Murder in Montparnasse

by Howard Engel

  “Hell, I’m damned sorry about the studio. I thought we could get the tenant out. She was subletting from me, damn it! I didn’t know she was going to take in a Worthy Oriental Gentleman, did I? But she won’t be budged. She’s still got my traps in it, furniture I made myself. Maledictione! as Verdi says. Still, I’m glad I came back to see if I could help. She’s four times as stubborn as the froggywogs. These damned Americans should stay at the George V.”

  Giorgio Joyce moved his chair beyond the reach of the speaker’s demonstrative arm, after being clipped in the ear with a soup spoon. I tried to imagine who might be insensitive enough to harangue the author of Ulysses in this gauche manner. He had interrupted Joyce several times, correcting him and scolding! It couldn’t have been more disrespectful. As soon as the word “disrespectful” passed through my head, I suddenly knew the identity of the unruly American. It was Ezra Pound, the avant-garde poet and editor. He had recently moved off to Italy, Wad had told me, leaving a studio flat on Notre-Dame-des-Champs, the same street he lived on.

  “I finally got the lowdown on those la-dee-daw Greeks, Jim. Catullus is the key to the whole doggamn thing. He had it all figured out. Best modern brain of antiquity, saving your reverence.”

  Later, Joyce was speaking quietly to Pound, whose head was wagging like a redheaded terrier’s and with the same awkwardness as a growing pup. Joyce, on the other hand, was speaking in a steady, low voice I couldn’t catch. He looked like a bishop reprimanding a fallen woman. A monsignor at the very least. And all the while, his rings flashed as he moved his long fingers up and down his walking stick. There was something almost evil about his intensity. At that moment he looked capable of burning Joan of Arc. Then he spoiled it with a joke, for they began to fall about one another laughing. Although he had said relatively little, it was plain to see that Pound was impressed. The Ten Commandments of the new age might have been dictated during this short talk. Meanwhile Joyce’s daughter began complaining in Italian about her pommes pailles, which she declined to either eat or translate. I continued to eat a nice côte rôtie along with a bottle of Hermitage Belle Roche. Across from me, the conversation was taken up by the younger generation, and I concentrated on Monsieur Raulo’s cooking.

  Later, after the table across from me had been taken by some journalists who had the idea of eating hors-d’oeuvre and drinking, I thanked Monsieur Raulo and paid my bill. He had been a war hero and was proudly wearing the rosettes on his lapel that represented his two medals. Most of the time they were hidden under the bib of his apron. On leaving Michaud’s, I walked down rue des Saints-Pères to the river. The dark shape of the Louvre lay on the far shore. As I walked along the quay, keeping the closed green boxes of the book and map vendors to my left, I passed Sommeliers, the dealer in artists’ supplies, and the dome of the Institute. I buttoned up my jacket and turned up the collar as the squat mass of Notre Dame appeared to the right of the Palais de Justice. I thought of taking a walk on the island but turned away, moving instead up the rue des Grands-Augustins, across the boulevard and up the rue de Tournon to the high ground where Vaugirard skirts the Luxembourg Gardens. It was too late to cross the park, so I kept to Vaugirard until I hit familiar territory. The cafés on Montparnasse were bright under the electric lights. Vaguely, I was looking over the faces on the terrasses for one I knew. Keeping away from the cafés had been good for my liver, but I was beginning to feel the need for bad company.

  I searched all of the usual places: the Rotonde, with its squabbling Norwegians and Russians, the Select and the Dôme. There I found familiar faces and some hands waving me to join them, but I didn’t see the object of my quest. I walked past the lumber yard on the south side of the boulevard and turned into the rue Montparnasse, where I went into a few of the bars I knew. I spent half an hour at The Jockey, drinking expensive beer and listening to Kiki sing one of her incomparably dirty songs while whipping her skirts about her and lifting them provocatively. Before I went into The Jockey, I had wanted to find Laure. Now I needed to.

  I found her at last at the place where I should have started. She was sitting in the Dingo with Cyril Burdock.

