The Missing Italian Girl

by Barbara Corrado Pope

  The Bourse lay only a few paces from the square, on the rue du Château-d’Eau. That street was now closed, blocked off by gendarmes holding bayoneted rifles. Martin stopped to take stock. At this time of day, the Place de la République was usually the habitat of lingering lovers, idle strollers, or office clerks eating their lunches. Now he observed clusters of laborers in shirts and caps, talking quietly and pointing. He walked over to the nearest group of about half a dozen men.

  “What’s going on?” he asked. At first no one responded. They didn’t know him, and he did not recognize any of them from his first few days at the Exchange. Finally, one said, “They came out of there.” He gestured with his head to the northern edge of the square, adding, “and went over there,” raising his chin toward the rue du Châteaud’Eau. Not much of an answer. In fact no answer at all beyond what Martin could see with his own eyes. Instead, it was an uncomfortable reminder that Martin, in his suit and cravat, could easily be seen as the enemy, an upholder of the state, and that the state had made its power quite evident by headquartering the gendarmerie on the square that was named after Martin’s beloved Republic. The state police station was only a stone’s throw from the Bourse du Travail, ready to quell any workers’ uprising.

  Realizing he was unwelcome, Martin strode away from the group and went up to the uniformed men. He chose to address one of the youngest, a skinny lad with barely enough fur over his lip to be called a mustache. “Let me through,” Martin demanded. “I work at the Bourse.”

  “No sir, we cannot. No entry.” The soldier’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he gulped and stared straight ahead. His accent indicated that he was probably a country boy, finding himself in the big city with no idea of what he might be facing.

  “I said, let me through. I am a lawyer at the Exchange.” The soldier, already red in the face and perspiring from the heat, seemed about to cave in. But instead, he thrust his rifle diagonally across Martin’s chest and repeated, louder this time, “No entry.”

  At that instant, Martin recognized fully what he had given up. Had he been a judge, the little provincial would not have had the nerve to physically try to push him around. Martin was trying to decide what to do next, when a voice behind the line of soldiers boomed out, “Maître Martin, I assume.” The voice emerged from a suit, a bowler and a cigar, held tight between thick lips topped with a ginger-colored mustache. A very real, mature and bushy one. A police detective or, as some of the union men might say, a flic. Funny how, when you cross to the “other side,” the workers’ side, Martin thought, you can smell one a mile away.

  “Inspector Alain Jobert,” the man confirmed, taking the stub out of his mouth. “We’ve been waiting for you.” There was a sardonic gleam in his blue eyes.

  “What’s this about?” Martin demanded.

  “Come inside out of the sun.” The inspector stretched out a thick arm and nodded at the gendarme to let Martin through. “After what happened this morning, we’re all going to have to keep cooler heads,” he said as Martin caught up to him.

  Martin had known many inspectors in his role as a judge. The competent and the incompetent, the good and the bad, even the very good and the very bad. As they walked toward the multi-doored entrance to the Bourse, Martin wondered how long it would take him to figure out what kind he was dealing with now. The only thing he was sure of, as he followed Jobert’s bull-like back into the Bourse, was the man’s physical strength.

  “What happened?” Martin asked once they were inside the cool interior of the Bourse’s high-ceilinged, stone-arched entryway.

  “A bomb. This morning. Goutte-d’Or district. Anarchist.” The inspector was as laconic as the workingmen, but much more informative. Frighteningly informative.

  Martin, very conscious of whose side he must be on, persisted, “So what are you doing here?”

  “Searching for bombs, guns, inflammatory pamphlets. We’ve been at it for over an hour.”

  “Do you have any proof that the bomber came from the Exchange?” Even as Martin said the words, he realized that as a judge he might have been asking the same question with a very different intent: to command the police to do exactly what they were doing, invade the workers’ organization in search of evidence. “Do you have a warrant? Who authorized—”

  “Yes, yes, signed and sealed,” Jobert interrupted, before taking a piece of paper out of his pocket and unfolding and showing it to Martin.

  Martin pushed it away. The perspiration earned on that sunny once-victorious day was prickling into an icy chill and fear as he finally allowed the momentousness of the inspector’s revelations to sink in. A bomb. Could it be beginning again, the anarchist violence that had held the capital in its grip for years? What about Clarie? And Jean-Luc? What about the Exchange? Would the government close it down? Everything could be lost.

  “Come,” the inspector laid an unwelcome hand on Martin’s back, “let’s go in here and talk.” He gestured straight ahead to the auditorium where the Exchange held its speeches and entertainments. “We’ve already searched under all the seats and the lectern,” Jobert commented as he opened the door for a benumbed Martin to enter.

  They sat on one of the benches in the back of the large hexagonal hall. Martin untied his cravat and ripped it from his neck. He held it in his hands, trying to slow his breathing and empty his mind of violent images, readying himself to do the job for which the Exchange had hired him.

  Jobert took off his hat and crossed his legs, as relaxed as if he were going to see one of the performances put on in the hall. “Tell me, Maître Martin, exactly what you, as a member of the Paris Bar, do in this building.”

