“Tell me, Lavallée,” Pradelle said with the air of someone making a casual inquiry of no great importance, “roughly how much would a four foot three coffin sell for?”
An hour later, they had signed an agreement in principle. Two hundred coffins a day would be shipped to the Gare d’Orléans. The unit price had slipped to twenty-eight francs. Pradelle was extremely satisfied with the negotiations. He had just paid off his Hispano-Suiza.
15
The driver reappeared once again to inform Madame that Madame’s car was waiting, if Madame would be so kind, and Madeleine gave a brief nod, thank you, Ernest, I’m coming, and said in a regretful tone:
“I’m afraid I really must go, Yvonne, I’m so sorry . . .”
Yvonne de Jardin-Beaulieu gave a little wave, very well, very well, but made no attempt to get up, she was enjoying herself too much, she could not bring herself to leave.
“What a husband you have, my dear,” she said. “How fortunate you are.”
Madeleine Péricourt smiled evenly, stared meekly at her nails thinking “whore” and said, “Come, come, you have your share of suitors . . .”
“Oh, me . . . ,” said the young woman, affecting resignation.
Her brother, Léon, was too short for a man, but Yvonne was rather pretty. For those who like their women sluttish, Madeleine added mentally. She had a large, coarse, eager mouth that immediately evoked salacious images, something men were quick to notice; at twenty-five, Yvonne had already bedded half the Rotary Club. Half the Rotary Club was overstating the matter; Madeleine was being uncharitable. In her defense, it was understandable that she should feel cruel—it had been scarcely two weeks since Yvonne first slept with Henri, and her haste in coming around to visit his wife so that she might enjoy the spectacle was indecent. More so than seducing her husband—no difficult feat. Henri’s other mistresses had been more patient. They had waited for an opportunity to present itself, or contrived an accidental meeting in order to savor their victory. And afterward, as one, they would smile and simper, “Oh, what a wonderful husband you have, my dear, I do so envy you!” One of them, a month ago, had even dared to say, “Take good care of him, my dear, lest someone steal him away . . .”
In recent weeks Madeleine had barely seen Henri, so many trips, so many meetings, scarcely time to screw his wife’s friends; this government order was taking up all his time and energy.
When he did come home, it was late, and she would mount him.
In the morning, he would get up early. But just before, she would mount him again.
The rest of the time, he spent mounting other women, went away on business, called, sent messages, sent lies. Everyone knew he was unfaithful to her (the rumors had first started in late May, when he was seen in the company of Lucienne d’Haurecourt).
M. Péricourt was distressed by the situation. “He will make you unhappy,” he had warned his daughter when she first spoke of marrying Pradelle, but to no avail; she had simply laid her hand on his and that was that. He had given his consent; what else could he do?
“Very well,” Yvonne said, “this time I really must go.”
She had delivered her message; she had only to look at the frozen smile on Madeleine’s face to know it had got through. Yvonne was exultant.
“It was so kind of you to visit,” Madeleine said, getting to her feet.
Yvonne waved, it’s nothing, nothing, the two women kissed, cheek pressed to cheek, lips in midair, must run, see you soon. There was no contest, she was the sluttiest of them all.
This unforeseen visit meant she was now running late. Madeleine looked up at the clock. Perhaps it was better this way, at 7.30 p.m. she was more likely to find him at home.
It was after eight o’clock when the car dropped her at the entrance to the impasse Pers. To go from the parc Monceau to the rue Marcadet did not simply mean crossing an arrondissement, it meant traversing a whole world, from the prosperous to the plebeian, from opulence to indigence. A Packard Twin-6 and a Cadillac Type 51 with a V8 engine were usually parked outside the Péricourts’ elegant mansion. Here, through the holes in the worm-eaten wooden fence, Madeleine could see only a number of broken handcarts and old tires. She was unruffled. There had been limousines on her mother’s side of the family, and handcarts on her father’s, whose grandparents had been humble folk. Though it was now a distant memory, both sides of her family had known poverty and hardship, which, like puritanism or feudalism, never altogether fade but leave their mark on succeeding generations. Seeing his mistress wander off, Ernest, the chauffeur—the Péricourt family had called all their drivers Ernest ever since the first Ernest—eyed the courtyard in disgust, because his family had been chauffeurs for only two generations.
