The Body in the Vestibule ff-4

by Katherine Hall Page

Tom shook his head and rubbed his eyes—hard. He knew that pregnant women had fancies, and during Ben's gestation, Faith had been fanciful indeed, yet it had usually taken the form of cravings for certain delicacies from New York restaurants and delicatessens that there was no way he could find at the Store 24 in Byford, the only source of food at ungodly hours. This hallucination was definitely something new—and one for the books.

  “Darling, calm down and get back into bed. I think you've had a very powerful nightmare, but everything's fine. I'm here.”

  Faith reached over and put on the light.

  “I'm not dreaming! I wish I were! I couldn't sleep and the smell of all that fish was bothering me, so I took the trash down to the poubelle. And when I opened it, he was there. Dead. I even took his pulse." At the recollection, she immediately got up to wash her hands. "Go look for yourself if you like, but we've got to call the police. I mean you've got to. They'd never understand me.”

  Tom followed Faith into the bathroom, where she started to scrub her entire arm thoroughly with Roger & Gallet's sandalwood soap.

  “All right. I do believe you. It just seems so improbable.”

  Faith briskly dried off and they went to the phone.

  After telling the beginning of the story several times to what was apparently the wrong branch of the Police Na-tionale, Tom managed to explain the entire situation and was told they would be there immediatement.

  “I'll have to let them in. Are you sure you're all right here?"

  “Yes—and I certainly don't want to go with you." Tom left with the key and Faith stood by the windows overlooking the street. In what seemed like only seconds, two police cars pulled up. She was impressed.

  They approached the door and gave three resounding knocks with the heavy iron door knocker. The sound filled the night and Faith saw several lights go on in the buildings surrounding the square. Presumably, screams were normal nocturnal sounds in this part of the city. Such knocks on the door were not.

  Tom must not have reached the vestibule. They knocked again. Faith opened the window and stepped out onto the small balcony. She was intending to tell them he was coming when she saw the door open. Several more lights went on at the neighbors'.

  She stepped back and closed the window, then went into the living room to wait. After a few minutes, she decided to make some tea. She was freezing and maybe if she did something, she wouldn't keep seeing the clochard's face in front of her everywhere she looked.

  The water had just come to a boil when she heard the keys in the locks and dashed down the hall to open the door. Tom stepped in first, followed by two policemen, gardiens de la paix in the city, she'd learned, not gendarmes, but they all wore those hats that made them look like children's book illustrations.

  Tom appeared—what? Worried, embarrassed, tired— he was panting slightly and the gardiens, although trim, were winded. They were both tall, with dark hair. Then-cheeks were flushed and so smooth, it wasn't clear whether they'd both recently shaved or hadn't started to grow beards yet. The greatest difference between them was that there was a thin film of sweat on one's forehead, causing the dark hair that grazed it to curl slightly.

  Faith stood contemplating the group for a moment, then asked, "What is it? What's happening?" No one seemed to be rushing forward to tell her anything.

  “Why don't we sit down, sweetheart," Tom said, and led her to one of the chairs left in the living room after the party. The police glanced around in some surprise at the lack of furniture and remained standing.

  “Faith, honey," Tom said gently, "There wasn't anything except trash in either of the poubelles." "What!"

  “This is not to say you didn't see the clochard," Tom started to explain, but then the younger of the two policemen interrupted.

  “If I may, Monsieur Fairsheeld? I have some English, madame," he explained, and pulled a chair next to hers and sat down, but not before glancing over his shoulder toward his partner. Madame was in a fetching white chemise de nuit insufficiently covered by a robe of the same material, her blond hair was delightfully disarranged, and her blue eyes, perhaps even larger than usual at the odd events of the evening, were striking. Madame Fairsheeld had been in bed no doubt and would soon return—it was a prospect with much appeal.

