by John Brooke
But he does not appear to possess the hard, mean, money-grubbing thing Dorise Ménou ascribes to him.
Her own diagnosis: a temper, yes, arising from a pride and loyalty of sorts — odd, hard to fathom, bred in the bone in the life of a useful but eternal outsider. Sure, get you whatever you want, my friend. The greater part of Herméné Dupras is needful...this need to please and be pleased. The social element is his heart’s prop. A child of the business in more ways than one? This is to be explored, if not by herself, then by experts in the field. Michel Souviron, our Proc, will rip him apart in court. When he’s finished ripping, Michel will see the essential hole in the soul of this pleasure-bound pander. Like Georgette says, no abiding passion there — no one, nothing to be passionate about. Nothing to drive the knife.
She believes Michel will also see the man’s not lying, even if Claude cannot. Or doesn’t want to. Green velvet and never-ending fun. The very best available. And yet he takes a break from it all for dessert, a quiet moment with the one who’s “out of commission” — like he’s running a bus service... It’s words like that, that side of the man that give offence; but he truly seems to care.
That shifting edge: the fact of two people colliding at the wrong moment...the murderous impulse is as varied as the vagrant soul. Coming up nine years on the job, Aliette knows this.
But so is the impulse toward love.
One more thing: “Who is Mari Morgan?”
“Mari Morgan?...Mari Morgan is a song Ondine used to sing.”
“Not a person?”
“If she is, I never met her.”
“And this Ondine?”
“Ondine was... God, that’s it! It was her. As sure as I’m sitting here...of course! Ondine. Who else?” The suspect sits there, nonplussed by this notion, eyes wide, shiny head bobbing slowly.
Aliette lets it settle...finally has to snap him out of it. “Well? Who is she?”
“Ondine Duguay. A seamstress. Used to be my partner. Ran the kitchen, kept them organized, made all their things. Left us in a big huff...mmm, about ten years ago. Maybe twelve. Still does their things, though. Very talented... She made this coat for me.”
“Manon’s chemise?”
“Of course.”
“She does beautiful work... Ondine Duguay?”
“C’est ça.“
“Have a sister?”
“Georgette...prettier.”
Aliette’s heart turns over. Steady, steady... “What was Ondine’s problem, then?”
“The ambience...the liaisons that are naturally formed amongst the staff in an establishment such as mine. Like I say, we all love each other. Her problem was she thought she was the centre of the universe.”
“Where is she now?”
“She has a shop in the quarter somewhere. I haven’t seen her for years. She refused to have anything more to do with me. But my girls continue to enjoy her things.”
“Are you telling me you rejected Ondine?”
Of all her questions, this one leaves him taken aback. “I never reject anyone. Not my style.”
No, perhaps you don’t...”But how could she have drugged you...set you up without some help on the inside? You were inside the whole evening?”
“Where else would I be?...All my girls love me, Inspector.”
No they don’t, Herméné; but it’s probably best for both of us if you continue to believe it. Bon; gathering her notes; “a shop in the quarter?”
“As far as I know.”
5.
The sister of her friend the misanthropic artist’s model and she made lingerie for putes! If you were their mother, which one would you love the better? The inspector will withhold her judgement till she finds the seamstress who thought she was the centre of the universe. From what she knows of the Duguays thus far, that does not surprise her at all. But the centre of the universe is hiding. Ondine Duguay is not in the phone book. It would be nice to have a car on a sticky afternoon, but a car comes with a partner (this one is very high on Claude’s new list of budget-oriented rules) and Aliette does not want to work with a partner. Sticky or not, she’ll walk it...
