Diminishing Returns

(A/N: Sorry it’s taken so long for this update. Personal life intervenes, as it sometimes does, but now I hope to be back on track. – SB)

All the warmth of that winter day by the Ploumanac'h sea leached out of Kristina on the cold, weary train ride back to Paris. As the train steamed into the great Rennes railway terminal for a long stop, Alberich was suddenly all around Kristina, in her imagination, inside her skin, touching her hair, like a dream that lingers with waking. She felt him moving through her as he moved about the city, having lunch, or reading a newspaper, or drinking coffee with a woman. That last thought hurt, so she put it away. What if I got out of the train right now, and went to look for him? she thought. Could I find him? Black- and brown-frocked passengers streamed through the station, as far as one could see. She shrank down into her seat, miserable.

At the Paris station, she hauled her carpetbag behind her like a dead thing. Cabbies tipped their caps, but she refused, shivering instead on her walk through the frozen streets. Her thoughts tolled in time with a pealing church bell.

Trudge through the boulevards, slip past the cafes with their laughing men and women, turn into the narrow street, haul up the stairs, start the fire, make the tea, read the mail. Eat, or not, then sleep, with next stop rehearsal. Punctuate the half-sleep with flashes of glitter and applause. Then do it all over again, day in and day out.

Under the stage, deep under the wood and stone, the theater’s horses turn treadmills connected to gears, to raise and lower the bigger sets. They have forgotten what it's like to roll in the alfalfa meadow. For them, it is the stall, the treadmill, the stage. Like me.

Can they ever run away? Have they forgotten jumping and galloping and mating? Do they even recall the Paris streets? Would they ride calmly out of the city walls, or would they bolt in terror?

I'm going to the stables sometime soon. I want to put my hands on something warm, onto something not a mystery. There's definitely no mystery in a horse anymore. Why lay your hands on a horse when you've had your hands on a man?

The next morning Kristina woke at dawn, ready to fly to the Eclectic Theater to meet Alberich. The shock came as cold to her feet as the hardwood floor. She crept back onto the carpet, but the cold remained. He's in Rennes. I don't know where, and he hasn't exactly said when he would return. Or what he's doing there.

As she quietly cut and toasted bread in the kitchen, careful not to wake Anneke, she scolded herself for not asking him more questions. But something covers me like a veil when I'm with him. It's as if a huge part of me goes to sleep, or passes into a kind of dream. The air itself shines around him so brightly that I stare at it rather than at him. That living, moving air covers me like a veil, while at the same time he shines with a breathing halo. The warm shimmering life radiating off him sends me into a beautiful dream.

So I don't think to ask all these fundamentals, like where do you live, or what exactly is it you do for money? What kind of a prospect are you, M. Niemann? Those are the kinds of questions most girls' mothers would ask for them. They'd have the man calipered, weighed, measured, cut to fit and wrapped up in a box with ribbon - or dumped outside with the scraps - before the girl knew what hit her.

Now I have some things more to ask him than what's in his bank account. While I'm not so frightened, not so cold about it, it still rests like a knife against my skin. It would be easier if Anneke would ask me why I am so quiet; why I said so little about Ploumanac'h; why I went straight to bed almost without speaking to her at all.

But she doesn't ask. I know she cares. I wonder how much she knows?

A gentle rustling in the kitchen doorway caught Kristina by surprise, and there stood Anneke, long braid resting on one shoulder, her eyes puffed with sleep.

"Tea, Anneke?"

"Mercy, child, I didn't expect to see you here. You're usually gone at this time."

"I'm just ready to leave."

"But you don't have your usual appointment. Can you sit and have some tea with me, then?"

"How do you know I don't have my usual appointment?"

"When you leave in the morning, usually, you almost sing as you run out the door. But this morning, just like last night, you droop."

"You're right," Kristina said, and sat fooling with the pot of honey, not knowing where to begin, or if she even wanted to.

Anneke undid her long braid, ignoring her own rule against fixing hair at the table. Her tortoiseshell comb worked back and forth like a loom’s shuttle through the white-streaked gray, weaving Anneke’s thoughts into order as she sat quietly waiting for Kristina to speak.

"I've met a man," Kristina finally said.

