To all my reviewers: I can't thank you enough for your support, guys! Reviews are my window into the reader's mind, they help me enormously, so thanks for giving me so much fantastic, thoughtful feedback (and please do keep it up!).
Editing this A/N to add a response to a review: The word 'comprise' is used correctly here. It means 'contain', rather than 'consist', and as such does not take a preposition - so something that "consists of" several rooms can be said to "comprise" them. As it happens, I do some professional writing as a part of my job, so grammar doesn't tend to be a problem, but I figured I'd say this here in case anyone else is confused. :)
Briefly addressing some queries regarding my take on Mme Giry: Giry is her maiden name, that's why M. Duchamp's letter is addressed to her as "Mlle Giry". She is called "madame" because a woman of a certain age, especially with a grown daughter, would not be called "mademoiselle", just as Carlotta is not called "signorina". It would be a bit embarrassing.
Today's trivia: The average marriage age for women in Paris at the time was 27. From this figure alone you can surmise that Paris was no 1950s suburbia, particularly when it came to the artistic circles, but really this was true to some extent across all classes. I make a point of this because I want to make it very clear that Mme. Giry's backstory is in no way meant to represent her as a "loose woman" or a victim: she is neither, only a former ballerina who has had her own life, not so different from the lives of many of her contemporaries.
Trivia for this chapter: All the locations mentioned here actually existed.
Chapter 16 – En face
Sedan in the morning was a surprisingly different prospect from Sedan of the night before. The rain had given it the aspect of a newly washed toy-box, sparkling with sunlight. The same façades that had appeared so drab in the dark were revealed as a gingerbread palette of ochres and reds, and even the modern balconies slapped onto Louis XV window pelmets were made less ludicrous by the profusion of geraniums.
Erik contemplated this from his private study in what turned out to be a decent little lodging-house in rue Saint-Michel. It was not a pretentious edifice like the much larger Hôtel de la Croix d'Or, but it was spacious enough for his needs, and he had the entire top floor to himself. The landlady, a small wizened woman who had been only too happy to humour Erik's reluctance to make smalltalk, had shown him the apartment upon his arrival. It comprised a bedchamber, a small sitting-room, and a study that seemed made for an architect: in addition to the usual bureau there was also a wide table suitable for draughting, and the two oversized windows facing the street could be opened to flood the room with light. Erik knew at once that this study had been the reason for Monsieur Duchamp's recommendation of the lodging-house, and he had to concede that the place was well-chosen.
It was, without a doubt, the furthest he had ever come from his lair in the Opéra.
He went to the windows, flung the curtains wide and opened the frames. Light poured into the room. Erik appraised the work-table, the paper, his tools. It will do, he decided. Except for...
His eyes fell on a portrait that hung on the wall opposite, above the bureau. It was a likeness of the Empress Eugénie, an inexpensive charcoal drawing in a gilded frame, of the sort sold to adorn the empty spot above the mantlepiece in every respectable home. Even Jean and Louise owned one, although theirs was displayed prominently in the store to discourage the police from uncharitable thoughts. Erik took the portrait down, holding it between his hands. He inspected the haughty Spanish profile, the sharply parted hair and the half-lidded eyes to which pale lashes imparted an almost sleepy look, with the mild distaste of a man looking at a silk flower. Its ersatz perfection was beautiful only to those who had never seen a real, living rose.
Setting the portrait face-down on the draughting table, he carefully slipped the backing off and removed the drawing. The blank side was clean, unfaded by time. From his drawing box, Erik selected a stick of red chalk and set to work. The paper took well to the soft touch of colour, the smudge of shadow that suggested the curve of a cheek, the line of an eyebrow, the curl of an earlobe half-concealed by shining hair falling free as the night. White chalk added highlights and charcoal the deeper shadows, bringing out the play of candlelight in Christine's beautiful, unsmiling eyes. Each line was perfect, drawn with a confidence born of long practice.
Yet when less than an hour later the portrait was complete, Erik studied it with dissatisfaction. At first he thought it a trick of the light – he had not attempted such a drawing in full daylight before – but he knew, looking at the frozen moment he had captured so faithfully, that he had done no more than the anonymous author of the portrait of the Empress. He had reproduced the image in his mind, cured of any imperfections and retouched until it was nothing more than a silk flower.
Once again he picked up the chalk, but not to draw familiar lines. Hesitantly, he added a tiny mark on Christine's right cheek, changing the perfect symmetry. Closing his eyes to call up the image of her face as it really was, as he had seen it last, he began to draw her, with heady recklessness putting to paper everything: the shadows under her eyes, the anger in the curve of her mouth. The perfected mannequin disappeared. In its place was Christine.
The charcoal stick shook in Erik's fingers as he surveyed the result. With unsteady hands, he did what he had never dared to do before: moved the corner of the drawing up, and signed his name.
Erik.
It remained there, a tiny charcoal squiggle under this unsettling, real, dizzying likeness of Christine. His name, her face.
Before he could change his mind, Erik slid this new drawing into the frame and hung it back on the wall. Already the fear was returning, the knowledge that he ought not to have done this, that he was supposed to have left all this behind him in Paris. Yet in the locked drawer of the bureau was the ring Christine had given him – him, or the wreck he had been – and perhaps the portrait was just the same... Only something to remind him of her, something to keep him from madness. Only that.
