The Vexations Read online

  “A little gentleman,” Erik said mockingly. Or jealously?

  Erik made the rounds of Eugénie and Alfred’s friends, neighbors, students, and business associates, talking of nothing but his supposed or impending fame, testing what he could get away with. To the gullible or to out-of-towners, he was already a sensation; to the Parisians, on the razor’s edge of glory. In every formulation, Philippe was an afterthought. Often, Erik didn’t bother to introduce him at all.

  Philippe detached himself to wander the apartment alone. He perused all the containers the flowers were in, thinking to find pitchers or milk bottles pressed into service, hidden at the back of the piano. But all he saw were proper vases. Some nicer than others—everything from cut crystal to thick, bubbled glass—but vases all the same. Surely even the most prepared homemaker couldn’t have this many on hand. The apartment appeared to be as stocked as a florist shop for an occasion that couldn’t happen more than once in nearly never, an only daughter’s only engagement party at the very moment when roses were blooming in the countryside around Paris. Philippe couldn’t decide if he was now more or less surprised that Eugénie had been willing to part with the little flowered bowl.

  When the currents of the party finally brought them together, he explained who he was and thanked her for her hospitality. He tried to thank her as well for the song publications without implying that the transaction was anything other than a sound response to the merits of the work, but this became a verbal tangle, and in the thick of it his tact abandoned him and he asked outright, “How are they doing? Sales.”

  “Oh, well enough,” she said, and smiled politely.

  Philippe had disappointed his mother enough times to know this smile instantly. “Always time for them to catch on, I suppose,” he said.

  But he knew this wasn’t true. Although songs were theoretically imperishable, just waiting for the right person to come along and love them, they were really more like hat ribbons. The fashion would spark or it wouldn’t. The women would all be wearing bunches of Malaga grapes on straw and humming a certain tune, or they’d be wearing tulle roses and humming a different tune, and then next season they’d have discarded both for something else.

  Philippe offered Eugénie a little shrug. He wanted her to understand that he was worldly enough to do business with. He wanted her to recognize, he supposed, that he was not like Erik. “Thank you, by the way, for the bowl,” he said.

  “A bowl?”

  As Philippe described it, her face darkened, and he knew instantly that Erik had been meant to return it.

  “I’ll bring it back.”

  “No, you thought it was a gift.”

  “I insist.”

  “Well, normally I wouldn’t—it’s just that I tried to replace it, but the pattern isn’t being made any longer. We don’t often entertain, but when one does…it’s nice to have a full set.”

  “Of course. I’ll get it back to you. Straightaway.”

  “You know, I almost fired our girl over it,” Eugénie said. “She didn’t seem like one to steal, but I thought she’d broken it and wasn’t willing to confess. Truthfulness is very important to me.”

  No wonder she and Erik had never gotten along, Philippe thought. He retreated to the balcony. It was raining, but there was another balcony above that shielded him. He put his hand into the chilly curtain, then drew it back. He was the only one visible on any of the balconies, all the floors of all the buildings, up and down the street. Nearly everything beneath him was black or gray: bobbing umbrellas and coats and damp hats, dark horses slicked with rain or sweat, and the black tops of swaying carriages. In all of it there was only a single bright umbrella, printed with pink peonies and bold green leaves. From the way the water was soaking into it, the silk appeared not to be waterproofed; it was a thin summer parasol, useless in the rain and soon to be ruined. Philippe tried to construct a metaphor about fleeting beauty, about butterflies or moths. All he knew of the bearer was the back of her dress, light purple going dark with rain. Others noticed the parasol, this frail little mystery, and the dour crowd rustled as it parted around her, though no one looked long. If this was a performance, she was in the wrong neighborhood. Here people pretended to ignore strangeness rather than striving to draw it or dance it or sing it or surpass it. Philippe watched faithfully, as if an audience of one.

