Paris: The Novel

it …”
    “I’m afraid of that.” Édith shook her head. “It can be dangerous.”
    “You know, my child, that if you have the child and keep it, you have no chance of making a respectable marriage, don’t you? Unless you marry this boy. But I foresee a life of poverty.”
    “I know. I need to think.”
    “Well, don’t think for too long. It’ll show in a while.”
    “I feel as if it does already.”
    “That’s just your imagination. But during the spring …”
    And now March had begun, and still Édith hadn’t decided what to do. Nor had she told Thomas.

    Édith didn’t often think about her father. The truth was, she hardly remembered him. But she knew what he looked like. Her mother had no picture of him, but Aunt Adeline did. The picture showed quite a handsome-looking man. His hair appeared to be the same dark color as Aunt Adeline’s, but where hers was neatly pulled back, his was shaggy. There was something boyish about him. He was wearing a jacket, but his shirt was open at the collar. He looked like what he was, an intelligent workingman, a builder, Aunt Adeline said.
    Had he left because his wife was a foolish drinker, or had she got that way because he left? Édith suspected it was the latter, but she wasn’t sure, and Aunt Adeline would never discuss it. Where had he gone? “Who knows?” her aunt would say with a shrug.
    Sometimes Édith would imagine that Aunt Adeline did know where her father was and that she was keeping it a secret. Perhaps he did not want to live with her mother. Perhaps there was some other trouble that he had to hide. Perhaps he was in prison. But she liked to think that, wherever he was, he cared about her. She pictured him asking Aunt Adeline for reports of her, and listening to them eagerly. He might know all about her. He could even be secretly watching her sometimes as she walked down the street—watching her with love and pride. It was possible. You never knew. She realized that these were childish fantasies, but she could not help it if, when she was in her bed all alone at night, she sometimes allowed herself to dream of such things before she went to sleep.
    Lately, she had been thinking of her father more often. And she compared in her mind the feelings of warmth that these foolish dreamsbrought her with the feeling of warmth and comfort she experienced when she was with Thomas, and he put his strong arms around her, and held her. And sometimes when she thought of him like that, she thought she would tell him about the baby growing within her, and sometimes she wasn’t so sure. But she was beginning to think that perhaps she would.
    So when he suggested that they meet Pepe and Anna on Sunday, because Pepe had discovered an Irish bar where you could eat cheaply—he was always inventive like that—she’d agreed, thinking that maybe at the end of the day, when she and Thomas were walking back together, she might tell him her secret.

    They met at the Irish bar in the middle of the day. It was on the edge of the Saint-Germain quarter near the old Irish College. The two young men were especially pleased with themselves because their crew had been among the last twenty men working at the top of the tower. This was a special badge of honor.
    Pepe insisted they all drink the dark Irish Guinness with their meal, which they were not used to. Then they drank some red wine. Thomas amused them all by confessing how he’d sworn to Monsieur Eiffel that he had an excellent head for heights, and then frozen with panic before the building even got to the first platform. Anna told them stories about her huge family in Italy. By the time they were finally ready to leave, they were all very happy, but a little tipsy.
    They strolled back together, along the left bank of the Seine. The tower, virtually completed, rose into the blue sky ahead of them. They reached the great site, where numerous halls were already being prepared for the huge exhibition. Some way off, there were people on the bridge staring up, but the fenced-off site was empty.
    And they were just about to go their separate ways when Pepe said: “And now, Thomas and I will give you a demonstration of the fearless flyers of the Eiffel Tower.”
    He led them to a small gap in the fence and in another minute they were in the quiet space under the huge southern archway of the tower.
    “Want to come up?” he asked the girls.
    “No,” said Édith. “Anyway it’s all locked.”
    But Pepe only