The Girl You Left Behind

from
     the cold. I thought of the girl Édouard had left behind two years ago. I thought of
     the feel of his hands on my waist, his soft lips on my neck. And I closed my eyes.
    He had been in a foul mood for days. He was
     working on a picture of three women seated around a table and he could not get it right.
     I had posed for him in each position and watched silently as he huffed and grimaced,
     eventhrew down his palette at one point, rubbing his hands through
     his hair and cursing himself.
    ‘Let’s take some air,’ I
     said, uncurling myself. I was sore from holding the position, but I wouldn’t let
     him know that.
    ‘I don’t want to take some
     air.’
    ‘Édouard, you will achieve
     nothing in this mood. Take twenty minutes’ air with me. Come.’ I reached for
     my coat, wrapped a scarf around my neck, and stood in the doorway.
    ‘I don’t like being
     interrupted,’ he grumbled, reaching for his own coat.
    I didn’t mind his ill-temper. I was
     used to him by then. When Édouard’s work was going well, he was the sweetest
     of men, joyful, keen to see beauty in everything. When it went badly, it was as if our
     little home lay under a dark cloud. In the early months of our marriage I had been
     afraid that this was somehow my fault, that I should be able to cheer him. But listening
     to the other artists talk at La Ruche, or in the bars of the Latin Quarter, I grew to
     see such rhythms in all of them: the highs of a work successfully completed, or sold;
     the lows when they had stalled, or overworked a piece, or received some stinging
     criticism. These moods were simply weather fronts to be borne and adapted to.
    I was not always so saintly.
    Édouard grumbled all the way along rue
     Soufflot. He was irritable. He could not see why we had to walk. He could not see why he
     could not be left alone. I didn’t understand. I didn’t know the pressure he
     was under. Why, Weber and Purrmann were already being pursued bygalleries near the Palais Royale, offered shows of their own. It was rumoured that
     Monsieur Matisse preferred their work to his. When I tried to reassure him that this was
     not the case he waved a hand dismissively, as if my view was of no account. His choleric
     rant went on and on until we reached the Left Bank, and I finally lost patience.
    ‘Very well,’ I said, unhooking
     my arm from his. ‘I am an ignorant shop girl. How could I be expected to
     understand the artistic pressures of your life? I am simply the one who washes your
     clothes and sits for hours, my body aching, while you fiddle with charcoal, and collects
     money from people to whom you do not want to seem ungenerous. Well, Édouard, I will
     leave you to it. Perhaps my absence will bring you some contentment.’
    I stalked off down the bank of the Seine,
     bristling. He caught up with me in minutes. ‘I’m sorry.’
    I kept walking, my face set.
    ‘Don’t be cross, Sophie.
     I’m simply out of sorts.’
    ‘But you don’t have to make me
     out of sorts because of it. I’m only trying to help you.’
    ‘I know. I know. Look, slow down.
     Please. Slow down and walk with your ungracious husband.’ He held out his arm. His
     face was soft and pleading. He knew I could not resist him.
    I glared at him, then took his arm and we
     walked some distance in silence. He put his hand over mine, and found that it was cold.
     ‘Your gloves!’
    ‘I forgot them.’
    ‘Then where is your hat?’ he
     said. ‘You are freezing.’
    ‘You know very well I have no winter
     hat. My velvet walking hat has moth, and I haven’t had time to patch
     it.’
    He stopped. ‘You cannot wear a walking
     hat with patches.’
    ‘It is a perfectly good hat. I just
     haven’t had time to see to it.’ I didn’t add that that was because I
     was running around the Left Bank trying to find his materials and collect the money he
     was owed to pay for them.
    We were outside one of the grandest hat
     shops in Paris. He saw it, and pulled us both to a standstill. ‘Come,’ he
     said.
    ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
    ‘Don’t disobey me, wife. You
     know I am easily tipped into the worst of moods.’ He took my arm, and before I
     could protest further, we had stepped into the shop. The door closed behind us, the bell
     ringing, and I gazed around in awe. On shelves or stands around the walls, reflected in
     huge gilded looking-glasses, were the most beautiful hats I had ever seen: enormous,
     intricate creations in jet