The Other Side of Midnight

So it was that Jacques Page’s neighbours rejoiced at his good fortune in having such an incredible daughter. They too recognized the miracle of how, out of the dung of the dirty, ribald city, a true Princess had been spawned.

Noelle’s parents could not get over the wonder of their daughter’s exquisite beauty. Noelle’s mother was a heavyset, coarse-featured peasant woman with sagging breasts and thick thighs and hips. Noelle’s father was squat, with broad shoulders and the small suspicious eyes of a Breton. His hair was the colour of the wet sand along the beaches of Normandy. In the beginning it had seemed to him that nature had made a mistake, that this exquisite blond fairy creature could not really belong to him and his wife, and that as Noelle grew older she would turn into an ordinary, plain-looking girl like all the other daughters of his friends. But the miracle continued to grow and flourish, and Noelle became more beautiful each day.

Noelle’s mother was less surprised than her husband by the appearance of a golden-haired beauty in the family. Nine months before Noelle had been born, Noelle’s mother had met a strapping Norwegian sailor just off a freighter. He was a giant Viking god with blond hair and a warm, seductive grin. While Jacques was at work, the sailor had spent a busy quarter of an hour in her bed in their tiny apartment.

Noelle’s mother had been filled with fear when she saw how blond and beautiful her baby was. She walked around in dread, waiting for the moment that her husband would point an accusing finger at her and demand to know the identity of the real father. But, incredibly, some ego-hunger in him made him accept the child as his own.

‘She must be a throwback to some Scandinavian blood in my family,’ he would boast to his friends, ‘but you can see that she has my features.’

His wife would listen, nodding agreement, and think what fools men were.

Noelle loved being with her father. She adored his clumsy playfulness and the strange, interesting smells that clung to him, and at the same time she was terrified by the fierceness of him. She would watch wide-eyed as he yelled at her mother and slapped her hard across the face, his neck corded with anger. Her mother would scream out in pain, but there was something beyond pain in her cries, something animal and sexual and Noelle would feel pangs of jealousy and wish she were in her mother’s place.

But her father was always gentle with Noelle. He liked to take her down to the docks and show her off to the rough, crude men with whom he worked. She was known up and down the docks as The Princess and she was proud of this, as much for her father’s sake as for her own.

She wanted to please her father, and because he loved to eat, Noelle began cooking for him, preparing his favourite dishes, gradually displacing her mother in the kitchen.

At seventeen the promise of Noelle’s early beauty had been more than fulfilled. She had matured into an exquisite woman. She had fine, delicate features, eyes a vivid violet colour and soft ash-blond hair. Her skin was fresh and golden as though she had been dipped in honey. Her figure was stunning, with generous, firm, young breasts, a small waist, rounded hips and long shapely legs, with delicate ankles. Her voice was distinctive, soft and mellifluous. There was a strong, smouldering sensuality about Noelle, but that was not her magic. Her magic lay in the fact that beneath the sensuality seemed to lie an untouched island of innocence, and the combination was irresistible. She could not walk down the streets without receiving propositions from passersby. They were not the casual offers that the prostitutes of Marseille received as their daily currency, for even the most obtuse men perceived something special in Noelle, something that they had never seen before and perhaps would never see again, and each was willing to pay as much as he could afford to try to make it a part of himself, however briefly.

Noelle’s father was conscious of her beauty, too. In fact, Jacques Page thought of little else. He was aware of the interest that Noelle aroused in men. Even though neither he nor his wife ever discussed sex with Noelle, he was certain she still had her virginity, a woman’s little capital. His shrewd peasant mind gave long and serious thought to how he could best capitalize on the windfall that nature had unexpectedly bestowed upon him. His mission was to see that his daughter’s beauty paid off as handsomely as possible for Noelle and for him. After all, he had sired her, fed her, clothed her, educated her – she owed him everything. And now it was time for him to be repaid. If he could set her up as some rich man’s mistress, it would be good for her, and he would be able to live the life of ease to which he was entitled. Each day it was getting more and more difficult for an honest man to make a living. The shadow of war had begun to spread across Europe. The Nazis had marched into Austria in a lightning coup that had left Europe stunned. A few months later the Nazis had taken over the Sudeten area and then marched into Slovakia. In spite of Hitler’s assurances that he was not interested in further conquest, the feeling persisted that there was going to be a major conflict.

