Alexander Chee - The Queen of the Night

It is, I said. Yes.

If anyone asks, you are the driver’s niece from near the Alps. In public, if people address you, say nothing, and I will explain you speak no French. Do you understand? This is what I need you to do for me right now.

I do, I said.

Very good, she said. I was sure you were quick. This protects you also.

As we pulled to a stop in front of an elegant atelier, she turned to me and said, Perhaps someday, when you have the chance, you will tell me who you really are. Though it may never matter.

§

The address she’d shouted to her driver was for the dressmaker Félix.

On this first day I stood in his workshop, the Comtesse promptly introduced me as her driver’s niece, as we’d agreed, and he said, Oh, but I know you, this is certainly Jou-jou of the Bal Mabille. Sister to La Frénésie.

There was an awkward silence as the Comtesse looked to me. I tilted my head as if confused. As if I’d never heard the name. He laughed loudly.

You are the picture of her, he said, if you are not her. I had heard she died at Saint-Lazare, so perhaps you are her ghost? Or her doppelganger? If so, now that she is dead, that is good luck for you; you won’t ever see her. I will check later if you can cancan, though. He winked. His assistants tittered behind him as I shook my head again and the Comtesse told him I knew no French.

I was relieved to be taken behind the screen and undressed. I had heard she died at Saint-Lazare. As I was helped out of my peddler dress, I thought of the apartment on the avenue de l’Opéra, the tenor with my little ruby rose pinned over his heart — would he have kept it and all it contained, then, or would he have sold it all to a peddler? All of my things on a cart in the street.

I was given a muslin shift to wear and brought into a smaller room with an alcove that had mirrors on three sides, and I stood there as he measured me.

You must be the most important driver’s niece in Italian history, Félix said. I have never provided this sort of service to even an intimate of the Comtesse’s.

I shrugged, he laughed, and he continued to measure me.

This joke of his alarmed me — it was, of course, his way of telling me he did not believe her or me. But it also told me he did not fear her, which I allowed myself to admire. Like many who served Paris society, Félix was in the business of keeping his clients’ secrets; for him to be indiscreet would mean he was dying or retiring. But he would, until then, still have his fun.

They held bolts of cloth to my face and discussed the cuts as the assistants tied a corset to me and attached a cage crinoline to my waist before having me stand on a stool. Slowly, a muslin dress shape was pinned to me with several necklines. After a conference between Félix and the Comtesse, an order was placed for a bright blue poplin dress with three bodices I could remove and replace without removing the skirt — a new modern convenience made mostly with sewing machines so it could be prepared more quickly. The one for day was plain, with sleeves to my wrist and a high neck; the one for dinner, with silver silk ribbon piping and a white machine-lace trim, was cut lower but still demurely, and the sleeves just covered the shoulders. The last, for the opera, was square cut, more daring, a black-velvet-ribbon trim at the neckline, the arms nearly bare.

Crinolines and a skirt cage were chosen, as well as shoes, gloves, and a hat.

The three bodices at least suggested a better life than the one I had known before — I had never owned a day dress. I felt like one of the most elegant prisoners in Paris and counted myself lucky again.

The Comtesse then returned to the rue de Passy, and I went back to my room and the driver’s wife, where I was to wait until the toilette was ready. In my memory it was three days or five, perhaps it was a week. The days were the same — spent at a simple window, looking into a courtyard where I could watch a mother cat and her kittens at play or playing bezique and drinking peppered gin with the driver’s wife, a favorite drink of hers that I grew to like. She continued to lock me in all the while, but I wouldn’t have left. I had decided to see the Comtesse’s offer through. And this room, it cost me nothing.

§

There was a question that I could not bring myself to ask, for it seemed sure to insult her. This question was How does one become a woman who inspires a man to settle on her the sum of a half-million francs? It seemed indelicate to even suggest she could teach me anything of this kind. But there was no need to ask her; her whole life was the answer.

This way, I heard her say, from inside her parlor; and then she appeared at the door, her champagne already in hand. I went in and sat down. This was the morning my toilette would be ready. She had wanted to see me first.

I was only looking for someone who had been thrown away when I found you, she said, once the door had closed. And yet you are so much more, she said. I have been thinking of your situation and how to help you best.

A review of your talents and history suggests the following. You are good at sewing, observant, and discreet. You are a natural actress. You have some beauty, but not so much that you cannot, if you choose, blend into the background. Your teeth and hands are good, though you are small and too thin for most men. Your face and head are large, and as such, suited to the stage. But perhaps you will fill in after a few meals. You should learn to eat more heartily when in private. Most men do not like to see a woman eat.

What else? She tilted her head as she asked this, as if the answers came from someone offstage.

If not for your lack of papers, you would be suited to be a diplomat’s wife. You could be a courtesan, though much would depend on your enthusiasm for men. And your ability to sense how to get them to act on your behalf. Without an instinct for this, most women with these ambitions are doomed to a certain level. Consider, for example, La Païva. She is no great beauty. But she has more than beauty. She keeps no list of prix d’amours ; there is only a sum for which, if it is not met, she is not aroused. The man does not exist. But when the sum is there or surpassed, what comes to life in her makes that man feel, during the moments he is with her, as if he were the most fascinating, most interesting, most delightful man in the world. He is not paying her for favors. Favors are nothing compared to this. He is her protector because in the moments he is with her he feels as he never does away from her. This feeling, this is everything. So he pays for her food, her horses, her dresses, her home, all so as to be able to be this man he is when he is with her. And if he must extend the realm she occupies so he can also be that man elsewhere, this is what he will do. But she never even meets his glance without the sum. And this is why she has the finest home in Paris and the attentions of her German industrialist.

With your lack of family connections, you will most likely never marry. Any man of quality would eventually marry someone else — you would be his distraction. You can offer no guarantees, you see, for your offspring. You would do best to become a celebrity of some kind. And then, once you are sought after, you might find a husband.

But who knows? Who knows what you will be. And you may never want a husband once you see what a husband is.

§

When we returned to Félix’s atelier to retrieve my dresses, a gentleman in a perfectly tailored dark suit appeared at her elbow and whispered in her ear.

She thanked him dismissively, but lightly so; her scorn was not for him. This way, my dear, she said to me. As we left, she told me Eugénie herself was inside on a rare visit and that we were not to go in.