by Claude Izner
So there could be no further doubt: he had been caught in a trap. How did he know? How could that bastard Ducovitch have known that I’d been in contact with Capus? The answer was obvious. He recalled the old man writing down his name and the words ‘Le Passe-partout’ in a school exercise book. Just in case you twist my words. Having slit Capus’s throat, Ducovitch had doubtless gone back into his room and found the notebook.
Suddenly Victor felt dizzy. He leaned against the wall. How long was it since he had eaten a proper meal?
‘You look pale … Are you all right?’ Eudoxie asked, taking advantage of his weakened state to come up close and begin to undo the buttons of his coat.
He needed a good pretext to get rid of her. But before he did, he wanted to clarify one last point. Had Le Passe-partout covered Buffalo Bill’s arrival or not?
‘Would you be kind enough to let me see the first few editions of the newspaper?’ he muttered hoarsely.
She stepped back in surprise.
‘Right now?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Well, I can’t deny you anything,’ she said with evident disappointment.’Sit down at my table — the seat is still warm. I’ll move the machine over, there you are.’
She put down a dozen copies in front of him and leant over his shoulder.
‘If you tell me what you’re looking for, Monsieur Legris, I’m sure I can help you out.’
‘Oh, nothing in particular. I just want to get a general idea of the tone of the newspaper, so I know what kind of readers I’m writing for.’
He could feel her weight against his back, her breath on the nape of his neck, and then a sinking feeling in his stomach.
‘Would it be a terrible bore …’ He stopped just in time. ‘ … if I asked you to open the window? It’s very hot in here.’
‘I’ll fetch you a glass of water. Why don’t you take your jacket off? There’s no need to stand on ceremony.’
Without replying he began to turn the pages noisily. She went out and he heard her opening a cupboard. Quickly, quickly … Nothing about Buffalo Bill. In that case what was Tasha doing at Les Batignolles station that day? The 14 May edition was dull, the one from 13 May almost entirely devoted to a birth that had taken place on one of ‘“the Tower lifts. The newborn baby, Augusta-Effeline, so named in honour of the man who built this marvel, will receive from Gustave Eiffel himself the …”’ He read aloud in order to look composed because Eudoxie was on her way back, holding out a glass of water for him. He downed it in one, choked and then coughed. She slapped him on the back.
‘What a way to drink!’
She sat down on the armrest of the chair so that their hips were touching.
‘Very vulgar, don’t you think? Going up that lighthouse when you’re about to give birth. Some women will do anything to get talked about.’
‘Yes, it’s even more unusual than Buffalo Bill’s arrival,’ he said with forced casualness.
‘Marius decided not to publish anything about the Redskins as all the other papers were making such a big fuss about it. You know what he’s like, he always prefers to swim against the tide. That goes for me too, you know. I like to stand out from the crowd. Take for example what makes a man attractive. Unlike most women, I find that blond men leave me cold.’
He was starting to feel drowsy again and withdrew far back enough into the armchair for the other armrest to dig into his sides. With what strength he had left he said, ‘I’d be glad of another glass of water.’
Eudoxie left his side with a little sigh and went out of the room. Faster even than he had left Capus’s lodgings a few hours earlier, Victor made good his escape.
Poor Joseph was surrounded by a flock of ladies squawking like parakeets. He just missed having his eye poked out by the point of a parasol, and decided to take refuge behind the counter, from where he concluded that the enemy numbered too many for him to venture another sortie. There was only one thing to do, and that was to shout even louder.
‘One at a time, please, or I shall have to call the police!’ he roared.
The opposing ranks fell silent. After briefly consulting her friends Raphaëlle de Gouveline, Mathilde de Flavignol, Blanche de Cambrésis and Adalberte de Brix, the Comtesse de Salignac waved the white flag and withdrew her demands.
‘The title of the novel is Which One?’
‘Author?’ asked Joseph stiffly.
‘Georges de Peyrebrune.’
‘Publisher?’
There was a sheepish exchange of looks between the five battle-axes lined up at the counter.
‘Right, let’s carry on. Summary of the plot?’
