Cezanne's Quarry

by Barbara Corrado Pope

  “What did you think, M. Martin?” Mme Picard asked, interrupting her husband before he got going.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I know that if I were a different kind of woman, I might have been jealous of René’s dealings with her. Despite his hemming and hawing just now, he did tell me that he thought she was quite beautiful.”

  “Yes, yes.” Martin kept his head down, as he fished around in his stew. “But I only really saw her once, before. We both happened to be at the counter of a bookstore and I heard the man say her name.”

  “What did she get?” Amélie seemed very excited by this notion. “I mean, what book?”

  Martin looked at her and smiled. “I really don’t know.” At least that was truthful. After all, Solange Vernet had insisted he take the translation of Darwin with the preface by Clémence Royer.

  “Probably some impious book,” Bernadette sniffed. “Father Grevier mentioned her and M. Westerbury in a sermon just before we left for the country. Actually he didn’t call them by name, but he said there were outsiders who had come to town trying to propagate the lie that the world is millions of years old, when, he said, everyone knows that Adam and Eve could not have lived more than four thousand years ago.”

  “Really.” The word slipped out before Martin could stop it. In truth, he was torn between wanting her to go on, so that they would ignore him, and wanting her to shut up.

  “Yes, of course. Don’t you agree?”

  “I haven’t made any study of science.” Martin was trying to be noncommital, but, as soon as he said it, he realized that his answer had come out as either a challenge or an evasion.

  “What about the Bible?”

  “Bernadette!” Mme Picard obviously thought her daughter had gone too far. Picard, on the other hand, pulled back from the table to get a better view of the fray.

  “Well, I think she got what she deserved.” Bernadette glared at Martin.

  Well said, Martin thought, you and all the pious women of Aix.

  “Dear, that is not a very Christian attitude.” The mother moved in to quell the flames.

  “And when, my dearest, have Christians ever been Christian?”

  “René!”

  “Here we go again!” Amélie interjected with impish delight. This was obviously an old and familiar argument, but, as far as Martin could tell, the mutual affection of the Picards was older and deeper still. Their exchange reminded him how his own father had tried to tease his mother out of some of her opinions, although his father would have never displayed the notary’s pomposity.

  “Still,” Bernadette was not about to give up the floor, “I want to know what M. Martin thinks. Do you think she deserved what she got?”

  This was an easy question to parry. “No one deserves to be murdered.”

  “Well, she went to the quarry by herself, she lived in sin, she was a hypocrite who acted like she was religious when she really wasn’t.”

  A red heat was rising from Martin’s neck to his forehead. He did not know why, but he was sure that Solange Vernet had practiced more true virtue in her short life than Bernadette Picard would in a hundred years.

  “M. Martin, are you all right?” Lucie’s hand fell gently on his wrist. He realized that he was clutching his fork and glaring at Bernadette. He gave his head a shake. How gauche and unreasonable to be angry with a young girl, just because she was expressing conventional opinions. “I’m sorry, I was just thinking.”

  “About her?”

  “Solange Vernet? Yes.”

  “It must have been horrible to see her afterward,” Lucie said as she pulled her hand away.

  “Yes.” It had been horrible, and he hoped that the girl’s sympathetic intervention would end the conversation.

  “Do you think he did it? Did you talk to him? Do you think he is a murderer?” Amélie’s eyes were large and excited.

  “M. Westerbury?” Martin had regained his composure. The child was asking the obvious question, innocent of prejudice and judgment.

  “Yes, yes. M. Westerbury. The lecturer. The Englishman. Did he do it?”

  “I’m sorry, but I cannot speak of any specifics of the investigation at this point.”

  Even this vague, innocuous answer seemed to thrill little Amélie, if only because it sounded so official. She was speaking with the investigating judge who was going to catch the man who had committed the most heinous crime in all of Aix. If only, Martin thought, if only and soon.

  “I know you should not speak ill of the dead, but,” although Bernadette sounded somewhat chastened, she was not to be dissuaded, “I just wondered what you thought of her when she was living. The kind of life she was leading. The lies she propagated. After all, like Maman said, she didn’t even know how to act like a lady. Where did she get all that money?”

