The Mistress(73)

She and Dimitri conversed in Russian, and they worked late into the night until everything was done. And when it was, she thought it looked terrific. She had bought flowers and gotten a couple of vases, and she set a vase of bright flowers on the coffee table. The apartment was warm and inviting, and she had even bought rugs she liked. Lamps, two big comfortable chairs, and a very good-looking leather couch. It would be a nice apartment to come home to at night. He charged her a ridiculously small amount to put it all together, and she thanked him and gave him a big tip.

It had taken her a month to get everything organized, but she had done it, and she felt as though she had severed all ties with her past. She hadn’t heard from Vladimir and didn’t expect to. She had never contacted Yuri again and had no intention of doing so. She had a home and enough money in the bank to live on for a while, and when her things sold in the fall, she would have more. She still needed to look for a job, but she knew she couldn’t until the fall. Everyone was on vacation in the summer, in either July or August, and most of the galleries were closed. And she was thinking of signing up for an art history course at the école du Louvre. She felt as though she had been reborn as a new person. All vestiges of her past life were gone, except a few clothes.

And as she looked around her new apartment on her first night in it, she felt like she was home. She didn’t need to live on Avenue Montaigne, or on a five-hundred-foot yacht, or in a legendary villa in St. Jean Cap-Ferrat, or a house in London. She had all she needed, and everything in it was hers. Every now and then she’d feel anxious for a few minutes, but then she’d remind herself that she could take care of herself, and that what she didn’t know how to do yet, she would learn.

—

It took Maylis a week longer than she’d hoped to get back on her feet again with her sprained ankle. And as soon as she did, and was back at the restaurant, Theo booked a flight the next day to Paris. The story was almost over for him, but he still wanted to thank Natasha. And he wanted to do it in person. It was the first week in August by then, and Paris was dead. Shops and restaurants were closed, there was almost no one on the streets. There was no traffic. The weather was hot, and it looked like a ghost town, as he walked down Avenue Montaigne to number fifteen. He hadn’t told his mother where he was going. And he hadn’t told her about Natasha informing on Vladimir, he thought the fewer people who knew, the better for her. He didn’t want to do anything to put her at risk any further, just to thank her.

The building looked deserted when he got there. He rang her bell, and no one answered. And then he rang at the concierge’s lodge. She came to the door and looked at him suspiciously when he asked for Natasha.

“Why do you want to know?” she asked him.

“I’m a friend of hers,” he said, stretching the truth a little.

“She doesn’t live here anymore. She moved a week ago.”

“Do you have a new address for her?” he asked, looking sorely disappointed. He had missed her.

“No, I don’t. And if you were a friend of hers, you would know it. I don’t know where she went. She didn’t tell me. She doesn’t get mail here anyway. It’s all for him.” He nodded, not surprised to hear it. “She sent everything away the day before she left. She just had a few suitcases with her the day she moved. And there was a Russian man with her.” Dimitri had come to help her with her heavier suitcases.

“Mr. Stanislas?” he asked, worried, and the concierge in the house dress and slippers shook her head.

“No. Another one.” That didn’t surprise Theo either. It was what his mother had said when they first talked about her. Women like Natasha had to move on to another man like the last one. It was the only way they knew to survive. And he didn’t condemn her for it. He just hoped that this one was a better man than Vladimir. It hadn’t taken her long to replace him. “He just sold the apartment,” the concierge volunteered then. “The maid left yesterday. She said she wouldn’t be coming back here.” He nodded, sad to have missed Natasha. He would have liked to say goodbye to her and to wish her well. But all roads from her past life were dead ends now. He had no idea where to find her, and no one to ask. He thanked the concierge and she closed the door soundly, and he walked back out to Avenue Montaigne, and wandered slowly toward the restaurant where he had had lunch with her. It felt like a thousand years ago, and had only been January. A lot had happened in seven months, and her life had completely changed.

He walked past the restaurant and smiled at the memory of her there, and wondered where she was now, and with whom.

He caught a flight back to Nice that night, with all the families leaving on vacation. People were wearing beach clothes on the plane. They all looked happy to be on holiday. And as soon as they landed in Nice, he got his car out of the garage and drove home.

—

Theo spent the rest of the summer painting furiously, and whenever his mother spoke to him, he said it was going well. She was back in full swing running the restaurant again. It was their best summer ever, and Gabriel spent many evenings with her there. In mid-August, she decided to close the restaurant for the rest of August and September, and possibly longer. She and Gabriel wanted to travel, but first she wanted to spend part of September with him in Paris, at his apartment. It was the first time she had ever done that. And the first time in more than thirty years she had gone back to Paris. Gabriel was thrilled. They had acted like honeymooners ever since they’d come back from Florence, and Theo was happy for them. He promised her he’d check on the restaurant and the house every day, and there were still two security guards there every night, and Maylis planned to keep them there. And before she left, she shared a new plan with Theo that she and Gabriel had been talking about for a while. She was thinking about closing the restaurant entirely by the end of the year, and turning the building into a small museum of Lorenzo’s work, which was what it really was anyway. And Gabriel was going to help her set it up.