The Reinvention of Love

Claudine will undoubtedly be thin and sickly, over-rouged, her teeth rotting in her head.
    My friends don’t understand why I take these women in, why I keep Adèle in my employ. I can’t explain it to them properly.
    Years ago I dreamed of living with Adèle Hugo. I dreamed that she would leave her husband and come away with me, that we would spend the rest of our days together. I remember the prayer I would offer up in the small church where we used to meet.
Please, God, let me live with Adèle
.
    I didn’t realize I had to be so specific. I didn’t realize my prayer should have been
Please, God, let me live with Adèle Hugo
.
    Adèle has come to me. My prayer has been answered. How could I possibly throw her out? And the prostitutes need help. They need a place to stay. Adèle feels powerful at being able to help them. I feel powerful at being able to help her.
    I was afraid that I would die alone and lonely, and now I can be assured that will not happen. My house is full of energy and chaos. We are in full sail on this stormy sea.
    “Shall we have some almond cake tonight?” I ask Adèle, refilling her glass.
    “It’s in the pantry,” she says, and we stare each other down to see who will get up from the table to fetch it.
    The happiness that comes to you is never the happiness you imagine. I never would have dreamed that I would know a one-handed prostitute called “The Penguin”, or that the scent from the flowers Adèle has placed throughout the house would drift up the staircase with enough force to stop my hand above the page while I work.
    “There you go,” I say, setting the plate of cake down before Adèle.
    She switches the plates around. “No, Monsieur,” she says shyly. “That’s not right. You should have the bigger piece.”
    Victor is in exile. He is living with Adèle and his children on the Channel Islands. Apparently his mistress, Juliette Drouet, is also there. He has secured a house for her near his family home.
    Needless to say, Victor was a noisy supporter of the Republic. Since his election to the Académie française in 1840 he had become increasingly involved in politics. He campaigned for the Republicans. He spoke out against the death penalty. When Napoleon’s nephew, Napoleon III, seized control of the government and instantly destroyed all the reforms Victor had worked so hard to establish, he was very upset.
    Victor does not like to be opposed. I know this better than anybody. And the more famous he has become, the less he likes dissension, the less it agrees with him.
    After Victor declared Napoleon III to be a traitor to France, the Hugos had to leave for Brussels. They then went to the Channel Islands, where they remain. Occasionally, Victor dispatches a political pamphlet on the ruination of France. Even though the pamphlets are banned here, they manage to be smuggled in. The political pamphlets, like all of Victor’s work, are very popular. The last one was called
Napoleon le Petit
.
    Of course, it was a shrewd move on Victor’s part to go into exile, because now that he is absent from Paris, he just becomes more beloved, more valuable, in the minds of the people. It is as though he cannot take a wrong step. Everything he does advances his career.
    Victor’s exile, sadly, means Adèle’s exile. It is fitting, I suppose, as the end of our love affair has felt like an exile anyway. Any small hope I might have had about Adèle’s return to me has been dashed to pieces on the rocky shores of Guernsey.
    I stay in. I go out. My habits, now the habits of years, are reassuring because they belong to me, but they offer less and less comfort. I have a restlessness that I can’t find a way to settle. Even my cook comments on it.
    “You’ve got mice in your underclothes,” she says, one day when she comes to deliver my morning chocolate. “Look at you, all scratchy and full of the nerves.”
    I have been pacing back and forth in front of the window.Adèle places the cup of chocolate on my desk without spilling any. She seems remarkably sober this morning.
    “I can’t bear to think of the Hugos on the Channel Islands,” I burst out.
    I picture my Adèle walking the windswept coastal paths, being blown off into the foaming sea. I see her floating on the surf, her hair tangled with seaweed, fish nibbling at her fingers and toes.
    “What are the Channel Islands?” asks Adèle. Like most Parisians, she has little interest in the rest of the world.
    We pore over