Mister Memory

by Marcus Sedgwick

  Then fled.

  ‘Well?’ asked Rosa, leaning down and unceremoniously feeling around in Marcel’s trousers. Nothing.

  Marcel looked back up at Rosa, her face no more than a few centimetres from his.

  ‘It’s very nice,’ he said, feeling that something was expected of him. ‘Thank you very much.’

  ‘There are places you can get boys,’ Rosa said, leaning back and pulling her skirts down again.

  ‘Oh,’ said Marcel, ‘I see,’ though he didn’t see at all.

  As fate was to dictate, the very next evening Marcel found himself taking one of the seamstresses who worked across the way into his rooms. Or maybe she took him. Either way, for sure, they were both a little drunk, but this time, as the seamstress felt in his trousers, there was not nothing.

  Marcel found himself thinking of Ginette, as the seamstress rolled him back on to the bed, and unbuttoned her chemise. She smiled, while Paris smiled too, and got a little older.

  She didn’t stay the night. When it was over, the effect of the drink seemed to have worn off too.

  ‘Listen, Marcel,’ she said, pulling her skirts over her boots which she’d not found a need to remove. ‘You’re a great guy. Really. But I think that’s enough for us. I’ll see you.’

  Marcel sat up, nodding.

  ‘Right,’ he said. He felt he ought to say something. ‘Thank you.’ And he wanted to add her name but he realised he didn’t know it, though he knew the girl so well by sight.

  There were the three of them across the passage, just two sheets of glass away, chatting happily again the next morning. They caught Marcel’s eye as he rolled up the blind, blinked, and bent to their sewing again. Marcel wanted to wave at the one who’d taken him, but couldn’t.

  There were a few other women after that, but really, there was no one until Ondine.

  They met the very first time Marcel went to the Cabaret of Insults. Fraser, the Scot, and his roommate Fossard, the Marseillais, were now old hands on the cabaret scene, and their usual routine was to work their way through all the favourite haunts: starting out the night in Heaven or Hell (which could be found right next door to each other on the Boulevard de Clichy), they would then move on, depending on their mood – to the Cabaret of Nothingness if they wanted an amusing frisson with death, or, if they felt thoughtful, to a café known as L’ne Rouge from the red donkey peering down above an otherwise unmarked door, where someone might be reciting their poetry or singing a song or two.

  That night, however, Fraser and Fossard knew exactly where to take Marcel and his act: one of the most extremely peculiar cabarets of all, the Cabaret of Insults. Being regular customers, they knew the proprietor well, Monsieur Maurice Chardon, and they assured Marcel they would be able to introduce him. The introduction took some time to obtain, however. Chardon waved at the two young artists and their new friend as cheerily as ever, always happy to see money being spent in his establishment, but he had no time to stop and chat.

  ‘The sword-swallower has toothache,’ he explained as he breezed past, ‘which means a hole in the second act. Gentlemen, a hole. I have to fill it, would you excuse me?’

  Fraser slapped Marcel on the back, and laughed, something he rarely stopped doing.

  ‘Don’t look like that! We’ll wait him out. We’ll have a drink and see the show.’

  Fossard, as far as Marcel could make out, was Fraser’s opposite. He rarely smiled, let alone laughed, and when he spoke to almost anyone at all his manner was gruff, to say the least. And yet somehow these two were firm friends. Fossard went off in search of a waitress to bark an order at, while Fraser pulled Marcel to a table with three empty chairs, laughing.

  ‘No patience at all,’ he said, jabbing a thumb towards his friend. ‘Fossard. We could sit here and let a pretty thing come and serve us, but he can’t wait for five minutes. Look!’

  Fraser pointed to where Fossard was grumpily giving an order of drinks to a fierce little girl who didn’t like the way the Marseillais spoke to her.

  Fraser was beside himself. ‘His accent. Worse than mine. They can’t understand him half the time. Or at least they do, but pretend not to.’

  Fossard returned, grumbling, which made Fraser laugh even more, throw his arms across his friend’s shoulders, and then direct his and Marcel’s attention to the stage. A dowdy, and it cannot be avoided, ageing lady was beginning to warble a tune of welcome to the soirée.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Fraser, mugging at Marcel. ‘It’s not all this bad.’

