Lizzie

7: Paris — 1890

A dozen red roses waiting in the room!

And a handwritten note from Alison!

She was tempted to telephone the Hotel Binda at once, but the porters were arriving with their baggage, and again there was the nuisance of figuring what to tip them, complicated this time by the strange French currency — just when she was getting accustomed to the British coins. The two hulking men in their blue smocks struggled the trunks and valises into the room, and stood blinking in stupefied amazement as Felicity did a series of pirouettes in the vast chamber and then threw herself full length on the only bed in the room, a massive, four-postered and canopied antique against the wall opposite the inner door. The men continued to gape as Felicity began squealing and giggling, raising her knees and pumping her feet against the air as though she were riding a bicycle, skirts flying, her childish abandon exposing her petticoats and her black stockings and all but her underdrawers.

“Felicity!” Lizzie shouted, and she at once brought her knees down and lay as stiff as a board, legs together, eyes closed, arms crossed over her ample bosom as if she’d suddenly been struck dead by an unseen hand. She began giggling again as Lizzie paid the porters, sorting out the coins, remembering that Geoffrey had told her the franc — for all practical purposes — could be estimated at tenpence in English, or twenty cents in United States money.

Felicity was off the bed again as the porters bowed themselves out of the room, scruffy gray caps clenched in their hands, mumbling, “Merci, madame, mademoiselle, (a nod at Felicity) and then closing the inner door behind them. She scurried to the windows, drew open the curtains, threw open the shutters, and then, opening her arms wide, shouted to the courtyard below and the Parisian afternoon in general, “Hello, Paris!” and then, in surely inaccurate and positively atrocious French, “Adoo, Paree, adoo! We’re here!”

“Felicity, do be still,” Lizzie warned. “There may be people napping!”

“In Paris? Don’t be silly, Lizzie!” She rushed across the room to her, threw her arms about her, hugged her fiercely and said, “Oh, I’m so excited! Aren’t you excited?”

“I am, yes, but Felicity, you shall crush my ribs!”

“Adoo, Paree, adoo!” she squealed again, and, giggling, began dancing and prancing about the room as though she had completely lost her wits, touching the upholstery on the chairs, fingering the silk brocade coverlet on the large bed, dancing away again, passing her hands over the wallpaper, flicking the electric lamps on and off, on and off, going to the windows again, shouting “Napoleon, we are here!” and finally collapsing onto the bed again, where she continued to giggle uncontrollably, quite affirming the surmise that she had lost her mind.

Lizzie herself, though not as exuberantly overcome, was nonetheless impressed by the size of the room and the luxurious furnishings in it. They had arranged — in order to be relieved of having to figure their daily cost at so much for the room, so much for breakfast, so much for luncheon and dinner, so much for service and the use of electricity — to pay an all-inclusive (even as concerned wine) tariff of fifteen francs per day, which came to exactly three dollars a person and which, considering the generous size and fine appointments of the room and the reputed excellence of the hotel’s table and cellar, was really an uncommonly low rate.

She might have preferred two beds in the room, as had been the case in London, but only because she herself was a restless sleeper (though she’d slept like the very dead in that city) and had been told by girl friends with whom she’d shared beds on her trips to Boston or New York or nearby Marion that sleeping with her was akin to sleeping with a squirrel, so jerky and continuous were her nocturnal fidgets. But the bed seemed spacious enough for even her reputed acrobatics, and she had been assured by Rebecca that Felicity definitely did not snore, a hazard that might have contributed to even more fitful sleep. The danger now, in fact, seemed to be that her lunatic friend might giggle the night away.

Monsieur Foubrier — the proprietor of the hotel and a gentleman of decidedly courteous and pleasant manners, who having lived in England for twenty years was as perfectly at home in English as he was in his native French — had informed them that “the five o’clock” (as he referred to the British custom of late afternoon tea) would be served shortly, if perhaps the ladies should care to freshen themselves first. Lizzie herself was famished and would have gone down without bothering to bathe or change first, but Felicity leaped suddenly off the bed, declared that she could not live another moment without a hot tub, dashed into the bathroom even as she was unlacing her corset and shouted over the roar of the running water, “Lizzie, could you possibly lay out a change of clothing for me? I’m totally encrusted with filth!”

