without breadth of vision. He said pensively: “I like what you say. What's the secret?”

“She was involved, before their marriage, with another man—of all people, a thief. But that's not the extent of the damaging evidence. She was pregnant with his child and had it taken care of, in Poughkeepsie, when she was eighteen.”

Paul exhaled slowly. His eyebrows shot up. “That's quite a secret. Are you certain, Lena?”

“Of course I am. And Lesley will pay to keep it that way.” She turned her head and Paul could see her breathing deeply. He remembered her telling him about her life, its loneliness and humiliation. He felt tenderness for her. He rose, went to her, put his hands on her shoulders.

She twisted her head back to look at him from her sitting position, and he saw that her eyes were like liquid ink. It always moved him. He couldn't read her. She was, he thought, more intelligent than he, certainly quicker. But it was her passions that fascinated him, their rise and fall. She was difficult to handle, like molten metal. She burned.

“Kiss me,” she whispered, and threw back her head so that the white of her long throat lay exposed to him, the vein beating beneath the perfect skin. And so he bent down and covered her lips.

“
A
brandy
, Lesley?” Paul strode to the sideboard where various cognacs and sherries were displayed next to a heavy silver tray with snifters and liqueur glasses. It was her house, not his, but he wanted to finish things off, now that he had told her. She was standing, white, in her pale-beige suit, the emeralds gleaming from her elegant fingers. She wasn't looking at him.

To fight the guilt, he poured a liberal amount of cognac into the largest of the snifters and presented it to her. “Come now,” he said. “The money's nothing to you and Alex.”

“I don't control it,” she replied, her eyes vacant. “It's all under his management. He pays the bills, he places the investments. It's always been that way.” Then she added, anguish piercing her voice as she twisted her fingers together, staring at them as if they were foreign to her: “How could Elena do this? I can't believe it….”

“You hurt her,” Paul replied. He made himself a drink and went to sit on the sofa.

“I never did anything mean, anything to betray her. We were friends!”

“But you aren't now, and it's of your doing, not hers.”

“I thought she'd understand that my first loyalty had to belong to Jamie!”

“Why should she understand? One never understands rejection.”

“It's your
fault!” Lesley suddenly turned on him. “You've always caused us trouble! Whatever you touch—
whom
ever
you touch—you dirty, you ruin! How can
you,
Paul, my own brother-in-law, blackmail me? Isn't anything holy in your book?”

“Holy? That's stupid mysticism.”

“But it's Alex's marriage! He's your brother! He's always protected you—”

“Protected me? He once tried to kill me. Don't forget it, Les.
I
can't forget it.”

“Neither can I.”

Their eyes met, each reliving the episode between them at the Ritz, five years before. Paul drank some of the gin he'd poured himself over ice in a highball glass. “Look,” he said. “It's very simple. You tell Alex you're planning to redecorate—and then you doctor up the estimate. Elena and I aren't asking you for much.”

“Only for exclusive rights to my own past.”

“That's overdramatizing again.”

“You're the most despicable excuse for a human being I've ever met. And Elena's a coward. She should have come to deliver this message instead of you.”

“You wouldn't have received her. So what are you planning to do?”

“I have no choice.” Lesley took a large swallow of the rich yellow liqueur, felt the soothing heat going down her throat. She stared at the snifter in her hand and suddenly saw the chandelier lights reflected in it, and those same lights reflecting off her rings. In those lights she could see a myriad of other Lesleys looking back at her, their faces impassive, their small bodies erect, immaculate in their elegance. Then the fear tightened her stomach, and she knew that somehow, she was going to have to convince Alex. She turned away from Paul and refilled her glass, and then she said, her voice unsteady: “You've got to leave now. I'll send the money to you by special messenger within the week or fortnight.”

She wasn't looking, so she didn't see him smile. But she heard his footsteps on the Aubusson and then on the hardwood of the hallway floor. She put down her snifter and held her forehead with both hands, and let the room spin by, like hours and days and months and years of her life.

M
ay
1924 began with scented breezes and the flowering of Paris's horse chestnut trees. The Champs Elysées abounded with young women in large flowered hats and high-heeled pumps, their cheekbones tinted with rouge and their carmine lips shaped like hearts. The lazy young men who watched them from the cafés, silk pocket handkerchiefs adorning their spring attire, thought only in passing of the coming elections. But in the Palais-Bourbon, panic reigned.

With elections days away, the Bloc National had lost ground in every aspect. Its governments had been weak. The economic crisis engendered by Germany's inability to pay its outrageous war debts and the aftermath of Poincaré's expedition into the Ruhr Valley had been mishandled. The Bloc had attempted to deal with these problems by trying for an economic deflation. But this, in turn, had provoked lower wages and a wave of unemployment. Alexandre thought anxiously of the labor riots of five years before and of the Russian revolution. He could see the writing on the wall scrawled in a bold, obscene print. There was no way for him to retain his seat in the Chamber. The Leftists were banding together under some intelligent leaders: Blum, Herriot. France was no longer at all enamored with Raymond Poincaré.