Liberty's Fire

by Lydia Syson

  ‘Inhabitants of Paris,’ read the placards on Sunday afternoon, ‘the army of France has come to save you. Paris is delivered. At four o’clock our soldiers carried the last position occupied by the insurgents. Today the struggle is over. Order, work and security will now return.’

  The city was left a stinking, smoking ruin, the smouldering skeleton of the Tuileries Palace at its heart. Omnibuses were turned into hearses, and as the ashes of buildings cooled, a more reluctant fuel burned and festered. Complicated and foul, the stench intensified.

  1880

  Nine years later.

  Zéphyrine is at sea again. Shackled below deck, but going home. Months and years of campaigns and petitions in Europe have come to fruition: every surviving Communard has been pardoned. The amnesty is complete. The last boatload has left the islands, and they are sailing towards Europe. Lying once more on planks, lulled by creaking wood and breaking foam, Zéphyrine tries hard to keep her mind on the future. Just one day ahead. One day, and then the next.

  She’s good at this now, practised. How else could you survive the uncertainty of life in a Pacific penal colony, the elasticity of years turning into yet more years, the distances of time and space colliding, with too many opportunities to see exactly what happens to those who lived in the past? It killed them, she saw. It broke their hearts.

  But it never stops being difficult. Now that Zéphyrine is going home, it’s harder than ever. Going home without knowing where home is, the nearer she gets, the more she can’t help but look back. The swell of the waves, the stink of the hold, too much time doing nothing when she’s used to working so hard: everything reminds her of the voyage out, when she slowly came to learn such tricks of thinking.

  On that journey too, leaving France after the trial, her mind had drifted continually to the past. She had been in prison for two years already, brooding on all that had taken her there. On the boat, when they first set off into exile, everything seemed to take her backwards, even to a time before the Commune. One thing turned into another. Her skin, blistered from brief exposure to the burning sun, reminded her of her grandmother. At the end of a day’s work, when the room was bright with flowers that had no smell, Zéphyrine used to peel the glue off her fingertips. Gran’mère would chide her, telling her to hurry, to get along. But glue dries like fish scales, translucent. You have to get it off, bit by bit. They get everywhere, fish scales. They stick to your hands and arms without you noticing. Then Zéphyrine went back further, right back to Brittany, to evenings by the fire tenderly picking stray fish scales from her mother’s skin, when it was still just the two of them.

  When they left, the exiles thought they were sailing towards coral seas and cannibals. That’s what she’d heard one man say, the journalist with the high forehead who suffered from seasickness. The captain was wary, but the crew were not cruel. They hadn’t heard the judges’ speeches. Godless demons, moral monstrosities, the authorities pronounced, over and over again. The Communards were savages, said Versailles: France must be purged of their corrupting presence. The criminals must themselves be purged. So they’d been sent to civilise other so-called savages. It made no sense at all to Zéphyrine.

  Ninety-four cages had been lined up on the gun deck of a frigate, opposite ninety-four more. Towards the stern were another forty cages, for the women deportees, a small cannon threatening every one. Even below decks, salt in the air dried stickily on Zéphyrine’s face and coated her throat. It gave her a retching, intolerable kind of thirst, such as she’d never known before. Her tongue crept out involuntarily, sweeping across lips so cracked and dry that she could taste blood.

  Memories like tides reconfigured her thoughts over and over again, drawing and redrawing everything she could remember. It seemed the only way to keep hold of herself. So she tried to remember everything she could about everything, and everyone. Anatole, hungry for her, always. Anatole, who made her feel precious. When she tried to remember their first meeting, it was overlaid with their last parting. She tried to remember Rose too: all spirit forever now. And Jules, so distant and unfathomable. Would he have saved her if he could? Was it possible he was there and had heard her calling him? And then there was Marie. Bitterly Zéphyrine remembered the old schoolteacher’s words that afternoon at the prison, when Marie had appeared from nowhere, and vanished again. ‘A kind girl, that one. She lived next door to me once.’

