Pretenders

By: Audrey Lau

‘Henri, you can’t be thinking of selling that!’

Henri paused in his polishing of the mirror, cloth in hand. The mirror had been a family heirloom. His mother had once told him that it was a gift to an ancestor of theirs, a noble lady who probably used to wear jewellery that could pay for a year's worth of their meals. Though his mother was half delirious with fever during the last few months of her life, so he couldn’t say whether that tall tale was true or a fever induced dream. You could say the mirror reminded him of better times.

‘The children are hungry. We barely have enough to last the month.’

His wife glared at him as she took the mirror from his hands and set it back on their mostly empty shelf, where several other items had already been pawned off to pay for the remaining rent and other damages to their home. Henri stubbed his toe on a fallen ceiling beam as he strode over and plucked the mirror off of the shelf.

The recent winter flood had devastated the common folk of Paris. While the Seine overflowing in the winter months wasn’t unheard of, the water had begun to rush down the streets a week after an unusual rise was reported in the newspapers. Henri and his family had been asleep at the time of the evacuation. The sight of the rising water seeping in through their windows, doors and floorboards had terrified his two youngest children. His eldest had been more focused on salvaging his books and letters he’d been exchanging with the girl from the neighboring family upstairs. However, they’d soon been pulled out of their windows and onto boats with other displaced Parisians. So alas, the letters were lost.

Henri intended to pay for passage for his wife and three children to go to his cousin further South, in Marseille. His cousin had written him a note several days back, saying that he could have suitable lodgings prepared for their family, and a job for Henri by the end of the first week. They’d already been selling some of their belongings to prepare for the journey, to purchase train tickets and other supplies.

‘We could get at least 642 francs for this mirror! More than enough to buy bread and pay for our passage down South. Mère will understand,’ pleaded Henri. He took the mirror and swiped it off the shelf, placing it very deliberately in the now rather sodden box his mother had gifted him years ago, along with the mirror.

His wife snorted. ‘Your mère would be terribly insulted to know you’d sell the family heirloom. The one she’d been whispering about up until the end.’

Henri shrugged. ‘Sacrifices need to be made.’

Jeanne’s hands stilled while she packed. Then she picked up the five tickets Henri had procured the day before, laid out carefully on the dining table. The economy class tickets were to Marseille, via Dijon and Lyon. One way trip. Henri may have forgotten to inform his wife about that last part.

‘Henri-’

He threw up his hands in protest. ‘I know you said you wanted to stay, but Pierre said he has lodgings for us.’

‘I didn’t agree to leave on a one way trip,’ snarled Jeanne as she forcefully shoved a couple of slightly damp bed sheets into a trunk.

‘Jeanne, please. We can’t stay here! There’s nothing here for us, and it will be difficult in the coming months. We were barely able to pay this month’s rent!’

Henri tried to tune out his wife’s nagging as he slipped the box containing the mirror into his shoulder bag that he’d take to the pawnshop. She was slowly segueing into her usual spiel about how Paris was their home and how they couldn’t leave now.

‘We can just save for a little while. Auguste’s pants are only just past the ankles, he can wait for a new uniform. You could collect more pay and sooner or later we’ll be better again,’ pointed out Henri.

Then, Henri paused in his argument. And Jeanne had noticed. He remembered he hadn’t told her. He’d been let off a few days ago from his job at the factory. The damage from the floods had been too severe, so some older workers had been laid off. He hadn’t told Jeanne. Now she was suspicious.

Henri clears his dry throat. ‘Jeanne...I have something I must confess.’

Jeanne hums in reply, still calmly packing some of her own dresses and trinkets into the trunks.

‘I was laid off four days ago.’

She whirled towards him, her voice dangerously low. ‘And you never told me of this development?’

He tries to speak but she just barges onwards. ‘You couldn’t have told me at the church? You couldn’t have told me when I asked you how work was yesterday?’

