A Citizen Of Nowhere

by Seth Lynch

  A wooden staircase to my left leads upstairs. There must be another one somewhere leading down – a building like this will have a dingy cellar. To my right is a typical concierge door - the bottom half is closed and the top half is open allowing her to listen out for anyone coming or going. I take a few steps towards this doorway when the concierge herself appears.

  'You're too late young man - she's gone. Now sling your hook and don't come around here again.'

  She folds her arms, defying me to speak.

  'But, my dear lady, it is you I came to visit.'

  'Rubbish! If you haven't come sniffing around for that tart on the second floor then you must be a salesman. I don't want whatever it is you're offering and I certainly don't need it.' She leans over the door to look me up and down. 'Where are your samples?'

  'I don't have anything to sell, madam. I am looking for an old friend of mine called Gustave Marty. I was informed that he lived here.'

  This gives her pause for thought and during the pause I make it the rest of the way to her door.

  'Monsieur Marty indeed. And why wouldn't you look for him at work if you two are such good friends?'

  'That's just it, Marty and I are old friends who have lost touch. I know he lives somewhere in Paris. But I don't know if the Marty who lives here is the same Marty I used to knock about with in Belgium.'

  'I see. In that case you will have to wait until six o'clock, which is when he comes home from work. You can't wait here. You'll have to go outside. And I don't want you loitering around the entrance, either.'

  'It's a bit too cold to wait outside for three hours, is there a café nearby?'

  'Near enough, although probably not near enough for you. Cross the bridge and keep on going, you'll come to a café. Eventually.'

  'Perhaps I might be allowed to wait in his rooms.' I reach into my jacket and pull out my wallet.

  'I don't think so.' She shakes her head without taking her eyes off the wallet.

  'I realise it would be an imposition, perhaps I could compensate you for the trouble?'

  I remove a twenty franc note and hold it towards her door.

  'Well, monsieur Marty is a good tenant and I shouldn't want to inconvenience one of his friends.'

  She takes the money and gives it a once over. I almost expect her to bite the corners like it's a Spanish doubloon. After satisfying herself that

  The note is genuine she leads me up three flights of stairs. On each level I look down the corridor and each time I am faced with the open door of the WC. Thankfully none of them are occupied. We reach Marty's apartment where she pulls a key from her apron and unlocks the door. She then leaves and I am free to enter Marty's apartment alone. I'm glad there is no concierge in my building; Filatre would never let anyone into my private rooms for twenty francs.

  The front door enters directly into Marty's living quarters. It's a sparse affair with a dining table in the middle and four chairs around it. The floorboards are in need of a varnish, some of them are in need of replacing. A small corner section of the room masquerades as a kitchen. Judging by the pans piled up on the side I would say that Marty does not eat out. There are no taps above the sink which means no running water; I wouldn't have expected there to be in a building like this. The only door leading off this room, other than the one I came in through, leads into Marty's bedroom. I enter and take a look around.

  He has a cot bed, which has been neatly made up. Near the window there's a washbowl with a mirror hanging above it. The leather strop for his razor is attached to a nail in the window frame. On the bedside table is a photograph of a young woman in her late teens wearing a flowery dress. She stands in a dusty village square; it's somewhere French and warm-looking. At a guess I'd say a town near Toulouse or Bordeaux. If this Marty is the one I am looking for then she is too old to be his daughter and too young to be his lover.

  The apartment isn't the sort of place a stockbroker would live in. If he is still a broker then this is too plain, too far from the city, and too impoverished. I should've asked the concierge where Marty works. I go back to the living room. There's nothing here that reveals any more of his identity. A volume of Baudelaire's poetry has been discarded on the dining table alongside yesterday's newspaper. I spy a cupboard in one of the corners of the room and decide to examine it. Pieces of paper tumble to the floor as I pull open the top drawer. The entire drawer is stuffed full of receipts and scraps of papers with household accounts scribbled on them. I forage around and find a brown folder containing some official documents. A birth certificate: Gustave Paul Marty, born March 13th 1910, Castelnaudary in the department of Aude. Down south, probably where that girl is in the photograph. I follow Jacques's example and cross his name off my list.

