by Claude Izner
Joseph shrank into his corner, feeling deliciously guilty, and skimmed the headlines.
Guy De La Brosse’s Body Found
The remains of Guy de la Brosse, founder of our Natural History Museum, have been discovered in an abandoned cellar – formerly the museum’s zoological gallery…
‘Tickets please. What the blazes is going on here?’
The Plaisance–Hôtel de Ville omnibus was struggling up Boulevard Saint-Germain, blocked by a noisy crowd. Stuck at the back of the vehicle, Joseph was thinking that he must go back to writing his novel, Thule’s Golden Chalice, when his attention was suddenly drawn to page two:
Enamellist Murdered
There are still no clues in the case of the murder victim, Léopold Grandjean, stabbed by an unknown assailant in Rue Chevreul on 21 June. The sole witness is unable to describe the killer, having only seen him…
The large woman with the shopping baskets had come back downstairs and was complaining loudly about young people today. Joseph stood up reluctantly, and with a polite gesture offered her his seat.
‘Madame, allow me…’
He pushed his way over to the platform and listened idly to a couple of servant girls chatting.
‘Why have we slowed down?’ the plumper of the two asked the other.
‘I haven’t a clue. I expect it’s those good-for-nothing students demonstrating again. It’s all very well railing against society, but who does all the work? Us, that’s who!’ exclaimed her companion, a pretty brunette, who winked brazenly at Joseph.
‘Are they still warring at your house, then?’ she asked her friend.
‘I’ll say. Madame’s husband has a mistress who wants him to leave her and understandably Madame’s afraid she’ll be out on her ear.’
The demonstrators’ angry shouts began to crescendo.
‘Sparks will fly,’ the plump one said.
‘And at my place, too,’ retorted the brunette. ‘What with Monsieur’s saucy remarks and his straying hands…’
A sudden jolt ended the young women’s intimate exchange. A group of students had stopped the team of three horses, and, despite the stream of invective from the driver, was now leading them into Rue de l’Échaudé. The passengers downstairs panicked and tried to leave but were blocked by a flood of people descending from the upper deck.
‘What’s all the fuss about?’ the brunette shouted.
‘It’s that cold fish Senator René Bérenger.14 He’s got them all up in arms by denouncing their costumes at the “Quat’zarts Ball”.15 Licentious he said they were,’ a lanky fellow announced placidly from behind his newspaper.
‘What’s licentious?’
‘Pornographic, Mademoiselle. The Guardian of Public Virtue would have done better to cover his eyes. Nothing annoys the electorate more than encroachments on its freedom to go about in a state of undress,’ he added, giving Joseph a knowing wink.
Joseph blushed and made his way to the edge of the platform. Next to a kiosk in flames, a tram had been derailed and turned into a barricade. The boulevard was a battlefield. On one side demonstrators were sacking shops and shouting, ‘Down with Bérenger! To hell with Bérenger!’ and, on the other, the police were rolling up their capes ready to use as batons.
With the conductor’s help, the driver fought off the assailants and regained control of his horses. The omnibus took off with a loud clatter down Rue de l’Ancienne-Comédie, only to be surrounded once more when it reached the Faculty of Medicine.
‘Off you get, you sightseers!’ yelled a scruffy-looking individual.
The alarmed passengers scattered, regrouping around the statue of Paul Broca. The driver managed to unharness his horses and led them off at a trot to Carrefour de l’Odéon. Flattened against a Wallace fountain, Joseph looked on as the omnibus was pushed onto its side. Flames instantly began devouring the inside to loud cheers. A police charge dispersed the arsonists.
Without knowing quite how he had got there, Joseph found himself hurrying along the pavement of Rue Dupuytren, muttering abuse at the blasted students, the forces of order, his bosses and the world in general. Rue Monsieur-le-Prince was still peaceful. He leant against a lamp-post to collect himself.
‘Is it revolution?’ he asked a carter delivering vegetables in crates.
‘Could be. Someone died yesterday. The mounted guards of the 4th Central Brigade killed a shop worker having a drink outside Brasserie d’Harcourt. There’s going to be trouble all right. Gee-up, off we go!’ he cried, clambering back onto his cart.
