Lulu was calling after Genevieve as she ran down seven flights of stairs to get out of the apartment building. Tick-tacking stupidly downward on spindly heels and almost twisting her ankles. Gagging at the stench of the shared squat toilets on the landings, and with the sheer physical effort of holding herself together. She could still hear Lulu’s voice as she hit the street outside.

It was a different city here. The flashy boutiques of the Rue de la Paix with their huge windows and opulent foyers; the flamboyance of the bars and cafés of Montparnasse; the genteel elegance of the Rue de Lota—they could have been a million miles away. There were no taxis—no cars at all in evidence, so she was forced to walk back to civilization.

The air was heavy. Summer was bulging and overripe—rotting, almost. Genevieve passed through alleyways between towering buildings that seemed precarious, on the verge of crumbling. Beneath lines of washing strung back and forth like some crazy, cat’s cradle string-game. Bare-armed women leaned out of high windows, smoking and chatting to each other. Children, in outsized knitted clothing, hung about in the dirty doorways, playing with marbles and stones and dice. Dogs without collars dabbled in the gutters.

She’d been here once or twice before. Pierre had waited for her in the Bentley outside Lulu’s building while the local children looked on and whispered to each other. But she’d never walked through these streets and looked at them close up. She’d never given much thought to the way Lulu lived, assuming, perhaps, that her circumstances were a deliberate Bohemian choice—colorful, artistic, kimono-wearing poverty rather than mere drab penury. Now it struck her that her assumptions and complacency might have weighed heavily on Lulu. She thought about Lulu and Olga, drinking together in the little bar, sharing secrets, and perhaps sharing more than that, implicitly, without words. But was it her fault that she was rich, while Lulu and Olga were poor? It was no excuse for such a betrayal.

Finally she was out of the squalor and nearing the river. A pair of young lovers stood kissing in the street, their bicycles leaning against a lamppost. The boy had a soft, downy look to his face. The girl was pink and glowing and tiny. Genevieve couldn’t look at them without crying. At last she spotted a taxi.

( forty-two )