by John Jakes
Giggling, she collapsed against him. Renoir’s cartoon rattled in her hand. Her weight pushed him back against a wall two houses down from the one protecting Madame Rochambeau’s. Inadvertently his fingers came in contact with the cheap ring she wore. The feel of the metal prodded him again.
“What did Fochet have to say when you spoke to him?”
“The Onion? I haven’t set eyes on him since that party at his studio, just before the Salon opened. Was he supposed to be coming to call on me?”
There was something brittle and deceptive in her voice, Matt thought. The ring of pretense.
Or did the wine make him imagine that?
He decided she was telling the truth. Fochet hadn’t gotten around to talking with her as yet. Undoubtedly it had slipped his mind. Many other things did.
For a moment Matt was intensely angry at his teacher. Then he realized he was being childish. He knew Fochet’s erratic ways. The Onion needed a reminder, that was all.
Well, he’d get one. He definitely would. Dolly had to be persuaded to forget marriage—and without mistakenly concluding that he didn’t want the child. Only Fochet had the wisdom and experience to make that delicate distinction apparent to her. And if he didn’t do it, Dolly might go to one of those women who—
“God!” The very thought brought a shudder of horror.
“What did you say, Matt?”
“Nothing, nothing.”
“Well, I asked you whether Fochet was supposed to be calling on me.”
“Yes,” he said abruptly. “Yes, he was.”
“Why?”
He didn’t dare reveal that. Trapped, he blurted, “He didn’t say. Maybe he’s planning another party.”
“My, you sound positively grumpy all at once!” She squeezed his hand against her side as they stood in the darkness beside the wall. He knew she didn’t believe his explanation. What was he going to say?
Something spared him the need to say anything. He jerked his hand away.
“Matthew Kent, what’s wrong with you?”
Quickly he shushed her.
“But it’s bloody rude of you to—”
He pointed down the dark street to explain the sudden diversion of his attention. She shook her head.
“I honestly don’t understand what you’re so worked up about—”
“Sssh!” He pressed his mouth against her ear. “Can’t you see? There’s someone standing across from our gate. In the little alcove beside the fountain. You wait here.”
He turned and started walking diagonally across the street toward the spot where he’d spied the pale blur of a face. He was halfway to the alcove—close enough to hear the old fountain trickling—when a figure burst from its deeper darkness. Matt had an impression of a long-skirted overcoat and a floppy hat—curious clothing for a summer night, unless the watcher wanted to disguise his appearance.
The man went racing up the street with one hand clapped to the crown of his hat. “Here, hold on!” Matt shouted. Before the echo died, he broke into a run that would have enabled him to overtake the watcher easily, except that his foot suddenly slipped in the street’s drainage channel. He cursed as he sprawled on hands and knees.
He struggled up just as Dolly reached him, the cartoon still flapping in her hand.
“Are you all right, Matt?”
“Fine,” he snapped.
“What on earth was that man doing?”
“I think it’s pretty plain he was watching the house.”
“Our house? For what reason?”
Everything else was forgotten, even their differences, as he answered, “I can’t guess the exact one. But I don’t think anyone would be interested in the place because Madame Rochambeau lives there. Or because we do, for that matter.” With an ominous feeling, he added, “I suspect they’re watching it because Strelnik lives there.”
He was sober all at once. So was she. They both slept badly.
Chapter VIII
The Callers
i
ANOTHER WEEK PASSED. Summer air lay over the city, breathless and sultry. Le Figaro printed reports of damage done by violent thunderstorms along the shores of the North Sea. But no storms rolled down to relieve the late June humidity that oppressed Paris.
Fochet’s atelier was an inferno by day and not much better by night. Matt didn’t care. The Matamoras canvas was emerging slowly, and he worked on it for as long as eighteen hours at a stretch. During the night he set up half a dozen lamps to approximate daylight, and only concerned himself with details that weren’t critical. He worked stripped to the waist with rags tied around his wrists and forehead to catch the perspiration.