A shop in the quarter somewhere. She passes several every day on her way to and from the commissariat, and pops into the occasional one if she needs a new bra or pants for work. Nicer stuff she buys downtown; or from Marianne at Palais on Belle Île, who’s also known to supply the President’s wife — good for conversation’s sake (or might be), surmises a lonely cop... Who can’t recall ever passing one called Ondine. She asks at Au Coin des Bas...at Chez Rose-Marie Lingerie and Deuxième Peau...then at Lili Lingerie...and at Maison des Rêves Doux. It has never really hit her, the sheer number of enterprises in such proximity dedicated to the sale of women’s underwear. At Lingerie Piaf, she allows herself to relax for a moment as she waits for the salesgirl to go and ask her boss. She imagines her own Piaf wandering out from the back with the next pair of silky pants hanging lightly between his jaws, then rolling over on the floor while the lady thought it over, or looking out the window at nothing while she went to try on a very special soutien-gorge. The report comes back, “No, never heard of any Ondine.” The lines favoured at Lingerie Piaf are Passionata and Chantelle. Aliette leaves with a glossy brochure entitled Des idées provocantes and continues on through the homebound crowds.
She loves to walk but is going too fast, intent, determined to find this woman, on a personal level as well as the professional. The endorphins, which always seem to rise when an enquiring soul is in motion, are kicking in; but they’re out of kilter on this broiling summer’s day, wired, worried by impatience, ultimately leaving her own underwear a cause for concern. Aliette wants to get out her clothes and wash the sweat off... She wants more than that. She thinks of Martine and Josiane and Julie, all the girls at Mari Morgan’s, taking off their clothes, reclining...
Shhh, Aliette, it’s just a job... You sound like Claude.
It’s not work, fucking people.
No? Well then it’s not work looking for people either, is it?...All it is, is walking and thinking.
She’s dripping sweat when she finally stops. Ondine: stencilled unobtrusively on the glass above the door handle. The inspector is not even sure she’s still inside the quarter. This street is so rundown. She checks her hands for grease before wiping the salty layer from her brow. There are three oily mechanics conferring at the place across the street. Peaches and cherries in boxes outside the épicerie next door are turning. She can smell sugar being boiled somewhere near. Ugh! it seems like a crime to add sugar to the weight of the air... The couturière‘s window fits right into the gritty scene: a bald plaster mannequin standing in barren isolation in a plain white peignoir. Poor thing: no hair, a chipped finger, Aliette can’t see how she’ll ever find a place in anyone’s fantasy. But the endorphins — great for a run, not so great when trying to stay cool — subside. Looking at it a second time, re-focused, the peignoir in the window is as elegant and finely made as any the sweetest bride might ever wish for. And as fine as Manon Larivière’s chemise. A bell tinkles overhead as the inspector steps inside.
The front room contains a hardback chair and a threadbare rug. No displays. No mirrors. The woman comes out from the back. It’s the woman behind the veils at the funeral: tall, thin to a worrisome degree, and much older than Aliette had first made out. Still, with that long medieval nose, that stubborn equine mouth — Georgette’s sister, no question about it. “Ondine?” The woman nods like a mournful Boris Karloff. “I’d like to order a camisole, if I might.”
Aliette endures her scrutiny. The vivid foresty green of Georgette’s eyes is replaced by fading hazel; but the aspect — that faint, probing scorn — it’s another shared family trait. Finally, making a gesture, Ondine Duguay says flatly, “Very well...come through.”
Back of the shop’s a different story. A busy workshop. An old stand-alone Singer sewing machine predominates. A centre table is cluttered with tools and cuttings, several items in the w
orks. There are bobbins arranged on a smaller table, bundles of ribbon, jars of beads, bales of materials, and a rack hung with partially finished and repaired garments. Three more dressmaker’s mannequins, each as old and chipped and bald as their sister in the front, stand in the corner by the window gazing out at the small yard littered with apples from one small tree, a dried-out clapboard fence, the drab alley, the backs of houses on the other side. “Would you take off your top, please?” The inspector obliges. Ondine measures with an experienced squint, stepping to her table to note each one, stone silent as she goes through this procedure. Until she asks, “What colour?”
“You make such lovely things. My friend had one in a pearly pink tone, with this exquisite trim, and a monogram down around here...” Touching her right hip bone. “What colour do you think?”
