The Belly of Paris (14 page)

Florent sometimes spent as much as an hour with Gavard, marveling at his endless babble and how confident he was surrounded by petticoats. Interrupting one woman, then picking an argument with another ten stalls away, and grabbing a customer from a third, he made more noise by himself than the hundred or so talkative neighbors who raised such a clamor that the steel girders thumped like tom-toms.

The poultry seller's only relatives were a sister-in-law and a niece. When his wife had died, her older sister, Madame Lecœur, who had been widowed for a year, had mourned her in an exaggerated fashion, going every evening to console the bereaved husband. At the time she was entertaining the idea that she might somehow take the still-warm place of her dead sister. But Gavard could not bear thin women: he said it pained him to feel their bones under the skin. He didn't even pet cats and dogs unless they were very fat. He derived a personal satisfaction from the feel of round, well-fed backs.

Madame Lecœur, her pride wounded, but worse, furious to watch all those hundred-sou coins the rotisserie brought in slipping from her grasp, nurtured a deep grudge. Her brother-in-law
became her enemy, and this animosity preoccupied her days. When she saw him set himself up in the market only two steps from where she sold her butter, cheese, and eggs, she accused him of having done it just to annoy her and bring her bad luck. From then on she was always complaining and turned so yellow and melancholy that she really did start losing customers and her business turned sour.

For a long time she had been raising the daughter of one of her sisters; a peasant woman had sent her the child and never given her another thought. The child grew up in Les Halles. Since she was named Sarriet, which was her family name, she soon became known as La Sarriette. At the age of sixteen, La Sarriette was such an alluring young street wench that men would come and buy cheese just to see her. With her pastel face, dark brown hair, and eyes that burned like embers, she was not interested in gentlemen but preferred people from humbler classes. Finally she chose a fort from Ménilmontant who worked for her aunt. When she was twenty, she established a fruit-selling business with some funds from an unknown source, and from then on Monsieur Jules, as her lover was named, was seen with spotless hands, a clean shirt, and a velvet cap; and he came down to the market only in the afternoons, wearing slippers. They lived together on rue Vauvilliers on the third floor of a large house with a sleazy café on the ground floor. La Sarriette's ingratitude capped Madame Lecœur's growing bitterness, and she hurled barrages of scatological abuse at the girl whenever she spoke to her.

The girl conspired with Monsieur Jules to invent stories that they spread throughout the butter pavilion. Gavard thought La Sarriette was funny and indulged her, stroking her cheeks whenever he ran into her. She was plump and succulent.

One afternoon, while Florent was sitting in the charcuterie, weary from the useless trek he had made all morning in search of work, Marjolin entered. This chunky youth, with his Flemish blend of heft and sweetness, was Lisa's protégé. She would say that he had a complete absence of malice and was a little stupid, but was as strong as a horse and a bit interesting in that no one seemed to
know anything about his mother or father. It was she who had gotten Gavard to give him a job.

Lisa was at the counter, annoyed by the sight of Florent's dirty shoes, which were tracking mud onto the floor's pink and white tiles. She had already gotten up twice to toss handfuls of sawdust on the floor. She smiled at Marjolin.

“Monsieur Gavard,” said the young man, “has sent me to ask …” He stopped, looked around, and lowered his voice. “He told me to wait until you were alone and then repeat these words, which he made me learn by heart: ‘Ask them if there is any danger or if I can come talk to them about the matter they know about.’”

“Tell Monsieur Gavard that we're expecting him,” said Lisa, who was used to the mysterious ways of the poultry vendor.

But Marjolin did not turn to leave. Instead, he remained in his tracks in a state of ecstacy before the beautiful charcuterie mistress.

As though moved by silent adulation, she asked, “You are happy at Monsieur Gavard's? He's not a bad man, and you should try to please him.”

“Yes, Madame Lisa.”

“But you're not being sensible. Only yesterday I saw you on the roofs of Les Halles. And you were with a bunch of lowlifes. You're a man now, and you should be thinking of your future.”

“Yes, Madame Lisa.”