  “I defend the workers when they are in trouble, and, eventually, I will teach. I don’t see that this has anything to do—”

  “Teach, here?” Jobert seemed to find this a preposterous idea.

  “Yes.” Martin clenched his jaw. “Teach them about the law.”

  When the police inspector gave out a snort, Martin added, “You know what they told me when they hired me? That instead of their kids being forced to recite their catechism in school, they should have been learning something a little more relevant for their lives, like how the law works against them.”

  “Humph. Godless. I’m not surprised,” Jobert responded, a frown of distaste replacing his smirk. “Maître Martin, what else do you know of this place and the men who are in charge?”

  Martin shrugged. “I’ve only been here a few days, spending most of my time in the library, orienting myself.”

  Jobert raised his eyebrows to show his skepticism that an educated man, a lawyer, would be studying in a workers’ library. But Martin had already learned a great deal. The library on the second floor contained not only the expected ideological tracts, which he mostly ignored, but also volumes of statistics and inquiries on the condition of the working class. The sight of men poring over the research painstakingly gathered by their leaders had won Martin’s admiration and, he thought, as he straightened up to face the inspector, assured his loyalty.

  Jobert flicked a bit of ash on the floor and sucked long on his cigar before changing the subject. “I want you to know that I went through your office myself. I didn’t want my men to make a mess of things.”

  Martin was tempted to express outrage, but he held himself back in order to take advantage of Jobert’s insinuation that the two of them had something in common, as “professional men.” He desperately wanted to know more about what had happened. “Was anyone hurt today?” he began.

  “Only the bomber, a Russian émigré. Young man, about twenty.”

  “He died?”

  “Oh, yes. It was quite a blast.”

  “Then how did you identify him?”

  “Ha!” Jobert gave out contented sigh. “He made it easy for us. An hour after it happened, we got a note at the precinct. From him! Taking credit for setting off the bomb on the Grand Boulevards.” Jobert waited to go on until Martin met his eyes. “Lucky he didn’t g
et there, wouldn’t you say? Think of all the women and children he could have killed— shoppers, but also seamstresses and department store clerks. Presumably your kind of people. Workers. Or your own wife or mother could have been there, having a day out. So if you know anything….”

  “I don’t. And I don’t believe anyone else here does,” Martin insisted and hoped to God that it was true.

  “Well, if you find out anything—”

  “I’m not a mouchard, I’m not going to be one of your informants.”

  Jobert smiled. “You must know yourself from your days as a judge that police spies can be very useful and so important to keeping order.”

  They already knew that about him, that he had been a judge. Martin wanted very much to wipe that grin off Jobert’s ruddy face. “Well,” Martin began, “if your mouchards are so useful, why didn’t you know the bomb was coming? Or is there a possibility that one of your own spies set it off, so that the police could invade the workers’ lawful organizations?”

  This attempt at offense seemed to fall wide of the mark. Jobert scowled and shook his head. “Please, Maître Martin, let’s not make wild accusations. As for our agents, whom you seem to disdain,” he continued with a shrug, “they are, as you must know, crucial to the maintenance of law and order. But they can’t be everywhere. There are hundreds of cafés and wineshops where potentially dangerous characters hang out, thousands of street corners in Paris. Apparently the bomber had made some fine little speeches. Too bad you never got to hear any of them.”

  “Do you know whether or not the alleged bomber called himself a nihilist?” Martin asked. “Do you have any idea who his associates were? Since we serve mostly Frenchmen here, there’s no reason to believe—”

  “Maître Martin,” Jobert was polite enough to blow a mouthful of sweet, acrid smoke in the air before leaning toward him. “You are no longer a judge. No longer the one asking the questions. Let me pose a few to you. Are all the unions in compliance with the law of 1884? Does each union have an accurate, available list of all its members? What really goes on here at all the little meetings and study groups and cultural nights?”

  Martin crossed his arms and stayed mum. He didn’t yet know the answers to all of these questions; and even if he did, he had no intention of reporting infractions to a police inspector.

  But Jobert was not through. “When some poor yokel comes here from the country looking for a job, does he simply come out of this building with a piece of paper that introduces him to an employer, or does he also come out with a head full of inflammatory crap about exploitation and revolution?” There was no smile crinkling those blue eyes as he concluded, “This place has only been open for ten years. We shut it down once, and if we don’t feel you people are willing to help us stop the terrorists, I’m sure we can find a lot of reasons to shut it down again.”

  This little speech was intended to knock every last bit of wind out of Martin’s sails. Instead, it fortified his determination to defend the Labor Exchange with his last breath if necessary. He had seen no indications of nihilism, the worst kind of anarchism, in his dealing with the union men, heard no one talk of loving violence for its own sake.

  “I am sure our men will cooperate with you,” Martin said, keeping a chill distance in his voice. “Just as I am sure you will treat them with respect. No brutality. If you have anyone else to question, I want to be there.”