"Well, I knew that.” Anneke's hair covered her shoulders with a shiny silvery mass. "A musician?"

"Somewhat. He doesn't play professionally, but he plays beautifully. Violin, like Papa, and keyboard too. He makes harmoniums, both the small ones you can carry with you, and the large ones that sit in the parlor. He's traveled in North Africa, worked as a builder," and her voice trailed off. "How did you know?"

"About the man, or the musician?"

"Yes."

"Because ever since I've come to know you, dear, you've had a love-hate relationship with music. Music is in your blood, but when it came time to put those talents into the bank instead of burying them underground, so to speak, you balked. Not because you couldn't do the work, but because, I think, you were afraid that by doing the work, music would turn into something mechanical, something you did because you had to, because Cornelius and I made you. It's the narrow line we walk between love and dedication. Too much in either direction produces monstrosities - either uncontrolled passions, or dry and joyless duty. But about three months ago, I noticed that you started singing again around the house. When you got up early in the morning to go to the Opera, you spent more and more time at the mirror, and your face glowed."

"It's embarrassing; you see through me like water."

"Dear, do you think I was always old? I remember leaving the house breathless with excitement, too, knowing someone waited for me."

"He met me in Ploumanac'h. Put your eyebrow down; he didn't even stay at the Rising Sun. He met me after Papa's Mass, and we spent the day walking on the rocks at the beach. We went to the farm where he stays up there, and I met the farmer’s wife, and then we went by to look at the old cottage."

"Imagine that, it's still standing. You say he didn't go to Mass. So he's not Catholic?"

"He is, but not religious."

"Typical for a French man,” Anneke said, sounding almost disappointed. “Whatever that means, to ‘not be religious.’ Everyone's religious; it just depends on what kind. Before we met you and your father, Cornelius and I used to have this cellist over for musical evenings, a big Russian man who smoked these little cigarettes that made us turn green, they smelled so foul. We had to fumigate the rooms when he left. He always argued with Papa about his own brand of skeptical atheism. Such faith that man had. He was a far better atheist than I've ever been a Christian."

"Oh, spare me the false humility."

"Atheism mixed with skepticism almost reduced him to idiocy. He could play the cello like an angel, but if you asked him if the barn was painted red on far side, he'd refuse to answer. It was impossible to have a conversation with the man; I don’t know how Cornelius managed. After he died, I hoped God credited him something for his blind obstinacy. How old is your musician?"

"About thirty-five. Oh, don't look like that. Dr. Sibelius was at least ten years older than you, wasn't he?"

"Fifteen. So he's the one you've been meeting with in the mornings, then."

"We sing together, or he accompanies me and I sing. He has the most remarkable 'chest voice' that vibrates right through you. He's taught me how to sing in the high range with this depth and richness I didn't think was possible, and people really hear the difference."

"So you pay him for lessons?"

"No, he refused, and almost got angry at the suggestion. He's quiet and shy, normally, but," and then Kristina fell silent, twisting her napkin.

Anneke waited, saying nothing for a long moment as the early morning air sat heavily between them, and then said, "But there's something else."

"Anneke, I don't know where to start. Louvel de Coucy followed me up to Ploumanac'h. Oh, look, now you've spilled your tea. Here, let me get it. The cup isn't cracked. Don't look like that, I didn't invite him. Well, I did write him to let him know Papa had died, and that there was to be a Mass. I thought he would just pray for him, or have a Mass said here. I never suspected he would show up. We had dinner, where he said all kinds of embarrassing things to me, and then he made a dreadful scene late that night, chasing after Alberich in the churchyard …"

"Alberich? So he has a name, after all, or at least part of one."

"Alberich Niemann. Of course he has a name, and even a town. He's from Rennes. Louvel got bitterly jealous, and chased him into the churchyard, where he tried to draw him into some kind of fight. Then Louvel slipped and hit his head. He spent the night on the altar steps, and was brought back to the hotel half-frozen. There was this old doctor there who took care of him; he drove me to the Lannion station, and, Anneke, I don't know what to do. I'm sick with worry. That doctor made me sick to my stomach."

