I met her fifteen years previous, as we waited together for the omnibus. I had seen her a few times at this stop but had never found a way to speak to her despite my fascination. I remember this day was like all the other nights and days I’d seen her except it was even darker, and as there was only a little light from a street lamp, I was glad I was not alone.
She looked spent, her eyes shadowy, sooty, and so still that at first I thought she was asleep, perhaps from too much drink. When she did move her eyes, it startled me, and her glance made me look at whatever drew her attention.
Her skin was slightly sallow, and she was not pretty, but she exerted a nearly violent need for your attention. Her cloud of hair was like smoke. She was wearing an enormous cancan skirt, the biggest I’d ever seen, filling the seats to either side of her on the bench as she slumped rakishly, her half-lidded eyes watching something directly ahead of her, something only she could see.
Euphrosyne’s skirts were hiked up over her knees—she was cooling herself in the night air after a night of dancing. I took in her shoes, the dark leather and bright red laces, the toes of the shoes like smirks and the high heels like stems or talons. They were cancan shoes. I’d never seen them before and so I stared at them. I’d never seen anything for women before that looked so beautiful and dangerous and ordinary at the same time, and so I wanted them immediately.
I tried to think of how to speak with her, how to ask her about her shoes.
The police are so lazy, she said then, surprising me.
Are they? I asked.
Yes, she said. Here they are. They do nothing. I don’t know what they do. The Berlin police, now, they are not so lazy.
This seemed very sophisticated. Your shoes, I said, now that I had my opening.
She laughed and extended a leg out, pointing her toe. Yes, I love them.
They’re so strange, I said. Are they for something?
She laughed again and shook her head. Child, she said. These are for dancing. You mean to tell me you don’t know about dancing? Cancan?
She held out her hand to me. Euphrosyne Courrèges, she said. At the Bal Mabille you know me only as La Frénésie. She twirled her other hand in the air as she said it. She let go of my hand and then, smiling, got to her feet and stomped her shoes on the stones, holding up her skirt as she did and looking down on them as if to be sure they did their work. Then she looked at me, a wild grin on her face.
We will get you some, child. And then I will show you what they are for. And with that, she stomped them again against the stones.
Are you a registered girl? she asked. She said it fille en carte, drawing each of the words out mockingly. Which house do you work for?
I did not know what this meant yet and struggled with the idea. No, I said finally. I’m . . . I’m an equestrienne. I ride horses at Cirque Napoléon, a hippodrome rider.
She struck her forehead theatrically and pressed my hand again. Fantastique! she yelled. That is the only thing better than dancing. I laughed. She exuded the tough confidence of the young soldiers who came to my shows and smoked in the front, yelling compliments that felt like insults.
I don’t know what this is, I said, fille en carte, though I could guess.
It means . . . you are in danger! Right now! She laughed. Perhaps I will be arrested for corrupting you. Except for those lazy police. But you, I think it will be worth it.
The omnibus arrived. We got on together, paid our fare, and sat on the lower level with the other women and the men who could not climb to the roof. I will have my new gentleman take me to your show, she said confidingly, and tapped my arm as she said it. I have a new gentleman. We will call on you there. She clapped her hands at the thought. And then from her bag on her wrist she withdrew her card.
You may call on me there, she said, and we looked at the address together. And then, after a moment, she asked, No card for you?
I shook my head, knocking my feet together like a schoolgirl. No, I said. No card for me.
§
On the day I did not go to Lucerne, I sat down in the grass of the Bois and stared at the Emperor’s token in my cupped hand, sheltered so no one but me could see it. The coins I’d made thus far surrounded it, minus my most recent pay, left behind in my rush. The feeling of possessing great riches had passed, and now I did not know either how to sell it or how to protect it. Offering it for sale to people on the street seemed a quick way to lose it, but if I did not sell it, it seemed to me I could not go on.
My feet were tired, and I had taken off my shoe to look for a stone. A carriage pulled up. The man in it looked at me beckoningly. I shook my head and he drove off, shocked.
Another came by and it was the same.
Another. I thought of walking up to him to ask him how much he would pay for the pin and then closed my hand over it.
I put my shoe back on and left, annoyed. I had only wanted to sit and think in the grass, but this did not seem possible.