“What did you plan on wearing?” Lizzie shouted.

“What?” Felicity shouted back.

“What did you...”

Felicity opened the bathroom door and said, “The water’s scalding hot, what did you say?”

“What do you want to wear?” Lizzie asked.

“You’re such a dear,” Felicity said, squirming out of her chemise and petticoat. “Just the things I set aside in the overnight case — oh, my Lord, we’re about to have a flood!” She dashed back into the bathroom, giggling, turned off the faucets, undressed herself completely and climbed into the tub. Splashing water, she began singing at the top of her lungs — “Oh, les enfants de la pa-tree-ee-yuh, dah-dah-dee-dah, da-da-dee-dum,” over and over again, “Oh, les enfants de la pa-tree-ee-yuh...”

The telephone rang.

“If it’s Napoleon,” Felicity shouted, “tell him I’m indisposed at the moment! Oh, les enfants de la...”

“Hello?” Lizzie said into the mouthpiece.

“Lizzie, is that you?” Alison said. “How lovely to hear your voice!”

“... pa-tree-ee-yuh,” Felicity bawled, “dah-dah-dee-dah, dah-dah...”

“What on earth is that horrendous squawling?” Alison asked.

“Felicity, I can’t hear a word!” Lizzie shouted, and in the bathroom Felicity fell comparatively silent, humming softly to herself now as she soaped and splashed about.

“Has someone been beheaded in your room?” Alison asked. “I shouldn’t put it past the French.”

“It’s Felicity in the tub,” Lizzie said.

“Advise her not to seek an operatic career, won’t you?” Alison said. “My dear, how are you? Did my great lummox of a brother treat you grandly in my absence? If not, say the word and I’ll have him shot at dawn.”

“He was most attentive,” Lizzie said. “And gentlemanly. And thoroughly charming. You didn’t tell me you were twins. I was so surprised when he...”

“Ah, didn’t I? An oversight. He likes to think he’s by far the prettiest of us, and so I tend to downplay the unfortunate fact that we were once wombmates.”

Despite herself, Lizzie found she was smiling.

“That’s a pun, dear,” Alison said.

“Yes, I know,” Lizzie said.

“And your roommate, has she drowned?” Alison asked. “I can’t hear her delightful aria any longer, thank God.”

“She’s still bathing,” Lizzie said.

“Have you bathed as well? Are you ready to come do the town?”

“Why, no, I...”

“Well, surely! Your first night in Paris? Or have you made other plans?”

“None. Except to go down for tea in a bit.”

“Nonsense,” Alison said. “You won’t enjoy tea at all here in France. Zee fife o’clock,” she said, falling into a broad French accent, “is so much plein, n’est-ce pas, of zee cream poofs, and zee marrons glacés, and zee Madeleines, it is to throw up, ma chérie, non, non, non. And besides,” she said in her normal voice, “it will only spoil your dinner. We’ve made marvelous plans for tonight, and I’m hoping...”

“Meals are included in our hotel rate,” Lizzie said. “And, Alison, we couldn’t possibly allow you to entertain us again. I tried to argue against it in London, but Geoff...”

“As well he should have. Don’t talk drivel, my dear. And don’t even mention dining at your hotel when there are so many restaurants here.”

“I don’t know what the others...”

“Well, rescue buxom Felicity from the waters, and ask her to put on some clothes. And alert your other friends. I shall hear no more of it. Albert and I will be by to collect the lot and parcel of you at seven-thirty sharp.” She hesitated, and then said, “Well, that may be a bit too early. Shall we say seven-thirty-one?”

Suddenly reminded of Geoffrey, Lizzie said, “What’s a cat that sank?”

“A cat that sank? I have no idea. Is it a riddle? I love riddles.”

“It has something to do with the French ladies,” Lizzie said. “Geoffrey told me...”

“A cat that... oh, the scoundrel! Has he been corrupting my dear Lizzie?”

