the Great War, had finally concluded. Germany, out of manpower and supplies, signed an agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside Compiègne, France.
Where to look for lodging? Certainly not in this high-rent neighborhood.
I headed away from the Seine, toward the theater district. After a day of inquiring about available rooms with no luck, I stopped on a side street and watched the crowd, half the women in black mourning dress. How France had suffered.
I passed an unassuming building at 6 Rue Chabanais, with a neatly printed sign in the window. Beds to let one franc per night.
Finding that well within my means I stepped into the place to inquire. It was a clean, well-lit lobby, and I warmed my hands in the glow of the coal fire in the fireplace. Many well-dressed young women sat there talking among themselves. An older woman sat behind the hotel desk, her dark hair caught up in a half turban the color of her vivid blue eyes.
She stood and slapped open the hotel register. “And who do we have here?” She spoke in my favorite accent of all, Irish.
“I am Sofya.”
The woman smiled. “Mary Melange.”
“It is a pleasure to meet you,” I said. I tried to neaten my hair and hid my rough, red hands in my pockets. “I’ve just come from Petrograd.”
“Long trip.”
“I’m looking to rent a bed.”
“Well, you have come to the right place, my dear. I hope you don’t mind me saying but you have the look of aristocracy.”
I brushed a lump of crusted mud from my sleeve. “Perhaps, under all this dirt.”
“For seven francs I will assign you a bed for one week, guaranteed no bedbugs, access to the bath, and one towel. We are a female-only establishment with very strict rules. Along with the bed comes a floor custodian you must sign in with every day.”
“I can only afford one night.” I found one franc and placed it on the counter. What a relief to finally have a bed of my own.
She tossed it in the cash register with a satisfying little clink.
“Can I trouble you for a telephone book?”
She pulled one from behind the counter and held it to her chest. “What do you want with it?”
“I’m looking for a man.”
“We have plenty of those.”
“Named Taras Pushkinsky.”
“Boyfriend?”
“Certainly not.”
She opened the book to the “P” page and turned it toward me.
I ran one finger down the long column, with not one Pushkinsky. He was here, no doubt, on nefarious business. Why would he even list himself in the directory? A wave of exhaustion crashed over me and I closed the book.
“Any idea where I can find work, madame?”
“There’s always need for hardworking girls here. Just talk to your custodian, Oxana. Third floor.”
“Thank you,” I said over my shoulder as I headed for the stairs.
I made it up the steep stairs to my floor: one large, open, dormitory-style room, fitted with what must have been fifty beds, pushed next to each other with a bedside table here and there. Most of the beds were occupied with two or more sleeping girls. As I passed, I knew many were Russian, since they had taped to their iron headboards magazine pictures of the royal family, many of the tsar’s daughters, the grand duchesses.
I found Oxana, a tall girl, who looked to be about twenty-one, with jaggedly close-cropped brown hair that looked like she’d cut it herself. She lay on a bed atop the chenille bedcover, reading a tattered movie magazine. There was something familiar about her as she ate beans from a can with a spoon, the lid still attached. Ordinarily not a fan of beans, I suddenly longed for them more than any dish Cook had ever made.
“I’m here to see Oxana,” I said in French.
She sat up. “Shhhh. Can’t you see girls are sleeping?”
Oxana was clearly Russian, but her French was good.
I lowered my voice. “Madame Melange sent me up. She said she assigned me a bed and I could take a bath.”
“Good luck getting a bath. The line is always too long and all beds are all taken. But you can bunk in with me for one franc.”
“She said—”
“Onetime offer.”
“You would gouge a fellow Russian? I hope you realize I will have only one franc left to my name.”
“I hope you realize you’re not on Nevsky Prospekt anymore. A lot of the girls on this floor are Russian. One princess, a ballerina. Some eat out of trash cans at Jardin du Luxembourg. Best one is near the