  “Well, I can probably say more about that than our young judge.” Picard had given up the stage for far too long. “The money was hers, not his, and I believe that she earned it.”

  “Earned it?” This took Mme Picard aback. “A woman earned a fortune?”

  “Well, you know that I don’t like to talk about my clients’ business, but since she is dead, I can tell you that she was a very successful milliner in Paris. In a poor neighborhood, but obviously she attracted a rich clientele.”

  “A hatmaker? What kind of family did she come from?”

  Picard looked at Martin, who shrugged, noncommital. He could have recited another official-sounding, meaningless piety about the “ongoing investigation,” but he didn’t bother. The truth was that he did not know. And he should.

  “I’m sure M. Martin, being a man of the world,” the notary declared, “does not find it all that shocking that a woman made her own way. And when he finds out how, I’m sure we’ll all know about it. It will be in the papers. And if we are polite, perhaps M. Martin will grace our table again.”

  “La Croix said that she was a woman of ‘indeterminate origin,’ whatever that means,” Bernadette sniffed. “I can just imagine.”

  “Girls, girls, enough.” In Mme Picard’s circles, it was a mother’s first duty to keep her daughters from such imaginings. “Your father’s right. Let’s engage our guest in more pleasant conversation. Lucie, would you bring the pears and cheese from the sideboard and call Hélène to ask her to clear?” Now that Mme Picard had had the fun of springing the surprise of her brief encounter with Solange Vernet on her family, she was pulling them back to proper form.

  Martin hoped that the rustle of Lucie’s movement covered his sigh of relief. The rest of the meal continued in a more pleasant vein. The fruit was ripe and delicious, and so was the cheese. They conversed about the Picard country home, the coming theater season in Aix, and the differences between the food of the north and the south.

  Despite the fact that the family banter released Martin from having to strain to find things to say, he grew more and more uneasy as the afternoon wore on. Bernadette’s remarks had roused unexpected anger in him. What right did she, a thoroughly conventional and inexperienced girl, with a privileged place in the smug society of Aix, have to look down upon Solange Vernet, who had worked hard to make something of herself? By all accounts, Solange Vernet had always treated others with graciousness and compassion. Cézanne had loved her deeply. Westerbury said that she was a remarkable woman. Because of the boy, because of Merckx, and because of his own fear of exposure, Martin had been neglecting in his own mind the first victim to whom he owed justice. He realized that he urgently needed to do more than clear up this or that detail of her life. He longed to know her. Who was she really? Where had she come from? What had she hoped for? Only Westerbury could begin to answer these questions.

  Monday, August 24

  Until Darwin, what was stressed by his present adherents was precisely the harmonious co-operative working of organic nature, how the plant kingdom supplies animals with nourishment and oxygen, and animals supply plants with manure, ammonia, and carbonic acids. Hardly was Darwin recog
nized before the same people saw everywhere nothing but struggle.

  —Friedrich Engels, Dialectics of Nature, 1872-827

  19

  THE NEWS SHOULD HAVE BEEN GOOD, but it could not have been worse. Martin was at the back door of the courthouse ordering a gendarme to fetch Old Joseph, when Franc interrupted them.

  “I just spoke with the Englishman. He said he’d tell you everything you need to know. But he insists that you come to him, in his cell, alone.”

  “That’s odd. I was planning on interrogating him in chambers—all day if necessary,” Martin said with an ironic grin. Franc did not return his smile. Was his intrepid inspector upset that Martin might be the one to break the case?

  “He says he won’t talk there. Only in the cell.”

  Martin thought for moment, then shrugged. If Westerbury was really going to tell the truth, then Martin was ready to meet him anywhere.

  “I—” Martin was about to agree when he realized that Franc was scrutinizing him, watching his every reaction.

  Franc took hold of Martin’s arm. “Before you do anything else this morning, you need to come downstairs to identify a body.”

