The Light of Paris (29 page)

“That's my Madeleine. Always complaining about something.”

“Phillip, you don't even like me. Why did you marry me?”

“Of course I like you,” he said, scoffing. He spun the corkscrew on the counter and it made an irritating rattle. “You're my wife.”

“Those two things don't have to go together, you know. I know tons of married people who hate each other.”

“I don't hate you.”

“Well, that's great.” What a ringing endorsement this was for our marriage. So far he'd told me he liked me and he didn't hate me. When I was younger, boyfriendless and hopeless, I had dreamed of the relationship I wanted, of the man I would fall in love with. I'd pictured someone with whom I would truly share a life. He would be a writer and he would sit at his typewriter and compose brilliant poems or novels while I sat in a large, comfortable leather chair by a sun-lit window and sketched. Our life together would be rich and joyous—we would laugh, and cook dinner, and read to each other by a fire at night. Our passion would be legendary, our desire a constant, smoldering fire that would need only a single glance to flare into brilliant, burning flame. We would have no secrets, and he would accept me completely, would tell me I was beautiful, would
believe
I was beautiful, would find my perpetual messiness glamorously artistic, my sarcasm hilarious, and we would create our own little nation of two, and the only people to whom we would issue visas would be people who loved us as well as we loved each other.

At some point, I had stopped believing in those romantic dreams. My imaginary husband and the steady clack of his typewriter and the messiness of his hair and his imperfect hands on my face had evaporated, and I had let the dream go, float away and disappear into the sky like a child's balloon, with as much chance of reclaiming it. Instead, I had chosen the easy path, the love that resembled the love around me—formal and real and designed to look better on the outside than it felt on the inside. I pictured my sixteen-year-old self, painting in that cool, damp basement by the inconsistent light of a dozen lamps, the way everything had looked possible and real to her, and it broke my heart that I had betrayed her for
such a small, inconsequential prize. Instead of a husband who was perfect for me, I had taken a husband who looked perfect to everyone else. Instead of the love that made my heart sing and brought out the best in me, I had chosen . . . well, that was it, wasn't it? I didn't love him. He didn't love me. And I didn't want to pretend anymore.

You might think realizing you don't love your husband would be cause for panic, a little hysterical weeping, but that wasn't the case for me. Instead, a heavy peace descended on me, a feeling of calm so still and strong I could not mistake it for anything other than what it was: a certainty, at long last, that I knew what I wanted, that I knew what was right.

“I want a divorce,” I said to my husband.

I hadn't known I was going to say those words before I did, and in some way I had known I would say them since the moment I had agreed to marry him. I felt no alarm at the way they sounded when spoken aloud, at their sudden, serious weight. Outside, the city continued apace; traffic hummed by, the quiet tides of Lake Michigan slapped their lazy way against the shore, people walked and worked and laughed and ate and drank and fought and loved, and nothing changed except everything.

Phillip did not look surprised, and for some reason his lack of surprise didn't surprise me either. “Don't be ridiculous, Madeleine. We can't get a divorce.” I tilted my head at him curiously, wondering at his words. Not “I don't want a divorce,” or “We shouldn't get a divorce,” but “We can't.”

“Why not?” I asked. “We're adults. And I don't want anything from you. Your money. This place. You can have it all.”

Now Phillip looked exasperated. “We can't get a divorce,” he repeated. “Think of how it would look. Think about my family. Think about my mother. Think about your mother!”

I had struggled against that same thought for so long, but it all seemed clear to me now. It was a chance I had to take. “This isn't about my mother, or yours. We don't have to stay together just because of how
it looks. In fact, we shouldn't. We should be happy. And if we stay together, neither one of us will ever be happy. Not really.”

“So that's it. You're divorcing me.”

“I guess so.”

There was a small silence, and then his face twisted bitterly, a sneer raising his lip. “You're never going to find someone else to marry you,” he said. “You're fat, and you have the strangest sense of humor, and you can't even make conversation at a party, for God's sake.”

And there it was.

Silence hung between us for a moment, and then I spoke.

“Thank you,” I said, and Phillip stared at me. More evidence of my strangeness, he was thinking, but to me his words had been a gift. If I ever harbored any doubts about my decision, I could remember that moment, the hardness in his eyes, and I would know I had done the right thing. I would not dwell on his viciousness, but I would remember all the times it had been there, and if we stayed together, it would have kept coming out, in larger and larger ways, until my misery turned to despair, until anything good and happy inside me had been destroyed completely.

“You're not staying here tonight. And I'm not giving you a dime.”

“All right,” I said calmly. And standing up, I walked into the bedroom, packed my suitcase for the second time in a month, and walked out the door into the night air and uncertainty.

A few weeks after they had arrived back in Washington, Robert Walsh came to see my grandmother. She could barely remember his coming to her rescue in Paris, and her memories of him on the ship home were distorted by exhaustion and illness and grief. But when she was brought down to see him in the parlor, she was shocked by his appearance. He looked pale and drawn, with dark circles under his eyes. His suit hung loosely on his body.

When she came into the room, he rose quickly and came over to her, kissing her on the cheek as the maid withdrew, leaving the door open just enough for respectability. “Margie,” he said. “I'm so glad to see you looking so well. I was so worried about you. How are you feeling?”

She accepted the kiss and sat down gently, slowly in the chair he led her to. How different she felt now. A handsome man was in this room with her, a man who a few years ago she had been so swayed by, and now she felt calm and cool, almost emotionless.

