by Claude Izner
‘A good haul, Monsieur Victor?’ asked the boy.
‘Not bad. Show me the newspaper.’
He grabbed L’Éclair and immediately began reading the front-page article. Kenji appeared, smelling of lavender. Victor shoved the paper under his nose.
‘Have you seen this? When we were up on the Tower yesterday, a woman died. According to a message sent to the press, it looks like it could be murder!’
Unconcerned, Kenji opened the canvas bundle and started to sort through the books.
‘Death is both larger than a mountain and slighter than a hair.’
‘I tell him about a murder and he comes back with one of his Japanese proverbs!’
‘Proverbs are part of the wisdom of nations,’ Kenji retorted. ‘Take what you can from it and don’t worry yourself with journalists’ rumours. They sow doubt and fear in the hearts of their readers. Good purchase. How much?’
CHAPTER THREE
Friday 24 June
As usual, Victor was woken by Jojo opening the wooden shutters of the bookshop. In his usual way, the assistant was tunelessly whistling the opening bars of ‘En revenant de la revue’, clearly the only song good enough for him to start his working day. From the foot of the stairs, he called: ‘Monsieur Legris! Monsieur Mori! It’s eight o‘clock!’
Victor groaned, threw back the sheet and put on a silk dressing-gown. He went over to the window and drew the curtains back to reveal an azure-blue sky. ‘Not more sun; this is getting too much.’
‘What’s wrong with beautiful weather?’ asked Kenji, busy in the kitchen.
Victor lazily joined him. ‘What’s wrong is that I’m bored by anything that goes on too long.’
‘In that case you must have had more than enough of me.’
‘Kenji, for the love of God, don’t take everything I say so literally!’
‘The wise man measures his words seven times before speaking,’ retorted Kenji mischievously, as he retreated with his kettle.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’
While Kenji was drinking his tea in his room, Victor was alone in the kitchen, which adjoined the dining room and two bedrooms making up his apartment. He heated up a little black coffee, which had been prepared the night before by Germaine, the housekeeper, who also cooked for them. He nibbled a biscuit and then shut himself in the bathroom so that he would not have to listen to Joseph’s tortured rendition of Paulus’s stupid refrain.
Kenji was first to go downstairs and found Joseph leaning on the counter, reading the newspaper. ‘You shouldn’t be doing that now,’ he murmured.
‘All the newspapers are taking the same line. It’s no longer an accident, now it’s a case for the police!’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘The Patinot woman. The woman who snuffed it on the Tower.’
‘Joseph! Watch your language. I need you to find space for the seventy volumes of that Voltaire.’
‘Your wish is my command!’
While the assistant was busy on his ladder, Kenji looked over the newspaper, a special edition of Le Passe-partout. With a grimace, he shoved the daily under a large black accounts book.
Victor joined him, and after half an hour the door opened and Marius Bonnet and Antonin Clusel entered, smoking Havana cigars.
Kenji hastened towards them. ‘Messieurs, I’m sorry but …’ He indicated the cigars.
‘Pardon me, what was I thinking?’ said Marius, crushing his cigar out in an ashtray. ‘Victor, Monsieur Mori, I need your expertise! Antonin is writing an article for us on the Congo and I thought that you might be able to show us some relevant works from your little room of wonders.’
‘Let me think. Yes, we should have what you need,’ Victor replied.
‘Why the Congo?’ grumbled Kenji. ‘Is Le Passe-partout branching out into tourism?’
‘Le Passe-partout?’ cried Joseph, nearly toppling off his ladder. ‘You work for Le Passe-partout?’
‘I’m the director.’
‘Oh! You must have the inside information on the Patinot affair?’
Marius looked triumphantly at Antonin.
‘You find that story interesting?’
‘Murders are my passion!’
‘There’s no proof that it was murder, young man.
‘But the message —’
‘Joseph, there are still fifteen volumes of Voltaire to put away,’ Kenji reminded him curtly.
Putting an arm around Victor’s shoulder, Marius led him towards the travel books, Antonin at their heels. ‘You don’t happen to have the writings of Brazza, published two years ago by Napoleon Ney, do you?’