When he wasn’t working, he slept. One time he arrived back at Madame Rochambeau’s at three in the morning and found Dolly asleep in the good chair, her shift plastered to her breasts by the dampness. After a glance at the unfinished portrait, he carried her to bed and stretched out beside her. Tense with the excitement of his work, he couldn’t doze off. He rose again at five and started back to the studio, feeling refreshed even though he hadn’t slept. The work itself was a tonic.
Twice more he thought he noticed suspicious men loitering in the Rue Saint-Vincent. Twice he approached them with the purpose of asking questions, and both times they hurried away. On Tuesday in the final week of the month he discovered Madame Rochambeau was also aware of the watchers.
He hadn’t been home the previous night. He’d worked straight through, completing the hands and clothing of the trio of Confederate captains. The blockade runners formed one grouping in the background of the painting. Along about eleven in the morning, he finished and headed back to the flat for a nap.
He saw no one unusual in the street. As he closed the door in the hall, he heard Madame Rochambeau’s voice grating in the corridor outside the rented apartments.
“—sincerely regret to say it, Madame Strelnik”—the landlady didn’t sound all that regretful, he thought as he sauntered across the garden, yawning—“but on three separate occasions in the past four days, I have gone outside and seen men one could only describe as layabouts. All of them have been observing these premises. Why, they’ve been posted across the street like sentries, bold as brass!”
Inside the Strelniks’ rooms, Anton cried fretfully. Poor Leah, pale and perspiring, stood in the doorway. She looked miserable, completely at a loss for words. She’d lost weight since Sime had left. Her haggard appearance grew more pronounced every day.
The landlady didn’t let up. “Really, Madame Strelnik, I can only conclude that such unsavory persons are hanging around because of your husband’s presence. Or should I say his absence? Where is he, pray tell?”
With a desperate glance at Matt, Leah murmured, “I don’t know.”
“I regret to say I find that difficult to believe.”
“But it’s true,” Matt put in. “Sime talked to me before he left, and he said he was telling no one where he was going.”
Madame Rochambeau fixed him with a dour stare. “Did he also tell you the reason for his absence, Mr. Kent, or its probable duration?”
Again Leah cast a pleading look at the young American. He needed no prompting to protect Strelnik with a lie. “No, neither one, I’m afraid.”
After a deep inhalation that produced an imposing lift of her bosom, the landlady declared, “Well, my attitude has always been one of live and let live.” Matt could have disputed that. “I don’t doubt Mr. Strelnik has been forced to go into hiding to avoid inquiries from the Hôtel de Ville. I imagine the authorities want to question him because of his political views and his association with that anarchist crowd.”
Matt wanted to tell her the watchers were probably in the employ of Premier Bismarck’s government, not the French, but for Leah’s sake he again decided to keep quiet.
“In any case, there’s a dead fish around here, and it stinks worse by the hour. Well, all right—a stink is unpleasant but harmless. However, if this household becomes involved with
the authorities as a result of your husband’s dubious activities, Madame Strelnik, I shall instantly ask you to find other lodgings.”
She turned and sailed past Matt with a last glance that said he too was included in the warning.
Madame Rochambeau’s massive shadow diminished on the floor of the hall. Matt hurried over and clasped Leah’s hands in both of his. She rested her forehead against his forearm, close to tears. “Where is he, Matt? Where is he?”
“I wish I knew. But he said he’d be in touch when it was safe.” He tried to reassure her. “I’m sure he will.”
She raised her head, her dark eyes fearful. “I’ve seen those ruffians who frightened Madame Rochambeau. She’s right. They’re practically camping in the street at all hours of the day and night. Who are they? What could they want?”
Your husband.
“I honestly don’t know, Leah.” Far off, summer thunder boomed and reverberated. “Let’s not try to find out, either.”
ii
He slept for two hours, splashed tepid water on his face, ate a stale croissant, donned a fresh shirt and stood for five minutes examining the unfinished portrait on the easel.
