Page 99 of The Velvet Hours
It was Gérard, the concierge, who helped make the arrangements with the undertaker.
This gentle man, who had lived in the ground-floor apartment and whose father had once helped bring down a gravely ill Charles from Marthe’s apartment, now assisted me with Marthe. The irony did not escape me.
“Anything I can ever do to help you, mademoiselle,” he said as he lifted his hat.
“You are too kind,” I told him. “You are so much more than a concierge, I can see why both Giselle and my grandmother held you and your father in such high esteem.”
“My father always said that the concierge was the gatekeeper to the building.” He paused. “Being a concierge is not just receiving packages. I have a sense of responsibility to be aware of who enters and exits the building. Knowing I could help your grandmother one final time is not only my duty. It is my honor.”
***
Three days later, as it poured sheets of rain, a dark funeral cortege escorted Marthe to the Père Lachaise Cemetery.
When I called Marthe’s attorney, as she had instructed me to doimmediately upon her death, I was informed that she had bought a graveside plot for herself several years earlier. But what came as even more of a surprise to me as Alex, his father, Giselle, and I arrived at the gravesite and stood there waiting for the casket to be lowered into the ground, was that there was already another engraving on the polished headstone.
I walked closer and made out the name.Odette Rose Beaugiron 1869–1874. Marthe had never mentioned to me that she had secured a plot in Paris’s most elegant cemetery for her sister, or that she had the girl’s name etched on the headstone that one day would also be engraved with her own. But now, as I saw Odette’s name incised into the dark, wet granite, the gesture struck me deeply and my tears began to flow.
I felt the touch of Alex’s hand on my waist. I turned to face him, and just seeing his eyes soft with compassion soothed me.
“Come,” he whispered as he ushered me around the hole of earth that had been excavated in anticipation of receiving Marthe’s casket.
I had arranged with the undertaker for a secular burial. Since Marthe had never been married, explaining my own relation to her would expose that she had given birth to my father out of wedlock, making it difficult to secure a priest.
So we stood there, Giselle, Alex, Monsieur Armel, and I. Marthe’s final companions, waiting to say our final good-byes, as two men in work clothes hovered close in anticipation of when they would be needed to lower the casket into the earth.
Giselle had arranged to bring the flowers. Clasped between her hands, she held two bouquets. One with roses, the other a tight cluster of violets.
I took the violets, knowing it was Grandmother’s favorite flower, and placed them on top of the casket; then Giselle followed, placing hers. We stood there for several minutes before departing, the petals quivering in the rain, and tried to push out of our mind the sight of her casket being lowered by ropes into the wet earth.
However, it wasn’t until we made our way to the car that Monsieur Armel had kindly arranged that I saw Gérard standing in the distance. I almost didn’t recognize him standing in his overcoat. In one hand he grasped an umbrella, and in the other he clutched a wreath of white roses.
***
After the funeral, I politely refused Alex and his father’s invitation to come home with me.
“Let us take you to lunch, or at least we can sit with you for a few hours,” Monsieur Armel suggested, playing the role of the patriarch since my own father was absent.
I hadn’t arranged a reception after the funeral, so there were no mourners to receive. I was incredibly tired, having not slept well for several days. “Thank you,” I answered as politely as I could. “But all I want to do is go home and sleep. I’ve told Giselle to go home and do the same.”
Alex squeezed my arm. “At least let us make sure you get home safely.”
***
I let them take me as far as the door of the apartment building.
“Go,” I said, kissing them on both cheeks. “It has already been quite a long day.”
Once inside the door, I went toward the elevator and pushed the button. I had no strength to climb the stairs. I felt as though I could only manage the simplest movements. I reached into my purse and pulled out the key to open the door.
My footsteps sounded hollow against the parquet floors. It was impossible to believe I would never again see her floating down the hallway in one of her beautiful dresses, or hear one of her colorful stories or her laughter. I walked past the mirrors and the Frenchdoors to the parlor, and headed straight to the small room that I had claimed as my bedroom over the past few months.
I closed the door and fell on the bed. Only then did I allow myself to cry.
***
Over the next day and a half I moved through the apartment warily.
I felt as if I were walking into a painting in which I did not belong. Every room had been created by Marthe’s unique brushstrokes. The oyster gray. The celadon pieces that lined the shelves. The curtains and upholstery, with their deliberate contrast between velvet and silk.