  The blow struck Martin hard in the chest. Another murder victim? Or, was it the unthinkable: they had found Merckx.

  “He was wearing your jacket.”

  If his life had not depended on his staying on his feet, Martin might have fainted. His ears began to ring. He could not move, he could not breathe, he could not speak. It was as if he were drowning. Merckx. Or maybe—this was a crazy hope, he knew, but it was his only hope—maybe it was someone else, someone who had waylaid Merckx or taken the jacket from under his head while he was sleeping in the woods. Maybe it was a poacher, a prankster, or a common thief. But every rational bone in his being told him there was no hope.

  “Sir?”

  “I’m just confused about how someone could have gotten my jacket.” A feeble lie if there ever was one. “Did you find any identification on him?”

  “Only a passport, obviously false. I suspect he was a deserter.”

  By now the fear had coalesced in Martin’s chest, weighing him down. Soon he would be gasping for air. But he had to breathe, move his legs, and think. Most of all, at this moment, he had to show a willingness to go the morgue.

  Suddenly he felt Franc’s heavy hand on his shoulder. “Come on now. Remember, we are a team. We’re in this together.” This gesture only told Martin that his fright was all too evident. It did not tell him whether Franc intended to be an accuser or a friend. Nor did it tell him how much Franc knew or suspected. And if Franc knew or suspected anything, how could Martin ever be sure that his ambitious, ever-vigilant inspector would keep his silence?

  Afraid that any of the questions whirling around in his head might tumble out, Martin said nothing. He nodded his assent, pulled away from Franc, and crossed the street to the prison. As he descended into the basement, he kept reminding himself not to hang on to the railing for support. Franc was two steps behind him.

  Dr. Riquel was waiting by the covered corpse. Despite a numbing sensation in his chest and limbs, which made it almost impossible for him to walk toward the table, Martin somehow did just that. He took a place opposite Riquel, who said his good-mornings and began to peel the sheet from the body. The first thing Martin saw was the corn-yellow hair, then the pallid thin face. Martin’s knees would have buckled under him if he had not been holding on to the edge of the cool iron slab.

  “How?”

  “Shot by two of my men,” Franc answered from behind. “We heard there was a deserter in the district, Jean-Jacques Merckx, and that he was an anarchist and a traitor.”

  And my oldest and best friend. My impossible, demanding, and persistent conscience. Martin could not stop the tears, so there was no use denying that he knew the dead man.

  “Was he running away? Did he say anything before he died?” Did he mention me? Did you have to shoot him?

  “We tried to get him to stop, but he kept running.”

  This could not be. Any normal man could outrun the sickly Merckx. Martin looked down at the body. Four bullet holes had pierced Merckx’s emaciated frame.

  Martin swiped at the tears that were running down his cheeks, and forced himself to stop sniveling. Then he pulled the sheet up over his friend’s face. “I can confirm that this is Jean-Jacques Merckx, born in Lille, about twenty-six years ago.” He managed to say this in a steady voice, devoid of feeling. He was getting used to dead bodies. “Merckx was a boyhood friend. But,” his heart began to race as he formulated another lie, “I have not seen him since Paris. He must have found out my address, gone there while I was away, and taken things. I’ve been so busy, I must not have noticed what was missing from my room.” He hastened to add, since they had probably found Martin’s paltry savings on Merckx’s body, “Nor have I had occasion to look in my money box. I assume there’s nothing left.”

  “You hadn’t seen him—?” Franc sounded unconvinced by Martin’s flimsy fabrications.

  “No.” The denial would have come out like a shout if Martin had had the strength. Instead, it was merely a rasp.

  “Apparently he had been asking about you near the courthouse. You were in luck, sir, if you did not cross paths.”

  Franc’s “if” hung in the air. Martin glanced across the corpse at Riquel, who showed no signs of caring one way or the other. “What are you going to do with the body?” Martin asked quietly.

  “I’ll take a photograph.” Riquel was businesslike as usual. “We’ll send it to the army and bury him here in the common grave.”