"Slow down, I can barely understand you. Why did he make you sick?" and now both grey eyebrows were up, and her half-braided hair almost crackled.

"It was what he said. Not about me, not directly, but about Alberich."

"What about him? Get to it, child."

This was the hard part, like climbing over rocks on the granite coastline, and Kristina swallowed hard. "He has something wrong with his face, on the upper half. It's been like that since birth. It's not bad, really, at least not to me. People think he's been burned, or hurt in the Prussian war, even though he’s not that old. But Dr. Bergamos asked me all kinds of questions on the way to Lannion, and told me I should ask Alberich …" and she had to stop at this point and wipe her eyes as the terrible feeling of everything going wrong flooded over her again. She blinked back tears.

"Oh, Lord," Anneke said. "I know what he thought."

"I did too, and it's too awful to think about. He told me I could catch it. But then after I told him more, he didn't seem to think that was it at all. Anneke, I almost kissed him."

"Who, the doctor?"

Kristina burst into a hysterical bark. Then both women laughed until the tears Kristina had saved up leaked out all on their own.

Anneke waited for Kristina to catch her breath, and then said, "It's odd, because just a few months ago I started translating science articles from the French newspapers and magazines. The embassy used to want politics; now everything they want is science, all academy stuff. I have to sit there in the library with half a dozen dictionaries, just to make sure I get it all down right. But I just did one a few months ago on monsters, you know, accidents of birth. It's a shame - if a man has a war wound or is burned like Cornelius's poor student, then everyone showers him with sympathy. But let a man suffer from the start, and he's considered tainted."

"The doctor said he'd seen too many wives given the … taint … by their husbands."

"Oh, get the mush out of your mouth and just call it what it is. Its name is the pox, the great pox. Syphilis. Listen to me. The thief never keeps his money in a wallet. The murderer always watches his back. And to the doctor, everyone is ill. I make my daily bread reading the newspapers, and they all run on about the pox this, the pox that, how it's ruining France, how it's God's judgment, and so on. They'd like you to think most everyone has it, but I have news for you - if they did, people would be dropping in the streets, and it would be a miracle there were any healthy children at all."

"Louvel went on and on about God's judgment, too. He practically came out and called me a 'light woman.' "

"He did, did he? Speaking from his vast experience, no doubt."

"He wants to save me. Anneke, you remember Louvel, how sweet he was. He's nothing like that anymore. It's like I don't even know him. He thinks if he uses the right words, it will all just come together, like magic, but there's nothing beneath it."

"Putting cow piss in a fluted glass doesn't make it champagne. Look at what a man does, not what he says, that's my rule of thumb. Louvel will either prove himself, or he won't. But about that doctor - I suspect he was running his tongue to have the attentions of a pretty girl for an hour, and perhaps a little jealous of the fifty years between your Alberich and him. He was an old one, right?"

"Old as Methusaleh. He did give Louvel a good tongue-lashing, though. You would have appreciated it."

"I'm not saying he's a bad doctor. I think his foolishness comes on account of being a man." Then her face grew soft, and she took Kristina's hand into the fragile birdcage of bones that made up her own. "How does this man, Alberich, look at you?"

"Like I'm a pool he could drown in. He has the most beautiful eyes, dark brown, almost black, and I know he's always looking at me, but never directly when I can see it. If I catch him at it, he glances away, and he's just there, aware of me, taking me in. When he does face me, it's as if everything for him stops. Did Dr. Sibelius ever look at you that way?"

"Yes, yes," she said absently, and seemed to go far into the past. For a brief second Kristina saw the long wooden hall lit with whale-oil lamps, heard the tromp of high-buttoned shoes and heavy boots in time to the fiddle and accordion, felt the whirl of skirts and the strong arm around a waist, sneezed under the brushy gold moustache, melted under the liquid long looks of the late summer evening. That’s not Professor Sibelius, Kristina thought, slightly shocked. Where did all that come from? Anneke had never told her anything like that, and yet there it was, fresh in her imagination as if she had been there herself.

"Kristina," Anneke said finally, "Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid to ask questions. If the way he looks away means anything, sooner or later he will answer them."

Eating soup in the opera kitchen, Kristina caught Camille Letourneau's eye, and over she came, trailing an odor of tobacco and a young blonde chorus girl.

