The Blue Hour

Chapter 12: Flora

"Are you mad?" Hélène asked with a smile.

As always, Flora was struck by Hélène's fragility, her hands were so light she thought they might break, like the hollow bones of a bird. Her eyes were very large and deep, the pale skin stretched tight over the high cheekbones, her lips full and dark red; a breathtakingly beautiful woman. In her company, Flora felt awkward and clumsy.

"I don't know."

It was the truth. There was no way of making heads or tails out of her thoughts. She had told Hélène she would turn him down. Yet, in the pocket of her skirt lay the rose scented note for William, for delivery on her way home, she told herself with resolute ambivalence.

When Hélène received guests, she did so regally, reclined on the daybed, which constituted the centre of her universe. She had fragile nerves and rarely left her home. Before marrying Salim, her father's business partner, she had been an aspiring poet. Writing wasn't good for her emotional state, the doctor said, and removed her books and notebooks. It didn't help. After the birth of her baby, her nerves further deteriorated. The doctor prescribed morphine. The mollifying drops were so efficient she no longer felt the need to leave her bed. Books could safely be returned to her, the doctor ruled. By that time she had lost her desire to read or write.

"In fact, I've lost all want," Hélène told Flora. "It makes life easier, I feel more free."

A life free of desire, Flora tried to image it. To her, wanting was like breathing: more money, finer dresses, bigger jewellery, wealthier suitors. Without want, she would be a bulging farmer's wife with a trail of children clinging to her skirts, prematurely aged like a dried fruit, or dead already. Flora didn't say this out loud, such raw ambition was not becoming for a lady. Even Hélène would think it common.

"Oh please, darling," Hélène now said. "Of course you won't refuse him. We're just having a bit of fun, where's the harm?"

The words made Flora feel small and petty. The joke they had played on Pera society had been fun. It started when Hélène asked if she was related to family friends in France, the Marquis Le Cordier from Normandy. Of course she was not. Her name was simply Cordier, she came from Hainaut in Belgium, the daughter of a farmer. She did not share any details with Hélène, but she did not lie, either. As far as she knew, she had no relations in France.

"You could be related, couldn't you? The names are spelled the same."

"I suppose so, I suppose anything is possible."

"I think you are family," Hélène said in the teasing voice she used, as if nothing was serious or sacred. "I think you are of excellent pedigree. You should be properly introduced in Pera society, and we should find you a wealthy husband."

A fit of laughter possessed them, that's how hilarious the prospect seemed to them. Their friendship deepened. It masked their different conditions, fooling even themselves. Until that moment, she had been a smudge on the edge of Pera society. As a relative of the Marquis Le Cordier, she now came into focus.

Flora and Hélène became welded into a single entity, one internal the other external, each living through the other. While they schemed to get her married into high society, Flora brought Hélène gossip and experiences from the outside world. Reclined on her daybed, Hélène integrated them as if she lived them herself. She analysed and commented and made fun of everyone, not meanly, Flora thought, but with insight and truth. Reflections Flora could not allow herself to express or even think. It was thrilling. It made the Pera bourgeoisie look different, less imposing, less intimidating, and it made her feel more serene. Meanwhile, Flora absorbed Hélène's nonchalance and indifference. It changed her attitude to her customers, she was no longer subservient or dazzled by their wealth and status, she no longer worried about what people said about her, and she made abstraction of the fateful day when the truth about her would be revealed.