Henri can’t even justify himself properly, damn it. ‘I know that I ought to have told you but how could I? There was just never a good moment-’

‘You could’ve told me anytime you chose! But no. You decided to keep this from me. Henri, we agreed to always tell each other everything. This was something important and you chose not to tell me.’

‘Jeanne, I already told you! I couldn’t just do it anytime, we had to care for the children and we only just returned from the church!’

‘Mama? Papa?’

Jeanne rushes to their daughter in a panic. ‘Marie! It’s so early, why are you awake?

‘I heard shouting. I got scared. So I woke up.’

‘You’ve scared your children,’ seethes Jeanne as she brushes past him to chivvy their still drowsy children to wash up.

‘Well, so have you,’ mutters Henri under his breath.

Henri noted that Jeanne was still in her cotton chemise, her hair mussed from sleep. It vexed him that Jeanne had decided that the first thing she wanted to do once she’d woken was to ruin his morning. Mon dieu, this woman drove him mad sometimes.

As if on cue, Jeanne storms out of the hallway. ‘You’re absolutely thoughtless. Did you know that? You keep everything from me and I am sick and tired of it!’

‘Have you ever considered why I keep things from you, Jeanne? You fly at me in a crazed state, always blaming me for every single thing.’

‘I think the only problem here is you. At least I’m the one trying to give our children a better future!’

Jeanne lets out a huff of air. She tucks her hair behind her ears like she always does whenever she becomes displeased with him.

‘I don’t see how I’m supposed to forgive you for any of this, Henri. First, you don’t tell me when something big has happened, like how you’ve just lost your job. Then, you decide you want to get rid of something your mother has entrusted you with, entrusted me with.’

His tongue feels as though it’s made out of lead. He doesn’t know what to say.

‘Henri, if you had informed me previously of all of this, I could’ve helped. Now there is nothing to be done.’

‘Mon amour,’ tried Henri. ‘Please. Will you come with us to Marseille?’

Jeanne doesn’t answer him immediately. She busies herself with packing up the last of Auguste’s waterlogged books and Henri’s dress shirts. He tries to take them from her, feeling as though at least he should do them himself but she just keeps folding.

‘I will join you in Marseille, Henri,’ she says with her head bowed as she latches up the trunks containing their whole lives in them.

Finally. They could start over in Marseille. The southern port city was practically a hub for trade and commerce. The sea air would do Emile good, the boy had been sick for a few days. Henri could get a new job. Their new home wouldn’t be leaking water and falling apart. They could be happy in Marseille.

‘But when we arrive, once things have settled, I think we...need to have a conversation,’ whispers Jeanne. ‘About us.’

Henri takes a breath. He runs a finger along the rusted clasp of one trunk. Things hadn’t been right with the two of them for some time. After a while, the occasional monthly disagreement grew into shouting matches that they barely managed to conceal from their children. Constantly, they were at each other’s throats. Before the children woke in the morning. After the children were tucked into bed. Years passed and Henri began finding silver in the umber spill of his wife’s hair on her pillow in the mornings.

‘Jeanne, I think this conversation has been coming for a while,’ admitted Henri.

Jeanne’s eyes are glassy when she stares up at him. ‘We can discuss once we get to Marseille,’ says Jeanne. She swipes at her eyes furtively and Henri pretends not to notice. They’ve been pretending for a while anyway. They’re quite well practiced, actually.

Henri latches up his shoulder bag. ‘I will take the mirror to the pawnshop down the street. Get the children dressed and ready. We can leave in an hour or so.’

His wife nods. ‘Stow the money carefully in the bag once you receive it. Make haste on your return. I pray that no one steals from you in the streets.’

He kisses his wife on the cheek on his way out of their half-collapsed doorway. ‘I’ll make sure of it.’

‘Everything will be better when we reach Marseille,’ calls out Jeanne, hands clasped in front of her. She keeps her tone light, but her smile does not reach her eyes.

‘Everything will be better when we reach Marseille,’ agrees Henri.