Anne Girard - Madame Picasso

Three dancers in more lavish costumes than the one Sylvette wore came through the door then, drawn by their mistress’s bark. They were anxious to see a fight. In the charged silence, Eva saw each of them look at her appraisingly, their pretty, painted faces full of condescension. One girl put her hands on her hips as she lifted her eyebrows in a mocking fashion. The other two girls whispered to each other. It brought Eva back swiftly to the cruel Vincennes hometown rivals of her youth—girls for whom she had not been good enough, either. They were one of the many reasons she had needed to escape to the city.

For a moment, Eva could not think. Her heart sank.

If she should lose this chance...

She had risked so much just to leave the city outskirts. Most especially, she had risked her family’s disapproval. All she wanted was to make something of her life here in Paris, but so far her ambitions had come to very little. Eva looked away from them as she felt tears pressing hard at the backs of her eyes. She could not risk girls like these seeing her weakness. At the age of twenty-four, she could let no one know that she had yet to fully master her girlish emotions. There was simply too much riding on this one chance, after an unsuccessful year here in Paris, to risk being seen as vulnerable.

“You hope to be a dancer perhaps, like one of them?” Madame Léautaud asked, indicating the other girls with a sharp little nod. “Because it has taken each of them much work and hours of practice to be here, so you would be wasting more of my time, and your own, if that is your intention.”

“I am good with mending lace,” Eva pressed herself to reply without stuttering.

That was true. Her mother had, in fact, fashioned wonderful creations since Eva was a child. Some of them she had brought with her to France from Poland. As a legacy, Madame Gouel had taught her daughter the small, careful stitches that she could always rely upon to help pay the bills once she had married a nice local man and settled into a predictable life. Or so that had been her parents’ hope before their daughter had been lured into Paris just after her twenty-third birthday. This was the first real job opportunity Eva had managed to find, and her money was nearly gone.

Sylvette remained absolutely silent, afraid to endanger her own tenuous standing here by saying a single word more in support. She had given Eva this chance—told her the Moulin Rouge was short a seamstress because, with all of the kicks and pratfalls, the dancers were forever ripping or tearing something. What Eva made of it now in this instant was up to her.

“Very well, I will test you, then,” Madame Léautaud deigned with a little sniff. “But only because I am in dire straits. Come now and mend Aurelie’s petticoat. Make quick work of it, and bring me the evidence of your work while the others are rehearsing.”

“Oui, madame.” Eva nodded. She was so grateful that she suddenly felt overwhelmed, but she steadied herself and forced a smile.

“You really are a tiny thing, like a little nymph, aren’t you? Not altogether unattractive, I must say. What is your name again?” she asked as a casual afterthought based on what Sylvette had told her.

“Marcelle. Marcelle Humbert,” Eva replied, bravely summoning all of her courage to speak the new Parisian name that she hoped would bring her luck.

Since the day she had arrived alone in the city wearing her oversize cloth coat and her black felt hat, and carrying all of her worldly possessions in an old carpetbag, Eva Gouel had been possessed by a steely determination. She fully meant somehow to conquer Paris, in spite of the unrealistic nature of such a lofty goal. Hopefully, this first job would mark the beginning of something wonderful. After all, Eva thought, stranger things had happened.

Madame Léautaud tipped up her chin, edged by a collar of black lace, turned and walked the few steps back toward the open stage door, beckoning Eva to follow. It was then that she caught her first glimpse of the hidden fantasy—the inside of the famous Moulin Rouge.

The walls beyond the door were painted entirely in black, embellished with gold paint, in flourishes and swirling designs. Red velvet draperies hung heavily, flanking the walls, so that from this distance the place had the appearance of a lovely, exotic cave. It was a strange, seductive world into which Eva was so tentatively about to step and, in that moment, her heart raced with as much excitement as fear.

She tried not to look around too conspicuously as she followed. She was ringing her hands behind her back and her heart was pounding. She was not at all certain how she would steady herself enough to guide a thread through a needle.

Behind the stage, it was a dark and shadowy space even though it was mellowed by the light of day. She smelled the odor of spilled liquor and faded perfume. It was actually a little ominous, she thought, but that made it all the more exciting. As more costumed dancers passed her, coming and going toward the stage, she began to recognize them from the posters that were plastered brightly throughout the city. There was la Mariska the ballet mime, Mado Minty the principal dancer and the beautiful comedienne Louise Balthy, who was both Caroline the Tyrolean Doll and la Négresse. There was Romanus the animal trainer, Monsieur Toul with his comic songs and the troupe of Spanish dancers in their short red bolero jackets and black fringed hats.

Eva had never been sure what she would do if she actually ever saw one of these celebrated performers up close, much less met them. The prospect was frightening and yet thrilling at the same time.

What if Madame Léautaud rejected her now that she had come this close? Would she be forced to return to the city outskirts? No, she would not let that happen. She would not go back to Vincennes. But if she stayed in Paris with no job there would be little else for her. Louis’s proposal that they become lovers, and he would therefore take care of her, might become her only option.

Poor Louis. He had been her second friend in Paris. Sylvette had introduced them. Since he was Polish, and her mother was, as well, and they all lived at la Ruche, their friendship had been quickly cemented. The three of them had been inseparable since.

Eva was with Louis earlier that day when she had to sneak away for her interview at the Moulin Rouge. She had made a weak excuse about having forgotten something she needed to do, just before she left him, and dashed around the corner. He was standing there unfastening his portfolio of watercolors outside the door of Vollard’s shop barely hearing her for anxiety over a fortuitous meeting of his own. Ambroise Vollard was the famed art dealer just up the hill on the cobblestoned rue Laffitte and, after months, he had finally agreed to see some of Louis’s work.

Louis, whose real name was Lodwicz, had been studying at the Académie Julian, painting in the evenings and selling cartoons to La Vie Parisienne to pay his rent. The fact that his wonderful Impressionist-style watercolors did not sell, but his cartoons did, was a source of frustration to him.

Louis had loaned Eva money and regularly bought her dinner this past year to help see her through financially. She did not want him as a lover but she did not want to let him down, either. Loyalty meant everything to her.

Now, Eva stood before Madame Léautaud in the dressing room behind the stage as she examined the hem Eva had just mended.

“I can’t even see the stitches or the rip, your work is so fine,” she exclaimed with a mix of admiration and irritated surprise. “You may begin with us this evening. Be back here by six o’clock and not a moment later. And do not be late this time.”

“Merci, madame,” Eva managed to utter in a voice that possessed only a modest hint of confidence. A group of theater technicians and stagehands walked past, chuckling.