"How's your new contract?" Camille asked. The blonde stared at Kristina with frank hostility, and Kristina stared back with a look that said, I know exactly where you bought that bleach for your hair. Ignoring the girl, Kristina said to Camille, "Haven't gotten it yet.” She grimaced at the bowl of soup with too little potato, too much onion, and far too much water.

"You're one of the last, then. Didn't you get the letter?"

"I have a stack from when I got back from Ploumanac'h, and I haven't had the heart to even look at it. It's probably in there."

"Oh, Ploumanac'h - now that you mention it, we heard about your wild time in that godforsaken hole. Why go there for a rendezvous, Svenska, when you can find some cozy upholstered spot right here in Paris?"

Her companion laughed, then immediately silenced herself when Kristina glared at her. "What is this place, a fishbowl?” Kristina snapped. “Where do you hear these things?"

"The mighty Comte de Coucy plopped his 24 karat plump and hairless ass in Mirella's rooms last night and proceeded to complain loudly about some 'wench who treads the boards’ - his very words - who threw his precious baby brother over and gave him pleurisy in the process. Everyone on the corridor heard it. It's you, right?"

The blonde had transformed into an unblinking owl, with blue eyes as watery as the soup. Glaring at her didn't seem to do any good anymore. "Do you have to stare?" Kristina said. "Perhaps all this dull conversation bores you, and you would like to go get us some bread."

Letourneau jerked her head toward the kitchen and the girl ran off.

"I know you'll tell her anyway," Kristina went on, "but she really doesn't have to gape like that."

Camille ignored her, and went on with her interrogation. "You don't want Etienne de Coucy irritated with you. What'd you do to get his dander up? Or whatever else he has that rises to the occasion, because Mirella's after your neck, too. She thinks you're moving in on ballet territory."

"Well, since you seem to be the telegraph line of gossip here, you can pass it on to La Mirella that this singer leaves the dancing to the ballerinas."

The blonde returned with a plate of dry, spongy white bread.

"Thank you!" Kristina beamed at her, but the sullen look stayed on the girl’s face. "So with your contract - did they give you a hard time?” Kristina asked Camille.

"Dreadful arguments. They tried to squeeze me for every centime. Only two days off between performances, fines for missed rehearsals, and the opera doctor has to sign off on any missed engagements."

"I'd like to see them fine Renata for rehearsals. She's been to exactly two since I arrived."

"She's 'sick' all the time, too."

"I know - but I profit from it."

"Too bad you're healthy as a horse yourself, Svenska. Where's my profit from that?"

"At this rate, I'll get sick, and you won't be able to replace me because you'll have no voice. I suppose that's considered good business sense."

"You should hear Lorello," Camille smirked as she buttered bread. "He threatened to go back to the Comic Opera, so they caved. I should have thought of that myself. But you used to sing there, so maybe that would help you. It worked for the old bear."

The women sat quietly and crunched bread. Camille's crudities did grow on one, even if she did smoke thin cigars and collect girls. And both Kristina and Camille loved Lorello.

"Mirella's also not happy with her new understudy,” Camille said. “She says it’s because she has too much of the stink of cabaret perfume on her, but I think it's on principle. The girl's six years younger, with that perfect tiny Parisian girl prettiness."

"Mirella's what, thirty?"

"Vicious bitch, you are. She's twenty-seven. I don't worry about age myself. I'll sing until I dry up and crackle. One day I'll go in to the office and hear the words, 'No renewal.' Or I'll play Juliette's nurse for twenty years. But I'd rather hear those words from a manager than the man buying my silver shoe buckles." Camille was almost thirty, but the lines around her eyes and her yellow-stained fingers made her look older. Her frizzy hair had too much henna in it. Stage makeup concealed the lines, but she remained in the chorus because she not only scorned a patron, she scorned the conventions that made a patron necessary.

