A Citizen of the Country

by Sarah Smith

  While Cyron took his endless curtain calls, Reisden watched the audience. Soldiers, soldiers’ wives and sons and daughters, soldiers’ widows, invalids with crutches, officer candidates from St.-Cyr on an authorized outing, a Conservative minister out of power. Not many students—French students were leftist—but up in the cheap seats, rows and rows of the clerks, the shop assistants, the grocers, cooks and waiters who would feed the cannons in the next war, all of them standing, applauding, shouting for Cyron.

  ***

  Reisden was shown up to Cyron’s office to wait. “He’ll be some time yet, Monsieur,” Cyron’s assistant told Reisden. “His admirers, you know.”

  The office was far grander than Reisden’s at Jouvet. The obligatory official celebrity portrait dominated the room, Cyron in one of his soldier roles, waving a tattered flag. The rest of the walls were covered in silver frames: Cyron and the Marquis de Morès, Cyron and Lucien Pétiot, Cyron receiving the Legion of Honor. But the place of honor among the photographs was given to a very old photograph, small and faded, a thin-faced, big-beaked, spiritual-looking Frenchman in army uniform, standing foursquare by a ruined gate. Reisden recognized the Lazarus Gate at Montfort, battered and unrestored, and with shock, in the face of a man younger than he was, Maurice Cyron, Sergeant Cyron, the hero: the real thing.

  Cyron was a hero; one shouldn’t forget that. Forty years ago, when France had surrendered to the Prussians and given up Alsace and Lorraine, Cyron had been a wounded infantry sub-officer recuperating at Arras. On the raw January day when the French army had been ordered to lay down its weapons, Cyron had staggered out of the hospital and led a ragtag group of soldiers and farmers thirteen kilometers to Montfort hill and Montfort castle, which the Germans had not bothered to conquer. On the hill below the castle, Cyron had begun to pile the scattered stones of Montfort’s walls one upon another and had declared war on Germany. “Alsace shall never be German property! France is and shall be free! I, Maurice Cyron, vow it; let it begin here!”

  No army that defends Montfort and drinks the water of the Holy Well has ever been conquered. Cyron’s army never was. From Montfort to Arras, from January 1871 to 1874, Cyron’s partisans carried on guerrilla war against the Germans. They raided like wolves and escaped like ghosts. They dug tunnels below the German storehouses in Arras, filled them with gunpowder, and set them off. The Germans took hostages; Cyron freed them. While the rest of France starved to pay off its billion-dollar indemnity to its conquerors, in Arras the war was still on and the Germans were losing to one fanatic sergeant from Alsace.

  And, apparently, to witches: but the official story didn’t mention that.

  In 1874, when the Germans had reluctantly left France, Cyron had appeared in Paris, unshaven, ragged, scarred, and a hero. A commissioned officer would have been invited to go into politics. Sergeant Cyron had been given only a theatre contract to re-enact his triumphs. No one had expected he would be more than a novelty. But the army had loved him, and in 1874 the army had owned France.

  They still loved him.

  Showcases at one side of the office were stuffed with demonstrations of it. A pillow an army widow had sent him, embroidered with one of his famous sayings: BECAUSE GOD LOVES JUSTICE, HE LOVES THE FRENCH SOLDIER. A scroll of appreciation from a group of officers. Medals presented to him by old soldiers. Cyron’s gavel as perpetual life president of the Friends of Montfort. A black-bordered photograph of him at a Mass mourning the loss of Alsace; he was in the second row, just behind the generals. Cigaret cards on which his picture appeared, together with the German decree banning the brand in Alsace.

  “What do you want?” The door banged open and there stood the man himself.

  He’d never been handsome; now there were bags under his eyes and chin; but he had the massive presence of an old cannon, still more than capable of firing. He threw himself down on a thronelike chair, his big fingers drumming on the arms. His assistant brought him supper on a tray: sausage, bread, cheese, beer, an apple.

  “So. What? You want me to lay off you? You’re a traitor, boy. I know who raised you.”