Joseph made his way along the street to the bookbinder Pierre Andrésy’s shop. Monsieur Mori had asked him to stop off there and pick up a Persian manuscript.
‘Talk about a constitutional! I deserve a bonus!’ he grumbled.
He was very surprised to find the door locked; the shop was usually open at this time of the morning. He stepped away from the door and peered through the narrow shop window with its samples of morocco, vellum and shagreen, then pressed his face up to the window of the storerooms next door. He could dimly make out the percussion presses and an assortment of other tools, but there was no sign of Pierre Andrésy.
‘This really is the limit!’ he muttered to himself, irate at being forced to come back later.
Was there no end to the humiliations he must suffer? He felt like the victim of some monstrous plot. Sulking, he walked back up Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, turned into Rue de Vaugirard and entered the Luxembourg Gardens.
Who would have believed that such violent clashes were taking place only a stone’s throw from these peaceful avenues. The month of July was sweltering that year, and ladies everywhere carried silk and gauze parasols with mother-of-pearl knob handles, resembling tiny iridescent suns twirling beneath a blue sky.
By the Medici fountain, Joseph passed two young women in foulard dresses out for a stroll. The prettier of the two was slender, olive-skinned and wore a large red hat with ribbon spilling down the back. She was the spitting image of Iris! He gazed at her figure. A silent grief overwhelmed him. All was lost. He wished he were dead! He smiled bitterly, like a character in a melodrama. Slumped on a bench, he watched the ballet of the goldfish in the water. He singled out one with a purple spot between its gills, and called it Ajax.
‘I’ll never marry, Ajax. I’ll have mistresses, but I won’t become attached to any of them; they’ll suffer. Oh, roll your eyes all you like – you’re not the marrying kind either! It’s just not worth it. What’s that? Be magnanimous? Forgive and forget? That’s what she wants! Never, do you hear! I’ll never join the ranks of the cuckolds. If you read more you’d know that woman is fickle, men must beware.16 This affair has already caused me to neglect my second novel and leave Frida von Glockenspiel in the lurch…17 I refuse to give up literature! Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die,’ he concluded in a mournful voice as Ajax descended to explore the depths of the pond.
He rose to his feet, dejected, and continued his soliloquy, hoping to blot out the pain of his broken heart.
‘And to think that palm reader told me I was blessed by Venus. What twaddle! Anyway, I prefer it this way. I value my independence.’
His heart was pounding and his eyes were moist with tears. He dried them furiously. Between him and his resolve stood the shadow of a young woman with almond eyes who filled him with a passionate longing.
A woman cyclist in a hazel-coloured homemade outfit of shorts gathered just below the knee and a waisted bodice that highlighted her plump figure rode into Quai Malaquais. She slowed to a halt outside 18, Rue des Saints-Pères. She was preparing to dismount when she noticed a row of faces peering out at her from the Elzévir bookshop. There was a slight kerfuffle before the cyclist was dragged inside.
‘How can you be so reckless, Fräulein Becker?’ cried Victor.
‘Have you suddenly become just like all those male misogynists, Monsieur Legris? A bicycle means freedom for a woman. It is a legitimate way of escaping the supervision of her family. It al
so gives her an opportunity to modify her dress, which is why men like you frown on women cyclists. You’re afraid we’ll wear the trousers. Will you please let go of my bicycle!’
‘You’ve got it all wrong, Mademoiselle Becker,’ Victor assured her, grasping her bicycle with both hands and wheeling it to the back of the shop. ‘It’s nothing to do with that.’
‘What is it to do with then? Monsieur Mori?’
Kenji Mori took refuge next to the fireplace.
‘The body of a man killed during the clashes in the Latin Quarter yesterday has just been taken to Hôpital de la Charité,’ he replied, placing a hand on the bust of Molière.
‘I was there, I walked slap bang into a squad of municipal guards coming out of Rue Jacob,’ bleated Euphrosine Pignot. ‘I said to myself: “The Uhlans are coming. It’s the Siege all over again!”’
She pointed accusingly at Kenji.
‘And to think you sent my boy on an errand today of all days! He’ll be massacred.’
‘We were unaware of how serious things were – this was supposed to be a peaceful procession. Don’t worry, Joseph can take care of himself,’ mumbled Kenji.