“Better, thank you. And thank you so much for coming to my rescue. I'm sorry to say I was too ill to notice, but it seems you were my knight in shining armor.”

Robert smiled, a thin, heartless thing. He sat down in the chair
facing her. “It was only good luck I was passing through Paris when you were ill. I'm glad to have been able to help.”

“Good luck,” Margie echoed, though she wasn't sure it was true. Maybe if she had stayed, she would have been able to find another job eventually. Maybe Sebastien would have changed his mind. Maybe . . . With effort, she pulled herself back to the conversation. “So how are you finding Washington after all this time?”

Robert's eyes fluttered closed for a moment, as though he were marshaling his strength. “It's different, isn't it? How long were you in Paris?” he asked.

“Three months,” Margie said
. Three months, five days, and twelve hours
, she thought.
Forever
, she thought.
Not long enough
, she thought.

“So you had a little time to get acquainted with the European style of things. It's all so different than here, isn't it? The war changed them. Everything over there is freer. It seems so contained here by comparison.”

Looking around the dark parlor, the same heavy furniture, the same ugly, flocked wallpaper, the same fireplace—which was lit, despite the warmth of the day outside; the house always seemed chilly—Margie nodded. “It does.”

They sat in silence for a moment, and Margie imagined they were both mourning what they had lost in Europe, both wishing they were back there. “So what will you do now?” she asked.

He cleared his throat. “I've been invited to join the family business.”

“Invited?”

An expression crossed his face and he closed his eyes again. Leaning forward slightly, he lowered his voice. “Margie, we've known each other a long time.”

“Years,” Margie said. Her voice sounded so hollow. Would it always be like this? She wondered what she should do. Could she go back to Paris? To have the baby there, to have a life there. It was so cheap; she wouldn't
need much. She couldn't live at the Club with a child, but she could find someplace like it, a similarly small, sunny room, and they could live there, the two of them.
On what?
her conscience asked meanly.
And where would the baby go when you were working?
The tiny flame of hope inside her that had sputtered to life died under the harsh wind of reality.

“So let's be honest with each other. Can we?”

Margie looked at him, expressionless. “Of course.” Why not? What was the use of all these charades? Any taste she'd had for the rules and limitations of polite society had disappeared in Paris, had been crushed under the enthusiastic swell of the people she had met, the artists whose emotions overflowed every conversation they had, who could argue passionately about Surrealism and dreams and the messages of Cubism, who saw through different eyes. What was the point of pretending things you didn't feel?

“My parents have told me that if I don't join the business, if I don't settle down, I'm cut off. They said I've played for far too long, that it's time for me to grow up.”

The maid came in, carrying a tray with tea and thick, tasteless cookies no one had asked for, and Robert leaned back in his chair quickly. “May I pour?” she asked.

“No, thank you,” Margie said, and the maid nodded and disappeared. When the door had closed—almost—again, Margie turned to Robert. “I've been issued a similar ultimatum. What are you going to do?”

Robert shot her a quick, soulless smile. “I'm going to join the family business and settle down, of course.”

“Is that what you want?”

He raised his hand to his head and needlessly smoothed down his hair. He had missed a spot when he was shaving; Margie could see a bit of stubble at his jawline, and it made him softer to her, reminded her that underneath his bravado, he was only a person. A person who had been
kind to her. It was hard to see through her own pain and fear; her misery covered everything in a gauzy dimness. Light refracted back at her, illuminating the cracks in her own heart instead of allowing her to see anyone else's.

“No,” he said. “But it's fair, isn't it? They've supported me, let me do as I pleased for years, in exchange for only a few requests, like acting as an escort for the season.” He nodded at Margie and she smiled quickly, a perfunctory recognition of the night he had served as her escort. His words sounded so much like Sebastien's. Duty. A debt to be paid.

“And my sister, Eliza—you went to school with her, didn't you?”

Margie nodded.

“Well, she's going to be getting married soon. And my father's getting older.”

“You sound like someone else I know.” She thought of Sebastien, who had worn the same look of resignation on his face, his eyes tired, yet determined. How alike they had all been, how many dreams, how much hope. And yet now they were, all three of them, bowing to the duties they had once sworn they would not take on.

“I don't think mine is a new story,” Robert said, without humor.

“Did you come here just to tell me this?” Margie was suddenly tired. The tea sat untouched between them, growing cold, and it might have settled her stomach, but she couldn't even bring herself to reach forward to pour it.

“No.” Robert shifted, stiffening his spine, tugging his pants straight at his knees, setting his jacket neatly over his shoulders. “My parents have another requirement they have set out for me.”

“Oh?” Margie leaned forward, plucking a sugar cube from the bowl and putting it on her tongue, letting it melt there, a little sweetness in a life that had become so very bitter.

“They want me to get married.”

“Of course they do.” That's what all their parents wanted, didn't
they? Their children were nothing more than pawns in an endless chess match they were playing with each other. So it had always been, and so, if no one stopped it, it would always be. Margie knew it was only a matter of time before she married Mr. Chapman—or someone exactly like him, it didn't matter—succumbed in the way of all the girls who had gone before her. That is, if she could figure out a way to include her little friend in her dowry. “Bully for you. Who's the lucky girl?” Her voice came out hard, and she regretted it, because she felt no anger toward him. It was only that her heart was drained and bleak and hard, like a shell of ice, frozen around nothing but air.

“Well, Margie,” Robert said, leaning forward again and gently taking her hand in his, “I was hoping it would be you.”