by Seth Lynch
He's turned so far he is almost talking to me over his shoulder. He must have realised this is odd because he turns around to face me again. His arms and legs remain folded and crossed. There's a large bruise forming around the cut on his cheek.
'You saw all that and still, the next day, you come and follow me.'
I call the waiter over to buy some cigarettes.
'I am jealous. I am jealous of everyone and everything. It comes and goes. If she rides on the Métro I think "so what". Then I start thinking about the other people there, the men, ogling her, perhaps making her laugh. Fear and frustration consume me like fire. I want to be the one who makes her laugh, not strangers. And you know what women are like.'
The wine is working. I refill his glass. 'Go on, what are they like?'
'It would only take some cocky bastard and who knows... She may go off with him. He'll be the sort of guy women fall for, shallow and confident, full of sweet words. She'll fall for his spiel and allow him to defile her.'
'You've confused defiling with fucking.'
'No, defile! She should only sleep with men who love her and that sort of man loves none but himself.'
'Don't be an arse, Stefan. Women and men should sleep with anyone who can bring them pleasure.'
'She should be with me!'
'I made her laugh you know,' I say, lying. She hadn't even smiled. Stefan falls silent. 'Yeah, and she kissed me whilst we were talking. I think she goes for tough guys. I had to push her away. Even when she was leaving she asked me to make love to her in the hallway. I was tempted; after all she's totally edible.'
'You bastard!' He stands up knocking over his chair and swaying slightly.
'Calm down, Stefan. I doubt she's laughed at anything or anyone for more than a year. I've never met a more frigid woman than your Marie.'
'You're still a bastard.' He sits down again.
'No, my friend, I'm much worse than that.'
Other than his infatuation with my client I get nothing of interest from him. I ask about Gustave Marty - he knows nothing. The mention of a man's name gets him paranoid, imagining Marie in the arms of yet another unknown man. It may be worth tracking him down again in a week or so to see what he's been able to find out. I order some food which Stefan eats without pause. When he finishes, I let him go. It's almost sad - that lad following around a girl who has no interest in him. I guess these nihilistic obsessions fill the gap left by the death of God.
CHAPTER FOUR
The hand I'd used to hit Stefan with is throbbing. I stretch out the fingers before contracting them into a fist. I repeat the process a few times. Another glass of wine is required to ease the pain. The waiter brings over my drink and gives me a look. My school masters used to give me the same look. Back then it meant: I don't have enough on you yet but I'm getting the cane out in readiness. I'm sure the waiter believes I've been having a violent lover's tiff with Stefan. I imagine he could believe a series of things stranger than that.
From the café it's a five-minute walk to the Gare Montparnasse. It takes me ten. My legs are stiff; they are used to walking or cycling, not jumping up and down stairwells. I ride the Métro to the Hôtel de Ville station. This is the part of Paris where the tour guides lead the sightseers before finally letting them hit the strip clubs of Montmartre.
The Hôtel de Ville itself is a grand building which has stood on this spot, in one form or another, for over six hundred years. The flag of the Republic flutters from a pole on the roof. The building could easily be mistaken for a grand seventeenth century palace - an emblem of Parisian pomp and optimism. The large expanse in front of the building allows folk to walk about with their hands in their pockets asking strangers for money.
I cross the square to the entrance. If I close my eyes, and listen to the bustle of people on the busy road behind me, I can imagine the Communards marching through the streets holding burning torches. Government forces open fire on the crowd; they retaliate by sending the torches cascading through the night sky onto the building. Please, when I open my eyes, may the building be in flames. There is no fire, only a gentle drizzle and pigeon shit on the grey slatted roof top.
The splendour of the building does not influence the monotony of the work going on inside. Forms are completed, signed and countersigned. Copies are made and dispatched to department heads. To wit, all the mundane workings of the French bureaucracy. To think Robespierre was shot in the jaw in this very building.