  There might still be a chance to catch her. He could knock the party guests over like tenpins and bolt up the street. What a good story it would make. If they fell in love and married, he could tell it for the rest of his life—the balcony, the rain, the parasol. But really he’d end up wet and cold, and in his dank room it would take the suit forever to dry. Let her go, foolish woman, whoever she was.

  “What are you looking at?”

  Philippe turned to see Erik standing beside him on the balcony. “Nothing,” he said, and then noticed it was true—the parasol had disappeared for good around the corner of the Rue de Marseilles. “You promised a luncheon, but it’s just cake and punch,” he added sullenly.

  “I was misinformed,” Erik said, so mournfully that Philippe believed him. “You know what else no one told me?”

  Philippe paused expectantly and, when that wasn’t sufficient to prompt Erik to continue, asked, “What?”

  “They’re already married! I thought this was an engagement party. Turns out they married weeks ago in Le Havre.” When Philippe expressed surprise that Louise hadn’t told Erik, he said he’d written her about a premiere he was conducting that weekend in Belgium, and she claimed now that she didn’t want to make him miss it. “She should have assumed I was lying!” Erik said.

  This wasn’t mock outrage, Philippe saw, not the sort of overheated offense he’d witnessed Erik take at hecklers in the audience or from critics in the café papers. He was genuinely hurt and declared that he was ready to leave. Philippe pointed out that it was still raining, but Erik said he didn’t care.

  “I do,” Philippe protested.

  “We should have brought umbrellas.”

  “I don’t own an umbrella.”

  “Nor do I. But never again! I’ll not be caught unawares. Not by rain, not by weddings. I’m going to buy a dozen. Umbrellas.”

  “With what funds?”

  Erik waved a hand dismissively.

  “There you are.” Louise broke in with glee, like a little girl who’d just won at hide-and-seek. She squeezed onto the balcony, her white skirts lapping at their legs. “Sulking?” she asked Erik.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

  “You were busy.”

  “I would have made myself unbusy!”

  “It was just a little thing. City hall, then lunch at Uncle Fortin’s house after the Mass.”

  “That doesn’t sound quite grand enough for the Lafosse family.” This was said with suspicion instead of spite, as if perhaps Pierre’s parents hadn’t done right by his sister.

  “They aren’t grand people.”

  “Aren’t they? Grand enough that Eugénie sounded amazed that Pierre married you.”

  Louise raised an eyebrow.

  “I didn’t mean it like that. You know I never mean it like that.”

  Philippe felt like he was eavesdropping, but there was no exit unless Louise moved or he pitched himself over the railing. Then Lord Noodle stuck his pale face out on the balcony. He kissed Louise on the cheek but did not try to join the crowd.

  Conrad appeared behind Pierre’s shoulder, taller by a head than his new brother-in-law, to ask Erik what he was doing after the reception. When Erik shrugged, Conrad said he’d been telling Pierre that he ought to see more of Paris before he left.

  They’d spent all morning on the Champs-Élysées, Louise said.

  Well, yes, Conrad said, but it was a Saturday night. He thought Erik would know some good places.

  Erik and Philippe exchanged looks. They knew many, many places, all of which were difficult to imagine bringing Erik’s baby brother and Lord Noodle along t
o.

  “All right,” Louise said, inviting herself along. “Let’s. Where do you suggest?”

  “I don’t think you’ll like it,” Erik said. “Any of it.”

  “How would you have any idea what I’ll like?”

  “They’re not really for…”

  “For what—girls? I’m a married woman now.”

  Philippe watched the two brothers’ dawning realization that their sister had become a married woman. More specifically, that she had had sex, and that she’d had it with the bony man standing at the glass doors. They had been naked together, unless she’d kept on…or he’d kept on…or.…Both brothers shook off a vision they wished to pursue no further. This was a trip wire, the way respectable girls became respectable women all at once, with indisputably carnal knowledge. Disreputable girls could exist in shades of gray. Girls like Louise went from being one thing to another, all at once.

  “Am I working tonight?” Erik asked Philippe.

  “I’m supposed to remember your schedule?”

