I was in heaven, on the banks of the river in bright sunshine, lost in a world of books and foreign accents. That was when I spotted it, Histoires Extraordinaires. Bound in cerulean blue, it was a two-volume translation of Edgar Allen Poe’s short stories by Charles Baudelaire. I opened the cover to find that it was a first edition, published by Michel Lévy Frères, Paris, 1856–1857. My father was a fanatic when it came to Mr Poe and I too enjoyed ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ and ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ and so I saw it as a sign. I enquired as to the price of the book, my broken French immediately betraying me as a foreigner. It sounded like one hundred francs too many and after much gesturing （him turning out his pockets to indicate that I was robbing him blind） we agreed a price. I felt drunk with recklessness, spending the little money I had on another book. As he began wrapping the volumes in brown paper and string, I heard a voice I recognised calling my name.
‘Monsieur Hassan,’ I said, surprised when he, yet again, took my hand and kissed it. I flushed immediately and the bookseller smirked. They then began a conversation in French that I could not follow, but the subject matter soon became clear.
‘I see you have purchased my Baudelaire,’ he said, with a devilish smile.
‘Whatever do you mean?’
‘I told my friend here to keep this translation for me, but I see he has sold it to you … for a much higher price.’
The implication was not lost on me, that I was a silly woman who’d be taken for a fool. I chose to ignore it. ‘Well then, it is not your Baudelaire but mine,’ I said, taking the package and heading back towards my hotel.
‘At least allow me to offer you dinner tonight, as a felicitation for your excellent bargain,’ he said, his long strides easily catching up with me.
‘No thank you, I cannot accept such an unsuitable invitation. We are strangers.’
‘Oof,’ he said, mockingly taking a dagger to the heart. ‘But we are not strangers and it would seem that you are alone in Paris …’
‘I’m not alone,’ I said, defensively. ‘I’m staying with my … aunt.’
‘Ah, I see,’ he said, nodding and almost admitting defeat. ‘Alors, if you change your mind, Mademoiselle Opaline,’ he added, handing me his card. ‘I will not forget this slight easily but, fortunately for you, I have a forgiving nature.’
With a tip of his hat, he disappeared down a side street and I was left standing there, feeling furious. He was an infuriating, pompous, arrogant man. And I loathed him. And yet I put his card in my pocket rather than throwing it in the Seine.
That evening, I wrote one of the postcards I had bought at the bookstall to my Jane. I knew I could trust her to keep my whereabouts a secret. The thing about Jane was, you could hear her laugh before you ever saw her. She adored the outdoors, which Mother declared ‘unladylike’。 I missed her terribly, but writing to her closed the distance between us, if only for a short while. I tried to keep my tone cheery as I filled the postcard with statements that ended in exclamation marks. Paris is glorious! Not very original, but still. I fancied that perhaps one day she might come and visit if I were to remain. When I looked at the money I had left, I wasn’t so sure. I had to find a position doing something. I resolved to visit the library the next day and see what I could find out there.
As I undressed for bed, I pulled the card that Monsieur Hassan had given me from my pocket.
Armand Hassan
ANTIQUAIRE
14 Rue Molière
Casablanca
Maroc
So, Monsieur Hassan was a book dealer from Morocco. That explained his exotic good looks, if you liked that sort of thing, which I was determined I would not. The romance books I read were littered with stories of young women falling for fast men like him. I put the card away, in my case this time. When I should have ripped it up and thrown it in the bin.
Chapter Five
MARTHA
Working as a housekeeper for a woman of ‘advancing years’ with serious delusions of grandeur was not where I had seen myself ending up. But I kept telling myself that this was a stopgap, just until I got myself sorted. Whatever that meant. After a couple of days, I found myself quickly settling into a routine. I realised then it was exactly what I needed, for I was still in shock. Unlike the movies, you don’t just leave your home, your marriage and everything you knew and simply start a new life. There is a bit in between where you’re just breathing – like a drowning man who clings to a rock. You know you’re alive, you can move, even speak, but something is missing.
So I performed my tasks. I woke in the morning and prepared breakfast for Madame Bowden （a boiled egg and English muffins with thick-cut marmalade）。 After I’d cleared up, I made her bed and tidied her room while she dressed, then I lit the fire downstairs. The house was old and chilly – she had refused central heating; said that the pipes would destroy the aesthetic. She had fiercely strong opinions about everything, which honestly baffled me. Mainly because I couldn’t remember ever having an opinion on anything. My father had the only opinions that mattered in our house. My mother never spoke at all. Nowadays, people would call her non-verbal, but when I was a child, the people in my village called her other names.
Madame Bowden, on the other hand, read the papers aloud, contradicting every opinion piece and making speeches about what she would do if she was in charge. I largely ignored her, getting on with vacuuming the carpets and doing the laundry. She was not unkind but not exactly friendly either, which suited me just fine. I ate my dinner in my little basement room every evening, mostly beans on toast, and took to walking along the river late in the evenings, when the office workers had gone home and the city was quiet. Well, quieter at least.
It felt like I was thawing out after a very long winter. Every day I felt my muscles relax a little more and even when I went shopping for groceries in the supermarket, I hardly checked behind me to see if he was following. Until the day Eileen, Madame Bowden, decided to succumb to ‘the ruination of the twentieth century’ and ordered a television. I was busy in the kitchen making her lunch （poached salmon and baby potatoes） and when I took her tray into the living room and saw a man walking through the front door, I dropped the tray and stood frozen to the spot.
‘Ah, sorry, love, I knocked but the door was open,’ he said, clearly mortified and struggling with the heavy package.
I kept staring at him, trying to trust my eyes. It’s not him, I kept repeating silently; It’s not him. I recovered as quickly as I was able and began to clear up the mess. My hands were shaking so badly that he offered to help. I couldn’t even look him in the eye, I was so embarrassed.
The following morning, Madame Bowden asked me to give a good dusting to her study, a small room on the first floor facing the street. It had gorgeous flowery wallpaper and a writing desk beside the window. The other walls were fully shelved and, just like a library, were filled with books.
‘It’s time for a good spring clean in here,’ she announced and directed me to take down each and every book and with a damp cloth, wipe the dust off every single one.
‘No, not too damp!’ she warned, then gave me a dry towel to remove any moisture afterwards.