  ‘No,’ announced Fossard, apparently without irony, ‘some of it’s worse.’

  The remark left Fraser unable to breathe adequately for several minutes, by which time the warbler had left the stage, to be replaced by a number of girls (eight, Marcel counted), who danced a frantic quadrille of sorts with speed and some enthusiasm, to the rapturous reception of the largely male crowd. Marcel had not seen so much female skin since his encounter with Rosa in the Petit Place Mars, and though the skin on display was not as intimate, there was much more of it. He found himself thinking of kneeling, and felt the floorboards under his knees. He saw Ginette’s dark hair, and he remembered that there had been a subtle scent, something he had not smelled before, and yet which reminded him of something when he was young, very, very young.

  Fraser nudged Fossard, winking at him as he nodded at Marcel, trying to suppress his mirth, and largely failing.

  ‘It’s like that for everyone, their first time,’ he said to his surly friend, mistaking Marcel’s absent gaze for rapture.

  The girls were, in their way, remarkable. Like the best troupes of the Moulin Rouge, nearby, and the Follies, down the hill a way, the girls had been chosen for their physical similarity, so that when they formed a kicking line, the uniformity of their steps was enhanced in a most impressive way. Such a refinement was unheard of in a cabaret the size of Chardon’s, and it was something he was rightly proud of.

  As soon as they’d come, they were gone, though they reappeared at frequent intervals throughout the night between the various other turns, which were, as Fraser had explained, very diverse. There were singers, male and female, there was an illusionist, the highlight of whose act was the production of a live chick from an egg that he found underneath a volunteer’s hat. There was a man who contorted himself into the smallest conceivable spaces, and ended by passing his entire body through a tennis racket.

  ‘Now if it still had the strings on,’ Fraser remarked, already unable to suppress giggles at his own joke, ‘that would be impressive.’

  Fossard remained unmoved, while Marcel barely heard, so intent was he on finding Chardon and showing him his skill.

  The acts came and went, the girls came and went, and Marcel fretted and worried and grew more and more nervous, until finally the evening wore to a close, by which time he had drunk enough to be free of nerves, and was a little tired too.

  Eventually, after one last rousing dance number, came the final act, the famous event that gave the cabaret its name – the insults. Monsieur Juron came out, a short man with a fine curling moustache, dressed in evening wear, sporting a top hat. People were on the edge of their seats in anticipation before he even opened his mouth, and then his tirade began.

  The variety and extremity of the names he called the customers was breathtakingly inventive. Every conceivable term of abuse, and very many that could not have previously been conceived of, were hurled at this gentleman or that lady, until they either dissolved into laughter or grew red with rage and stormed from the cabaret, to the even greater amusement of their companions. For such was Monsieur Juron’s act: to insult each and every patron of the venue not only in double-quick time, but in the most elaborate and imaginative fashion. Simple and bald rude adjectives were mixed with abhorrent things of a sexual nature, and frequently the imagery of farm animals, overlaid with venerable derogatory terms, and bundled up into wondrous portmanteaux of offence the like of which had never been heard since the world began t
o revolve. Finally, satisfied with having seen the back of at least twelve customers in righteous indignation, Monsieur Juron took a bow to the wild applause of those who knew how to take a joke, and an insult, on the chin.

  Marcel blinked, quite unable to work out what he had just witnessed. Fraser was under the table in hysterics. Fossard kicked him. And smiled.

  As the lights were raised and the customers began to leave, heading for spots where the entertainment ran even further into the night, and as waiters began to wipe tables and turn chairs over, Chardon came over to see his good customers.

  ‘So? You have something to tell me, gentlemen?’

  ‘No, we have something to show you,’ said Fraser, who had pulled himself together from his spell under the table, though it would nevertheless be fair to say he was drunk. He was speaking slow, careful and highly inaccurate French. ‘Marcel? Marcel . . .’

  Fraser waved an imaginary handkerchief in a flourish in front of his new friend, and drunkenly mouthed the word ‘ta-daa’.

  Marcel tried to speak to Chardon about what it was that he did, which only caused all three of them, Fraser, Fossard and Chardon himself to shut him up rapidly.

