Paris: The Novel

you young men take me to the avenue?”
    “Certainly, madame,” said Luc. “It’s not far away.”
    Madame Govrit turned to Thomas.
    “Do me the kindness, young man,” she commanded, “to tell them that I wish to go out.”

    For a moment, Édith was speechless.
    “Go out? Nobody ever goes out. I don’t think they’re allowed to.” They went to find Aunt Adeline.
    “Everything that the residents need is here,” she told them firmly. “And if not, it is bought for them. I’m sure Monsieur Ney would not hear of it.”
    “You’ll have to tell her, Aunt Adeline,” said Édith. “We can’t.”
    Even Aunt Adeline hesitated at the thought of this ordeal. But the situation was quickly put in other hands by the arrival of Monsieur Ney himself.
    “Ah, you are right, this is difficult,” he agreed, as soon as Aunt Adeline had told him the situation. “Normally we do not let the residents out,” he explained to Édith and Thomas, “because most are infirm, some confused. Funds do not permit that we should employ staff to take them out on the streets, and they cannot go alone. Imagine if we had them wandering all over Paris. But Madame Govrit …”—he nodded thoughtfully—“she is perhaps a special case.” He looked at Thomas. “She really wants to go out?”
    “I am afraid she was most insistent, monsieur.” Thomas realized that, inadvertently, he was falling into their way of talking, but he couldn’t do anything about it. “She had been playing cards with my brother. And nowshe wants to go as far as the avenue to get a glimpse of Monsieur Eiffel’s tower—though I do not think the sight will please her.”
    “Couldn’t we tell her it’s cold, and that she should wait until another day?” Édith suggested.
    “With another resident, yes,” said Monsieur Ney with a faint smile. “But Madame Govrit won’t forget, I assure you.” He turned to Thomas again. “I cannot spare Édith or her aunt, but might I ask if you and your brother would convey her to the avenue?”
    “Of course, monsieur.” His chance to get in favor. “With pleasure. We should take the greatest care.”
    “Thank you,” said Ney. “I will go and speak to her myself.”

    They escorted her carefully down the main stairs. She insisted that she would walk with her sticks, but it was as well that the two Gascon brothers went one on each side of her. For the occasion, the handsome front door had been opened. “My aunt says the last time it was unlocked was when Madame Govrit first arrived,” Édith had whispered. Down the front steps they went into the street, where they helped her into the large wheelchair that Monsieur Ney had provided.
    It was certainly a magnificent conveyance. With two large side wheels and a single front wheel, the body of the chair was of handsome wicker basket construction. It took a minute or two before Madame Govrit was ensconced, wrapped with a shawl around her neck and a blanket to cover her body. But when all was ready, with Thomas pushing, the chair moved slowly away from the spectators at the front door with the solemn dignity of an ocean liner leaving port.
    The wicker wheelchair was heavy. Thomas and Luc took turns pushing it. Madame Govrit meanwhile, rather flushed from the cold air, was observing the proceedings carefully. They negotiated one street, turned into another, crossed by a small church. Madame Govrit remarked that it was cold. Thomas politely asked if she wanted to turn back.
    “Never,” she cried, though Thomas noticed a minute later that she had closed her eyes. For a minute or so she nodded off, but was wide awake again by the time they reached the broad avenue de la Grande-Armée.
    It was a quiet, Sunday afternoon. The trees in the avenue were bare. To the left, up the avenue’s gentle slope, the Arc de Triomphe filled a portion of the gray November sky. Across the avenue, the long, low line of buildingsstared dully at their counterparts. Here and there, carriages haunted the empty thoroughfare like boats on a deserted waterway. There were few pedestrians about.
    Thomas pointed across the avenue and to the left.
    “There it is, madame,” said Thomas. “There’s the tower.”
    Had there been a sun in the west, its low rays might have bathed the girders in its softening light, so that they appeared like a mighty Gothic spire, full of romantic promise. But there was no sun. All that was to be seen, a mile away over the rooftops, was a grim, industrial tower