  With Solange Vernet. Martin had meant to make sure that she would be treated with respect. He had failed her. At least Merckx would not care about being buried in sacred ground. Quite the opposite. A violent and anonymous end was the only one he had ever wished for.

  Merckx’s cold gray hand lay exposed on the table. Martin touched the fingers and said in his heart what he could not say aloud. Good-bye, dear Jean-Jacques. May you find more peace in death than you ever did in life. Martin pushed his friend’s hand back under the sheet while he considered his next move. He had to get away without revealing anything else. He had to find a place to recover his forces.

  Martin turned to Franc. “I assume there is no hurry in going to see Westerbury?”

  The inspector shook his head warily, never taking his eyes from Martin’s face.

  “Well, then, I’m going to let him rot in his cell a little longer. Let’s make sure he knows who’s in charge. I’ll be back this afternoon to decide when and where I am going to interrogate him.” Having delivered this bit of unlikely bravado, Martin turned to the professor to shake hands. “Riquel, thanks as always for your service.” Giving a final nod to Franc, Martin headed up the stairs, leaving his companions to decide for themselves how much of a coward and liar he really was.

  Walking a straight line had never been more difficult. Or more necessary. Anyone could be watching. Franc, a gendarme, even a reporter. Martin passed a café but knew he would not be able to stomach a coffee, or even give the order for one. Habit took him along the narrow streets that led past the Saint-Sauveur Cathedral. He decided to slip inside. It was the one place where no one would bother him, and where he could easily see if someone were following. If they were, he thought with bitter irony, at least they would not accuse him of being a godless anarchist.

  After he closed the wooden door, Martin slid to his left to watch the entrance. Save for a few old women in widow’s weeds, no one else came in. The burning wax and the incense, which still lingered from the morning mass, filled the air with the comforting odors of innocence and childhood. What he saw before him was just as familiar. Two nuns glided from altar to altar, dusting and replacing votive candles. Worshipers were scattered throughout the cathedral, fingering their rosaries or hanging their heads over folded hands. Wrapped in their private sorrows and supplications, they took no notice of Martin.

  The paintings, statues,
and tapestries were all obscured in the vast darkness, but Martin did not have to see the huge crucifix over the central altar to feel its presence. How many visible wounds were there on Jesus’s body? Seven? He should know. Every Good Friday the priests and his mother had recited His sufferings in precise and mortifying detail. Merckx had received four mortal wounds. At least someone in Christ’s entourage had tried to chop off the ear of a persecutor. Martin had done nothing. And he would probably not be able to do anything to avenge his friend’s murder. He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. Before the cock crowed the Passover night into the day of death, Peter had denied Christ three times. Martin had just denied his oldest, dearest friend at least that many times in less than half an hour.

  He stumbled away from the main part of the cathedral into the ancient baptistry, the only part of the church that he liked because of its simple, classic dignity. The rotunda, once part of a pagan temple, was over a thousand years old. Its eight great columns surrounded a square that contained the round recess into which early Christians had stepped to receive the water of baptism. They had entered between the two black columns representing darkness, been washed of their sins, and then left by another, lighter path, spiritually renewed. Now all the marble columns were pockmarked and darkened by age and neglect. Martin stepped behind one of them and began to cry. In an effort to muffle his sobs, he pressed his face against the marble column and clung to it in a cold embrace.

  He had no idea how long it took for him to come to his senses. What would Merckx have said if he could see him now? Martin thought bitterly as he spread out his handkerchief and wiped his face and dripping nose. Certainly he would have mocked the fact that Martin’s mind had so easily turned to old religious myths. Martin sighed as he stared up toward the light that came from the opening in the cupola above the rotunda. Merckx would have preferred to be compared to the anti-Christ rather than the Christ. He would have asked Martin why he wasn’t thinking about Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity instead of religion. Neither God nor Master, remember? That was Merckx’s motto. If you know what justice is, not bourgeois justice, but real justice for the poor, the weak, and the sick, then to hell with the state. No need to be honest with them. Do not think of St. Peter, do not think of having to become a martyr for me. Go on. At the very least, be a man.