The House I Loved Page 4

  How well I see our sitting room in my mind’s eye. It is but an empty shell now, stripped and bare like a monk’s cell, but I still see it like it was. This was the first room I set foot in when I came to meet your mother. Spacious and high-ceilinged, with emerald-green leaf-pattern wallpaper, a pale stone fireplace. Thick bronze-tinted damask curtains. Four large windows with colored panes, gold, crimson and violet, facing out to the rue Childebert. From there was a view down to the Erfurth fountain, where all our neighbors came for their daily supply of water. Fine woodwork, a delicate chandelier, crystal doorknobs, refined engravings of hunting scenes and countryside, lush carpets. An exotic cactus plant filled an alcove. On the large mantelpiece, a Roman marble bust of a young man, an ormolu clock with an enamel dial and a pair of gleaming silver candlesticks under glass shades.

  That first day with your mother, when I came to visit her in the afternoon, I imagined you growing up here, as your father had before you. Your father died when you were fifteen, mine did when I was two, in a riding accident. I do not recall mine, and you did not often mention yours.

  “My husband was impetuous and short-tempered,” whispered Maman Odette over the coffee tray. “But Armand is such a patient son. His is a gentler, sweeter nature.”

  I know your mother accepted me from the start, from the very day you introduced me to her. She was wearing a russet velvet dress with a high, heart-shaped bodice and flared sleeves, sitting in her favorite armchair, the large green one with the fringes, her knitting in her lap. She smiled at me with such kindness that it warmed my heart.

  “So you have a brother, dear? What is his name?”

  “Émile,” I answered, as you handed me a slice of brioche on a pretty plate. Your eyes never left my face. And your mother looked on, glowing with happiness, her plump fingers working at her knitting.

  She became a second mother to me in a mere couple of months, even before we married at Saint-Germain. My own mother, Berthe, had remarried when I was seven, a brash, loutish man, Edouard Vaudin. My brother Émile and I detested him. What a forlorn childhood we led on the place Gozlin. Berthe and Edouard lived only for themselves. We held no interest for them. Maman Odette gave me that most inestimable of gifts: she made me feel loved. Your mother treated me like her own daughter. For hours we would sit in the sitting room each time I came to visit, and I would listen with rapture to her tales, her talk of you and your youth, and how appreciative she was of you, her only son. She described the toddler you once were, the bright scholar, the loyal son, putting up with Jules Bazelet and his tantrums.

  The first time you kissed me was in the stairway, near the creaking step, on our way up or down, I cannot recall, but I do remember that first kiss and the mad leap of my heart. For a man of your age, eight full years older than me, you were bashful. But I rather liked that. It soothed me.

  When I came to visit your mother and you, in the very beginning, it was as if the rue Childebert welcomed me as soon as I walked up the rue des Ciseaux to the rue Erfurth and glimpsed the church’s flank ahead of me. It was distressing to have to return to place Gozlin. Your mother’s affection and your strengthening love drew a protective bubble around me. My mother shared nothing with me. She was too preoccupied with the vacuity of her life, the dinner parties she attended, the shape of her new hat, the twist of a new chignon. Émile and I had learned to fend for ourselves. We became friendly with the shopkeepers and café owners of the rue du Four while we waited for our mother to come home. The “petits Cadoux,” we were known as, and we were offered hot pastry straight from the bakery oven, caramels and tidbits. The Cadoux children, well behaved and meek, in awe of their loud-spoken stepfather.

  I did not know what “family” meant until I met you and Maman Odette. Until the tall square house with the green door on the corner of the rue Childebert became my home. My haven.

  Rue Childebert, June 12th, 1828

  Dearest love, Rose of my heart,

  This morning I walked down to the river and I sat on the banks for a while and enjoyed the morning sun. I watched the barges puff by, and the clouds surge through the sky, and I felt such a lucky man. A lucky man to be loved by you. I do not believe my parents loved each other at all, I think my mother put up with my father as best as she could, in a courageous, unselfish fashion that no one ever noticed because she barely complained.