‘It’s the story of three poor, chaste young girls. Following a crime — you can guess which, young man — one of the girls becomes a mother. Which one?’ cried the Comtesse de Salignac, eyeing Joseph as if he were personally responsible for what happened in the story.
‘I give up,’ he said, utterly worn out. ‘Ladies, we will soon be closing.’
‘So early? It’s only five o‘clock!’
‘We’re stocktaking.’
Making the most of this noisy invasion, which managed to muffle the sound of the door chime, Victor had sneaked into the shop. Just as he reached Molière’s bust, Joseph saw him. Victor threw him a feather duster for cleaning books, put his finger to his lips and gestured to Joseph to come upstairs with him.
The chattering band was duly ushered to the door with the feather duster. Joseph locked the door, wiped his forehead and went up the stairs. Victor was waiting for him in the kitchen.
‘Well, Monsieur Legris, you’re just always coming and going, aren’t you? It’s a pity you didn’t come a bit sooner. They almost killed me.’
‘Joseph, please think carefully, at what time did the messenger give you the letter?’
‘The letter? What letter? Oh, the letter! I had just taken down the shutters. It was eight o‘clock on the dot. He wanted to give it to you personally, because it was very urgent. Urgent or not, I told him, I couldn’t get you up.’
‘Eight o‘clock? Are you sure?’
Joseph looked offended.
‘Monsieur Legris, need I remind you that I open the bookshop every morning at seven forty-five. You can set your clock by me, you should know that by now. I called you several times, but there was no reply so I was worried and I came up but there was nobody here. And I thought, Joseph, if Monsieur Legris has suddenly decided to accompany Madame de Valois to Houlgate, then you’re really stuck!’
‘What did the messenger look like?’
‘Aggressive, like all cab drivers.’
‘A cabman?’
‘Yes, of course, he was a cabman. His cab stood outside the Sulpice Debauve shop.’
‘Were there any passengers?’
‘Look, Monsieur Legris, I haven’t got second sight, you know. And anyway, I was going to tell you …’
Victor abruptly walked off and went into his office. Joseph went back down to the shop, grumbling, ‘He needs to know what’s on my mind. He can’t just cut me off like that.’
He opened the bookshop door, and ventured a quick look outside: not a battle-axe in sight. In that case, boss or no boss, the shop would not close until seven in the evening.
Victor was pacing up and down, talking to himself, unable to stand still.
‘At eight o’clock, Ducovitch was singing away on Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette. Only Tasha could have delivered that letter. Yes, it had to be her. He told her about the unexpected hitch last night or very early this morning. I didn’t hear anything, I was asleep, I was exhausted …’
Distraught, he stopped in front of the chest of drawers and straightened the Laumier. He felt a stab of emotion: that smooth body, those round breasts … could it be that she was just playacting?
You know absolutely nothing about her.
A hansom clattered past on the street. Victor closed his eyes as if a very bright light were blinding him. He looked at the little painting one mo
re time, then went back into Kenji’s apartment. He emptied the bathtub and tidied up what had been left on the floor. Fascinated by the box, he took the top off after a moment’s hesitation. He found a pendant containing a miniature of his mother, as well as a photograph of a young girl. On the back was written ‘Iris, March 1888, London’. Resisting the desire to open them, he put the two big envelopes that were sealed with wax back under the bed slat and quickly also replaced the parcel wrapped in material. But his hands seemed to have a mind of their own and before he knew it he had unwrapped it. He was amazed to discover Goya’s Caprichos. He told me he’d taken it to the bookbinder’s. Stunned, his mind a blank, he began turning the pages until an etching caught his attention: a man, overwhelmed by emotion, surrounded by nocturnal predators, the original of the reproduction pinned on Tasha’s wall!
The extravagance of reason creates monsters. He needed to come up quickly with some reassuring thoughts to hold back the tide of suspicion that threatened to destroy his life and its certainties. He was shattered, but he went on leafing through the book to keep his hands occupied. He refused to admit that Kenji might be involved in this business, but he could not ignore the evidence: Kenji and Tasha had been colluding in all this.