After lunch, Camille and Kristina walked arm and arm into the rehearsal hall, with Camille's blonde friend trailing and glaring behind. The late afternoon sun made the dust motes in the wood-paneled hall glitter. The "old hands" knew Faust backwards and forwards, but new management meant new singers and dancers, some of them unfamiliar with the music. Renata's secretary sat busily taking notes and ignored Kristina pointedly when Kristina once more donned the mantle of Marguerite. Kristina wondered why if Renata didn't want her taking her place, why she couldn't simply show up? But there was no point in asking. Anyway, Kristina knew Marguerite backwards and forwards. It was such an old standby, really. Why not do something new, or at least a new version? She sighed and squirmed on the hard wooden bench, waiting for rehearsal to start.

A new repetiteur stood at the podium, tall and lean everywhere except his paunch. He brushed his hand a few times over his balding scalp, and looked primly down his nose at the players as if they were nursery children.

"How about an introduction?" a man called out from the chorus.

He looked over sharply, "Who spoke out of turn?"

"What is he, a lousy schoolmaster?" said Camille as she and her blonde friend sidled up beside Kristina on the bench.

No one said anything, so the new man tapped the podium again. "I am Monsieur Rossignol. I hope everyone will live up to my expectations."

It was hard not to giggle. "Do you think that's his real name?" Kristina whispered to Camille.

"No doubt his first name is 'Doux,'" Camille replied.

"Oh, sweet nightingale. How precious."

A loud rapping interrupted them. "Ladies, enough. We're going to run these rehearsals efficiently here. Stop chattering."

Camille made a face as everyone took their places. Monsieur Rossignol, it turned out, did run a smooth rehearsal, oblivious to the glares directed to the back of his shiny head.

"Five minutes for the last act. Get ready, everyone," he called.

Riali came up to Lorello and Kristina with a wicked grin. "This fellow needs a proper welcome to the Eclectic Theater. Know what I would count as the supreme achievement of my career? If during one performance, just one, instead of striding over to the lift to get elevated to heaven, Marguerite would just walk over to Faust, take his hand, and exit stage right. Then my Mephisto could suitably gnash his teeth and wail. Wouldn't you love it, Lorello?"

"I don't like to wear tomatoes in my hair,” the burly tenor said. "Not that Parisians fight with tomatoes here; instead, they use critics in the newspapers."

"Perhaps we'd get arrested," Kristina joked. "After all, back Maestro Gounod had to change his ending, to get it performed at all. It would be a major scandal."

"Let's do it during rehearsal," Riali whispered. "See if anybody notices."

"You're crazy," Lorello said.

"No, just in character. Come on, just this once."

A delicious wickedness rose up inside Kristina. Riali felt it and hugged her tightly. "Come on," he urged. "Your reputation's too perfect. If I can't corrupt you at the bistro, at least let me corrupt you thoroughly on the stage."

"I'm in. I can't wait to see their faces."

Lorello frowned, but it was more the frown an indulgent father gives to his girls when they want one too many ices, or another kitten, when he has to look like he means 'no,' but he really wants to say yes. Eventually he does, and so did Lorello. "So how do we do this?" he asked.

"Lorello, your Faust is imploring Marguerite, as usual, on stage right," Riali said, "and I'm right next to you, getting beaten down by all those angels, as usual. Camille, my angel, you don’t really have to hit me as hard as you did last time. Then Svenska moves to stage right instead of back center stage, and holds out her hand to you. Keep belting Anges pur, Svenska, but don't look like you're dying, and don't go over to where the angels all assemble. We won't be using the lift anyway, so the chorus'll just stand around singing and showing their armpits. And lovely ones you do have, Camille, my dear. I could bury my nose in them, if you’d only allow it. Ouch! Bad kitten, she scratches! Then, Svenska, you reach out to Lorello, and Lorello, you take Svenska's hand and pull her toward you, so it's really obvious she's going with you, then exit stage right, and I'll do some overdone wailing and weeping all of my own."

Lorello was grinning now. "It'll be worth it, to see Signore Songbird's face."

The piano accompanist banged out the chords as the three moved into position. Kristina put on her most repentant face and could have been the Magdalen herself. Then, as planned, when Lorello's eyes begged her to come over to his importune Faust, she turned toward him instead of heavenward. Rossignol looked sharply at Kristina but didn't rap his baton. The pianist continued as if entranced, and Lorello gave Kristina his best look of naked appeal, his big brown eyes melting like chocolate in the sun. Kristina flushed deep pink. Oh, Annarose, you are so lucky. Did he look at you that way when he asked you to marry him?

