Paris: The Novel

places like the Moulin, or perhaps it was just something innate in Luc’s character, but Thomas was more likely to confide such information to him than to most adults.
    “You had a
touche
,” Luc said. A mutual attraction.
    “No,” said Thomas, “more than that. A
coup de foudre
.” A thunderbolt. Love at first sight.
    “How will you find her again?”
    “I don’t know. It’ll happen.”
    “You think it’s fate?”
    “Yes.”
    “That’s impressive.”

    But he didn’t find her. He had no information he could use. The city and suburbs of Paris now contained more than three million people, and she could be anywhere. She might even have come from another town.
    At first, on days when he wasn’t working, he’d go to the spot where he had seen her. He’d go at noon, the exact moment when their eyes had met. Might it be that she was also looking for him? And if so, mightn’t she have the same idea and find him there? It was a long shot, but it was the only hope he had.
    As the weeks and months went by, in his spare time, he’d go for a walk in a different part of the city, just in case he might catch sight of her. He came to know Paris far better, but he never saw the girl. Only Luc knew about these wanderings.
    “You’re like a knight in search of the Holy Grail,” he told his olderbrother, and each time Thomas returned, Luc would quietly ask, “Did you find the Grail?”

    Though he did not find the Holy Grail, these wanderings had another effect upon Thomas that was profoundly to influence his destiny. That spring, he’d been busy at Gaget, Gauthier et Cie. Although the Statue of Liberty had been completed in time for the Fourth of July the previous year, the huge pedestal on which it was to rest in New York had not been ready. It wasn’t until the start of 1885 that Thomas had helped dismantle the huge statue, which was finally packed into 214 large crates and shipped across the Atlantic. It had been on its way to New York on the day of Victor Hugo’s funeral.
    The question then became, what was he to do next?
    To his mother’s delight, Gaget, Gauthier et Cie were happy to employ him. Evidently his hard work and his good eye had impressed them. “They tell me that in a few years, I could become one of the skilled men who make the carvings and the ornaments,” he reported. Skilled work. Safe work. It was everything his mother had always hoped for.
    The trouble was, he didn’t want it.
    Was it the long walks in his quest for the girl? Was it the feeling of being cooped up when he was working in the sheds at the foundry? Or the prospect of one day sitting at one of the long work tables with all the craftsmen and being unable to move? Whatever the cause, his strong young body revolted against the idea. He wanted to be out of doors. He wanted to feel the strength of his arm. He scarcely cared about the weather, even when it was cold, or raining, as long as he was physically working.
    He was young. He was strong. He rejoiced in the sense of his physical power.
    He loved to watch the men on the bridges, the riveters on the building sites. One day, without telling his parents what he had done, he politely explained to the foreman at the rue de Chazelles that he was quitting. A week later, he had joined a gang of ironworkers as the most junior member of a riveting gang, and he was working on the railways.
    When his mother discovered, she was distraught.
    “You don’t understand,” she cried. “Laboring men get sick. They get injured. You won’t always be young and strong. But if you have a skill, you work indoors and you can always find employment.”
    But Thomas wasn’t listening.
    The Gare Saint-Lazare lay only a short walk southwest from the foot of the hill of Montmartre. Its ever-expanding railway lines serviced the many towns of Normandy, and there were always repairs and alterations to be done.
    Through the second half of 1885, therefore, and the spring of 1886, Thomas Gascon went about his work quietly. Early each morning he would walk the mile from his home in Montmartre to the Gare Saint-Lazare. On his days off, he continued to trudge around the different quarters of Paris, in the hope of seeing the girl again. By the spring, he admitted the quest was absurd, but he still went out a couple of times a month, out of habit as much as anything.
    “Time to look for another woman,” Luc remarked to him one day. “You’re too faithful.”
    “One should be faithful,” Thomas