One Summer in Montmartre Read online

  Hélène had laughed. "I'm betrothed to Claude, and everyone knows how I feel about him. Anyway, when you've had the baby," she cast a critical eye on Louise's bulging bump, "which I think will happen soon, I'll be gone because I have a wedding to attend. So stop teasing."

  Louise's lips had tightened, and Hélène guessed this wasn't the last time she would hear of the subject. Louise was determined to open her cousin's country bumpkin eyes to the realities of city life—especially to the truth concerning good-looking young artists in Paris.

  "You have a wonderful tone of skin," Luc said, "and the color of your eyes is remarkable. When I finish this painting, I'll hire you for another, as I have an idea I want to pursue."

  Hélène blushed.

  Luc released her arm but continued to stare, observing the rosy flush spread across her cheeks. "But don't worry. I'm sure Louise will have told you, and she knows from experience, you won't find me less than professional with my models. Besides, my wife is very beautiful and I adore my children."

  Hélène breathed out in relief as he moved away from her.

  He fished a couple of coins out from his pocket and checked the amount before dropping them into her opened palm. "At the same time tomorrow, M'selle Hélèna?" he asked as she moved towards the door.

  "Yes and thank you. Au revoir, M'sieur Marteille."

  Luc followed her out on to the landing and watched as she headed down the narrow twisting staircase. He waited till she'd disappeared before he returned to his work whistling a jolly tune he'd heard the night before.

  Hélène floated along Rue Gabrielle, her thoughts a peculiar jumble of gratification and chaos. Before the sitting, Louise's advice had left her apprehensive and jittery, but after four hours of posing she felt elated that she'd been able to satisfy the artist—in spite of her difficulties in maintaining the position he required.

  Luc Marteill was different from what she'd expected. He was older, and she'd found his closed expression, fierce concentration and eruptions of temper intimidating, but his smile was infectious, and the playful twinkle in his brown eyes captivating. She pushed away the thought of his touch on her skin as he'd positioned her and the memory of his face as he scrutinized her by the window. Casual intimacy with unfamiliar men was not part of her experience, and thinking of him left her bewildered and unsure. Yes, she was beginning to understand the reason for Louise's warning.

  She would have to let Louise know she'd pleased him, and he wanted her for another painting. The money would be useful. The shout of an old farmer as he urged his horse forward, and the noise of his cart rumbling passed, pulled her back into the present, and she put aside the day's new experiences. It's natural for a lass from the country to be overwhelmed by a famous person like him, she thought, recognizing one of the street names her cousin had made her memories.

  Louise, and her husband Pierre, lived in a second-floor apartment on Rue Theloze, in one of the new grey stone apartment blocks recently built in Montmartre. Pierre, a tailor, had lately been promoted to the position of assistant head at the select shop where he worked in Rue St. Honoré in the center of Paris.

  As she climbed the stairs wondering if Louise would mind if she rested for a bit before helping her with the evening meal, a piercing shriek startled her. Louise! It must be the baby, but it wasn't due yet. She picked up her skirts, and in an adrenaline fuelled dash, sprinted up the stairs.

  Rushing in she saw Louise, doubled over in the middle of the sitting room, supported by the mid-wife, Collette.

  Louise's neighbor from upstairs, Irene, bustled into the room. Irene was a veteran, her figure rounded after giving birth six times. One had been stillborn, and another died within six months, but four offspring had survived for her to boss around. She had taken Louise under her wing in the absence of the young woman's mother. Irene fired off instructions at Hélène, taking Louise's other arm to support her. "Ah, thank God you're here. Into the kitchen. Quick. When the water's boiled, bring it into the bedroom and get the next lot on."

  "That's fine." Collette soothed Louise. "You're fine. The baby will be fine."

  After the contraction had passed, the two older experienced women continued to walk the sweating trembling Louise slowly around the room.

  "Don't stand there gawping, girl," Irene commanded. "You're going to be an aunt soon. Get on with it."

  An aunt! Hélène grinned back at the women.