Madeleine walked past the wooden fence, rang the doorbell, and waited for a long while until a woman of indeterminate age finally appeared, then asked if she could speak to M. Albert Maillard. The woman took a moment to process this request, coming as it did from the well-heeled, sophisticated, elegantly made-up young woman whose powdery scent reached her like some ancient memory. “Monsieur Maillard,” Madeleine said again. Without a word, the woman waved toward the far end of the courtyard. Madeleine nodded and, under the watchful eyes of the woman and of her chauffeur, she pushed open the worm-eaten gate and strode confidently through the muddy yard to the entrance to the little outbuilding, where she was lost from view, but here she stopped dead as the stairs above her head trembled under the weight of someone coming down. She looked up and recognized Soldat Maillard, he was carrying an empty coal scuttle; he, too, stopped dead, his foot hovering between stairs, mouthing, “Wh . . . ? What?” He looked utterly lost, just as he had in the cemetery on the day they had exhumed poor Édouard’s body.
Albert froze, his mouth half open.
“Good day, Monsieur Maillard,” Madeleine said.
She studied his moonlike face, his febrile body. A friend of hers had once had a dog that trembled continually; it was not an illness, the dog had always been like that, day and night it quivered from head to tail until one day its heart simply gave out. Albert reminded her of that dog. She spoke in a soft, gentle voice as though afraid that, faced with such a surprise, he might burst into tears or run off and hide in the cellar. Albert said nothing, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, swallowing hard. He glanced anxiously, almost fearfully, toward the top of the stairs . . . This was something Madeleine had noticed about the young man, this constant apprehension, this terror that something was about to happen just behind him; even in the cemetery, last year, he had seemed lost, helpless. With that gentle, naive expression of men who live in their own world.
Albert would have given ten years of his life not to be in this position, caught between Madeleine Péricourt at the foot of the stairs and her supposedly dead brother, who was upstairs, smoking through his nostril, wearing a green mask with blue feathers, looking like a budgerigar. Decidedly, Albert had been born to be a sandwich man. Realizing he had not greeted the woman, Albert tossed the coal bucket aside like a dishrag, extended a sooty hand only to quickly apologize and tuck it behind his back as he walked down the remaining steps.
“Your parents’ address was on the letter you sent,” said Madeleine gently, “I went there. Your mother said I would find you here.” She gestured around her at the outbuilding, the courtyard, the stairs, with a smile as though it were a plush apartment. Albert nodded, unable to utter a single syllable. She might have arrived just as he was opening the shoebox, caught him fetching ampoules of morphine. Worse still, he imagined what would have happened if by some slim chance Édouard had come down to fetch the coal himself . . . It is in such details that it becomes apparent that fate is bunkum.
“Yes . . . ,” Albert ventured, not knowing what question he was answering.
What he wanted to say was no, no I can’t invite you upstairs, I can’t offer you a drink, it’s impossible. Madeleine Péricourt did not think him impolite, she attributed his awkwardness to su
rprise and embarrassment.
“The thing is,” she began, “my father would like to make your acquaintance.”
“Why me?”
The words came out as a heartfelt cry, his voice was strained, Madeleine shrugged, the answer was self-evident.
“Because you were there in the last moments of my brother’s life.”
She smiled as she said this, as she might to an elderly man whose confused eccentricities were understandable.
“Yes, of course . . .”
Now that he had managed to gather his wits, Albert wanted only one thing, he wanted her to leave before Édouard became worried and came downstairs. Or heard her voice and realized who it was below.
“All right . . . ,” he said.
“Tomorrow, does that suit you?”
