I

Hugo Duchamp lifted his hands to shield his face. The blows had begun in his stomach but were moving upwards and coming in rapid succession, like clenched fists smashing against a punching ball.

‘Fight back, you sissy,’ the boy hissed, covering the backs of Hugo’s hands in his spit. Hugo was sure he did not even know the boy’s name, not that it mattered. Random bully numero un was as good a name as any. They all looked the same, spouted the same sort of violence, eyes dark and pinpointed, flecked with the red of rage.

‘Fight back, you sissy,’ the boy repeated, filling his throat with phlegm and launching it onto Hugo’s forehead and hair. ‘Make this fun for me, or I swear I’ll only make it worse for you.’

Fight back. The words bounced around Hugo’s skull as he pulled his knees upwards. Fight back. The words were not his, and the voice he heard was not his own. It belonged to his father, Pierre Duchamp. You won’t embarrass me, boy. It was because the words were not Hugo’s own, he found himself unable to act upon them. The problem isn’t mine; he thought to himself, and you won’t make it mine, none of you will. The pain was coursing through his body now, which he knew was a good thing. It meant the attack would end soon. The bully would either get bored, or a teacher would appear, yelling at the other boy and scrambling to pull him off Hugo’s rigid body. 

‘Alain, get your damn hands off him.’

The voice was soft, but it had a force to it, Hugo realised. But it was not a teacher. The blows stopped and Hugo could hear the scraping of feet, and the angry voice of his attacker, who he now knew to be called Alain, shouting his protests. ‘Get your hands off me, Josef, or so help me Dieu, I’ll give you a bit of what the sissy’s getting.’

Josef. Josef Levy. Hugo did not need to open his eyes to see him. The golden-brown curls falling over his ears, eyes the same colour, wide and keen, watching the world in front with burning interest and curiosity. The long, gangly limbs, not yet quite grown into the shape of approaching adulthood. And the heart-shaped birthmark on a smooth neck. Hugo suddenly yearned for the blows to begin again, to smash the sissiness out of him. He did not want to feel like he did. He wanted to be free of it.

‘Give me your hand,’ Josef commanded.

Hugo tried to open his eyes, but only one would. The lid of the right eye seemed to be stuck, telling Hugo he was most likely going to have to go to the school nurse. It would almost certainly mean Pierre would have to be called, no matter how much Hugo protested. It always ended the same way, Pierre would say he was away on business and Hugo was currently, temporarily, staying with his Grand Mère, Madeline Duchamp. Hugo was not sure how it could be temporary because he had been staying in Madeline Duchamp’s townhouse for several years already. Ever since… ever since…

Hugo felt his body being pulled upwards, the tensing of Josef Levy’s hand showing a strength unusual in a fifteen-year-old boy.

‘You’re going to need to see the nurse,’ Josef said.

Hugo tried to focus on him through his bloodied eyes. He shook his head, wincing with the pain. ‘I’m fine,’, he said, spitting blood through a loose tooth. He did not care about the pain, he just could not face the disappointed, heavy silence which would pass between him and his father on the telephone. Fight back.

Josef snorted. There was no malice in it. Hugo was not sure his voice lent itself to malice or anger. ‘Sure you are, come on, I’ll go with you. Any excuse to get out of English class, non?’

Josef began leading Hugo through the schoolyard, his hand holding tightly onto Hugo’s forearm as he guided him. Hugo knew he should open his eyes and guide himself, but for once he did not want to. Behind them, Hugo could hear his attacker getting his second wind after being pulled off by the stronger Josef. 

‘Look at the sissy, he’ll be holding hands next and,’ he stopped and began making loud, vulgar kissing and sucking noises.

Josef leaned in and whispered in Hugo’s ear. ‘Don’t listen to him, he’s only jealous.’

Hugo said nothing because he could not imagine a single reason why someone might be jealous of him.