  He pulled his chair a bit closer. "First permit me to introduce myself. I am Sergeant Louis Martin and this is Sergeant Didier Pollet." He paused for emphasis. "Madame, what we believe has occurred is of course deeply upsetting. Occasionally, one of these men of the street—we call them clochards—will wander into a building and sleep there. Yes, even in the dustbins," he added as she seemed to protest. "Your presence most certainly awakened him, but he was afraid you would berate him, or worse, so he pretended to be asleep and as soon as you left, phhtt"—he made one of those French noises impossible to reproduce, accompanied by appropriate gestures with his hands—"out the door. So when we arrive, we find nothing."

  “But I felt his pulse! He didn't have one! And his face! I know he was dead!”

  Both police looked troubled. This Americaine—so lovely, so young, and perhaps so crazy.

  “Besides, how could he have gotten into or out of the hallway without a key?" Faith's voice was triumphant.

  “Ah." Louis Martin looked slightly chagrined. "To be perfectly honest, you can get into most of these old Lyon-nais apartment buildings with the same kind of key. Some, especially, have the knack—you give a little turn and press hard, then voila.”

  Faith reached for the keys on the table. "You mean I could get into any of the apartments around here with this key?" She held up the largest one, an ornate, ancient key four to five inches long that looked like the one the man in the iron mask would have greeted with whoops of joy.

  “But yes. However, only the front doors, madame. Not the apartments themselves."

  “What a relief," Faith replied, fully aware that her sarcasm was being totally wasted.

  “So you see, he came here to sleep. We did, in fact, find some empty bottles, so he was perhaps not even aware where he was. They also explain his very slow pulse. Then, like Princesse Charmante, you awaken him and he leaves." Sergeant Martin stood up, shared a congratulatory look with Didier at his petite blague, and prepared to leave.

  “Tom, what do you think?" Faith was not going down without a fight—even if that fight was going to be with her husband.

  In the vain hope of avoiding further discussion and possibly getting some more sleep, Tom chose to be circumspect. "I don't really know what happened. All I know is that there was no one in either one of the poubelles. We searched through the garbage and the only carcasses were the lobsters we consumed this evening—or I should say, last." He was very, very tired.

  It was hopeless. Faith knew what she had seen and no one, not even her own husband, believed her. She would have cried in frustration, except it would simply have added to the already-damning picture of instability that had been created—the word for crazy in French is fou, and she felt like an utter one. She hoped Tom hadn't told them she was pregnant. There were enough stereotypes floating around.

  But, of course, he had.

  They stood by the door, an uneasy parting. What does one say, particularly after the inevitable little black notebooks had come out and information back to childhood solemnly recorded? Tom thanked them for coming. Not at all, not at all. Anytime, and enjoy your stay in France. Didier was from Burgundy, he revealed in a rush of sudden intimacy. He hoped they would visit the vineyards, although perhaps madame was not drinking wine. He directed his eyes significantly below, but not too far below, her waist. ...

  That was enough. Faith said, "Au revoir. Merci," and firmly shut the door—yet not before she heard their voices as they circled down the stairs, wondering whether it was a custom for American women to dispose of their garbage at such an hour. Certainly, one has heard about their fetish for showers and baths, but it was strange, non?

  It was very strange, indeed.

  Faith woke
up in a fog the next morning. It was a moment before she comprehended that she was in Lyon and not her bed in Aleford, a bed fast acquiring a certain allure. She groped for Tom, but his side of the bed was empty. She sat up. Her head ached and her whole body felt heavy and cumbersome, more like the ninth month than the fourth. The events of the night before crowded her consciousness and the fog didn't get any clearer.

  She got out of bed and walked slowly to the window overlooking Place St. Nizier. She could hear Tom and Ben- jamin in the kitchen. As she got closer to the window, she suddenly realized she had been hearing something else, too. Music. Loud.

  It was the clochard. Same place. Same pets. Same cas-quette.

  Faith ran to the kitchen.

  “Tom, come to the window! The clochard is back!”

  Tom came to the doorway and gathered his wife in his arms.

  “I know, darling, he was there when I got up."

  “But I know what I saw! I'm not going crazy! He was dead!”

  Tom clearly didn't know what to say, but Ben did.

  “Who is dead, Mommy? Can Ben see?" He pulled vigorously on her nightgown. They'd explained that she was growing a brother or sister for him and he was hopeful the whole idea had been scrapped by a providential grim reaper.