  When I think of next week, of when you will be mine, of that holy moment, I am overcome with joy. I cannot quite believe that you, the beautiful Rose Cadoux, will become my lawfully wedded wife. I have been to the church at Saint-Germain very many times, I was baptized there, I have attended mass, weddings, christenings, funeral services, I know the church inside out, I know it by heart, but now, in a mere couple of days, I will be walking you out of that church as if for the first time, with you, my wife, on my arm on that glorious day, on the blessed day that I will become your devoted husband. I will take you to the house on the rue Childebert where I was born, I will sweep you through that green door, up those stairs, up to our bedroom, and I will show you how much I adore you.

  I have waited for you all my life, Rose. There is not only your regal beauty, your distinction, there is also and above all your altruism, your kindness. And your humor. I am entranced by your personality, your laugh, your adoration of pretty clothes, the way you walk, the gold of your hair, the fragrance of your skin. Yes, I am deeply in love. I have never loved like this. I was ready for a dutiful wife, a wife who would look after me and my household. You are so much more than an ordinary wife, because you are anything but ordinary.

  This house on the rue Childebert will be our family home, sweet Rose. I am to be the father of your children. Our children will grow up in this neighborhood like I did, as you did. I want to see them come into their own, with you. I want the years to slip by peacefully, me at your side, within these walls. I am writing this to you in the living room which will soon become yours. This house will be yours too. Everything in it will be yours. This house will be a household of love.

  You are loved, Rose, so deeply. You are young still, but such maturity emanates from you. You know how to listen. You know how to care. Oh, your eyes and their quiet beauty, their quiet strength.

  I never want to be deprived of those eyes, that smile, that hair. Soon you will be mine, in name and in body. I am counting the days, and my ardent love for you burns through me like a bright flame.

  Yours forever,

  Armand

  WHEN I THINK OF the sitting room, I cannot erase certain images from my head. There are happy ones, of course. Coming up the stairs as your bride, the lace soft on my face and neck, your hand warm at the small of my back. The murmur of the guests, but I only had eyes for you, my husband. In the cool obscurity of Saint-Germain I had murmured my vows, too timid to even glance up at your face, embarrassed by the crowd behind us, my mother and her fancy friends, her gaudy dress, her rakish hat.

  I see myself as that young girl in white, still clasping the small bouquet of pale roses, standing in front of the fireplace, a new gold band tight on her finger. A married woman. Madame Armand Bazelet. The room could hold at least fifty people. Champagne and delicacies. But it seemed that you and I were alone. From time to time, your eyes would meet mine and I felt safe, safer than I had ever been in all my life, safe in your love, safe in your house. For I adored the house from the start, like I adored your mother. The house embraced me as your mother did. It took me in. I reveled in its particular smell, a mixture of beeswax and fresh linen, and good, simple cooking.

  But there are not only fond, serene memories in this house. Alas. Some of those souvenirs are too difficult to bring back just now. Yes, I am fainthearted, Armand. My courage is coming to me in dribs and drabs. Please be patient. Let us start with this.

  Remember the day we came back from a trip to Versailles with Maman Odette before Violette was born, and we found the front door had been forced? We ran up the stairs and discovered all our objects, our books, our clothes, our
goods, piled up in a heap. The furniture had been overturned. The kitchen was a downright mess. Muddy footprints maculated the corridors and carpets. Maman Odette’s gold bracelet had gone. So had my emerald ring and your platinum cuff links. And your secret cache of money near the chimney had been emptied. The police arrived, and I believe a couple of men searched the neighborhood, but we never got our things back. I remember how upset you were. You had another lock put on the door, a sturdier one.

  Another very bleak remembrance. The sitting room brings back your mother. The day I met her, but also the day she died. Eight years span those two moments, the happy one and the dreadful one. Yet now, you see, as I write this more than thirty years later, they seem very close in time.