  "And fetch more sheets," Irene added as Hélène shed her jacket and hat, flinging them on the nearest chair before hurrying into the kitchen.

  She checked the water in the pot on the stove and did a little dance. "Has the baby turned?" she called from the kitchen.

  A month ago, after ascertaining that it wasn't in the correct position, Collette had given Louise a strict daily regime of simple exercises aimed at turning the baby. But so far the baby had ignored the cajoling and the threats. Babies could turn at the last moment, but if this one didn't get a move on, they'd find out the truth of the midwife's assurances that she'd never lost a baby during a breech birth. This had allayed everyone's fears right up till this moment. Pierre's running joke was that this child was obviously as stubborn as its mother.

  Hélène had listened to her mother, and countless village women, recount their childbirth experiences when somebody was in labor, and helped plenty of cows, sheep and goats give birth so she knew the risks of a breech delivery. She remembered seeing a stillborn lamb when she was very young. It had lain with its eyes closed in death, curled up pale and lifeless in its caul. She had cried herself to sleep that night.

  However, this was the first time she was attending a woman giving birth. One second she wanted to jump and shout with happiness at the thought of seeing Louise's baby coming into the world, and the next she wanted to nothing more than to fall on her knees and pray no complications would occur.

  "No!" Louise screamed as she convulsed with another contraction.

  Hélène made the sign of the cross and sent a quick prayer to St. Gerard and a second to St. Collette for Louise and the baby before rushing back out to see if there was anything she could do to help.

  "This baby is going to kill me!"

  "Shush, there," Collette said, "this is nothing. You've got years of worry about this child ahead of you."

  Louise continued to groan till the contraction was over.

  "On your knees," Collette instructed, wiping the sweat from Louise's forehead and helping settle her into position. "There, get your bottom further up. Here," she looked at Hélène, "you can do this," she said, showing her how to massage the small of Louise's back.

  "I need to make certain that oaf, Henri, has fed everyone," said Irene. "I won't be long." And she was out the door to check everything was under control with her brood upstairs.

  Around six thirty Pierre returned home. Louise lay on the sofa between contractions, with Hélène wiping her forehead with a dampened cloth. He rushed over to Louise his eyes filled with concern. Taking the cloth Hélène handed him, he knelt down and began to soothe her.

  "Ma chérie," he murmured.

  Collette bustled in. "Oh, M'sieur Lefeuvre," she exclaimed, deftly removing the cloth. "She's fine and I believe," she said placing her hand under his elbow to make sure he understood, "M'sieur Durrence is going to keep you company till the baby arrives. So off you go." Ignoring his protests, she hustled the anxious Pierre to his feet and dispatched him upstairs. "Tell Irene, we're moving Louise into the bedroom and we'll be needing her soon," she called out after him.

  Irene's husband, the gregarious Henri welcomed Pierre, giving him a glass of wine, and commenced a detailed retelling of his personal experiences during the births of his offspring.

  Irene left with strict instructions for the children to stay in bed, and for Henri to stop frightening Pierre.

  Henri drank copious amounts of wine, but Pierre was so wound up he couldn't touch a drop. He was completely unable to follow the expert's well intentioned advice to drink up and
forget what was going on until he was called to admire the newborn. Unable to stop worrying, Pierre periodically left the increasingly intoxicated Henri, tiptoeing down the stairs to stand outside his apartment listening to Louise's outraged cries. He would wait till Louise had stopped screaming and knock timidly on the door. Departing after reassurances from Hélène, he would return within half an hour or so, pleading to be told everything was going as expected.

  "But she is suffering so," he complained miserably to Henri.

  "It is the same for all women, is it not?" said the older man. "That is how our mothers suffered. It is how women will continue to suffer as they give birth. It's part of life, is it not?"

  Pierre, wracked with worry, could do nothing but nod in agreement.

