Page 16 of The Dressmaker's Gift
There was just one thing that niggled a little in Claire’s blossoming friendship with Vivi. That glimpse of a social life was rare and her subsequent invitations to restaurants and nightclubs were all politely rejected. If anything, Vivi seemed to Claire to be far too conscientious about her work. Often, when everyone else had packed up for the evening, Vivi would stay on alone in the sewing room, bent over some particularly intricate beadwork, or painstakingly stitching the hand-rolled hem of a chiffon gown, her needle flashing beneath the light of an angled lamp as it picked single threads, one by one, from the delicate fabric that pooled in her lap.
‘You’re working too hard!’ Claire told her when she appeared in the apartment long after the city had been plunged into darkness for the curfew.
Vivi smiled, but her face looked drawn with tiredness. ‘The work on that tea-dress is taking longer than I’d expected. But tomorrow is Saturday, so I won’t have to get up too early.’
‘Let’s have an outing then. You’ve scarcely had a chance to see anything of Paris. Ernst and I were supposed to be going to the Louvre tomorrow but now he has to work. So let’s you and I go instead. Mireille too, if she wants to come.’
And so it was that the three girls put on their best skirts and jackets and stepped out into the street together. Vivi pulled a camera from her bag, saying, ‘If we’re going to go sightseeing then I need to take some pictures.’ She motioned to Claire and Mireille to stand in front of the Delavigne vitrine.
‘Wait!’ cried Claire. She ran over to where a man had just dismounted from his bicycle. ‘Monsieur, would you be so kind as to take a picture of the three of us?’ she asked.
‘Bien sûr.’ The man grinned at the sight of the girls dressed up for an outing, and snapped the photograph. ‘Bonne continuation, mesdames.’ He smiled as he handed the camera back to Vivi and went on his way, wheeling his bike along the boulevard and whistling cheerfully to himself.
Laughing and chattering, Claire, Mireille and Vivi walked to the river and crossed to the right bank, with Vivi pausing to take photos of Notre-Dame and the Île de la Cité.
The lime trees in the gardens beside the Seine were clad in their fresh, green finery and waved and nodded at the girls as they passed along thequaion that bright and breezy Saturday in May.
Despite feeling the disappointment of having been let down by Ernst, Claire’s heart lifted as they walked. There would be other opportunities to come here with him, on the summer days that lay ahead. He and she would wander through these same streets, hand in hand, making plans for their future together. She even dared to imagine other summers to come when she might stroll here, with a wedding ring on her finger, pushing a pram containing a chubby, blonde baby who would chuckle and wave back at the sun-dappled linden branches overhead. But, for today, the company of her friends more than made up for Ernst’s absence, she realised.
She felt more light-hearted than she had done for months. She’d been so isolated since coming to Paris, and Jean-Paul’s visit had made her see just how cut off she had become from her family and her roots in Brittany. She’d written to her father and Marc back in Port Meilhon and, although the officially permitted postcards only allowed space for a few bland lines, she had told him that she was well and happy in Paris, that she missed them and that she sent them her love. She’d felt a sense of relief as she’d handed the card in at the post office and felt the thread of connection to her family re-establish itself, only then realising just how heartfelt the sentiments that she’d written really were. And she treasured the card that she’d received back from her Papa with its few lines which told her how much he cared.
None of the three had visited the Louvre before, so it was with a sense of awe that they entered the museum’s cavernous entrance hall, passing between a pair of guards who stood, like sentries, at the door.
They wandered through rooms where some of the walls and plinths were bare since so many works of art had been mysteriously spirited away, and several galleries were closed completely. But there remained enough paintings and sculptures to hold their interest. The girls drifted apart a little as they moved slowly through the open galleries, losing themselves in the timeless landscapes and the faces of the portraits that gazed out at them across the years.
Turning a corner, Claire found herself in a room containing vast alabaster sculptures from the Italian Renaissance. She was dimly aware of Mireille and Vivi entering the gallery behind her as she stepped up to a reclining woman, cordoned off behind a red velvet rope, and admired the way her draperies, carved from something as solid as stone, could appear as fluid and fragile as the silks with which the seamstresses worked every day.
All at once, her eye was caught by the profile of a young man who was circling a vast statue of a Roman emperor up ahead. It took a moment for her to recognise him in his civilian clothes, but then her heart leapt with gladness. He’d come after all.