  “You know whose service I left. I’d be glad of your support but I want to earn it. I want to help André.”

  Cyron almost spat. “What did you ever do for him! I remember you. ‘Let him be an actor,’” he minced in a German falsetto, ‘”it’s the only thing he’s good for.’”

  Not what he’d said, but all right, let’s play it that way. “Balls, Cyron, if I hadn’t said that, someone else would have.”

  Cyron stared at him. No one spoke that way to Maurice Cyron.

  “His being an actor I can’t fix. I’ll try to do something about his relationship with his wife.”

  “That pansy Jules, it’s all because André’s hanging round with Jules. Get rid of him.”

  “Which will make it sound true. You know Jules is being blackmailed? And the blackmail implicates André? Jules’s blackmailer wants ‘the secret of Montfort’? He thinks there’s a military secret.”

  “Which you’re sniffing round to get? For the Austrians?”

  “I don’t want your bloody secrets.”

  “Montfort is the heart of France. The courage of France. That’s the only secret.” Cyron thumped his chest. Ridiculous gesture from anyone but Cyron. “You wouldn’t know.”

  “The Friends of Montfort are military, yes. The Fortifications of Montfort are a symbol. But the Ferret’s looking for something with guns.”

  “There’s nothing.”

  In the myth that was Cyron, Montfort had a central place. When Cyron had begun to rebuild his adopted son’s castle, his army friends had set up the Friends of Montfort and almost spontaneously, men and money had appeared. Old soldiers volunteered to work on the walls; young recruits mixed mortar under the eyes of a professional builder. And they all gave money. Raise a certain amount for Montfort and you could get your name on a stone in the castle. Raise more and you could build a Fortification. Soldiers were buried under their Fortifications. Once a year there was a Montfort Night at the Théâtre Cyron. A general gave a speech, Rostand contributed a poem, a group of army wives and daughters dressed up as a Living Tapestry of France. As a climax, there was a moment of silence for occupied Alsace.

  “So what do you want?”

  “I want André helped. I want this man out of the picture, because Ferenc Gehazy is a walking pustule. Jules helps to get rid of him. You help to get André into treatment. We help him if we can; we’re good at these things. You stop slandering me.”

  “You’re working for the Boches.”

  Reisden simply shrugged. Cyron, I’m Austrian.

  “There’s no secret of Montfort.”

  “Jules passes Gehazy a false secret, which Gehazy passes to his employers. They act accordingly; you find out who they are.” Reisden laid his offering on the altar. “Suppose Jules says there’s a Marconi antenna on the tower.”

  In the unmagical twentieth century, they’d decided, radio would have to be the secret. With one of the new Marconi transmitters on top of Montfort hill, the French army could send messages into Belgium, perhaps even to Germany.

  “There’s no radio. There’s no secret.” Cyron slammed his hand against his desk. “What’s wrong with my son?”

  “You know him better than anyone. What is really going on with him?”

  “Read your own records.”

  “Jouvet records? You brought him to Jouvet?”

  “When he was a boy. It’s all there.”

  Reisden cursed silently. “I would much rather not tell you this,” he said, “since we like to have a reputation for efficiency. But most of the Jouvet archival records are still in boxes from the flood.”

  And some of them were completely lost, but he was not going to tell Cyron that.

  Cyron almost looked relieved. There is only one force as strong as the family’s desire to cure their madman, and that is the desire to keep their secrets.

  “Tell me what I’ll fi
nd,” Reisden said. “It’ll save time.”

  Over Cyron’s rough face spread an unwilling, bitter sadness. Cyron rubbed his face with his open palm, trying to rub the expression away. “I hadn’t a notion of adopting him,” Cyron said simply. “I was just going to buy the castle. I was meeting with the notaries. Their men, mine, it was above my head; I was sitting in one corner of the room and this little boy was sitting in the other. I went over and began to tell him stories.” Cyron said nothing for a moment, then, softly, “When the meeting was over the kid wanted to stay with me. He took my hand and wouldn’t let go.”

  “So you adopted him.”