  “No one is dead, lovey. No one you know. Mommy was just saying something to Daddy.”

  Faith and Tom exchanged looks that spoke whole encyclopedias. It was difficult at times to remember that Ben understood everything they said these days. And there'd be two of them eventually. Until Ben had been born, Faith had never fully realized that when you had a child, the child was there for good. God evened things up to some extent by arranging for children—small ones, anyway—to go to sleep earlier.

  “Why don't we all go to the market together and after lunch we can take the funicular up to the top of Fourviere?" The last thing Faith felt like doing was going out. Every cell in her body was sensibly advising her to get back into bed and sleep for a very long time. Unfortunately, neither husband nor son heard them.

  “Great idea, honey. It's a beautiful day. Let's see how fast you can get dressed, Ben."

  “Superfast. I'm Super Ben. Watch how fast," and he sped down the hall to the closet where they kept their clothes. By the time Faith caught up with him, he was pulling garments off the shelves and there was a pile on the floor.

  “Ben!" she shouted angrily. He stopped, startled, then started to cry.

  “I'm losing it, Tom," Faith said. "You get him dressed and let's get out of here.”

  The stairwell of the apartment was always dim and it seemed to Faith as they descended half an hour later that it was dimmer than usual. The garbage she had spilled had been cleaned up, but the odor offish remained. She stopped and looked at the two poubelles. Tom took her arm and pulled her toward the door. The sun was streaming in from outside.

  “You don't believe me, do you?" It was said, what had continued to nag at her since the police had departed.

  “I believe you saw him, but how can I believe he was dead when he's sitting over there collecting a fortune in monnaie and blasting us all with his horrible music? And you must admit he seems an unusual choice for the miracle of Resurrection, even though the Lord does work in mysterious ways.”

  Faith sighed. At the moment, she wasn't sure she believed herself. She remembered Ben's pregnancy as often a kind of out-of-body experience—not merely trouble concentrating but a real sense of floating away in all directions. She hadn't felt like that with this one. Maybe it was hitting her all at once. It was the only logical explanation. She sighed again.

  The man had been dead. There had been no pulse.

  For once, the market failed to entrance her, and she quickly bought smoked sausages and choucroute sold by one of the butchers with a market truck. Fait & la maison, homemade, he swore. Melons were beginning to come from Spain. They'd have that first—Tom's with a little port poured in the middle. She still had salad and cheese from the party, so all they needed was bread. Ben and Tom walked along behind her, munching what Ben called "air cookies," small sponge cakes sold from a patisserie truck by a lady Faith had never seen without a smile. She couldn't decide whether the smell of the choucroute was making her hungry or nauseated.

  “Let's get a coffee," she proposed. There was a cafe she liked near the market. Early in the morning, the market vendors and farmers stopped there for a petit machon, first breakfast with coffee—or a glass of vin rouge—before opening their stalls. Tom had christened it "Cafe Sport du Commerce de France," paying homage to its brethren throughout the country. An old-fashioned cafe, no glitz, no phony Belle Epoque repros. At this time of day, it was crowded with shoppers. They found a place and Faith sat down thankfully. Her ankles hurt. She was facing the wall, which was covered with large mirrors reflecting the pedestrians outside. Her face looked the same as it had the night before, maybe a little pale and wan, but she was still Faith. The waiter set down large steaming cups of cafe creme in front of Tom and Faith, and an Orangina for a delighted Ben, who immediately began repeating "Orangina, tina, nina" over and over until they stopped him.

  The coffee smelled wonderful. In what Faith was beginning to appreciate as typical French directness, the term for decaffeinated coffee was cafe faux. She took a large sip from her cup. It was real, all right. The cafe was warm and the noise level increased as more customers pushed their way in. The mirror began to get a bit fogged from the heat of the coffee and the swirling smoke from all the cigarettes. Faith took another appreciative sip from her cup and started to look forward to lunch. As she put the cup down, she saw Marilyn strolling with her dog in the clear part of the mirror. As she passed by the window, Marilyn looked in and their eyes met for an instant. Faith started to turn around to wave a greeting but was astonished instead to see a look of intense fear cross Marilyn's face before she ran across the street and walked swiftly in the other direction.

