and an occasional piece of hard candy. He knew the guards watched him covertly, wondered how this flea of a man had wielded such power over women.
He had a few minutes in the corridor every day and there he did knee bends, toe touches, pushups. He did them until he was breathless, then did some more. When the laundry cart came, he stripped his own bed, which he was not required to do, and that earned him the approval of the stout woman who manned the cart. He smiled at her and caught a softening on her lips. When he showered by himself in the cavernous washrooms, a guard he did not know brandished a long black club and watched him with disinterest. Once he unexpectedly got an erection and the guard laughed.
The days were monotonous. He could not trim his beard, and that irritated him. He had offered to pay for a barber but been told this was not possible. He did get three-day-old newspapers, and he read and memorized the stories about his exploits. He did not tear the articles out. As he steadfastly maintained his innocence, keeping souvenirs would certainly be misinterpreted.
He waited for Act 3 to begin.
Chapter 9
Kiki’s real name was Alice Ernestine Prin. James Johnson found it rather prosaic for someone who caused such turbulence in others’ lives. She was 18 years old, from a poor background in Burgundy. Her accent—guttural, clipped, and rural—gave her away and bespoke minimal schooling. She’d arrived in Paris at age 12, attended the lycée briefly, and like many girls of her age and lack of credentials, had started working a year after that, repairing soldiers’ boots in a shoe factory. Then she worked in a boulangerie, but being covered with flour and tending ovens did not suit her disposition, so she ran away. Penniless, she modeled for a sculptor. That ended when her mother, who had apprenticed her at the bakery, forced her way into the artist’s studio and threatened the man with a lawsuit for assaut contre la moralité d’un mineur. Johnson thought the immorality lay in a mother’s willingness to sell her child’s labor, an accepted principle of the French working class.
A week earlier, as Johnson sat at his usual table at the Rotonde, Kiki had arrived with several friends and, after minimal encouragement, had proceeded to act out scenes of her childhood, taking on by turn the role of her mother, the sculptor, and Kiki-the-child. The sculptor she portrayed as old, bent over and toothless, her mother as raging, herself as a winsome innocent. She was a good comédienne, and her audience had roared with laughter, then bought her several rounds of drinks and dinner, which she gulped down.
That same night, Johnson also got to witness Kiki furious. One of her inebriated friends, a tall gangly woman whom he’d never seen at the Rotonde before, shouted to the entourage: “I’ll bet you didn’t know that Kiki’s got no poils sur son zizi.” It took him a moment to translate what may have been one of Kiki’s deepest secrets: she had no pubic hair.
A thunderous silence followed this announcement. Kiki rose from her chair, eyes flashing green fire. She slowly approached the drunken woman, looking very menacing indeed, and might have struck her had a young man not interceded. He grabbed Kiki by the elbow, whispered something in her ear which brought a smile, a laugh, and a passing of the storm.
The young man’s name was Maurice Mendjizky. He was Polish, and a painter, and Kiki’s lover. It galled Johnson that the man who took pleasure in her favors spoke a French even more abominable than his own.
The next evening, once again at the Rotonde, Johnson had ordered the assiette de charcuterie, a plate of cold meats with bread. Kiki had swept by his table, picked up the breadbasket without a word, and marched out the door with it. A few minutes later, she returned the empty basket, placed it before him with a charming smile, lifted his wineglass and took a healthy sip from it, patted him on the shoulder, kissed his cheek and said, “Merci.”
Johnson immediately forgave her the Polish lover.
Chapter 10
The postman’s latest tirade was against the Bretons.
James Johnson had been in France long enough to know that every decade or so, one or another region fomented a resurgence of local identity. This month, it was the Bretons, inhabitants of the French teapot’s spout, a hardy lot of farmers and fishermen who acquitted themselves honorably during the war. They spoke several local patois and sought to preserve the cultures of their forefathers. The Parisians considered them country bumpkins.
A few days earlier, a delegation of Breton village heads had presented a list of demands to the Elysée and threatened general strikes if their wishes were not met. This infuriated Postman Lefebvre, a third-generation Parisian who, like many of the capital’s natives, truthfully believed himself part of the French elite. Lefebvre’s opinion was that no culture existed beyond the Paris city gates and he had no patience for illiterate peasants who should grow artichokes instead of making ultimatums.
Monsieur Lefebvre questioned Johnson at length on whether similar problems existed in the U.S. The American was often short of answers, responding that since his country was a nation of immigrants, Americans had learned to live with each other catch-as-catch-can. What, Lefebvre had demanded, of the Negroes? Wasn’t that what the great civil insurrection was about, meeting their demands? The mailman was fascinated by American Negro musicians and assumed all Negroes could sing, dance, and play the banjo or trumpet. Johnson pointed out that most Negroes in America were poor, uneducated, and in menial jobs. Yes, they had on several occasions made demands to the U.S. government and continued to do so. M. Lefebvre nodded his head vigorously; they were like the Bretons.
Johnson knew many French citizens, M. Lefebvre included, who hovered between gratitude and mortification when it came to Americans. The Great War was an aching fresh wound. Calculations by both French and U.S. authorities put the number of American dead at more than 110,000. This was dwarfed by the number of French lives lost; almost a million-and-a-half at latest count, but already revisionists on both sides of the Atlantic were claiming the Allied powers could have won the war without U.S. involvement. M. Lefebvre knew better. He may have despised his country’s leaders for being shamefully inadequate during the horrendous conflict, and he might, deep in his heart, have resented the American rescue of France, but he would never forget the sacrifices made by young Americans to save his nation, and so it pleased him to hear his two countries had much in common, including Bretons here and Negroes there.
Chapter 11
Six days after landing in France, Easter retrieved her diary. She had spent almost all of her daylight hours on her feet, refusing to waste moments sitting. At night after dinner, if no specific activity was planned, she would force Frederick to hire a cab so they could be driven about Paris.
Her first purchase in Paris had been from a papeterie near their hotel. She bought a new blank book with 200 sheets of vellum paper nestled between thick suede covers. She also purchased a Lewis Waterman fountain pen with lever filler, and a bright green blotter.
One rainy evening, when Frederick pleaded exhaustion and fell into bed before nine, she took her purchases to the hotel’s reading room, ordered tea with milk, and began writing.
*****
Paris, Monday, April 21, 1919
We are in Paris!! We are really in Paris!! It took no time at all for me to decide that I want to stay here awhile. I have not told Frederick this, but think I may be able to convince him that we should. Life here is relatively inexpensive for those with dollars in their pockets, and there is nothing pressing in Chicago. Frederick told me his father’s firm can get along without him, though he remains on salary—a gift from Mr. C. Senior—for the duration of the trip, so we shall see.
The city has surpassed my every expectation. I have been in a state of constant