The impact of events was felt sharply in France. There were shortages in the stores and markets, as the government began to gear for a massive defence effort. Soon, Jacques feared, they would even stop the fishing and then where would he be? No, the answer to his problem was in finding a suitable lover for his daughter. The trouble was that he knew no wealthy men. All his friends were piss-poor like himself, and he had no intention of letting any man near her who could not pay his price.

The answer to Jacques Page’s dilemma was inadvertently supplied by Noelle herself. In recent months Noelle had become increasingly restless. She did well in her classes, but school had begun to bore her. She told her father that she wanted to get a job. He studied her silently, shrewdly weighing the possibilities.

‘What kind of job?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Noelle replied. ‘I might be able to work as a model, papa.’

It was as simple as that.

Every afternoon for the next week Jacques Page went home after work, carefully bathed to get the smell of fish out of his hands and hair, dressed in his good suit and went down to the Canebière, the main street that led from the old harbour of the city to the richer districts. He walked up and down the street exploring all the dress salons, a clumsy peasant in a world of silk and lace, but he neither knew nor cared that he was out of place. He had but one objective and he found it when he reached the Bon Marché. It was the finest dress shop in Marseille, but that was not why he chose it. He chose it because it was owned by Monsieur Auguste Lanchon. Lanchon was in his fifties, an ugly bald-headed man with small stumpy legs and a greedy, twitching mouth. His wife, a tiny woman with the profile of a finely honed hatchet, worked in the fitting room, loudly supervising the tailors. Jacques Page took one look at Monsieur Lanchon and his wife and knew that he had found the solution to his problem.

Lanchon watched with distaste as the shabbily dressed stranger entered the door of his shop. Lanchon said rudely, ‘Yes? What can I do for you?’

Jacques Page winked, poked a thick finger in Lanchon’s chest and smirked, ‘It is what I can do for you, Monsieur. I am going to let my daughter work for you.’

Auguste Lanchon stared at the lout standing before him, an expression of incredulity on his face.

‘You are going to let —’

‘She will be here tomorrow, nine o’clock.’

‘I do not —’

Jacques Page had left. A few minutes later, Auguste Lanchon had completely dismissed the incident from his mind. At nine o’clock the next morning, Lanchon looked up and saw Jacques Page entering the shop. He was about to tell his manager to throw the man out, when behind him he saw Noelle. They were walking towards him, the father and his unbelievably beautiful daughter, and the old man was grinning. ‘Here she is, ready to go to work.’

Auguste Lanchon stared at the girl and licked his lips.

‘Good morning, Monsieur,’ Noelle smiled. ‘My father told me that you had a job for me.’

Auguste Lanchon nodded his head, unable to trust his voice.

‘Yes, I–I think we could arrange something,’ he managed to stammer. He studied her face and figure and could not believe what he saw. He could already imagine what that naked young body would feel like under him.

Jacques Page was saying, ‘Well, I will leave you two to get acquainted,’ and he gave Lanchon a hearty whack on the shoulder and a wink that had a dozen different significances, none of them leaving any doubt in Lanchon’s mind about his intentions.

For the first few weeks Noelle felt that she had been transported to another world. The women who came to the shop were dressed in beautiful clothes and had lovely manners, and the men who accompanied them were a far cry from the crude, boisterous fishermen with whom she had grown up. It seemed to Noelle that for the first time in her life the stench of fish was out of her nostrils. She had never really been aware of it before, because it had always been a part of her. But now everything was suddenly changed. And she owed it all to her father. She was proud of the way he got along with Monsieur Lanchon. Her father would come to the shop two or three times a week and he and Monsieur Lanchon would slip out for a cognac or a beer and when they returned there would be an air of camaraderie between them. In the beginning Noelle had disliked Monsieur Lanchon, but his behaviour towards her was always circumspect. Noelle heard from one of the girls that Lanchon’s wife had once caught him in the stockroom with a model and had picked up a pair of shears and had barely missed castrating him. Noelle was aware that Lanchon’s eyes followed her everywhere she went, but he was always scrupulously polite. ‘Probably,’ she thought, with satisfaction, ‘he is afraid of my father.’

