Parisian Promises Read online

  “I suppose so.”

  “That’s another tactic of overbearing mothers. They demand to be the center of their child’s attention. If you stay here, she’s not going to allow Christophe to spend time with you. And that’s time you two would need to see if you’re truly in love.” Lola picked up an Hermès scarf draped over the back of Madame la Vicomtesse’s chair. She carefully folded it and, when Monica glanced away, stuffed it in her bra.

  “But that is precisely why Christophe and I might be in love,” Monica said, rubbing the tears glistening in her eyes. “True love, that is. Look at all the lasting love stories. The families of the lovers are dead-set against their love. Romeo and Juliet, for example. There are lots more stories of forbidden love, or love that society won’t approve. Like Gatsby and Daisy, or Ellen and Newland in the Age of Innocence.”

  Lola always got bored when Monica started talking about characters in novels. In her opinion, Monica needed to live in the real world, not some storybook land where everything was made up.

  “Hate to break it to you,” she said, standing up and dusting away croissant crumbs, “but all you’ve had so far is a fling, not a great love affair. There are no two opposing families, just the heavy burden of Christophe’s overbearing mother. Also, don’t forget that in those ‘forbidden love’ stories you’re so fond of, somebody always dies or some awful tragedy occurs. Why subject yourself to all that unhappiness? My advice is, cut your losses with Christophe and see what happens with Jean-Michel.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  No Fool Like an Old Fool

  It had been years since Madame Caron de Pichet’s concierge had seen such an expensively engraved calling card attached to a bouquet of perfect white orchids. The delivery man gave her time to bask in the beauty of the bouquet, and then he asked, “Is Madame Caron de Pichet at home now?”

  “I don’t divulge any information about my residents,” snapped the concierge, immediately back to her usual crabby self.

  “Of course not. That is why you’re such a respected and reliable concierge.” The delivery man warmed her palm with three crisp one-hundred franc notes. “Please take the flowers up to Madame immediately. They are from an admirer who would like to pay a visit this afternoon.”

  After the delivery man departed, the concierge cackled with malicious glee. “The admirer must have sent these orchids from his funeral wreath,” she muttered to herself. “All the old lady’s former admirers are six feet underground.”

  The concierge carried the bouquet into her own shabby ground-floor apartment and tried to figure out how to remove the flowers from their lavish Lalique glass vase. She gave up on the idea of transferring them to one of her own chipped vases, and instead took her time opening the small envelope attached to the calling card engraved with baroque, intertwined initials: JM. Since the current tenants did not like to chit-chat with her, the way they used to in former days, the concierge always talked to herself or to her radio––and she still had lots to say about everything.

  “There’s nothing juicy in this note. Just some hoity-toity man trying to talk to the old woman about her old days during the war. Quel ennui!” She yawned with false boredom.

  The concierge had an urge to keep something of this extravagant floral tribute from the mystery man for herself; after all, she deserved a little joy in her life, too. When she couldn’t disassemble the floral arrangement, she settled for the satisfaction of scratching the Lalique glass vase with a pair of rusty scissors. Once her envy was satisfied by the unsightly scratch on the glass, the concierge climbed the many steps up to Madame’s front door.

  “Mon Dieu, it’s been ages since I received such a bouquet!” Madame clapped like a child.

  “Please put it on top of the piano…no, no, no. Put it near on the table near the table…no, no, not that one.”

  “I’m going to set it down right here,” boomed the concierge, and she plopped the vase on the corner of an entry table, among a mess of dog leashes and dog raincoats that once matched Madame’s own coats.

  “That just won’t do. The Lalique vase must be displayed appropriately––but not in a central location. It wouldn’t do to showcase a gift from a stranger. After all, I also have beautiful objets d’art, n’est-ce pas?” She pointed to dusty knick-knacks whose pedigree no longer mattered to anyone but her. In order to cover her living expenses of the last few years, she had already hocked all of her more significant possessions.

