by Claude Izner
As soon as Victor Legris and the blond boy had gone back into the shop, Denise crossed the road in what she hoped was a confident manner and went in after them. The blond boy was busy dusting the books on the shelves with a feather duster. At the tinkling of the door bell, he turned his large round head, crowned with dead-straight hair, and smiled at Denise, who gazed at him, blushing, not knowing what to say.
‘Good morning. May I help you?’ When she didn’t reply, he went up to her, smiling more broadly. ‘Are you looking for a book? Any author in particular?’
She noticed that he was hunchbacked. Her brother Erwan had told her once that meeting a hunchback brought luck. She was reassured, without knowing why, although now the boy was scrutinising her in a slightly condescending way. ‘I would like to speak to Monsieur Legris,’ she whispered. ‘It’s…important.’
Intrigued, the boy took in the young girl’s attire. She was badly turned out, her shoes were in a pitiful state and her crinoline was rather skimpy. He noticed the rectangular package that she was clutching to her bosom and from this he concluded that she must be one of those provincial girls convinced they were the next George Sand, come to sell her writings to the booksellers of Saint-Germain. He sighed, and going behind the counter, disappeared up the spiral staircase that led to the first floor. Left alone, Denise stared at the bust of a man wearing a wig and a faintly mocking expression, which was positioned on a black marble mantelpiece. She tried to read the name of the figure.
‘So, you like my Molière?’
The deep voice made her jump. Victor Legris was regarding her with a questioning air. The young man had taken up his duster again and was humming as he dusted.
‘I’m in the service of Madame de Valois, and I…I’ve…’
‘Madame de Valois?’ Victor frowned. The image of his former mistress came to him, her blonde hair loose, her round pink breasts revealed beneath the sheet she had thrown back. It all seemed such a long time ago…how long ago had he left her? Nine, ten months? ‘Yes, I recognise you. Remind me what your name is.’
‘Denise Le Louarn.’
‘Denise, of course. Did Madame send you?’ He suddenly felt guilty.
‘No, no, Monsieur, I came of my own accord. I don’t know anyone in Paris except you, and…’
She cast an embarrassed look at the assistant who was listening to the conversation. At a sign from Victor, he made himself scarce.
‘I have to speak to you, please, Monsieur…It’s about Madame de Valois, I’m so worried.’
Feeling uncomfortable, Victor noticed that the young girl looked pale and uncertain and seemed on the point of collapse. He gestured vaguely, then let his hand fall. ‘Have you had any breakfast?’ Without waiting for a reply, he took her arm and went on, ‘No, neither have I. Come on. Joseph, if anyone asks for me, I’ll be at the Temps Perdu. Leave your things here, behind the counter, Mademoiselle.’
The door bell sounded. Joseph shook his feather duster in exasperation over a rectangular table covered with a green cloth in the middle of the bookshop. ‘Temps perdu, time wasted. How apt – he certainly knows how to waste time. And, what’s more, he leaves me to run the business on my own, poor Jojo!’
He put down his feather duster and, settling himself on a stool, took an apple and a newspaper out of his pocket. He glanced at the front page.
Stop press: In Germany, Paul Lafargue, the son-in-law of Karl Marx, rejoiced at the 4,500 votes received by the socialist Bebel in Strasbourg.
He shrugged his shoulders; he wasn’t very interested in politics. He leafed through the daily until he came to the heading Miscellaneous News and read out loud:
A strange robbery. Last night, unknown individuals broke into the stables of the Omnibus Company depot on Rue Ordener and cut off the manes and tails of twenty-five horses. An investigation is underway…
‘That’s not normal! What on earth are they going to do with horse hair? Make wigs?’
As quick as a flash, he jumped down from his perch, snatched up a pair of scissors and a pot of glue, and pulled a thick black notebook out of his other pocket. He cut out the article and stuck it into the notebook with all the other unusual snippets. Then he bit into his apple and went on with his reading.