“What on earth is it?”

“I shall tell you later, I love to see you blush. Seven-thirty then, in the lobby. Ta, Lizzie, I’m so delighted you’re here!” she said, and — before Lizzie could thank her for the roses — abruptly broke the connection.

“I must tell you straight off,” Alison said, again reminding Lizzie of her brother, “that the art of cookery is in a terrible state of decadence in Paris.”

“As is everything else,” Albert added.

“But the Café Anglais is the best of the lot, or we shouldn’t have taken you here. Lizzie? Felicity? May either of us help you with these indecipherable French menus?”

They were, the four of them, sitting on a velvet-covered banquette in the brightly lighted dining room, deprived of the company of Rebecca and Anna because both of them, as they’d protested, were too exhausted to move from the hotel. Anna, especially, was still feeling queasy after the rough channel crossing that morning, a two-hour journey that had unsettled all of the women a bit. Lizzie had eaten nothing for lunch in Boulogne and, at Alison’s suggestion, had forsaken tea this afternoon. The aromas in the dining room now, the sight of steaming meals wheeling past on trolleys, of silver covers lifted by maitres d’hôtel beaming in anticipation, of carving knives flashing in waiters’ hands, made her almost giddy with hunger.

“If you’ve a hearty appetite,” Albert said, “may I suggest the beefsteak for two?”

“No ordinary beefsteak, this one,” Alison said. “It’s the Chateaubriand, a kernel of meat cut from the very heart of the filet.”

“Or the Rouen duck, perhaps,” Albert said.

“For that matter, the sole — with any of the sauces — is truly divine.”

“I think I might go for that, in fact,” Albert said. “With the sauce à l’Orly. Ladies, might you care for some soup to start? I shouldn’t recommend what the French consider to be oysters, although I’m told the marennes vertes are at least edible.”

“But undoubtedly out of season,” Alison said.

“Undoubtedly,” Albert said. “Ladies? Some bisque? The consommé de volaille? Or would you prefer the escargots?”

“What’s that?” Felicity asked.

“Snails,” Alison said.

“Oh, my goodness!” Felicity said.

The maitre d’hotel advised them that the specialité tonight was matelotte d’anguilles, which Felicity learned — to her greater horror — was something like stewed eels. He was recommending the bouillabaisse as well, when Albert interrupted (rudely, Lizzie thought) to say, “Not a’tall, not a’tall! It isn’t the genuine article, Felicity. The proper fish elements are wanting because they can’t bear transportation from the seaside.”

“If mademoiselle will be journeying to Marseilles,” the maitre d’hôtel said graciously, “she would indeed be well advised to wait. Shall I give you several more moments to decide? Please do not feel at all hurried.”

With the man still within earshot, Albert said, “The French claim to have artesian wells here in Paris, which are said to be quite safe. But in general the water has a bad name, and you had best drink the St. Galmier.”

“Is that a wine?” Felicity asked.

“No indeed, my dear,” Albert said, laughing. “It is, in fact, mineral water. But I shall be ordering wine, of course. Let me do that now,” he said, “so we’ll have a bottle on hand while we order.” He looked around the room, snapped his fingers, called “Garçon!” and looked pleased when a man across the room snapped to attention and came running to the table, “la carle des vins, s’il vous plait,” he said, and Lizzie detected at once that his French was nowhere near as good as Alison’s, sounding more, in fact, like Felicity’s absurd attempts when they’d entered their hotel room that afternoon. She was surprised, nonetheless, when Alison somewhat sharply said, “The wine butler is addressed as sommelier, Albert, not garçon. He’s inferior to the waiter in the hierarchy of table service, and should never be elevated to the level of garçon.”

“I shall try to remember that... madame,” Albert said drily. “Now then, ladies, what do you think might suit your fancy?”