She walked over to the big, greying man with hand extended. Tenderly he pulled her towards him as they waltzed toward stage right in an embrace. As if coming back to life, Rossignol gave three sharp raps of the baton, and gave the angry command, "Stop playing, you! Stop it, all of you! What are you doing?" Tenor, soprano, and baritone continued to sing, and so did the chorus. Everyone not in the scene gathered around, with faces either shocked or laughing.

One man raised his fist and shook it in approval. "That's it," he shouted. "Take her right off to paradise."

The piano had stopped, but on Kristina and Lorello went singing. Lorello took her in his arms for a stage kiss, his smiling mouth off to the side of hers, not touching. When she patted his large, soft chest he did embrace her, warmly, resting his face on hers. She went all loose in his arms, and he half held, half carried her off to the right. A fresh wave of shouts and laughter rang through the watchers as Riali capered about lewdly, shaking his fist and pretending to curse. His devil-minions came out to join him as they also delved into the fun.

Lorello turned, planted one final quick kiss on Kristina's cheek, a real one this time, and started to bow. So she did too, as did Riali. Shouts of "Bravi! Bravi!" came from the cast. Even the young accompanist shyly clapped her long, thin hands.

"Thank you, thank you, for our latest and best improvement to the ending of Faust," Riali cackled, ignoring the new repetiteur's angry face, and then preened and strutted at the cheers, raucous shouts, and catcalls from the rest of the cast.

Rossignol looked disgusted, but simply said, "Now that we've had our little joke, we no longer have time to do it right," and looked stiffly away. His hands shook a little as he laid down his baton.

Camille gave Kristina a light punch on the arm. "Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Wouldn't you love to see it on stage? They'd riot."

"Not one of us would get out of there alive.”

"I was watching Rossignol's face. He almost fell over. Marguerite running off with Faust. Imagine that," and they held each other and laughed almost to tears.

Riali wedged himself in between Camille and Kristina, saying, "You kissed Faust, now where's mine?"

"Where's your what?"

"My kiss - after all, this was my idea, and it went over higher than Montgolfier's balloons."

"Most of those got shot down," Camille remarked.

"Do you come with buckets of cold water attached, or do you have to fetch them from the well?" There was a laugh in his voice, but Riali gave Camille a cold glare.

"It was a better ending, I agree," Kristina remarked, pulling Riali towards her for a quick, sisterly peck. She spun out of his arm’s reach as he leaned over for more.

"Escort you home, Svenska?" he said with a foxy grin.

"I don't think so. I have a few things to do here, and for all I know, you're still in character."

Suddenly a clear voice rang through the rehearsal hall. "So you think it's funny to mock God's laws? You laugh when Marguerite gets led off to hell?" The room fell silent as a small pale figure separated herself from the angelic chorus and looked around with blazing eyes. It was Camille's friend, the blonde chorister.

"Save it for Sunday, sweetheart," a man called out.

She turned around angrily. "God isn't mocked. You've cursed Faust in this house, with your jests. You, especially, with your wanton glances," and she pointed to Kristina, her face hard with hostility.

Kristina squirmed under dozens of suddenly staring eyes. Camille said out of the corner of her mouth, "I'm as surprised as you are. I didn't know she was the pious type. She could have fooled me.”

Rossignol hit the podium so hard with his baton that it broke. The top piece skittered over toward the blonde's feet, and she picked it up absently. Her set face was more frightening than her words; it was as if she were locked deeply in dream.

He looked at his broken baton, shook his head and then shouted, "This rehearsal's over. Be prepared to do it right next time! Next time I fine you all!"

Camille hurried over to her friend and took her by the arm, leading her away. Lorello solemnly raised his fingers and spit, warding off the evil eye. Riali had disappeared entirely, and no one spoke to Kristina as the group broke up. As she left the hall, Renata's secretary eyed her coldly all the way out the door, and she felt his gimlet gaze all the long walk home.

As Kristina brushed through the apartment door, the maid Amelie blocked her way with her squat arms planted firmly on her hips, some correspondence in her hands.