‘Cold-hearted, that’s what you are,’ muttered Euphrosine. ‘I saw the students in a semicircle outside the hospital gates holding their canes end to end. The sergeant raised his white glove and gave the order to charge. I didn’t hang about – I ran straight here,’ she told Helga Becker, who had taken off her Tyrolean hat and was busy straightening her braids.
‘Ach, ja, das ist wirklich,18 Madame Pignot, soldiers are a threat to women’s virtue. Incidentally, Monsieur Legris, are you happy with your new Swift Cycle?’
‘I hardly think this is the right time…’
Victor hurried to open the door to a man in an opera hat, whom he greeted with great reverence, like an honoured guest.
‘Please, come in, Monsieur France. What news?’
‘The protestors, about a hundred and fifty of them, were perched on the hospital railings. The police from the sixth arrondissement made them get down and the mounted guards of the 4th Brigade gave the charge. Can you hear? They’re clearing the streets right now.’
The sound of thundering hooves grew louder.
‘I’d advise you to bolt the door,’ said Anatole France.
Outside, people were scattering in all directions; some flattened themselves against the walls, others fled towards the river Seine pursued by mounted guards waving sabres. The riders’ costumes formed a red streak merging with the black and bay horses. Victor, strangely detached, wished he had a chronophotographic camera to capture these events in motion.19
Silence descended once more, punctuated by an occasional distant sound. Rue des Saints-Pères was strewn with canes, hats and shoes, evidence of the violent nature of the clashes.
‘This situation bears some similarities to July 1789, when the people of Paris learnt of Necker’s dismissal – the French Revolution, what a marvellous subject. Who knows, I may write a novel about it one day,’20 said Anatole France. ‘Kenji, dear fellow, what’s become of the chairs?’
‘Revolution!’ cried Euphrosine. ‘Holy Mother of God! And my boy’s out there all alone! He’ll be torn to shreds. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, bring him back to me alive!’
No sooner had Joseph reached Rue de Vaugirard than the noise from Boulevard Saint-Germain became audible again. He was enjoying the gentle breeze, when suddenly he screwed up his eyes at what looked like plumes of filthy smoke curling above the rooftops at the other end of Rue Monsieur-le-Prince. It was clear from where he was standing a few blocks away that this was no small fire. He raced towards the blaze, turning his face away from the bursts of heat. A faded four-storey building stood above two shops. Enveloped by flames, the colours on the shop signs had turned acid yellow. Joseph stopped dead in his tracks. The bookbinder’s premises were by now a roaring inferno, which had begun to spread to the storehouse next door. A frail hand squeezed his arm and a hoarse voice made him jump.
‘I was having a kip while my mates were at the bistro having lunch and I had a dream. Yes, Monsieur, I dreamt I could smell burning and it woke me up. I’d be a goner otherwise!’
The man staggered off to join the other tenants on the pavement opposite. They stood, motionless, surveying the scene of devastation in silence, grey confetti raining down on their heads.
Joseph went over to an old man in a workman’s smock.
‘How did the fire start?’
‘Dunno. I was having a snack at the cheese seller’s with my workers when we heard a bang and suddenly the whole lot went up in flames. Lucky we weren’t inside,’ he said, pointing to the storehouse.
‘What about Monsieur Andrésy? Have you seen him?’
The old man shook his head.
Joseph searched in vain for the bookbinder among the people who’d escaped the blaze, but he was nowhere to be seen.
‘This is terrible! What if he’s trapped inside?’
The man shrugged helplessly.
Joseph suddenly felt sick and leant against the wall.
‘He’s dead,’ he wailed.
He wiped his face and hands with a handkerchief.
‘Here’s the fire brigade at last!’ a woman cried.
The firemen with their extending ladders, hook ladders, ropes and pumps formed a team of muscle and machine to fight the blaze. A fireman grabbed a slack hose and his sub-officer signalled to the man in charge of working the steam pump. The hose jerked into life, its spirals slowly unwinding on the pavement, water spurting at intervals from its nozzle.
It took more than two hours to bring the blaze under control. A blackened frame was all that remained of the bookbinder’s shop and apartment.