At home the atmosphere suddenly seemed much brighter. Noelle’s father no longer struck her mother and the constant bickering had stopped. There were steaks and roasts to eat, and after dinner Noelle’s father would take out a new pipe and fill it with a rich smelling tobacco from a leather pouch. He bought himself a new Sunday suit. The international situation was worsening and Noelle would listen to discussions between her father and his friends. They all seemed to be alarmed by the imminent threat to their livelihood, but Jacques Page appeared singularly unconcerned.

On September 1, 1939, Hitler’s troops invaded Poland and two days later Great Britain and France declared war against Germany.

Mobilization was begun and overnight the streets were filled with uniforms. There was an air of resignation about what was happening, a dèjá vu feeling of watching an old movie that one had seen before; but there was no fear. Other countries might have reason to tremble before the might of the German armies but France was invincible. It had the Maginot Line, an impenetrable fortress that could protect France against invasion for a thousand years. A curfew was imposed and rationing was started, but none of those things bothered Jacques Page. He seemed to have changed, to have calmed. The only time Noelle saw him fly into a fury was one night when she was in the darkened kitchen kissing a boy whom she dated occasionally. The lights suddenly went on and Jacques Page stood in the doorway trembling with rage.

‘Get out,’ he screamed at the terrified boy. ‘And keep your hands off my daughter, you filthy pig!’

The boy fled in panic. Noelle tried to explain to her father that they had been doing nothing wrong, but he was too furious to listen.

‘I will not have you throw yourself away,’ he roared. ‘He is a nobody, he is not good enough for my Princess.’

Noelle lay awake that night marvelling at how much her father loved her and vowing that she would never do anything to distress him again.

One evening just before closing time a customer came into the shop and Lanchon asked Noelle to model some dresses. By the time Noelle finished, everyone had left the shop except Lanchon and his wife, who was working on the books in the office. Noelle went into the empty dressing room to change. She was in her bra and pants when Lanchon walked into the room. He stared at her and his lips began to twitch. Noelle reached for her dress, but before she could put it on Lanchon swiftly moved towards her and shoved his hand between her legs. Noelle was filled with revulsion, her skin beginning to crawl. She tried to pull away, but Lanchon’s grip was strong and he was hurting her.

‘You are beautiful,’ he whispered. ‘Beautiful. I will see that you have a good time.’

At that moment Lanchon’s wife called out to him and he reluctantly let go of Noelle and scurried out of the room.

On the way home Noelle debated whether to tell her father what had happened. He would probably kill Lanchon. She detested him and could not bear to be near him, and yet she wanted the job. Besides, her father might be disappointed if she quit. She decided that for the moment she would say nothing and would find a way to handle it herself.

The following Friday Madame Lanchon received a call that her mother was ill in Vichy. Lanchon drove his wife to the railroad station and then raced back to the shop. He called Noelle into his office and told her he was going to take her away for the weekend. Noelle stared at him, thinking at first that it was some kind of joke.

‘We will go to Vienne,’ he babbled. ‘There is one of the great restaurants of the world there, Le Pyramide. It is expensive, but it doesn’t matter, I can be very generous to those who are good to me. How soon can you be ready?’

She stared at him. ‘Never’ was all she could bring herself to say. ‘Never.’ And she turned and fled into the front of the shop. Monsieur Lanchon looked after her for a moment, his face mottled with fury, then snatched up the telephone on his desk. An hour later Noelle’s father walked into the shop. He made straight for Noelle and her face lit up with relief. He had sensed that something was wrong and had come to rescue her. Lanchon was standing at the door to his office. Noelle’s father took her arm and hurried her into Lanchon’s office. He swung around to face her.

‘I’m so glad you came, Papa,’ Noelle said. ‘I —’

‘Monsieur Lanchon tells me that he made you a splendid offer and you refused him.’

She stared at him, bewildered. ‘Offer? He asked me to go away with him for the weekend.’

‘And you said no?’

Before Noelle could answer, her father drew his hand back and slapped her hard across the cheek. She stood there in stunned disbelief, her ears ringing, and through a filmy haze heard her father saying, ‘Stupid! stupid! It’s time you started thinking of someone besides yourself, you selfish little bitch!’ And he hit her again.

Thirty minutes later as her father stood at the kerb watching them drive off, Noelle and Monsieur Lanchon left for Vienne.