Free Mademoiselle Chanel by C. W. Gortner Page A

under the bed before Adrienne saw it. But we had livable furnishings, including a cracked mirror over the sagging bureau, and as Adrienne regarded it in miserable resignation, I said, “At least we don’t have that awful stove to worry about,” and proceeded to unpack with determination. “We’ll be fine, you’ll see,” I kept saying. “In a few weeks, we’ll have more work than we know what to do with.”
    It didn’t turn out that way. Most of the cafés had a surfeit of chanteuses and queues of hopefuls at their back doors, as did the local shops. We managed to find part-time work taking in mending but the pay was no better than Madame G.’s, and though I emptied my precious tin to purchase an appropriately corseted costume for auditions, no proprietor of the boulevard cafés offered to hire me. Finally, as the summer season ended and Vichy emptied of its spa guests, I received my only offer from an off-the-boulevard cabaret named Le Palais Doré, though the only thing that could be described as golden about it were the nicotine stains on its walls.
    Here I sang every night in the beuglant : ten of us, arranged in a chorus, subject to howling sailors on leave and other riffraff. I fended off morehands and slobbery lips than I could count and walked home every night, despite the drunkards on every corner. As soon as I opened the door to find Adrienne wilted on the bed with the daily mending at her feet, I adopted a bright smile and declared I’d made more tips in a night than in an entire week at La Rotunde.
    “That is wonderful,” she said, unconvincingly, and we cobbled together a cold meal out of three-day-old bread and fatty ham the charcuterie sold us at a reduced price.
    Then one day, when I arrived home, nearly at my own wits’ end, I found her waiting in her now-soiled linen travel suit, her suitcase packed and crumpled hat on her head.
    “I’m going back to Moulins. I love you like a sister, Gabrielle, but I cannot take this anymore.” Her voice caught. “Maurice hasn’t visited me once, and if I stay away too long—”
    “No. Say no more,” I whispered, embracing her.
    I accompanied her to the train station, bought her a third-class ticket home, and waved from the platform as the train pulled away in a jangle of gears and a cloud of black fumes.
    Only as I trudged back to our grungy room did I realize I’d been abandoned once again.
    However, this time I was truly alone.

X
    B alsan’s absence had first bewildered, then hurt, then outraged me, so that I squashed his memory like the numerous cockroaches infesting my room.
    One night, as I performed in the beuglant in some awful number, dressed in a humiliating shoulder-baring costume that the proprietor demanded we wear and pay for in installments out of our wages, I saw Balsan enter the cabaret. I recognized him at once, even from across the room, like a kick to my stomach. As the lyrics of the song warbled, bitter in my mouth, he looked around, clearly aghast, at the rowdy stomping of boots and streams of chewing tobacco into spittoons. Then he slowly turned to the stage.
    He must have spotted me, the gaunt one, my bodice held up with pins because I had lost so much weight, but I pretended not to see him. I finished the song and fled the lurid catcalls that followed, rushing backstage to tear off my costume, even as the manager barked, “You’re not done! It’s your turn to take around the purse for tips.”
    The purse he always dipped into, taking a substantial cut. I just glared at him and stormed out the back door, not caring if I dirtied my sole pair of shoes in the alley where customers relieved themselves.
    I felt sick as I raced to my room. Flinging my coat aside, I looked atmyself in the mirror. I had avoided it for weeks, not wanting to see the results of my stubbornness. Now, as I finally let myself take in my reflection, a scream rose in my throat.
    I had the face of my childhood again: huge lightless black eyes hovering above