JULY
18, 1789
—MAYEUR DE SAINT-PAUL, EXCERPT FROM TOURIST BROCHURE
I DON’T KNOW HOW CURTIUS HAS MANAGED IT IN TWO NIGHTS, but
“Take these notes to Dr. Curtius,” I tell Yachin. “And be ready for a ten o’clock opening. I’ll be next door.”
Yachin grins. “Are you going to see Henri?” he asks. “He likes you, doesn’t he?”
“I certainly hope so.” I pause in front of the mirror. “He’s my neighbor, after all.”
“But he likes you more than that,” Yachin persists. “He wants you for his wife.”
I adjust my fichu and turn around. “Now why would you say that?”
“Because he’s over here so much.” He notices everything, Yachin. He would make a fine wax modeler, although his future will certainly be in printing. “And at night,” he continues, “before the Salon is closed, you sit on his steps.”
“I never leave before the Salon is closed,” I correct him.
“You did once. And I saw you. You were sitting together.”
“Perhaps we were discussing the weather.”
Yachin gives me a long look. “I’m right, aren’t I?” he asks eagerly.
I smile. “We’ll see.”
“Will you tell him I made my own barometer using a bottle, a stopper, and a straw?”
I pause at the door. “He taught you to do that?”
“Four days ago. Remember?”
“No.” But it’s because I’ve been selfish. When we meet, it’s always about my models, my work, my family, my tutoring. When is the last time I asked Henri about his experiments and what he’s been doing in his lab with Jacques? I look down at Yachin’s face and see the same hope in his eyes that I’ve seen in Henri’s. These experiments mean so much to them, yet it’s been five months since I’ve been inside Henri’s lab, and the last time I was there I was hoping his tour of the
I walk next door, and before I even raise my hand to knock, the door swings open. “Henri.” I smile, and suddenly I’m nervous.
“I thought you forgot.” Henri steps back to let me inside. The hall smells of coffee and something else—warm bread?
“When have you ever known me to forget something? Besides,” I tease, “I want to know what a pair of bachelors eat for breakfast.”
He takes me into the parlor, and I was right, he’s found bread. It’s laid out on a silver tray with an array of jellies and cheeses. Nothing has ever smelled more delightful. I inhale. No one can imitate the bread in Paris. Not even the best bakers in Montreuil.
“I told the baker I was hosting a lovely woman for breakfast, so he took extra care in finding me some flour.”
I laugh. “So when is this lovely woman coming?”
He takes me in his arms. “I believe she’s already here.”
He kisses my neck, and I close my eyes. It can’t continue like this. I can’t keep dreaming about him at night and resisting him in the day. We move to the couch, and suddenly I don’t care about marriage or children or what happens with the Salon. “What about Jacques?” I whisper.
“He’s sleeping upstairs. He won’t be awake for another three hours.”
I watch him undress and think that even if I had all the time in the world, I couldn’t sculpt the perfection of Henri’s body. His arms, his chest … the lean muscle in his thighs. I take off my cap, and when my hair tumbles down my back, he sighs.
It is painful at first, as I knew it would be. But there is also pleasure, and he is careful not to spill into me. I have experienced tremendous joy in seeing wonderful places and sculpting beautiful things, but this is a different kind of bliss. A fleeting, private, exquisite kind of bliss I have never known until right now. We lie together on the couch, and I feel the warmth of him against my back. The bread must be cold, but it doesn’t matter. Henri kisses my shoulder, and I think,
“Very, very happy,” I tell him.
He stands and offers me his hand. I take it, and he turns me toward the mirror. He traces my long neck with his fingers and cups my breasts in his hands. The paleness of my skin is a stark contrast to the darkness of my hair. Together, we make a pretty picture.
“What am I going to do with you, my passionate, creative, ambitious Marie?”
I turn to face him. “Help me dress, and then take me on a tour of your lab?”
He smiles. “I was thinking more like marriage.”
“You know—”
He puts a finger to my lips. “Yes.”
“What we’ve done is dangerous,” I warn.
He watches me dress, and the longing in his eyes is unbearable to see.
“Curtius won’t be a guardsman for long,” I promise. “We’ve already discussed other ways to show our patriotism.”
“And how is that?”
“We might do away with all our royal tableaux. Or perhaps he’ll join the Jacobin Club.”
“Those radicals?” Henri asks. He begins to dress, and I am sorry to see him back in his clothes. “I would try to deter him from that idea.”
“It was Robespierre’s suggestion when he visited the Salon to see himself in wax.”
“Ah yes. Robespierre can be very persuasive.”
“What is wrong with the Jacobins?”
Henri buttons his coat. “They have a habit of preaching dangerous things. I would be careful.”
“Well, Curtius believes in hedging his bets, and many of the men in the National Assembly are part of the Club. If they succeed in this constitutional monarchy, Curtius will have very influential friends.”
“You already have influential friends. That’s why you’re still going to Montreuil.”
“Yes, but then we’d have important friends in
We eat, and Henri takes me into his lab, where he tells me about the experiments they’ve been doing. He wants to launch another balloon, only this time it won’t be for show. “There are so many possibilities,” he says. “Think of all the uses for flight.” He takes down a book and flips through the pages. The mahogany bookshelves stretch to the ceiling, some filled with leather tomes, others packed with glass bottles and mysterious jars. There are ladders to reach the topmost shelves, and I long to climb one.
“Listen,” Henri says, and he reads a passage from David Bourgeois’s book
I feel humbled to hear him speak. “So you’re going to fly away?” I ask.
“Not me. But someone will. Imagine the uncharted territories these explorers will find. My brother was the first man in the world to see the sun set twice. What else can be accomplished? What else can we do?”
