Crossings, A Thomas Pichon Novel

by A. J. B. Johnston

But then what’s inside her chest compresses. It makes her close her eyes and shake her head.

  “Hélène, what is wrong?”

  She looks into his worried face. “Nothing,” she says. “Something I ate.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “I am.”

  Yes, it is better off the way it is. If this man has not guessed, he does not deserve or need to know. No good would come of it.

  Then again – she is not likely ever going to see him again.

  “Oh, Thomas. Please come here.” Hélène grabs his forearms and pulls him close. She knows Gallatin will soon be coming down the stairs. “Please don’t.”

  Thomas looks at her like she has lost her mind. He shakes off her grip. “Don’t what?”

  Gallatin’s footfalls begin their descent. They are heavier and slower than on the way up.

  “Don’t leave London.” Hélène can feel that her cheeks are flushed. She knows her eyes are showing a little wet. “Don’t go back to France.”

  She has to move away from Thomas. Gallatin is getting close.

  Thomas’s friend is back down the stairs and coming into the salon. In his arms is a child much longer than Thomas recalls. He has grown so very much over the past number of months.

  “Here he is,” says Gallatin. “Our big lad.”

  Thomas bows to the boy. A light-hearted joke. It makes him chuckle to pretend that this ordinary child, waist high to himself, the son of his best friend, might be the Dauphin of France. “Good day, petit prince,” Thomas says, coming up from his reverence.

  Hélène’s expression seems close to shock, but Gallatin at least is amused. Or perhaps just very pleased?

  Hélène steps forward to take Tommy into her embrace. “There you are. How are you, my sweet?”

  “Very well,” the boy says, straightening up. He gives Thomas a quizzical look. A light comes into his eyes. “Monsieur,” he says with a quick bow.

  “It is good to see you,” Thomas says. Unexpectedly, he feels an urge to make contact with the boy. A tousle of his hair or maybe a hug. Wherever does such a sensation come from? It must be seeing Hélène’s outpouring of emotion with her son. Thomas clears his throat and reins himself in. “How much you have grown. Can you be only four? You are on your way to becoming a proper man.” Thomas thrusts out his right hand.

  Cautiously, the boy reaches out to touch Thomas’s hand. It is flesh on flesh but there is no grip. No matter, Thomas gives it a firm shake.

  Tommy tugs his hand out of Thomas’s grip and tilts his head. “Are we making a bet?” he asks.

  Thomas notices that Hélène beams at that, while her eyes brim with tears. What is going on with that woman? Meanwhile, Gallatin is covering his mouth with his hand, keeping in a laugh.

  Thomas bends to the lad. “In a way we are.” He glances at Gallatin then at Hélène then back to the boy. “We are betting, you and me, that we shall remember each other forevermore. For I am leaving London soon.”

  Thomas allows himself to give in. He pats Tommy’s head and ruffles his hair. “How about that for a wager, young man?”

  “If you say so.” Tommy looks at his father and lifts his eyebrows.

  “Yes, in a minute you can go,” says Gallatin. “But first, first you must bid a proper goodbye to your godfather, Monsieur Pi— er, Monsieur Tyrell.”

  “No, you’re right, Jean. It should be Pichon.” Thomas bends to the boy. “Tommy, from now on, please call me Monsieur Pichon. Not Tyrell.”

  The boy bows at Thomas. “Monsieur Pichon. Au revoir.” Then he spins and is out the door of the salon.

  The only sound in the house is of the child climbing the stairs.

  “Still very young,” Gallatin explains.

  “I could make him come back.” Hélène is leaning toward Thomas. Her voice is deep, like something is stuck in her throat. “Jean? Would you?”

  Gallatin moves toward the stairs.

  “No, no.” Thomas reaches out to catch Gallatin by the elbow. “Let him be. I’m sure he has better things to do than talk to me.” He looks to Hélène for agreement, but that is not what he finds in her wet, dark eyes. He has no idea what he sees. Pity? Regret? Love for her son? Thomas hears his own deep intake of breath.

  “Well, that is it. All done.” Thomas bows but once. They can share it between the two of them. “Adieu, my friends, adieu.” He strides into the hall, shoulders back, head erect.