"What's this?” Amelie said. "Two letters with de Coucy seals. Are you fishing in deep waters, my girl? They look like invitations to the Contessa's ball."

Kristina snatched the letters from Amelie and flew into her bedroom, shutting the door on Amelie's deep laughter. Reading these would be easier with tea, certainly, but that would mean having to meet Amelie’s mockery in the kitchen, and she had been known to grab a letter out of Kristina's hand before. All for her own good, of course.

One was from Louvel, and one from Etienne. Which one to open first? She studied the outsides carefully. Etienne's hand was firmer than his brother's, almost embossed into the paper. It spoke of confidence.

He had invited her to supper at his private room at the Café Bretano on Rue-de-la-Guerre, the very next evening at 9:00 PM. There was a matter of "mutual importance" they had to discuss. His brother had unfortunately contracted a "non-trivial illness of the chest," but was recovering, and hoped Kristina could shed some light on the events which led to his "extreme emotional outpouring." He also apologized for any irregularities in his brother's manners, and hoped that she would not judge the fine name or reputation of their family on "my brother's most unfortunate boyish behavior."

He does his background work, she thought. He probably checked the schedule and saw that I don't sing tomorrow night. He doesn't miss anything.

She threw the letter down on the counterpane, resigned that a person might as well get hung twice in a day as once, and opened the other one.

My dearest Christine:

The doctor tells me that I am able to sit and write now, as I am out of danger from the catarrhal pleurisy which overtook me after my return to Paris from Ploumanac'h.

Darling Christine, why did you leave so abruptly? I desperately apologize for the weakened state that left me unable to communicate to you the vast importance of your presence, and my great desire to accompany you on the train back to Paris. No doubt your native shyness overcame you, and you wished to continue to savor our friendship in the more conducive environs of Paris.

Although I am still confined to bed, I plan to call on you at the earliest moment permitted by my recovery, and until then will anxiously remain,

Your childhood friend, etc.

Sitting at her desk, she placed the two letters beside one another. How embarrassing, to have two brothers insisting on writing you, and each obviously each ignorant of the other's doings. She drew out a sheet of writing paper.

My dear Monsieur Comte de Coucy,

Thank you for your kind invitation to supper at the Café Bretano. It's such an invigorating and bustling environment, so full of theater people and their admirers. I look forward to seeing you there at 9:00 PM.

With deepest sincerity, etc.

Etienne's brushy moustache and brown hair had no silver in them, and were still thick despite his years. She knew why he had picked the Bretano, that favorite trysting-place for anyone with a singing or dancing mistress. He wanted to remind her of her place, and that she'd better not stray out of it. What game was on his mind, however? It was ignoble and juvenile, to steal one's younger brother's toys, and so presumptuous, not to even ask the toy's opinion.

She decided to hold off on writing Louvel until she saw what Etienne wanted. If he raged at her, he'd get a glass of water thrown in his face, and she'd stomp right out. It's not like anyone at the Bretano hadn't seen that trick before, either.

In the narrow dark kitchen, Amelie looked surprised as Kristina put on a red-embroidered apron and prepared to help her with the supper. "So which one are you going on a carriage ride with?" Amelie said.

"What makes you think I'd go on a carriage ride with either one?"

"Good girl. These aristocrats," and here Amelie almost spit into the sink, "think they can manhandle a girl any way they want. They haven't figured out that times have changed." Amelie, ever the staunch Republican, cut carrots with such vehemence that Kristina feared for her fingers, and while she didn't see what had changed, Amelie didn't give her a chance to argue as she continued on, "So what did they want, if not a carriage ride?"

Might as well tell her, Kristina sighed to herself. "Louvel fancies me, and his brother thinks I'm a bounder, trying to rise above my station. I think Etienne de Coucy wants to warn me off. The one he really needs to warn off is his brother."

Amelie frowned and threw the carrots into the pot, carefully wrapping the tops and tips in a piece of paper. "The mistress says you always had a soft spot in you for horses. You can take these with you to the stable. Are you sure that warning you off is the first thing in his mind?"

"He already has someone, a dancer at the theater named Mirella."

"Oh, that's stopped so many men before. So how old are these two?"

