am I?’ Noelle asked.
‘L’Hotel-Dieu, the City Hospital.’
‘What am I doing here?’
‘Getting well. You’ve had double pneumonia. I’m Israel Katz.’ He was young, with a strong, intelligent face and deepset brown eyes.
‘Are you my doctor?’
‘Intern,’ he said. ‘I brought you in.’ He smiled at her. ‘I’m glad you made it. We weren’t sure.’
‘How long have I been here?’
‘Four days.’
‘Would you do me a favour?’ she asked weakly.
‘If I can.’
‘Call the Hotel Lafayette. Ask them –’ she hesitated. ‘Ask them if there are any messages for me.’
‘Well, I’m awfully busy –’
Noelle squeezed his hand fiercely. ‘Please. It’s important. My fiancé is trying to get in touch with me.’
He grinned. ‘I don’t blame him. All right. I’ll take care of it,’ he promised. ‘Now you get some sleep.’
‘Not until I hear from you,’ she said.
He left, and Noelle lay there waiting. Of course Larry had been trying to get in touch with her. There had been some terrible misunderstanding. He would explain it all to her and everything would be all right again.
It was two hours before Israel Katz returned. He walked up to her bed and set down a suitcase. ‘I brought your clothes. I went to the hotel myself,’ he said.
She looked up at him, and he could see her face tense.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, embarrassed. ‘No messages.’
Noelle stared at him for a long time, then turned her face to the wall, dry-eyed.
Noelle was released from the hospital two days later. Israel Katz came to say good-bye to her. ‘Do you have any place to go?’ he asked. ‘Or a job?’
She shook her head.
‘What work do you do?’
‘I’m a model.’
‘I might be able to help you.’
She remembered the taxi driver and Madame Delys. ‘I don’t need any help,’ she said.
Israel Katz wrote a name on a piece of paper. ‘If you change your mind, go there. It’s a small fashion house. An aunt of mine owns it. I’ll talk to her about you. Do you have any money?’
She did not answer.
‘Here.’ He pulled a few francs out of his pocket and handed them to her. ‘I’m sorry I don’t have more. Interns aren’t very well paid.’
‘Thank you,’ Noelle said.
She sat at a small street café sipping a coffee and deciding how to pick up the pieces of her life. She knew that she had to survive, for she had a reason to live now. She was filled with a deep and burning hatred that was so all-consuming that it left no room for anything else. She was an avenging Phoenix rising from the ashes of the emotions that Larry Douglas had murdered in her. She would not rest until she had destroyed him. She did not know how, or when, but she knew that one day she would make it happen.
Now she needed a job and a place to sleep. Noelle opened her purse and took out the piece of paper that the young intern had given her. She studied it a moment and made up her mind. That afternoon she went to see Israel Katz’s aunt and was given a job modeling in a small, second-rate fashion house on the rue Boursault.
Israel Katz’s aunt turned out to be a middle-aged, grey-haired woman with the face of a harpy and the soul of an angel. She mothered all her girls and they adored her. Her name was Madame Rose. She gave Noelle an advance on her salary and found her a tiny apartment near the salon. The first thing Noelle did when she unpacked was to hang up her wedding dress. She put it in the front of the closet so that it was the first thing she saw in the morning and the last thing she saw when she undressed at night.
Noelle knew that she was pregnant before there were any visible signs of it, before any tests had been made, before she missed her period. She could sense the new life that had formed in her womb, and at night she lay in bed staring at the ceiling thinking about it, her eyes glowing with wild animal pleasure.
On her first day off Noelle phoned Israel Katz and made a date to meet him for lunch.
‘I’m pregnant,’ she told him.
‘How do you know? Have you had any tests?’
‘I don’t need any tests.’
He shook his head. ‘Noelle, a lot of women think they are going to have babies when they are not. How many periods have you missed?’
She pushed the question aside, impatiently. ‘I want your help.’
He stared at her. ‘To get rid of the baby? Have you discussed this with the father?’
‘He’s not here.’
‘You know abortions are illegal. I could get into terrible trouble.’
Noelle studied him a moment. ‘What’s your price?’
His face tightened angrily. ‘Do you think everything has a price, Noelle?’
‘Of course,’ she said simply. ‘Anything can be bought and sold.’
‘Does that include you?’
‘Yes, but I’m very expensive. Will you help me?’
There was a long hesitation. ‘All right. I’ll want to make some tests first.’
‘Very well.’
The following week Israel Katz arranged for Noelle to go to the laboratory at the hospital. When the test results were returned two days later, he telephoned her at work. ‘You were right,’ he said. ‘You’re pregnant.’
‘I know.’
‘I’ve arranged for you to have a curettage at the hospital. I’ve told them that your husband was killed in an accident and that you are unable to have the baby. We’ll do the operation next Saturday.’
‘No,’ she said.
‘Is Saturday a bad day for you?’
‘I’m not ready for the abortion yet, Israel. I just wanted to know that I could count on you to help me.’
Madame Rose noticed the change in Noelle, not merely a physical change, but something that went much deeper, a radiance, an inner glow that seemed to fill her. Noelle walked around with a constant smile, as though hugging some wonderful secret.
‘You have found a lover,’ Madame Rose said. ‘It shows in your eyes.’
Noelle nodded. ‘Yes, Madame.’
‘He is good for you. Hold onto him.’
‘I will,’ Noelle promised. ‘As long as I can.’
Three weeks later Israel Katz telephoned her. ‘I haven’t heard from you,’ he said. ‘I was wondering if you had forgotten?’
‘No,’ Noelle said. ‘I think of it all the time.’
‘How do you feel?’
‘Wonderful.’
‘I’ve been looking at the calendar. I think that we had better go to work.’
‘I’m not ready yet,’ Noelle said.
Three weeks passed before Israel Katz telephoned her again.
‘How