  The concierge trudged out of the apartment, dreading the long stairs back down, but Madame shouted another command.

  “Please, you must call this gentleman right away. This is what I want you to say: Madame Caron de Pichet is delighted to accept your gracious gift. It would be a pleasure to discuss matters of historical significance with you since you are an author of renown––”

  “I don’t talk fancy like that. I’ll just mess up your message. Please do it yourself.”

  “Absolutely not. Haven’t I always helped you in time of need?”

  “Actually, I don’t recall––”

  “Here.” Madame reached in her coin purse and gave the concierge a few loose coins, coins that would not even buy a day-old baguette. The concierge stuffed the coins in her deep apron pocket next to the crisp francs the delivery man had offered her. If push came to shove, the concierge always leaned in the direction of the better tipper. This principle had earned her many friends and also many enemies among the residents of Madame’s hôtel particulier.

  The concierge followed Madame to the telephone, but she did not make the call. “Madame, there is no telephone number on this note. He says that he will pay you a visit this afternoon.”

  “But that is not possible. Just look at me? Don’t I look dreadful?” Madame asked, hoping for a compliment from the concierge.

  “You just had your hair styled a couple of days ago. You look fine…for your age.” Although this choice of words may have left Madame downcast, the concierge felt uplifted, as if she had inhaled a whiff of a ritzy perfume she could never afford.

  Three hours later, the cultured young man standing calmly at the concierge’s door made her mouth drop wide open. He greeted her with such finesse; he even bowed ever so slightly in respect. The elegance of his movements and his politesse won her over, and she immediately allowed him to proceed to Madame’s apartment.

  “You won’t believe the handsome man that just flirted with me,” she whispered to her radio. “Vraiment!”

  When Madame heard the knock on her door, her heart skipped a beat, and she had to sit down and wait for the flutter to be still. Finally her memoir would be written down, and she was certain that it would cause a sensation throughout Paris. Once again she would be invited to the best restaurants and she would be invited to appear on television, sharing tantalizing snippets of her biography. More significantly, she would finally earn the money she so desperately needed to survive a few more years in her beloved Parisian home.

  The author knocked on the door again, and Madame stood up. She glanced in one of the many Venetian mirrors gracing her walls, turned the lights off in the salon, and opened the door.

  “Oh, Mon Dieu, but you are so young!” she exclaimed, still out of breath. “I was expecting a seasoned author.”

  “And you, Madame, are more beautiful than I could have imagined.” The young man gave a beguiling smile and allowed the compliment to sink in before proceeding. “May we still chat about your heroic efforts during the war?”

  “But of course. Please come in.” Madame led him into her salon, already lit by candlelight in anticipation of a long night of talking about her favorite subject: her heroic acts and her sensual past self. As a younger woman, candlelight had helped her create a mysterious mood in her chambers. Now it hid a multitude of skin flaws.

  “How is it that you know about my … my involvement in the war?” Madame cooed. “You are far too young to remember anything about me.”

  “Madame, your daring and courage will live on
in the memory of many, many readers of future generations. I would love to hear more about your adventures. Please start anywhere, I’m sure it is all extraordinary.”

  Madame’s dog, Fifi, growled. She’d taken an immediate dislike to the dashing stranger. When the dog refused to stop barking, Madame lifted her and locked her in the adjoining room. She glided back to the salon and sat down in her usual divan.

  Madame adjusted her Chanel tweed skirt and crossed her legs at an alluring angle, revealing a bit of her upper leg, an affectation that used to mesmerize her admirers, long ago. Her seductive poses seemed like an anachronistic pantomime to her gentleman caller. He could step back outside to the Paris streets and get an eyeful of the most revealing miniskirts worn by young women, not the faded and aged beauty in front of him now. But Madame lived in the past. She began recounting her life story, starting with her precocious days as a spoiled daughter of a very successful Paris banker. After talking without a pause for some time, she asked, “But don’t you want to tape record my memoirs?”

