Glitter Baby

Eiffel Tower exactly an hour before sunset, he kissed her until she thought her body would float. They sailed a toy boat in the bassin at the Luxembourg Gardens and wandered through Versailles in a thunderstorm. In the Louvre he found a deserted corner where he felt her breasts to see if they were as plump as those of the Renaissance Madonnas. He showed her the Seine at dawn near the Pont St.-Michel when the newborn sun struck the windows of the old buildings and set the city on fire. They visited Montmartre at night, and the wicked, smoky cafes of Pigalle, where he titillated her with whispered sex talk that left her breathless. They dined on trout and truffles in the Bois de Boulogne beneath chandeliers that hung from the chestnut trees, and they sipped Chateau Lafite in a cafe where tulips bloomed in the window. As each day passed, Alexi’s step grew lighter and his laugh easier until he almost seemed like a boy again.

At night, he sealed them away in the great bedroom of his gray stone mansion on the Rue de la Bienfaisance and took her again and again until her body ceased to exist separate from his. She began to resent the demands of the job that stole him away from her each morning. Mornings left her with too much time to think about the baby she was carrying. Flynn’s baby. The baby Alexi didn’t know existed.

Life on the Rue de la Bienfaisance without Alexi was nearly unbearable. She hadn’t been prepared for the grandeur of the gray stone mansion with its salons and apartments and dining room that could seat fifty. At first she’d been giddy at the idea of living amid so much splendor, but the huge house quickly oppressed her. She felt small and defenseless as she stood on the red and green veined marble in the oval foyer and surveyed the gruesome tapestries of martyrdom and crucifixion hanging on the walls. In the main salon, allegorical figures clad in capes and armor battled giant serpents on the ceiling. Friezes stretched over the heavily draped windows; pilasters flanked them. And all of it was ruled by Alexi’s mother, Solange Savagar.

Solange was tall and thin, with dyed black hair cut close to her head, a large nose, and papery wrinkles. Each morning at ten o’clock she dressed in one of an endless number of white wool suits designed for her by Norell before the war, slipped on her rubies, and took her place on a Louis Quinze chair at the center of the main salon, where she began her daily rule over the house and its inhabitants. The possibility that Belinda, the unforgivably young American who had somehow managed to bewitch her son, would take Solange’s place was unthinkable. The mansion on the Rue de la Bienfaisance was Solange’s domain alone.

Alexi made it clear that his mother was to be respected, but Solange made companionship impossible. She refused to speak English except to criticize, and she took delight in laying out each gaucherie Belinda committed for Alexi’s later inspection. Every evening at seven o’clock they gathered in the main salon, where Solange would sip white vermouth and smoke one lipstick-tipped Gauloise after another while she chattered at her son in staccato French.

Alexi kissed away Belinda’s complaints. “My mother is a bitter old woman who has lost much. This house is all the kingdom she has left.” His kisses strayed to her breasts. “Humor her, cherie. For my sake.”

And then, abruptly, everything changed.

One night in mid April, six weeks after their wedding, she decided to surprise Alexi by modeling a transparent black negligee she’d bought that afternoon. As she pirouetted next to the bed, his face grew pale and he stalked from the room. She waited in the dark, angry with herself for not realizing how much he’d hate seeing her in anything but the simple white gowns he selected. The hours dragged by and he didn’t return. By morning, she’d exhausted herself with her tears.

The next night she went to her mother-in-law. “Alexi has disappeared. I want to know where he is.”

An ancient ruby on Solange’s twisted finger winked like an evil eye. “My son tells me only what he wishes me to know.”

He returned two weeks later. Belinda stood on the marble staircase in a Balmain dress that was too tight at the waist and watched him hand his briefcase to the butler. He seemed to have aged ten years. When he saw her, his mouth curled in the cynical twist she hadn’t witnessed since they’d first met. “My dear wife. You look beautiful as always.”

The next few days confused her. He treated her with deference in public, but in private he tormented her with his lovemaking. He abandoned tenderness for conquest and kept her poised on the brink of fulfillment for so long that her pleasure crossed the boundary into pain. During the last week of April, he announced that they were going on a trip but wouldn’t tell her where.

He drove the 1933 Hispano-Suiza from his antique car collection with utter concentration. She was glad to be spared the effort of making conversation. Out the window, the land near Paris gradually gave way to the bare, chalky hillsides of Champagne. She couldn’t make herself relax. She was nearly four months pregnant, and the effort of deceiving him was sapping her strength. She pretended to have menstrual periods that never came, secretly adjusted the buttons on the waists of her new skirts, and plotted to keep her naked body away from the light. She did everything she could to postpone the time when she’d be forced to tell him about the baby.

As the vineyards turned lavender in the lengthening afternoon shadows, they reached Burgundy. Their inn had a red-tiled roof and charming pots of geraniums in the windows, but she was too tired to enjoy the simple, well- cooked meal that was set before them.

The next day Alexi drove her out into the Burgundian countryside. They ate a silent picnic lunch on a hilltop covered with wildflowers, dining on a potee filled with fresh chervil, tarragon, and chives that Alexi had purchased in the neighboring village. They ate it with bread crusted in poppy seeds, a runny Saint Nectaire cheese, and a raw young country wine. Belinda picked at her food, then tied her cardigan around her shoulders and walked along the hilltop to escape Alexi’s oppressive silence.

“Enjoying the view, my sweet?” She hadn’t heard him come up behind her, and she jumped as he put his hands on her shoulders.

“It’s pretty.”

“Are you enjoying being with your husband?”

She curled her fingers over the knot she’d made in the sweater. “I always enjoy being with you.”

“Especially in bed, n’est-ce pas?” He didn’t wait for her answer but pointed out a vineyard and told her which grapes it produced. He began to seem like the Alexi who had shown her the sights of Paris, and she gradually relaxed.

“Over there, cherie. Do you see that collection of gray stone buildings? That is the Couvent de l’Annonciation. The nuns there run one of the best schools in France.”

Belinda was more interested in the vineyards.

“Some of the finest families in Europe send their children to the nuns to be educated,” he went on. “The sisters even take babies, although the male children are sent to the brothers near Langres when they are five.”

Belinda was shocked. “Why would a rich family send away its babies?”

“It is necessary if the daughter is unmarried and a proper husband cannot be found. The sisters keep the babies until a discreet adoption can take place.”

The talk of babies was making her nervous, and she tried to change the subject, but Alexi wasn’t ready to be distracted. “The sisters take good care of them,” he said. “They’re not abandoned to spend their days in cribs. They have the best food and attention.”

“I can’t imagine a mother turning over her baby to someone else’s care.” She untied her sweater and slipped it on. “Let’s go. I’m getting cold.”

“You can’t imagine it because you still think like the bourgeoisie,” he said without moving. “You will have to think differently now that you are my wife. Now that you are a Savagar.”

Her hands closed involuntarily over her abdomen, and she turned slowly. “I don’t understand. Why are you telling me this?”

“So you know what will happen to your bastard child. As soon as it’s born, it will go to the sisters at the Couvent de l’Annonciation to be raised.”

“You know,” she whispered.

“Of course I know.”

The sun drained from the day as all her nightmares sprang to life.

“Your belly is swollen,” he said, his voice laden with contempt, “and the veins of your breasts show through your skin. The night I looked at you standing in our bedroom in that black nightgown…It was as if someone had ripped the blinders from my eyes. How long did you think you could deceive me?”

“No!” Suddenly it was all more than she could bear, and she did what she’d sworn she never would. “No! The