Robert Craven - Get Lenin

She introduced Eva to absinthe. Sometimes when alone with the photograph of Jonas, Eva drank it to numb herself when the memories of his death overwhelmed her.

Sometimes Madame Yvette would join the discussion group as they smoked and drank, open about her profession and taking Eva under her wing. She watched Eva and the almost chemical effect she had on men. The raucous debates that took place were mostly about their simply trying to impress her. Yvette wondered why Eva wasn’t harnessing this power and using it to her ends,

‘In this life, Eva, our youth, beauty and intelligence are sometimes all we have. In this world, men may make all the decisions, yet we have to bend them to our will. We only have so long before our bloom begins to fade and their attention starts to wander,’

Eva would learn in time to take this advice on board. Yvette had a rare quality. She genuinely liked and understood men and loved being a woman. She had a lover, a married man, and she was content to exist in the shadows. She was also discreet; her lover was a high ranking official in the government and was inclined to talk about what he did just to impress her. It was a useful power to have, she told Eva,

‘Men! Their flies and their mouths they never keep closed in the presence of beauty. Use it Eva, and if they get too rough. .’ Yvette produced a small wicked mother-of-pearl handle stiletto from her boot, ‘cut them.’

Theo, Eva, Dariusz and the students immersed themselves in the Paris film scene, spending long stretches in the cinemas sipping from hidden flasks of brandy and whiskey. This was followed by meals, wine and debates into the early hours. Eva and Yvette began to appear in Dariusz’s projects. Devising the scene, he would produce a measuring tape and measure out the distance between the camera and subject. He would spend hours adjusting the lights borrowed from a small amateur theatre nearby to create the mood required. Returning each time to his camera perched on its tripod and peering into the viewfinder, he would grunt or laugh depending on his mood. Everything about Dariusz was measured, carefully thought out and purposely executed. In some instances a three-minute short would take three days to film at eight hour stretches.

During these long spells, Yvette would tell Eva about her life and her adventures, occasionally returning to her bordello to ensure everything was running like clockwork. Once Dariusz was satisfied with everything required for the scene, he would shout ‘Action!’ and Eva and Yvette would perform his carefully composed script. Then he would shoot footage of other things — animals, cars, trains, close-ups of a facial feature, random objects — and splice the various reels together, disappearing for days in his darkroom. In the student cinemas around the city, he would run his final pieces and then the whole ensemble would discuss their merits or flaws.

Theo and Dariusz took French lovers, drawing and filming them, moving onto the next one once the initial passion burned out. They told Eva they were living for the moment, without regret, without worry, never thinking of tomorrow; enjoying now. Eva found their hedonism amusing, as even when seducing women they were still competing against each other, trying to get the upper hand.

Theo would show Eva the charcoal drawings of the girls he was involved with, looking for a reaction. She would simply smile or shrug indifferently, remarking whether or not the piece was simply good or bad. This would irk him and he’d put the piece away with a grunt, making Eva smile to herself. Occasionally they would sleep together in a familiar companionable intimacy when the brandy or absinthe took hold.

During the summer, they took the train to Marseilles, the Mediterranean weather turning their skins brown. Theo had acquired a straw panama hat; Dariusz, aware of the bald patch evolving at the back of his head, wore a felt trilby. He would sit at the coffee houses with the North African aromas drifting over him, sweating, reading or writing in a white vest, his trilby tilted against the sun.

They stayed in a run-down but clean hotel managed by an Arab who would bow every time Theo and Eva passed the front desk. As in Paris, Eva had a room to herself, the men sharing the room beside her. Her room had a view of the harbour from the balcony and she woke to the sounds of the fishermen from the wharves and the cries of the gulls.

By day she would wander the narrow streets and photograph the old women, the boys kicking footballs, and the men gathered around hookahs smoking. She would sit and talk with them. As a mark of respect, she wore modest attire, a scarf or hat covering her hair, remembering her grandfather’s travel journals from Iran, Egypt and Palestine.

One afternoon in her room Theo asked her to take a photograph of him; an unusual request,

'I'm thinking about going to Albi for a few days. The cathedral is supposed to have vivid depictions of the damned around its altar.' Theo noted that Eva was still concentrating on her view finder.

'What about your moody friend Sandrine?’ Eva suggested without looking up.

Theo's smiled broadened. Sandrine was a waitress he had met in the Bistro Benoit and had taken as a lover. She was an unpublished poet, voluptuous with lush red hair and chestnut brown eyes. At the very mention of her name, Eva would mimic the hand gestures Sandrine would make when emphasising a point.

''She's finishing a collection of verse, cannot be disturbed.'

It was Eva's turn to smile. 'She's always finishing a collection, Theo. Still she suits you. She's passionate about what she does and very much in love with you.’ The last three words were an imitation of Sandrine's voice.

Theo had hit a nerve. He liked that. 'But she's not you.' Theo had shifted his body slightly in the chair, leaning toward her. 'Noticed me all of a sudden, Kassinski?'

'Always have.' Eva looked up and met his gaze. He was handsome, unpredictable and generous, but couldn’t replace Jonas, never in a lifetime. 'I'm happy with the way things are, Theo. You know the story.'

A shadow flashed across his features. 'You've never told me once how you feel about me.' He was gazing out of the window again. She felt a seismic shift in their relationship. Bringing her gaze back to the viewfinder, she said as gently as possible 'I'm still here, aren't I?'

Without looking toward her Theo said, 'Eva, I'm in love with you.'

This was met with silence, followed by the shutter click.

He wouldn’t make eye contact as he lit another cigarette. A shadow crossed his features as he exhaled.

Then events across the border with Spain became the centre of discussion; the gathering clouds of civil war. Theo had gone to the city of Albi to sit in the cafes of Toulouse Lautrec, armed with his sketchbooks, leaving Dariusz and Eva alone. Dariusz had told her over coffee in the men’s apartment that he was in love with her. She smiled and told him also that there was no possibility it could ever be reciprocated. She told him about Jonas, that Theo was comfortable with the arrangement, and that was the way she wanted things to remain.

Though he smiled, Eva could sense a deeper hurt from him, his large eyes welling up before she looked away. On his return, Theo sensed immediately the uneasy atmosphere between Eva and Dariusz which was now hanging about them. Neither of them said anything to Theo, but he figured it was Eva’s allure and a curt rejection to an advance that was the reason.

Dariusz was perhaps a little more fragile than Theo, always a bit more sensitive to criticism, whereas Theo believed absolutely in his own capabilities. The three began to drift apart over the remaining weeks.

They returned to Paris after a month, with the news that the Spanish Civil War had escalated and now the International Brigades were being formed. Dariusz and some of his French friends had signed up to fight Franco’s forces. Theo and Eva tried to talk him out of it, but nothing could shake him, Eva suspecting that it was in reaction to her rejection.