For her, now there would be no more cold rooms, empty larders, or landlords threatening eviction. Never again would she have to wear dresses that needed mending or shoes that soaked through in the rain. She would now only cultivate pleasure, and she would offer it to others. She would live splendidly amidst it. Like those other girls she knew who had accepted the care of wealthy benefactors,women who were kept as secretly and luxuriant as hidden jewels.
She turned to Charles and batted her eyelashes, as her hand brushed against his cheek. Through the veil of his pipe smoke, she saw his eyes glimmer as she touched him. They would have an arrangement. He would keep her. She could see it etched into his expression, and she interpreted his smile as the seal.
***
They had taken the train ride back from Venice to Paris together, in a private compartment paneled in deep mahogany. During the day, she looked out through the glass windows and saw villages made of stone, and stretches of farmland with yellow rapeseed and barrels of sun-bleached wheat. In the evening, they dressed for dinner and drank champagne from tall glasses as the locomotive’s wheels hummed beneath their velvet seats.
She could see how he watched her reflection, cast in the panes of the dining car windows, the heavy red curtains pulled to the side. There was now nothing of the scenic landscape of the afternoon to compete with her countenance, for outside it was as dark as ink. She took a sip of her champagne, her tapered fingers reaching for thestem. And when her lips met the rim, she caught sight of his smile in the glass.
She had a studied, deliberate way in which she moved. She had only recently learned the correct way to hold her cutlery, to ensure that her knife and fork didn’t make a noise against the porcelain when she ate.
But even before then she had mastered the art of crafting her appearance. She was wrapped now in all of her elegant finery, dressed for the evening until he had her alone in their compartment completely to himself.
Draped over her shoulders was the black velvet cape lined in pink satin he had bought her in a shop near San Marco. She already knew how it would come undone. She would unpin her hair only after the porter had made up their bed. She would stand in front of him and take away each of her layers. The silk faille dress. The chemise. The corset and camisole. The petticoat. The garter with the tangle of ribbons and lace. She would remove the silver combs he had given her when they first met, and run it through her red hair, like Titian’sFlora. She would turn to him and let him unbutton and untie her until she was completely undressed.
These were the things she would let him see. Her soft limbs, and her nipples she had rouged the palest rose. She would let him cup her breasts and let his fingers take hold of her waist. She would be his flower, opening and wet at the graze of his hand.
She was twenty-four and a student of love and touch. It was he who taught her about beautiful things. About the poetry of space, the need for pockets of solitude amongst the chatter. The need for color after a moment of darkness, or for the contrast of white porcelain and white sheets when one wanted to feast.
He had been the only one to send her orchids when she performed at the theater. Five perfect stems. On the card he wrote:
Your beauty is not like the others’. You hold the stars in your eyes, the moon just beneath your skin.
Charles
P.S. I shall be the one holding the sixth orchid outside the theater tonight, should you wish to join me afterward for a glass of champagne.
The other girls were awash in red roses. Packed bouquets with their garlands of green, with cards from men inviting them to meet after the show. Every one of these male suitors had a wife, with children asleep in their beds or in a boarding school somewhere. And all of them came to the theater for a night of entertainment that did not end for them when the curtain descended and the applause died down. Quite the contrary, that was the signal that the evening had just begun.
She was young and beautiful with a radiance that set her apart from the others. A perfect specimen to showcase in Paris, a city now famous for both its ability to illuminate and to seduce. In the past five years, the city had undertaken an urban renaissance. Streets were lined with the contrast of heavy, black ironwork and milky white globes that flickered long fingers of light far past midnight. Now gaslights brightened the stage instead of candles, as the girls took their bows and curtsies, and the men studied their programs to remember the most beautiful dancers’ names. Backstage, the girls peeled out of their costumes, unlaced each other’s corsets, and finally breathed again, released from the constraints of their whalebone and lace. As the endless flower deliveries arrived, the girls reapplied their white powder, their lipstick as red as crushed poppies, and their mascara with glossy coats of black.
And like them, what had first attracted Marthe to the theater was the possibility to be somebody else for a few hours a day. To leave her humble background behind. To reinvent herself with beauty and illusion.
She left her first seamstress job at the tailor shop after she had become pregnant, a part of her life she wanted desperately to forget. She tried, with great effort, to erase from her memory the man who had gotten her in such a wretched state, who had told her in no uncertain terms that he had no intention of ever making her his bride or recognizing the child as his own.
She had tried to forget those awful months when she had struggled to hide her pregnancy. She had covered her fuller breasts by wearing higher necklines. She had raised the waistlines of her dress and wore more voluminous skirts. But when she eventually became unable to cloak her condition, even in the most generous waistband and skirt, her employer, Monsieur Brunet, ruthlessly informed her he had found another seamstress to take her place.
Her friend and fellow seamstress, Louise Franeau, offered her the perfect solution. When Louise wrapped the baby Henri in her arms and promised to care for him as though he were her own, Marthe convinced herself this was the best way to put that chapter of her life behind her.
“Are you absolutely certain?” Louise had asked her as the child nestled against her breast.
“Yes, I am sure.” Her voice drowned in exhaustion. She was still bedbound, every part of her body raw from the labor that had taken place only a few hours before. The midwife had been impatient with her as she cried out in pain. She still felt as if there were a fire burning between her legs.
She did not look at Louise nor the child that had grown inside her for the past nine months. She instead began to imagine a huge expanse of space engulfing them. On the ledge of the window, a small sparrow peered in from the outside.
She refused to take her eyes off the bird. She would not look at the baby that was rooting on Louise’s finger in search of milk.
Her breasts ached. The baby had begun to cry, and the pull insideher became unbearable. Yet, she knew that if she took the baby into her arms and fed him, she would lose her resolve. She could already feel the steel casing around her heart beginning to weaken.
“Take him, please...” Her voice began to crack. “But make sure the wet nurse feeds him.”
“She is already outside waiting for him,” Louise assured her.
“Go, then, please,” she said, her head turning away. The bird’s finely boned face was still peering in through the window. Its gaze was sharp and unflinching, slicing through her like claws, releasing her milk like a river of tears.
***
For days afterward, she spoke to no one. She instead willed herself to be stronger. To forget. To create a tourniquet around her heart. She bound her breasts tightly with yards of muslin until all the milk dried up. She spent hours fashioning a special corset that enabled her to tighten the laces from the front. She showed herself no mercy, pulling the corset tighter each day until she had regained her former silhouette.
