Page 16 of The Girl You Left Behind
“Draw me again. Today. Now.”
He said nothing but walked back to the table, gathered up his tobacco, and we filed through the crowd and along the teeming streets to his studio.
We went up the narrow wooden stairs, unlocked the door into the bright studio, and I waited while he shed his jacket, put a record on the gramophone, and began to mix the paint on his palette. And then, as he hummed to himself, I began to unbutton my blouse. I removed my shoes and my stockings. I peeled off my skirts until I was wearing only my chemise and my white cotton petticoat. I sat there, undressed to my very corset, and unpinned my hair so that it fell about my shoulders. When he turned back to me I heard his sharp intake of breath.
He blinked.
“Like this?” I said.
Anxiety flashed across his face. He was, perhaps, afraid that his paintbrush would yet again betray me. I kept my gaze steady, my head high. I looked at him as if it were a challenge. And then some artistic impulse took over, and he was already lost in contemplation of the unexpected milkiness of my skin and the russet of my loosened hair, and all semblance of concern for probity was forgotten. “Yes, yes. Move your head, a little to the left, please,” he said. “And your hand. There. Open your palm a little. Perfect.”
As he began to paint, I watched him. He scanned every inch of my body with intense concentration. I watched as satisfaction inked itself on his face, and I felt it mirror my own. I had no inhibitions now. I was Mistinguett, or a streetwalker from Pigalle, unafraid, unselfconscious. I wanted him to examine my skin, the hollows of my throat, the secret glowing underside of my hair. I wanted him to see every part of me.
As he painted I took in his features, the way he murmured to himself while mixing colors on his palette. I watched him shamble around, as if he were older than he was. It was an affectation—he was younger and stronger than most of the men who came into the store. I recalled how he ate: with obvious, greedy pleasure. He sang along with the gramophone, painted when he liked, spoke to whom he wished, and said what he thought. I wanted to live as Édouard did, joyfully, sucking the marrow out of every moment and singing because it tasted so good.
And then it was dark. He stopped to clean his brushes and gazed around him, as if he were only just noticing it. He lit candles and a gaslight, placing them around me, then sighed when he realized the dusk had defeated him.
“Are you cold?” he said.
I shook my head, but he walked over to a dresser, pulling from it a bright red woolen shawl, which he carefully placed around my shoulders. “The light has gone for today. Would you like to see?”
I pulled the shawl around me and walked over to the easel, my feet bare on the wooden boards. I felt as if I were in a dream, as if real life had evaporated in the hours I had sat there. I was afraid to look and break the spell.
“Come.” He beckoned me forward.
On the canvas I saw a girl I did not recognize. She gazed back at me defiantly, her hair glinting copper in the half-light, her skin as pale as alabaster, a girl with the imperious confidence of an aristocrat.
She was strange and proud and beautiful. It was as if I had been shown a magic looking glass.
“I knew it,” he said, his voice soft. “I knew you were in there.”
His eyes were tired and strained now, but he was satisfied. I stared at her a moment longer. Then, without knowing why, I stepped forward, reached up slowly, and took his face into my hands so that he had to look at me again. I held his face inches from my own and I made him keep looking at me, as if I could somehow absorb what he could see.
I had never wanted intimacy with a man. The animalistic sounds and cries that had leaked from my parents’ room—usually when my father was drunk—had appalled me, and I had pitied my mother for her bruised face and her careful walk the following day. But what I felt for Édouard overwhelmed me. I could not take my eyes from his mouth.
“Sophie...”
I barely heard him. I drew his face closer to mine. The world evaporated around us. I felt the rasp of his bristles under my palms, the warmth of his breath on my skin. His eyes studied my own, so seriously. I swear even then it was as if he had only just seen me.
I leaned forward, just a few inches, my breath stilled, and I placed my lips on his. His hands came to rest on my waist, and tightened reflexively. His mouth met mine, and I inhaled his breath, its traces of tobacco, of wine, the warm, wet taste of him.Oh, God, I wanted him to devour me.My eyes closed, my body sparked and stuttered. His hands tangled themselves in my hair, his mouth dropped to my neck.
The revelers in the street outside burst into noisy laughter, and as flags flew in the night breeze, something in me was altered forever. “Oh, Sophie. I could paint you every day of my life,” he murmured into my skin. At least, I think he said “paint.” By that stage it was really too late to care.
5
René Grenier’s grandfather clock had begun to chime. This, it was agreed, was a disaster. For months the clock had been buried underneath the vegetable patch that ran alongside his house, along with his silver teapot, four gold coins, and the watch his grandfather had worn on his waistcoat, to protect it from disappearing into the hands of the Germans.
The plan had worked well—indeed, the town crunched underfoot with valuables that had been hastily buried under gardens and pathways—until Grandma Poilâne hurried into the bar one brisk November morning and interrupted his daily game of dominoes with the news that a muffled chime was coming every quarter of an hour from underneath what remained of his carrots.
“I can hear it, even with my ears,” she whispered. “And if I can hear it, you can be sure that they will.”
“Are you sure that’s what you heard?” I said. “It’s so long since it was last wound.”
“Perhaps it is the sound of Madame Grenier turning in her grave,” said Monsieur Lafarge.
“I would not have buried my wife under my vegetables,” René muttered. “She would have made them even more bitter and wizened than they are.”
I stooped to empty the ashtray, lowering my voice. “You will have to dig it up under cover of night, René, and pack it with sacking. Tonight should be safe—they have delivered extra food for their meal. With most of them in here, there will be few men on duty.”