  “Well, I don’t. I thought you might.”

  Philippe realized with displeasure that he did, and informed Erik that he was substituting for Hervochon at the Mirliton. “You wouldn’t shut up about it when Bruant asked you last week. Remember?”

  “Aristide Bruant?” Conrad asked. “He’s famous.”

  “Is he?” Philippe asked. Bruant was famous in Montmartre, but that didn’t always or even often mean that someone was famous in the world beyond.

  “Yes, he’s famous,” Conrad insisted. “He’s genuinely famous.”

  “Then we must go,” Louise said. “You can get us in, surely.”

  Erik looked as if he were facing a firing squad. “I think I may have missed a rehearsal.”

  “I doubt Bruant rehearses,” Philippe said.

  “I missed something, because I’ve got no idea what I’m playing tonight. I need to get to the Mirliton.”

  Couldn’t they meet him there later? Louise asked.

  The Mirliton was tiny, Erik demurred. Seats were full for the first show by four thirty.

  But wasn’t there a late show? she said.

  “Well, but you’d need to get in line with everybody else. By seven, probably. Hervochon’s been accompanist since the place opened, and he couldn’t get his mother in for free. Not that he’d want his mother to go.”

  “What are the young people discussing?” Alfred asked, another head peering over Pierre’s shoulder, as if summoned by Erik’s last remark.

  Conrad said they might go out later.

  “After supper, I hope. You know Eugénie’s planned a family meal.”

  “Of course,” Conrad said. “I suppose you could join us, if you want?”

  The invitation was painfully insincere, and Alfred just smiled. “Oh, we’ll leave such things to the young and fashionable,” he said, in a voice that suggested he had never been young or fashionable, not for a single minute of a single Saturday night.

  “Perhaps we should stay in,” Pierre suggested to Louise. “You see your father so rarely.”

  “I see my brother even less often. Shall we try for the Mirliton? I’ll change now, and we can leave right after dinner.”

  Philippe looked through the thicket of heads at the balcony door and saw that the apartment had nearly emptied. The rain had stopped, and the remaining guests were collecting umbrellas and saying their farewells to Eugénie at the front door. “I should be going,” he announced to the assembled group, but nobody moved.

  “You’re leaving?” Erik asked.

  Well, yes, since nobody’s invited me to stay for supper, Philippe tried to say with his eyes, but Erik wasn’t following.

  “If you don’t have plans,” Erik said, “you could get in line at the Mirliton, save a space for them.”

  Philippe did some quick calculations. It was too late for a seat at the early show, and lining up now for the late one would put him standing by himself, in between a bunch of well-heeled rubes, for several hours. His people, his real ones, would walk past laughing, wondering what he thought he was doing. And what if the siblings didn’t show up on time, money in hand? He didn’t have cash to buy drinks to hold a table, even if they reimbursed him. A small glass of beer at places like the Mirliton jumped from forty centimes on weeknights to five francs on weekends—as much as Erik made from an entire night of work. On nights he worked. Which was, Philippe had to admit, five francs more than he himself made on any night.

  “I have plans,” he said.

  “Really?” Erik said. “With who?”

  Philippe nearly said, “With your sister,” a joking insult that their friends used so often it had lost all meaning. He was not used to being in the presence of people’s actual sisters. “No one you know,” he said instead.

  “I need to speak to you for a moment,” Erik said. “In private.”

  Alfred backed up, then Conrad and Pierre, then Louise, and finally Philippe was freed. Erik dragged him into the kitchen.

  “I know I’m being awful,” Erik said.

  “Do you?”

  “Yes. And I’ll make it up to you. But you know Bruant won’t let me reserve seats. I don’t know how else to pull this off.”

  “You thought the whole show was going to be a disaster when I reminded you of it a few minutes ago.”

  “If they’re at the late show I’ll have a performance to work out the kinks.” Erik said this as if he’d ever done the show before, as if there were a set list in which some kinks might remain, as opposed to an evening ahead of nothing but. “If you end up out any money, I’ll get it to you. I promise. I promise.”