It was too stiff, too formal and lifeless. Even though the Matamoras project was currently occupying all his time, he didn’t want to abandon Dolly’s portrait permanently though he knew he might have to. He understood the problems, but no solutions came to mind.
Outside, he searched the street but this afternoon saw none of those whom Madame Rochambeau characterized as layabouts. He started for the studio, making an unpleasant face over the motionless, stale-smelling air.
Abruptly he reversed his direction. He’d been working damn hard and he felt like a drink. Several, in fact.
After a brisk walk that left his shirt sodden, he reached the Café Guerbois. He entered and stopped short. Minus his cravat, jacket, gloves and Malacca stick, Edouard Manet was seated opposite Paul Cézanne, who looked particularly antagonistic.
Manet had a platter of assorted cheeses in front of him. The cheeses smelled rank in the heat. The painter didn’t seem to mind. He was fastidiously slicing slivers and popping them into his mouth. After each cut he carefully wiped the knife.
Paul shot a hostile glance at Matt, then exclaimed to Manet, “All of you are idiots! The only cause to which an artist owes allegiance is the cause of his own life and career. As for everything else, it’s so much smoke! You won’t find me dying for someone’s holy cause. Politicians only create causes so they can savor the thrill of sending other poor assholes off to die for them.” Again he looked at Matt in an almost threatening way. “You think I’m right, don’t you?”
Paul was being watched by several gaping gentlemen, all fully and respectably dressed despite the heat. Bankers, perhaps. Importers. Brokers of insurance—the sort who had begun to invade the quarter for lunch. Matt ignored them and walked to the table where the other two were seated.
“That’s a pretty florid way to put it, Paul. But yes, I do. My older brother’s starting a labor newspaper in America. I hate to calculate the grief he’ll suffer for the sake of ideas that are probably very noble but absolutely unworkable.”
“Old Courbet’s going to get himself arrested because of such ideas!” Paul cried. The mention of the famous painter turned heads again. “He’s a goddamn idiot to run around proclaiming he’s a socialist.”
Manet tucked another tiny wedge of cheese into his cheek, dabbed his mustache with a napkin, and only then nodded.
“I agree that he goes to excess. Still, one can’t remain entirely neutral. I haven’t kept silent on what I consider the repressions of the Imperial government. If it came to a test of loyalties, I know where mine would lie.”
“With the Emperor?”
“With the tricolor.”
“Merde, you’ll be a lonely martyr. There’s nobody else in our crowd who’d go to war for France.”
“You’re wrong, Paul. I think Renoir would. Degas. Perhaps Bazille—”
“Well, they’ll never put me on the conscription rolls. I’ll go into hiding before they can find me.”
Manet looked disapproving. He glanced at Matt for support.
“Surely you don’t agree with him now, do you, Matt? You fought for a cause in which you believed.”
“I was an idiot, just like several million other people.” He held up his hand. “My loyalty is right here.” He wiggled his fingers. “To what I can put on a canvas. The rest is rhetorical hogwash. Or smoke, as Paul calls it.”
Manet sighed and shook his head. “You and your brother must have some lively debates.”
Matt shrugged. “I haven’t seen him in years.”
His flippancy hid a quite unexpected and painful sense of homesickness. He laughed at the feeling silently, and in that way deadened it.
“By the way,” he said, “where’s Lisa?”
Something unpleasant flickered across Manet’s eyes. “In the back.” There was a faint undertone suggesting Matt would be wise not to disturb her.
He ignored the warning and walked toward the kitchen; he was thirsty, and he’d never known a bad mood to prevent Lisa from working. He started speaking before he even reached the door.
“Lisa, my love, how about a pitcher of wine for an old and favored—my God.”
She was in profile, bent over a tub of water in which she was washing plates and goblets. On her right cheek, held in place by a strip of linen wound around her chin and the top of her head, was a bloody bandage.