‘I don’t think so. I’m going to open up the holy of holies for you. There are works on Africa, but they are much less recent. Don’t rearrange anything, Kenji really doesn’t like people rummaging in his cupboard.’
‘Did you hear that, Antonin? I’ll leave you to it. I must speak to our friend.’
He went back into the main bookshop. Victor followed him, intrigued.
‘I’d like you to put an advertisement in Le Passe-partout. It’s quite expensive, but it helps the paper and produces good results for the advertiser.’
‘I think that’s what’s known as forcing someone’s hand,’ grumbled Victor. ‘All right, I’ll get some text ready. How many lines?’
‘Oh, not many, make it as short as possible. You know I’m very keen on keeping things concise.’
‘I gathered that from the front-page news.’
‘Yes, long articles are just so much hot air! What does the ordinary man in the street want? Gripping sensationalism coupled with popular science, which gives him the illusion of being an expert; serialised stories that take the reader out of himself and advertisements that whet the appetite. One of my colleagues was right when he said: “Let’s have the courage to be stupid.”’
‘Most journalists don’t have to try, it comes naturally,’ murmured Kenji as he went to greet a customer.
Marius burst out laughing. ‘You’d think Monsieur Kenji Mori didn’t really like me!’
Antonin returned, all excited, with a sheet covered in scribbles. Marius snatched it from him, read it and frowned.
‘What atrocious handwriting! What is that you’ve written? Opoé? No, Ogoé?’
‘The river Ogooé, double o.’
‘Are you sure it’s not Ogooué, with a u?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘I’m going to check.’
As soon as Marius had disappeared into the back room, Joseph, who had been waiting for this moment, bounded up to Antonin.
‘Tell me, Monsieur, this message that the press is publishing, have you seen it?’
‘Of course. Our secretary opened it, and then she brought it to me.’
‘How was it written? In the normal way?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean with letters cut out of a newspaper?’
‘Yes, actually. But how did you know?’
‘Because of the books that Monsieur Legris reads. He has a large collection and he often lends them to me. The Stolen Letter by Edgar Allan Poe, File 113 by Émile Gaboriau, The Stranger of Belleville by Pierre Zaccone … There are so many! My favourite is The Leavenworth Case by Anna Katherine Green. I adore her female detect —’
‘I was right, it is Ogooué,’ interrupted Marius, holding out the sheet of paper to Antonin.
‘I’ll go and close the cupboard,’ groaned Joseph, put out.
‘Victor, we’re off. Don’t forget to bring in your copy.’
‘I could sort it all out with your colleague, Mademoiselle Tasha Kherson,’ suggested Victor, twirling the end of his moustache.
‘So, you’re really taken with her, are you? You’re not the only one! But alas, she’s unattainable. In any case, we hardly see her these days,’ he said, winking at Antonin.
‘It’s true. The lucky girl is spending her days at the Colonial Exhibition. For our forthcoming interview with Brazza,
she’s having fun drawing pictures whilst I’m wearing myself out taking notes!’
‘You just need to swap your pen-holder for a stick of charcoal! See you soon, Victor. Good day, Monsieur Mori!’
Kenji gave them a stiff wave. Without pausing to put on a jacket, Victor rushed over to the door.
‘Are you going out?’ asked Kenji.
‘Yes, I … I forgot to ask them something,’ Victor mumbled.
‘I also have to go out. I’m going to value a collection on Rue de l’Odéon.’
‘I won’t be long!’ cried Victor.’Joseph will look after the shop!’
Not noticing Kenji’s angry expression, Victor ran after Marius and Antonin, who were already turning the corner of Rue des Saints-Pères. He had just realised that the Colonial Exhibition stretched across the whole Esplanade des Invalides and that if he wanted to find a certain red-headed girl he needed to know exactly where to look for her.
‘The Colonial Palace, the Colonial Palace,’ he sang to himself a few moments later when he came out onto Quai Malaquais. He paused at Père Caille’s boxes. Père Caillé, who sold spectacles and optical instruments, was the only stallholder open at this hour of the morning. Although he didn’t sell books, Victor enjoyed his conversations with him.