  “Thomas!” Gallatin is hurrying after him.

  Thomas does not turn round, but he can tell that it’s just two feet coming after him, not four. Hélène must have stayed where she was. He decides he will open the door and go down the steps, out onto the cobbles of the street, before he will turn round.

  “We have to write,” Jean Gallatin calls out, an upraised waving arm and an earnest face.

  Thomas nods. He is pleased, he really is, that this man, this friend, has made a good life for himself. He not only has a wife but a son. Fortune smiles on him, in a way it has not yet favoured Thomas. That may change in Paris, or maybe not. All he can do is soldier on.

  “Yes, of course,” Thomas says loud enough for Gallatin to hear. Then he raises his right arm high. It’s the Roman salute Jean used to sometimes use.

  Gallatin makes the same salute, then looks as if he might cry.

  “No, Jean, no,” Thomas says. “We are friends. Distance will have no effect.”

  “You are right.” Gallatin straightens up and puts his shoulders back. He spins and without looking again at Thomas steps inside and closes the door to his house.

  At once Thomas hears a tapping sound. His eyes go to the ground floor windows, first to the one closer to the door then the one on the right. It’s there he spies a shape. A hand. It stops tapping and presses against the glass. The hand blurs away, leaving a ghostly trace upon the pane. Then there comes a face. Hélène. She is sending Thomas a kiss.

  Thomas blinks as he steps back. To catch a breath he has to turn toward the sky. The clouds are thickening overhead. It is as if an unseen hand were stirring the world.

  Back to the window, Thomas sees Hélène is still there, the eyes even wider than before. She is beseeching him. But for what? To stay in London?

  His shoulders hunch, but then he sees her wipe her eyes as she shakes a sorrowful head. Out on the cobbles an invisible hand takes hold of his chest. Thomas gasps. He has to manufacture a breath.

  “Too late,” Thomas mouths across the thick air.

  “Too late,” he repeats, this time aloud.

  His eyes lower to the squared stones so he can stay on his feet. He fills his chest and forces his eyes back to the window. Yes, Hélène is still there. Two wet palms pressed against the panes.

  Thomas returns the kiss she sent a moment ago, then spins. He is away.

  IX

  Travail

  Paris – April 1740-March 1741

  A sudden noise shakes his focus on the words. But before he looks up, Thomas has to make sure he finishes the line he is putting on the page. Three quarters of the document is safely copied over. An uncontrolled spill of ink at this point would mar or maybe even ruin what he has accomplished. He learned long ago that the secret to this tedious profession is concentration. Sloppy handwriting, a missed or repeated word, or a blob of ink are sure ways to stymie a scribe’s career, and his career has already had more than enough delays.

  Thomas puts the goose quill safely into the hole of the blue and white faience inkwell that rests at the top of his writing table. Only then does he turn to the sound coming from the window.

  It is as he guessed. A splatter of raindrops on the panes and the drum of rain upon the slate tiles that lie out of sight on the roof overhead. Yet how odd. Out the narrow dormer window that is his sightline to the world while he is at work there is not a single cloud. It is an all blue sky, royal blue at t
hat. And according to the stones of the buildings opposite, it’s still a golden Paris day. Yet there it is nonetheless, a springtime cloudburst coming down. There must be a dark mass directly above the building.

  What a marvel a sun-filled rain does make. Diamonds shimmer in the air.

  “Pichon.”

  Thomas swivels to the voice. He finds his feet when he sees who it is. Mathieu Gaspard. Though the man is six years younger than Thomas, and dull and tiresome as a piece of wood, he is the supervisor of this part of the office.

  “Monsieur,” Thomas says.

  He sets his expression so that it will betray nothing about what he really thinks of the recently promoted superior clerk.

  “You do understand, do you?” Gaspard wiggles the fingers of his right hand at the documents on Thomas’s tabletop, the original brevet and the as yet unfinished copy. “How urgently I need it? You can grasp that, can you?”

  “I can and do.” Thomas controls his lips. He offers Gaspard a stiff bow, as if his frame were made of oak.

  “Well then.”

