The Mirador by Elisabeth Gille

Author:Elisabeth Gille
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-1-59017-465-4
Publisher: New York Review Books

After arriving at the Gare Saint-Lazare, we traversed a sad, deserted wartime Paris, sporadically lit by dim streetlamps. I had trouble recognizing the city, which had changed so much from the luminous, colorful place I recalled from before the war. With the help of a local branch of his bank, my father had located a private house built in the early part of the century, on avenue du Président Wilson. The large rooms were illuminated by tall, narrow windows framed by thick prune-colored velvet curtains; heavy mantelpieces supported enormous golden mirrors decorated with garlands; and there was expensive furniture of a vague Directoire style. It all seemed a bit generic, as if the previous tenants had only been passing through and had made little effort to create a personal decor. A butler, two maids, and a cook awaited our arrival. My mother was too tired to comment; she disappeared into her room and stayed there for a week. She did not even come with me to watch the victory parade on July 14; I went with a servant instead. Field marshals Joffre and Foch rode by on horseback beneath the Arc de Triomphe, leading the twenty-one corps of the French army. The crowd, who had been waiting since three o’clock in the morning, exploded into cheers. I was unable to repress a shudder; such enthusiasm awoke troubling memories.

My father immediately returned to work at the bank. He would soon have to leave for New York on business, which was once again flourishing. Money was flooding in at an extraordinary rate and all he had to do, he said, was bend down and pick it up. He wanted us to get settled quickly into our new life so that he could depart without having to worry. As soon as my mother had the chance to replace her old sable coat with a mink—so that she could leave the house without feeling completely ridiculous—we began to hold a series of family discussions on such subjects as my immediate future. The essential thing, in her mind, was to find a governess, even though it seemed to me that at sixteen I could do without this outmoded accessory. I had gone to Mademoiselle Rose’s last known address; not only did I not find her but there was absolutely no trace of her having ever lived there. Because my French was already perfect, my father suggested an English governess. One was quickly found, thanks to one of the innumerable agencies that were popping up all over town, and one day a new governess arrived at our house. She had been warmly recommended by an aristocratic family whose daughter had just been married off and therefore no longer required her services. This strange and precious bird was my dear Miss Matthews.

It would be hard to imagine anyone more different from my previous governess than this angular redhead with large, deep-set eyes and inward-pointing eyebrows. She was very pale, with a long, pointy nose and curly hair parted on the side and combed back loosely into a chignon at the nape of the neck.

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