  “Ah, Ward,” he said. “I’ve been on the look-out for you!” He moved his coat from the chair opposite their encampment on the banquette. “I must say I’m rather keen on the story at the bicycle races. Almost made me feel I was right there, old chap, and I’m not much of an athlete, you know. Ask Laure. She’ll tell you what a lazy-guts I am.”

  “Hello, Mike,” said Laure, without returning my look. Her eyes were on the large form of her companion. In fact, she was leaning towards him with her left arm resting on the back of the banquette. I sat down, trying to recall whether I’d been asked. I was looking forward to a fine à l’eau. I hadn’t known that I wanted one, and then I needed it rather a lot.

  “Tell me what a lazy-guts Mr. Burdock is, Laure,” I said.

  “He’s hunting for insults, poor lamb. He’s worse than a woman looking for compliments, aren’t you, you funny man?”

  “I protest I’m innocent of all guile where you’re concerned, my dear.” He looked at her in a way I hadn’t seen since I saw the villain in The Drunkard rub his hands together. But perhaps I was an unreliable witness.

  “You must make a habit of dropping around to our rooms on the island, my dear chap. We have stimulating talk, and sometimes other stimulants. We have a merry old time, no holds barred.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  “We can go over your story. There are just a few things I’d like to talk to you about. Trifles, bagatelles.”

  “I’d be honoured to have Conrad’s collaborator take an interest in my little story.” I could see the chilly effect of what I was saying as it hit the table. I didn’t seem to have any control over what I said. I was glad when the fine arrived. I saluted both of them over my glass and drank off most of the contents.

  Laure was wearing a cloche hat and a cloth coat with a fur collar draped over her nearly bare shoulders. She was smoking one cigarette after the other in a long holder. Her long arms were white in the smoky haze that hung in the room about eye-level.

  “You haven’t been in the bar for a few weeks, have you?” At least she was going to give me hell. That’s better than nothing.

  “I’ve settled into French life so successfully I’ve even developed a bad liver. Can a foreigner do more?”

  “An impressive tribute, to be sure,” Laure said. “I’ve missed seeing your face.”

  “Among so many others? You flatter me. Dare I ask why?”

  “Ah, Mike! Always so … so serious. You should get yourself a girl, you know.”

  “I thought I had one. I was reasonably sure.”

  “In this town, Mike, you can never really be sure. People change. Moods change. The moment passes.”

  “And I suppose that that moment won’t be along again, like the number 91 tram?”

  “Dear Mike, I wouldn’t count on it. But there will be others. Not the same, but others. You won’t have any trouble. Believe me. Meanwhile, one tries not to be boring.”

  “Thank you for this solicitude, Laure. It’s really more than I deserve.”

  “I say, Ward, you haven’t started writing a novel, have you?” Burdock wasn’t trying to change the subject. He seemed mystified by what had passed between us and was simply trying to move the ball back into play. “You don’t have to answer that, dear boy. I’m just casting about, you know. Though if you have one, you should talk to me or Bill Bird about it. Unless you have your own Canadian connections.”

  It was only a few minutes after that that I put some money on the table and left. Outside, in the rue Delambre, the air felt cold and sharp in my lungs. I walked home to the rue Bonaparte kicking at pebbles and stones that lay in the way of my feet. I kept one stone rolling ahead of me for at least three long blocks.

  I was just about to ring the bell when I knew it would be wrong to go in without putting up more of a fight. I had no desire to fac
e my bed in this mood. I walked into St-Germain-des-Prés to the taxi rank, went to the tête de station and took the first car. I gave the driver the address and listened to him on the subject of what the Communists and Jews were doing to France. I was too tired to give him an argument, but it got me thinking about poor Hal Leopold again. Although he was doing a good deal of damage to himself, I couldn’t see that France was in any danger from him.

