Books set in Paris, from an 1840 riverboat to an apartment full of secrets

Monsieur Frédéric Moreau, having just passed his baccalaureate, was going back to Nogent-sur-Seine to idle away two months before going to read for the Bar. His mother had sent him, with the necessary sum of money, to Le Havre to visit an uncle who, she hoped, would leave him something in his will; he had returned only the night before; and he was making up for not being able to stay in the capital by taking the longest route back to his home in the provinces. The noise subsided; they had all found seats; but some remained standing close to the engine, warming themselves, and the funnel spat out, with a slow, rhythmic rattle, its plume of black smoke; tiny drops of dew trickled down the brass; the deck shuddered with a dull internal vibration and the two paddle wheels, turning at speed, churned up the water. The riverbank had little sandy shores on either side.

Sometimes they came across timber rafts and set them rocking with their wash; in his rowing boat a man sat fishing; then the drifts of fog melted, the sun appeared, and the hill, which followed the course of the Seine on the right, gradually fell away, while another, closer, rose up on the opposite bank. On it was a crown of trees, amongst low houses with Italianate roofs. They had sloping gardens separated by newly built walls, wrought-iron fences, lawns, hothouses, and large pots of geraniums spaced at regular intervals on terraces you could lean over. Many a man, at the sight of those peaceful, stylish residences, felt the desire to be the owner of one, to see out his days there with a nice billiard room, a rowing boat, a wife—or some other pipe dream. The rather novel pleasure of a boat trip encouraged passengers to exchange confidences. The more droll amongst them were already beginning to laugh and tell jokes. Many sang songs. They were jolly together. They offered one another a drop to drink. Frédéric thought of his room at home, the kind of play he might write, the pictures he might paint, and of future passions. The happiness his noble soul deserved seemed a long time coming. He recited melancholy verses to himself; he paced rapidly up and down the deck; he went to the far end by the ship’s bell, and saw a man, in a group of passengers and sailors, flirting with a country girl, while fondling the gold crucifix she was wearing on her breast. He was a curly-haired fellow of some forty years.

Her delicate fingers, decorated with the loveliest diamond rings, beckon and point to the arcade, showing clients the way.

Walk in through the main entrance, a stone archway stained with centuries of soot, down the pathway, past the fountain, through the Palais’s gardens, halfway to the end . . . but wait . . . Before you turn right toward the shops, stop and admire the magic of the garden first planted over two hundred years ago.

Some of the most glorious roses in all of Paris grow here, and even now, in the midst of all our strife and sadness, the air is fragrant with their perfume. The flowers don’t care that their blood-red petals and razor-sharp thorns remind mothers and wives of loved ones’ lives cut short, stolen by the war. The bees don’t either. On some afternoons, their buzzing is the loudest noise you hear. On others, just an accompaniment to the drone of the air-raid sirens that frighten us all and send us running for shelter.

In PAL’s advertisement, in the bottom left corner, is a list of the shops in this oasis hidden away from the bustle of Paris.

Under Maisons Notables & Recommandées, jewelers are the first category: Our store is listed at the top. After all, Pavel Orloff trained with the famous Fabergé, who is a legend even here in the land of Cartier, Fouquet, Boucheron, and Van Cleef and Arpels.

La Fantaisie Russe is tucked in at number 130. There are a total of six jewelry stores in the arcades beneath what were once royal apartments built in the mid-1600s by Cardinal Richelieu so he could be close to the king. In the late 1700s, Philippe Égalité’s theater was built and elite stores moved into the arcades facing the glorious inner courtyard.

Royalty no longer resides here. Rather, the bourgeoisie inhabit the apartments, including the well-to-do shopkeepers who live above their stores, famous writers and poets, established actors, dancers, directors, and choreographers. The theater in the east wing of the complex draws the creative here despite the darkness inhabiting this ancient square. For the Palais is not without its tragedy.

Policemen, I thought, only policemen have preserved that way of looking, an atavism that goes back to hunting and dark woods; then I remembered that they had been speaking Spanish, so they could not have belonged to the police force, or not the French police force, at any rate. I thought they were readying themselves to speak, to jabber as disoriented foreigners always do, but instead the one directly in front of me lurched aside in the clumsiest imaginable fashion, and pressed against the shoulder of his companion in a way that surely must have been uncomfortable for both of them, at which point, having pronounced a brief and unreciprocated greeting, I was able to continue my descent. Out of curiosity, when I reached the first-floor landing, I glanced back at them: they were still there, standing on the very same steps, I would swear, faintly illuminated by a globe suspended over the landing above them, and—even more surprisingly—still holding the exact position they had adopted in order to let me pass. As if time had stopped, I thought. When I reached the street I found it was raining, and I forgot all about that incident.

Madame Reynaud was seated against the far wall of the restaurant, her back held very straight, as usual. She seemed impatient, although when she caught sight of me her expression softened, as if a sudden relaxation were the appropriate manner in which to indicate that she had recognized me and was waiting.

I strode from my family’s apartment on the sooty rue de Rome, across from the Saint-Lazare train station, where locomotives coughed up smoke. The wind whipped my hair, and I tucked tendrils under my tam hat. In the distance, I could see the ebony dome of Saint-Augustin church. Religion, 200. Old Testament, 221. And the New Testament? I waited, but the number wouldn’t come. I was so nervous that I forgot simple facts. I drew my notebook from my purse. Ah, yes, 225. I knew that.

My favorite part of library school had been the Dewey Decimal system. Conceived in 1873 by the American librarian Melvil Dewey, it used ten classes to organize library books on shelves based on subject. There was a number for everything, allowing any reader to find any book in any library. For example, Maman took pride in her 648 (housekeeping). Papa wouldn’t admit it, but he really did enjoy 785 (chamber music). My twin brother was more of a 636.8 person, while I preferred 636.7. (Cats and dogs, respectively.)