‘How is it going this morning?’
‘I’ll give you the same answer as Monsieur de Fontanelle gave when he was dying. “It’s not going well, I’m a day closer to death …’” replied the old man in the grey shirt, straightfaced.
Victor soon stopped laughing at this riposte when he caught sight of a familiar figure in a grey-checked suit, pink cravat and bowler hat, on the opposite pavement. This wasn’t the most direct route to Rue de l’Odéon. No doubt Kenji wanted to enjoy the sunshine. He was walking briskly, carrying two parcels under his arm. Victor watched him, expecting him to go all the way along Quai Malaquais. He was therefore astonished to see him cross the road and continue over Pont du Carrousel. Unable to restrain his curiosity, he hurried after him.
He had never before caught Kenji lying so flagrantly and it amused him to think that, as it turned out, this man, whom he thought of almost as his father, had a hidden side to him. A mistress? Victor had often wondered about his private life. Had he given up the company of women altogether? He had hardly flaunted any liaisons in the past but Victor did not think that he was indifferent to the fairer sex. On several occasions Kenji had been overly attentive to their attractive clients, and Victor knew that he kept a large collection of erotic prints in his dresser, having admired them in his friend’s absence.
A tug-boat pulling a row of barges sounded its horn. Victor stopped in his tracks, sure that Kenji was going to turn round, but he did not slacken his pace. In fact he walked faster, in a hurry to reach the Tuileries Gardens. There was hardly anyone on the paths apart from a few nursemaids pushing prams, and two or three men with neatly trimmed beards reading their newspapers on a bench. One of these cast a disparaging glance at Victor, who was looking dishevelled. Where’s the old devil off to in such a rush? he wondered, now out of breath but still hot on the heels of Kenji, who had just reached Rue de Rivoli.
Had he known that his friend would lead him from one end of Avenue de l’Opéra to the other, he might have given up his pursuit. But the further they went, the more Victor gritted his teeth, unable to stop following Kenji because of his incomprehensible behaviour, whilst the din of the coaches and omnibuses cluttering the street made his head spin. Why didn’t he take a cab? That would have been so much better. And what’s he carrying?
Finally at Rue Auber, ignoring the Opera House, Kenji reached a bookshop whose owner Victor met sometimes at the auction house. Incredible! He’s going to visit a competitor. I always thought he disliked that man. Standing close to the shop window, half-hidden by a lamppost, Victor watched Kenji. The bookseller, a little man in a skullcap, picked up the three bound volumes, which he leafed through. Then he held out a wad of blue notes. Victor just had time to hide his face in his hands as if he were having a coughing fit. Kenji did not notice him and, turning on his heel, appeared to hurry towards the Opera House. What’s come over him? Does he really want to admire that overblown wedding cake? Victor was hoping for a break, but was disappointed. Although he was bathed in sweat and dying of thirst, he had to drag himself as far as Boulevard des Capucines, where he saw to his envy that his friend was sipping a soda on the terrace of Café de la Paix. A stout man sporting a monocle and dressed in a light-coloured suit arrived almost immediately and sat down with Kenji. Kenji greeted him and then produced his second parcel. The man examined closely what appeared to be framed prints, offered his opinion and took his wallet out of his jacket. What’s happened to him? Is he in debt? Why is he selling off his books and prints?
Finally, when they reached Rue de la Chaussée-d’Antin, Victor found the answer to the mystery. In a fancy-goods shop called La Reine des Abeilles, where embroidered handkerchiefs, scarves and jewellery were displayed around crystal bottles of perfume, Kenji was busy choosing various expensive gifts, which the shop assistant was carefully wrapping in tissue paper. I was right! A woman! Kenji is in love! He’s ruining himself for the sake of a mistress!
Victor was surprised to discover that, beneath his cool exterior, Kenji hid a human heart, but he was also a little alarmed to think what other secrets he might be hiding. He also felt pleased as, in spite of his tenderness for Kenji, he sometimes felt a little intimidated by him. But from now on they would be on an equal footing.