The Temps Perdu was on the corner of Rue des Saints-Pères and Quai Malaquais. At that early hour, the café was almost empty. They sat down at a table in one of the little booths opposite the bar. Victor ordered tea. Denise didn’t want anything to drink but she ate some bread and butter and a croissant. She was ravenous.
‘The French are incapable of making tea correctly, even though it’s so simple! This brew is like dish water.’
‘Madame always tells me that I make her hot chocolate badly.’ The young girl wiped a crumb from the corner of her mouth.
Mildly irritated, Victor pushed his cup away. ‘If I understand correctly, you want to leave Madame de Valois. Is she really so unbearable?’
Denise hesitated, lowering her eyes. ‘She was different before…’
‘Before what?’
‘Before the death of Monsieur. Yes, she was demanding and strict, like all bosses, but she also had her good points. This summer, in Houlgate, she was actually very kind; she let me go for walks by the sea while she went to her meetings with Madame de Brix.’
She stopped suddenly, her fingers moulding some crumbs of bread, and cried: ‘She’s the one who put all these foolish thoughts in her head!’
‘Thoughts?’
‘You’ll laugh, Monsieur…Well, that the dead aren’t dead, that there’s an afterlife, not in paradise, but here on earth with us, that they come back to visit us without us being able to see them…things like that. In Houlgate, Madame de Brix took Madame to see a medium. He lived in a beautiful house where very strange things went on. Monsieur Numa, the medium, would lend his voice to the dead so that they could converse with the living. Madame de Brix talked to her son who’s been dead and buried for ages. I didn’t see it myself, it was Sidonie Taillade, her maid, who told me. It made her laugh. She said that her boss was a bit loopy.’
Denise emphasised this statement by tapping her forehead with her index finger. She went on: ‘Madame de Valois changed overnight when the telegram announcing Monsieur’s death arrived from America. It was the end of November and…’
Victor was no longer listening. He was remembering how the Comtesse de Salignac had told him the news with relish: ‘I believe you know Armand de Valois? You can cross him off your customer list – he’s no longer of this world, poor thing, carried off by yellow fever.’ Taken up with his love for Tasha, a painter he had met at the Universal Exposition, Victor had not found the courage to present his condolences in person to Odette and had made do with sending her a rather impersonal note. Tasha…He could picture her as clearly as if she were before him, with her green eyes and red hair tied back at the nape of her neck. He could even hear the slight lilt of her Russian accent. How he missed her! She had been giving him the cold shoulder for two long weeks. And over something so stupid! He had merely dared to disapprove of her proposal to exhibit her canvases at the Soleil d’Or. ‘That insalubrious dive on the Place Saint-Michel? Why not choose somewhere with a better clientele?’ he had suggested. Of course she had taken offence; she was so touchy! ‘Admit it – you’re just jealous! You can’t stand me living an independent life; you would like to shut me up like a concubine!’ she had retorted, flaring up with anger. Jealous…Yes, she was right, but wasn’t that natural when he saw the familiar way the other artists treated her, especially that Maurice Laumier, whom he loathed and who loathed him back?
‘…know that perhaps I shouldn’t say this to you, Monsieur, but…Monsieur, are you listening?’
Victor came back to earth. ‘Yes?’
‘You understand, Monsieur, I think she was worried that the Good Lord had punished her because…well…’ She lowered her head.
‘Punished? What do you mean?’
‘For her affair with you – I
don’t mean to be rude.’
Victor forced himself to smile. ‘Come on, my dear, I wasn’t the only one and, besides, Monsieur de Valois was scarcely a paragon of virtue himself. You worked for them; you must have been aware of that. By the time he died, your mistress and I had long since separated.’
