She set her hand on the bars and touched mine, gripping it.
Sweet, kind Jou-jou! Her beautiful eyes, the fierce eyes, they were weeping. You are next, I swear. No one ever gave me so much as you. I wish I could have kept you from this. I should have warned you more, or better. Now I fear you must stay because you have no house and so there is no one to send for you except me, and I have less than nothing here. I have truly corrupted you.
I will come to visit you and bring you presents, she said. And be sure, be very sure, that nothing happens to your shoes.
I laughed at this, unexpected and sharp, and leaned in to kiss her quickly. And then she left, and the depth of what I had done was finally clear.
Four
THERE WAS NO La Lune to help me. Instead, there was Odile.
First came a basket from her, sent to the prison, with a fine piece of sausage and bread and, to my surprise, a beautiful new dress, complete with stockings, shoes, gloves, a hat. The gloves were stitched with roses. The hat was a bonnet meant to be worn at a rakish tilt. The other girls made a fuss as it was delivered. The note read, Something to keep you alive until you leave, something for you to wear to come see me when you are free. Your friend, Odile.
There was her card also, with the address. This surprised me. The only Odile I remembered was the angry concierge in Euphrosyne’s foyer. The one who had said to her, You aren’t allowed guests like that. The one who had threatened Euphrosyne with a fine. Why had her concierge concerned herself with me?
I did need work, however, and resolved to go to see her, thank her, and repay her, and then ask about a job.
On the last morning of my sentence, I dressed in her gifts. Outside, Odile’s carriage waited for me—a kindness and a luxury. I blinked back tears I hated as I climbed inside and tried to act on the ride as if I took this trip every day.
§
Odile was certainly no concierge. She was a procuress, a former danseuse in the Paris Opera Ballet corps, and had taken on dancers, actresses, and singers who sought to make arrangements of this kind but lacked for either rooms or liaisons, using the spare rooms of a deaf aunt of hers, who owned a simple, clean house near the Opera. A share went to the aunt, of course, whose idea it was, worried about the prospects of her beautiful niece. Odile’s first théatre du désir, then, as she called them, had a view of her aunt Virginie’s kitchen garden.
She learned quickly that she could charge more if men had a specific fantasy and that they would be loyal if the fantasy could be fulfilled with brio. When one of her admirers told her Baron Haussmann was set to order her aunt’s neighborhood to be condemned for Paris’s renovation, Odile took her aunt in hand, sold the house to the city at a high price, and built the current establishment on roughly the same spot with the help of investors—all clients. A portrait of Virginie presided over the salon, where her girls lingered in talk with their gentlemen; and every so often Odile would solemnly toast or bless her, even leaving a glass of claret for her on the mantel.
Odile’s new establishment was called l’H?tel des Majeurs-Plaisirs, a pun on the Menus-Plaisirs, the school of the arts. Each of the rooms was the set to a different fantasy. The room I’d gone into with Euphrosyne on the night of our adventure had not been hers—it was for gentlemen who had a fantasy of seducing a woman while at the opera, something Euphrosyne often provided. The clothes she had taken for us were props for the room. Odile had hired the same craftsmen who’d made the Paris Opera’s boxes to make this one.
And despite my role in the trouble Euphrosyne had made for her, and for her unhappy client, once Odile learned of my registration, she had sent her basket right away. There were many men who wanted the attentions of a hippodrome rider. She explained all of this to me once I stood in her office in the clothes she’d sent me. Which she then asked me to remove.
I did so at once. I did not like the dress or the now-visible obligations it represented.
You have the arms of an acrobat, of course. Very strong, if too slim. We will have you eat more for these, she said, and gestured at my smallish breasts. At least they do not sag. Pastries for you. You are no virgin, yes? And at least age sixteen?
I nodded twice.
Virgins fare badly; they know so little. I would have to pay someone to teach you and charge you for it. I may still need to. My doctor will be here shortly to inspect you. She flicked her finger at my arm. So strong, she said. But your face, you look innocent. People think you are good no matter what you do, yes? She walked over to the wall, where an array of cruel instruments hung, whips, crops, paddles. She withdrew a simple crop and handed it to me. I grasped it.
Perhaps we will make use of this. The strong arm and the innocent face. Please, she said, indicating the empty dress. We will discuss your duties.