For a moment he could think of nothing but the image she presented to his eye. The weary line of her rounded shoulders was reversed and repeated by the line of her breast sagging within a none too clean blouse. Wash water glistened on her red knuckles and forearms. Her hair was so disarrayed, she seemed to be peering at him through strands of a curtain.
There was an air of exhaustion about her, but something more, too. A sadness in her eyes that spoke of her advancing age, and her awareness of it. Of her death and her realization that when it came to her, she would probably still be what she was now—a tavern trull.
He was ashamed of the way he looked at her as a subject instead of a person who’d been hurt. Yet the image still had a powerful impact. His spine was still prickling as he said, “What happened to you?”
“Oh—” A shrug. She dried her hands on her filthy apron. Her smile was wan. “Last evening I was a little too choosy. I refused a gentleman’s invitation to go to bed. He demonstrated his displeasure with a sword he pulled out of his cane.”
“God,” Matt said again. “Who was the son of a bitch?”
He forgot all about the artistic considerations of the meeting when she answered with a sigh, “Your friend Lepp.”
iii
Matt put his arms around her. “You mean he did come back after all? Oh, Lisa, I’m sorry.”
Her spirits much improved all at once, she snuggled against him, laughed deep in her throat.
“Listen! I guess a little scar is worth it if I get a squeeze like this.” Her hand slid below his belt. “Tell me, Virginia. How much of you feels sorry for me? And just what are you willing to do to express that sympathy?”
He disengaged, his cheeks red. She laughed again. He sat down on an empty wine keg used for a stool. “Where did it happen? Back here?”
“Oh, no. Right out in front. The sword slid out of the cane quick as you please and nicked me just as fast.”
“And no one tried to stop him?”
“Don’t look so stupefied, my dear boy. A waitress isn’t important. She’s handy for a laugh and a feel, but she isn’t really a person. You understand? Our patrons hesitate to get involved on behalf of a nobody.” Her callousness had a false, forced quality, but he said nothing. “Besides, none of my good friends was here. Not Paul. Not you—”
“If I’d been here, I’d have made him goddamn sorry,” Matt declared, with only a trace of posturing. He meant what he said. She laughed.
“Here, I thought you a
voided crusades and causes!”
“Causes are one thing, friends another.”
“I wish you had been here, then. The surgeon who stitched and dressed this”—she touched her cheek—“he said I’ll be marked for life. Still, I was lying a minute ago. The wounds to my pride were the worst ones. I got the first wound when nobody tried to stop him, and the second when he strolled out, snickering as if he’d just played a great prank.” Her voice began to quaver. “I’d like to make him pay for what he did, the preening whoreson!”
Matt was startled by the sudden change. The coarse but pleasant face grew harsh, the eyes cold, the voice steadily louder. “I’d like to see him dead! Or castrated! No, both! In reverse order!”
iv
Upset by the account of Lepp’s cruelty, and in no mood to listen to Manet and Paul debate, he stayed at the Guerbois for only one drink. Then he headed back toward the studio.
As he climbed the butte, a light rain began. He turned and gazed over his shoulder at a rampart of black storm cloud in the west. Relief from the heat might be on the way.
At the entrance of the studio building, he encountered Fochet coming down the stairs. He decided to say something about the older man’s promise to talk with Dolly.
“Hallo, Kent!” Fochet crowded next to him in the tiny vestibule. He blew the scent of onions into Matt’s face and tried to open an umbrella. The vestibule wasn’t wide enough. Two umbrella ribs touched the wall and bent. It didn’t make much difference since the umbrella had half a dozen big holes in it.
Outside, the street shone with a greasy look as the light rain continued. Matt dodged back to avoid having an eye put out by the end of a rib. Fochet squeezed by. “I’m on my way to interview that new model I met at the Brasserie of the Martyrs. If I can just remember the damn address she gave me!” Fochet’s interviews usually consisted of an all-night visit in the model’s bed.
As the teacher left the vestibule, Matt called, “You promised to speak to Dolly. Did you forget?”