  When I got to the passage de Dantzig, I paid the driver and gave him the minimum for his service. He then reminded me of the night tariff, which I’d neglected. I left the cab in a temper, then found the café where Laure and I had had a silent breakfast and went in. Two men with caps on their heads and elbows heavily placed on the zinc bar looked over at me. The proprietor dusted crumbs from the table near the window as I pulled up a chair. The men were drinking a pale-green drink to which they added water: Pernod, perhaps, or a cheaper stand-in. I had nothing to read with me, so I took out a scrap of paper and began writing down a list of things that I wanted to accomplish during the next month or so. At intervals, I looked out into the street to see whether Laure was returning to her room. I consulted my pocket-watch and concluded that it was still early enough that she hadn’t reached home before me.

  I ordered a demi and immediately regretted it. It was too cold for drinking beer. It stuck in my throat, and I was reduced to sipping it. The patron joined the two men, talking with them in low voices from his side of the bar. He poured himself a glass of what the others were drinking. The light in the café was bright enough so that I would have trouble seeing anyone walking along the far side of the street, except where he or she passed under one of the arc lamps. Sitting by the window, there was a pool of light that gave me a respectable chance of catching Laure, even out of the corner of my eye.

  It was a long half-hour. I’d corrected my first choice of a beverage, amending it to red wine, which went down more easily. The patron and the two men at the bar continued to talk. I caught the gist of what they were saying. One was accusing the young son of Charles of the Ritz with having escaped to America to avoid the war. The patron insisted that there was no harm in that since the young man had completed his military service first. The third voice tended to side first with the patron and then with his friend about whether the lad had betrayed his country or not. My interest in following this died suddenly when I caught a shadow moving through the pool of light outside my window. I’d already prepared for the necessity of a quick leave-taking; my money was already on the table when I walked quickly out into the street.

  “Laure!” I called. I repeated it before she turned.

  “Hello Mike. What are you doing here?”

  “There was a party at La Ruche,” I lied.

  “That’s all it is over there: one long, boring party.”

  “I want to talk to you, Laure.”

  “Now, look at me, Mike. I hope that you aren’t getting foolish notions about me?” She had taken hold of the sleeve of my coat. I wanted to hold her close to me and let that be my argument, but she kept her arm stiff, as though preventing my pulling her to me was her reason for taking my arm.

  “I live a hell of a mixed-up life, Mike. You don’t know anything about me. It’s disgusting, really, and I’m disgusted with it myself. But what can I do about it? I have no will to change anything. I’m exhausted just making myself presentable. You want to keep clear of me.”

  “Can’t we go somewhere and talk? Can I come up?”

  “No, dear Mike. The best advice I can give you is to find yourself a girl.”

  “I thought you were my girl.”

  “Really? That’s absurd!” She repeated what I’d said and started to laugh. I couldn’t stand that.

  “Stop it! Laure, be reasonable!” She released her grip on my arm and started to back away from me. She nearly collided with the two men from the café, who had obviously called it a night. She began moving to her door.

  “Laure, you have to talk to me. You can’t just break the connection.”

  “There is no connection! Now you are beginning to bore me. Stop following me and go home and soak your head.” She had her room key in her hand and I went to her to help with the door, but she pulled the cordon herself.

  “Get away from me!” She screamed this and pushed me away from her.

  “I was only …” The door opened and she had fled behind it. I ran to the door, but it had closed and locked behind her. I banged on the door with my fists, more to expel the anger that had been building up within me than to bring her running back to let me in. When I turned, I couldn’t avoid the looks of the two men from the café. They said nothing to me, but their remarks to one another were neither friendly nor anything that I could argue with without getting pushed into the gutter with a broken nose.

  I turned my back on them and walked past the now dark café in the direction of La Ruche, where I found an all-night party in one of the studios. I don’t remember much about it. Pascin was there, and so was Foujita, who was still wearing the remnants of fancy dress. His face was heavily rouged, but there was nothing in the least effeminate about his play with two beautiful women, who looked like sisters. There was a cask of wine in the middle of the floor with a paint can under the bung to catch the drips. I found a discarded glass and began drinking in earnest.

  A grey day was just beginning when I found myself on a cot with one of the sisters. I have no recollection of how she got there. I disengaged myself and steered a course around the sleeping bodies scattered on the floor. Foujita had passed out in the model’s chair on a rostrum in the middle of the studio. Pascin had pulled his hat over his eyes before falling asleep. Apart from the sounds of slow breathing and the odd snore, the room was remarkably quiet. Far off, I could hear bells that reminded me of the countryside. I left the studio door open as I found it.