He seemed intent on annoying Alison all through dinner, insisting on talking first — though this was prompted by Felicity’s questions — about the notorious Jack the Ripper, who only two years earlier had terrorized the prostitutes near the Whitechapel district of London’s East End, dispatching seven of them to their reward and allegedly mailing to the police half a kidney removed from one of his victims (this while Felicity was slicing her Chateaubriand), and next discussing at length the various diversions that had been available to a London gentleman before the new laws — he seemed to blame these on Victoria’s late prince consort, whom he called the Teutonic Prince — made them illegal. Among these (and he described with great relish the many he had seen during his boyhood and, in fact, till the time he was twenty) were the public hangings at Newgate—

“Oh, my goodness!” Felicity said.

— abolished in 1868, and two pastimes that were enjoying a heyday before he was born, but which his father had described in detail and which he himself wished were still permitted. These, he explained, were cockfighting and ratting. The ratting had apparently taken place in a gaslit room, usually a cellar someplace, where gentlemen would stand about a pit in which a dog attempted to kill as many rats as he could within a given period of time, the men wagering on his speed and efficiency. At this point Felicity put her napkin to her mouth and asked where she might find the ladies’ lounge. Albert rose at once, solicitously put his arm about her waist and said he would lead her there at once.

“He will behave like a swine at times,” Alison said, smiling thinly.

“He’s being perfectly charming,” Lizzie said politely.

“Is he then? An odd notion of charm, you Americans must have.”

“We’re enjoying ourselves so much,” Lizzie said. “Truly. And I must thank you again for putting Geoffrey at our disposal in London — which reminds me. He was absolutely firm about paying for everything — but everything — whenever we were with him, which was virtually all of the time. I objected, of course, but he’d hear none of it, and I didn’t think it my place to argue violently with a man. But, Alison, we’re both women...”

“We are indeed,” Alison said.

“... and I feel I can be more forthright with you than I was with him. I absolutely insist, if we are to spend any time at all together in Paris, that we be allowed to pay our own...”

“Nonsense,” Allison said. “Albert has more money than he knows what to do with, millions to squander on smaller pleasures than these, believe me. Besides, he rather enjoys patting and pinching Felicity’s bottom, have you noticed?”

Lizzie hadn’t noticed. She cleared her throat and looked about at the other diners, hoping Alison had not been overheard. In an attempt to change the subject and never once suspecting what lay in wait, she asked, “Now what’s this about a cat that sank? Geoffrey seemed certain I’d be shocked. Is it some sport similar to ratting? Are cats drowned in some horrible manner? I did, by the way, see men selling cat meat on the streets of London. Do the English really eat cat meat?”

“Pussy on a stick,” Alison said, nodding. “To suit the more discerning palate.”

“And a cat that sank? What’s that?”

“A quatre à cinq, Lizzie,” Alison said. “It’s French. Quatre à cinq. It means a ‘four-to-five’.”

“And what’s a four-to-five?”

“The hour when many petites femmes — perhaps that’s too strong — the hour when many Parisian ladies manage to slip away from their coachmen to sidle up the back stairs. L’heure de femme, as it’s called.”

“I don’t understand,” Lizzie said.

“An hour to be with their lovers,” Alison said.

“Oh,” Lizzie said.

“Between four and five,” Alison said.

“Yes, I...”

“Between the sheets,” Alison said.

She looked steadily at Lizzie.

“I’ve shocked you again,” she said.

“No, you haven’t,” Lizzie said.

“Good. Then perhaps we’re making progress.”

She was not, in fact, shocked again until later that night, when they took her and Felicity to a Parisian “theater and dance hall” (as Albert described it) which had opened only the year before and which was (again according to Albert) “le rendezvous du high life.”

As their carriage came up the hill on the boulevard de Clichy, the horse plodding upward along the long dark avenue, Lizzie was first aware of a lurid glare in the distance and realized that it was coming from the furthermost end of a modest square. As they came closer, she saw that the facade of the building dominating the square was ablaze with white and golden electrified globes and high above these she saw a great windmill slowly turning, its wings decorated with thousands of red electric lamps. There was the sound of music and laughter from within, and as she climbed down from the carriage, accepting Albert’s proffered hand, she saw — to her relief — that several respectable-looking American ladies were being led by their gentlemen escorts through the open entrance doors.

