He looked at Monique inquiringly.
“This is my sister,” Monique said. “Teresa.”
They both watched the expression on his face change. It went from shock to disappointment to disgust.
“You’re the singer?”
“Yes.”
He turned to Monique. “And you’re—”
Monique smiled innocently. “I’m Teresa’s sister.”
Raimu turned to examine Teresa again, then shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said to Teresa. “You’re too—” He fumbled for a word. “You’re too—young. If you’ll excuse me, I must get back to Paris.”
And they stood there watching him walk out the door.
It worked, Monique thought jubilantly. It worked.
Teresa never made another broadcast. Louis Bonnet pleaded with her to come back, but the hurt was too deep.
After looking at my sister, Teresa thought, how could anyone want me? I’m so ugly.
As long as she lived, she would never forget the look on Jacques Raimu’s face.
It’s my fault for having silly dreams, Teresa told herself. It’s God’s way of punishing me.
After that, Teresa would sing only in church, and she became more of a recluse than ever.
During the next ten years the beautiful Monique turned down more than a dozen marriage proposals. She was proposed to by the sons of the mayor, the banker, the doctor, the merchants in the village. Her suitors ranged from young men fresh out of school to established and successful men in their forties and fifties. They were rich and poor, handsome and ugly, educated and uneducated. And to all of them Monique said non.
“What are you looking for?” her father asked, baffled.
“Papa, everyone here is boring. Èze is such an unsophisticated place. My dream prince is in Paris.”
And so her father dutifully sent her to Paris. As an afterthought, he sent Teresa with her. The two girls stayed at a small hotel on the Bois de Boulogne.
Each sister saw a different Paris. Monique attended charity balls and glamorous dinner parties and had tea with titled young men. Teresa visited Les Invalides and the Louvre. Monique went to the races at Longchamp and to galas at Malmaison. Teresa went to the Cathedral of Notre Dame to pray, and walked along the tree-shaded path of the Canal St. Martin. Monique went to Maxim’s and the Moulin Rouge, while Teresa strolled along the quays, browsing among the book stalls and the flower vendors and stopping at the Basilica of St. Denis. Teresa enjoyed Paris, but as far as Monique was concerned, the trip was a failure.
When they returned home, Monique said, “I can’t find any man I want to marry.”
“You met no one who interested you?” her father asked.
“Not really. There was a young man who took me to dinner at Maxim’s. His father owns coal mines.”
“What was he like?” her mother asked eagerly.
“Oh, he was rich, handsome, polite, and he adored me.”
“Did he ask you to marry him?”
“Every ten minutes. Finally I simply refused to see him again.”
Her mother stared at Monique in amazement. “Why?”
“Because all he could talk about was coal: bituminous coal, lump coal, black coal, gray coal. Boring, boring, boring.”
The following year Monique decided she wanted to return to Paris again.
“I’ll pack my things,” Teresa said.
Monique shook her head. “No. This time I think I’ll go alone.”
So while Monique went to Paris, Teresa stayed home and went to church every morning and prayed that her sister would find a handsome prince. And one day the miracle occurred. A miracle because it was to Teresa that it happened. His name was Raoul Giradot.
He had gone to Teresa’s church one Sunday and heard her sing. He had never heard anything like it before. I must meet her, he vowed.
Early Monday morning, Teresa stopped in at the village general store to buy fabric for a dress she was making. Raoul Giradot was working behind the counter.
He looked up as Teresa walked in, and his face lit up. “The voice!”
She stared at him, flustered. “I—I beg your pardon?”
“I heard you sing in church yesterday. You are magnificent.”
He was handsome and tall, with intelligent, flashing dark eyes and lovely, sensual lips. He was in his early thirties, a year or two older than Teresa.