She’s expecting me at eight this evening! he remembered bitterly, suddenly furious. When she wrote me that note, she knew perfectly well that her accomplice was going to finish me off! But who was her accomplice?
The day’s events all merged together in his mind. He put Los Caprichos away, arranged the mat and the blanket, and returned to his room.
At the foot of the Eiffel Tower, between the embankments and sunken paths that bordered the Champ-de-Mars, a strange village retraced the history of human habitation from prehistoric times up to the Renaissance. Built according to plans created by Charles Garnier, there were six areas, each comprising several buildings intended to attract interested visitors. But the metal monster cast its long shadow over these typical dwellings and only a few people actually wandered this far. At this late point in the afternoon, there were only two slightly odd-looking men walking in this part of the Expo to the indifferent attention of bar owners and souvenir sellers. A big bearded man, draped in a rather moth-eaten bearskin, offered his arm to an old African man wearing a boubou, and was animatedly telling him about this kingdom of wood and cement.
‘Clearly, beginning at the end is not really the best way, but here, my dear Samba, everything is so fanciful that what does it matter!’ remarked Danilo Ducovitch. ‘Look, those squaws plaiting baskets, do you think they hail from the Adirondacks? Not a bit of it, old chap. The little one over there, next to the fellow crowned with turkey feathers, is a Spanish dancer who’s usually wiggling her hips in the cabarets on Boulevard de Clichy.’
They passed the Japanese, Arab and Russian houses. Danilo stopped outside a sixteenth-century hostelry where young girls in Henry II costumes were selling Murano glass.
‘Their Italian straw hats are a bit of an anachronism! And look at those Tunisians! Here are some more, in the Greek section. And again in the Persian house. There are lots of unemployed Tunisians in Paris, and now jobs have been found for them here. Let’s not slow down outside the Hindu house; it’s empty and is being used as a public convenience. Ah, here’s the Hebrew home! It’s been rented to a carpet seller from Rue Taitbout. Hello there, Marcel, how’s business?’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Samba. ‘It says here this is an Egyptian tent, but there’s Asian porcelain on sale inside.’
‘Note how Tunisian the salesman looks. The organisers must have thought the public wouldn’t notice.’
Beneath the trees alongside the Gallo-Roman huts, people were unwrapping their provisions and spreading them on cardboard beer barrels. Danilo was given a glass of cider by a Roman matron with a rounded posterior.
‘Thank you, Frieda. She’s Austrian, a singer like me,’ he whispered to Samba. ‘But not a word about my good fortune, or she’ll be green with envy. Would you like to try this?’
He held out the glass. Samba took a sip, frowned, and then looked at the picnickers.
‘They’re eating potatoes.’
‘In oil. It’s a very popular dish.’
‘Potatoes, always potatoes. And this is meant to be the food capital of the world! Their dogs and horses soil the pavements, their buildings shut out the sun, their streets are grey, and they dare judge me with a superior air, asking, “So what does a Senegalese make of Paris?” That’s not a proper name. What if I said, “Hey, you French! Hey, Tunisian! Hey, vendor! Hey, singer!”?’
‘I’ll be known as the baritone,‘Danilo murmured. ‘My problems are at an end. Nobody is going to get in my way. I passed my audition — do you realise what that means? Passed my audition, me, jack of all trades and master of none! Thank you, Charles Garnier, for building such a beautiful Opera House.’
They reached Avenue La Bourdonnais near to the prehistoric habitats. Danilo looked enviously at the solidly built Pelasgian house and even the Palaeolithic hut. Then he stopped outside his cave
‘My modest Cro-Magnon lodgings,’ he announced. A visitor went in. Hot on his heels, Danilo picked up something the man had dropped on the path.
‘A lucky find!’ he said, showing off his trophy to Samba. ‘I’ll save it for the evening following the premiere of Boris Godunov! I can see the poster already: stage direction Danilo Ducovitch, the Serb with the golden voice …’
‘Oh, definitely golden,’ said Samba approvingly as he looked at the band of the barely unwrapped cigar. ‘It’s pretty, may I have it? I can use it for my designs. I also do filigree work, which I put on walking sticks and boxes. It’s one of the things I specialise in.’