‘Ernst!’ she called, and she started towards him, her face radiant at the unexpected joy of seeing him here.
Hearing his name, he turned towards her. But instead of sharing her pleasure, his face fell and he took a step backwards, away from her, raising one hand as if to fend her off if she came any closer.
Confused, Claire hesitated, her smile faltering. And then she froze as, from behind the statue’s plinth, appeared a woman dressed in a smart tweed suit. She held the hand of a little boy whose hair was almost the same white-blonde as his mother’s. As Claire watched, horrified, the woman reached out her free hand to caress Ernst’s back, saying something in German. And the little boy reached out his arms to be lifted up by the man he called ‘Vati’.
As the trio turned away and walked out of the gallery, Claire felt her knees give way and she clutched at the red velvet rope – just like the one that had separated the tables in the nightclub on New Year’s Eve – as she tried to steady herself.
And then Mireille and Vivi were at her side, holding her up, preventing her from crumpling to the floor. Leading her away, as her heart shattered into a thousand pieces.
Harriet
Having heard this latest chapter of Claire’s story, I plan a visit to the Louvre. It’s been hard to find the time to do much sightseeing because the rhythm of the year at Agence Guillemet is dictated by the Shows – with a capital ‘S’. Right now, even though it’s January and the damp, grey lid of the winter sky sits over the city, we’re preparing for the Haute Couture Spring/Summer Shows which will take place later in the month. I’m already excited about them, and am determined to do a good job so that when it comes to the preparations for the next Paris Fashion Week I’ll be able to be more involved. I know it’ll be exhausting, but exhilarating too and I can’t wait to experience it.
At last there’s a brief lull. It’s a bleak Sunday and the apartment feels chilly and a little claustrophobic – the perfect day for a visit to the Louvre. Thierry agrees to accompany me and we meet beside the glass pyramid that marks the museum’s sleek, modern entrance in the Place du Carrousel. He’s waiting for me when I get there, his hands pushed deep into the pockets of his parka, hair buffeted by the wind that swirls around the open square. We hug, briefly and a little awkwardly, realising that this is the first time we’ve been out together, just the two of us, without a crowd of friends and concert-goers thronging around to cover any silences.
But it turns out there aren’t any silences, other than very comfortable-feeling ones, as we spend the afternoon wandering through the galleries. The museum is a good deal fuller these days than it would have been in the war years when the French hid some of their greatest treasures and the Germans appropriated many others. The collections have been gathered back now and the Louvre is a changed place, of course, with its sleekly modern glass pyramids outside and new additions to the layout.
In one room, Thierry wanders on ahead as I stop in front of an alabaster statue, a reclining woman draped in fluid robes which belie the solidity of the stone from which they are carved. Could this have been the sculpture that my grandmother was looking at when she came upon Ernst and his family here all those years ago?
Ever since I’ve heard about Claire’s humiliation and heartbreak in the Louvre, I’ve longed more than ever for a more tangible sense of connection to her. I’ve pored over the photograph and my heart has bled as I’ve imagined the day it was taken: a day which started so well, full of joy and optimism as she’d got dressed in her best clothes and set out with her friends. A day which had ended so badly.
I realise that, increasingly, my feelings of shame at my grandmother’s naivety and terrible choice of partner have been replaced by sympathy for her – and a cold fury at Ernst. How dare he have treated her so shabbily, toying with her emotions, using her youth and her innocence to facilitate his deception? Was the damage done by that devastating encounter in the Louvre one of the things that contributed to the fragility of her heart? Was she strong enough to be able to recover from it, or did something break in her that day? Did the impact of that fleeting encounter knock her so hard that she was irreparably damaged? Can a broken heart be real?
And, if so, was that one of the moments that sealed my own mother’s fate, too, the moment that wounded my grandmother?
A sadness overwhelms me as I feel more keenly than ever the loss of my grandmother and my mother. And I feel afraid, too. Because I wonder whether it is my inescapable fate to feel that they have abandoned me ... And to know that my connection to life could be so fragile and so tenuous as well.
I try to shake off these morbid thoughts, hurrying away from the sculpture gallery, feeling the need to catch up with Thierry and have his comforting presence beside me. And how I wish I had Mireille and Vivienne beside me too, at times like this, so that I could absorb some of their strength and theirjoie de vivreas well.