But then she had to tend to a customer, a woman wanting a pound of pork chops and cornichons. She got up from the counter and went to the chopping block at the far end of the shop. There, with a slender knife, she separated three chops from a side of pork. Lifting a cleaver with her bare, strong hand, she gave three sharp blows. At each blow her black merino dress rose slightly behind her and the stays of her corset showed under her tightly stretched bodice. With great seriousness, her lips tight, her eyes wide, she slowly gathered up the chops and weighed them.

When the lady had left, Lisa saw Marjolin, enraptured at the sight of her delivering those three blows of the cleaver, so clean and powerful. “What, you're still here!” she shouted at him.

He started to leave, but she held him up for a second. “If I see
you again with that little tramp Cadine … don't deny it. This morning again you were together at the triperie, watching them splitting sheeps' heads. I don't understand how a handsome man like you can be interested in a slut like Cadine, the little grasshopper. Okay get going and tell Gavard that he should come now, while there's no one in the shop.”

Marjolin walked off in confusion and despair, without saying anything.

Beautiful Lisa stood at her counter, her head turned slightly toward Les Halles, while Florent studied her in silence, surprised to find her so beautiful. Until that moment, he had never really seen her. He didn't know how to look at women. She appeared to him over the meats displayed on the counter. In front of her, laid out on white plates, were dried sausages from Arles and Lyon, tongues and pieces of petit salé boiled in water, pigs' heads covered in jelly an uncovered crock of pork rillettes, a can of sardines whose torn-back lid showed a lack of oil inside, and then to the right and the left, set up on boards, were Italian pains de fromage and fromage de cochon,
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an ordinary pale pink ham, a York ham with deep red meat sealed in a layer of fat. There were round and oval dishes with stuffed tongues, a truffled galantine, and boar's head with pistachios, while closer to her, within her reach, stood yellow earthenware crocks with larded veal, pâté de foie gras, a hare pâté.

Since Gavard had not shown up, she arranged some lard de poitrine
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on a little marble shelf at the end of the counter and straightened out the crock of saindoux
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and the crock of fat drippings from the roasts, wiped down the platters on each side of the balance scales, and poked around the waning fire in the food warmer. The perfume of meat rose and overtook her in a heavy truffle-scented calm. That particular day there was a wondrous freshness to Lisa. The crisp whiteness of her apron and sleeves reflected in the whiteness of the plates around her, and above, her plump neck and rosy cheeks showed, echoing the pastel of the hams and the paleness of the transparent fats.

Florent began to feel intimidated by the sight of her, made uneasy
by her primness. He stole looks at her from the mirrors around the shop. He could see her from behind, in front and in side view, and even from the ceiling, which showed the tightly rolled chignon and the bangs along her temples. The shop was packed with a crowd of Lisas, showing their broad shoulders, the strength of their arms, their round breasts so stiff and inexpressive that they aroused him no more than the sight of a belly would. He stopped himself, settling on one of the side views at the mirror next to him, between two sides of pork. Along the line of marble and mirrors ran hooks from which hung sides of pork and rolls of larding fat, and Lisa, with her strong neck, her round hips, and her swelling bosom, in side views, looked like a trussed-up queen in the midst of lard and raw flesh. Then the beautiful charcutière leaned forward and smiled warmly at the two goldfish forever swimming circles in the aquarium in the window.

Gavard came in. With an air of urgency he looked in the kitchen for Quenu. As soon as he had installed himself sidesaddle at a marble table, with Florent still in his chair, Lisa still at her counter, and Quenu leaning against a side of pork, Gavard announced that at last he had found a job for Florent. And that they would laugh when they heard about it and the government would be stung.

Suddenly he stopped, seeing Mademoiselle Saget push open the shop door only because she had seen from the street such a well-attended meeting at the Quenu-Gradelles'. The little old woman in the faded dress with her ever-present black bag on her arm, in a ribbonless black straw hat that cast a furtive shadow over her pale face, nodded to the men and gave Lisa a caustic smile.

