Jasmine in Paris

Chapter 2-1

2

France, July 1949

When the ship docked in Marseille three weeks later, Jasmine felt a surge of excitement mixed with fear. It was finally happening. As she went down the gangway and set foot for the first time on French soil, her skin tingled with anticipation.

It was odd hearing voices everywhere speaking French. She breathed deeply, savouring the sensations – salt-soaked air, strong coffee, the sharp powerful smell of fish, the sweet pungency of garlic – all undercut with the stink of rotting vegetables and rubbish. She looked about her at the people. Men wearing cloth caps or berets, many scruffily dressed, stevedores pushing carts weighed down with sacks unloaded from ships, sailors in uniform, street vendors. Above the city the Cathedral of Notre Dame de la Garde rose on a craggy outcrop, with a tall statue-topped tower and a dome presiding over the buildings below.

Jasmine took a taxi from the port to the Gare Saint Charles to join the train to Paris. Drinking in the sights, she saw Marseille was nothing like London. Yes, there were smoke-blackened buildings and the buzz of commerce, but the atmosphere was very different. She remembered London as gloomy, battered, and smog-filled. Marseille offered an interesting dichotomy: near the port were narrow alleys with barefoot children in evident poverty but in the city centre, wide boulevards with elegantly-dressed people. The narrow side-streets were dark, monochromatic with washing hanging between the buildings and litter strewn on the ground. Yet she sensed an energy, a joie de vivre in the atmosphere. On the affluent boulevards, there were colourful signs above the shops, tabacs and bars advertising the acclaimed savon de Marseille. She asked the driver to stop so she could buy a few bars of lavender-scented soap as a gift for her hosts in Paris. Stepping onto the street, she felt the sunshine warm her skin. That differed from London too. She was going to enjoy being in France.

After the overnight journey north, the train pulled into the Gare de Lyon in a cloud of steam. Jasmine alighted and looked around for a porter. A rush of nerves took her by surprise, and she was relieved that, at least for the initial period, she’d be staying with an English family.

Passengers crowded the platform, so Jasmine hung back, allowing those who knew where they were going to overtake her. She didn’t know what the Hendersons looked like, so waited for the crowds to disperse. A posse of nuns hurried past her – giant black-plumaged birds, their oversized head-dresses like white crested crowns. She shrank back, giving way as they swept by. A young shabbily-dressed woman, a jaunty beret on her head, was bending over a wooden box at the side of the platform where a man waited, one foot on the box as she polished his shoe. In Penang or Nairobi, a woman would never perform such a task – let alone a European woman. Jasmine watched the rapid operation, as the loudspeakers announced the departure of other trains, and the sound echoed under the glass-panelled roof.

Reaching the main concourse of the station, Jasmine looked about. Maybe the Hendersons had forgotten? Most of the people from the train had already disappeared onto the streets of the city. Then she noticed an elegant woman appraising her. Could this be Mrs Henderson?

‘Mademoiselle Barrington?’ The accent was French. The Hendersons’ housekeeper, perhaps.

The woman was wearing a tailored linen suit. Chic. Expensive. Not the housekeeper, then.

‘I am Madame Courbet. You are my guest. Come. The car is outside.’ She spoke slowly in English, evidently doubting that Jasmine would be capable of understanding French.

‘Mais je m’attendais à Monsieur et Madame Henderson.’ Jasmine tried out her French. Better to start immediately.

Madame Courbet replied in English. ‘The ’endersons ’ave returned to England. A family matter, so they ask my husband and I to accommodate you. They write a letter to explain.’ The woman handed Jasmine an envelope, turned and, saying something in rapid French to the waiting porter, gestured to Jasmine to follow them.

Another way in which things were different here in Paris – Madame Courbet was driving her own car. When they had settled into it, she looked sideways at Jasmine and said, ‘The Gare de Lyon is to the east of Paris. We live in Passy on the west. Let us hope there is not too much traffic.’ She gave Jasmine a frosty smile.

Jasmine’s mood of excited anticipation was already dissipating. Madame Courbet was clearly less than delighted that the Hendersons had asked her to step in. Jasmine told herself she was being silly. Maybe this was just the way French people behaved. She’d heard they were sometimes very formal and correct, so it was up to her to be patient and polite and hope once Madame Courbet had got to know her, she would relax a little.

Trying again to use her French, she worked out in her head what she wanted to say first, then asked whether Mr Henderson was a colleague of Monsieur Courbet.

Jasmine realised her accent was making her hostess wince.

Again, the reply was in English. ‘We are neighbours. Mr ’enderson works at the British embassy. My ’usband is a senior administrator in the French government.’ She pronounced it goo-vern-a-mont.

‘I see.’ Defeated, Jasmine gave up trying to speak French. It was annoying. There was an implication that her French could not possibly match up to Madame’s English. Or perhaps French people assumed it was acceptable to speak English with a French accent whereas the other way round was not.

Silence ruled as they negotiated the streets of Paris. Jasmine opened the envelope to find a card welcoming her to Paris and apologising for the Hendersons’ absence which was due to the imminent demise of Mr Henderson’s mother. It was signed by Mrs Henderson and had clearly been written in haste. Looking on the bright side, Jasmine told herself that maybe the Hendersons’ absence was a good thing as this way she would have an immediate experience of life in a French home.