  “That is something I would do with a more commonplace subject, but your story is captivating, and frankly, I have a photographic memory. Please do continue with the intricate details of your life.”

  Madame blathered on and on until nightfall obscured the streets of Paris and only two dim candles illuminated her apartment. When she reached the point of recounting the most promiscuous times of her life, Madame began to feel sexual urges that she thought had died within her. Suddenly she was very thirsty. She offered the young man a drink, but he would not allow her to serve him. “Please Madame, allow me to serve you. Just because your housekeeper took the day off does not mean that you should serve me. It would be my pleasure to be of service to you.”

  Madame was delighted that he recognized her once-elevated position in Paris society. She had not employed a housekeeper in years, but the fact that he assumed she still did, that she had not taken a complete financial nosedive into the Seine, revitalized her. Once again she felt young, beautiful, rich, and desirable.

  She sipped the glass of mineral water he handed her, and continued with more and more erotic details about her tactics with German officers. She would seduce them into her bed and then pump them for explicit details to pass on to the Résistance fighters.

  “You can’t imagine how difficult it was for me to give up my soul––and my body for la France, but that is what I had to do,” she told him, her voice trembling with sexual excitement. She fixated her eyes on the young author’s crotch, and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  “Maybe something stronger to drink, Madame?” He stood up and approached her meager bar. The only alcoholic drink there was Armagnac.

  “You’re a true gentleman,” she sighed. She slipped off her two-tone Chanel pumps and allowed them to drop to the floor. “Please call me Marcelle. What is your first name?”

  “My name is Jean-Michel.” He took his time pouring two glasses of Armagnac, admiring the view from her apartment onto rue de Condé. The street lights cast a warm and safe light along this well-heeled street. He could see many of the other buildings but, he noted, this particular window was out of sight of any nosy neighbors. Such was his command of the Paris architecture and the night scene that even in this vast apartment, Paris still protected him.

  Jean-Michel had lost more than a smidgen of confidence after the colossal failure of Charles’ and Xavier’s planned attack that left Bertrand dead. His squad was virtually non-existent, yet he still had many tasks to complete. If he chose to cozy up to the old lady and proceed with his plan, he needed to make certain she would be eating out of his hand––and he had to locate Monica to do his bidding. Once he snared Madame, he could use the old woman’s apartment as a safe-house.

  Madame was babbling on, indulging in more and more obvious sexual innuendos, so he finally approached her and brushed his lips across her veiny hand.

  “Please don’t overwork yourself with these details,” he told her. “I don’t want you to––”

  “On the contrary, I must tell the story in the way it occurred.” Madame’s voice sounded shrill. “It would not do for me to leave out the salient facts, the sordid deeds that I had to perform for the good of my countrymen.” Madame fanned herself with a nearby magazine. She felt as if her entire being had ignited––and she cherished this old familiar feeling.

  Jean-Michel sat next to her on her divan, his own leg touching her pasty bare legs.

  “Yes, you must tell me the story of your life truthfully––the good and the evil, the pain and the joy, the frenzy of a lustful moment. In your dedication to free your country from its oppressors, you must have had to abandon yourself, and go along with your…wild passions. Otherwise, how else could you––”

  Madame groaned with the ecstasy of an uncaged tiger now near its prey, but––as an elderly Parisienne––all she could do was loosen her tight chignon. As her scraggly silver hair fell to her shoulders, she realized how easily she could revert to old habits, and she willingly leaned over to satisfy the young man’s astonishing erection. With her eyes closed, she imagined herself young and nubile, her hair the shade of gold the Germans so admired, showing them with her tongue and lips that if they could trust her with their priceless penises, then they could certainly trust her with small tactical details of their occupation of Paris. She pleased them and they entertained her with morsels of secrets––a satisfying quid pro quo.

  At the completion of Madame’s expert fellatio performance, once described by her compatriots as her pièce de Résistance, she felt disoriented and lost in the darkened salon. She could barely see the end of her chair, much less where Jean-Michel now stood. For once, she was speechless.