  Every day people used to come there to sneer and point and triumph over the defeated Communards, to celebrate their degradation. Week after week, like visitors to a zoo or freak show, crowds of them appeared. A few days after the trial, Marie was suddenly there among them, her face white and shimmering like a ghost’s, smeared in Zéphyrine’s uncertain vision, as if she’d moved too fast before a lens. Zéphyrine flared to her feet. Pushing aside other prisoners, she ploughed towards the fence, fingers curling round metal.

  They were face to face, breath to breath.

  ‘Here,’ Marie had whispered, pushing a package through the wire, through a space so small that the paper caught and tore. White cotton spilled out, streaked with rust. Marie had brought Zéphyrine what every woman in the prison yard most longed for – clean, fresh undergarments. For the first time in months, Zéphyrine’s eyes overflowed.

  Marie nodded at the parcel and turned to go, but a drowning cry stopped her:

  ‘No. Not yet. You can’t go yet. Come back.’

  Reluctantly, Marie returned to the fence. ‘I’m sorry …’ she said. ‘I’m sorry …’

  Eyes wide, Marie watched silently, and made sure that Zéphyrine found what she had hidden. Tucked inside the underwear was an article torn from a newspaper. A list of names: all the Communards who had been condemned to death in their absence the previous week. Anatole’s was near the top, shakily underlined. He is alive, Marie had written in the margin. And soon he will know that you are too.

  Alive. They were both alive.

  ‘You told him?’

  Marie seemed about to choke. But she gathered herself together. ‘He wrote to me,’ she said. ‘For news of you.’

  Zéphyrine’s joints loosened, weakening her fingers, and the clothing and paper fell from her hands to the mud at her feet. She gripped the fence again, thrusting her face against the metal so that it dug into her skin. She wanted it to hurt. She wanted to see if she could feel.

  ‘What did you say? How did you know what to tell him?’

  ‘I went to the Prefecture last week. I asked. They told me you were here, that you were still waiting for your trial. Anatole didn’t say much, just that Jules had helped him to escape to Geneva. He only agreed to leave Paris because he thought you were dead.’

  Geneva … not so far. Zéphyrine’s hopes briefly rose, and then fell. It made no difference how far it was when returning to France meant execution for Anatole.

  A trio of middle-aged women appeared, cackling and crowing and laughing about the pitiful state of the prisoners. They jostled Marie, pushing her along a few steps to the left, and Zéphyrine had to scrabble along the fence on the other side to keep her in sight. She was determined not to lose eye-contact. She was afraid Marie would drift away, disappear. She had to keep her in earshot.

  ‘Do you have an address?’ Zéphyrine begged, trampling her new clothes in the mud. ‘Can you send a message?’

  Marie didn’t exactly answer. ‘They were moving on, to London. He gave me a forwarding address and I’ve written to him there. Thousands are waiting in London already, waiting for news, waiting to see if it will ever be safe to return. But I will try to come back, don’t worry. I’ll let you know.’

  She dissolved into the crowd, and there was nothing Zéphyrine could do. Maybe she really did mean to come back.

  The trial, so long in coming, was over almost before it began. The charge was arson, the evidence cursory. Zéphyrine decided to confess. What did the truth matter by then? She would have built a wall of flame across Paris to protect her friends from slaughter. She wished she had. T
he Commune had looked after her when she had nothing and taught her how to hope. It had offered her everything: she owed it everything.

  In the courtroom, the judge waved a photograph from the files. Her stomach turned in recognition of her own stern face. For the briefest of moments, she believed the worse. It was Anatole’s picture. Anatole must have betrayed her. How else could they have that card? Where had they found it? Or had they stolen it? Then the judge held up another piece of paper, and read aloud the denunciation, which was signed in ink. Quite a rarity, he remarked. They had thousands of such notes, but most were anonymous. ‘There is a pétroleuse from Montmartre hiding in my room. Her name is Zéphyrine. You will find her in Room 31, Staircase 10, cité Bergère, Paris.’ Then he read the name: Marie Le Gall. Zéphyrine was still trying to breathe when the next prisoner was shoved forward, and she was pushed away.

  Her sentence was transportation.

  A few days later the prisoners shuffled on board the Virginie, destined for New Caledonia.

  On board a ship, in any prison, time telescopes.