‘I know. But that doesn’t stop her praying several times a day, on her knees, in front of a portrait of Monsieur, framed in black crêpe. I’ve heard her begging him to forgive her. “Armand, I feel your presence, I know you’re here. You see everything. You hear everything. Give your little sugar plum a sign, my duck, I implore you!” Fancy calling a dead man “my duck”! And there’s another thing. She had me close the shutters and pull the curtains on the pretext that Monsieur feared the light, so we live constantly by candlelight. The apartment is like a tomb! And you wouldn’t believe Madame’s bedroom…if you could see how she’s decorated it and what she keeps in her wardrobe…She would have liked a grand funeral with no expense spared on flowers, wreaths and the whole works, but since he was buried amongst the savages, she had a marble plaque engraved, which cost an arm and a leg because of the gold lettering, and she had it placed in the Vallois family chapel in the Pères-Lachaise cemetery. All that frightened me. I’ve tried to convince myself that being widowed has driven her a little mad. She started disappearing every Monday and Thursday afternoon, and when she returned she was…trans…trans…’
‘Transfigured?’
‘Yes, that must be it. You know, like the saints you see on stained-glass windows in churches. The day before yesterday she asked me to go with her. We took a carriage and went to a handsome building in a part of Paris I didn’t know. A lady let us in. I didn’t see her face, she was wearing a veil, but I gathered from the tone of her voice that she was displeased. She took Madame to one side and lectured her because she had not come alone. They shut themselves in a bedroom at the end of a long corridor. I had to wait more than two hours for them to come out. Madame had been crying; she was dabbing her eyes. The lady in the veil said to her: ‘Tomorrow, your mourning will be over on condition that you obey your husband and bring him what he asked for. Then he will be freed from his bonds and you will be able to start a new life.’
‘What did she have to take?’
Denise bit her lip. ‘A picture that Monsieur was very fond of, at least that’s what Madame told me. I went to get it; it was very dark in Monsieur’s bedroom and Madame was in a hurry. We went to Père-Lachaise and that’s where Madame disappeared, I’ve…’
Victor lit a cigarette and blew out the smoke, watching a large brunette woman on the other side of the road. If he had had his camera with him, he would have been able to take a good shot of the light figure against the dark wall. Meanwhile the girl was still prattling on…
‘You have to believe me. I’m not making it up, Monsieur Legris, I swear that it’s true! When I reached the chapel, Madame had disappeared. There was only the scarf that had been wrapped…just the scarf, there on the ground. I went to pick it up, but something struck me, a stone perhaps. But I saw no one. I was terrified and ran as fast as I could to the gatekeeper’s lodge and he advised me to go home. When I got back to Boulevard Haussmann, I looked everywhere, but she wasn’t there. I shut myself in my room and early in the morning someone tried to break in! I sensed an evil presence just as I had in the chapel. If you call up spirits, they appear!’
While the young girl continued her lamentations, Victor, amused, was wondering why Odette had had to think up such a far-fetched strategem just to stay out all night. He found it hard to believe in Odette’s new incarnation as a sorrowing widow desperate to communicate with the spirit of her husband, whom she had betrayed over and over again. Perhaps this time she had two lovers on the go and was trying to fool one of them in order to spend time with the other.
‘Please, Monsieur Legris, I implore you to help me. I don’t want to go back there. I’d rather sleep under the bridges than stay another night in that cursed house!’
‘Don’t worry, my dear, Madame de Valois has no doubt had to go away unexpectedly.’ To be with a loved one, just like Kenji, who is off courting his dear Iris, he thought.
‘But, Monsieur, there really was…a presence outside my door; I didn’t dream it. And Madame hasn’t taken any of her clothes. I would have noticed when I searched…’
While maintaining an air of interest, Victor studied the girl’s lips, but really he was thinking of Tasha. He suddenly had an inspiration. Thanks to this voluble little maid, and to Kenji, he had the opportunity to effect a reconciliation. He stubbed out his cigarette and threw a few coins on to the saucer.
‘It’s all right, my dear. I’ll sort something out.’
Two customers were leafing through some books, one sitting at the big table and the other at the counter where Joseph was standing. Victor beckoned him discreetly.
‘I’m leaving you to look after this young lady. Her name’s Denise – keep an eye on her. I’ll be right back.’
‘But, boss…’
Victor had already gone.
‘Would you believe it! As soon as Monsieur Mori turns his back, Monsieur Legris disappears too! I can’t be everywhere at once,’ grumbled Joseph, giving Denise a black look.