They walked along the boulevard leading to Faubourg Saint-Germain, where Madeline Duchamp’s mansion was situated. Hugo had grown used to living in the central Paris apartment he had shared with his parents, with its sweeping views of the Paris skyline. But when he had been moved to Madeline’s vast home in the 7e arrondissement, it had come as a shock. The house was cavernous and filled with antiques, the names of which Hugo did not know, but he knew to avoid at all costs. Madeline had reluctantly turned over the seventh bedroom at the top of the house, for his exclusive use. Hugo had taken some comfort in the fact the most likely reason she had chosen to give him that room was because it was tucked away from the rest of the house and could only be entered by a narrow staircase behind an unobtrusive door. Out of sight, out of mind. Madeline had filled the room with the sort of furniture she would not allow in the main part of the house, but was perfectly suited for a teenage boy. The room had become Hugo’s solace in the dark days which followed when his father had sent him there to live. 

They continued walking in silence. Hugo found himself unable to think of a single thing to say to the taller boy. It was true he had watched him discreetly in the classes they shared, where Hugo had imagined several different subjects he could begin a conversation about, but in that moment, in that instance, he could think of nothing. For his part, Josef also seemed unable, or perhaps unwilling, Hugo considered, to also begin a conversation. 

‘So, you 're the kid whose mother died?’ Josef finally spoke, before immediately biting his lip as if he was mortified by what he had said. 

Hugo hid a smile. There was something endearing about his schoolmate’s awkwardness. He had thought it was only himself who was awkward in a world full of dynamic and exciting people.

Hugo shook his head. ‘Non, Maman isn’t dead,’ he answered before frowning. ‘At least I don’t think she is,’ he added softly, wondering whether anybody would actually tell him if she were. The name Daisy Duchamp was certainly never spoken by Madeline or her son.

‘I don’t know why I said that,’ Josef said. ‘It’s just I overheard my parents talking about her. She said your Grand Mère told them she was dead, and that’s why you came to live with her and that your father is an important avocat and doesn’t have time to raise a kid on his own. Maman told me I should befriend you.’

A thousand thoughts fought against Hugo’s consciousness, but he could not articulate a single one of them. Instead, he laughed. ‘I imagine Madeline wishes my mother was dead, but non, I think she’s still alive.’

‘Madeline?’

‘Ma Grand Mère,’ Hugo replied. ‘However, she only answers to Madeline. She says Grand Mère’s are old and matronly, two things she has no intention of ever becoming.’ He paused. ‘My mother is an actress, I think.’

‘I heard some kids at school saying she was a prostitute,’ Josef said, biting his lip again. ‘Désolé, I have a big mouth. My mother says it all the time, I speak without thinking. She says I should be more like my older brother, Joann, and I have to bite my tongue every time. He’s the perfect son, you see, in their eyes at least. They imagine he’s going to end up being a Rabbi like my Papa,’ he stopped, throwing his head back and laughing, ‘but they do not know the kind of things he gets up to behind their back! He has at least four girlfriends that I know of and not a one of them is Kosher, or even Jewish! I would tell Maman that her perfect son isn’t so perfect after all, but she has to have at least some hope that one of her kids is going to grow up perfect, so I don’t want to take that away from her.’ He snorted. ‘Joann is the go-to guy if you want anything illegal in Faubourg Saint-Germain.’ He shrugged. ‘But yeah, sure, he’s the “perfect son.”’ 

Hugo had to fight the urge to say, she has a perfect son, you. Hugo chastised himself. It bothered him he felt that way. He did not want to feel that way about another… about anyone. He could remember the first time he had seen Josef and the bolt of electricity which coursed through his body. He did not understand what it meant, and he was not sure he wanted to. He stared at Josef. ‘Mother isn’t a prostitute either,’ he said, ‘although she’s an actress, which in my father’s book, is pretty much the same thing.’ He was not sure why he did not want Josef to think his mother was a prostitute, because he was fairly sure it would make absolutely no difference to him.

Josef laughed but did not comment, and they continued their slow walk along the boulevard. Hugo was not even sure why Josef had agreed to make sure he got home, other than the school nurse had suggested calling Madeline’s driver to come and collect him, and Josef had said there was no need, he would make sure Hugo got home safely. It came as a surprise to Hugo, because they had sat in the nurse’s office in silence. He had imagined Josef was embarrassed and thinking of a way to politely extract himself. Hugo stopped walking.