  Hélène's main duty was to apply more cooling damp cloths to Louise's heated forehead. This was the easy part—not screaming as Louise excruciatingly crushed her hand when the contractions came was more challenging. From time to time, Irene and Collette would go outside to confer, and she could hear their guarded whispers. Was it feet or buttocks first? Was the labor taking too long? Should the doctor be fetched?

  Louise, pale and sweating was becoming too exhausted to care.

  During the contractions Hélène would repeat, over and over, "Louise will be fine. The baby will be fine." Then, in an agony of uncertainty for her cousin, she appealed first to Our Lady, followed by prayers to St. Nicholas, St. Germain Cousin, St. Guinefort, and her favorite—St. Teresa of Avila and ended with an entreaty to any saint whose name she could remember.

  As midnight approached, Collette urged. "Push. Come on. More effort. Your baby's coming,"

  "I can't." Louise whispered her voice barely audible. Her dark curls stuck wetly around her face, her eyes a stark contrast to the whiteness of her complexion.

  "Yes, you can," Hélène insisted.

  "Any minute," Irene murmured, holding towels ready, and winking at Hélène. "You'll see."

  "Keep trying, Louise." Collette commanded." I can see the baby's back. Come on, you don't want your baby stuck do you? So when the next contraction comes, use every bit of strength you've got left. Ready?"

  Louise looked up at Hélène, who smiled at her, then squeezed her eyes shut as the contraction began and she pushed.

  Hélène bit her lip to stop the yelp of pain as Louise mashed her fingers together.

  "Baby's out! Your baby's out," cried Collette.

  "And it's a fine-looking boy," said Irene, a big grin on her face, as she held him while Collette cut the umbilical cord.

  "You've done it!" Hélène bent and kissed Louise's forehead. "I'll go tell Pierre."

  Hélène, exhilarated and exhausted, climbed up to Irene's apartment to give the nerve torn husband the good news. She hadn't raised her hand to knock when the door opened and Pierre was out on the landing, his face cracking into the broadest grin when she told him.

  He grabbed her shoulders kissing her on both cheeks before turning to Henri, who had blearily followed him out, and kissing him too. He ran down the stairs with his intoxicated neighbor staggering behind him. Pierre cried when he saw his baby son in his wife's arms, a smile of joy on her face.

  "Oh! What an adorable babe," Henri said, approaching the bed from the other side, bending and swaying over Louise in an alarming fashion.

  Irene grabbed his arm and dragged him out. "I think you've celebrated for Paris," she said hustling him out the door.

  "Don't you want another lovely kid yourself, ma chérie?" was the last they heard before the front door banged shut.

  Collette settled Louise and the newborn for the night, giving Pierre and Hélène strict instructions what to do and what not to do, promising to return and check on both of them first thing in the morning.

  Looking in on the new mother before going to bed, Hélène saw Louise had drifted off to sleep with the babe in her arms, and Pierre sat on a chair by the side of the bed, gazing at his sleeping son with such a look of love that it brought tears to her eyes.

  Hélène lay on her narrow cot, in the room that would be the baby's when he was old enough, staring up at the ceiling; she needed to sleep as she was due at Luc's studio by ten o'clock but her emotions were running too high. She was an aunt, and would soon be married and having babies. And she had no doubt there would be several; she wanted three boys and two girls. Would her first labor be difficult? Would she take after her mother who'd given birth to five babies with ease, although she and her elder brother were the only two who had lived past their first year? Who would her children look like, her or Claude? Wasn't that what life consisted of? What more could she want? The thoughts spiraled around and around.

  When sleep finally arrived, the last thing which came to mind had nothing to do with the momentous events of the evening, nor was it of Claude, her betrothed. The final image lingering before her inner eye was the sharp calculating look on Luc Marteille's face as he dropped the coins into her hand at the end of the session.

  Chapter Three

  We are never aware that a specific moment in our life is pivotal. When we make and/or agree to decisions, we can never be completely certain of what the outcome will be. The one point we can be sure of is at that instant, it is as if we are blindly impelled towards a particular choice.

