Chapter 19 The Chickens Come Back to the Nest
THE CHICKENS COME BACK TO THE NEST
I talked of Chanel, of Dior, of Givenchy and Balmain and Balenciaga, and at the customer’s request, sprayed them on my own wrist and arms. “For I would not wish to smell of this,” he said with a smile.
He was a dark, rather mysterious person—saturnine, was the word in books—the sort one could imagine coolly spying on Nazis for the Resistance.
He was French, you see. “On loan from the Sorbonne,” he told me, “like a manuscript.”
We went through four scents, and still he merely said, “And the next?” after each one. Rosemary was looking daggers at me from the other end of the counter. She was unmarried, and the mysterious gentleman was most attractive, in a slightly frightening way. Or perhaps that was my guilty conscience.
“If you’ll tell me more about the lady,” I said, after the sixth sampling, “we could narrow the choices. Is she a cheerful, gay sort of person, or perhaps mysterious and alluring?”
“Is any American lady mysterious and alluring?” he asked. “I am Lucien de Valois, by the way, and you are?”
“Marguerite Stark,” I said. “Mrs. Stark.”
“Ah,” he said, the sardonic look in his eyes more evident. “A beautiful name followed by the ugly one, yes. A foreigner who has married a GI, perhaps?”
Rosemary said, “She’s French, is what. If you’d like to step over here, I can show you Emeraude, which is one of our top sellers.”
“And what house produces this?” Monsieur de Valois asked.
“It’s by Coty,” Rosemary said, “and so lovely. A classic.”
The corner of his mouth quirked, and so did one dark eyebrow. “Coty? That is not a classic name. It’s not even French. But bring it over here and show me.”
This was so evidently not what Rosemary had had in mind, I nearly laughed. But when Mr. de Valois smelled it—he had her spray it into the air rather than on her arm, which also didn’t please her—he waved a hand and said, “A poor copy of Shalimar. No, I’m afraid you must leave scent to the French.”
“Rochas Femme, then,” Rosemary said. “If you don’t like American things.” A bit of hostility in her voice now. It was a good thing Mr. Hendrickson, our department manager, wasn’t hovering.
“Bien s?r,” Mr. de Valois said, “the house of Rochas is well known.” He was almost too smooth to be true, and I wanted to laugh.
Instead—for we were paid a commission on sales—I merely pulled the bottle out from its case.
When I handed it to Rosemary, though, Mr. de Valois shook his finger in an arch, tsk-tsk way that I found most annoying—I was ready to believe he was an aristocrat, as his name suggested, and of the arrogant type—and Rosemary handed it sullenly to me.
This time, he took my arm in his two hands, and I stiffened and tried to step back. He either didn’t notice or didn’t want to, though, because he merely put his face close to my skin and inhaled, then let me go and said, “Ah, yes. Femme indeed. The scent of a woman.”
I couldn’t help myself. I laughed. I attempted to disguise it as a cough, but I didn’t think he was fooled, for his gaze narrowed. “You find me amusing?”
“No,” I said. “I find you rather forward, and I am married, as you see.”
“But one must be civilized about such things,” he said.
“Ooh,” Rosemary said. “You’re a naughty one.”
He switched to French. “I find this lady tiresome. Perhaps we can meet for a drink after you finish here? It’s nearly five o’clock; a civilized hour for a bottle of Champagne.”
I said, in English, “What else may I show you?” I was trembling a little under the surface, and was very much afraid he could see it. But I was not—no, I was most definitely not—going to give him the satisfaction.
“But why will you not speak French?” he asked, also in English. “When I’ve heard nothing but this barbarous version of English for months now? And what is your accent, for I can’t place it? British, of course, but beneath … no, I cannot place it at all.”
“She’s from Paris,” Rosemary said. “And we’re ‘barbarous’? I’m not barbarous. I’m American, and you Frenchies should be thanking us. What did you do when Hitler came in? You ran away. Who fought to drive the Nazis out of France? We did.”
Mr. de Valois ignored her completely. “From Paris?” More of the cocked eyebrow. “I don’t think so.”
I was flushing now, and wished I weren’t. How did I get out of this? “Will you excuse me a moment? Rosemary, can you—”
“Well, I’m not pleased to do it,” she said. “But I will.”
I was just slipping out from behind the counter when Mr. Hendrickson brought his somewhat portly self to join our party, his drooping nose practically aquiver.
He resembled a kind of dog called a Bassett Hound, and like a hound, he could sense trouble from across a room. For once, I was glad of him.
“Good afternoon, sir,” he said. “Are you finding everything you need?”
“Mais non,” Mr. de Valois said. Was he even French? Could anyone actually French be so terrifically French? He should have had the striped blue shirt and baguette! “I am most disappointed, for the lady here will not speak to me in my language. Why employ a Frenchwoman who will not speak French?”
“I’m very sorry, sir,” Mr. Hendrickson said. “I’m sure Mrs. Stark is simply trying to fit in with our usual customers, but she’ll be happy to speak French with you.”
“Will you, madame?” Mr. de Valois said, in French again. “Will you indeed?”
“But of course,” I said—in French. “Perhaps if you will tell me more about the lady …”
“But I would wish to talk of you,” he said.
“You will meet me, then, after your work is done? I can wait for you by the main doors there, and we can further our acquaintance over a glass of wine, or perhaps a Cognac. In the bar of the Hotel Anza, perhaps, where I am staying. The atmosphere is dark and rather intimate, which will suit you, I think.”
