Paris: The Novel

didn’t like the way he said it.
    “I thought you were my friend.”
    “I am,
chérie
. But think how this makes me look to him. I look like a fool. And it’s bad for your reputation too.”
    “I understand, Luc. It really won’t happen again.”
    He left after that. But there was tension in the air.

    There was no tension today, however, with Monsieur Chabert. The little lawyer beamed at her.
    “Mademoiselle, you gave me a very easy task. The gentleman concerned is Monsieur Marc Blanchard.” He gave her a quick summary of the family, of Gérard, Marc and Marie, the Joséphine store and the house at Fontainebleau. “Interestingly, it is Marc’s sister who married Fox the Englishman, who now runs the store. Marc was an artist. His work is considered talented, if not of the first rank.”
    “Thank you, monsieur. This is exactly what I wanted.”
    “If this family was involved directly with your mother, then there are two obvious possibilities. She might have been a servant in the house. Or possibly an artist’s model.”
    Louise thanked him, took the little dossier he had prepared and went home to consider it.
    The next day she went to Joséphine. Explaining that she was a model for Chanel, it was easy to strike up a conversation with one of the young women working in the store, who had soon pointed out both Marie and her daughter to her. She obtained a good look at each of them.
    Two days later, she took a train to Fontainebleau. When she reached the address Monsieur Chabert had given her, she entered the courtyard and went up the steps to the front door, where she rang the bell. A maid soon answered it. Might she speak to Monsieur Blanchard, she asked? “My name is Louise Charles,” she added. It was a common name she’d chosen at random.
    After a couple of minutes she was ushered into the salon, where she found an elderly man, looking a little puzzled.
    She’d prepared a simple story. Her father, who had retired to the south, had once had a friend called Gérard Blanchard, whose family came from Fontainebleau. Hearing that she was visiting the town, her father had asked her to find out what happened to his friend.
    “Mademoiselle,” the old man said, “I regret to inform you that my sondied during the war. His widow lives in Paris, however, as do his brother and sister.”
    She explained that it was really Gérard that her father knew, but took his widow’s address when the old man insisted on writing it down for her. She refused any refreshment, but thanked him for his kindness.
    Out in the street, she walked a little way to the small square by the local church, where she sat down on a bench.
    Had she just met her grandfather? She’d liked the old man. She hoped it might be so.
    And if she had met Marc in some other circumstances, if she was still the person she had been before Luc had introduced her to her present life, she might have gone back and told the nice old man her story. If she could have convinced him that she hadn’t come to cause trouble, he might have been persuaded to tell her who she was. And, if she was lucky, to say a word of kindness to her.
    But she couldn’t. Not now.
    At least, she thought, if he really is my grandfather, I shall have met him and known what he was like.
    So now she knew the Blanchard family. What could she do next?

    The gallery was in the rue Taitbout, only a short walk from her apartment. She’d gone to several of the best galleries—Vollard, Kahnweiler and Durand-Ruel. She quite enjoyed her quest. It was educational. They all knew Marc Blanchard, but it was the assistant at Durand-Ruel who knew where his work was to be found.
    “It’s a small gallery, quite new. The Galerie Jacob,” she was told.
    The gallery was certainly small, and Monsieur Jacob turned out to be a young man, only a little taller than herself, with delicate features.
    “My grandfather has an antiques business, and my father helps him, so I wanted to do something different,” he explained. “I’m delighted if you are interested in the work of Marc Blanchard. He was very helpful to me in getting started, and I represent him. If you stay in the gallery, I’ll bring some of his work for you to see.”
    They spent quite a while looking at canvases. Though she didn’t know much about art, it seemed to her that the work was good. Several were portraits, and she told him she’d like to see more of them. He had almost a dozen.
    “Do we know who any of these young women are?”