by Claude Izner
‘Good. You and Kenji were his closest friends.’
‘I’m close to you, too, so close, in fact, that I’m happy to know that under that smock you’re completely naked.’
She allowed him to undress her, lead her over to the bed and explore her curves feverishly with the expertise of one who knew her body’s secret geography intimately. He waited for her to welcome him in with a moan of pleasure.
They shooed away Kochka, who had been circling them during their gentle combat.
‘You’ve exhausted me,’ he murmured.
‘It was you who molested me! My poor Samson, deprived of his strength, is it because of me or because he shaved off his moustache?’
‘I sacrificed it on the altar of your love. But if you’re going to be like that I’ll let it grow back down to my feet!’
‘It’ll catch in the wheels of your bicycle,’ she protested, stroking Kochka.
‘You prefer that ball of fur to me!’
‘At least she has hair all over!’
‘That’s mean! I still have some,’ he protested, taking her hand and placing it on his chest.
She put her arms round him and began to recite, ‘“He accepted the supreme gift of her body, as if it were a priceless treasure he had won through the power of his love.”’
‘Not Zola again!’
‘Do you know how he described his protagonists’ first night together? He called it their wedding night.’
‘Our first night was a long time ago.’
‘But we’re still novices where wedding nights are concerned. I’ve thought about it a lot; there might be a solution.’
He sat up straight.
‘Do you mean to say that you accept…’
‘This autumn, nothing fancy, just two witnesses, and only provided that the big event is kept under wraps.’
‘Darling, I’ll see to everything!’
‘In return I have two requests. First, grow back your moustache; Joseph and Kenji aren’t happy about you flying in the face of convention. And, secondly, forget about Pierre Andrésy.’
‘Da, koniétchno,53 consider it done!’ he assured her, crossing his fingers.
No. 4, Rue Guisarde, next to Place Saint-Sulpice, he had time to think before rolling onto her.
Chapter Ten
Saturday 22 July
VICTOR and Joseph stepped off the yellow omnibus at Carrefour de l’Odéon and walked up Rue Saint-Sulpice, which was lined with shops selling religious paraphernalia. Jojo pretended to be interested in the window display of a church vestments shop then in one selling candles, night lights and candle-snuffers. He was trying to think of a suitable way of telling his boss that he and Iris had patched things up.
‘Why have you stopped in front of that candle shop? You’re not planning to install night lights in the bookshop, are you?’
‘I was just wondering whether your sister might not like that oil lamp, because…’
‘Because the flame of your undying love has been reignited?’
‘Oh, Monsieur Legris, I couldn’t have put it better myself. I ought to…’
‘Use it in one of your novels, I’ll bet. All right, you have my permission. Don’t give away your lover’s secrets. I’ve some of my own. I have a feeling the coming months are going to be good to us, Joseph. Come on, I’m impatient to get to the bottom of this.’
On the left-hand pavement, in front of Église Saint-Sulpice, a man with no legs was hawking religious images, his hoarse voice intermittently drowned by a barrel organ grinding out a slow waltz. Some children were chasing one another round a tiered fountain, while their nannies sat watching the flurry of vehicles: big brown omnibuses from La Villette, little green ones from Panthéon, cabs parked next to a public convenience charging five centimes.
A procession of seminarians entered Rue des Canettes. Victor and Joseph brought up the rear, turning off almost immediately into Rue Guisarde. They nearly collided with a pair of handcarts blocking the narrow street under the calm gaze of a spaniel. Number 4 was a squat building with a cracked façade next to a shed full of barrels of cider and perry.
‘What’s the plan, Boss?’ Joseph asked, suddenly feeling thirsty.
‘There’s nothing for it but to knock on every door and ask if anybody’s heard of this Gallic chieftain.’
‘We’re asking to get a basting!’
‘Fear is a mad bird that must be caged, Kenji would argue.’
‘Thank heavens there are only three floors.’
There were two apartments on each floor. The long faces that greeted them grew even more sullen at the mention of Sacrovir. They’d reached the top floor when a limping gait shook the stairs. A woman of about thirty with an angular but kindly face appeared carrying an enormous bundle. Victor rushed over to help her.
