In the Shadows of Paris (The Predator Of Batignolles) (7 page)

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 Fair
²¹
– 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 help 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:

ROAD CLOSED

He walked round it and arrived at what had once been the bookbinder’s shop. The firemen’s hoses had transformed the charred rubble into a boggy mess. A crack, like a grinning mouth, had spread across the wall of the adjoining building. The remains of books and half-burnt pages lay strewn across the pavement where somebody had left a pile of chairs and a trunk.

‘Any victims?’ he asked a policeman on watch.

‘Fortunately, the men at the storehouse were having lunch at Fulbert’s when the fire broke out!’

‘What about the bookbinder?’

‘He wasn’t so lucky – burnt alive.’

‘He was a friend of mine.’

‘According to the firemen what’s left of him is not a pretty sight.’

Victor shuddered inwardly; burning your finger with a match was bad enough…imagine the agony of being consumed by fire! He could only hope that Pierre Andrésy had been overcome by fumes first.

‘Does anybody know how it started?’

‘The firemen think a gas lamp probably blew out, and the poor wretch lit a pipe or a cigarette and boom! The inspector and the coroner will accompany the body to the morgue, but with all the to-do in the neighbourhood it’ll take time.’

‘I assume there’ll be an investigation?’

‘We’re expecting the detectives to arrive at any moment.’

While they were talking, Victor surreptitiously stepped over the rope cordoning off the area around the shop. The policeman held him back by his sleeve.

‘You can’t go in there, Monsieur. You might destroy vital evidence.’

‘I’m terribly upset. I just wanted to make sure that…’

‘Give me your card and if we salvage any of his personal effects we’ll let you know.’

Victor walked away slowly. Pierre Andrésy’s death had set him thinking about his own existence, which he had been deliberately avoiding. More than half his life had gone by and what had he done with it? The hours spent hunting for rare books, trawling through catalogues, outbidding other dealers at auctions appeared as meaningless to him as his numerous conquests of women – pleasurable interludes that only satisfied a sexual need. By the time he reached Rue des Saints-Pères, he had come to the conclusion that his love for Tasha was what compelled him to engage in battle with this chaos of cruelty, greed and beauty.

Man believes he is able to commune with the divine powers by building places of worship, he thought. Can he not achieve that communion by considering a blade of grass or a bird on the wing, by marvelling at a work of art, or listening to the wind or contemplating the stars at night…

Upon entering the bookshop, Victor was horrified to discover that the three Fates had been replaced by two of the battle-axes. Blanche de Cambrésis, her sharp chin wagging in the direction of the Maltese lapdog Raphaëlle de Gouveline was clasping to her bosom, was as oblivious to his entrance as she was to her companion greeting him with a nod. She was too busy venting her virulent opinions.

‘These excesses are an utter disgrace! The authorities must show these degenerate students no mercy. My husband is quite right. Our Catholic youth is being manipulated by hidden forces that threaten to destroy the very fabric of society. The flood of immigrants from the East is encouraging the spread of socialism! What is this country coming to!…What is it, dear? Do you have a crick in your neck?’

Raphaëlle de Gouveline cleared her throat. The lapdog yapped, and she set it down on the floor next to a schipperke, which growled and bared its teeth.

‘Come now, Blanche dear, you’re letting yourself be influenced by a lot of nonsense. Christian charity teaches us to be tolerant, isn’t that so, Monsieur Legris? What a naughty man you are keeping us waiting like this!’

Blanche de Cambrésis quickly changed the subject when she saw Victor.

‘Did you know that divorce is on the increase worldwide? In Japan one in every three marriages ends in it. Good afternoon, Monsieur Legris. I’m back. This time I’m looking for
The Blue Ibis
by Jean Aicard.’

Victor doffed his hat, taking care to hide his displeasure: he found Blanche de Cambrésis’s aggressive voice as insufferable as her diatribes.

‘Good afternoon, ladies. Joseph will take care of you.’

‘I’m still waiting for him to come back from the stockroom. A charming reception, I’m sure!’

Victor curbed his irritation.

‘I shall return in five minutes. I must speak to Monsieur Mori.’

He left them, and hurried upstairs to the first floor.