  On the ground floor, not far from the ornate entrance, which had been part of the 1900 Paris Exposition, I heard a gentle moaning in another of the studios. I looked in. Here were the left-overs from another party, or so it looked at first, for there again were bodies lying on straw-filled pallets. There was a sticky, heavy odour that hung about the room. Had they been smoking hashish, I wondered? On a wooden chest that was being used as a table, I found a long-stemmed pipe with an alcohol lamp covered with a glass chimney. Open near it was a tin of what looked like paste. I sniffed and knew at once what it was.

  A figure in a dark corner groaned. Would she be wanting another sniff of the poppy? I turned to leave as quietly as I could, but before I’d reached the door she called out to me.

  “Mike, oh my little sweet woolly lamb!” It was Laure, who was half-staggering to her feet. Her hair was falling loose around her shoulders. “Be a dear, Mike, and help me back to my room,” she said.

  Without a glance at the figure of the man who had had his arm around Laure’s waist when I first saw her, she accepted my arm, and we went out into the early morning light together. A parade of goats was coming down the passage de Dantzig as we crossed the street.

  She walked up the stairs more lightly than I would have expected. I found her key and helped her into the untidy room. Laure sat on the edge of the bed, watching me try to return the key to her bag.

  “You may give that to me, Mike,” she said in a heavy voice. I handed it over, but her outstretched arm fell as she failed to grip it. She rolled her head back on her neck, as though to balance it more easily. “You’d better get out of here,” she said without emotion. I picked up the key from the floor.

  “Are you ——?”

  “Just get out, Mike! Leave me alone! Va te faire fiche!”

  For a moment she looked as though she was going to fall off the bed. Instead, she got up, stood close and raked her fingers over my face. I felt the burn of her nails and sat her down roughly on the bed.

  “Will you leave me alone now?” she said, leaning on one arm for support.

  “I’m going, Laure. I just hope you’ll be all right.”

/>   “Go away!” she said, taking off a shoe and throwing it at me. “Just go!” she said, throwing its mate. She was reaching for a book on her night table to shy at me next as I closed the door behind me.

  There were no further sounds of goats or of goat bells in the passage de Dantzig as I returned to the street.

  CHAPTER 9

  Again I tried to stay away from Montparnasse. I went to see a play at the Comédie Française and didn’t like it; I went to see Josephine Baker’s “Revue Nègre” and even followed one of the performers back to the Hôtel Istria, where the troupe was staying. I liked Josephine Baker a lot, but so did all of Paris. Most evenings, I stayed in my room and worked on stories. I didn’t have it right, not by a long chalk, but working regularly was making it better. Wad had told me that and now I believed him.

  The Rotonde was one of the handsomest cafés in the Quarter, but hardly any of the people I knew frequented it. Maybe that’s why I chose it that night in late October. I looked around me to see if the paid police informers were easily recognizable. Were they all reading copies of L’Action Française, the right-wing newspaper? There were certainly lots of copies of L’Humanité in evidence, but I wasn’t surprised to see a communist paper in this setting of conspiring would-be revolutionaries. If I were a stool-pigeon for the police, I would see to it that I carried L’Humanité. In that setting it would be an asset. However, even the newspapers didn’t help: I couldn’t tell the mouchards from the regular customers.

  I drank off my fine too quickly. I had not learned the fine art of timing a solitary drink. In the winter, I’d heard, one drink, especially an expensive one, buys a lot of sitting time. During the hot summer days when the terrasses are full and tourists are as thick as pigeons around a statue, the clock on one’s sitting time runs more quickly. I brought out a page of something I’d been writing and looked it over. It was very depressing, a description of my encounter in the Luxembourg with the swarthy lady and her poodle. Had I been successful in describing her fussy, correct manner, her studied insolence at my rebuke of the dog? Maybe it required a greater subtlety than I could manage.