‘Don’t worry about me, Monsieur. I’ll just sit on this stool and wait. If you need any help, please just ask me,’ stammered the girl.
Slightly mollified by this offer and by the girl’s use of ‘Monsieur’, Joseph deigned to smile before turning to help a customer.
In high good humour, Victor set off up Rue Lepic, whistling the opening bars of a waltz by Fauré. He turned into Rue Tholozé and pushed open the doors of Bibulus, a smoky bar with a sign representing a suckling dog. After the dazzlingly bright sunshine, the darkness took him by surprise. He slowly crossed the low-ceilinged room that was furnished with barrels for tables. Two customers, sprawled in front of their glasses of beer, were shuffling greasy cards.
At the counter a large ruddy-faced fellow was drawing pints.
‘Ave, Firmin!’ Victor greeted him.
‘Amen,’ grunted the barman.
Victor went along a narrow corridor and entered a room on the same floor with a glass roof that was kitted out as a painter’s studio. A charcoal stove gave out a powerful heat and the air was heavy with the smell of tobacco. Half a dozen young people were bent over their easels working on studies of the model, a half-naked lady leaning against a pedestal on which a vase of carnations had been placed. To one side, a petite redhead, whose chignon was coming loose, was concentrating on her canvas, covering it with nervous brush strokes. She was wearing an oversized stained smock that came down to her ankle boots. A large man with long hair and a beard was leaning towards her, proffering advice. With flushed cheeks, Victor observed them for a while before making up his mind. ‘Hello Tasha,’ he said, ignoring the bearded fellow.
Surprised, the petite redhead jumped.
‘Can I talk to you in private?’ he added.
‘What happy event brings our friend the bookseller-cum-photographer here?’ asked the bearded man in an aggressive tone.
Victor greeted him stiffly.
‘Maurice, make yourself scarce for a moment, would you?’ said Tasha, giving him a friendly pat.
‘Right away, my beauty, for you, anything…anything at all. In fact, I could frame your pictures for you.’
‘Why are you always so rude to him?’ asked Tasha, putting down her brush. Victor immediately adopted a penitent air.
‘I think I should apologise,’ he said.
‘I don’t expect you to do that; nothing will change his personality. I did warn you though that I will not be treated like an object.’
At that moment enthusiastic cries greeted Firmin who was carrying a tray of glasses. Maurice gave Victor a mocking glance and joined the others crowding round the large fellow, calling him the Bacchus of modern times and the saviour of oppressed artists.
Adjusting her chignon, Tasha to
ok off her smock to reveal a white bodice and mauve skirt, then put on a coat that tied at the waist. ‘Did you want something?’
‘Just a little favour. Would you be able to lend your room to a girl who has nowhere else to go?’
She looked at him in amazement, one glove still in her hand, the other half on.
‘And where will I sleep?’
‘Rue des Saints-Pères. Number 18. The Elzévir bookshop.’
She slowly finished putting on her gloves.
‘You could have thought of a better excuse.’
‘It’s the truth. The girl’s name is Denise and I don’t know what else to do with her. But, even if that weren’t the case, I would have come anyway with some sort of proposition. Two weeks without you; it’s an eternity.’
She hid a smile, pleased to have scored some kind of victory. Several times during the past two weeks she had been on the point of rushing round to see him, risking bumping into his Japanese business associate, who behaved coldly towards her, for some unknown reason. But she had held back, not wanting to be the first to make the move, out of pride, but also out of caution. Victor was too possessive. If she allowed herself, even once, to seek his forgiveness, he would think he had the right to decide upon whom she saw and what she did, and to smother her with love. And that would be the end of the affair…
‘You seem to have forgotten Monsieur Mori.’
‘Kenji is in London until the end of the week.’
‘You’ve thought of everything! How organised you are! Am I supposed to fall into your arms sighing, “When do we leave for your house?”?’
‘You’re supposed to do what you like, knowing that nothing would make me happier than a yes.’
‘I would be able to come and go as I liked?’
‘How could I stop you? I haven’t the strength,’ he said, laughing.