"Louvel is twenty-two, and Etienne is thirty-eight."

"That's an interesting spread. My guess is the gentleman spent most of his time in Paris, and left the lady of the house out in the country. And neither brother's married. That's odd, don't you think?"

"Louvel is a Navy man, so I don't suppose he'd want a wife right now. Both brothers have been on the top of every hostess list for every salon in Paris, but no one's trapped either of them yet."

"Only the women get long in the tooth, never the men," Amelie observed. "So what's wrong with the young aristocrat, then? Most girls in that set would find him a good catch if their Mama picked him for them.”

"If I get a formal proposal, you'll be the first to know. Honestly, I don't know what Louvel wants. He thinks because we spent some summers together as adolescents, and then one afternoon together, that should somehow mean more to me than it does."

"That's heartless."

"No … you misunderstand. It's that I don't know him anymore, and in some ways, I don't know myself. I could like him, probably, if he stopped panting like a big puppy for attention. If he would just let me breathe. Amelie, he showed up at my hotel in Ploumanac'h …"

"What?" Amelie interrupted, waving her kitchen knife.

"It's not what you think! Put that thing down before you take off my nose! It was my fault for writing him, to tell him about Papa's Mass. But what started it all, I think, is that he has been coming to the theater every night that I sing. He won't miss a performance. I don't think he sees me at all, but rather the dress and the hair and the voice. He's stage-struck. As for Etienne, I don't know."

"I do," Amelie said darkly.

"How can you say that? Is there no man you trust? You were married, after all."

"That's right. You answered your own question."

Not liking this turn of conversation, Kristina set the table, wondering if she should have written Etienne in that flippant tone. He wasn't the sort of man to have angry with you.

The next evening, Anneke watched Kristina with a critical eye as she dressed to meet Etienne for supper. "You certainly got Amelie into a furor."

"She's very untrusting. She's already got me installed in a comfortable apartment somewhere, with Moroccan carpets on the floor, peacock feathers in the vase, and everything."

"Don't be too harsh on her. You don't know her story."

"So tell me," Kristina said as Anneke laced up Kristina’s stays, and helped her slip on the sober grey dress.

"You'll look like a postulant on her way to the convent," Anneke remarked.

"Good. I don't want Etienne de Coucy getting any ideas. It's bad enough I'm meeting him at the Bretano's, in a private room, even. The entire theater will know of it tomorrow. What's Amelie's story?"

"Don't be flippant. She's had a hard life."

Kristina had made Anneke lace her stays up just a little tighter than usual, as the grey dress was a snug fit. Best not to eat much dinner. She smoothed the fabric down in front of the mirror and, pleased with the silhouette, turned to do her hair. A pair of jet earrings and a matching jet brooch at the neckline made it perfect.

Over her shoulder, Anneke's face appeared in the mirror, livid with eyes of fire. Kristina turned around, alarmed, and stepped back at the fury in her glance. "Good heavens, Anneke, what's wrong?"

"I thought you might like to know what you want to ignore."

"I'm just going out. You've never objected before."

"It's not the going out. It's your inability to pay attention to another human being right now."

"I am paying attention - look, I'm listening to you."

"It's not me, you goose. Do you have to have everything spelled out for you? Amelie's husband left her with a three-year old girl, got on a boat for Haiti, and attached himself to a sugar plantation where he got both the job of foreman, and someone to warm his bed. His new girl was seventeen years, who'd recently emigrated from France because she'd disgraced her family somehow and had no marriage prospects. She moved into his cottage on the plantation and they soon raised one big happy family. Amelie got left holding the bag, with that slow-witted daughter of hers who has no chance of marrying, and that ancient mother who imagines a new illness every month. If she had them all, she'd be dead five times over by now."

"No wonder she sounded bitter. Poor Amelie."

"No wonder at all. Be careful, Kristina. Etienne de Coucy sounds like an old badger."

"He's probably just going to tell me to stay away from his brother, and I'm going to tell him that I would gladly do so, if he could get his brother under control and keep him from following me all over France."

Anneke looked doubtfully at Kristina, obviously disbelieving her. What was it with these older women? Kristina wondered. They saw trouble coming from every direction.

(Continued …)