“Your grandmother...” I could see him mentally trying to place which of the apartments on the eighth floor had an older woman in it.
“Madame de Florian?” His voice sounded perplexed “I had no idea she had a granddaughter. Why, I had no idea she actually had ever been a mother, in fact.”
I smiled. “I can imagine your surprise.” I let out a small laugh. The elevator’s cage had descended to the ground floor, but the manhad now placed the bags down on the floor and couldn’t resist asking me a few more questions.
“My father was the original concierge for the building, and I inherited the position from him. And I must tell you, as a young boy, the few times I ever saw Madame de Florian leave the building, it left me breathless.”
I smiled. “I can imagine so.”
“Even now, when I catch the rare glimpse of her, she still looks beautiful. It’s as if she’s impervious to time.”
***
I knocked on the door of the apartment, holding the flowers in one hand.
“Madame is waiting,” Giselle said coolly as she opened the door.
“I apologize. I met the concierge in the lobby for the first time. He was quite friendly, and it was hard to break free.”
Giselle smiled now. “Ah, Gérard, a lovely boy.”
“He didn’t say his name, but he said his father had been the concierge before.”
“And his father was even lovelier,” Giselle said softly. “God rest his soul.”
“But how nice the position was maintained within the family...”
“Yes,” Giselle answered quickly. “And it appears Gérard has inherited his father’s discretion, which is a good thing. One never really wants a nosy concierge.”
I laughed. “No, I suppose not...”
Just as I was about to ask Giselle more about Gérard and his father, Marthe’s voice fluttered through the air.
“Solange? Is that you?”
“Yes, I’m so sorry I’m late...”
She always waited for me in the parlor, and it was a shock to seeher standing in the threshold, in a long lilac dress, her white fingers grasping the edge of one of the open French doors.
“Giselle and I were just discussing that you have broken your pattern. You have never once been late, an attribute I’ve always admired.”
I tried to readjust my eyes at the sight of her. It had been a week since I last saw her. Yet somehow she now looked very different to me. Was she thinner? I focused on her face for a second, trying to pinpoint the exact change. It had grown considerably colder in Paris over the past few weeks, and the radiators in the apartment hissed steam to maintain a sense of warmth through the rooms and halls. Perhaps the sudden change in climate had caused her delicate skin to slacken a bit.
But it was hard to deny that her eyes looked tired in a way I had never seen before.
“Mademoiselle Solange got distracted downstairs talking with Monsieur Gérard,” Giselle offered up my excuse to Marthe.
“Ah.” Marthe smiled. “She has a good excuse, then. Such a good man. Just like his father, Pierre.”
I had never witnessed these two women bonding about anything. But both of them clearly had a soft spot in their hearts for Gérard and his father.
I looked at Marthe with an expression that could only have shown how perplexed I was. I could not imagine her fraternizing with Gérard or his father, the concierge. From what I had heard so far, she hardly had left the apartment except for her shopping excursions to buy her porcelains or her outings to see Boldini.
“One never forgets someone who helps you out in a time of need. And Pierre was just that man.”
***
As Giselle took the bouquet from me to put in a vase, I followed Marthe back into the main room.