  London, May 2007

  Anna sat on the edge of her bed, with the letter in her lap and a French dictionary by her side, gazing at the painting. Greg had wanted to place it in the living room or dining room so others could see and appreciate its vibrant intensity. Anna hadn't wanted to be so generous, and she kept the picture in their private space. Today she had changed its position, moving it from where they could both see it, to the wall facing her side of the bed.

  Tearing her attention away, she extracted the letter from the envelope. Holding the delicate, less faded, sheet of paper with careful fingers, she re-read the letter. Taking up her dictionary and pad, with pen to hand, she set to work, intent on gratifying her curiosity through a more accurate and fuller translation than the one she'd offered Mr. Bentonly.

  My dear Hélène,

  I realize we have parted for the last time, but I must tell you that knowing you has changed me. My golden hearted Hélène, I would have given you everything that I possibly could, though we are both aware it is not enough to win you. But remember this, I did, and still do, love you. With every beat of my heart. You have shown me my world afresh. And I know you love me because I have seen it in your eyes.

  I am broken into a thousand hard useless pieces and my days will be empty without you. I cannot ask you to be with me, but I shall keep my sweet love for you locked away in a secret place deep inside my soul where I shall cherish it. When dark clouds descend, for my life will become bleak without your presence, I will take out these precious memories of our time together, and they will comfort me.

  Your distraught admirer,

  Luc.

  Anna wiped away the tears rolling down her face. The writer's poignant cry of longing for an absent love resonated with her own unhealed wound. She was well acquainted with the misery expressed in the letter, although she no longer broke down, her loss bleeding from her eyes at the slightest allusion to anything associated with her son. Three months before his death, he'd turned twenty-two years old. Her first born wasn't meant to die at twenty-two.

  At first she shut off her emotions, retreating from the pain, unable to sleep or eat, let alone run a house and care for a husband and daughter. She'd strayed into a disjointed emotional landscape of anguish and pain, where there was no favorable path to follow, and spent long melancholy hours lying inert staring at the painting's burgeoning flowers. Transient, yet vibrant with energy and life, they grew to symbolize Jeremy's life, and the picture became, for her, an archetypal representation of how fleeting life was for humans.

  And there were the dreams. Jeremy visited her often in her dreams. One birthday he'd presented her with a bunch of flowers‒identical to the ones in the painting‒offering th
em to her with a grin.

  "Look familiar?" he'd said, his brown eyes twinkling and an impudent grin on his face. "They're for you."

  Not till after a clinical psychologist had given a diagnosis of grief induced depression‒with Gregory making sure she took her prescribed medication‒had she slowly and reluctantly resumed her customary routines of daily life. Going up to London to view the picture in its re-gilded frame was the first trip she'd had the courage to make since they buried Jeremy six months ago.

  Her attention was split between the painting of flowers in front of her and the letter in her hand, turning questions about Luc Marteille over in her mind. What role did this Hélène have in the artist's life? Why 'aspiring'? Towards what goal did he strive? It piqued her that she didn't know. Gregory's father had researched the artist, and the information he'd come across made for dull reading; a good husband, good father, and no sniff of any scandal. Despite her familiarity with every stroke and daub of paint on the canvas, the letter plucked a dissonant chord in her preconceived view of its painter as a model family man.

  Rapid footsteps up the stairs and the door flew open.

  "Hey, Mum." Ingrid, now her only child, whirled into the room, and threw herself on the bed. Eighteen going on twenty-four, with burnished copper red hair coiled on top, curls tumbling out, proclaiming to the world that they, like her, refused to be restrained,

  "Two more days… and freedom." She flung a hand out dramatically, knocking the dictionary onto the floor. "Oh, sorry, Mum," she mumbled as her mother retrieved it. "What's that?" She pointed at the pad, covered with scribbled writing, balanced on her mother's lap and the envelope clutched in her hand. "And, pray tell, what are you doing with my French dictionary?" Sitting up, she eyed the writing on her mother's pad, trying to disguise the calculating look in her eyes with mock innocence.

  "Ingrid, do you have to fling yourself on my bed in that way?"