The Secret Language of Stones

Chapter 10

I returned to the shop in an even worse rain than when I’d left. Inside, Monsieur Orloff raised his eyebrows at the time of my arrival. I didn’t apologize as I put away my umbrella and hat. I stayed in most of the time. Ten minutes of tardiness should have been overlooked.

“Did you hear anything about the Bolsheviks or the Romanovs?”

“No, but there was news about some German spies,” and I told him what I’d overheard.

“Above us and below us.” He shook his head. “There are Bolsheviks underground too. I’m sure of it. Where else would you hide in Paris?”

I didn’t answer. He’d asked a rhetorical question I heard at least once a day.

“You remember the last piece we made for the actress Paulette Gillard, yes?”

“Of course.”

I knew her lover Pierre Zakine well. A longtime friend of my great-grandmother’s, he owned an art gallery and met my mother when she’d lived at Maison de la Lune. He’d become her dealer over twenty years ago and visited us in Cannes often. Once I moved to Paris, he’d started coming to the store just to check up on me and always picked up a little trinket, as he called the ready-made pieces in our cases, sometimes as a gift for his wife or his daughter. After many such visits, he commissioned a piece of high jewelry for his mistress and, liking it so much, began to order more of Monsieur Orloff’s creations. Like many men of the upper classes, he’d not allowed the war to interfere in his life any more than absolutely necessary. After all, the nightclubs were still open and Maxim’s still served. As long as you could pay, there were still oysters to feast on and champagne to buy and lovely ladies to bed.

“Well, we’re making another gift for her,” Monsieur said. “So let’s go over it.”

This was how Monsieur Orloff mentored me, by involving me in his own pieces. First, he’d show me his design, always a gouache on fine paper from Sennelier’s store. After discussing the piece’s intricacies, he’d explain about his choice of gems and color values. Then I’d estimate the number of stones, and together we’d visit the vault to choose and collect them. Monsieur Orloff often allowed me to make the first selection; then he inspected and either approved or replaced my choices, always explaining why.

When I first came to work for him, he rejected at least three-quarters of what I’d selected, but we’d reached a stage where he rarely found fault with any of my picks. If I couldn’t find stones that were the right shade or size, Monsieur would send me to the gemologist, Monsieur St. Croix, to purchase what we required.

“This is a daunting design,” Monsieur said that morning. “It’s a necklace, yes, but the flowers can be removed from the stem here and here and worn as a clip. And then, I want the petals to be en tremblant.”

I stood by his shoulder and gazed at the gouache study. The new piece comprised two roses on stems, with leaves. The bud and the bloom met in the center, their stems wrapping about the neck. Because Monsieur wanted the petals to tremble, they would be mounted on hidden springs.

“We’ll use rose-colored diamonds, Opaline. As well as pink sapphires. Dark rubies for the shadows and folds of the petals. We want to complement her complexion, so you know the shades to pick. Tsavorites and emeralds for the leaves and brown diamonds for the stems. I’m expecting a client, so why don’t you go down today on your own, find what you think will work, and I’ll join you later and see how you’ve done.”

I nodded, too excited to trust myself to speak. Monsieur had taken me into the vault hundreds of times but had never sent me down alone. Going on my own constituted a large step. In addition to jewelry and gems, the vault contained objets d’art Monsieur was safekeeping for émigrés. He also kept some of the smaller antiques Grigori had bought but hadn’t put on display yet. And I knew from overhearing an argument between Grigori and his father that Monsieur did not allow even his son to visit the vault alone.

“If you’d become a jeweler, you would be going into the vault,” Monsieur said whenever Grigori complained.

“Is that the only thing you can ever say to me? ‘If you were a jeweler’ this… ‘if you were a jeweler’ that…,” he’d spit back, and storm out of the room.

I ached for Grigori. As much as I admired and revered Monsieur, he was too angry at his eldest son for being the only one of his children to not follow in his footsteps. Making jewelry is not just a profession; one needs passion to sustain oneself through the long hours of sitting at a bench, sometimes wearing cumbersome glasses, using minute tools and always being careful and meticulous.

While Grigori possessed a great love of beautiful things and an excellent eye, he was best on the floor, describing with just the right phrases the artistry of a piece. Why it was a worthwhile investment. The joy it would bring.

With great ceremony, Monsieur Orloff handed me his keys to the vault.

After lighting a kerosene lamp to take with me, I unlocked the first door just outside the workshop. Downstairs, at the landing, instead of going right toward my suite, I went left, walked past the bomb shelter down an incline and reached a second locked door.