Resolutely, Erik turned from Christine. Picking up his sketchbook and hat from the bureau, he headed downstairs. It was time to get to work.
So late in the morning, the coffee-room on the ground floor was empty, save for three or four stragglers still nursing their cups at the tables on the veranda. Erik strode past them, under the dappled shade of the vine-covered trellis, and out into the street. He was not hungry enough to breakfast with strangers, and in any case he wanted first to satisfy his curiosity as to the present state of the site designated for the courthouse.
A restless energy compelled him, as though he was still driven by the momentum of his escape from Paris. Despite the puddles and mud-clogged gutters, he wanted to walk. The shimmering, sundrenched streets were as strange as any he had known: too empty and prosperous to bear any resemblance to the bustling bohemia of Montmartre, too provincial for the grand boulevards of Paris. Walking down the rue Saint-Michel, Erik felt he was still in a train, looking out at the world through the window of a tiny compartment. A few locals hurried past, mostly market-women or the occasional errand boy, and once a pair of ladies dressed in what they must have assumed to be the latest fashions in Paris.
The site designated for the courthouse was not far from Place du Château, among some old houses and overlooked by the immense fortress with pointed conical roofs, its old masonry glowing rose in the morning light. There was no sign of either fence or overseer. All that met Erik's eyes was a levelled foundation, turned into a little desert with dunes of rubble and sand. Piers of grey stone stuck out awkwardly from it where the first level was to have been raised, like an ancient labyrinth gone to ruin. Erik stepped over a pile of debris to take a closer look.
This courthouse had been a project shunted from architect to architect for several years, falling victim first to a lack of money in Sedan's public coffers, then to a string of disagreements on the proposed appearance of the building's façade. Having walked through the town, Erik could scarce believe that the same people who disfigured 200-year old buildings with bland ironwork balconies should be so finicky about their courthouse, but of course a courthouse had to be beautiful: only then would its rulings be believed. Beauty was truth, truth – beauty. Erik smirked bitterly to himself. He was looking forward to starting on the design. An escaped murderer with the face of a gargoyle, paid by the mob to build their temple to Beauty and Law. It would be his private joke on the world.
A rag-tag group of local urchins had turned the foundation into a fort. Erik stopped his inspection when he saw them: three boys and one curly-headed blonde girl were heaving crates and rubble to the centre of the site, trying to move their fort to higher ground after the night's rain.
He had hesitated a moment too long; the oldest of them noticed him. The boy moved at once to a defensive position, putting his tall gawky frame between the others and Erik.
"Who're you?" he demanded, raising his chin.
Erik touched his hat-brim, with chilly irony. "An architect. And you, monsieur, are trespassing."
The kid blinked, unsettled by being addressed as 'monsieur', or perhaps by the bandage masking half the stranger's face. "Huh?"
Erik translated: "Run."
"Yeah? Or what?"
Erik gave him a languid, dangerous smile, until a genuine spark of fear appeared in the kid's eyes. "Or it will be too late."
The boy took a step back, stumbling into the other three. Then they turned tail and bolted, screaming, across the crunching gravel and into the trees. Erik grinned to himself: there were ballet rats everywhere, even here in Sedan. Yet his flicker of amusement vanished almost before he had felt it. He looked at the miserable fort the brats had abandoned, and felt something akin to embarrassment. It was not pleasant.
"You have a way with children, Monsieur Andersson!" guffawed a man behind him.
Erik turned around, displeased. "Monsieur Egrot. To what do I owe the pleasure? I had thought you reside in Bazeilles."
"A fortunate chance, monsieur, a fortunate chance indeed!" Egrot, red-faced as ever, shook Erik's hand, indicating at the same time the young man beside him: "My son, Henri."
"Monsieur," Erik said by way of greeting the son: a tall youth of no more than twenty with his father's round face, wearing the red trousers and navy jacket that Erik had seen soldiers wear at the Reims train station.
"Pleasure to meet you, sir. Father, we had best be going... Mother wanted to visit aunt Thérèsa next."
"Yes yes, go on; don't keep her waiting alone. I'll join you shortly." Egrot watched his son retreat to the street, where a woman sat waiting in an outmoded carriage, before turning back to Erik.
"His number came up, and he's rearing to go. The young! Boundless energy for these things. My wife insisted we come into town with him, you see – he must be shown off to all the relations now he's a soldier. She coddles him senseless of course, but the army'll put him right, never fear. Still, the poor woman won't have a moment's peace until Henri is back safe."
Erik interrupted this string of cheerful nonsense by hefting his sketchbook: "My apologies, monsieur. As you see, I am busy."
"Of course, of course!" Egrot made an effort at grasping the concept that a man could be more interested in his work than in idle chat, and failed completely. "You've looked at this old ruin, then?"
"I am still looking. If you don't mind."
"Right you are. If anyone can make something of it, a clever chap like you ought to manage. The last one they brought in – another young architect from Paris, wet around the ears and clutching his degree – well, you can see how far he got!" Egrot gestured at the empty foundation. "No idea of what makes this town tick, none at all. Have you someone to show you the town, then?"
