Paris: The Novel

was easy to talk to. That evening after the Ballets Russes, they’d gone back across the river with her uncle Marc, and then walked down the long boulevard Raspail into Montparnasse where they’d met his friends, and she’d felt so easy in his company. He’d seemed to enjoy her company too. He’d laughed at her jokes. When they walked her home, there had been a party of six of them, walking along empty streets, and they’d all linked arms. Frank had been next to her, so that she’d felt his tall, warm body against hers, and they’d all kissed each other on both cheeks, in the usual French manner, before she went into the building where she lived. But she hadn’t been able to tell whether he was interested in her or not.
    She’d seen him once again, at the very end of July. She’d agreed to meet him and the Hemingways early one evening at the big Dôme Café bar, where all the artists and writers gathered. “Lenin used to come here too, when he was living in Paris,” she informed him. “Uncle Marc told me.” It had been very pleasant. Hadley Hemingway had informed them proudly that Ernest had written maybe a dozen stories already that year, and then Hemingway had turned to his wife and asked if she’d seen any of Frank’s writing. Frank frowned, and she said, No, she hadn’t.
    “You should show her your stuff,” said Hemingway to Frank. “She’d be a good judge.” But Frank just looked awkward and said it wasn’t good enough yet, and probably never would be.
    “You need to stay in Paris for a good while,” said Hadley. “We think it suits you.”
    “That’s right,” said Hemingway.
    “Don’t go disappearing on us, like Gil,” said Hadley.
    “Who’s Gil?” asked Claire.
    “Oh, he was a nice young American that we all thought had promise,” said Hadley. “And then suddenly he wasn’t there anymore. Disappeared without a word.”
    “I won’t do that,” said Frank.
    After that, he’d walked her back, and he’d talked about his home in America, and asked her all kinds of questions about Joséphine and the plans for the store. He seemed quite interested in what her mother did there as well. In fact, he seemed rather fascinated by her mother. Then he told her that he was going to spend part of August in Brittany. So she hadn’t expected to see him again until September.

    It was the third week of August when Marc, after an absence of a few days in Paris, returned not alone, but with Frank. “I’d just looked in at the Dôme to meet a man, and there he was. I told him to come down to Fontainebleau with me.”
    Since the house was almost full, Marie told Claire that she’d better let Frank have her room.
    “There’s the little boudoir beside my room,” she told her daughter. “We can put a bed in there for you.”
    Frank seemed a little embarrassed that he might be inconveniencing everybody, especially Claire; but Marie assured him that it was a family house and everyone was used to making room for friends.
    And indeed, Marc soon made Frank into a family project.
    “This is a wonderful opportunity for you,” he declared. “Here you are in the middle of a French family, and we shall teach you how to be French.” He smiled. “An even better Frenchman than your father was.”
    Every morning, Claire was to spend an hour teaching him to speak French. Then he’d spend another hour with Marie. She might take him to the kitchen and show him how all kinds of dishes were made. Or she might take him to the market to shop. She simply involved him in whatever activity she was employed upon at the time, and gave him a running commentary. As for Marc, he would take Frank and anyone else who wanted to come to the old château, or across to the village of Barbizon, or show him books in the small library and talk of French history and culture. In ten days of this regime, Frank learned an astonishing amount.
    One lunchtime, Frank confessed that he had still not fully understood how Paris was organized geographically. And here everyone had something to tell him.
    “First,” Marc explained, “you must understand how Paris has grown from a modest Roman town to a medieval city.” And he told him how the city had expanded, like a growing egg, as he put it, enclosed by a series of walls taking in further suburbs each time.
    “So we have, for instance, the ancient Île de la Cité, and the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève where the university is, which was once a Roman forum. Across the river