I unlocked that door and opened it, immediately getting a nose full of the musty scent rising from the quarries. Walking the long twisting hallway to the vault, I held my breath at every turn. As always, I feared what I might hear. Some days the hum of the burial chambers, even though they were far away, was more audible than others. I’d gone down a few times without being assaulted, but most days I heard the dead’s whispers and they frightened me.

That afternoon was one of the worst days. Twice I thought about turning around and running from the din, but the image of Monsieur’s disappointed face kept me moving.

Using Monsieur Orloff’s keys, I opened the next door, which led to a narrow hallway only wide enough for one. The rough-hewn stone walls and floors and thick wooden crossbeams hadn’t been rebuilt since the seventeenth century. In the dark, the lamp’s beam and my form cast more shadows. Twice I tripped on rocks, only barely finding my balance before falling. Heart pounding, I kept going till I reached the very last door.

Made of steel, it was the only modernity in the ancient passageway. Using the last of the keys, I opened the heavy portal and shone my lantern in, setting alight an Ali Baba’s cave of riches.

I never could enter the vault without sucking in my breath. I’d been to the famous gilt Palais Garnier opera house, seen the ornate riches of Versailles, visited the Louvre and examined the cases of ancient jewels and objets d’art, frequented the finest jewelry stores in Cannes and in Paris. None of them was preparation for the Orloff vault.

The long narrow room consisted of a series of archways carved out of stone walls. Each fitted with wooden shelves covered with forest green felt. Altogether, there were five archways on the right wall, three on the back wall, and five on the left. Ninety-one shelves crammed to overflowing with gold and silver jewelry and objets d’art. Platters, goblets, plates, picture frames, pitchers, creamers, teapots, coffeepots, candlesticks, and candelabras. Head mannequins with necklaces of pearls and diamonds and rubies and emeralds and sapphires encircling the painted flesh-colored wood. Velvet cases, some holding rings, others with earrings. Almost nothing was enclosed; everything was on view. I once asked Monsieur why. He said stones need to breathe like we do. They need to be seen and show off their colors; gold needs to shine.

Monsieur was a man of few words. Often curt. Difficult to read. But when he talked about his gems, I saw the lover he must have been to Anna, the poet’s soul living inside his craggy exterior.

Since so few Russian émigrés trusted the banks after living through an overthrown regime, they used La Fantaisie Russe to store their most prized possessions. Inside the vault, a large leather ledger sat on a podium. Every piece was recorded with a drawing, the name of whom it belonged to, and its particulars-weight, height, dimensions. Many of these items were heirlooms, and if I focused on them and touched them with my bare skin, I could sometimes be connected to the spirits of their owners and hear messages. An experience I had come to dread. Since we were supposed to wear white cotton gloves when we handled everything in the vault to avoid scratches, I made sure to keep mine on during the entirety of my visits.

At the far end of the room, I knelt beside the small safe. The enormity of the trust Monsieur placed in me worried me. I turned the tumbler to the right and then the left in the sequence he’d taught me. What if someone was to break in while I was there? I knew a pistol sat on the shelf to the right of the safe. Identical to the one upstairs in the showroom in the top drawer of the desk. Even with my small hands, I could hold it.

When I first went to work for him, Monsieur Orloff took me to the Bois de Boulogne and taught me how to use the gun. After several weeks of practice sessions, he declared me fit to defend the shop if I ever needed to. I was surprised at how brave I became with that small cold metal weapon in hand. In the midst of an angry war, with Paris going dark every night and rumors of spies infiltrating the city, knowing how to protect myself provided at least a kernel of comfort.

For a half hour, I sat on a small stool beside the safe and searched through pink diamonds, rubies, sapphires, brown diamonds, emeralds, and tsavorites, picking out my choices for the jeweled flower.

Finally, I heard the distant footsteps of Monsieur coming downstairs. Nervousness fluttered inside my chest. I wanted him to approve of my selection and perhaps even offer a word or two of praise.

Looking up from the glittering gems, I listened. Something was wrong. The sound wasn’t coming from the right direction. The footsteps weren’t descending from the stairs, but approaching from behind the vault’s wall. From the tunnels running behind the section of the subbasement owned by Monsieur Orloff.

The noise increased in volume, sounding more like voices than footsteps but still muffled and hard to decipher. Was I picking up the hum from the dead and mistaking it for sounds being made by the living? Concentrating, I thought I could hear levels and tones of several people speaking.

