A Little in Love Page 3

  I didn’t want to know that. “I mean, are the ladies very beautiful?”

  Boulatruelle cackled and Papa shook his head. “Not the ladies I’ve known! Let me tell you this: Paris is perfect for thieving in and that’s all. At la Grève, for example, everyone’s too busy watching the guillotine to feel a hand in their pocket … Ha!”

  I felt sad: These weren’t the tales I’d hoped for.

  I knew Père Gauphin had been to Paris so I asked him instead. “Oh,” he sighed, “it was a fine city once. It might be fine again but as long as there’s a rich, plump king and starving people …” He coughed his rattling cough. “It’s got its troubles.”

  Madame Cou didn’t like company so I couldn’t ask her.

  Widow Amandine said, “Paris? I’ve never been.”

  It was Maman’s romance books I turned to in the end. In them, I found my gentlemen with gold-topped canes and perfumed ladies who fluttered their eyes behind fans. Notre-Dame’s polished stones reflected the sun. People fell in love on the Paris streets.

  I sighed.

  I laid down The Beauty of Belleville and looked out the bedroom window. It was my favorite daydream—that one day I’d be pretty, and I’d walk with a boy on the rue de Rivoli in a skirt that went shush … shush … shush.

  * * *

  Maman came back looking flushed. She stepped down from the coach in an embroidered cape that trailed behind her, and she smelled musky, strange.

  “Maman! What did you see?”

  She swayed up the path, past the nettles. “Where’s your father? Find him. Tell him I have money …”

  “And gifts?” chirped Azelma.

  “Oui, ma chérie, and gifts.”

  * * *

  I was given a shiny petticoat and a white fur muff for the winter. Azelma got a cape with a green velvet trim. She danced in it, singing, “Look at me, look at me!” Papa was handed a clinking drawstring pouch, full of coins.

  Cosette? She got nothing. She crept out of the shadows that evening, as we were eating roasted goose.

  “What do you want?” Maman barked. “Why aren’t you fetching water? Go and get it!”

  I stopped chewing. I thought, Poor Cosette, because it was pitch-black outside and she must have been so hungry. But she said nothing; she only trembled, nodded, and reached for the bucket. The goose tasted bitter after that.

  * * *

  I found her later. She’d fetched the water and was huddled on her bed under the stairs, whimpering.

  “Cosette?”

  She looked afraid. Maybe she’d thought I was Maman.

  “Don’t worry—she’s sleeping and Papa is counting his francs in the bar. They won’t see this.” I held out my hands. I’d saved some of the goose for her.

  She stared. “For me?”

  “Yes.”

  She made small, soft noises as she ate. I saw the blisters on her hand and her flaking lips. “You’ve been asking people about Paris, haven’t you?” she said, swallowing. “My mother knows Paris.”

  “Really?”

  “She met my father there. She said they walked along the riverbank and he took her to theaters where the lanterns are made of gold …”

  This was what I’d wanted. “Thank you.”

  Cosette wiped her mouth. We looked at each other and smiled. It was like we’d both given something the other person needed—a little bit of nourishment. Mine for her body, and hers for my soul.

  I sometimes think we’re like the flowers—we don’t need very much to grow. Just food, water, and light.

  The hedgerows in Montfermeil were filled with flowers that summer. They spilled over walls into the ruelle du Boulanger so that they brushed the carriages that trundled past. The lanes were so colorful—blue anemones and pink roses and the tiny yellow daisy’s eye. Nobody cared for these flowers and yet they grew. People gazed at their prettiness or stooped from their horse to pick a bloom or two.

  Cosette didn’t see any of it. She was indoors all the time, scrubbing the kitchen floor or darning our clothes. We ate raspberries and played in the fields but she didn’t. In September she dropped a glass and it smashed, and Maman screamed at her, “You horrid, clumsy beast!” She hit Cosette so that she had bruises for weeks.

  But she still had to fetch the water. “Off into the woods!” cried Maman. “Go! I don’t care if it’s cold or scary out there! And don’t spill a drop, do you hear?”

  Cosette wept very quietly when she lay down that night. I heard her.

  By November, some nights were so frosty and cold that I worried she might freeze to death in her sackcloth dress, out in those spooky woods. But she always came back, shivering with cold but alive.