  Violette was five years old, a little monster. Maman Odette was the only person who could tame her. Violette never had tantrums in front of Maman Odette. I wonder what magic her grandmother wrought. Perhaps it was simply authority that I lacked. Maybe I was too gentle a mother. Too lax. Yet I felt no natural inclination toward Violette. It was the little boy who later stole my heart. I put up with my daughter’s temper, inherited from her paternal grandfather.

  You were away that day, meeting the family notary near the rue de Rivoli. You would not be back till later that evening, for supper. Violette was sulking, as usual, her face screwed up in an unbecoming scowl. Nothing could possibly amuse her that morning, not her new doll or an enticing piece of chocolate. There was Maman Odette in her green-fringed chair, doing her best to glean a smile from her only grandchild. How patient and firm she was. As I bent over my sewing, I thought I should model my maternal initiatives on her calm, unyielding, yet tender manner. How did she do it? Experience, I presumed. Years of dealing with a mercurial husband.

  I recall the clicking of the silver thimble against my needle, and Maman Odette’s quiet hum as she caressed my daughter’s hair. The hiss of the flames in the chimney. Outside, the rare clatter of a carriage, the patter of footsteps. A frosty winter morning. The streets would be slippery for Violette’s walk, after her nap. I would have to hold her hand tight, and she hated that. I was twenty-seven years old and I led a comfortable, placid life. You were a kind, tender husband, a little absentminded sometimes, and you seemed strangely to age faster than I did. At thirty-five, you looked older than your age. Your distractedness did not bother me, I even found it charming, you sometimes forgot where your keys were, or what day it was, but your mother always pointed out you had already pronounced that very sentence, or that you had already asked that question.

  I darned a tired sock, riveted to my task. Maman Odette had stopped humming. It was the sudden silence that made me raise my eyes to my daughter’s face. She was gazing at her grandmother and she seemed fascinated, tilting her head as if to have a better look. I could only see Maman Odette’s back as she leaned toward the child, her rounded shoulders in the gray velvet dress, her ample waist. Violette’s eyes were dark with curiosity. What could her grandmother be telling her, what could her expression be, was she making a comical grimace? I laughed lightly and put the sock aside.

  Suddenly Maman Odette let out a chortle, a horrible whistling sound, as if a morsel of food were stuck deep in her throat. I noticed with fright that her body was slowly sliding toward Violette, who had not budged, a tiny, petrified statue. I dashed forward as fast as I could to grab Maman Odette’s arm and as her face swiveled around to me, I nearly fainted with horror. It was unrecognizable, colorless, her eyes two quivering white orbs. Her mouth gaped open, a glistening thread of drool dangling from her lower lip, and she choked again, just once, her plump hands fluttering to her bosom, helpless. Then she fell at my feet in a tumbled lump. I stood there, stunned, unable to move. I put my fingers to my chest, felt my heart pound.

  She was dead. I could tell by merely looking at her, her immobile body, her chalky face, those hideous eyes. Violette rushed up and came to hide in my skirts, grasping at my thighs through the thick material. I longed to push her pinching fingers aside, to call for help, but I found I could not move. I simply stood there, thunderstruck. It took me a full minute or so to regain my strength. I ran to the kitchen, startling the maid. Violette had begun to wail in anguish. Long thin howls that hurt my ears. I prayed for her to be quiet.

  Maman Odette was dead. And you were not at home. The maid shrieked when she discovered the body on the carpet. Somehow I mustered enough strength to order her to pull herself together and to fetch help. She fled, sobbing. I remained with the screaming child, unable to look at the body any longer. Maman Odette had seemed perfectly well at breakfast that morning. She had eaten her bread roll with appetite. Why had this happened? How could this be possible? She could not be dead. The doctor would come, he would resuscitate her. Tears began to trickle down my cheeks.