Who can it be? Obviously someone whom he met at the shop, since he so rarely goes out! Victor’s attention was distracted by the skirt of a passer-by and then by a palisade covered with posters. Cowboys in yellow, on horseback pursuing a troupe of Redskins.
That image made him think of another: Colonel Cody caricatured by Tasha. Suddenly Victor remembered why he had left the bookshop in shirtsleeves. Tasha! The Colonial Exhibition! He ran to the nearest cab rank, exhilarated by the chase that had just ended in a luxury emporium, and by the serene sky, which he no longer found so monotonous.
‘Rue des Saints-Pères!’ he cried to the coach driver snoozing under a black oilcloth hat.
Victor got out of the cab in front of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He had lunched quickly on a portion of Pont-Neuf potatoes on Quai Conti, then had gone to his flat to change and get his camera. If he was lucky enough to run into Tasha he would say that he had come to take some photographs of the esplanade.
The Colonial Exhibition was made up of numerous buildings, either standing alone or grouped into indigenous villages. Victor did not wait to look at the seven pediments of the temple of Angkor but hurried towards the red structure of the Colonial Palace, an architectural mish-mash of Norwegian, Chinese and French Renaissance styles topped by green roofing. The noise was deafening. Arab artisans were gesticulating and urging people to buy their wares, whilst customers bargained with them. Polynesian flutes and Annamese gongs mingled with Kanaka chants. Raucous children dragged their mothers towards the stalls of apricots, guavas, and sugar cane. Victor tore himself away from the displays by the lascivious Ouled Nail belly dancers and by the rather more chaste little Javanese girls with their sacred dancing. Finally he reached the monumental entrance to the Palace, but before he could cross the threshold a black woman wearing a multicoloured madras headscarf insisted he try a piece of pineapple.
The ground floor was split into three vast halls. Victor was unsure which direction to go in. He walked around a pyramid of lacquered wooden buddhas set up under an arch of giant bamboo. But there was no sign of Tasha. Products from the territories colonised by France were stacked up all around. Carpets, furs, tobacco, coffee, furniture, silks, an eclectic sea of foodstuffs and objects reminiscent of les Halles at its busiest. Victor felt as depressed as when he accompanied Odette to the Bon Marché. He would never find Tasha! He sighed and launched himself into the crowd.
He admired the Kanaka tomahawks, the snakewood axes from New Caledonia
and the muskets from Cochin China. A collection of musical instruments caught his attention, reminding him of the ones Kenji had stored in the basement of the bookshop.
‘That calabash is called a thléthé,’ murmured a soft voice in his ear.
He turned and found himself face to face with a slender darkskinned man with grizzled hair and wearing a long blue tunic.
‘What country is it from?’
‘From Senegal, like me. See the jewels under this glass? I made them with my sons in our workshop in St-Louis. I am Samba Lambé Thiam and I studied with the Marist Brothers.’
‘And I am Victor Legris. Delighted to meet you.’
‘Victor! With a name like that you must be a gallant fellow.’
‘What is so special about my name?’
‘It is the name of a great man, your most prolific writer. I have read Les Miserables.’
‘All of it?’
‘Why not? We are not savages, you know. At home in St-Louis we have schools, books, a railway and houses. Here, on the other hand …’ Samba lowered his voice, ‘they have housed us in a mud hut village and we have to sleep on grass mats. Visitors to this exhibition will not have a very good opinion of us. Mind you, we feel the same way about them.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m not saying this about you – you seem intelligent — but some of your compatriots who treat me like a monkey, imagining that I don’t understand, remind us of warthogs, those stupid little pigs who charge headlong without knowing where they are going. Take, for example, the family who invited my eldest son and me to dinner, claiming that they wanted to get to know us better. Really they wanted to exhibit us to their friends. The men were in tight dark suits with gold buttons and the women wore dresses so fitted at the waist that they showed off what should have been kept covered up. Because those women were dreadfully ugly!’
He stopped to gesture with his chin towards an elegant lady who was staring at him shamelessly. Victor took advantage of this to release the shutter on his Acme. The light was not ideal but with a little luck …
