The Body in the Vestibule ff-4

by Katherine Hall Page

  It did not make a whole lot of sense to Faith, but she supposed it was all part of the incredibly complex nature of the French, which was even now being vividly illustrated at her dinner table. Envy of the clochards was part and parcel of the same impulses compelling the French to drive like maniacs when set free on the autoroutes. Tom had told her highway deaths were twice the kilometer rate as those in the United States. All that pent-up frustration had to go somewhere.

  “I do not admire these clochards," Madame Vincent said. "They are filthy and disgusting. They prey on people to get money for drink. You see them sitting so pathetically with little signs, J'ai faim. Bien, just try to give them food instead of money. I offered the one in front of the church a sandwich from the baker one day and he threw it at me! They are sick people, perhaps. I am sure this one is not so old. The drink has aged him, but he has no business on this earth. As far as I'm concerned, Lyon would be a better place if he and his friends were eliminated.”

  Faith was a bit surprised at the vehemence of Madame Vincent's remarks.

  Jean-Francois agreed. "I am with you, madame. It does not do to become sentimental about these people. The police should round them up and make them go to the shelters. They cost us precious tax money better spent on things like catching criminals.”

  It was yet again time to turn the conversation in another direction and Faith hastily searched her mind for a topic. She needn't have worried. Tom stretched his arms back and said, "I need a little exercise after all this. Why don't we walk into the next room and have some cognac." The somewhat askance looks that had greeted the first part of his statement—Americans were known to jog at unseemly hours—gave way to laughter and general movement. There were offers to help Faith clean up—offers from the women, she observed—but she refused, saying she would do it later.

  The party drifted into different parts of the apartment Ben was sound asleep in his small room. Amelie d'Ambert, age fourteen, had come to take care of him during the earlier part of the evening and also put him to bed before going back downstairs to her own apartment. She was very shy, very dark, unlike the others in her family, and Faith hoped to enlist her as a baby-sitter for the duration of their visit.

  Faith joined the Leblancs, who were gazing at the Eg-lise St. Nizier, which was illuminated at night, the steeples and statuary silhouetted against the dark sky. The bright lights shone only on the front of the church, flattening it in a curious way that suggested one might walk around to the side and see wooden props holding up a stage set, rather than the ancient, massive stones of the church.

  “I prefer the Gothic brick steeple," Paul said, pushing away the strands of light brown hair continually falling across his forehead. He was losing hair from the top of his head and seemed to want to keep whatever was left, however inconvenient. "The new one is an atrocity. So much damage was done in the nineteenth century by all the Viol-let-le-Duc fanatics seeking to harmonize and restore what was best left alone."

  “Here we go," Ghislaine said, laughing. "Paul is a fanatic himself on the subject.”

  But Faith was interested, and Paul promised to take the Fairchilds on a tour of his Lyon, "le vrai Lyon," he added. She liked both of them so much and understood why Tom had become friends with these newlyweds, and newly parents, years ago. Ghislaine worked at a travel agency on rue de la Republique and seemed happy to take time off to shop or just to meet Faith for a coffee. Faith felt as if she had known her for years.

  Clement Veaux came up behind them. "Everyone has a different Lyon. I will show you mine someday. Not, as you may suspect, the abattoirs, but the gardens and greenhouses in Pare de la Tete d'Or."

  “We took Ben to ride the carousel there last weekend and didn't have time to explore any further. We'd love to go."

  “Bien, it's done. We can go on a Sunday after we close the shop at noon and eat pommes frites and saucisson while we stroll. Benjamin can bring his velo and join all the other children who ride like madmen on the paths—as I did at his age.”

  So that's where it starts, Faith reflected. Velos in the park, then Renault 5's on the autoroutes. She looked down into the Place St. Nizier. It was late, but there was still a great deal of activity and noise. Cars were parked everywhere—on the sidewalks, in small streets—in total disregard of regulations and, in fact, they wouldn't be ticketed. It was after six o'clock and anything went. She saw someone enter the building and wondered who it was. It seemed everyone in residence was here. The door was locked after the pharmacy closed each night, so it must be someone who lived here, someone with a key—probably one of the students from the top floor. She saw Marilyn walk by, arm in arm with a young man, her hair iridescent in the orange haze of the sodium vapor streetlight. Something about the way she was looking up at him suggested he wasn't a client, but a boyfriend—or her pimp? Ghislaine had told her the French word was macquereau, mac for short—so much slang seemed to involve food, she'd noticed—the national passion. Ghislaine had also told her the penalties for pimping were extremely severe—lengthy prison terms—whereas, although against the law, prostitutes were viewed as victims and rarely arrested. Faith sighed. Marilyn looked about eighteen. She hoped it was a boyfriend and they were off to the cinema.

  She went into the next room. People had brought in the chairs from the dining room. Valentina was sitting on her husband's lap and whatever she was whispering in his ear was evidently promising. His face was raptly expectant and he was stroking her long black hair. It was hard to imagine him at the barricades. Now he looked like a rumpled, slightly balding middle-aged man whose sole concern was whether to take another sip of cognac and possibly impair his projected performance—or not.

  Solange d'Ambert had lit another cigarette and was talking to Delphine Veaux about children. The surgeon general or whatever the equivalent was in France had not made much headway in changing the smoking habits of the French, and Faith worried about the effects of secondary smoke on the baby. The baby! She was feeling so well these days and was so busy, she occasionally forgot she was pregnant—sometimes for as long as ten minutes.

  Tom came over and put his arms around her. "Tired, sweetheart?"

  “A little, but it's such a nice party.”

  It was Madame Vincent who decided that nice as it was, it was time to go, and her departure started a general exodus. The d'Amberts and Joliets took their chairs. The Leblancs insisted on taking home their hastily rinsed plates, glasses, and cutlery over Faith's protestations. "We have a machine a laver, cherie." There were many kisses and Tom went down with the Veaux and Leblancs to unlock the door to let them out.

  By the time he came back, Faith had cleaned up what remained, bundled it into several garbage bags, and was ready for bed.

  Tom joined her and they spent a happy half hour or so discussing the party—the food, the people.

  “I'm not too sure about Jean-Francois. Seems a little too sure of himself and tres conservative."

  “Well, you could say that about Madame Vincent, too," Tom said.

  “Different packaging and more to my taste. Besides, he seems a little too willing to let Solange carry all the domestic burdens. Did you notice when anything about the kids came up, he laughed and said it was her department? I'll bet Jean-Francois never changed a diaper in his life.”

  Tom held his nose. "Lucky man. It's not the part of fatherhood one rejoices in, Faith. Or the spitup on my cassock, either.”

  Ben the infant had had an uncanny ability to recognize newly washed and ironed or expensive, fragile clothes and preferred these as targets for his projectile vomiting—the baby-book name for the phenomenon—which always suggested to Faith and Tom that NASA was monitoring the stage. In Ben's case, the agency might have been surprised by the data. He never seemed to be in the mood when his parents were in jeans and old shirts—and his range and accuracy were amazing. Faith figured with this second baby, it would now be close to the turn of the century before she could safely wear white or silk again in the presence of said o
ffspring. After spitup came sticky fingers, then muddy sneakers, climbing into your lap—on and on until college.

  “Imagine having five children," Faith said, yawning. "Think of the dry-cleaning bills. And how could you talk to that many people in a day?"

  “Maybe you don't, and how about not talking ourselves for a while, ma poule?" Tom liked these culinary French endearments. Calling your wife a "hen" or a "little cabbage" in English could kill the moment.

  Faith, very much alive, wrapped her arms around Tom's neck. "But of course, Monsieur Fairsheeld.”

  Despite the relaxing nature of the night's final events and her fatigue, Faith couldn't sleep.

  It wasn't Tom's slight snoring, although she had rolled him over twice to stop it and did so again with success.

  It wasn't Ben. She'd already slipped out of bed once to check him. He'd kicked off the blanket, but the night was warm and he didn't really need it. Still, she tucked it firmly back around him. It felt like the maternal thing to do.

  It wasn't that she needed to pee, though this month had seen a drastic increase in her number of trips to the w.c., revealing aspects of Lyon few visitors, fortunately, were forced to encounter.

  She punched her pillow into a more comfortable shape, pulled the covers up around her shoulders, and listened to the darkness—an old trick for putting herself to sleep. It was completely quiet. She closed her eyes and prepared to drift off.

  Maybe she should go to the bathroom one more time and then when she did get to sleep, she wouldn't be awakened. It was a good idea.

  She got up, went down the hall, and afterward decided since she was so near the kitchen, she might as well have a little piece of the pain aux noix, walnut bread, she'd gotten to go with the fresh chevre. Maybe she'd have a little of the cheese, too. She cut a slice of bread and spread it with the soft white cheese. As she sank her teeth into it, she realized the kitchen smelled like the lobsterman Sonny Prescott's bait shack back home up in Maine. It was the bouillabaisse debris. She wrinkled her nose and went back to the bedroom. The smell followed her, but she finished her bread and climbed back into bed, determined to sleep.

  Pillow plumped, covers up, eyes closed.

  And her brain promptly resumed its feverish activity. She would have been in France two weeks on Monday. It seemed both that she had been here forever and not long at all. They'd met so many people, eaten so much good food, and things happened every day. Not like Aleford, where one dawn blended effortlessly into the next and suddenly it was Sunday again, time for church. She patted her stomach. Whoever was waiting there was going to be going to work with Mommy. Lyon had put the final seal on her decision to go back into catering. Infants were delightful to cuddle and watch for varying amounts of time, but as companions they tended to pall rapidly, and this time Faith had no intention of remaining parsonage-bound. She was beginning to get sleepy. Coming to Lyon had been such a good idea. Think of the wonderful diet this little person was getting. He or she would have a head start in the gourmet department. There would be no cries of "Do I have to eat this?" but instead, "Mom, what great spinach souffle." It was a soothing image. Ben had been developing a scary preference for macaroni and cheese lately.

  Outside, a car horn sounded. Combative even in the middle of the night, she thought. Combative. That reminded her of the clochard. She tried to erase the image from her mind. He was nothing but an old drunk in need of help, like the man he had attacked. There must be organizations working with the clochards. Paul would know. He knew everything about Lyon. Le Tout Lyon, no, that was the group that put out the Who's Who list-—everyone who mattered, supposedly. Paul had told her he did not care to be in it. Faith bet the d'Amberts were, though. Marilyn, Marie, and Monique were probably not. Maybe that's why Marilyn had been crying. She would never be a member of Le Tout Lyon, or Tout Paris, for that matter. But really, why had she been crying? Faith turned over on her other side to try to get more comfortable. As soon as she did, the odor from the kitchen assailed her again. Degueulasse, disgusting. It would stink to high heaven by morning. She should have had Tom take it down when he went to let everyone out. He was breathing quietly now, deeply asleep.

  Suddenly, she knew she'd never get to sleep if she didn't get rid of the smell. It might be three o'clock in the morning, but she had to take out the trash.

  She put on her bathrobe and dropped the keys into the pocket, then slipped on a pair of espadrilles. She didn't want to make any noise going down the stairs and possibly awaken someone. Footsteps on the stone sounded like a cannon barrage. She took the two plastic sacks, bright blue and tied shut with an orange plastic cord—even in matters of debris, the French were chic—and let herself out. Peering over the edge of the railing, she wished she could just drop them. If the poubelle had been open, she might seriously have considered it, but there was nothing to do but go down—and then back up again: 121 steps. She and Ben had counted them. She pushed the switch in the stairwell. The lights were on timers and you had to be pretty nimble going from floor to floor or the dim light from the naked bulb would go out before you reached the next one. Whether this originated from ecological or economical motives, Faith did not know, but she suspected the latter in a country that regarded nuclear power as the best thing since sliced pain. She spun her way rapidly down the spiral stairs, praying the bags would not break and send their contents flying all over.

  She was close to the bottom now. As far as she was concerned, she had no fear of heights, but when she was with Ben, it was another matter—she held on to his hand like Super Glue when they made the ascent or descent. She'd been plagued with visions of his climbing over the railing to see the bottom—he had begged to do that the first day—and then plummeting to the stone floor below. She gulped. She was at the bottom.

  She pushed the light switch hastily as the one above her went out and then went back up a few stairs to reach the top of the large dumpster, which, with its twin, was wheeled in and out of the building every other day with great rapidity by men in bright coveralls—the Departement de Proprete, literally, the Department of Cleanliness. The container was so large, it was difficult to stand next to it and reach the lid. You couldn't even see into it unless you were on the stairs. Faith had noted that both Solange and Madame Vincent used her method. She'd never seen anyone else put out trash.

  She put the bags down, then leaned over and flung the lid back.

  Someone had been getting rid of some old clothes, she noted. Anything reusable was left to the side of the trash bin. These looked very worn. She picked up her bags and started to drop them in, and drop them she did, but not in the trash. Fish heads, bones, lobster and shrimp shells, orange rinds splayed out on the stairs as Faith screamed. She screamed again.

  It wasn't old clothes. It was the clochard.

  And he was dead.

  The clochard of St. Nizier—his mouth hideously slack, eyes rolled back, and one hand grasping the filthy casquette, still in place on his head.

  The lights went out. Faith was alone with the corpse.

  Three

  Faith stumbled down the few stairs to the vestibule and frantically pushed the button to turn on the lights. She intended to turn right around and run as fast as she could up those 121 steps to Tom and a phone.

  But she knew she had to do something first. She had to make sure he was dead.

  The thought was nauseating and she could hardly bring herself to approach the trash again. Slowly, she crept around to the side of the large container and groped for his hand. She could feel the slick plastic of the garbage bags surrounding him, then the rough wool of his coat. The stench of the rotting garbage made her feel faint. She followed the arm down to his naked wrist and tried to find a pulse. She did not even want to think about what she might have to do if she did.

  There was no pulse. It wasn't just the smell of the trash. It was the smell of death that filled the hall.

  Faith instantly dropped the lifeless hand and went up the stairs, pausing to close t
he lid of the poubelle that was now a casket. It didn't seem right to leave it open. Besides, she didn't like the idea of looking down on the body as she went up the stairs—and she knew she would look, no matter how much she told herself not to.

  As she started to close the lid, she wondered what death throes had caused that convulsive grasping for his cap. His hand was like a leathery claw—the skin in folds, crossed on the back by a deep scratch, perhaps inflicted during yesterday's fight. She let the top come down and it slammed shut. She shuddered and quickly started to climb the stairs, hitting the light switch at each landing in terror at being left alone in the dark again. The cold from the stone stairs traveled through the thin rope soles of her shoes and she clutched her robe closer to her body.

  How had the clochard gotten into the building and why had he climbed into the trash? Clochards slept wherever they wanted—in the parks or under the bridges of the Saone and Rhone in good weather; in shelters or the silk workers' tunnels, the traboules, in bad. If they could get into a building, they'd sleep in halls, but even clochards wouldn't sleep in dustbins, especially with the lid down. And the door to Place St. Nizier had been locked.

  One more flight. She raced up and arrived at the door, panting for breath. It was only while she was fumbling with the keys that she realized no one had responded to her screams. Were the walls that thick?

  “Tom!" She ran into the room and jumped on the bed, shaking him. "Wake up, Tom!”

  Tom did not make the transition from deep sleep to consciousness easily even in the best of circumstances and it took a moment for him to sit up and ask, "What the hell is the matter?" In another moment, he was out of bed, "Ben? Is it Ben?"

  “No, Ben's fine!" Faith grabbed Tom's arm and pulled him back to the bed. She sat down next to him. "We've got to call the police. I don't know how it happened, but that dochard who's always outside the church is in the trash downstairs, and he's dead.”