  In the middle of nowhere, Zéphyrine lay in her cage, throat rasping.

  ‘Citizen!’

  At the sound of a woman’s voice, a man dropped down from the upper deck. He was a Breton sailor whose songs had kept them warm a few weeks earlier as they sailed into the dark frozen air and polar seas south of Africa. White snow dissolving into blackness. The songs made Zéphyrine think of Concarneau, its fishermen and its clifftops, and the scent of yellow gorse blossom. And later still, the strange white fruit of the coconut palm would make her think of those songs again.

  ‘Citizen!’ It was the prisoner they called the Red Virgin, the woman who had found her a job when she was destitute. ‘This young woman needs some water. Can you help?’

  The sailor nodded, and went for the barrel.

  The Red Virgin never gave up hope, thought Zéphyrine. Nobody had courage like her. Better to be in exile, she whispered, than stay in Paris and see the collapse of all their dreams. She was the kind of woman who saw diamonds flash in the rushing wake of the ship, and heard organ music in the roar of the wind in its sails. She refused to give up looking to the future, yet she also knew how to hold on to the past. She told them to remember Delescluze: he returned from exile, coming back half-broken from Devil’s Island, and yet he took to the barricades a third and final time for the Commune. You had to keep fighting, she said, even if you die fighting in the end.

  The Red Virgin wrote letters and scribbled messages, and the comforting words she passed through the bars to other prisoners were smuggled from cage to cage. One day Zéphyrine received a poem she had written about the albatrosses, those huge white birds whose wings beat against the sides of ships long after sailors have hung them by their beaks to die. Angry and loud they swish and drum at first, then ever more forlorn, they fall silent. The men refuse to cut their throats for fear a drop of blood might stain their feathers.

  Zéphyrine took the scoop of fresh water in both hands, and let it trickle slowly down her throat. It was warm and stale, and tasted of wood and iron. Then the last mouthful was gone. She handed back the wooden scoop, and ducked her head. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You’re very kind.’

  He shrugged, and went to see if any of the other Communards were thirsty.

  Zéphyrine stood up then, and searched for the Red Virgin’s eyes to thank her for the water and smile. She was right. Better to live fighting, she thought. And she knew then that she wanted to stay alive.

  She still does. For nine years now, she has stayed alive.

  Colville Place, London. November.

  A hansom cab and a couple of four-wheelers are waiting at the end of the pavement when Anatole comes home. He tips his dripping hat to a trio of departing ladies, wishing he’d timed his return slightly better. Jules’s last portraiture session has clearly overrun. Now that these young women have seen Anatole, they seem to be taking even longer to leave, fussing about with coats and muffs and umbrellas, and upsetting the landlady, Mrs Barton, who is doing her very best to see them out with all haste. Chorus girls, Anatole decides, as he presses himself against the wall of the narrow hall and their giggles fade. He can imagine exactly the kind of photograph they wanted on their visiting cards, and the mood Jules will now be in: this is his least favourite type of work. But it all helps make ends meet. It might even fund a visit to Savile Row. Jules hasn’t once mentioned his father since his disinheritance, but giving up the regular services of a good tailor has possibly been the hardest thing for him to bear.

  At last the terraced house is silent and the hooks in the hallway are bare except for Jules’s coat. Anatole puts down his violin and hangs up his mac. He’s already had an entire day’s worth of sidelong looks from young ladies, having spent the morning giving private lessons in various Marylebone music rooms under the scrutiny of a succession of governesses, and the afternoon taking choir practice at a new girls’ school in Camden. Which had been even more exhausting – all those dark tunics and serious faces. All he wants now is simply to sit down by the fire, dry off his shoes and trousers and do absolutely nothing for the rest of the evening.

  ‘Cup of tea?’ says the landlady. ‘I’m just making a pot for Mr Crowfield and his visitor. Another French visitor, he’s got.’

  ‘Oh. Then, yes please, Mrs Barton. No milk, if you don’t mind. They’re in the studio, are they?’

  ‘That’s right, dear. I’ll be along in a mo. I expect you’d like a crumpet, too, would you?’