  At last the old doctor came lumbering up the stairs carrying his black bag. He wheezed as he crouched down on his knees to press two fingers to Maman Odette’s neck. Then he wheezed even more as he laid his ancient ear on her bosom. I waited and prayed. But he shook his grizzled head. And then he closed Maman Odette’s eyes. It was over. She was gone.

  When my father died, I was only a child and did not remember. Maman Odette was the first of my beloved to go. Her death loomed over me. How would I cope without her smile, the sound of her voice, her whims, her mellow laugh? Objects around our home reminded me constantly of her, as if to taunt me. Her fans. Her bonnets. Her collection of tiny ivory animals. Her gloves that bore her initials. Her Bible, which never left her reticule. The small pouches of lavender that she tucked away here and there, their enchanting fragrance.

  The sitting room slowly darkened with people. The priest who married us arrived and endeavored to comfort me, in vain. The neighbors began to gather in front of the house. Madame Collévillé was in tears. Everyone was fond of Maman Odette.

  “It was her heart, no doubt,” the old doctor informed me as Maman Odette’s body was carried to her room. “Where is your husband?”

  They all asked where you were, again and again. Someone offered to have a message sent to you at once. I believe it was Madame Paccard, of the Hôtel Belfort. I rummaged around your bureau to find the notary’s address. And then, as I stroked my daughter’s head, I could not help thinking of that messenger of ill bearings making its way over to you, steadily, edging closer and closer. You did not know. You sat with Maitre Regnier, going over bequeathals and investments, and you had no idea. Wincing, I imagined the look in your eyes when you were handed the slip of paper, the way your face would blanch when the words made sense, the stagger to get to your feet, your greatcoat thrown over your shoulders, your top hat askew, your cane left behind in your haste. Then the way home over the river, in a hackney that seemed to crawl at a snail’s pace, the traffic dense, the roads icy, and the horrid thud of your heart.

  Your face as you came in. I shall never forget it.

  “Where is she?” you said, looking at me, stooping to embrace our stricken daughter.

  “Upstairs,” I murmured, feeling faint.

  You flung your coat at me, loosened your cravat. Your gestures were awkward, almost brutal.

  “What happened, Rose?”

  I saw your eyes were brimming with tears. I clasped your hand in mine, feeling your trembling pain. I told you, simply, how your mother had died. The tears ran down your cheeks in silence. Then you squared your shoulders, and you went up the stairs to see your mother’s body, alone. I stood at the bottom of the stairs with your coat in my arms and I wept.

  She meant the world to you, as she did to me. She was our pillar of strength, our source of wisdom. We were her children. She cared for us so tenderly. Who would care for us now?

  The hideous day dragged on, burdened with the aftermath of death and its demands. Condolences pouring in, flowers, cards, whispers, murmurs, mourning clothes and their disheartening darkness. Our front door draped with black, passersby crossing themselves.

  I felt the house sheltering me, holding me strong within its
stone walls like a sturdy ship during a tempest. The house nursed me, soothed me. You were taken up by paperwork and the preparation of her burial at the Cimetière du Sud, where your father and grandparents lay. The mass was to be held at Saint-Germain. I watched your intent agitation. Violette was unusually silent, clasping her doll to her chest. People moved around us in a never-ending ballet of purposefulness. From time to time an affectionate hand would pat my arm or offer me a beverage.

  Again Maman Odette’s white face floated back to me. The choking, whistling sound. Had she suffered? Could I have prevented this? The memories resurfaced. Our daily walks to the market, then across to the rue Beurrière, over to the Cour du Dragon where she enjoyed looking at the workshops and talking to the blacksmith. Her unhurried trot, her arm tucked under mine, the bob of her bonnet at my shoulder. When we reached the rue Taranne she liked to pause for a while, her cheeks pink, her breath short. She would lift her brown eyes to me, so like yours, beaming up at me. “What a pretty girl you are, my Rose.” My mother never once told me I was pretty.