  She started to tell Tom about it. One more odd thing in a sea of oddities. Maybe another time. Besides, Ben was there, now vigorously searching out the last drops of soda with his straw.

  “Anybody hungry?" she asked in what she hoped was a bright, untroubled voice.

  The sidewalks were emptying and stores closing, as was usual at lunchtime. They paused at one end of the market so Ben could watch the commotion as the stalls were dismantled, trucks packed up, and the street cleaners took over with their hoses and brooms, still made of twigs, only plastic ones now.

  As they approached Place St. Nizier, Faith looked for Marilyn and the other two, but they were not at their corner. Ghislaine Leblanc, acting as a member of what Faith was beginning to term the Leblanc-Lyon Fundamental Information Service, had told her that Saturdays and Sundays were big days for the filles de joie. Days of leisure for their clients, they meant busy times for the girls. Faith had been a bit surprised at the openness of the trade, but Ghislaine had told her that it had always been this way, and besides, it prevented rape and helped to keep peace in the house, "paix des menages." The one time the police had cracked down on the trade in the mid-seventies, the prostitutes had sought sanctuary in the Eglise St. Nizier, to the slight embarrassment of the priests, who nonetheless allowed them to remain for a week or two in protest—restriction of free trade. After all, they paid their taxes like any other citizens! They had been more or less left alone after that; and their dramatic leader, a Germanic prostitute named Ulla, later made a sharp turn and became involved in trying to get women out of prostitution, and for some, into a drug-rehabilitation program.

  Faith had a sudden flash, picturing the ladies from Boston's Combat Zone seeking refuge in Aleford's First Parish, with some sort of Valkyrie at the fore, and wondered what the community would do. Probably try to adopt as many as they could. Whenever they were downtown, her friend and neighbor Pix Miller repeatedly averred to Faith as they walked by, "That one could be saved, I'm sure." It was spoken in her usual audible voice, trained since childhood to speak up and speak clearly.<
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  The clochard was still at his post and she tried to think of a reason she could tell Tom for going over and looking more closely at what she still thought of as her corpse— perhaps a sudden need for prayer—but Tom was already hustling her in through the front door. They picked up the mail. Two epistles from home. One was a postcard of the White House from Hope and Quentin, on which they had written that they were spending a delightful weekend with old business school cronies. Faith debated whether the choice of card carried any implications other than being the nearest to hand on the rack. It could well be that Quentin had political aspirations, yet somehow he struck her as a behind-the-scenes man. But you never knew with Hope. Last summer, she had said pointedly to Faith, "When everyone is always saying what a great president the president's spouse would make—Betty, Barbara—don't you think voters are ready for a woman?" Faith didn't. However, if anyone could convince first the Republican party and then the nation, it was her sister.

  The other mail was a letter from her mother—a brief, succinct report of the weather in Manhattan and their activities of the last week, closing with the lines, "I do hope you are taking care of yourself, darling Faith, and getting plenty of rest. You know how you tend to overdo." With that understatement ringing in her ears, Faith started up the stairs.

  After lunch, which was consumed down to the last crispy, artery-blocking bite of grattons, those delectable fried pieces of pork, duck, or goose skin not to be mentioned in the same breath as pork rinds, Faith's fatigue became apparent to both husband and son.

  “Ben, why don't we let Mommy have a little nap and we'll go up the funicular by ourselves?”

  Faith started to make a feeble protest. She loved the view from the top of Fourviere. It wasn't just the panoramic view of all of Lyon. On a clear day, you could see all the surrounding mountains, the Monts d'Or, such a lovely name, and occasionally as far as Mont Blanc to the east. But at least mountains stayed put and she could see them another day.

  Faith stretched out on the bed. Ben had patted her brow. "Poor Mommy," he said before running gleefully down the hall and out the door with Daddy. Was the glorious Oedipal phase over so soon, Faith wondered drowsily, wherein she had been loved so primitively, so totally?