  ‘Splendid stuff,’ agrees Anatole.

  Mrs Barton disappears into the kitchen and Anatole heads up the stairs to join Jules in the glass room built on top of the first-floor rear extension. It’s considerably smaller and colder than the old Paris studio, and has no view at all, but the light isn’t bad, and the location certainly suits Anatole: just off Charlotte Street they are completely surrounded by fellow exiles from France. At least they were until very recently. Anatole braces himself for another conversation about ‘going home’, perhaps even another fond farewell. He needs to talk to Jules about his own return. His family has come to visit a few times, but not recently, and it’s been over ten years now since Anatole left Limoges. He has to make a decision.

  The voices stop. Anatole is greeted at the threshold by silence, and the sight of Marie. He closes his eyes. The last time he saw her was in the Tuileries Garden that Sunday evening in May, nine years earlier. After she wrote back to him, confessing her part in Zéphyrine’s arrest and conviction, he broke off all communication with her. Something about the way both she and Jules stare at him now, their identical expressions, makes him think that perhaps Jules didn’t do the same.

  ‘Hello, Marie,’ says Anatole. ‘I saw you were in town, but I wasn’t expecting this.’

  Marie’s name is often on the posters outside the Opera House these days, and just as often in the gossip columns. She made a career for herself outside France at first, and now flits regularly between Paris, Rome and London, clearly well looked-after wherever she goes. She looks odd here, like a peacock in a pigeon’s nest. Anatole’s coldness doesn’t disconcert her. She stands up to offer him a hand, which he duly kisses. It feels plumper than he remembers, and it’s decorated with plenty of jewels. She still smells of jasmine. That unsteadies him more than the changes.

  ‘I wanted to make sure you knew, that you both knew.’

  She looks to Jules for reassurance, who looks at his feet.

  Anatole can’t stop himself. ‘I really don’t want you here. I’d like you to leave now.’

  ‘Please stop being angry with me,’ says Marie. ‘Please.’

  Jules stands up, nods at Marie, and walks across to Anatole. He takes his arm, and leads him to an armchair, as if Anatole is an old man. ‘I hope you won’t be angry with me either,’ he says.

  ‘What? What’s the matter with you both?’ Anatole shakes him off, resisting his efforts to soothe him. He thinks someone must be dead. He fears the worst
. ‘For God’s sake, tell me what’s going on. Why should I be angry with you, Jules?’

  Again they look at each other.

  ‘You tell him,’ says Marie. ‘But this time you have to tell him everything.’

  ‘I know.’ Jules nods. ‘I was going to. I was always going to. I’ve made too many excuses already.’

  Anatole feels sick. ‘What about?’ he says.

  ‘I’ll start at the end,’ says Jules.

  ‘Just start,’ whispers Marie.

  ‘Yes. Of course,’ Jules says. ‘Listen. First of all, Marie has some very good news. It’s not completely certain yet, mind you, and perhaps we shouldn’t get our hopes up – but there’s a boat coming from Sydney, and —’

  ‘Zéphyrine? You think Zéphyrine is on it?’ Anatole is on his feet again. He can’t possibly sit down. He’s been waiting so long. Over the years, he’s tried to write, but it was hard to keep going forever, not knowing if a letter would actually arrive, how many months or years it might take, or if he would even still be living at the same address by the time any reply could make it back. Zéphyrine did not write with confidence, he knew. Once a letter reached him, just once, four years earlier, but it didn’t say much. It didn’t sound like Zéphyrine. Ever since the official pardon, announced in July, Anatole has been paralysed by uncertainty, waiting for a reason to act, unwilling to leave the only address he knew she could possibly have for him. ‘They’ve released her? My God, my God. I must get to Paris. Will they let me go now? Must I get a passport first? Tell me quickly, I don’t know what to do. I’ll need to go quickly, won’t I? I can’t risk missing her.’

  He keeps turning from Jules to Marie, grabbing at them as if he could shake the information out of them, as if he’s quite forgotten why he has not seen Marie for so many years. Looking at Marie more closely, he realises that she must know things, and that she has ways of finding things out. He doesn’t want to know what these are. ‘What must I do?’