  ‘Don’t tell me! Show me!’ Chardon said, looking at the clock on the wall.

  So Marcel showed him.

  There was a chalkboard hanging above the table, with wines listed on it. He pulled a piece of chalk from his pocket, wiped the board clean with the edge of his palm, and handed both board and chalk to Chardon.

  He gave his instructions. Bemused, Chardon did as he was bid, showing the board to Marcel for a few moments, who then began his recitation.

  Fraser nudged Fossard all through this, who finally moved his chair out of reach. All the while, all three men kept an eye on the numbers on the board, as did two of the dancing girls who’d stopped to watch on their way out.

  When it was over, Chardon’s eyebrow moved half a centimetre up his forehead.

  ‘Very impressive,’ he said, ‘but rather dull. A trick of some kind?’

  Marcel smiled. ‘No,’ he said, ‘no trick.’

  ‘Have it your way,’ said Chardon, unblinking, because in his time in the cabarets of Montmartre, he really had seen it all. ‘I’ll put you on after Madame Gignot. We’ll try a week. You need ten minutes of that stuff. The pay’s eight francs a night plus anything anyone throws at you. Don’t be late. Ever.’

  So that was that, and Fraser cheered and clapped Fossard on the back heartily, and suggested a trip to L’ne Rouge.

  ‘Coming?’ Fraser asked Marcel, who shook his head.

  ‘I have no more money. And I’m tired.’

  The Scot and the Marseillais departed, arms around each other for support of various kinds, and disappeared into the night.

  Chardon had disappeared too, and when Marcel turned round, he found himself face to face with an attractive young woman.

  ‘I saw you,’ she said.

  ‘That?’ Marcel said, his eyes falling on the chalkboard, still holding Chardon’s numbers.

  ‘No, I meant I saw you earlier. When I was on stage.’

  ‘You’re one of the dancers.’

  ‘I’m one of the dancers,’ she said. ‘But I have a name.’

  She waited. Marcel had the feeling something was expected of him.

  ‘What is it? Your name?’

  ‘Ondine. I can make it better.’

  Marcel was tired. He’d also been drinking.

  From the edge of the stage, the other girl who’d been watching called to Ondine.

  ‘Leave him alone,’ she called. ‘It’s time to go home.’

  ‘That’s Lucie,’ Ondine said, ignoring her. ‘I mean, I can make your act better. It’s interesting, but you do it so badly. You have to make it more exciting, more mysterious.’

  ‘I do?’ said Marcel.

  ‘Trust me, I’ve worked in a lot of these places, seen lots of acts. The trick isn’t the thing, it’s the way you do it.’

  ‘It isn’t a trick,’ Marcel said.

  Ondine shrugged. ‘Maybe. Maybe not. But if you want it to work, you need to dress it up. I can do that for you.’

  ‘Ondine!’ cried Lucie. ‘I’m leaving if you—’

  ‘Coming!’ said Ondine over her shoulder. ‘I’ve got to go. But I could help you. If you like.’

  ‘Yes, please,’ said Marcel. ‘That would be good. Only . . .’

  ‘Only what?’

  ‘Why would you do that?’

  Ondine shrugged. ‘Because I like you already,’ she said, and then vanished into the night with Lucie.

  So that was how Ondine and Marcel met.

  She came to his studio two days later, and they created a neat little act, ten minutes of baffling mnemonic skill. Ondine begged Marcel to let her in on the trick, and, as the days went by and Marcel stuck to his story that there was no trick, Ondine grew frustrated and then angry. And finally, one day when Marcel recounted exactly every step she and the other dancers had made that first night, and then rattled off every bottle of spirit standing behind the bar, as well as what Monsieur Chardon was wearing, she came to believe him.

  Marcel’s act was a hit, for a while. He moved rapidly up the bill into the dizzy heights of the middle of the second half of the evening at the Cabaret of Insults, and for that time he was the toast of the show. People came just to see him, and Ondine set her sights on her handsome and oh-so-clever new friend. She ignored Lucie’s chiding remarks as Ondine declared they were in love, and then, at the announcement that they were going to get married, things cooled between Lucie and Ondine considerably, though not so much that Lucie didn’t attend the little ceremony at the Church of Saint-Valentin.