  She was like the flowers in the lane, maybe—nobody cared for her, but she still grew, and she was pretty. Prettier than Azelma and me.

  * * *

  “She isn’t a Thenardier,” Maman said. “You don’t want to fetch the water yourself, do you?”

  I definitely didn’t. But I didn’t like seeing Cosette’s bruises or hearing her little moans at night.

  It was a wintry day when I decided to help: the fire in our bedroom kept us warm but all the other rooms were icy cold. Even the cat stayed near us. But Cosette was scrubbing the back doorstep. She was kneeling with a bucket of water beside her, scrubbing very slowly back and forth. Her skin was goose-pimply and blue. And at that moment, she knocked the bucket over. It clattered and its water raced across the yard.

  Cosette wailed, “No!” and tried to dam the water with her hands but she couldn’t stop it. The bucket was empty.

  She gave a single sob. She’d have to fetch more water now and it was getting dark.

  “Cosette?” I whispered.

  She was all teary-eyed.

  “There’s a trick I know. Give me the bucket.”

  She didn’t move.

  “The bucket! Cosette, you don’t have to go in the woods. The old nag in the field? She has a drinking trough. It’s not good water because it’s green with insects in it and people can’t drink it but you could scrub a floor with it. The bucket, quick!” I reached out my hand.

  I ran from the inn in my silk petticoats and climbed over the gate. I broke the icy crust on the water trough, filled the bucket up.

  When I returned, her eyes were as big as saucers. I said, “When you’re done, come upstairs. Papa is teaching Azelma how to cheat at cards in the bar and Maman is drinking with men so they won’t know if you come up to warm your hands.” I tried to smile. “I won’t tell.”

  I remember how she crouched by the fire with her eyes closed as she soaked up its heat. Like the flowers that turn their faces to the warmth of the sun.

  “Thank you,” she whispered after a little while, and she padded back downstairs.

  * * *

  I liked being kind to her. It felt much better than stealing, or being mean. I was frightened that Maman might find out, but how could she? I thought my secret was safe.

  But in the morning, Widow Amandine knocked on our door. She owned the old gray nag and, like the nag, she had big teeth and a swaying bottom.

  “Monsieur and Madame Thenardier?”

  My parents were suspicious. “Oui?”

  “Please keep that eldest daughter of yours from stealing my horse’s water. I saw her yesterday! She took a whole bucketful! It is theft—theft, I tell you! I pay Père Six-Fours for that water, don’t I?”

  “You’re mistaken,” said Maman, but her voice sounded tight.

  “I saw her, Madame! And if it happens again I will bring the gendarme from Chelles and I’m sure you wouldn’t want that.” She snorted, turned, and swung her bottom down the lane.

  Maman slammed the door and bellowed, “EPONINE!”

  She found me on the stairs, seized me by the wrist, and said, “What’s this? Taking water from a drinking trough? Did you? Answer me!”

  “But you like stealing, Maman—”

  “Don’t be sassy with me! Why did you do it? It’s Cosette�
��s job to fetch the water—that horrid, bony thing!” She brought her face closer to mine. “Were you helping her?”

  I paused.

  “You were, weren’t you? You were helping that stinking little …” Maman hissed in disgust. “Don’t you remember what I told you, Eponine? That”—she pointed down the stairs, where Cosette was huddling—“isn’t a Thenardier! Why should we be kind to her?”

  “Because … it’s nice to be kind?”

  “Nice? NICE?” She kicked the cat as it passed her. “I shan’t say this twice so listen well: Kindness is a useless thing. Useless! Do you think that kindness stops the guillotine’s blade or the gnaw of hunger in a belly or the gray hairs creeping onto a man’s head? Do you think a kind man’s body won’t be sucked by worms? Hm? These are dangerous times, Eponine, and people will steal and trick and lie and kill, if they have to. And it is the kind people who are tricked and fooled and stolen from! It’s the kind ones who are murdered! Do you want that to be you?”

  “No, Maman.”

  “Then be cruel. Cruel! It’s what will save you! And”—she grasped my collar—“if you cannot be cruel, and if you cannot be hard, then I’m not sure you’re my daughter at all.” She let go, folded her arms.