The interior was spacious and illuminated by the same dazzling electrical display as had adorned the facade. She found herself in a huge garden at one end of which was a stage, beside which stood a hollow elephant some forty feet high and forty feet long. “During the winter, they use the elephant as a café,” Alison shouted into her ear, as well she might have since the din in the place was unimaginable. A five-piece band — piano, drums, trumpet and two trombones — were positioned around the small stage, mercilessly blaring what sounded like Offenbach. Several women were dancing on the stage. Lizzie was certain she saw their underdrawers, and looked quickly away. There were a great many tables all about the grounds, and as they settled themselves around a small one close to the stage, a rather garishly dressed woman approached Albert and brazenly said, “Avez-vous une cigarette, monsieur?”

“No, no, move along,” Albert said, but he was smiling.

“Ah, oui,” she said, her painted mouth widening into a grin. Lapsing into heavily accented English, she said with seeming delight, “All-rai-tee, you are Eeen-glesh! You buy me une bière Anglaise, yes?”

“No, no,” Albert said, and patted Felicity’s hand.

The woman tapped him on the cheek, poutingly said, “Vous êtes très méchant, monsieur,” and sidled off to the next table.

The band had begun another song now, no less spirited or loud than the one preceding it. There were monkeys scurrying about the room, frightening Lizzie until she realized they were all on long chains. Backing away from a particularly frisky one who came dangerously close to their table, she turned unwittingly toward the stage again, where four rather fleshy young women were grouped in a loose semicircle, immodestly shaking their ample bosoms in time to the pounding of the big bass drum and the clashing of the cymbals. Their breasts, billowing in the tops of gowns slashed in wide Vs from shoulders to waist, seemed powdered with flour, and their mouths were exaggerated by the smears of wet glossy paint that decorated their lips. As she watched, unable to believe her eyes, the girls lifted their skirts and kicked out their black-stockinged legs — a flash of lacy underclothes, a glimpse of pale white thighs, she turned away. The women (she could not see them now) began shrieking and making odd little whistling sounds. Lizzie was certain she was blushing bright. She felt Alison’s reassuring hand on her arm.

At the table next to them, she saw three young French officers, their long swords trailing onto the floor. Behind them, there were school-feast flags hung all about the mirrored garden, draped from the balconies and galleries that surrounded a small dance floor. A great many men sat alone at the tables, but they were not long without company, she noticed, since women circulated incessantly about the vast room, shamelessly displaying themselves, imploring the men — as they had Albert earlier — to buy them a beer or a glass of wine, to share with them a cigarette or a dance. A woman dressed entirely in black boldly approached a table of young men and raucously bellowed, “Et alors, vous n’avez jamais vu une vraie femme?” and then, taking in their blank and somewhat stupefied stares, translated, “Ave you nevaire see a real womans, eh?” and suddenly kicked one leg straight up toward the chandelier, her skirts billowing in a swirl of frothy lace. Her underclothes were trimmed with delicate pink ribbons, her black silk stockings fastened above the knee by diamond-studded garters. Her powdered thighs quivered as her slippered foot made a small circle on the air. A laugh exploded from her mouth.

“They’re Russian,” Alison explained. “The boys. But that, they understood, I’m sure.”

Felicity stared wide-eyed as another woman approached from the opposite end of the room, passing the stage where the dancers still cavorted, swinging past the hollow elephant, her leghorn hat decorated with a spray of yellow plumes, her otherwise blond hair streaked with a startling swath of midnight black, her white dress brocaded with flowers, a violent display of diamonds glistening about her throat and falling into the wide V of her bodice to nestle in her full (and almost fully exposed) breasts. As the other woman had just done, she kicked one leg up toward the ceiling, knocking the hat clear off the head of a bald man who sat not four tables away.

And now there was more shrieking and whistling from the women on the stage, and the band rose as if on signal, and began filing out into what Lizzie saw was an adjoining room of equal size, the trumpeter and trombonists blaring their horns, the drummer pounding the bass drum as though he were in a marching band, the pianist waving his arms and imploring the crowd to follow them. “La quadrille!” one of the painted women shouted, “Suivez-nous!” and there was a general rush out of the room. Lizzie felt Alison’s hand tighten on her own, heard her voice over the bedlam shouting, “Come!”

