“The Waiter” (Part I)

“You cannot give her that,” said Mme. Bernier. “She can barely take my soup.”

François was not surprised. Few could take Mme. Bernier’s soup. He moved to the bed by the window and placed a gentle kiss on Odette’s forehead.

Her lashes fluttered like startled birds. François whispered. “I’ve brought you a café.”

She relaxed instantly into a smile. Mme. Bernier hurried to prop her upright, stuffing the pillow between her shoulders and the iron bedstead. François proffered the cup he had procured from the boulangerie downstairs and Odette’s pale hands closed about it. “I saw you in the light,” she murmured.

He tried not to appear chilled by her statement. “I have a surprise for you,” he said.

Odette was breathing the steam from her coffee, her eyes half-closed in blissful oblivion. At the prompt, her brows lifted inquiringly and François gestured to the figure waiting by the door.

“This is Père Emil.”

Her eyes widened. “So soon?”

François hastened to reassure her. “No, no, chèrie. He has come to make you my wife.”

“Oh!” It was Mme. Bernier, exclaiming into her hands. Odette said nothing. She sat frozen, staring at the priest with the café forgotten in her hands. Père Emil drifted closer, his face as kind and earnest as François remembered from his boyhood. Odette was too baffled to protest and gave him her hand when he offered an open palm of his own.

“Mademoiselle, it is my deepest pleasure to meet you.”

Her dark eyes sought François. He smiled nervously. He had wanted to marry her from the moment she had entered the café on the arm of one of her painter/poets, the dissolute foursome who had shared her affection at the expense of one true love. She had been beautiful then, young and vivacious, the muse they had named “Anise”. So many nights she had spent, kissing and carousing in the company of pretentious imposters who had talked of holding a salon to rival the Impressionists yet produced not a single painting among them. She had posed for them, she said, though the only work François had seen of her was a sketch by Auguste Renoir that hung now on the wall of this tiny apartment. “She is too melancholy,” the artist had lamented, but François had emptied his pockets to persuade him, and Odette’s smile at his persistence had changed the master’s mind.

He loved her now more than ever. “Please,” he whispered. “Marry me, Odette.”

Mutely, with tears in her eyes, she nodded.

François stood by the bed. Mme. Bernier stood as a witness. The café au lait grew cold on the nightstand. Père Emil spoke with reverence to the sanctity of marriage and waited patiently while vows were repeated first by the groom, then by the bride. Neither of them wept, but Mme. Bernier sobbed for both of them.

François had bought a ring at the pawnshop; a plain gold band, it was a perfect fit. “You know me so well,” Odette remarked as it slid into place on the appropriate finger.

The priest pronounced them man and wife. “You may kiss the bride.”

They looked at each other. François swallowed, but the lump in his throat refused to budge. Odette rescued him by embarking on a mild coughing fit that required the aid of the cold café au lait and sent Mme. Bernier scurrying to her own apartment for more soup. Père Emil produced a pocket kerchief which he inspected closely when it was returned.

It was dry.

“Merci, mon Père,” François said on seeing him to the door. “I am in your debt.”

“What shall I say to your mother?”

“Say that I shall be home for Easter.”

The priest inspected the boy’s face as intently as he had inspected the kerchief. François gave him nothing; his countenance remained resolute despite the probing gaze. Finally, with no further word, Père Emil took his leave.

Mme. Bernier returned with a chipped tureen in her hands and half a baguette tucked under her arm. “For your supper. It’s not much, but I wasn’t expecting a wedding.” She carried both to the table, then frowned at the bride. “You will eat, mademoi—madame. Your husband will make sure of it.”

Odette was contemplating her wedding ring and did not reply. François escorted the old dear to the door, sent her on her way with consent to look in tomorrow, then bolted the door behind her. He lingered for a moment, his brow resting against the wood, until Odette’s voice crossed the short distance between them.

“My father can hardly refuse me now.”

“He will not dare,” François said, quietly.

Silence fell. When François faced the room at last, his wife was staring out the window. He had not imagined she could become more beautiful, yet illness had made her incandescent. She burned by the glass, white skin and dark hair, shadows etched, starkly alluring, in the bones of her face. He longed to kiss those bones, to caress them with his lips as he had only dreamed of doing because she had come to him ravaged and unwilling despite the offer she had made. Hoping to make her love him first, he had declined and now it was too late.

“What do you see?” he asked.

“Paris,” she answered. She glanced at him. “And you?”

“I see the most beautiful woman in the world.”

She made a sound that should have been laughter but emerged as something else. “You have been too good to me, François. I do not deserve your kindness.”

“It is no kindness.” He moved from the door, stepping softly on the bare floorboards. Arriving at her bedside, he put out a hand. She gave him hers. He brought it to his lips and she flicked her forefinger at his moustache. Duly dissuaded, he sat on the bed and held her hand instead.

“I won’t be too long,” she promised.

He smiled. “Take as long as you like.”

Odette tipped her head against the bedstead and sighed. “I would take forever if I could.” Her gaze sharpened, startling him with its fervour. “I would take you, François.”

He tried to make a jest of it. “Were you not listening to Père Emil? You have taken me.”

“I thought you were a boy,” she went on as if he had not spoken. “The others, Henri and Georges and that ridiculous Jean-Claude, I thought they were men, but they are the boys and you are the man. I see that now. I see everything so clearly, François. So clearly. Will you forgive me? Can you forgive me?”

“Ma chèrie,” he said gruffly, “you must forgive yourself.”

Fresh tears rose in her eyes. She held his gaze for a moment more, then looked quickly away, through the window to the gaslit streets of Paris.

“You left home for love,” he reminded her.

“I left one fool for another and became a fool myself.”

“Am I a fool, Odette?”

She blinked and glanced back at him, a corner of her mouth curling in a reluctant smile. “The biggest of them all,” she said, and he laughed aloud because the joy at her teasing was greater than any offense he could have taken.

to be continued ...