Enchantée(11)

“A pleasure to meet you.” Camille tried to keep a straight face. Who were these people? It was as if she had stumbled into Astley’s circus or a play, something mad and wild and wonderful—completely apart from the rest of her life.

Rosier stood and bowed to Sophie, his hand on his heart. “Mademoiselle—thank you for coming to watch. We were lucky to have such a lovely audience.”

Sophie said with a laugh, “It was quite something.”

“It looked well, did it not?” Lazare threw an arm around Rosier’s shoulders.

Rosier kissed the tips of his fingers. “Very impressive. Accidents become you, Lazare. You might plan them, in the future. Though next time we’ll have a paying crowd for when you land.”

Just as Camille was about to ask how one might plan an accident, the skies cracked open. Cold, fat drops of rain pummeled their clothes and darkened the dirt in the field. The farmers, who’d been cautiously approaching, ran back toward the gate and away. Closer now, thunder rolled around them; a fork of lightning whitened the tops of the trees.

It was ending, and Camille did not want it to end.

“Stop talking and help with the balloon!” Armand shouted. He dropped to his knees, roughly rolling up the silk. “One more minute and it’ll be drenched!”

Lazare reached for Camille’s hand. “Tell me, mademoiselle, do you live nearby?”

Camille had nearly given him her hand when she realized her mistake. Her fingernails were packed with dirt from digging up the scraps: five filthy black moons. Mortified, she pressed her fingers deep into her skirts.

“I—” she began.

But the light had gone out of Lazare’s face. For a moment he hesitated, as if he were going to say something else, then with a quick bow, joined Armand. Rosier helped maneuver the wagon into place. The wind snapping in the silk made the horses uneasy. The boys yelled encouragement and insults at each other as they struggled to get the balloon, the gondola, and all the equipment onto the wagon.

“If we don’t go now, we’ll be soaked to the skin.” Sophie plucked at Camille’s arm. “Come. The boys are busy.”

In all the commotion, Camille tried to say adieu to Lazare, but his whole attention went to the balloon and getting it packed away on the wagon and out of the rain. It was as if she had never existed. She remembered how when the Montgolfiers’ balloon rose into the sky, strangers in the crowd had embraced one another. In the excitement of the moment, people did strange things. But as she and Sophie trudged back across the field, she couldn’t help looking back at him over her shoulder.

Lazare was steadying the lead cart horse, a reassuring hand flat on its curved neck. Slowly, as if he could feel her gaze, he turned his head. He waved, once, before his attention went back to the horse, the wagon, the balloon.

What had she expected? That when the world made a door for her to step through, the door would stay open no matter what she did?

“Camille,” Sophie said. “Let’s go.”

Beneath Camille’s shoes, the earth became mud, marbled with bright green weeds crushed into the muck. The sack of metal scraps thumped dismally against her skirts.

She determined not to think of them anymore. Out of sight, out of mind.

As they walked toward home, away from the fields at the city’s edges, the streets of Paris grew more cramped. More shadowy. Police paced through crowds of tired people going home; boys shouted the day’s scandals, broadsheets in hand, telling of smashed bakery windows and rising bread prices and taxmen burned in effigy. Horse carts and oxcarts churned in the filthy lanes, and over and through it all wove the church bells’ solemn tolling and the cries of the market-sellers and the melancholy glitter of rain.

This was the Paris of the strivers, of those who dwelt low, not high. This was not the Paris of balloonists. It was her Paris, and it was the same as it had been this morning.

But she, perhaps, was not.





8


Back at their apartment, as the rain hushed in the half-light, Sophie began to plait a few silk roses into a hair ornament for Madame Bénard’s shop. “He liked you, you know.”

“Who? The one with the white stripe in his hair? Or the curly haired one who thinks I’m a Jeanne d’Arc of the Air? I think he liked you.” Camille dried the last supper dish and put it away. In the bare cupboard, Alain’s plate waited like an accusation. Once, Alain had tried to juggle plates, like the jongleurs at Astley’s, and smashed two. How furious Papa had been until Camille called it an experiment, and they were spared.

Alain was the reason there had been so little to eat, but that would change tonight. On their way home, Sophie had stopped in the shop and told Madame Bénard that she would be happy to do more work. Thrilled, Madame had pressed a bundle of silk flowers and a small calico purse into Sophie’s hands. They’d have enough for something good to eat. Camille’s stomach tightened at the thought of it.

“Obviously not the striped one,” Sophie replied, wrapping a ribbon around the flower stems. “The dark one, who was so handsome. Like a character in a novel.”

“Lazare Mellais, you mean,” Camille said, as nonchalantly as she could. In her mouth, his name felt like an incantation, a charm to bring him back. Before Sophie could see her flush, Camille picked up a rag and ran it over the table.