  This was such a different side to Erik, needy and urgent and sincere. Tonight he was acting not like a Brother-in-Art, but like the ordinary kind of brother. Philippe thought of how much he missed his brothers, how badly he’d disappointed his whole family. Here was at least one person who cared about him, and who needed something he could provide. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

  “I’ll be right behind you. Shove some food in my face and then head to the café early enough to talk to Bruant.”

  “No chance of food for my face?”

  “I’m sorry. Eugénie thinks you stole some bowl from her. I told her you’re an upstanding citizen, but she doesn’t seem to believe me.”

  Philippe sighed and walked through the apartment to the front door, leaving Erik in the kitchen.

  “Did you have a coat or umbrella?” Eugénie asked Philippe, so coldly that he knew Erik had been telling the truth: she was still, unfairly, holding the missing bowl against him.

  No coat, he said, and since there was no relationship left to salvage, decided to satisfy his curiosity. “Where did all the vases come from? You have so many.”

  There was a long silence, so long the maid finally replied. “I borrowed them. From the neighbors.”

  Philippe nodded knowingly, as if this told him something important. Maybe it did. He hoped the maid wouldn’t get in trouble for answering. How civilized, he thought, and as he walked downstairs he imagined all the doors opening onto friendly neighbors, everyone willing to share because everyone had enough. When he thought of his own apartment building, he pictured a barrel full of swarming rats.

  My family thinks I’m a failure, he’d written in his most recent postcard to Miguel, needing to confess it to someone. Miraculously, there had come a response, written on the back of a hand-colored postcard of Tarragona’s harbor, an old picture with the lighthouse still standing. From your postcards it’s sounded like you are a failure, it read, Miguel’s handwriting immediately, excruciatingly recognizable. That was the end of the message, but Miguel had also included a new address. The street name alone made Philippe homesick: it was part of the new grid, past the Rambla Nova, where his father had spent a decade moving rocks. The building number hadn’t even existed when Philippe left, and he wondered what the new construction looked like, how many flush toilets it might have. Was it a new family apartment, or had Miguel
moved out? Was he living on his own, or with someone? With whom might he be living? Philippe knew he’d lost the right to ask. But he took the address as an invitation to write back. I think I may be doing it wrong, he’d written. Paris. Poetry.

  As he walked back into Montmartre, toward the Mirliton, it started again to rain.

  Erik

  — 7 —

  Hard as the devil

  THE OUTSIDE OF THE MIRLITON IS PLASTERED WITH POSTERS OF Aristide Bruant, the massive red sweep of his scarf, giant black hat, the face in between just a few penciled lines. Bruant in person always looks just like Bruant in the posters, because no one can tell from the posters what he really looks like. He’s a scarf and a hat, black-topped villain and debonair hero at once, so stylish he does not need to advertise his face. It is a strong face, not handsome, with forbidding eyebrows and a cruel mouth. Part of the performance is just how cruel that mouth can be.

  Bruant advertises Friday and Saturday nights as being exclusively for “the smart and elegant,” which gives his insults a head start, since every guest can be found lacking in either quality. Bruant was the only performer at the Chat Noir more calculating than the owner, Rodolphe Salis; he hawked his own sheet music from the stage and, after deciding to open the Mirliton, guessed, correctly, that drink minimums and “donations” could bring in even more money than a cover charge, as long as he aggressively shamed the audience into donating.

  When the Mirliton first opened, Erik went to a cheap midweek show and admired the rough bravado, the way Bruant didn’t need the variety acts or dancing girls or professional farters. He could fill the stage all by himself. Each time he passed the hat Erik put in a scrap of paper with a single line of a musical composition rolled tightly enough to be disguised as money. At the bottom of the last one he wrote, Someday this song will be worth one hundred thousand francs. He’s glad now that he signed it only with his initials, which will offer deniability, if Bruant ever remembers the scraps. But no doubt he immediately tossed aside anything that wasn’t cash.