It seemed that in a room or a cavern abutting Monsieur Orloff’s vault, people were gathering.

I put my ear against the back wall and listened, almost able to make out the chatter, but there was too much noise, too many people talking all at once, as if there was one set of voices on the other side of the wall itself and another beyond it.

I have a bad ear for languages. I know how to speak English since my mother was born in America and talked to us often in her native tongue. While I certainly heard the Orloffs speaking Russian often, I’d never picked it up. To me, Russian, Polish, German, Czech, and Yiddish were almost indistinguishable and equally indecipherable.

Choosing yet another section of the wall, I put my ear against the cold stone and tried again. No clearer. For a few minutes, I moved around, repeating the same action, searching for a spot where the sound would be more distinct, but the walls were too thick.

Was I hearing German? Could these be spies? Or was my sense of direction off and it was Monsieur Orloff hosting a Two-Headed Eagles meeting? I just couldn’t tell. Too many voices, too much noise.

As I worked my way around the room, I noticed one of the alcoves was set back farther, deeper into the wall. Maybe the sound would be more audible from there. As I quietly moved items off the shelf, I continued listening. Was it a mélange of unconnected voices from the heavens? Had I turned on some kind of psychic switch? Even though I wore gloves, was I hearing the people who’d once owned the antique objects in the vault before they were handed down or bought by their present owners? Had talking to Jean Luc opened a portal? Was I now a receptor even when I wasn’t trying to be one? I needed Anna’s help more than ever. I had to learn how to control my abilities so I could step out of the nightmare when it overwhelmed me.

Succeeding in emptying the shelves and removing them, I stepped into the alcove, put my ear up to the wall, and listened.

The only thing I became more sure of was that whoever was beyond this wall was speaking neither French nor English. If they were, I would have been able to pick up a hint of a word or accent. Pressing closer, I knocked over a candelabra, which clattered as it fell from a table onto the floor. The crash surprisingly loud.

The noise on the other side of the walls ceased for a moment. Then, just as it picked up again, I noticed a flicker of light above and to my left. Investigating, I found a slim crack in the rocks with half an inch of loose mortar. Using a fingernail, I picked at it, dislodging another half inch more, creating a peephole.

I moved the lantern away to the other end of the vault. If there was someone beyond the wall, I didn’t want them to see its glow and find me out.

Finally, afraid I would spot German uniforms-or, worse, not see anyone and discover the sounds were not of this time or place-I leaned forward and peered into the room beyond the vault.

Men’s legs. Hands. A long cream-colored cylinder I couldn’t identify.

The dimness of the chamber, the angle and size of the hole, didn’t allow for much visibility. As far as I could tell, my peephole was only a few feet above the floor. I was almost eye level with chalky, muddy shoes. Five-no, six-sets of feet. Maybe seven. Too much movement, too many shadows. The noise was no more distinct. I realized I had, in fact, been listening to what these men were saying as well as hearing voices from the antiques around me. I couldn’t separate the sources.

This was some kind of new hell.

Closing my eyes, I tried to remember Anna’s advice on how to control the messaging. But we’d only worked on my psychometry, on what to do when I was touching something, not how to deal with untethered responses.

Stop, I said to myself. Stop listening. And miraculously, after a few moments, some of the noise dissipated. Maybe now, if I looked through the peephole and focused, I could pick out their words, identify their language.

I took a step forward, but before I got close enough to peer through, I saw a man examining the crevice from his side. A flash of hair the color of burnished bronze, heavy eyebrows, topaz eyes shining with suspicion. Could he see me, or was I deep enough in shadow? What did the vault look like from where he stood? I’d moved the lantern, but was its light reflecting off the gold and silver objects?

I dropped to the floor. Waited. Listened. Still unable to make out the words or the language. Inching backward as quietly as I could, I reached the lantern and pushed it farther into a niche. I picked up a large onyx box and moved it in front of the opening. Now, if the men on the other side looked in, there was nothing to see but their own reflections. I studied my watch. I’d been down in the vault for almost an hour. How much longer before Monsieur came looking for me?

For the next fifteen minutes, I sat still with my back up to the wall, my head pressed against its stony unevenness, listening, trying to pull apart the noises and recognize a single word so I could discern what might be going on. An innocent meeting of people who worked somewhere in the Palais? French soldiers searching the underground? Germans planning an attack?

Finally, I heard shuffling and a door closing. The only sound remaining was the din I usually encountered in these dungeons. Slowly and carefully, I moved the box and then looked through the peephole. On the other side was nothing but darkness. All lights extinguished. All men gone.