‘I’m much obliged, Monsieur. Those stairs will be the death of me. It’s not very clever living on the top floor when you’ve got one leg shorter than the other, I have to admit.’
‘Where…where would you like me to put this?’ Victor gasped, his knees beginning to buckle.
‘Hang on a moment while I open the door. There, put it down on the table.’
He threw rather than put down the bundle, which was like a lead weight.
‘You wouldn’t think linen weighed so much, even when it’s dry. It’s much worse when it’s wet! I had terrible backache when I was a laundress. After I fell into the washhouse tub three years ago, and especially after my husband was killed falling from some scaffolding, I started taking in ironing and mending. I’d be happy to add your names to my list of satisfied customers.’
Victor and Joseph looked at one another awkwardly.
‘The fact is we came here looking for a man named…’
A small boy, half dressed, with jam all over his chin, emerged yawning from an alcove.
‘You haven’t washed your face!’ his mother scolded him. ‘Have you been a good boy?’
He nodded, stuck his finger up his nose and stared at Joseph.
‘That’s my Jeannot. Say hello to these gentlemen. He’s shy. You said you were looking for a man named—’
‘Sacrovir,’ Jojo blurted out, deliberately ignoring the brat, who was poking his tongue out at him.
‘Sacrovir? Yes, I remember him. A fine lad. Always cheerful and obliging. He lived on the first floor. He was from Autun originally. But that wasn’t his real name. It must have been a nickname.’
‘What was his name?’
‘You first, what’s your name?’ the child answered back.
‘Victor Legris, bookseller, and this is my assistant, Joseph Pignot,’ Victor said hurriedly.
‘Nice to meet you. Please take a seat, gentlemen, in this heat! Jeannot, go and shut the door. My name’s Mariette Trinquet. Would you like a glass of water? I have some chilled in a jug.’
‘That’s very kind of you, I’m absolutely parched,’ Joseph replied.
Victor stifled a gesture of impatience. The woman was already filling the glasses.
‘Do you know Sacrovir’s real identity?’
‘Heavens, no. I was only little – eleven or twelve at the time. He must have been in his twenties. But now we’re talking about him I can picture him vividly. He was tall, well built, with soft brown eyes and curly black hair. The truth is I was in love with him – a childish crush. My heart would beat wildly whenever I saw him. He used to chant: “Mariette, Mariette, on her way to the fête.” He was teasing, of course. I was a serious child, I used to help my mother with her washing. She was a laundress too and a widow, talk about history repeating itself!’
‘Did Sacrovir have a job?’
‘Yes, he worked at a printer’s. His fingers were always stained from the ink. The day of my first communion at Saint-Sulpice, he gave me sugared almonds and threatened to smear his hands on my dress. He told me it was to get back at God for having made a right old mess of things. I turned bright red and ran away!’
‘Pinot’s a wine!’ Jeannot
cried out, standing right beside Joseph.
‘Where did you hear that?’
‘At the cider seller’s.’
‘Pignot, not Pinot,’ muttered Joseph.
‘Go over there and play – you’re in the way,’ Mariette ordered.
‘What happened to him?’ resumed Victor.
‘After the defeat, he came back from the front – all the time he was away I went to church and prayed – and then the Prussians surrounded Paris. The siege was terrible. A few months later – I remember because it was my birthday, 1 March 1871 – the provisional government allowed the Boches to enter Paris in exchange for Belfort and peace. That bastard Thiers!’
‘Maman, that’s a rude word – you’ll get a smack!’ cried Jeannot gleefully.
‘Plug your ears. But it’s true, isn’t it? He was a crook. He was so terrified of the people that he refused to arm them and win the war. He preferred to make a pact with the invader. You don’t need me to tell you what happened next.’
‘It’s ancient history,’ agreed Victor, who hated raking over the past, unless it was his own.
‘What year were you born, Monsieur?’ Mariette enquired softly.
‘In 1860.’