Ondine Duguay again peruses her with what once could have been the lovely eyes of a willowy girl as she considers Aliette’s eyes and skin. “A steely blue that’s almost grey will be perfect. How did you find me?”
“It wasn’t easy.”
“I’m very exclusive.”
“Exclusive? Madame, it’s as though you’re hiding. I’ve never been on this street in almost nine years in this quarter and walking is one of my favourite activities... Does steely blue get the trim?”
“Yes, yes...” With a touch of crankiness that has a familiar ring as she measures from Aliette’s shoulder to the mid-point of her buttock. “Who is your friend?”
“Her name is Manon. You were at her funeral this morning.”
Ondine steps around to face Aliette. “Just who are you?”
“My name is Aliette Nouvelle. Police Judiciaire.”
“Ahh...I was thinking you belonged to the baker. So it’s you — our new champion.”
This is cold and catty and from out of nowhere. Aliette blushes and bristles before she can find words. Bloody Paris-Match. “I have no control over what they write...I try to do my job.”
Ondine’s bleak gaze cuts through her excuses. “What do you want with me?”
“Some answers.”
“I haven’t set foot in that place in years.”
“How many years?”
“Ten, at least...eleven, twelve. I’ve lost count. I’ve put that place behind me.” But Ondine’s tight face is getting more so by the second.
“And Herméné?”
“He’s out of my life.”
“But still in your mind, Ondine — it’s quite plain to see.”
Ondine goes back to her table and notes another measurement. “A sore spot, Inspector, to be sure. But life is like that, is it not? We have to carry on.”
“We have to try... Did you know Manon?”
“Your friend? I knew someone who called herself Manon. Still a girl the last time I saw her.”
“Forty-four when she died. Not a girl at all.”
“Whoever she was, she was quite lost in someone else’s supposed personality and I gather she stayed that way till he killed her.”
“I’m sure she wasn’t so different underneath it all. None of us are, not even the stars.” Aliette picks a full-panted silk culotte from the rack, almost like a man’s boxers, and holds it to her waist, testing its attraction. “But you accepted her? You liked her?”
“She was not an unkind person. I accepted lots of strange women when I lived there. No, you’re right — none of them were that different underneath.”
“But still,” the inspector wonders aloud, “how do they arrange themselves? Who leads, who follows?”
“Some were harder than others...at the core. Some were very hard indeed. That was the difference.”
“Flossie Orain?”
Ondine is not sure. She considers it. Her face is more transparent than her sister’s. Older, younger? Aliette can’t guess. “Flossie Orain is another generation,” comes the answer, a shade sardonic. “In fact she’s like you...something admirable, I could sense it whenever I saw her... Admirable, and something else I’ll never understand at all. All I really know about Flossie is her sizes. And now yours as well.”
“I’m only a woman.”
“Time changes us, Inspector.”
“And Louise?”
“Very strong.”
“Happy?”
A cold shrug: What the hell does that mean?
“Why were you there, Ondine?”
“I was with him. They accepted me...a family of sorts.”
“You still do their things.”
“They still like my things. I have to survive, the same as anyone.”
“Why don’t you set up in a better place...downtown, where people can find you?”
“I’m not interested in business any more. I just want to do my work.”
“You sound a lot like someone I know. Someone you know as well.”
“Another friend?”
“Georgette Duguay.”
Ondine looks up from her notes, only for a moment, then continues with her figuring. “Just a name from the past. There’s nothing there at all... She lost a fight and walked away.”
“But who did you lose to, Ondine? Manon, perhaps?” Or would that be Marilyn Monroe?
“Please...” as if the implication were absurd; “I left. It was my business. I ran it and I made it what it was. But I got sick of being associated with his sort.”
“His sort? You were partners.”
“We were lovers. I made a mistake.”
“Getting involved in the business?”
“Getting involved with faceless people. All the so-called friends it took to make sure nothing ever changed. We were protected, we were enjoyed, we were despised, we didn’t exist...all the while, Herméné slapped backs and shared bodies. I couldn’t do much about it, so I left.”