‘I’m going to get changed. Wait for me here. We can go and eat at the soup kitchen next to the Machinery Hall. We can splash out — my treat!’
‘No more potatoes, please, for pity’s sake,’ muttered Samba as Danilo went back into his cave.
Danilo walked gaily into the darkest recess of his shelter. As he passed it, he greeted Attila, the stuffed boar, which he had borrowed from the Gallo-Romans to give him a bit of company. ‘Salut! Demeure chaste et pure,’ he sang as he raised the curtain of the tiny extemporised dressing room in the recess of the inner wall. His singing suddenly turned into a yelp. He grimaced and quickly slapped the nape of his neck. He had been stung by something. Astounded more than shocked, he moved his head with difficulty. A dark silhouette was dancing before his eyes. He squinted at the flickering gaslight, which was becoming fainter. He wanted to make it brighter and tried to raise his hand without success. He was suddenly tremendously sleepy. You’re very tired and you need to be on top form tomorrow … Your first rehearsal, no good having stage fright …
He gripped the curtain as he began to fall. As he gradually slid down towards the floor, he tried to hang on to one thought, and brought to mind Tasha’s superb breasts: he had sometimes spied on her through a hole in the dividing wall. Around him now, colours seemed to be changing, shapes were fading like mist in the sunshine. He slowly collapsed, pulling down the curtain with him.
Sitting cross-legged on the grass, Samba was eagerly looking out for his friend’s return. Lunch had been just some greasy chips, and he was hungry. He thought of a gourd overflowing with steaming white rice sprinkled with spicy vegetables. His mouth started to water.
A man appeared at the entrance to the cave. Samba got up, but was disappointed to see that it was just a visitor in a hurry.
After a quarter of an hour he could wait no longer. Overcoming his fear of closed spaces, he gingerly stepped into the cave. In the half-light he could make out a four-legged animal rooted to the spot. He shivered, but managed to control his fear. ‘You old warthog, you gave me a fright!’ Then raising his voice: ‘Are you there, Monsieur Ducovitch?’ Step by step he went further in, his eyes wide open, arms outstretched, fearing he would desecrate the sacred atmosphere of the cave.
He tripped against a big bundle of
rags and lost his balance.
‘Monsieur Ducovitch?’
He was lying on the floor. Summoning his courage, Samba bent down. A quick examination of the man’s face convinced him that Danilo Ducovitch would never sing again. Shocked, he picked up his boubou. The place was cursed and he needed to get out of there fast!
‘Boss! Boss! Can you hear me? It’s important!’ Joseph shouted as he banged on Victor’s door.
‘What now?’ groaned Victor, not opening it.
‘A customer — at least I think she is — a pretty little redhead. She wants to speak to you. She says you know her.’
‘Send her up.’
He drew the bolt and opened the door slightly, nervously smoothing his moustache. He could hear Tasha’s light steps on the stairs. She sidled into the apartment. Quite naturally, she went to kiss him but Victor stiffened, holding back. Amazed, she said nothing for a moment as she caught her breath.
‘Did you see my note?’ she said at last.
He nodded.
‘I won’t be in this evening. I have to go and dine at the Exposition with Charles Garnier, Antonin, Marius, Eudoxie and a handful of officials, for the article, you know. It’s a nuisance, but I can’t cry off. As soon as I knew about it, I did everything I could to warn you. I’ve got a couple of free hours now,’ she said finally, putting her gloves and hat on a chair.
Her tousled hair, her pink cheeks … He must not give in to desire.
Feigning a sudden interest in the condition of his nails, Victor said in a neutral tone: ‘It’s good that you came by. Something’s puzzling me: I’d like to know where you’ve seen those celebrated Goya Caprichos.’
‘What’s the matter with you? Why are you being so formal?’ She burst out laughing. ‘I see! Because of the mujik! Well, don’t worry, he stayed downstairs.’
Seeing Victor was not reacting, she carried on more uncertainly, ‘Is this a joke?’