“It’s midnight!” Albert shouted to Felicity, and took her hand and hurried her along into the other room, where the women of the place — many more of them now — were taking up positions, four by four, and the crowd was jostling for seats in the low balconies surrounding the dance floor. The piano player seated himself behind an upright piano identical to the one in the garden except that it was decorated with posters depicting women Lizzie was sure she recognized as those roaming among the tables, struck a few chords, and waited while the drummer seated himself behind his duplicate set of drums. A hush fell over the room, as though the vast place had suddenly become a cathedral. The piano player struck yet another chord, and the music began.

Facing each other, the dancers executed the first few figures of a quadrille, and then advanced toward the center of their loosely formed square, kicking their legs above each other’s heads, and holding this position, their heels impossibly high in the air, bejeweled hands shaking their skirts, flashing their petticoats and underdrawers and thighs. They lowered their legs at last, and turned their backs this way and that to the audience, knees and legs pressed together now, and — bowing over from the waist — threw their skirts up over gartered stockings and beribboned underwear, exposing the fullness of their buttocks in the loose-fitting garments. They stood upright again, and turned to face the audience, and kicked again, seemingly higher this time, and then collapsed to the floor as though they were puppets whose strings had broken, their limbs spread in opposite directions. A wild cheer went up from the audience.

A man dressed as a toreador came magically from behind a red velvet curtain, and there was a woman sitting upon his shoulders, her arms about his neck, her black silken shiny knees thrust forward, skirts back, his hands clutching her ankles as together they cavorted among the other wildly kicking dancers. The woman, her hair a red as flaming as Lizzie’s, her mouth painted a deeper scarlet, suddenly — and again as if by magic — reversed her perch on the man’s shoulders so that now she faced him, her midnight knees pressed against the sides of his neck, her ankles locked on his back, and hurled herself backward and away from him, arms akimbo, tufted red hair showing in her armpits, the small of her back caught in his hands as upside down he twirled her about the floor, her head hovering above his knees someplace, the garish inverted smile, her red hair sweeping the floor.

The other dancers assumed even more immodest positions, sitting on the floor and spreading their legs wide, whistling and shrieking in an exhibition of rank indecency that provoked more shouting and cheers from the audience. Another man was on the dance floor now — Lizzie could not tell whether he was employed here or was merely a customer who’d succumbed to the frenzy of the moment — waggling his legs in their loose trousers, wriggling about like a snake. One of the women reached for the front of his trousers and he darted away in mock outrage, to be pursued by several of the other dancers who, when they had him surrounded, kicked their legs up over his head repeatedly until, seemingly overcome by the sight of their flashing gartered limbs and the open revelation of their lacy underthings, he fell to the floor in a dead swoon.

Giggling, the dancers stepped over him and, legs akimbo over his prostrate form, flounced their skirts above him until his eyes flickered open and rolled about in his head as though the perfume emanating from between their powdered thighs had revived him. He slithered along the floor on his back, his eyes popping open wide now (surely he was one of the performers) and leaped to his feet again, spanning a dancer’s waist with his huge hands, lifting her high above his head, and parading her about the room while she opened her legs as wide as seemed humanly possible.

Hardly a man was seated now. They packed round the dance floor four and five deep, applauding whenever one of the women assumed another attitude of shameless immodesty, shouting for drinks, thronging onto the floor to dance with female companions who’d been circulating in the balconies throughout the course of the riotous display. There were more raucous calls, cries in French and English and languages Lizzie could not identify, until finally the floor was cleared again for the final quadrille, during which the cavorting women seemed to abandon whatever shred of modesty had previously restrained their contortions. When at last they left the place (“It’s called the Moulin Rouge,” Alison said to her on the street outside), Lizzie felt shaken to the core. Her hand was trembling on Albert’s arm as she accepted his assistance into the carriage.

“So now,” he said in his dry English way, “you’ve seen the demi-monde of Paris.”