The Secret Language of Stones

Начало книги

Every morning the pavement in front of our shop in the Palais Royal is washed clean by the tears of the mothers of dead soldiers, widowed wives, and heartsick lovers.

Look to the right and left. There is grit and grime in front of Giselle’s Glove Emporium and the family Thibaut’s umbrella store, but at La Fantaisie Russe, the walkway is sparkling like newly polished stones.

Here inside the mythic Palais Royal arcade, the stores are not as busy as they were before the war, except for ours. In fact, it’s the war that’s responsible for our steady stream of clients.

There is nothing to identify what we offer in advertisements.

Visitez le Palais Royal, invites the dark-haired seductress in the prewar poster painted by a friend of my mother’s, who signs his work simply PAL. The posters, first printed more than a dozen years ago, have been reprinted often, and you can see them, a bit worn and faded, plastered onto kiosks on rue de Rivoli.

Читать дальше →