Nightingale Read Free

leaving the audience with that perfect glow of release, faces and hearts open to him. He smiled and waved au revoir before he finally managed to get off the stage, squeezing past the dancing girls who’d ensure that at least the men in the audience wouldn’t miss him.
    Back in the dressing room, he mopped his brow with a towel. Considering what a pain it was to get makeup off and the fact that he usually did several engagements per night, he’d quickly given up on the greasepaint and went without. He changed out of his stage clothes, which he kept at Martine’s, and into a more formal suit, then lit a cigarette, inhaling the smoke greedily, gradually calming from the post-performance buzz.
    Martine came by to hand him the money in an envelope just as he slipped into his coat. “Where are you going now?”
    “I’m just meeting friends for dinner. I’ll deal with the . . . thing Nic found.” He picked up the hat in its wrapper and smiled at Martine. “I’ll be back tomorrow evening.”
    “Be careful. You do have a beautiful voice, you know,” she said somewhat gruffly, as if she was accusing him of putting it at risk.
    “And that’s why nobody is going to harm me.” He brushed all thoughts of the boche aside, kissed her cheeks, and strode out into the balmy Parisian evening.
    He took the Métro, watching the other passengers, none of whom seemed to recognize him, which was just as well. His stage persona was quite different, and he often felt like he’d spent it all by the time the final note had left him. Offstage, he was empty of wit and jokes and much less charming than the man the audience saw. His sister Édith called him “smaller than life,” which from her wasn’t meant as an insult—he thought, at least.
    The concierge let him in, giving him only a brief nod. Yves studied the wrought iron of the elevator cage on the way up, noticing, again, that the metal was shaped like roses. It seemed like a fitting metaphor for love, this elevator cage, but he didn’t think anybody would get the reference if he used it for a song. So he wouldn’t. This was something for a prose writer.
    Madame Julia’s apartment took most of the upper floor of the house, and they let him in after one knock. Her butler took his coat and ushered him inside. “Most of the other guests have already arrived, monsieur ,” the butler said with an English accent. Yves wondered for a moment how the man had escaped being rounded up as an enemy alien and thrown into one of the camps. But then, Julia’s influence and power—and above all, her connections—protected the lesser beings in her entourage.
    He thanked the butler with a nod and stepped into the Chinese salon, with its fine silken carpets in cream and transparent light blue and expensive porcelain on display.
    Julia’s head turned and she gave him one of her wide, beautiful smiles as she extricated herself from the gentlemen next to her. She swooped in, plucking a champagne flute on the way. “Oh, Yves, how delightful that you could make it.”
    He couldn’t help but smile, glancing quickly over at the other guests. “I don’t know what you want with a frivolous little singer like me if you have the men of les belles-lettres and half the Académie française gathered.”
    She laughed at him. “At least you will not steal away the conversation and put it into your next novel.”
    “No, the worst that could happen is that you’d end up in one of my songs.”
    “And what kind of song would that be?”
    “A love song, of course. The ravishing American who stole my heart.”
    “You charmer.” She winked. “I’m glad you’ve come back. I was worried that we’d repelled you.”
    “Fifty horses couldn’t have kept me away—but I did agree to talk to Maurice.”
    “Oh, you’ll sing at the Palace? You’re forgiven, darling.” Before he could correct her, she took his arm and led him to her companions: serious-looking, acclaimed novelists that immediately made