She stared through the windows, her enthusiasm reviving. She had no sense of where they were, and Madame Courbet did not point out landmarks or offer any sense of orientation. Jasmine allowed the city to flow by as she soaked it all up: cafés with tables and chairs on the pavements with Parisians sipping cold drinks and coffee in the late morning sunshine. The car wove in and out of back streets as Madame was clearly an enthusiast of shortcuts and determined to manoeuvre the vehicle out of any potential traffic jams. Through the open window Jasmine absorbed the distinctive smells of Paris, gripping the edge of her seat as yet another sudden sharp turn threatened to throw her off balance.

Eventually they arrived chez Courbet, a large art nouveau apartment building in pale sandstone. The area was clearly affluent. Like many of the surrounding buildings, it was topped with ornate turrets, its windows bearing decorative black wrought-iron balconies. Madame Courbet parked the car and called to the waiting concierge, who took Jasmine’s bags. Speaking so fast that Jasmine struggled to understand, Madame Courbet instructed the woman to bring the luggage up to her apartment.

It was on the third floor and accessed by a terrifying, creaking lift that rose through the centre of the stairwell. This was the first time Jasmine had ever been in such a lift. The prospect of the mechanism failing and her being stuck in that cage behind the creaking metal doors was scary, so she decided to use the stairs in future.

When they emerged from the lift, Madame Courbet marched towards a pair of enormous double doors. Inside, the imposing square hallway was hung with gloomy portraits and adorned with a large floral display. The wooden floor was parquet, in an intricate design with a border of darker wood in front of the skirtings. The place gave off an air of faded grandeur.

‘Have you lived here long, Madame Courbet?’

‘Since my marriage.’ The woman didn’t elaborate when that might have been. Jasmine found it difficult to guess her age but settled on somewhere in her fifties.

‘Do you and Monsieur Courbet have children?’

‘You ask a lot of questions. We have a son. Married.’ Turning away from Jasmine, she called out, ‘Marielle!’

A uniformed maid appeared.

‘Show Mademoiselle Barrington to her room,’ Madame Courbet said in French. Turning to Jasmine, she said, ‘Marielle will show you what you need. I have an engagement now. I am already late. My husband and I will dine out this evening. Marielle will prepare a cold supper for you.’ She gave her a smile that didn’t reach as far as her eyes. With that, she swept from the hallway through one of the doors, leaving Jasmine alone and starting to think that her presence here was de trop.

The room the maid showed her to was small and sparsely but adequately furnished. Her luggage was already waiting for her. Surprised, she turned to Marielle to ask in her shaky French how it had got there when the concierge had whisked it away into the interior of the building.

The maid looked puzzled, then smiled. ‘L’escalier de service,’ she said at last and Jasmine gathered there was another behind-the-scenes route to conceal unsightly items such as luggage and servants.

When the maid left, Jasmine moved to the window. It looked over a small internal courtyard. No views of the Paris rooftops then, just pigeons and the walls of the apartment block.

She flung herself onto the narrow bed and asked herself whether coming to Paris had been a dreadful mistake. The gloom didn’t last long. It was a beautiful, sunny day. Madame Courbet had gone out and Jasmine was free to explore. Besides, she wouldn’t be staying here long. She must find somewhere to live, somewhere more in line with her ideal of being an art student in Paris. Maybe in the Latin Quarter, Montparnasse or Montmartre. Not here in stuffy, posh Passy.

Quickly, she unpacked and hung her clothes in the wardrobe, stowing the cases on the top. Marielle had indicated the door to a nearby bathroom, which she told her was for her exclusive use. Relieved not to be sharing with the Courbets, Jasmine freshened up after the long train journey, using one of the lavender soaps she had bought for the Hendersons. No point in offering them to Madame Courbet. It was all too easy to picture her curling her lip in disdain.

Feeling brighter, she put on a pretty dress. It was time to get out of this place and explore. The change in arrangements would not dampen her spirits.

She was leaving the room when she remembered something. Dragging one of the cases down from the wardrobe, she reached inside the side pocket and drew out an unopened envelope with a Malayan postmark. By mistake she’d put it in the case that had gone in the ship’s hold rather than the one she’d used on the voyage. At last, she would read what Howard Baxter had to say.

Jasmine didn’t know how far she’d walked nor exactly where she was. Hoping to rely on her inner compass, she’d headed in a more or less straight line in one direction, assuming she’d eventually come upon a landmark she might recognise. But the streets of Passy were lined with belle époque buildings, all very stern, grand and imposing – and all blocking the view of anything beyond. The people on the street were elegant – like Madame Courbet – and Jasmine felt small, insignificant and out of place. This was not the Paris she had dreamt of. She must find somewhere else to live as soon as possible: somewhere that was a closer fit with her artistic aspirations.

Hot and thirsty, she sat down at a table at the most modest pavement café she could see. Everywhere else she’d passed seemed likely to be very expensive, albeit chic, and she felt under-dressed in her simple cotton frock and sandals. She ordered a lemon soda and sipped it while watching the passers-by. She tried to relax and pretend she was French, but knew the briefest glance at her would indicate she was not.