“Oh, no, not tomorrow, that’s impossible.”
Madeleine Péricourt was startled by the swiftness of this response.
“What I meant to say,” Albert said apologetically, “was some other day, if you like, because tomorrow . . .”
He would have been incapable of explaining why tomorrow was the wrong day; he simply needed time to collect his wits. For a fleeting instant, he imagined what the conversation between his mother and Madeleine Péricourt had been like, and the color drained from his face. He felt ashamed.
“Very well, what day would suit you?” the young woman asked.
Albert turned again and glanced at the top of the stairs. Madeleine assumed he had a woman upstairs and her presence made him uncomfortable, she had no wish to embarrass him.
“How about Saturday?” she suggested. “You could come to dinner.”
She said this in a cheery, almost impetuous tone as though the idea had only just occurred to her and she was sure they would have a rollicking good time.
“Well, um . . .”
“Excellent,” she said. “Shall we say seven o’clock? Would that suit?”
“Well, um . . .”
She smiled.
“My father will be very happy.”
The little social ritual now concluded, there was a brief silence, hesitant, almost contemplative, and this reminded them of their first meeting, reminded them that though they scarcely knew each other, they were bound by a terrible, furtive secret: the exhumation of a dead soldier whose remains they had smuggled away. What had they done with the body? Albert wondered and bit his lip.
“We’re on the boulevard de Courcelles,” Madeleine said, slipping on her glove, “at the corner of the rue de Prony, it’s easy to find.”
Albert nodded again, agreed, seven o’clock, rue de Prony, easy to find. Saturday. Silence.
“Well, then, I must go, Monsieur Maillard. And thank you again.”
She half turned, then turned back and looked into his eyes. This solemn expression suited him, but made him look much older than his years.
“My father knows nothing of the details of . . . you understand . . . I should prefer that it remain so . . .”
“Yes, of course,” Albert said quickly.
She smiled gratefully.
He was terrified that she would press money into his hand again. For his silence. Mortified at this thought, he turned away and went back up the stairs. Only when he got to the landing did he remember he had forgotten to get the coal and the ampoule of morphine. He trudged back down, feeling overwhelmed. He could not seem to think straight, to decide what it meant, being invited to dine with Édouard’s family.
His chest tight with fear, he took the long-handled shovel and began to fill the coal scuttle, and from the street he heard the soft purr of the limousine pulling away.
16
Édouard closed his eyes and gave a long sigh of relief as his muscles slowly relaxed. He grasped the syringe that almost fell from his fingers and set it down next to him; his hands were trembling still, but already he felt his chest free of the vise-like grip. After his injections, he would stretch out for a long time, exhausted, though sleep rarely came. He felt himself drifting, his feverishness ebbing slowly, disappearing like a ship going out on the tide. He had never been interested in the sea, his imagination was not stirred by ocean liners; it must be something contained in these little vials of happiness, because for no reason he could understand, the images they evoked were often nautical. Perhaps, like oil lamps and potion bottles, they drew you into their world. While the syringe and the needle remained but surgical tools, a necessary evil, the ampoules were alive. He would peer into them, holding them up to the light, it was amazing what could be seen inside, a crystal ball had no more magical properties, no more fertile imagination. He drew much from these vials: rest, calm, consolation. The greater part of his day was spent in a hazy, indefinite state where time had no substance. Left to his own devices, he would have taken the injections one after another so he could stay like this, drifting, floating on his back in a sea of oil (more images of the sea, they seemed to come from long ago, perhaps from floating in the womb), but Albert was sensible, every morning he gave Édouard the minimum dose to get him through the day, he noted everything down, and when he came home in the evening, he would read aloud the list of days and dosages like a schoolmaster, turning the pages of his notepad, and Édouard would lie there and listen. Just as he did with Louise and the masks. Passively he allowed people to take care of him.
