I peered closer, trying to make out the batting eyelashes and glares, but before I could, Adrienne stood up from the bench and smoothed her skirt. “And now, chéries, we should get back before Maman sends the gendarmes for us.”
She linked her arms with ours, but instead of taking us directly to the brick archway and back to town, she headed toward one of the gravel paths, pulling us into the promenade, where we stifled laughs and swayed and sashayed as if someday we too would be in the business of love and courtship.
FIVE
The next day, the fourteenth of July, we wandered about the fair, past booths with wheels of fortune and other games of chance, stages with bands playing, people young and old moving about as far as the eye could observe. Everyone was there, except the élégantes.
“Where are they?” I asked Adrienne. After yesterday’s walk in the park, the élégantes were what I most wanted to see. Not puppet shows and men trying to climb greased poles to get the ham at the top.
“At their châteaux,” she said. “They don’t come to village fairs. Fairs are for the common people.”
Of course. That was why we were there.
But not for much longer. Adrienne, as usual, had a better idea. “There are other places to see élégantes...”
We stopped in a tabac, and with the one-franc coins Pépère had given each of us to spend at the fair, we bought magazines with beautiful ladies on their covers for fifty centimes each: Femina, La Vie Heureuse. L’Illustration. At the house, we went up to the garret and nestled among sacks of grain and herbs hanging from the ceiling. The far-off sounds of the bands drifted in through the open window.
“You see,” Adrienne said, holding out the magazines. “Here are our élégantes. Everything we need.”
“Need?” Gabrielle said. “For what?”
Adrienne smiled. “To become an élégante, of course.”
Gabrielle and I exchanged a glance. We could become élégantes?
Adrienne turned the pages, and there they were, men and women of high society, of what Adrienne called “la haute.” Page six—élégantes strolling arm in arm through the Bois de Boulogne, handsome gentilhommes eyeing them behind jaunty mustaches. Page eight—élégantes gathering in the most exclusive salons in Paris for charity events, buying flowers from little girls in frothy dresses. Pages eleven and fourteen and fifteen—élégantes posing in the great couturières’ latest fashions.
“Look at this hairstyle,” Adrienne said, pointing at the glossy pages. “Isn’t it sophisticated? Later we’ll get out my pins, and see if we can copy it. Oh, and this hat—enchanting! My sister Julia buys plain straw boaters then trims them herself. I think she could make this.”
We shared a pair of scissors. Adrienne and I cut out the wedding photos, the brides clutching trailing bouquets. Their grooms stood next to them, tall and proud in military uniforms covered over with ribbons, sashes, medals of stars or suns. What was it like to be so ordained, a golden burst upon your chest?
Julia-Berthe chose a photograph of the Queen of Romania and her children, well-kept little girls with soft hair and the blasé gaze of the pampered. Clean, fluffy little dogs sat at their feet and on their laps, not the wild scruffs we were used to.
There were articles about plays, images of actresses holding dramatic poses, their eyes large and full of emotion. Gabrielle collected these.
It felt as if a shroud had lifted. Thanks to the magazines, the élégantes weren’t just a fleeting glimpse in a park, a vague blur of white lace and parasols never to be seen again. These élégantes we could keep, cut out, study, tuck inside the empty Vichy pastille tins Adrienne saved for us from one of Mémère’s piles because “it’s easier to sneak them into the convent that way.” Rather than mimicking the lives of the saints, as the nuns wanted, now we could mimic the lives of the élégantes, their style, their attitude, their expressions, everything about them.
As evening crept in, I tried to put out of my mind that we were leaving the next day. Still, the heaviness slowly descended, as if it had been waiting, hovering behind me like a cloud of gnats. Only Julia-Berthe, who worried no one had fed the birds in the convent courtyard, was ready to go back.
Adrienne promised we’d see her again. For every feast day, she said, we’d come to Clermont-Ferrand. She also gave us a souvenir to take with us: Monsieur Decourcelle.
“But who is that?” I whispered, Julia-Berthe now fast asleep.
“He’s a writer,” Adrienne said. “Surely you’ve heard of him.”
“We only hear about saints and apostles,” Gabrielle said. “The nuns make sure of that.”
“But you have to know of Monsieur Decourcelle,” Adrienne said. “Life is too sad without him. He wrote The Chamber of Love and The Woman Who Swallows Her Tears and Brunette and Blonde and so many others. He writes about convent girls who marry counts and peasant girls who become queens of Parisian society. The poor become rich, the rich become poor. Voilà. You can’t put it down.”
We were startled by the crackling of fireworks in the distance. The feu d’artifice had started. From the garret’s tiny window, we watched the fluttering pieces sparkle, a snowfall électrique.
“Convent girls who marry counts?” I said, not moving my eyes from the bursts of light.
“They’re just stories, Ninette,” Gabrielle said.
I ignored her, turning to Adrienne, my hand on her arm. “Where can we find these stories?”
She reached into her bag and pulled out a small book. “They come in parts in the journals. They’re called mélos. Melodramas. My sister Julia waits every week for the next installment, then sews them all together and gives them to me. This one is The Dancing Girl of the Convent. A rich, beautiful ballerina at the Paris Opera gives up everything to become a nun and join a convent and—”
Gabrielle snorted. “No one would ever do that—”
“Shhhh,” I said, annoyed at the interruption.
“—she bequeaths all of her worldly goods to a beautiful peasant girl. This peasant girl moves to Paris and steps into the ballerina’s life of wealth and handsome suitors, jewels, and silk dresses. She becomes the toast of the city and she saves her family from poverty. There’s passion and romance and they wear the most exquisite ensembles and live in the most luxurious villas.”
I couldn’t help but sigh. Outside the window, silver and gold flashed again.
“Do the nuns in Moulins allow you to read this?” I asked.