Head down, Joseph took advantage of the general confusion to step over the charred threshold. The books had been reduced to a soggy mass of cinders. He picked up a scrap of leather, which fell apart in his hands. He found three burnt tubes about four inches in length and, without thinking, put them in his pocket, then he went up to the owner of the storehouse.
‘Are you sure you heard an explosion?’
‘Well, I suppose it could have been those blasted students. What a disaster! Now we’re out of a job. What the blazes will we do?’
‘It could have been a gas explosion,’ ventured a woman with a beaky nose.
‘Have you seen Monsieur Andrésy?’
‘The poor fellow was trapped inside,’ the woman replied. ‘My charcuterie is just opposite. I can see everything from my window. He was leaning over his press when the fire started. It’s terrible, and with all that paper in there…’
The Elzévir bookshop had ceased to be a temporary refuge. The customers filed out, and Anatole France followed, escorted by Kenji. Only Fräulein Becker resisted venturing out on her bicycle until the rioters were fully under control. She said she would go to the top of the Ferris Tension Wheel – the pièce de résistance at the Chicago World’s Fair21 – sooner than expose herself and her precious machine to the dangers of the arsonists and the forces of order.
Much to Victor’s annoyance, Madame Ballu, the concierge at number 18, burst in, eager to exchange impressions with her friend Euphrosine. The three women, like the three Fates, were standing at the counter prattling away when suddenly they cried out in unison at the sight of Joseph in the doorway, his face flushed, his cap askew. Before he could say a word, his mother had flung her arms round him, thanking all the saints for having brought her son back in one piece.
‘My poor boy, you’re all out of breath! Did the brigands chase you? I told you, didn’t I, Monsieur Legris, they’re nothing but a pack of wild animals! Look at the poor lad! He’s dripping with sweat!’
‘Maman!’
‘Calm down, Madame Pignot, he’s not going to dissolve in a puddle,’ retorted Victor, prising his clerk from his mother’s grasp.
‘B-boss, it…it’s terrible! Monsieur Andrésy…The bookbinder…He’s dead! Burnt alive!’
‘Oh, God h
elp us, those monsters are setting fire to people now!’ howled Madame Ballu.
Victor tried to usher Joseph to the back of the shop, but the three excited women blocked their way.
‘Let the boy speak!’ thundered Victor.
‘Some say it was the students, some the anarchists, others think it was an accident, but for the moment they’re groping in the dark, clueless, flummoxed,’ exclaimed Joseph, who had recovered the use of his tongue.
‘Flummoxed?’ asked Helga Becker.
‘In the schwarz,’ barked Victor.
‘There was a fire, a huge fire. The place was burnt to the ground!’ concluded Joseph.
‘I’ll go there straight away. You stay and look after the shop, and not a word to Monsieur Mori about this,’ warned Victor, pulling on his jacket and reaching for his hat and cane.
‘What shall I do if Mademoiselle Iris asks where you’ve gone?’ murmured Euphrosine, glancing at Joseph.
‘Remain as quiet as the doe in the hunter’s sights,’ Victor commanded, with an inward nod of approval to Alphonse de Lamartine for this fitting aphorism.
Madame Pignot wrinkled her mouth, flattered by the comparison. Joseph stood motionless, his gaze fixed on the beautiful half-Asian young woman in a red and white striped chiffon dress and silk ruff fastened with a black ribbon.
‘What are you worried that I might ask, Madame Pignot?’ enquired Iris, her eyes sparkling.
As he was trying to hail a cab, Victor recalled the strange creature who had caused such a sensation at the Folies-Bergère the previous winter. That will-o’-the-wisp in gossamer veils, flapping like a butterfly in the projectors’ coloured beams, reminded him of his own life. His routine was occasionally interrupted by complex choreographies à la Loïe Fuller;22 he cavorted with the unknown, tussled with danger, only to fall back, exhausted, into the clutches of an ennui that had been the bane of his life. Only Tasha had the power to draw him out of these depressions and give his life meaning.
The traffic was inching forward. There wasn’t a cab in sight. He decided to walk. Having finally left the hubbub on Boulevard Saint-Germain, he reached Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, where he came across a sign:
