The Disappearance at Père-Lachaise

by Claude Izner

  She nodded yes. ‘You’re very kind.’

  ‘I’ll read you the first chapter of my book.’

  ‘You write books? Do you know The Oracle for Ladies and Girls?

  ‘I specialise in crime stories.’

  ‘Like the ones that I saw in your shop window? What’s the title?’

  Joseph hesitated, it was the first time he had revealed his secret. No one, not even Valentine de Salignac, the love of his life, knew about his literary activity.

  ‘It’s called Blood and Love.’

  ‘Love…I prefer love to blood.’

  ‘Don’t worry, there’s much more love than blood, but, you know, you have to make some concessions to please the reading public.’

  He bowed somewhat grandly, and kissed her hand, happy to be able to try out his best manners on this naïve young girl, before addressing himself to the niece of the Comtesse. Blushing, Denise stayed rooted to the spot long after the young man had departed.

  He rushed down the stairs imagining himself in an embrace with Valentine. As he left, he gave a friendly greeting to a young man hanging about on the pavement clutching a bouquet of flowers.

  Chapter Three

  Denise was roused from her slumber by a regular tapping noise. She got out of bed in her undershirt and petticoat. Tiny drops were trickling from the flaking ceiling and splattering into the three pails placed under the main beam. Balancing on a rickety stool, she opened the skylight. On the edge of the gutter two magpies were busily pecking at the zinc, but she took little notice of them. What caught her attention was the sea of slate roofs that stretched out as far as the eye could see, punctuated by the red or grey stalks of the chimneys. The cold forced her to retreat.

  Once she had dressed and made her bed, she breakfasted on a glass of water and the apple Joseph had given her the night before. The juicy acidity of the fruit reminded her of that September afternoon when Ronan and she had gorged themselves on mulberries in the Forêt de Nevet, while dreaming of their future. She had promised herself that if she ever became rich, she would never again go near a kitchen stove.

  She took the time to brush her hair thoroughly in front of the mirror above the sink and with a moistened finger fixed a lock of hair in place on her forehead. Would the hunchbacked boy who had promised to come later in the morning approve? He wasn’t very handsome, but he was so kind! Would he think she was pretty? When she was a little girl, her mother had loved to stroke her hair, calling her ‘my pet’. But Madame had treated her like a slattern, and old Hyacinthe had said she was skinny as a rake. As for pretty, was she? No man had ever told her so.

  She returned to the bedroom to tidy the things on the table. A little bookcase built into a recess in a wall aroused her curiosity. She read out the gilded lettering adorning the spines of some of the beautiful bound books that were on the shelves along with some tattered paperbacks: Bel-Ami, Treasure Island, An Island Fisherman. Leaning against the books were two sepia-tinted photographs, one of Tasha, the young redhead whose room it was, the other of Victor Legris. She opened her bundle of belongings, took out her silver crucifix, and placed it next to the chromolithograph of The Madonna in Blue on an easel bearing a large painting of a male nude. Standing back to judge the effect, she felt pleased at having managed to add a personal touch to the room. But, almost immediately, her fear came rushing back. She hurriedly thrust the crucifix under her bodice and then hid The Madonna in Blue between the frame and the canvas of the nude.

  Sitting on the bed, she tried to concentrate on the numerous pairs of lace gloves scattered around the garret. But she couldn’t help it: her gaze was continually drawn back to the repository of her secret, the nude, a three-quarter study of a slightly round-shouldered man, his arm raised to reach for an open book on a chest. Although the picture shocked her, she couldn’t take her eyes off the buttocks, round as pearls. She closed her eyes and let herself fall backwards, giggling. Was it a picture of the bookseller? Who would ever think of looking for The Madonna in Blue behind his naked figure?

  The chiming of bells in the distance told her that it was ten o’clock. For the first time in years, her time was her own. Surely this was happiness? A room of one’s own, the prospect of a stroll with a young man and no mistress to give her orders. To accentuate the enjoyment she felt at lounging on the bed, she took pleasure in running through the things she would have had to do that morning, had she still been in Madame’s service. At this moment she would have been hurrying through the streets, burdened with a shopping basket, scouring the stalls for vegetables and cakes that would please her mistress. With half-closed eyes, she drowsily repeated to herself: ‘If Madame returns, what will she eat? Sticks and stones…’

  ‘Two rabbit heads, surely you can spare them? Come on, Goglu, do a good deed and God will reward you a hundredfold!’

  ‘What would I want with a hundred rabbit heads, Père Moscou?’ asked the butcher mockingly, fixing a side of beef on to a hook. ‘I know your type, you old fraudster, you’d pass catmeat off as rabbit!’

  ‘And so what! When it’s well cooked, meat is meat!’

  ‘Catch!’ cried the butcher, throwing him the two bloody heads. ‘And don’t come back, Moscou. I’ve got more important things to worry about than dishing out ingredients for your soup – they don’t come cheap!’

  ‘My heart bleeds for you, Goglu. You make me want to blub!’ cried Old Moscou furiously.

  He narrowly missed one of the market porters of Les Halles bearing down on him, a carcass on his shoulders, yelling: ‘Watch out, watch out in front of you!’

  He crossed the Pavillon de Baltard, where all the meat was displayed. The tortured flesh, destined to satisfy insatiable appetites, was spread out in a symphony of red. Meat cleavers were crushing skulls, carving knives slicing haunches. Men in vermilion-stained aprons barked out orders while wagons piled with carcasses just missed crashing into each other. The sweetish odour pervading this slaughterhouse was making Père Moscou feel ill and he swayed, incapable of moving, a rabbit head clutched in each hand. He was haunted by the image of the woman’s body in his cart; it was suffocating him. What had he done with the body? He could picture himself digging a hole under the trees of his courtyard, but had that really happened or was it a nightmare?

  ‘Josephine, you filthy traitress, you’re making me see things! Or maybe it’s you, Emmanuel!’

  ‘Oi, tosspot, go and sleep it off somewhere else! The rest of us is doin’ an honest day’s work ’ere,’ a butcher’s boy shouted at him.

  Père Moscou jerked back to life like a mechanical toy and started walking, muttering: ‘And I’m not? I may work for the King of Prussia and collect bugger all, but it’s better than nothing.’

  He glanced at the rabbit heads before shoving them into his pockets. He could now go to Marcelin’s or to Cabirol’s but first he would have to take the cats back to the Cour des Comptes. While he was there he would check if he really had buried a Josephine on his turf.

  He walked past a stall of eels. There were about a dozen of them, soft and slimy, intertwined on a wicker trug. He spotted his friend Barnabé.

  ‘Well, well! What you are you doing here?’

  ‘As you can see, I’m stocking up, the missus likes matelote.’

  ‘Ugh! It’s rotten, that filthy mess.’

  ‘Yes,’ laughed Barnabé, ‘but it’s cheap. With a good sauce on top, it slips down nicely. A drop of wine?’

  ‘No time!’ barked Père Moscou, feeling sick.

  A dull, persistent fear, such as he had never before experienced, gripped him as he emerged into the freezing day. Every couple of minutes he turned round to check that he had not been followed. Two girls of easy virtue, finding this amusing, taunted him on Rue Rambuteau and some urchins followed him to an area full of vendors’ wagons. The vendors had piled their wares on the pavement and were starting to sell them, their street cries ringing out.

  Stopping near a soup seller, Père Moscou extracted a ten centime piece
from his old frock coat and greedily seized a steaming bowl. One of the urchins threw a stone at him, nearly overturning the bowl.

  ‘The guillotine for you!’ bellowed the old man, shaking his fist.

  ‘Cowardy cowardy custard, your nose is made of mustard!’ cried the urchins, running away.

  Fortified by the piping hot liquid, he carried on through the streets, which were gradually filling with a weary mob. Carriages and omnibuses passed each other noisily on the bridges, the swearing and whip-cracking of the coach drivers competing with the groaning of the wheels. Flocks of sparrows swooped down on the piles of horse dung strewn across the wooden cobbles.

  Père Moscou, exhausted, dragged himself along Quai Conti. For a while he thought he had conquered the fear that had overcome him in Les Halles. But, as soon as he had set foot in Place de l’Institut, it came flooding back. Shakily, as if hounded by an invisible menace, he walked along Quai Malaquais without even pausing when he crossed Rue des Saints-Pères.

  Tasha was stretched out in the bath, gently stewing in the hot water. Victor looked in. ‘You’re just like Kenji – he loves boiling-hot baths. Be careful, you’re all red; you might burn.’

  He plunged his hand in the water and withdrew it as if he’d been burnt, caressing the breasts of the young woman as he did so.

  ‘Get out!’ she cried, splashing him.

  Returning to her reverie, she reflected on the night they had just spent together. Victor had been both tender and passionate, and she had only resisted him so she could abandon herself more completely. When their passion was finally spent, she had curled up against his chest. Their relationship fulfilled her emotionally as well as physically, and yet she still felt on the defensive, disinclined to put up with Victor’s bouts of jealousy.

  Her thoughts wandered to that other passion of hers, which enraged and pained Victor, but filled her life to the exclusion of all else: her painting. Victor had offered to pay for the framing of her canvases, so there was nothing to stop her exhibiting them at the Soleil d’Or alongside the paintings of Laumier and his friends. So why was she worrying? She had been preparing for the exhibition since the summer; she had put heart and soul into her rooftops of Paris series and into her male nudes. But now that she was finally going to reveal them to the public, even to a public of vulgar barflies, as Victor had dubbed them, she was scared. She knew that her canvases would never receive the acclaim of the renowned art salons. Her work displayed too much rebellion against the style of the Academy painters and reflected too many diverse influences such as Impressionism and Symbolism. She also knew that, sooner or later, Laumier’s group, who worshipped Gauguin and Syntheticism, would reject her. In fact, what she feared most was having to confront these contradictions.

  Wrapped in a towel, she crossed Kenji’s apartment, hurried into Victor’s and got dressed. Above the chest, facing her, she caught sight of another Tasha, a naked head and shoulders, painted last year by Laumier. Despite Kenji’s antipathy towards his mistress, Victor obstinately displayed the little picture, which she felt was better proof of his love than any declaration.

  ‘Where are you hiding?’

  ‘I’m shaving.’

  She joined him in the little bathroom. ‘I have to return a caricature of Zola to Gil Blas,1 then I’m going to Bibulus to put the finishing touches to the painting I’m working on,’ she gabbled, not daring to look at him.

  Without replying, Victor wiped his face and turned towards her, smiling.

  ‘I know it’s Sunday, but I won’t be back late,’ she promised him.

  ‘You can come back whenever you like.’

  ‘Of course, if you wanted to, you could come with me…’ she began, her tone hesitant.

  ‘That’s kind, but I have an errand to run. I…’ He interrupted himself. It would serve no purpose to tell her that he proposed to go over to Odette’s to try to get to the bottom of Denise’s story.

  He embraced her, planting a kiss on her lips. Freed from the tension she had felt since she woke, she relaxed. ‘You know, I’m wondering if I should continue to limit my painting to one subject.’

  He moved away from her, astonished. She almost never confided her artistic doubts to him.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Sometimes I would like to forget everything I’ve learnt at art school, about fashions, about technique, and just let myself go, using my paintings to express my…my inner world. What do you think?’

  He stayed silent for a moment, and then almost reluctantly replied: ‘The more solid the base of knowledge we have, the more we can build on it. I think it’s the same with photography. I have to learn. When I feel ready, I’ll forget all the learning and start inventing.’

  ‘So you think it’s too soon for me?’

  He frowned, visibly struggling with himself.

  ‘Yes. Only when you have acquired a technique that is perfect in all respects will you be able to eliminate the aspect of that technique which you don’t judge to be important,’ he said snatching up his hat.

  ‘Is it really you giving me this advice?’

  She looked at him in amazement. Suddenly she went over to him, removed his hat and kissed him passionately. They stayed standing for a moment, then collapsed on to the bed, where their ardour tousled their hair and crumpled their clothes.

  ‘What’s come over you?’

  ‘I love you,’ she breathed, putting her fingers inside his collar and starting to unbutton it.

  Madame Valladier hastily shrugged on a jacket. Someone was banging on the door with such force that the furniture in the sitting room was shaking. She was exasperated to see Père Moscou planted on the doorstep, looking terrified, the bottom of his frock coat stained.

  ‘Drunker than a lord! You’ve spilled wine all down yourself!’

  ‘My dear Maguelonne, it’s only rabbit blood. I swear on the life of the Emperor that I have not touched a drop. But I’m not myself; I’ve got the collywobbles!’

  ‘What have you done now?’

  ‘Me? I’m as innocent as a newborn babe, I am. Hmm! Something smells good…’

  ‘I’m simmering some artichokes with marrow. I’ll bring you a plateful in a little while.’

  ‘That woman, she’s top notch,’ Père Moscou declared, heading for the Cour D’Honneur.

  He changed his mind. To recover his peace of mind he had to perform a ritual. He set off down a wide staircase, its cracked steps sprouting tendrils of weeds, which had once led to the salon of the Conseil d’État. The walls, originally decorated with frescoes by the painter Théodore Chassériau, had been blackened by the fire of 1871, but, as at Pompeii, some of the paintings remained partly intact. Père Moscou marched straight over to a peeling war painting depicting horses and three figures representing ‘silence’, ‘meditation’ and ‘study’. He paid no attention to Force and Order higher up, or to a group of blacksmiths. Women suckling children alongside men harvesting also left him cold. It was only when he reached the panel of Commerce rapprochant les peuples that he stopped to contemplate an Oceanid at the bottom of the fresco.

  The half-naked lady, painted in pale grey, seemed to be looking at him in a strange and provocative manner. He kissed the tip of his finger and touched her breast.

  ‘Hello there, beautiful child, look after Père Moscou – never let him fall into the slough of despondency – and in exchange he will promise that while he lives you will never have to sleep in the open.’

  Reassured by this speech, he went back down the corridor leading to his bivouac. The curtain covering the entrance had been half torn down. He stopped on the threshold, dumbstruck by the devastation that had occurred in the room. The crates in which he kept his treasures were spread out over the floor in a trail of canes, hats and shoes. Someone had gone through them furiously, tearing them apart and trampling on them. The two chairs, one of them broken, lay on their backs next to a wall. The stove had been pulled from its iron pipe, and someone had crammed the carpet, rolled up
in a cylinder, into the hole. As for the bed, it resembled a battlefield on which the disembowelled quilts were losing their entrails. But what disturbed Père Moscou the most was the realisation that three branches of his acacia had been broken. He raced to the end of the corridor, to what had once been the secretariat of the Conseil d’État, to make sure that his cart was still beneath the pile of firewood where he had hidden it the previous evening. Still there. But his relief was shortlived. Unable to face the devastation of his bivouac alone, he hastened to find Madame Valladier.

  When she saw the chaos, the concierge raised her hands to her face. ‘Heavens above! It looks as if it’s been hit by a whirlwind!’

  Still shocked, Père Moscou could only repeat: ‘Damnation, Grouchy, you’ve really done it this time! Damnation…’

  ‘Hold your tongue, you old gas bag, and help me tidy up. I’ll wager it was them scoundrels I chased away the other day who came back to get even. I don’t like coppers, but I swear to God if this carries on any longer I am going to report it!

  She leaned down to try and restuff one of the quilts. ‘A fine mess, but I should be able to mend it for you. Come on, lend a hand!

  Red in the face, his mouth hanging open, Père Moscou pointed to a wall where a message had been scrawled:

  WHERE HAVE YOU HIDDEN THEM?

  A.D.V.

  Madame Valladier brushed the letters with her fingertips. ‘That’s recent. What could it possibly mean? A.D.V…. Adieu something? Do you understand it?’

  Père Moscou could only swallow as he fingered the dead woman’s jewellery in his right pocket, beneath the sticky rabbit’s head.

  ‘He was the grandfather of the detective novel. Died in 1873 at the age of thirty-eight. I hope I live much longer than he did, and that I too shall be a famous writer,’ concluded Joseph, as he and Denise left number 39 Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, the last home of Émile Gaboriau.