Sophie

Sophie

Penthouse

There’s a knock on the door. I go to answer it and find Mimi standing there on the other side.

“Maman.” The way she says the word. Just like she did as a little girl.

“What is it, ma petite?” I ask, gently. I suppose to others I may seem cold. But the love I feel for my daughter; I’d challenge you to find anything close to it.

“Maman, I’m frightened.”

“Shh.” I step forward to embrace her. I draw her close to me, feeling the frail nubs of her shoulder blades beneath my hands. It seems so long since I have held her like this, since she has allowed me to hold her like this, like I did when she was a child. For a time I thought I might never do so again. And to be called “Maman.” It is still the same miracle it was when I first heard her say the word.

I have always felt she is more mine than Jacques’. Which I suppose makes a kind of sense: because in a way she was Jacques’ greatest gift to me, far more valuable than any diamond brooch, any emerald bracelet. Something—someone—I could love unreservedly.

One evening—roughly a week after the night I had knocked on Benjamin Daniels’ door—Jacques was briefly home for supper. I presented him with the quiche Lorraine I had bought from the boulangerie, piping hot from the oven.

Everything was as it should be. Everything following its usual pattern. Except for the fact that a few nights before I had slept with the man from the third-floor apartment. I was still reeling from it. I could not believe it had happened. A moment—or rather an evening—of madness.

I placed a slice of quiche on Jacques’ plate. Poured him a glass of wine. “I met our lodger on the stairs this evening,” he said as he ate, as I picked my way through my salad. “He thanked us for supper. Very gracious—gracious enough not to mention the disaster with the weather. He sends you his compliments.”

I took a sip of my wine before I answered. “Oh?”

He laughed, shook his head in amusement. “Your face—anyone would think this stuff was corked. You really don’t like him, do you?”

I couldn’t speak.

I was saved by the ringing of Jacques’ phone. He went into his study and took a call. When he returned his face was clouded with anger. “I have to go. Antoine made a stupid mistake. One of the clients isn’t happy.”

I gestured to the quiche. “I’ll keep this warm for you, for when you come back.”

“No. I’ll eat out.” He shrugged on his jacket. “Oh, and I forgot to say. Your daughter. I saw her on the street the other night. She was dressed like a whore.”

“My daughter?” I asked. Now that she had done something to displease him she was “my” daughter?

“All that money,” he said, “sending her to that Catholic school, to try and make her into a properly behaved young woman. And yet she disgraced herself there. And now she goes out dressed like a little slut. But then, perhaps it’s no surprise.”

“What do you mean?”

But I didn’t need to ask. I knew exactly what he meant.

And then he left. And I was all alone in the apartment, as usual.

For the second time in a week, I was filled with rage. White hot, powerful. I drank the rest of the bottle of wine. Then I stood up and walked down two flights of stairs.

I knocked on his door.

He opened it. Pulled me inside.

This time there was no preamble. No pretense of polite conversation. I don’t think we spoke one word. We weren’t respectful or gentle or cautious with one another now. My silk shirt was torn from me. I gasped against his mouth like someone drowning. Bit at him. Tore the skin of his back with my nails. Relinquished all control. I was possessed.

Afterward, as we lay tangled in his sheets, I finally managed to speak. “This cannot happen again. You understand that, don’t you?”

He just smiled.

Over the next few weeks we became reckless. Testing the boundaries, scaring ourselves a little. The adrenaline rush, the fear—so similar a feeling to the quickening of arousal. Each seemed to heighten the other, like the rush of some drug. I had behaved so well for so long.

The secret spaces of this building became our private playground. I took him in my mouth in the old servants’ staircase, my hands sliding into his trousers, expert, greedy. He had me in the laundry room in the cave, up against the washing machine as it thrummed out its cycle.

And every time I tried to end it. And every time I know we both heard the lie behind the words.

“Maman,” Mimi says now—and I am jolted, abruptly, guiltily, out of these memories. “Maman, I don’t know what to do.”

My wonderful miracle. My Merveille. My Mimi. She came to me when I had given up all hope of having a child. You see, she wasn’t always mine.

She was, quite simply, perfect. A baby: only a few weeks old. I did not know exactly where she had come from. I had my ideas, but I kept them to myself. I had learned it was important, sometimes, to look the other way. If you know that you aren’t going to like the reply, don’t ask the question. There was just one thing I needed to know and to that I got my answer: the mother was dead. “And illegal. So there’s no paper trail to worry about. I know someone at the mairie who will square the birth certificate.” A mere formality for the grand and powerful house of Meunier. It helps to have friends in high places.

And then she was mine. And that was the important thing. I could give her a better life.

“Shh,” I say. “I’m here. Everything will be OK. I’m sorry I was stern last night, with the wine. But you understand, don’t you? I didn’t want a scene. Leave it all with me, ma chérie.”

It was—is—so fierce, that feeling. Even though she didn’t come out of my body, I knew as soon as I saw her that I would do anything to protect her, to keep her safe. Other mothers might say that sort of thing casually. But perhaps it is clear by now that I don’t do or say anything casually. When I say something like that, I mean it.