  “Everybody says I just wanted the castle for cheap.—I don’t know what happened to him with his parents. His parents died. He was alone with the bodies for a while. One day. Two. He stopped speaking.”

  “You asked Dr Jouvet to look at him.”

  “Just to make sure he was all right,” he grimaced. “He had nightmares. Jouvet said time would cure him.”

  “Time can do that.”

  “Unless,” Cyron said bitterly, “unless some fucking Austrian spyboy told André he should give way to his fantasies, start writing them out, start putting them on stage!”

  “But he always had fantasies?”

  “Oh yes,” Cyron said.

  “Murder in families,” Reisden said. “Violence. Poisoning.”

  “You have read his file.”

  Reisden shook his head. “I’ve seen his plays.”

  “He said I was all right because I was only a stepfather,” Cyron said explosively. “But families murdered each other.”

  “And he’s said so for his whole life.” Of course he had. He had said it onstage. “But you made him marry?”

  “It’s his duty. He’s the Count of Montfort.”

  Reisden said nothing.

  “Why should I have let him neglect his duty?” Cyron said. “You aren’t going to tell him he shouldn’t have married.”

  You shouldn’t have neglected what he was saying. Neither should I. Reisden had been busy… It’s always easy to be busy.

  “Sabine’s a wonderful girl. Stronger than he is. A little nonsensical. But smarter too. He needs her.”

  “Ask your Army friends for a believable false secret of Montfort.”

  “Et puis? And then? What do you want? The Army contract?”

  “Et puis ask Lucien Pétiot whether Jouvet can help France. I’ll do my best with André.”

  Cyron looked up at him. “You cure him. You tell him to have Sabine, or--” Cyron simply pointed his finger.

  Never promise what you can’t do. Except to Cyron. Reisden understood, ruefully, what made Cyron a commander.

  “I’ll get them together if I can.”

  Sabine's talents

  WITH MADEMOISELLE FRANÇOISE, SABINE studied the lore of her kind. When she saw anything in the shape of a cross, she uncrossed it quickly and did the fist or the horns to protect herself. She learned the uses of Saint-John’s-wort and wormwood, pellitory and tobacco. She knew about charms and love philtres and water from the Holy Well of Montfort. She heard from Mademoiselle Françoise how the witches had fought the Germans to keep the Well for France.

  “What a superstitious girl you are,” her classmates said.

  Mademoiselle Françoise agreed to show her something special in the boves. The dressmaker bound her eyes with a piece of satin left over from a dress-measure. Sabine held the dressmaker’s skirt, stumbled down the stairs, followed eagerly through the darkness, and opened her eyes to find herself in a narrow cave. From a crevice in the rock, a carved man’s face smiled down on her, making her welcome.

  At the age of fourteen, under the eyes of the Old Master, she was initiated into the pleasures of her craft and learned why a male sorcerer creates female ones and a female sorcerer males. She learned darkness and laughter, awe and worship and rejoicing. She learned that witchcraft was not spells or curses, love philtres or charms, but flesh and the fate of flesh. A witch would not sit still with pale white folded hands and wait for Heaven; she would love the world and rejoice and tangle with flesh. A witch might burn. (Mobs had burned a witch alive in Germany only thirty years ago.) But until she died, a witch would live.

  Every witch has special talents. Sabine had three.

  First, of course, she would have money.

  Second, she was pretty. She had thick curly hair and white teeth. Mademoiselle Françoise, who had studied in Paris, taught her to stand so as to make the best of her curves and to tilt her head to one side so she looked winsome. “Say parler and not paller,” the dressmaker dinned into her. “Your voice must always be low, sweet, and demure. Sit up straight.”

  And most importantly, Sabine could see death.

  Death was a grey veil. It dropped like grey cheesecloth over Lalie’s face; two days later her old nurse died of a stroke. Sabine often saw veiled people on the street. She knew that death was everywhere. It made her happy to be young and alive while other people were going to be dead.

  During the Easter vacation when she was sixteen she saw grey drop over her father’s face. She was extra nice to him, making sure that his meat was fatty and even a little rancid, so that he could be sure it had not cost too much. But when she got back to Arras, she rushed off to see her dressmaker.