  Ondine moved in to Marcel’s apartment in the Cour du Commerce, and for a while they were very happy. But the good times were not to last long, and things fell apart almost as quickly as they had come together. Within six months, Ondine was dead.

  A VISIT TO THE COUR DU COMMERCE

  Here is the murder room. Marcel’s studio apartment, on the sixth floor of the Cour du Commerce, directly above the kitchens of Le Procope, from which the most wonderful aromas ascended to tease the senses, for no one who lived in the cour could afford to eat at the marvellous establishment.

  Upon entering, the visitor stands in the larger of the two spaces of which the studio consists, roughly two-thirds of the total area being this combined entrance, kitchen and living room. There was a plumbed-in sink – that is to say, a large stone sink with a drain, but no running water. They’d have to haul all their water up six flights, every day, and Laurent Petit, who has come to view the scene, feels tired at the thought. At least he has a cold water tap in his flat, and a toilet. This place has nothing. But then he guesses Després paid half of what he does in rent.

  A moth-eaten sofa and an upturned wine crate comprise the living area. Beyond that, a wall of wooden panelling below and frosted glass above separates the larger space from the bedroom, where a small brass double bed sits under glass skylights, so that on clear nights the stars will drape the room in soft silver. There is little else in the bedroom save a small bedside cabinet upon which stands an oil lamp and some candle stubs. There is a photograph in a second-hand frame. The photograph is of Ondine.

  It is here, on the threshold to the bedroom, that young Inspector Petit stands, and considers what happened. The crime being a serious one, the wheels of justice had been set into their fastest motion. It was a mere two days after the crime that Petit was assigned to the case, and sent to interview witnesses at the scene.

  True, Laurent Petit was young, but this was something that he did not take to be a disadvantage in life, and perhaps we should not do so either. He was new to the Sûreté too, but didn’t waste the few years of adulthood he’d had before joining the detective branch of the Paris police. Until eighteen months before he served in the army, five years in all, during which he saw action in the wars against the Mandingo, and then in Algeria, where he rose to the rank of sec
ond lieutenant. He’d come to think, however, that the army was not for him. Well, that was what he told himself at least. And fate advanced.

  Fate advanced in two ways. The first was an occurrence he tries daily to suppress or, better yet, erase from his mind. The second was the arrival in Algiers of the former Prefect of Paris Police, Louis Lépine. It was the presence of Lépine, who’d been sent to quell unrest in the same way he had so masterfully ruled Paris for four years, that turned Laurent Petit’s mind to the thought that he might make something of himself as a policeman. He joined the Sûreté easily enough; most of his fellow inspectors had been in the army too, and while he has not yet excelled himself, he has a record that cannot be argued with. He’s not seen quite as much blood as he did during his time in the army, but it’s fair to say that he has been very much surprised at quite how much he has seen in his eighteen months.

  His boss, the Principal Inspector, a pale man in his early fifties called Boissenot, had a theory about this.

  ‘It’s the end of the world,’ he would announce across his desk to anyone who would listen. Petit, being new, listened, at least to start with.

  ‘What we are dealing with is nothing less than the terror of the abyss,’ Boissenot asserted frequently. ‘When I was a young inspector like you, well, I remember the days of the Commune. Those were bloody times, but after that, everyone seemed to take a breath. I’m not saying there wasn’t crime, my boy, of course there was crime, but these days . . . ah!’

  He made a small circling motion with a finger that pointed straight up at the flaking plaster of the ceiling.

  ‘These days! It’s not enough for a robber to steal an old lady’s meagre savings, he has to throttle her too. That Madame Dellard, for instance, we found her denture halfway down her throat. Or that tailor in the Rue Chevalier. What was his name? Seventy-five, beaten to death with brass knuckles for a few francs. Everywhere, such extreme violence! It’s as if the criminal mind has become the norm; everyone wants everything and will do anything to get it! Why, that porter dismissed from the Hôtel Poulin de La Dreux for fiddling with the maids, takes a Browning and shoots the whole La Dreux family in revenge. All of them! Three daughters, dead. He even put a bullet in their spaniel. And shall I tell you what’s behind this, my boy?’