  I was shocked. “Not your daughter?”

  “Maybe not. Maybe it’s only Azelma who’s my daughter, for she is growing hard. She does not help that snivelling wretch. And if you aren’t a Thenardier, why must we keep you?”

  I was frightened and I reached out for her. “No, Maman! I am your daughter! I can be cruel!”

  She eyed me. “Can you?”

  “Yes! Very cruel! You’ll see!”

  “You must prove it.”

  “I will! I will prove it!”

  She sniffed. She bent down and kissed my head. “Good.”

  I wondered, then, what kind of flower I was because I drank up my mother’s kiss like it was water. As if it hadn’t rained for months.

  “Promise me?”

  “I promise. I’ll be hard and cruel.”

  I wasn’t kind to Cosette again. I’d promised Maman I’d be hard and cruel, and so I was.

  I watched how Maman did it, for being cruel was easy to her. She’d push Cosette as she passed her and call her names. She’d look at the newly scrubbed floor and say, “It’s filthy! Scrub that again!” Or she’d point at the bleeding cracks on Cosette’s heels and call out, “A cow! A cow! Look, she has hooves!”

  “A cow would be more useful,” said Papa, through his pipe.

  I began with tiny things. I called her ugly, or I’d stomp on the stairs when she was sleeping. I waited until she’d finished mopping the floor and then I walked across it in my muddy shoes, saying, “Oops …” in a very casual way. I also told Cosette that her mother was probably much happier without her—“Maybe she’s never coming back?”—and this made Cosette cry. Maman overheard this; she smiled at me.

  As for Azelma, she soon stopped sucking her thumb and started sucking her meat instead, licking her plate. By the time she was six she could burp like a man. She’d run to Papa even though he had a horrible bristly chin and a smelly mouth, and say, “Papa, show me how to … ?” She wanted to know how to fill liquor bottles with water and cheat at dominoes. He showed her, saying, “What a fine crook you’re becoming!” and Azelma squirmed with delight.

  She was very cruel too. She hid Cosette’s blanket when snow was due and threw stones at her. She started eating her food very lavishly, licking her lips and singing out, “Oh, this duck is delicious, Maman! So rich and tasty! Cosette, how is your blackened bread?” or “How is your apple with worms in?” Maman laughed and coddled Azelma, saying, “Well done, my darling—well done.”

  * * *

  Maybe it was because we ate too much or threw too many logs on the fire but as the months slipped by, so did the money.

  Maman tried to save. She’d tell Cosette to darn a torn bodice instead of buying a new one. She used fewer candles and less powder on her face and she raged at the cost of things—milk from Monsieur Fournier or a sack of flour. “How much? They should be ashamed! Robbery, that is …”

  I said, “Does that ugly pig under the stairs need three pieces of bread a day? Let’s give her two because that’s more bread for us.”

  Maman’s eyes shone. “Good girl, Eponine …”

  But it got worse. The small white envelopes that Cosette’s mother sent every month with fifteen francs inside stopped coming. Papa stamped his foot. “Where the hell is this month’s money from that brat’s mother?”

  Maman muttered, “She’s stopped paying.”

  “What? Write to her! Demand that she pays! Tell her that—what’s her name? Colette?—is ill and needs fifty francs for medicine or she’ll die! That should do it.”

  But it didn’t. Maman wrote letters but no money came.

  “Maybe she’s died herself,” she muttered. “How selfish that would be … How are we meant to buy petticoats if that yellow-haired strumpet is dead?”

  * * *

  So it was back to thieving. Azelma and I were given orders: “Out, out! Steal what you can, my darling ones …”

  I went to the market at Chelles. It was a noisy place with dancing girls and fortune-tellers and a pig roasting on a spit and it was easy to steal from here—buttons, purses, and a jar of honey. I went to Claude the blacksmith too. He didn’t have much money but he had a fine glossy horse tied up outside and I thought, Such a horse must belong to a very rich man … I slipped my hand into its saddlebags and found a bone-handled knife. It might be useful one day.