I enter through the grand front door and a near-deaf man asks me what I want. Why give a man who is hard of hearing the job of enquiring after my purpose? He is not too old, probably fifty. His hands tremble and his head jerks to the left sporadically. These tics and his overly officious manner are a good line of defence; he has been strategically placed to deter visitors.
It doesn't take a detective to work out why he is like this. I decide to make him my first conversational victim of the day. If I do this right I may even get the information I'm after.
'Was it at Verdun?' That's as good a place to start as any.
'I was at Verdun,' he replies. 'The second offensive under General Pétain, a true hero of France. Unlike the other snivelling bastards who led our troops.'
'I'll drink to that, sir!' I say. There aren't many generals who came out of that war with any credit but Pétain is among them.
'Marne was where this happened.' He taps his ear. 'A shell exploded not four metres from me. Since that day I have had to put up with a constant high pitched squeal. I hardly sleep nowadays, how about you?'
'I sleep, until the dreams begin...'
I tell him about Passchendaele. I'm not sure why I picked that and not, for instance, the Somme. Each day of the war contributed to the mix of nightmares. Fear came from the bombardments and the charges across No Man's Land. The nightmares though, they came from everywhere; seeing body-parts amongst the scrub after a shelling, or a corpse - seeming to smile amongst a pile of the dead. My nights in a hospital tent were more terrifying than charging the German lines. On a charge there was always the chance of a quick death.
The man introduces himself as Lucien. We reminisce about the bad times as if they were good times. By giving me his full concentration, and turning so his right ear is pointing towards me, he is able to catch what I'm saying.
'Come with me, sir, the person you need is over here.'
Lucien leads me to a man sitting at a small counter tucked away in the corner. Unlike nearly every other spot in the room there is no queue here. Lucien explains that I am a Tommy and a good sort. The sitting man looks to be fine at first, aside from his rapid blinking. His hair is neat, nicely parted in the centre and slicked away from his forehead. He is wearing a clean jacket and a freshly pressed shirt. His Charlie Chaplin moustache is well groomed. There are no ink stains on his cuffs and his nails are unbitten.
The deaf man leaves us and the one behind the desk reaches out to shake my hand. I lean over, as he doesn't stand, and notice he has two stumps in place of legs. This pair must be part of the work for veterans programme; every company has to employ a small percentage of the living dead. He introduces himself as Jacques.
'Well sir, if Lucien says you are a good sort then a good sort you are. How may I help you?'
Finding an official who wants to help is miraculous. The rest of the room is packed with people being frustrated by contrary clerks. Ah! I get it. This man is going to do all he can to help but I'll soon discover he is an incompetent nincompoop. I'll smile politely as he spills papers all over the floor. Then I'll have to pick them up for him because he is incapacitated. Eventually I'll leave knowing less than I did when I arrived and he'll be calling out, 'remember to ask for me if you need anything else.' If I ever come here again he'll buttonhole me and I'll never be able to speak to a competent, if begrudgingly slow, official again.
'Gustave Marty, hey?' He drums his fingers on the desk and looks up at the corner of the ceiling. 'Give me ten minutes p
lease. Wait here, or if you prefer go to a café and return in half an hour. That'll give me plenty of time to go through the records. Lucien will recognise you when you return and he'll bring you straight here.'
On saying this he lifts himself off his stool and into a wheelchair. I watch as he disappears through a doorway at the back of the office. I don't want to leave in case I can't get back in again. Sitting at the desk, alone, looking at an empty stool, I begin to feel foolish. I take his advice and head out to find a café.
Being in the centre of Paris, finding a café is easy. Having a choice makes things difficult. I can see a perfectly good café across the rue de Rivoli. There are large windows for those inside to gaze through and a few seats out front for those who want to pretend it isn't freezing. The trouble is it's on the other side of the road and there are far too many automobiles - I want a coffee, not a half-hour wait for a break in the traffic. I sometimes visit a café on the Île de la Cité – that's about five minutes from here. I cross the Seine to the island and take a side road which meanders off behind the Notre Dame cathedral. Sightseers are filling up the other cafés on the island. This one is left for the locals and people like me who spend their time roaming the city.
Thirty minutes later I reappear at the Hôtel de Ville. Lucien spots me and disengages himself from a woman who is talking at him. He guides me through the crowd to Jacques as if I am the British ambassador. As he turns to leave I tuck a few francs into his breast pocket. Jacques looks pleased with himself and is pointing at a sheet of paper on his desk.
'Did you find something, Jacques... or has The Girl from Havana asked you out?'
'I found something, monsieur Salazar. I found a total of four Gustave Martys. I didn't catch the age of yours.'
'I'm not certain, younger than me, say between twenty-six and thirty-two.'
My client had told me that Marty is twenty-nine, but I don't want to restrict the list of suspects yet.
'Oh, well in that case I have three Gustave Martys. The fourth Marty has started drawing his five hundred franc war pension. That puts him between fifty and fifty-five.'
Jacques produces a ruler from under his desk and neatly crosses something out. I lean over to take a look at what he's working on. I fear my prediction of Jacques's incompetence may be coming true. Is he really going to give me a piece of paper with the name Gustave Marty written on it four times?
'Well there you are then, monsieur Salazar.' He hands me the sheet and my heart sinks. 'You will see that I have numbered the Martys one to four. Number four has been struck from the record, leaving one to three. Here,' he hands me three more sheets of paper, 'are pages numbered one to three.' He takes the fourth sheet, scrunches it up, and casts it into a waste paper basket behind him.
'Good shot, Jacques.'
'I can't afford to miss,' he says. 'There is a name and an address and, where known, an employer. These are the Martys I could find in Paris as of last month. It is possible there have been more who have come and gone. If you need me to track those I will require further information, such as a date of birth.'
'This is fantastic, Jacques.' I reach over to give him a fifty franc note.
'Much appreciated, monsieur Salazar. I would have done it for free but I feel a lot happier this way.'
We shake hands and he wishes me good luck. I exchange nods with Lucien on my way out.
Once back outside I skim through Jacques's notes to make sure they aren't all gibberish. They aren't, so I trot along to the café near Notre Dame to study them in detail. The café is empty. I retake the seat I had used earlier. I pull the three pieces of paper out of my pocket and place them on the table. I'm mystified by the separate key page with Gustave Marty written multiple times on it.
The first page gives an address near the Champs-Élysées. It is an apartment on rue Balzac not too far from the Arc de Triomphe. The second is an obscure address over in the south-west of the city on the Île Saint-Germain - a man might go there if he were trying to hide. Why else would he go there? The third address brings me out in a cold sweat: rue de la Ferme 7. Saint-Denis.
Images from Saint-Denis flash through my head. It's like swallowing a fast acting poison. The desperation I'd felt in those times comes rushing back and kicks me in the guts. Those were suicide days. I thought I could pretend they'd never happened. I push the papers away. The air in the room is thinning out and I can't see the café anymore. Am I still here? I call out for the waiter and see a man standing somewhere, perhaps a mile away. A voice echoes from the void, 'Monsieur, monsieur.' Where am I? From instinct I mutter, 'bring me wine, red wine.' I'm going to be sick. A glass of wine appears before me. I down it and say, 'more'. I hope there is someone near enough to have heard me. Another glass appears and I take a few sips. Gradually the café comes back into focus. The waiter is standing nearby with a concerned look on his face. 'I'm okay thank you,' I say. The waiter nods and returns to the counter.
I don't know what has just happened. I feel as if I've been abused in some way. Saint-Denis was a hell I never wish to visit again. For two years I existed in that desolate wasteland. The streets disgusted me, the people repulsed me. I was down-and-out living hand-to-mouth in a revolting one-roomed apartment. Every day was a continuous battle against cold and hunger, my only distractions being cheap wine and the occasional screams emanating from the street. Days and nights would pass with nothing to mark them out. I'd lie in my bed for hours on end without sleeping or moving, just looking at the ceiling, the wall, or the dead flames that once lived in the fire.
If Marty is living in Saint-Denis then he is welcome to it. I'll go there last if I go there at all. Île Saint-Germain first, that address strikes me as unnaturally suspicious. No, rue Balzac off the Champs-Élysées should be first. That is a stockbroker's address. The island is where a man hiding would live. Is Marty actually hiding? If someone who knew me twelve years ago tried to find me today they would have a fine time going about it. Perhaps I ought to place one of those intriguing advertisements in the newspapers: Gustave Marty, ex of Namur, please contact Salazar for personal advantage.
I take out some coins to pay for the wine and toss one of them. It spins on the table before landing olive sprig up. That's decided then – I'll go to Île Saint-Germain first. There is no Métro station near the island so I'll take a tram for the final leg of the journey.
Life goes on hold when you are riding the Métro. Feelings and thoughts evaporate at the pay gates and don't return until you reach the surface. Is it a result of being underground? Do miners live their lives in this state of limbo and is this what makes their work bearable?
I try to plan what I'll say to Marty when I meet him. All I can think to do is ask if he is from Namur. If he says 'yes' then I'll bid him good day and take his address around to Marie's place. If he says 'no', how will I know if he is telling the truth? I can't attack or threaten him. If I had a camera I could wait outside his home and take a photograph of him when he comes out. He would have to look straight at me and hold the pose for a few moments as I exposed the frame. I could ask his concierge about him, she's bound to talk to me - so long as I keep the money flowing. If Marty has been living there all his life I'll be able to rule him out. Yes, I will start with the concierge, claiming to be a long lost friend trying to track down my old pal Gustave.
Fresh air, what a blessing. A slight drizzle is falling as I climb up into the carriage. I don't care – after my twenty minutes in the Métro I feel like a convict released after years of imprisonment. The tram slips along at a fair old rate, screeching on the bends and rattling the bell whenever a horse cart comes into view. From in here I can keep an eye on the city and experience the weather. There isn't a lot too experience. The journey is so quick my legs don't get cramp from the tiny space I've had to force them into.
Not too far from the tram stop is a bridge across to the pointless island. The city already has two perfectly good islands with the Île de Cité and Île Saint-Loui
s. Those can boast Notre Dame, Sainte Chapelle, and the benefits of a central location. This island has warehouses, anonymous buildings, and a rundown park. Should I ever need to hide out I'd come here and then leave; I'd rather get caught than live in a dump like this. If Paris is a beautiful woman then this is her elbow.
While crossing the bridge I develop a strange longing for the Métro. I stop and lean over the railings to look in to the river. At least it isn't Saint-Denis. That thought cheers me enough to continue across with a spring in my step. I walk around looking for the hidden beauty which once attracted painters like Courbet. Parts of the East-End of London are like this, without the park but with opium dens and good old fashioned boozers instead. I have fond memories of journeys around there - before the incident with the corpses. Ah! I am already walking along Marty's street. It's a few minutes past three pm on a Wednesday afternoon, Marty ought to be out at work. That will leave me plenty of time to talk to the concierge. I wouldn't normally rate my chances of success there; however, my visit to the Hôtel de Ville has left me in a positive mood.
CHAPTER FIVE
As I walk along the barren streets, wind blowing straight into my face, I think about how depressing it must be to have to live here. There are no automobiles and few people are about. They could use a café to brighten the place up. Something with lights, music, and laughter.
This place could easily have been a small Breton town. Two women are standing, hands on hips, at the end of the road talking. Despite the lack of any other visible activity there is a lot of noise. Running along the side of the island are a number of warehouses. They must be unloading a barge or two over there.
The front door to Marty's building has been left open. Inside, the flooring in the hallway consists of red ceramic tiles. My steps make loud clipping noises. A bicycle is leaning against a wall. Someone has been taking care of it – the chain and mud guards are clean, the tyres are nicely inflated, and the bell is glimmering. I wonder if it's ever ridden.
