13, rue Thérèse: A Novel, by Elena Mauli Shapiro

Pressed pansy letter

ReaganArthur — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 19:29:18 +0000

A letter from Camille to Louise, with a pressed pansy.

Translation:

“Your cousin who loves you and thinks of you—Camille.”

Pressed pansy letter.
Press the play button to hear this audio track.

Louise’s calendar

ReaganArthur — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 19:24:20 +0000

Did you know, the year of this little memento calendar, 1928?–this is our year. Halfway between the Great War and the Greater War: this is the year of our story. In its waning months, yes–an unusually warm November is when everything begins (Cleper’s birthstone chart proclaims November as the month for topaz, the gem of ardent love, nobility). A new family moves into Louise’s building, and new things start to happen.

Henri on his motorcycle near Bracieux

ReaganArthur — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 19:21:24 +0000

This photograph was taken in the summer of 1926, from too far away. Louise did not know how to properly operate the camera. Despite this, Henri is recognizable, as is the outer edge of the town of Bracieux behind him. Henri, tightly packed into his suit, poses proudly on his reckless machine.

Henri’s driver’s license

ReaganArthur — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 19:14:03 +0000

You can see that he goes by his middle name, and not his first. You can see that he bears an uncanny resemblance to Louise’s father, only with a slightly broader face. In this photograph he is only thirty, but he is already half-bald, prematurely aged. Louise’s father, in spite of all the grief he has suffered with the loss of his wife and his only son, is well preserved and ages slowly. It is almost as if the two men are converging through the years.

Letter from the trenches

ReaganArthur — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 19:09:53 +0000

At the Army, on 3-11-15
My Dear Louisette—
I write you these few words in haste because I don’t have much time since we are preparing for a maneuver near Dunkerque—for a few days, apart from that my health is good and I think improved because of you—the Pastilles are good for me—thank you—

Young man in uniform

ReaganArthur — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 19:05:05 +0000

He is dashing but not identified. There is no way for us today to know who he is, now that everyone is dead. He bears a family resemblance to the father, so this could indeed be the son, Louise’s brother. Who knows: a lot of the men pictured in the record look like kin. The young man could also be Louise’s cousin Camille, the one who became her beloved. He might have sent her this photograph of himself from the front lines as a token of his romantic love, like the flowery lacy postcard and like the bullet pencil case. There is no way to know.

A thousand kisses postcard

ReaganArthur — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 18:59:42 +0000

It is addressed, of course, to his beloved Louise. It was dashed off quickly because, as you can perhaps see, the boy’s signature bleeds a little, the curve of the C and the dot in the i especially. It is unlike him to be so careless with his writing implements; he must have been on his way somewhere. He had time to send only the fastest thought, the one thing he truly needed to dispense to Louise before shooting off to a dangerous place: a thousand kisses.

“I embrace you well and hard from the trenches”

ReaganArthur — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 18:50:04 +0000

Letter to My Little Louisette

ReaganArthur — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 18:46:07 +0000

Not much to tell you other than good health and no bad blood.

The calling card

ReaganArthur — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 18:39:25 +0000

If you pay attention, you can see there is something written on the back of the card, pressed hard enough that it makes a slight impression on the front side. Flip the card over—see?
This is her handwriting. This is the handwriting of the owner of the record. If you cannot read it, here is translated what she has written, to remind herself (and you, perhaps):
Mlle. Victor Louise Noémie
Born 13 May 1896
in the 15th Arrondissement
She has underlined her maiden name twice, and underlined it hard—her father’s family name. Her Christian name is Louise. She is thirty-two years old.

Louise Brunet’s calling card

ReaganArthur — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 18:32:20 +0000

There is no address on this one. What is the meaning of this nearly blank thing, with only the tidy black inscription of a woman’s married name? It means that the woman is of comfortable enough means to bother with such an affectation as a calling card.
But what does it signify when her first name is not on the card? What does it mean that all the names that she was born with are not in fact printed on her calling card? This is a funny thing.

Monsieur & Madame Brunet’s calling card

ReaganArthur — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 18:28:09 +0000

This is the calling card for a happy married couple.
It lists their address—a narrow edifice in the center of Paris, too small to allow for the installation of one of those thrilling creaky elevators that are cropping up in the larger buildings.
Louise likes the building she lives in. It is six stories high with a green front door into a narrow entryway leading to the staircase and a small courtyard in the back. There is a chambre de bonne under the roof, a romantic and miserable space where some artist or student always lives. She lives on the third floor. She trudges up and down the stairs several times a day (with and without grocery bags), but she tells herself this keeps her fit. She likes the tile on the landings: stark black and white squares, a chessboard.

Luck-Bearing Precious Stones

ReaganArthur — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 18:25:59 +0000

The middle spread of the booklet contains a chart of birthstones and what they symbolize, and helpfully points out that such stones can be mounted on rings, barrettes, pendants in platinum, gold, silver.
The back page lists which stones must be worn each month to preserve one’s health. That Cleper is a clever fellow. His first name is Pierre; clearly, he was born to work with stones, was he not?

June 1928 calendar, with Louise’s “x”

ReaganArthur — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 18:19:20 +0000

Louise has not written much in Pierre Cleper’s little diary. It floats around on the bottom of her purse, and she digs it out when she needs to scrawl down an address or a telephone number. The only marks she has made on the pages where the months of the year are charted are in June and in July: on the nineteenth day of both these months, she has put a small x, in pencil. To the outside observer, this means nothing.

The little calendar

ReaganArthur — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 18:13:12 +0000

As you can see, the notebook is tiny—approximately two by three inches—but its paper is good and thick. Behind the flowered cover, the front flap announces: “This Calendar contains THE CHARTS of Luck-Bearing Precious Stones.” The first page advertises the business of a jeweler named Cleper, whose shop is on the boulevard de Strasbourg. The diary is clearly a small favor given to customers or potential customers as a form of advertisement. Louise has it because Cleper worked in her father’s shop with her husband, before Cleper split off and opened his own shop. The three men are still friends.

Portrait of Louise’s father as a young man

ReaganArthur — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 04:17:55 +0000

He is excited. He looks forward to the future. Look at his forthright gaze. He has just gotten an apprenticeship making jewelry. His father is disappointed that the boy will not pursue his studies in law but understands that the boy is good with his hands and wants to do something with them. The boy has always been gifted with tiny work.
His protruding ears are endearing. He is too young to even know that a portrait from a profile or three-quarters perspective would be immensely more flattering. The ears would not stick out so. Eventually, he will figure this out.
If you were a romantic, and you hadn’t just been pulled back here through what is to come, you would say: He has his whole life ahead of him—how lucky he is.

Pansy

ReaganArthur — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 03:17:47 +0000

“Look!” shouts Garance, pointing excitedly like a child half her age. When Louise glances where she’s told, she is amazed. There is a solitary fragile flower unfurled delicately in one of the plants, a splash of color wavering tremulously in the cool afternoon breeze. It is a pansy, purple and white, an unexpected, daring offspring of this unusually warm November.
“That flower is crazy!” Garance says. “It will die immediately at the first frost. And still it tries.”

Coin found in Louise’s box of memories

ReaganArthur — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 03:01:32 +0000