“I’ve told you, Monsieur,” I said, “that I am married.”
“And what is that to me?” he said. “I am married also, if it comes to that. And you would not wish me to give away your secret. Your German secret?”
I said in desperation, “May I have a word, Mr. Hendrickson?” I could explain that the man had taken my arm, that I thought he had no intention of buying, that he’d made improper advances. Would that work? Or would I be blamed? I had a sinking feeling which it would be.
“Certainly,” Mr. Hendrickson said, “after you’ve helped the gentleman.”
“This lady,” Mr. de Valois said with a sigh, “is not French, I’m afraid. No, most definitely she is not. I fear she has misled you.”
Rosemary gasped. “No!”
I said, “But of course I’m French. Swiss French. From Lucerne.”
“Which is not,” Mr. de Valois said, “in French Switzerland. It is in German Switzerland. But you’re not Swiss, either.”
“You definitely said you were from Paris, though,” Rosemary said.
“I was born in Paris,” I improvised madly. “But I grew up in Lucerne, truly. Here at the perfume counter, Paris sounds much better, does it not?”
Mr. Hendrickson said, “Will you excuse me, sir? Perhaps you’d step this way a moment, Mrs. Stark. Miss Fallon, please serve the gentleman.”
Joe came in the door at six, as usual. I heard him out there, saying, “Marguerite? Are you home? Huh.” His footsteps in the hall, then.
I sat up fast. “Hello. I’m sorry; I haven’t been home long, and I … I’ll just change my dress and start dinner.”
My legs were over the edge of the bed, but Joe was beside me instead of taking off his suit. Today of all days, he wasn’t getting changed! Instead, he was saying, “Marguerite? What’s wrong? Are you sick?” Real alarm in his eyes. “You’ve hurt yourself. Fallen, or—”
“No,” I said. “I’m perfectly well. I’ll just—I need to change.”
“Marguerite. What’s happened?”
I put my trembling hands to my hot cheeks. I knew my face was tearstained, my hair a mess. Why, oh, why hadn’t I had the fortitude to carry on? I knew how to carry on! “I was let go at work.”
“Oh.” A moment, and then Joe said, “Well, that’s not a tragedy, is it? It’s only natural that business would fall off after Christmas. You’ll get something else.” Sounding puzzled, as of course he must be, for I didn’t hide my head under the pillow and cry when I faced disappointment.
I didn’t want to look at him. I felt so dirty, so humiliated.
He got it out of me, of course, in the end. And when I was in his arms, having cried all over his good shirt, I said, “I couldn’t keep lying, don’t you see? I thought, if I just explained, if I told the truth, that I’d—that he’d—”
“What does it matter anyway?” Joe said. “Why should they care?”
“Because I’m German,” I said, the wretchedness wanting to overtake me. “I’m German, and I’ll always be German. To your family, to an employer—even Susie wasn’t sure she wanted to know me, once she found out.”
“Of course you won’t,” Joe said. “Of course you aren’t. You’re so much more than German. You’re Marguerite. Princess Marguerite. I’ll bet you didn’t tell them that.”
“How could I, when I’d lied already? Who would have believed me? And the man—” I had to stop and breathe.
“What.” Joe said it flatly. Dangerously. “Marguerite. What did he do?”
I had my hands over my face again, was shaking my head.
“He took my arm only. When I left the store, you know. He was smiling, telling me that he was sorry, but what did I expect, trying to pass myself off like that. That he would take me for a Cognac, to dinner. That many Frenchwomen had been collaborators in this way, so what did it—” I had to stop for breath.
“What did it matter if I became a bit of a collaborator too, and made up for what my people had done?”
I was still against Joe’s chest, but his body was rigid. “That— that Schmok.”
“And I don’t believe his name was truly de Valois,” I said, sitting up and using my handkerchief.
“That’s a noble title. More, a royal title.
I don’t believe he’s from the Sorbonne, either.
What does a professor from the Sorbonne look like?
Like Dr. Müller. Like Professor Jacobson.
Gray and rather stooped, with glasses, yes.
But not like a … a Frenchman from a Hollywood picture! ”
Joe was frowning. “I think I should go pay him a visit.”
“No!” I grasped his sleeve. “No, Joe. No. I couldn’t bear it if you did. He was unpleasant, yes, but this is my shame, for I did lie. This is why I—” I stopped, bit my lip.
“What?” Joe asked.
“Why I cried,” I said reluctantly. “Why I’ve been so weak. It’s one thing to say, I will not bow to injustice, I will not stop fighting, and another entirely to be caught in a cowardly lie. This is, what do you say? My chickens coming back to the nest?”
“Your chickens coming home to roost,” Joe said, but he was still frowning. “I was the one who told you to do it.”
“But I was the one who did it,” I said. “In full knowledge that it was wrong. This is my lesson, and I’ve now learned it.
It is most uncomfortable to lie for gain and be caught.
And now …” I got to my feet. “We will both change our clothes, for I’ve wrinkled the lovely dress you gave me, and I’ll make something very easy for supper. ”
“Tuna sandwiches,” Joe said. “I love tuna sandwiches, and you never make them. You think it’s too simple a dinner for me to like. On your bread, with a pickle and some mustard? You bet. Come on, Mrs. Stark. Let’s get changed and make them.”
“Only if I put cheese on top,” I said, “and put them under the broiler.” I stood up, though. Why was Joe always able to make my heart lighter? “And tomorrow, I’ll find a new job. And not lie.”