  I give the concierge a wave - she rolls her eyes. The wind has picked up and is now escorted by a misty drizzle. I feel tired and want to sleep. If I pull my hat down and lift up the lapels of my coat I could lean against that wall and get ten minutes kip. There aren't too many people around on this island and I don't think there will be until six o'clock. Maybe I could sleep for an hour. The misty drizzle turns to rain. If I sleep outside now I'll get soaked. There was a time when I had spots around the city, in parks and under bridges, where I could go and sleep. It helped that I was dressed like, and looked like, a tramp. The only people who ever disturbed me were other tramps and they soon learnt to leave me alone.

  Instead of riding to the Métro station I could stay on the tram – it would take me within half a mile of home. No, it's nearly four pm, if I go home now I'll fall asleep and I won't wake until eight or nine. Then it'll be too late to go calling on strangers.

  I ride the Métro to the stop at Concorde where I change trains to ride under the Champs-Élysées. Three stops along and I arrive at one end of the rue Balzac. Whilst disliking the Métro I can't fault its usefulness.

  In contrast to the island, people here are in abundance; gathered in doorways or crowding into cafés. They are also sitting in automobiles and driving up and down the road tooting their horns. There are quite a few of them in vehicles parked along the street. They pay a premium to live in the centre of Paris, have all its amenities within walking distance, and then they go and buy themselves expensive automobiles.

  Rain is falling heavily so I scurry along keeping close to the buildings. Here the pavements are wider than elsewhere and lined with trees. The road between the pavements is wider too – creating the spaces you don't find in other areas of the city. This is where the politicians and lawyers live. The bankers, the stockbrokers, the business executives, and doctors live here too. There are also the well-to-do artists, the ones who have made it, like Picasso, alongside the owners of the fashion houses. If the whole district sank like Atlantis, we might miss the doctors but we'd get by.

  A doorman stands to attention outside Marty's building. I hadn't bargained on that. He eyes me suspiciously as I approach.

  'Lovely weather,' I say.

  I knew it was a mistake as the words were leaving my mouth. Don't converse with the staff – it never goes down well. He doesn't reply or step from the doorway or open the door. 'I'm a friend of Gustave Marty's,' I add.

  'Monsieur Marty is not at home, sir. If you would care to wait you may do so quietly in the lobby.'

  He gestures towards a black leather chair in a sparse-looking lobby area. I'm not going to sit in there twiddling my thumbs like an expectant father.

  'Do you know where I can find him?'

  'He's right behind you, sir.'

  I turn to see a man approaching on a noisy motorcycle. I say motorcycle but this looks more like a bicycle with an engine strapped to the top tube. He rides the machine right up to the door before jumping off. He is sporting a brown pilot's jacket and a brown leather cap with goggles. If I hadn't seen him arrive I'd have been searching for his aeroplane.

  'Park it up for me, Hugo,' he says to the doorman.

  'A gentleman is here to see
you,' Hugo replies.

  I touch the brim of my hat by way of introduction.

  'Really, well come in out of the rain, why don't you.' He beckons me to follow him inside. 'What did you want to see me about?'

  This could be the Marty I am looking for. He looks about the right age, late twenties. He has the poise of somebody with money, although I would have pegged him as being from a rich French family. I can't ask him straight out if he is Marty from Namur in case he asks why I want to know.

  'I am not certain if it's you I am after,' I say. 'I am looking for a man named Gustave Marty.'

  'Are you indeed? I am Gustave Marty, so it must be me you are looking for.'

  'That fact will require some conformation, sir.'

  'If my word is not good enough for you, then,' he opens the entrance door, 'I say, Hugo, what is my name?'

  'Monsieur Marty, sir.'

  'There you are, or would you like him to confirm the Gustave part too?'