“What did you want to do about it?”
“I don’t know... Give it some integrity. Give it some rights and some meaning. You can hate it, but it’s there and it always will be. And I got tired of the gimmicks... That poor girl: who was she? That’s the tragedy.”
“Why would he kill her?”
“Maybe she wasn’t giving him what he wanted.”
“I’m told she was the best. Very popular. What more could he hope for?”
“Maybe she was getting tired of it. Maybe she wanted out. Forty-four, you say?”
“But the American...the image is eternal.”
“Maybe that was the problem.”
“Time changes us?”
“Voilà...”
The seamstress has what she needs. Aliette puts her blouse back on. “May I look upstairs?”
Ondine gestures blankly: suit yourself. Aliette climbs the stairs in the corner.
Just a kitchen overlooking the yard — with a bathroom attached, and a bed-sitting room over the street. No keepsakes by the bed. No photos of the young girl who had grown into this joyless woman. Nor of an ex-lover who is now in trouble. Nor of an estranged sister...
But in the closet Aliette finds treasures! It’s packed to bursting with bustiers, camisoles, corsets and culottes, negligees and slips...all made of pure cottons, laces and silks and fashioned in all the finest conceptions of elegance and romance she has ever seen or read about, harking back to the turn of the century. Each item is a showpiece, perfect in every detail. Opening an ancient hatbox, her over-eager fingers cause a tiny rip in the felt-covered cardboard... Oh là là! A billowy boudoir bonnet, circa 1915, made of ninon silk, festooned with a bouquet of satin flowers. I need to try it on! No. You’re working... But what she’d give for such a piece! Place it between her brown Derby from England and her Dodger-blue LA baseball hat from America... This stony Ondine’s an artist.
The sad irony is that Aliette can’t picture Ondine in any of her own creations.
Mmm...a joyless woman. But the centre of the universe? Of course she could have been; it’s a perception that depends on the one you’re “with,” n’est-ce pas? Aliette senses a much more fragile sort. And all the more so when she pl
aces her beside someone with the force of Georgette.
Replacing the hat in its box, she shuts the closet gently and goes back down.
“Are those crab apples?” The tree is glittery and magical in the light of the late afternoon sun.
“Sorb apples. They’re good, but you have to let them rot a bit... From corruption, sweetness, is what we say.”
“Who is we?”
“We who believe it to be true.”
Well... Wait. Build some trust. All right. All right... “Ondine, investigation or not, I really would like that top.”
The woman actually smiles. “And you shall have it. Come by Monday and try it on.”
She escorts Aliette to the front. Feeling pally...at least accepted, the inspector ventures, “If it weren’t such a sad day I’d ask you to sing me the song about Mari Morgan.”
“Oh, I don’t sing any more...that’s for a younger woman. One with a strong heart and an active spirit. Is that you, Inspector?”
“I do my best, Ondine... Tell me, is Mari Morgan real or not?”
“Oh yes. Quite real...quite alive.”
“Where is she?”
“At the door to Paradise, welcoming all pure souls.” With a vacant-eyed bow, she ushers Aliette out the door. “Please...I’ve had a tiring day. I will see you Monday. End of the day would be best.”
The bell tinkles. The street is empty now, everyone home eating supper. Piaf will be waiting.
6.
A shower, a bite, and straight back out. No drawing group on a Friday night, but no time to relax either. See you later, my Piaf. Have to put some things down on paper for the Instructing Judge.
But one more visit first. The door to the sixth-floor apartment in a respectable building at the top of the park is answered by Léonie, a trim woman in her fifties with pencilled-in eyebrows. “The doctor’s non-live-in...clean, cook, shop a bit, check to see he’s still alive in the morning.” The doctor has not yet returned from the funeral. Something about a picnic near the grave site. “No, not worried. He spends a lot of afternoons with them...usually makes it in for his supper. I feed him and then go home.”
“He left by himself?”