What had I seen? Monsieur Orloff’s émigrés meeting in a new place? A gambling den? Rumor suggested there were at least a half dozen such dens in the Palais. Or was it German spies? Were the cylinders rolled-up maps?

Quickly, I replaced the shelves in the arch and arranged the objects sitting on them. I’d just begun sifting through the stones again when, for the second time that afternoon, I thought I heard Monsieur Orloff coming downstairs.

“Let’s see how you fared,” he said after closing the door behind him.

While he examined the stones, I tried to figure out what I should do. Ask him? What exactly? Or just tell him I saw men in a room beyond this one? What if it made me sound paranoid? Would he become hesitant about me doing my job?

Maybe I was letting my imagination get the better of me. After all, there were stores on both sides of us and each of them retained access to basement chambers. I couldn’t be sure of the vault’s orientation. If we were beneath Grigori’s antiques shop, then on the other side was a coin collector’s shop. And if we were beneath the jewelry showroom, on the other side was a perfume shop. There was also the possibility that the vault backed up against tunnels that were not part of anyone’s shop and that the men were city workers. Maybe a sewer needed maintenance and the cylinders were maps of the sewer system. Or could there be a series of tunnels stemming off the metro line needing attendance?

“Opaline?”

“Yes?”

“What are you daydreaming about?”

“Nothing.” I hadn’t figured out how to explain.

“Is it your voices again?”

“No, no voices.”

The less we talked about the voices and my talismans, the better. As much as he tolerated it, Monsieur Orloff was not in favor of my messaging. Married to Anna, of course he was sympathetic about my abilities, but also nervous about the police discovering what we were doing since talking to the dead and reading people’s fortunes was against the law and there were stories in all the newspapers of the prefecture cracking down. Monsieur wanted nothing to do with the police. In Russia the proliferation of secret police, spy organizations, and corruption had left him suspicious. He trusted no one. Almost obsessed, he went out of his way to avoid bringing the authorities in on any matter-even when we’d discovered a client shoplifting. I wasn’t sure why and hadn’t found a polite way to ask, but assumed it was related to him harboring refugees from Russia below the shop.

As well, Monsieur wasn’t a spiritualist of any kind. Neither was he religious. To him, precious metals and gems were paints on a palette. A necklace or bracelet, ring or brooch, a canvas. He used gems to create art to adorn its wearer, not to stare into the faceted depths of the crystals and see the past or the future, as his wife was prone to do. He never closed his eyes when he held a stone and felt for its vibration, as I did. Monsieur Orloff bowed to its beauty; he didn’t commune with its mystery. So he tolerated Anna and her crystal balls and me and my voices. He watched us disappearing into her lair after dinner with a rueful smile.

“This is good work, Opaline. Thinking to include the darker brown diamonds was an excellent idea.”

I smiled. Compliments from someone who does not offer them often are all the more precious.

“There’s not much left to teach you. Now I just need to push you to spend more time refining your designs and not be quite so impatient.”

I wanted to laugh. He’d done nothing but push me since I’d first arrived almost four years ago.

“Take the stones upstairs,” he said. “I’ll lock up-there are some things I need to get from the safe. Monsieur and Madame Bouchard are coming tomorrow to pick out a stone for a pendant.”

Dismissed, I took the tray of stones upstairs to the workshop. As I climbed the steps, I worried that I hadn’t found a way to tell Monsieur Orloff what I’d witnessed. But what if it had been him and his group of Russians? He might be insulted I’d been spying. Besides, what had I seen? Really nothing suspect. Men in a chamber on the other side of the vault. Why was that suspicious? There were over fifty shops in the Palais and hundreds of residences.

I’d spent too long listening to the voices of the soldiers, collecting messages for their mothers. My imagination was overworked.

Later that afternoon, while I was still sorting the stones into gradations within their color groups, Grigori came into the workroom. Fresh from purchasing a collection of antique jewel-encrusted goblets, he wanted to show them to his father for an estimate.

“I’m going to make some coffee,” I told them. “Would you like any?”

They both declined. As I stood up, I knocked a pair of tweezers off my worktable.

I bent to retrieve them. They’d fallen close to Grigori’s feet, and I couldn’t help but notice pale gray mud on his shoes. Like the shoes of the men in the room next to the vault.

This was more proof I was being melodramatic. We were having the rainiest summer on record. Mud covered all the streets in Paris. It was on all our shoes. And so, once and for all, I put the incident out of my mind and made my coffee.