  With stealth moves, Jean-Michel had moved behind her. He stood massaging her shoulders and speaking to her in hushed, intimate tones. Carefully he adjusted her chignon, giving her enough time to compose herself, but not too much time to ask him to leave. He skillfully brought their conversation to a more mundane level, so Madame could temporarily convince herself that what had just taken place was simply a figment of her imagination. In her mind, she had divulged the final tactics of the German officers to a dashing Résistance fighter named Jean-Michel.

  He walked around her salon and found the light switch. Without turning around to see Madame’s disheveled appearance, he asked, “When will your American boarders return?”

  The clinking of glass told him Madame was at the bar pouring herself another Armagnac. “I don’t really have boarders, you know––they’re my guests. One American student has already returned back to the States. Another one, the only true academic among them, has shacked up with her professor, I’m afraid to say. And my other two American girls are in the Loire with their art class.” Madame glanced at Jean-Michel, and saw him tense up. “Surely you’re not thinking of leaving right now? I haven’t told you of my entire heroic life. Did I mention that I––”

  Jean-Michel refused to turn around and look at Madame’s pleading eyes.

  “It sounds so lovely to take a tour of the Loire,” he said, his tone casual. “When were you last there?”

  “Why it was a couple years ago for the funeral of my dear friend’s husband. She’s the Vicomtesse Challant de la Guerche, and her château is Les Charmilles. Do you know it?”

  “I’ve heard of it, of course. I have a school friend, Didier, whose family also owns a château in the Loire. Would you like to accompany me there one day soon? I would love to meet your dear friend.”

  Madame panicked at the thought of leaving her apartment and her two-block world of Paris. She wasn’t agoraphobic: she simply could not bear to be away from her tiny Parisian universe where everyone knew who she once had been, and still admired her for her titillating war stories. People here still treated her as if she mattered––even though the residents and merchants had seen her wear the same three Chanel suits and resoled shoes for decades. The more she thought about the prospects of going to the Loire with this
impressive young man, the more she huddled in her chair, her long legs tucked underneath her. She’d become the hermit crab of the rue de Condé, and although she could be full of bluster, at the end of the day, all Madame craved was to retract into the secure shell of her now-shabby grand apartment.

  Jean-Michel walked over and sat down opposite Madame. The old lady made herself as small as possible in her chair. She had let the last of her animal instinct out of its cage, and now she sat confused and silent, drinking her Armagnac. In her foggy mind, she was certain that the events that had just transpired with Jean-Michel were imaginary, a byproduct of vividly recalling her youth for this brilliant young author.

  “Well, Marcelle, shall we go visit the Vicomtesse?”

  “No, my darling Jean-Michel, I have to entertain one of my guests. Lola, ma belle rousse, should be returning in a couple of days.” What Madame didn’t say was that the thought of spending time with her former nemesis would not be in any way relaxing. She had a long and complicated history with the Vicomtesse’s late husband, and she also had many dealings with Serge, once a ferocious Résistance fighter and now the Vicomtesse’s valet. Les Charmilles would bring back too many deep wounds to the surface, and she preferred to soothe them with Armagnac in the safety of her beloved apartment.

  “What about the other American,” Jean-Michel asked. “What did you say her name was?”

  “Ah, my little équestrienne! Her name is Monica. When Lola rang me, she said that Monica would be staying on at Les Charmilles. It seems that she has fallen head over heels for the young lord of the manor. How sweet! Doesn’t that sound like a storybook romance?”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Pure Love and Pure Hate

  Oh, my gosh, this château looks exactly like the Sleeping Beauty castle!” Monica jumped up and down with excitement, and pulled Christophe into an enthusiastic hug.

  “Mais, oui,” he replied with Gallic pride. “Charles Perrault, who wrote La Belle au bois dormant in 1697, based the castle in his fairy tale on this very château.”