  “Right away, Monsieur.”

  “I hope so.”

  Another slight bend of oak before Thomas re-takes his seat. He will not let Gaspard see him rush. Instead, he puts on a display of assuming the writer’s posture before he allows himself to reach for the quill. He verifies the two documents are aligned just right, and with a touch of his finger he locates exactly where it is he will pick up the copy-work. Only then does Thomas take the quill in hand. He first must examine its nib. Inspection passed, he grasps the plume, fingers where they need to be. As he dips the tip of the quill in the ink he can smell the audience of one leaning close to his shoulder. Cheese breath. Thomas exhales a silent jet, hoping to blow away at least some of the man’s smell. He begins again to make a faithful copy of the brevet.

  “More like it,” Gaspard says before he walks away.

  As the footfalls pad off, Thomas silently mouths, “Gaspillage.” The nickname is not one he coined – it came from Arnaud, who occupies an even lower rung than Thomas does – but Thomas likes to use it now and then. It provides a fleeting satisfaction, the only way he has so far found to prick Gaspard’s balloon, if only in Thomas’s own imagination.

  The copy of the brevet completed, Thomas puts down the quill and stands. He turns toward the end of the long room where the superior clerk is standing beside his high, brass-trimmed desk. Gaspard is in conversation with none other than the magistrate judge himself. Should Thomas hurry to deliver the wanted document, to show how efficient he is? No, better to wait. He does not want to demonstrate alacrity in working beneath Gaspillage. That would only serve to reinforce the mistaken idea the good judge might have that he has promoted the right man to be the superior clerk. Thomas will wait until the magistrate has sauntered somewhere else. Then he’ll deliver his work to Gaspard. As for the judge, Thomas will have to find some other way to impress him, if and when he is able to speak with him alone.

  “If and when,” Thomas whispers aloud. A hand goes to his brow. At forty-one years, those are pitiful words. For what if there will be no if and when? What if the moment for him to impress and advance does not come?

  ——

  A chill is in the air.

  Though it is only the morning of the Saint-Michel, the penultimate day of September, it is cold. Winter’s first breath, two months early. Oh, how Thomas would prefer if it were winter fading away rather than coming on. It is as if nature itself is taunting him with a fresh disappointment, pointing out how old he is getting with each passing benchmark on the year. The seasons chase each other like a dog chases its tail.

  If someone were to ask Thomas to choose another day on the calendar he would prefer over a chilly Saint-Michel, he has his answer ready. That would be Easter, and not because of the story of a resurrection and a life eternal. No, it is because of what lies behind that wishful-thinking tale. It is the waxing, warming light and the signs of rebirth that come at that time of year. Easter brings a better mood than any feast day from late September on. Thomas shudders to accept that winter’s onset has come so early this year, darkening and chilling the world. He tugs on the tricorne atop his bewigged head and turns up the collar on his greatcoat as he continues his stroll along the cobbled walkway beside the Seine.

  How familiar Paris has become to him again. It didn’t take long after returning from London before it seemed like he’d never left on his English interlude. In fact, maybe that’s what he should do. If someone ever asks if he has travelled beyond the borders of Louis XV’s kingdom, he will affirm he never did. None but a few know the truth, and they’re not around to countermand what he says.

  Thomas likes the way Paris’s spires and rooflines meet the clouds, especially the twin towers of Notre-Dame and the spire off on the right of Saint-Severin. Though he has turned against the Church, he still admires its architecture. Heavenly aspirations deserve silent applause. When he lowers his eyes and ears to absorb the crowded, malodorous and noisy streets of Paris, however, Thomas has to admit that the place has a few weaknesses. Still, the city is a living thing. There is always construction or repair, and the people one meets on the streets come from all levels and display every temperament. The loud seem to outnumber the quiet, but that’s only because the quiet keep to themselves. Almost as numerous as the people, or so it seems because they cannot help but announce themselves, are all the horses clipping and clopping over the cobbled streets. In truth, the horses are few and far between when compared to the mice and rats. Silently, they skulk everywhere, with a legion of cats trying to keep them in check. As for the dogs and birds, they too are abundant. Paris is life itself, the best and worst side by side and astir.