She was an acquaintance who still lived in the house on rue Pirouette as she had for the past forty years, doubtless on some meager income, though she never discussed it. She had once mentioned Cherbourg, saying that she had been born there, but nothing more than that was ever learned about her. She spoke only of other people, of every aspect of their lives, down to how many shirts they had laundered per month, taking her need to peer into her neighbors' existence to the point of listening at doors and opening letters. Her tongue was feared from rue Saint-Denis to rue
Jean-Jacques-Rousseau and from rue Saint-Honoré to rue Mauconseil. All day long she drifted through the streets with her empty basket, as though she were shopping but buying nothing just trading news, keeping up to date on the most trivial of facts, thereby managing to store in her head the complete history of every house, every floor, every person in the neighborhood. Quenu had always accused her of being the one who had spread the story of Gradelle dropping dead on the chopping block, and he had borne her a grudge ever since.

As it happened, she was extremely well informed on the subject of Uncle Gradelle and about Quenu as well. She had collected all the details, examined them from every possible angle, and committed them to memory. But for the last fifteen days, the appearance of Florent had been confusing her and a raging curiosity was consuming her. It made her physically ill when she hit a blank spot in her intelligence. Yet she could have sworn that she had seen this tall loafer before somewhere.

She stood in front of the counter, looking at the dishes one by one and murmuring in her wispy voice, “I never know what to eat anymore. When it gets to be afternoon, I'm like a tortured soul thinking about my dinner. And then, later, I don't feel like anything. Madame Quenu, do you have any of those breaded chops left?”

Without waiting for an answer, she lifted one of the lids on the food warmer. It was the section used for andouille, fresh sausages, and boudin. But the dish had gone cold, and only one stray forgotten sausage was left on the grill.

“Have a look on the other side, Mademoiselle Saget,” said the charcutière. “I think there's one chop left.”

“No, that doesn't do anything for me,” muttered the little old lady, who nevertheless stuck her nose under the second lid. “It was just a whim—but breaded chops tonight would be too heavy. I'd rather have something that I wouldn't need to heat up.”

She had turned toward Florent and was staring at him. She looked at Gavard, who was drumming his fingertips on the marble tabletop. With a smile, she invited them to resume their conversation.

“Why don't you take a piece of petit salé?” Lisa suggested.

Mademoiselle Saget picked up the fork resting on a plate by its metal handle and poked around with it, prodding each piece of petit salé. Lightly tapping each bone to estimate its thickness, she then turned them over to examine the pink meat, again saying, “No, you know I'd really like a breaded chop. But the one that's left is too fatty. I'll have to try another time.”

Lisa bent over to watch her through the sausage skins hanging in the front and saw her cross the road and go into the fruit market.

“The old nanny goat,” snarled Gavard. And since they were now alone, he told them about the position he had found for Florent. It was quite a tale. One of his friends, Monsieur Verlaque, a fish inspector, was so ill that he needed to take some time off. Just that morning the poor man had told him that it would be a great favor if he could recommend someone to take over and keep the position open for him in case he wanted to return.

“You have to understand,” Gavard added, “Verlaque isn't going to last another six months. Florent is going to be able to keep his position. It's a beautiful situation. It will completely dupe the police. The prefecture is responsible for the position. It's going to be a big laugh when Florent starts getting paid by the police.”

He broke into a huge belly laugh, finding it all perversely comic.

“I don't want the job,” said Florent emphatically. “I've sworn to accept nothing from the empire. I would rather die of starvation than work for the prefecture. It's out of the question. Do you understand, Gavard!”

Gavard understood and was slightly embarrassed. Quenu lowered his head. But Lisa turned to glare at Florent, her neck puffed up, her bosom nearly popping its bodice. She was just about to open her mouth when La Sarriette came in and the shop again fell silent.

“Well!” exclaimed La Sarriette with her soft laugh, “I almost forgot to get lard. Madame Quenu, could you cut me a dozen strips, nice and thin? You know, for larks.
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Jules wants to eat larks. Oh, and how are you, Uncle?”

She filled the shop with her swirling skirts and smiled at everyone
with the freshness of milk and her hair on one side falling down from the wind. Gavard took her hands, and she brashly went on, “I'll bet you were all talking about me when I came in. What were you saying, Uncle?”