  He is grinning now and gives his jacket a good shake, flicking rain everywhere.

  'Please understand, monsieur Marty, that I do not doubt your name. I have been asked to find a particular Gustave Marty.'

  'Why is that?'

  'He has been left a sizable inheritance by a great-aunt in Belgium.' Sometimes my best ideas are formed in my mouth.

  'Sizeable, hey. I don't recall having a great-aunt in Belgium. How much was it exactly?'

  'I am not at liberty to reveal that information, sir, but, I assure you, it is a sizable sum. The Gustave Marty I seek was raised in Namur, Belgium.'

  'Drat, that puts me out of the running; I was born and brought up in Paris. Still, I may be related, after-all how many Gustave Martys can there be?'

  I smile politely. I knew it wouldn't be him because I so wanted it to be him. I'm destined to go on seeking Gustave Marty like a modern-day King Pellinore after the Questing Beast.

  'Are you all right, you look a bit peaky?' he says.

  'Fine, thank you,' I reply.

  'Would you care to come upstairs? I can offer you a cognac and a chance to dry off.'

  Anything to delay my trip to the city's northern slums. Marty leads me to a clanky elevator. I have never really enjoyed riding in these contraptions. They are noisy and slow. I could get up these stairs in half the time it has taken us to ride and I wouldn't be dangling by a thread four storeys up. We ride to the top floor where I follow Marty along a corridor to his apartment.

  Once inside we enter a huge room with windows stretching from the floor to the ceiling. The rain has stopped and I can see straight across to the Eiffel Tower, up north to the Sacré-Cœur, and across at the roofs of all the buildings of Paris. Marty hands me a cognac and takes my coat which he hangs over a hot radiator. He comes and stands next to me at the window.

  'Beautiful, isn't it,' he says.

  'It can be. I like the changing colour of the roof slates as the rain starts evaporating,' I say.

  He puts his arm around my waist and moves closer. I push him away.

  'Don't play hard-to-get. I know why you came here, Morineau sent you. All that stuff about great-aunts indeed. Come on, take off your clothes, let me see that sizable inheritance.'

  'Look, mister, if you touch me again I'll break your arm.'

  'Come on, don't play the fool now, I don't care for the hard-to-get act.' He steps forward and tries to kiss me so I sock him on the jaw. He staggers back, holding his chin.

  'You miserable bastard. What did you do that for?'

  'I wanted you to take the hint.'

  'You could have pushed me away. A kiss wouldn't have hurt, but this did. I want you to leave.'

  That's one of his wants I can satisfy. I leave him sitting on the settee rubbing his jaw. I feel pretty rotten and I would have liked to have finished my cognac. I shouldn't feel too bad; I did say no and he didn't listen. I could call the police and have him locked up. Although I would then have to testify in court and I wouldn't want that. I wouldn't want that at all.

  CHAPTER SIX

  By the time I hit the street I'm in a foul mood. The incident with Marty hasn't helped. That's not all of it though. With two possibilities struck off my list I am down to the final Marty. The Saint-Denis Marty.

  During my time in Saint-Denis I lived in a fog of depression. Lack of food, lack of sleep, lack of warmth, all contributed to the downward spiral. I was reduced to crawling the street in rags, living off rancid food and poisonous wine. All this is to glamorise my time there. The hardship, the starvation, it was all a distraction from the interminable boredom. Every waking second was thumped into my head and played over and over until it lost all meaning. Then the next second would begin. I kept company with two war cripples, so disfigured nobody else could tolerate the sight of them. There we were, in the gutter, children too frightened to look at us. Three men tramping from street to street with piss-stained pants, waving our fists at the sky. Three men, who, with our very souls, helped to win the war.

  I've got to snap out of this. Saint-Denis is a name on the map, I won't invest it with supernatural powers. I shan't revert to my past ways the moment my feet dirty themselves on its streets.