  The sound of a creaking cart catches him unawares. Thomas twists to see. There, coming along the Quai de Conti, is further proof the cold season is nigh. A cartload of firewood. Those who can afford to buy such bundles will keep warm over the weeks and months to come. Thomas gladly counts himself among that group. A wood fire may not be as strong as coal, which the English prefer, but its smoke is preferable. London’s air had a stinging, sulphurous bite.

  “Or so I have read, for I have never been there.” Thomas’s ever-ready lie makes him smile. It is easier than he ever would have guessed to edit one’s life and thoughts into what one wants them to be.

  Thomas gives the creaking cart a friendly slap on its closest wheel as it spins by. Yes, he does like having firewood in his rooms near the old church of Saint-Julien le Pauvre. Last winter’s supply is nearly gone, so he’ll soon have to purchase more. He hopes never to be reduced to huddling beneath a wool blanket when winter comes, with no fire in the grate. He thanks his fate for having the means to avoid that. There are many, not just in this city but everywhere, who are far from being so fortunate.

  The only thing missing from Thomas’s life, aside from the elusive higher rank and the hint of respect it might bring, is a woman with whom he could share more of his hours. He longs for it to balance some of the bluster, stupidity and facade of his own sex. He spends all his working days surrounded by men: judges, lawyers, clerks, scribes and copyists. They are a dull lot at best.

  As for the nights … well, he mostly spends them in his rooms, if not reading then taking up his quill. Gone is the time of his life when he frequented cabarets and cafés, complaining about his lot in life with others of a similar bent. Now, he’d rather keep his disappointments to himself and not add anyone else’s troubles to his inventory. Similarly vanished are his visits to courtesans and whores. He refuses to rut like a beast the way he once did.

  His greatest pleasure these past few months is reading clever words in pamphlets and books and in the letters he receives. Or when he puts down what he thinks are some clever words of his own, sending them off to his correspondents. The network of enlightened minds he is in touch with across Europe is now up to eleven, with the addition of the Russ
ian count in St. Petersburg and the young Swiss from Geneva who is working as a tutor in Lyon. Thomas will be writing the young Rousseau this evening about their mutual interest in the rustic, yet freer, peoples of the overseas world. Earlier in the week Thomas found a book on Accadie, which describes its fishery and its natural people. Some of what he read he wants to share with young Jean-Jacques.

  From London there faithfully arrives a letter at least once a month, to which Thomas dutifully replies. Occasionally Jean Gallatin mentions a detail about his wife and child, but not often enough. The most recent informed Thomas that his godson and namesake had just turned six, but it said nothing about what the boy does and does not like. Thomas is curious. The last time he saw the boy there was something about him that reminded Thomas of himself at that age. Maybe it was how he preferred to be up in the attic by himself. Thomas wishes Hélène would add a paragraph or two about the boy, or maybe about herself, but she never does. More than a few times, Thomas has wondered what that scene at the window was about. Why didn’t she just step out of the house and into the street? They could have talked, they could have—

  But no. Instead, Thomas still does not know what it was the woman was trying to say. It had to be more than just goodbye and don’t go.

  Thomas sighs.

  Every month or two Madame de Beaumont sends him a letter from Lake Annecy. He enjoys them a great deal, and he always replies. But it is a polite response, no promises does he make. It is inconceivable that he would ever move to a mountain village, no matter how fond he is of her or how often she tells him Annecy is the Venice of the Alps.

  Thomas slows his stride and brings his gaze to the river. Advancing under two of the arches of the Pont Neuf are barges with eight-foot lengths of cordwood stacked high. It is not as if he needed another sign that the change of seasons is under way. Yet there it comes, and there in the green flowing water of the Seine is one more. The river today is covered with rising wisps as it yields its warmth to the overhanging air. Thomas cannot help but wonder, foolish as it is, if the Seine does not resent the winter coming to steal away its summer heat. Of course it does not, except in some poet’s verse. He halts and takes hold of the stone rail. Would that the missing muse, an old childhood friend, would visit him again. It would be a delightful change from the letter-writing muse, if there be such a thing.