  “Make me black clothes,” she said, “and make them pretty. I’m going to Paris.”

  ***

  It was Mademoiselle Françoise who first told her about the great Count of Montfort. He lived in Paris, Sabine heard. He had never married. He suffered under a curse. He acted on the Paris stage under the name of Necrosar. Sometimes Sabine saw his black closed carriage waiting by the railroad station. Once she saw him from a distance, but couldn’t see his face. In the illustrated papers she found a picture of him. She ripped all the other pictures off the inside lid of her trinket-box and pasted his there alone.

  He was accursed; he was handsome.

  He owned the Holy Well.

  The Holy Well that belonged to her people. She could get it back.

  It was hard to get to the Grand Necropolitan Theatre; at midnight one was supposed to be in bed long ago, as if one was a little schoolgirl and not a sorceress! Sabine climbed out her window with her skirts hiked up and her shoes and stockings in her hand.

  She fell in love the first time she saw him. He, he, he, tall and strong, white and strange, in black lipstick and eyes rimmed with black. The dark, Necrosar said. Everyone’s afraid of the dark. It was true; no one knew better than Sabine how you could be afraid of what delighted you. The dark is power; the dark is death. In the dark everything happens. No one understood Necrosar like Sabine.

  “I’m going to marry Necrosar,” she told Françoise.

  “André de Montfort has no money,” her Paris friends said. Sabine knew that. She felt the threadbare chair-arms at the Necro; she saw the holes in the carpet. The lead actor helped to build sets. The lead actor’s sister was the bookkeeper and swept the auditorium at night.

  “I have money,” Sabine said.

  “He doesn’t like women,” her Paris friends said.

  “I’ll fix that,” Sabine said. “He’ll like me.”

  A question of poison

  REISDEN LOOKED FOR ANDRÉ’S file at Jouvet. In a well-run company, André’s file would now be between MONTFI and MONTJ.

  It wasn’t there.

  It wasn’t misfiled close by on either side. It could have been lost during the flood, but far more likely it was in the boxes of records still to be sorted and re-filed. He called Roy Daugherty, friend and ex-American detective. Daugherty had spent most of his working career looking for Richard Knight, but was living just outside Paris now, painting. Roy was trustable with any secret.

  “Son, do I got to?” Daugherty grumbled. “Dang on bein’ useful anyway.” But he promised to come in and find André’s file, if it still existed.

  Reisden hung up, smiling.

  Lucien Pétiot called on him in the a
fternoon. “Cyron asked me to tell you you can use the Marconi radio idea.”

  That was surprising. Reisden decided to consider it encouraging. Pétiot said he himself would come up with documents to make the secret look authentic.

  Reisden called on Jules and gave him the news just before the Most Assassinated Man was about to leave for the Necro. Jules nodded grimly and left; Ruthie held Reisden back a moment.

  “Will this make these horrible threats stop?”

  “Pétiot has promised to arrest the Ferret and deport him afterward.” That wasn’t yes. He couldn’t in conscience say yes. But the Ferret had tended to play fair.

  “My brother is a good man.”

  “I know, Ruthie.”

  Ruthie drew a deep breath and visibly pushed the issue away.

  “You’re going to Montfort with Monsieur André?” Ruthie said.

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Take him out to lunch and dinner in Arras,” Ruthie said in a shamefaced rush. “He won’t eat anything she cooks.”

  “Why not?”

  “When he was in Egypt with her,” Ruthie said. “He… I think he got food poisoning, but he says she poisoned him. He doesn’t trust her.”

  “He thinks she poisoned him, like his mother poisoned his father?”

  “Of course she wouldn’t!” Ruth said.

  “Ruthie?”

  “She might have,” Ruthie said, unwillingly. “Given him some kind of charm. Monsieur Heurtemance sells them.”

  “Ruthin, do you know what exactly happened when André’s parents died?”

  Ruth shook her head.

  “Wish me luck, because I have to find out.”