  I wanted to make Maman happy so I stole whatever I could, and from everyone. One Sunday, I stole from church. People wear their best clothes to church after all, and I stole a cross-shaped brooch, a lace-edged handkerchief, and some white gloves. As Widow Amandine knelt beside her husband’s grave, I unclasped her necklace and ran home with it thinking, Maman will be so pleased with me!

  I stole from Blind Roland too. He was standing in the street and his eyes were open but I knew he couldn’t see. He called, “Who’s there? Please talk to me? I’m blind and can’t see you!” His wedding ring was on his finger. His wife had died in childbirth, many years before.

  I tugged the ring off, ran away.

  “Come back! Please, come back! Not my wedding ring!” But I didn’t stop running. Be heartless, Maman had told me, and I’d vowed to be hard and cruel.

  * * *

  “Oh, clever Eponine!” she said. But I couldn’t sleep that night, thinking about poor Blind Roland and poor Widow Amandine. When I went downstairs for a glass of water, I tripped over Cosette. She gasped, sat up.

  “Eponine,” she whispered, “is it true? Did you steal the wedding ring from that poor blind man?”

  My belly knotted with shame. I almost said, Yes … yes, it’s true and I feel awful about it—but I’d promised Maman, so I put my hands on my hips and said, “Yes, it’s true. So what?” I spat at her, kicked her, and walked away.

  * * *

  It was a horrible thing to do. That wedding ring was all Blind Roland had left to touch of his wife. He used to turn that ring over and over and kiss it, pretending the ring was her. I heard his cries of desperation again: “Come back! I beg you! Not my wedding ring!”

  I felt so ashamed. The next day, I wanted to be alone so I hid behind a stone wall where the roses grew in summer. It was September now but a few roses were still out.

  As I sat, I heard voices. It was Monsieur and Madame Lefevre, who lived in the house with two chimneys side by side, as they always were. They couldn’t see me because I was hidden but I could hear them talking.

  “Every day, I love you more,” said Monsieur Lefevre. There was the neat pop of a rose being picked. “For you.”

  “Oh, Gustave … And I love you too.”

  I heard them kiss and then they walked on.

  Afterward, I wrapped my arms around my shins and I cried. I felt so sad because of the blind man and Widow Amandine, but
also because the pebble in my heart was back going knock, knock, knock. Why didn’t I have someone to pick a rose for me, or someone to say they loved me and always would?

  I wiped my eyes. I looked out, across the fields. I couldn’t see Paris but I knew it was there, with its theaters and happy people.

  One day I’ll go there, I told myself. I’d find love on the streets of Paris, and I wouldn’t steal, and my heart wouldn’t feel pebble-sore.

  That was what I wanted more than anything.

  The stars smiled quietly as I made my way home.

  We grew thinner. Even with our pickings, our petticoats slipped from our waists and our bodices started to sag. We couldn’t pay the cook anymore so he left, cursing us. “You’re a bunch of stinking, brainless thieves!” he snapped.

  “We are not brainless,” Maman snapped back.

  She sold the widow’s necklace and her own pearl earrings and my white fur muff. She nearly sold the bone-handled knife but Papa stopped her. “Sell it?” He shook his head. “But it’s so sharp, and it’s pocket-sized … I reckon I’ve got use for that.”

  * * *

  Only one person didn’t grow thinner that autumn and that was Maman. She actually grew fatter, sucking the marrow out of bones and licking the stones of fruit, and she was bad-tempered too.

  One day she slapped Cosette so hard that Cosette struck the doorframe as she fell. “Have you killed her?” I whispered, frightened.

  “Of course I haven’t killed her … What a stupid question!” But Cosette’s nose bled and bled.

  Then one night Maman stopped on the stairs. She groaned, felt her belly with her hands. “It’s coming.”

  “What is?” asked Azelma.

  “The baby,” said Maman. “My God, this thing had better be a girl … ,” she muttered to herself.

  It wasn’t. It was a boy. We knew he’d been born from the sound of our mother’s wild screeching in the middle of the night.

  “A boy? A BOY?! What the hell do I want with a wretched boy?!”

  I hurried downstairs to find my little brother lying on the floor, waving his fists as he wailed and wailed.

  Maman was hunched by the fire. She was sweaty and red and drinking gin. “A boy!” she spat out like a seed.