  To survive in this game I need my wits about me. I can't afford this self-indulgent wallowing. I'll also need to dress down. For the Saint-Denis trip I'll take my knuckle-duster. I'll strap a knife to my leg an inch above my ankle. Most importantly - I'll wear my holster and gun.

  The rain has cleared up and there is nowhere I need to be, so I'll walk home. When you hold no purpose, and time is no constraint, the city can intrigue and lure you. I move from street to street on whims as all thought of the various Martys slips away. I obtain a state of relaxed semi-contentment tinted by curiosity. The closer I get to home the more I deviate through side-alleys and back streets. The evening is pleasant now and warm for a change, perhaps spring has finally arrived. I like to imagine that I'm encountering all the different aspects of life in the district; I can be foolish that way sometimes. I am encountering the life that comes out during the day: there is another city which exists at night.

  I gaze through apartment windows and watch the plays being enacted there. Some stage sets are empty, the occupants of the apartments not yet returned from work. I would love to travel beyond this view from the street, to know more about those glimpsed lives. Even if I were to float into those rooms, and hover unnoticed up by the ceiling light, I would still not be fully satisfied. I need to know the thoughts passing through their heads - what dreams are these people enjoying or enduring?

  I spy a tatty and intriguing red door. The door is in a redbrick building under a brightly painted sign reading 'Café Copenhagen'. The building is dilapidated and incongruous; there aren't many redbrick buildings in Paris. This one could have been transported here direct from Limehouse: certainly Sherlock Holmes must be disguised as a tramp and hiding inside. Perhaps it is a place where enchantresses gather. Small enclaves of women who spend their nights casting spells across the city, enticing young men to take a walk across the bridge of suicides.

  The physical aspect of the building is uninviting to the point of repugnance. I am compelled to enter. If my feet should attempt to walk away I would turn myself upside down and walk there on my hands. Diversions are found in low dives.

  Nervousness causes me to hesitate as I cross the street. I curse this cowardly sentiment without moving forward. Eventually curiosity overwhelms all other feelings and I proceed. I stand in the empty street before the tatty red door. There is no indication that the place is open. Nor indeed is there any contrary evidence, so I give the door a push. It creaks and opens into a dank corridor which slopes away towards a faint light. Stepping into the darkness I encounter a pungent smell which indicates that this hallway must have been used for pissing in on more than one occasion. Without delay I head for the faint light emanating from a doorway.

  I push the door open and enter a cellar room which has been converted into a c
afé bar. The place feels as if it were deep underground, a forgotten vault in the Parthenon, though I can only be four or five feet below street level. The smell here is pleasant; predominantly a coffee and tobacco medley infused with the unmistakable aroma of marijuana. I linger in the doorway, allowing my eyes to adjust to the dimmed lighting. A gramophone plays a scratchy rendition of Crazy Rhythm which blends with the conversations going on near the bar. Then there is just the music.

  There are five customers in the café plus one waiter. I take a seat at a table by the wall towards the rear of the room. By doing this I am seated at the furthest point from the other customers, who are either looking at me or talking about me. My every action is scrutinised. The waiter arrives promptly to take my order. This could be a criminal hangout or a political hole for the types who throw bombs. What will they do if they decide I am a government spy? They could slip a drug into my drink. My sedated body bundled out the back never to be seen again. I am beginning to sweat a little.

  The waiter returns with my coffee. He has a friendly looking face. I take in the posters on the walls: masked balls and parties. These are not criminals but bohemian students. I relax - students aren't inclined to dispose of unwelcome customers in shallow graves.

  A Russian, who had been sitting near the bar, comes over and joins me. He could be my age or a few years older. The lines engraved in his face tell of a hard life. We exchange brief formalities. He appears to be considering some private joke. His face is amiable, with a small goatee beard and dark eyes. He exudes a certain tranquillity which is broken by spontaneous moments of self-contained glee. When he speaks, it is with a slow and considered voice. His accent is strong although the words are clear. He sells me some hashish which we begin to smoke.