‘I was born in 1859. A year makes a difference. That’s probably why it’s so fresh in my memory. A twelve-year-old can understand that when a section of the regular army and the National Guard refuse to stand by and do nothing when the enemy invades their city it can only lead to disaster. Thiers was livid. He sent troops to take over the cannons at Montmartre, but they mutinied, and two of his generals were shot by those refusing to hand Paris over to the Prussians. After that, things escalated, the government withdrew to Versailles, Thiers gave the order to retreat, and the Paris Commune was declared.’
‘Maman, what’s “scalated”?’ Jeannot asked, a spinning top between his finger and thumb.
‘Seventy-two days of freedom, no more. Then they cracked down.’
‘The Communards were no saints either,’ remarked Victor.
Joseph gave in to his urge to speak.
‘They dreamt of a better world, where the rich would be less rich and the poor less poor!’
‘That utopia simply reverses the roles, Jojo, and, when all’s said and done, there’s nothing new under the sun.’
‘Even so, your friend is right, Monsieur; they wanted justice. Justice doesn’t come from asking politely – it must be taken by force. The Communards lost the battle and the followers of Thiers, Mac-Mahon and Galliffet showed them no mercy. Thousands were slaughtered without trial, for a mere trifle. They weren’t sentenced, just lined up against the wall and bang! In the end, even the most enthusiastic of the Versailles Army soldiers were calling for the killing to stop. There were so many corpses in the streets, the Seine, the gutters and fountains, and swarms of flies everywhere, and the stench…Well-to-do folk were scared of catching cholera.’
‘Maman, are we going to die?’ wailed Jeannot.
She hugged her child to her.
Victor persisted. ‘And Sacrovir?’
‘He vanished. I only found out later. He was a Communard and printed posters for the central committee. Maybe he escaped, maybe he was executed. Those were crazy times. Maman and I only just escaped the firing squad. The bitch on the second floor was married to a policeman and she was jealous of Maman. Maman was pretty and had all the men hanging around her. The bitch spread rumours about us associating with Communards. As soon as we heard the police were looking for us, we went into hiding. Père Derave, the manager of a bistro in Rue des Canettes, let us stay in his cellar. He was a good man. We were holed up there for nearly a fortnight. Through the cellar window we could hear gunfire and soldiers from the Versailles Army shouting: “Get in the queue!”’
‘The queue?’
‘Yes, queue up and wait quietly for us to put a bullet in you. In the end they were all machine-gunned.’
‘Boss, it’s awful!’
‘Yes, Joseph, it is awful,’ echoed Victor, trying his best to console the sobbing Jeannot.
‘Here, little boy,’ he whispered, slipping him a coin, ‘buy yourself some sweets.’
‘Aren’t you shocked?’ Joseph bawled.
‘Of course I am. But I realised from a very early age that human beings are more savage than the most ferocious animals.’
‘Oh, here we go. Next you’ll be saying it’s just dog eat dog!’ Joseph declared.
‘Let’s leave the proverbs to Kenji and get back to Sacrovir. Tell me, Madame, did he have any family?’
‘I’ve no idea. That year my childhood ended. You grow up quickly after seeing all those dead bodies. Have you ever seen a dead body? The swollen flesh, the staring eyes that nobody has closed…I couldn’t stop thinking about Sacrovir. I was afraid he might have been killed. The thought drove me to distraction…Oh, Jeannot my love, I’m scaring you! Blow your nose, it’s all over. It’s scandalous; most of the murderers and informers kept their positions. They’re having an easy time of it. Some of them are even magistrates. They sent thousands of poor souls to their death and now they represent the law! It’s enough to turn you into a revolutionary!’
‘Besides you, is there anybody else who might be able to tell me about Sacrovir?’
‘You might try asking the old butcher’s son – he worked at the same printer’s, as a typesetter, I think.’
‘Where can we find him?’
‘He moved out of the neighbourhood a long time ago.’
‘What was his name?’