"I am quite capable of seeing it myself," Erik said; "I have in my possession an adequate map."
"What, no guide! Well, I shall be glad to show you around, if you would allow me the honour – and see if you don't find the place more to your liking than that map of yours might suggest! This wreck," he nodded at the courthouse foundation, "has been here for years, another couple of hours will do it no harm."
Nothing Erik said appeared to make the least impression on the impenetrable wall that was Egrot's hospitality. The man had a provincial's conviction that his little corner of the world was Paradise for all, most particularly for Parisian architects with no concept of the wonder that was Sedan and its surrounds. In addition, he was obviously itching for another political discussion, and was determined to seize his chance to get one. Erik had no notion of how to evade this barrage of unwelcome goodwill. At last, it occurred to him that perhaps there was no need to evade it. Any time spent listening to Egrot and his half-baked ideas of politics was time not spent thinking of Paris and Christine.
"Come to think of it, I shall take up your invitation." He favoured Egrot with an indulgent look. "I am, indeed, quite unlike your other architects. I should like you to show me the town."
"Splendid! A moment; I must let my wife know to go on without me." Egrot pronounced this with such obvious relief that Erik realised he had underestimated him: The man's hospitality may have been genuine enough, but what drove him was a simple unwillingness to spend all day showing off his soldier son to ageing relations.
Cynical as this was, Erik decided it was a motive he could trust. At any rate, the alliance required nothing more of him than to listen to Egrot's anecdotes about the town, and it gave him the opportunity to examine the buildings at closer quarters without the risk of drawing too much attention to his bandages or his obviously out-of-town appearance.
The tour took most of the day. Erik spoke little, merely observing and allowing Egrot to demonstrate proudly all of Sedan's dazzling attractions, from the windmill on the Meuse river to the brothel in the rue des Laboureurs. The one place Erik himself had been curious to see was the fortress, but this was closed for the use of the army and only soldiers were allowed either in or out. At one point they went into a church, where a bloodied effigy of a man was hung in front of a genuine pipe organ.
"My sort of place," Erik had remarked dryly. At Egrot's curious look, he merely smiled and gestured for him to proceed outside. The image of the organ prickled Erik's imagination for a while afterwards, whispering of music; he quelled those thoughts with what was becoming almost a habit.
The afternoon would have been surprisingly enjoyable, was it not for the way it ended.
They had made their way to the railway station with barely enough time to see Henri off, which seemed to be the way Egrot had intended it.
"Terrible things, farewells," he told Erik, "Can't stand them. This way, monsieur."
The train was an army transport, half of it cattle-trucks and half third class carriages, taking supplies and soldiers down to the main camp at Châlons. Clouds of thick black smoke already issued from the locomotive, filling the air with the smell of burning coal, and the platform was packed solid with mothers and sweethearts weeping heartily. Erik indicated that Egrot should precede him, while he himself remained behind the barricade of human backs and heads, content to watch this forest of upraised hands and fluttering handkerchiefs. He caught sight of Henri Egrot's round face as the boy mounted the steel step of the carriage and turned to wave to his parents: a single face among dozens of other young men hanging out of the windows and doors, all of them hollering cheerfully and searching for familiar faces. The train began to move. The human barricade was briefly dragged alongside it as people ran forward, trying to keep their sons and lovers in sight a little longer. After a moment the slower ones fell back one by one, until the train gained speed and with a piercing hoot left even the fastest of them behind. Erik could not understand why some women continued waving long after the train had vanished from view, when they must have known the soldiers could no longer see them.
He spotted Egrot and his wife walking back towards him. Egrot raised his hand cheerfully, but Erik barely noticed: it was the expression on Madame Egrot's plain, pointed face that gave him a sharp jolt. He recognised that look.
She was not weeping, nor had she waved a handkerchief after her son the way other women had done – but in that very blankness was something familiar. Erik identified it, and was at once frightened and repulsed: he himself had felt that same numbness when he had watched Christine leave him, disappearing into the murky distance of the canal. Loss, death. Love, futile love.
Losing her son, this stranger of a woman wore his face.
Egrot greeted him and Erik responded with a nod. He could not speak, he did not want to. The woman's face had spoiled everything. No longer was he watching everything from afar, he was here among them, momentarily one of this crowd of nameless creatures with their many griefs. A part of him hated it. A stronger, monstrous, undefeated part of his soul longed to get back to his rooms and the portrait of Christine. She was human. She was human, too.
"Would you do us the honour of spending a few days at Bazeilles, Andersson?" Egrot asked. "Madame Egrot and I would welcome the diversion of company, and perhaps you'll appreciate a little country air for yourself."
"Yes," Erik agreed sharply. He could not see that portrait again, not now. It was too hard, nobody could ask such strength of him. He was only one man. "Country air would be most welcome."
That evening, in the beautiful village of Bazeilles, he began work on the first drawings for the courthouse. No music, no mirrors, no Christine – no portraits. Erik Andersson examined the precise lines he had ruled in his sketchbook, and thought he was learning.