Though Édouard rarely thought of his family now, he thought of Madeleine more often than the others. He had so many memories of her, her stifled laughter, her conspiratorial smiles, her knuckles rubbing across his skull, that private understanding between them. He felt for her. Hearing that he was dead, she would have felt the terrible grief that women feel when they lose a loved one. But later, time, that great healer . . . Grief, too, is something we grow accustomed to in time.
It could not compare to the enduring horror of Édouard’s face in the mirror.
For him, death was ever present, endlessly ripping open the wound.
Aside from Madeleine, who else was there? A few friends, but how many were still alive? Even Édouard, always the lucky one, had died in this war, so what chance did the others have . . . There was his father, of course, but what was there to say about him? He would go about his business, brusque and boring as ever, the news of his son’s death had probably not set him back unduly, he would simply have climbed into his car and snapped at Ernest: “To the Bourse!” because there were decisions to be made, or “To the Jockey Club!” because there were elections to win.
Édouard never went out, he spent all his time in this apartment, in this hell. Then again, it was not even that—hell would surely be worse. No, what was disheartening was the persistent mediocrity, the poverty, the scrambling to make ends meet. People say you get used to anything, but it’s not true. Édouard had not got used to it. When he could summon the energy, he would stand in front of the mirror and stare at his missing face; he could never find a flicker of humanity in this gaping throat, denuded of jaw and tongue. Those huge upper teeth. The swelling had subsided, the wounds had scarred, but the brute violence of this gaping void remained undimmed, this was the purpose of grafts, not to make you less ugly but to make you more resigned to your fate. With poverty, it was much the same. He had been born into a wealthy family, there was never any need to count the cost because money did not count. He had never been an extravagant boy, though among his classmates at school, he had known boys who liked to flash their money . . . He was not personally profligate, but the world in which he had grown up had been vast, luxurious, comfortable, the rooms always spacious, the seats plush, the meals lavish, the clothes costly; now he found himself living in this rickety apartment where the floors were warped, the windows grimy, the coal scarce, and the wine second rate . . . Everything about this life was ugly. Their finances depended entirely on Albert, it was impossible to find fault with him, he broke his back to make sure there was a supply of morphine, Édouard did not know how he did it, it must have cost a lot of money, Albert was a real friend. His devotion was e
nough to break your heart sometimes, he never complained, never criticized, always pretended to be cheerful though it was obvious that deep down, he was worried sick. There was no way of knowing what would become of them.
Édouard was a deadweight but had no fear of the future. His life had come crashing down in an instant, on a whim of fate, and it had swept everything away, even fear. The only truly overwhelming thing was the sadness.
And even that, over time, had become bearable.
Little Louise cheered him up with her masks, as tireless as Albert, she was a worker bee who brought him newspapers from the provinces. The improvement in his mood—something so fragile he did not confide it to anyone—owed everything to those newspapers and the ideas they had provided. As the days passed, he had sensed a feeling of excitement rising from deep within, and the more he thought about it, the more he experienced the heady euphoria he used to feel as a boy when dreaming up some prank, some caricature, some disguise, something that would shock. Now, nothing could ever be as ecstatic, as explosive as it had been in his adolescence, but deep in his gut he felt “something” seeping back. Even to himself he hardly dared pronounce the word: joy. A furtive, wary, intermittent joy. When he could manage to get his thoughts more or less in order, he occasionally—astonishingly—managed to forget the Édouard he was now, to become again the man he had been before the war . . .
At length, he got to his feet, caught his breath, steadied himself. Having sterilized the needle, he carefully put his syringe back in the small tin box, closed the lid, and set it on the shelf. He moved one of the chairs, carefully setting it down in the right place, and with some difficulty, given his stiff leg, he climbed onto it, gently pushed the trapdoor that led into an attic space too small for anyone to stand upright, a crawlspace filled with five generations of cobwebs and coal dust. With great care, he slid out the bag containing his greatest treasure: a large drawing pad that Louise claimed she had got as part of a swap—though what she had bartered was a mystery.
The Great Swindle Page 19