‘Is something wrong?’ Josef asked, concern clear in his tone.

Hugo smiled. It was the first time in a long time he had heard anyone show concern for him. He shook his head, thumbing behind him. ‘This is me.’

Josef blew an impressed whistle, pushing his nose through the iron railings. He lifted his head slowly as he took in Madeline Duchamp’s mansion. ‘I’ve got a crick in my neck just from trying to take it all in,’ he laughed. ‘Jeez, what’s it like living in a place like that? Our place is pretty big, but it’s really old and Papa refuses to do anything about it. He says it would be disrespectful to waste money on such vanity when so many people are starving.’ He laughed. ‘You can just imagine how much my mother agrees with that!’ He whistled again. ‘But this is a pretty cool place to live.’

Hugo turned, facing the four-storey mansion. He supposed it was impressive, although he had never really thought of it that way. It had always terrified him. He closed his eyes for a moment, and he saw it instantly. A young boy, dressed in a light blue woollen suit, blond hair smoothed neatly under a cap to match the outfit. White socks pulled up to his knees, with patent leather shoes polished to an intense shine. A hand in the crook of his back, pushing him through the iron gates. A man with a face as grey as his complexion whispering in his ear, ‘you’re going to be staying here for a while. Make sure you behave.’ The words had stuck with Hugo. He may have been a child, but he already understood the importance and significance of behaviour, and he had told himself over and over, maybe if you behave she’ll come back. She never had and now he was almost fifteen-years-old, something told him she never would, or if she did, it would not mean as much as it would back then. 

‘I don’t really live here,’ he said, finally answering Josef’s question.

Josef frowned. ‘You don’t?’

Hugo smiled, pointing to a small window on the roof of the mansion. ‘I live in the attic.’

‘You live in the attic?’ Josef laughed. 

Hugo nodded. ‘Yeah. I find I make less mess up there.’ He shrugged. ‘Madeline doesn’t like mess, and apparently I have very messy hands and surprisingly greasy fingerprints.’

Josef grabbed Hugo’s left hand, his eyes scanning it as he turned back and forth. ‘It doesn’t look greasy or messy to me.’

Hugo snatched it back, wiping it on the back of his chinos. Josef watched the action with something Hugo could only imagine was amusement. 

‘You look good,’ Josef said.

Hugo coughed. ‘I-look-what?’

Josef laughed again, pointing at Hugo’s face. ‘The nurse did a good job. You’ll be bruised and cut for a week, but you won’t lose your looks,’ he laughed. 

Hugo gulped. He looked towards Madeline’s mansion. ‘Do you want to come in?’ he blurted, not at all sure how it would be possible to have a guest in the mansion. He had never thought of it before, primarily because he had no one to invite. Often on weekends, he would press his nose against the railing of the staircase leading down from the attic, watching the comings and goings of life downstairs. The rich and beautiful and powerful, dressed in jewels and finery and were so incomprehensible to Hugo they might as well be aliens. He watched with no understanding of the ease in which they spoke, laughed, danced, found a way to be together. He knew it should make him sad that the only person he spoke to on a daily basis was Elise, the maid whose job, so far as he could tell, was to feed and cater to him and to keep him away from the rest of the house. She was a kindly, elderly woman who appeared interested in little more than watching her “programs” on the tiny television in the kitchen. She was, however, seemingly fond of her teenage charge. She would, occasionally, pull Hugo into a tight embrace, run her fingers through his hair and stare into his eyes and tell him he had the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen - as green as the emerald sea she had once seen on a trip to visit the place of her ancestor’s birth. 

Josef lifted his wrist and stared at his Casio watch. ‘I have to get home,’ he turned away, ‘but peut être, as they say in the American movies, a rain check?’

Hugo smiled. He did not know what he meant. ‘A rain check,’, he repeated with a click of fingers.

Josef disappeared down the boulevard. ‘You’re funny, H, you’re funny.’