‘I’ve forgotten. He must be about sixty by now – if he’s still alive. I’m the only tenant left from that time, all the others moved away after the war. The bitch and her husband took off in a hurry – they were scared of reprisals. Now I come to think of it, there’s Monsieur Fourastié, the cobbler. He lived at number 1 but he’s near the Louvre now, Rue Baillet. Thanks for the coin, Monsieur. By the way, why are you looking for Sacrovir?’
‘I have something which belongs to him and which I’d like to return.’
She showed them to the landing.
‘It would be a miracle if you found him. Tell him…No, don’t tell him anything.’
Kenji had taken particular care over his clothes: a semi-fitted jacket, a white shirt and grey trousers. He’d forced himself to swap his cravat for a bow tie and had put on a brand-new pair of brown suede gloves. So when he asked Iris to stand in for him at the bookshop, she imagined he was off to see one of his latest conquests. This wasn’t the right time to tell him about her having made up with Joseph. She’d wait for a more suitable moment when Victor and Euphrosine were also there.
The cab stopped near Église Saint-Eustache. The piles of vegetables and fruit blocking the maze of side streets around Les Halles created such chaos that it was quicker to walk.
Kenji loved this vibrant neighbourhood where the flood of foodstuffs inundated the shop windows, spilt onto the pavements and overflowed into the costermongers’ barrows. Lemons, cheeses, confectionery, the first fruits and vegetables of the season, all made bright splashes of colour at the base of the opulent buildings, their shop signs written above in gold lettering.
He narrowly avoided colliding with a trolley pushed by a strapping lad in a striped sweater, and turned into Rue Mandar, unexpectedly calm after the torrent of cries and expletives. He had no regrets about having slipped Hagop Yanikian a bank-note in exchange for an essential piece of information: Aram Kasangian, whose address the cousin had also provided, spent Saturdays at home, where he gave Arabic lessons at two francs an hour.
It was unusual to see a concierge at his post before dawn, but the one at number 15 was already sitting in the gloomy entrance to his building peeling Jerusalem artichokes and tossing them into a bowl. Without pausing or glancing up, he informed Kenji that Monsieur Kasangian lived on the fifth floor in the apartment overlooking the courtyard.
Judging from the musty odour, the stairwell hadn’t been aired since the building was put up. The plaster on
the walls was flaking off and the ceiling on the top floor was so low that Kenji was obliged to stoop. He knocked for a long time before the Armenian, dressed in a collarless tunic, deigned to open the door. Aram Kasangian gave a slight start, which could have been mistaken for a bow, and raised his hand to warn his visitor not to speak. A silent scrutiny followed, ending in the pronouncement, ‘Given the extreme improbability that a citizen of Japan with a passion for the sources of the Nile would have the slightest interest in the study of Arabic literature, the answer is no, despite the fact that I have no pupils at present.’
‘I’ve followed your advice and stopped wearing a cravat. Moreover, as I have yet to ask anything of you, I cannot accept this flat refusal.’
Unnerved, the Armenian began tugging at his beard, as though expecting it to come up with a rejoinder. Finally, he motioned to Kenji to step inside the attic room.
Besides a cracked leather pouffe, a salamander in front of the fireplace, and a few piles of books, the room was filled with masses of newspapers stacked against the walls or spread across the bare floor in layers of varying thickness.
‘Are you intrigued by my furniture? It is most economical and easy to clean. When it becomes too dusty I simply chuck it away and get some more. It costs next to nothing to replace at Rue du Croissant if you are a subscriber. They have loads of the previous days’ unsold editions. Other advantages of newspaper are that it keeps you warm in winter and keeps out the heat in summer, and is soft enough to stand in for a mattress and blankets. Excuse me while I get dressed.’
He slipped on his green skullcap and some Oriental slippers then sat cross-legged on the pouffe.
‘I am all ears.’
‘I’ve brought you a gift.’
‘Please be seated.’
Kenji hesitated before constructing a makeshift chair for himself out of several piles of periodicals. He handed the Armenian a sextodecimo.
‘The Persian Language, by Narcisse Perrin,’54 the latter read from the spine, which was decorated with fine cord. ‘There are six volumes missing.’
‘This is the only copy I have. It’s an essay on Persian literature, which should be of interest to you.’