  Jobert got up, put his hands on his hips, and stretched his back, his cigar sticking out from his lips at a triumphant angle. He took the stub out of his mouth and breathed deeply. “All right, then. I think we can agree on what our goal is. Time for lunch. Want to join me?”

  Just like that! As if they were going to become collaborators. Martin wanted no part of it. “Thank you,” he said, “I think I’ll go up to my office and see what you’ve done with it.”

  “Very well, my men need a break. But we’ll be back by one.” With that, the inspector put on his hat and left. Martin did not move until he heard one of the wooden doors close behind him. The only thing left of the inspector was the trailing aroma of his cigar and the dread he had planted in Martin’s soul.

  It has to be an isolated incident, some Russian craziness, Martin told himself. Or even the police trying to root out foreign agitators. It could not have come from here. At that moment, he did not know which he feared more: the threat of violence in the city or that his dream of doing good, useful work would end.

  He sat on the bench for a few minutes, letting the sun beam down on him through the skylight that covered the great hall. When he got to his feet, he walked down into the well of the auditorium and looked up toward the top of the room at the names and symbols of the trades. Butchers and bakers, carpenters and masons, glassmakers and painters. Crafts, thirty-odd in all, running in one line along the entire perimeter of the room. They had made everything in this place, just as they had made the world. With their own hands. Work that deserved respect, lives that warranted justice and dignity. Martin was not about to give up their cause without a fight.

  8

  CLARIE LOOKED UP STARTLED WHEN the clock over the fireplace struck nine. If she hadn’t been so absorbed in reading her students’ essays, she might have been more worried. Jean-Luc was already asleep, and Rose had gone to her room on the fourth floor of their apartment building. Bernard had not yet come home. He had never been so late before.

  Suddenly she heard the key in the lock. She put her pencil down on her desk and hurried to the door.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Bernard said as he entered the foyer. “It’s been quite a day.”

  After he took off his bowler and placed it on the little table by the door, she reached to push a wave of his gray-flecked hair from his damp forehead. “You look vexed,” she said, and smiled, even though she realized at that moment that she was a little vexed. Was this going to happen often because of his work at the Labor Exchange?

  Bernard gave a short, bitter laugh as he let her help him off with his suit jacket and began to loosen his cravat. “More than vexed, I fear. Worried. And getting over being more than a little scared.”

  “Why, what happened?” She took a step back to get a better look at him. His expression was pained, creased with fatigue. His shoulders slumped. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” he said. “The worst is over now. Let’s sit for a moment.”

  Clarie’s pulse quickened as she went into the living room and sat down on the edge of one of the flowered chairs that stood at an angle to the small, round table that held their reading lamp. Martin took his usual seat opposite her.

  “You’ve heard, I assume, about the bombing,” he began.

  “Oh, my God!” Clarie gasped. “Did someone bomb the Labor Exchange?” She clapped her hand on her heart to keep it from leaping out of her chest.

  “No, no.” Bernard shook his head as he reached for her. “Nothing like that.”

  “But you said—”

  “No reason to worry about me or the Exchange, or you and Jean-Luc,” he said. “Darling, please, listen for a moment.” He kissed her hand before letting it go.

  She settled back into her seat, unable to stop trembling while he explained that a Russian had been killed in the Goutte-d’Or, a neighborhood not far from where they lived, but poorer, and with a bad reputation. Apparently the slain man sent a note to the police warning of an explosion he had hoped to set off in a department store on the Grand Boulevards.

  “He called himself an anarchist,” Martin continued, “like so many of our members do. That’s why the police were all over the Labor Exchange today, asking questions, threatening.”

  “Did they threaten you?” Clarie could not take the worry out of her voice.

  “No, not me. But they were a little rough with a few of the union men. I insisted on sitting in on some of the questioning.” He paused. “For two reasons. To make sure that the men were treated fairly, and to make sure that none of them were involved. Because if they were�
��” Bernard frowned and pressed his lips together, “I wouldn’t want to be there. I made it clear when I took the position that I had no tolerance for violence. A strike, yes. Even a general strike, yes. I could honestly tell them that I believed in the rights of the workers to use all non-violent means. But bombs? Killing innocent people? Never.”

  Clarie recognized the vehemence behind these remarks as a sign of a hurt that would never quite go away: Bernard’s role in the death of his childhood friend Merckx, an anarchist who had never abjured violence. “And you’re sure?” she asked quietly. It would be terrible if Bernard already felt betrayed by the men who had hired him and made promises to him.

  “Oh, yes. While the police were searching the place, I talked to some of the men. They knew nothing about the Russian, who was only a carter, not a union member, or someone they had helped to hire at the Exchange. Apparently, according to the police inspector, he was some kind of intellectual, maybe a student. But we checked through our records, and he hadn’t come to study at the Exchange’s library or, as far as anyone knew, attended any of our lectures.” Bernard relaxed back into his chair. “In fact, the biggest danger for us—you and me—” he said, with a weary sigh, “is that the authorities would close down the Exchange. Then what would we do?”