I arrived on le grand boulevard, where in the space of a block, the city shrugged off her working-class mantle and donned a mink coat. The coarse smell of coal dissipated, replaced by the honeyed jasmine of Joy, worn by women delighting in the window display of Nina Ricci’s dresses and Kislav green leather gloves. Farther along, I wound around musicians exiting the shop that sold wrinkled sheet music, past the baroque building with the blue door, and turned the corner, onto a narrow side street. I knew the way by heart.

I loved Paris, a city with secrets. Like book covers, some leather, some cloth, each Parisian door led to an unexpected world. A courtyard could contain a knot of bicycles or a plump concierge armed with a broom. In the case of the Library, the massive wooden door opened to a secret garden. Bordered by petunias on one side, lawn on the other, the white pebbled path led to the brick-and-stone mansion. I crossed the threshold, beneath French and American flags flittering side by side, and hung my jacket on the rickety coatrack. Breathing in the best smell in the world—a mélange of the mossy scent of musty books and crisp newspaper pages—I felt as if I’d come home.

They had stood in the bare holding area, not daring to speak. Helaine was certain that her arrest had been some sort of mistake. She had done nothing wrong. They had to free her. But even as she thought this, she knew that the old world of being a French citizen with rights was long gone.

An hour passed, then two. There was nowhere to sit, and a few people dropped to the floor. An elderly woman dozed against the wall, mouth agape. Except for the slight rise and fall of her chest, she might have been dead. Hunger gnawed at Helaine and she wished that she still had the baked goods she purchased at the market just before she was taken. The meager breads, which had seemed so pathetic days earlier, now would have been a feast. But her belongings had been confiscated upon arrest.

Helaine looked upward through the thin slit of window near the ceiling. They were still in Paris. The sour smell from the city street and the sounds of cars and footsteps despite the curfew were familiar, if not comforting. How long they would stay here, she did not know. Helaine was torn. She did not want to remain in this empty room forever. Yet she also dreaded leaving, for wherever they were going would surely be worse.

Finally, the door had opened. “Sortir!” a voice ordered them out in French, reminding Helaine that the policemen, who had brought them here and who were keeping them captive, were not Germans, but their own people.

Helaine had filed into the dimly lit corridor with the others. They exited the police station and stepped outside onto the pavement. At the sight of the familiar buildings and the street leading away from the station, Helaine momentarily considered fleeing. She had no idea, though, where she would go. She imagined running to her childhood home, debated whether her estranged mother would take her in or turn her away. But the women were heavily guarded and there was no real possibility of escape. Instead, Helaine breathed the fresh air in great gulps, sensing that she might not be in the open again for quite some time.

The women were herded up a ramp toward an awaiting truck. Helaine recoiled. They were being placed in the back part of the vehicle where goods should have been carried, not people. Helaine wanted to protest but did not dare. Smells of stale grain and rotting meat, the truck’s previous cargo, assaulted her nose, mixing with her own stench in the warm air. It had been three days since she had bathed or changed and her dress was wrinkled and filthy, her once-luminous black curls dull and matted against her head.

When the women were all inside the truck, the back hatch shut with an ominous click. “Where are they taking us?” someone whispered. Silence. No one knew and they were all too afraid to venture a guess. They had heard the stories of the trains headed east to awful places from which no one ever returned. Helaine wondered how long the journey would be.

As they bumped along the Paris streets, Helaine’s bones, already sore from sleeping on the hard prison cell floor, cried out in pain. Her mouth was dry and her stomach empty. She wanted water and a meal, a hot bath. She wanted home.

If home was a place that even existed anymore. Helaine’s husband, Gabriel, was missing in Germany, his fate unknown. She had scarcely spoken with her parents since before the war. And Helaine herself had been taken without notice. Nobody knew that she had been arrested or had any idea where she had gone. It was as if she simply no longer existed.

When was the last time he saw her? Thinking about her always makes him feel guilty. Should he have been there for her more, looked out for her ... ? She’s fragile, Jess. Or—not fragile exactly, but vulnerable in a way people probably don’t see at first. An “armadillo”: softness beneath that tough exterior.

Anyway. He should call her, give her some directions. When her phone rings out he leaves a voicenote: “Hey Jess, so it’s number twelve, Rue des Amants. Got that? Third floor.”

His eye’s drawn to a flash of movement in the courtyard beneath the windows. Someone’s passing through it quickly.

Almost running. He can only make out a shadowy figure, can’t see who it is. But something about the speed seems odd. He’s hit with a little animal spike of adrenaline.

He remembers he’s still recording the voicenote, drags his gaze from the window. “Just ring the buzzer. I’ll be up waiting for you—”

He stops speaking. Hesitates, listens.

A noise.

The sound of footsteps out on the landing ... approaching the apartment door.

The footsteps stop. Someone is there, just outside. He waits for a knock. None comes. Silence. But a weighted silence, like a held breath.

Odd.

And then another sound. He stands still, ears pricked, listening intently. There it is again. It’s metal on metal, the scrape of a key. Then the clunk of it entering the mechanism. He watches the lock turn. Someone is unlocking his door from the outside. Someone who has a key, but no business coming in here uninvited.

The handle begins to move downward. The door begins to open, with that familiar drawn-out groan.

He puts his phone down on the kitchen counter, voicenote forgotten. Waits and watches dumbly as the door swings forward.

As the figure steps into the room.

“What are you doing here?” he asks. Calm, reasonable. Nothing to hide. Not afraid. Or not yet. “And why—”

Then he sees what his intruder holds.

Now. Now the fear comes.