by Claude Izner
‘May I be of assistance by any chance?’ he enquired in a high-pitched voice.
Kenji jumped. Two enormous eyes, as round and shiny as marbles, were peering at him through thick spectacles.
The clerk tugged at his left ear lobe as he studied the opportune visitor, and at once resolved to spin out the situation for as long as possible.
‘My dear Monsieur, do you realise that you are standing on the shores of a veritable ocean of paper the level of which is continually rising and which no amount of evaporation can reduce?’ he declared in a nasal voice, as he emerged from his lair.
‘Yes, yes. The text I’m looking for is missing the first—’
‘Two rivers whose waters never meet feed this ocean. One flows from the legal deposit, the other from public sales. Deposit and purchase, purchase and deposit, that’s what it boils down to!’
‘I’m sure you’re right. I—’
‘Consider the noble task it falls to us to perform. This flood of printed matter must be collated, assembled, guillotined, bound, stamped and numbered. Do you ever stop to think about it?’
‘Every evening before I go to sleep,’ retorted Kenji. ‘However, I—’
‘As soon as these volumes arrive, they’re put away in special cabinets. It’s hard enough already to find one’s way around in here with all these additional weekly and monthly publications. And yet, Monsieur, they are a mere trifle compared to the number of periodicals that have seen the light of day at the end of this century. Three thousand a year, Monsieur, three thousand and counting! Worse still are all the French and foreign newspapers – sparing you those with the biggest circulation, such publications as The Swiss Argus, The Western Bugler, The Charolles Gazetteer, The Picardie Press, The Southern Herald. What do you make of it all, I ask you?’
‘Nothing whatsoever. I’m leaving,’ Kenji replied.
The clerk caught up with him in a panic, sorry to see his excuse to be idle slip away.
‘Don’t take it badly, Monsieur. If God gave us eyes to see with, it is so that we can use them as best we can. What can I do for you?’
‘I wish to consult a Persian manuscript the title pages of which are missing. It was recently acquired by the library.’
‘In that case, there’s no point in me taking you to the stacks where the most valuable books are kept, eighty thousand all told – a phenomenal enough number, but when I tell you that the entire library is home to two million…’
‘A fat lot of good that does me,’ groaned Kenji.
‘When you say “recently acquired” it leads me to conclude that your book is being rebound, for which we have at our disposal a budget of a mere thirty thousand francs. Naturally this limits our ability to purchase because…’
Kenji felt himself falter. Was there no escaping this fellow’s endless patter?
‘Is your manuscript at the binder’s?’
‘You just told me you thought it was!’
‘Quite so, Monsieur. However,’ the clerk resumed, ‘you mentioned a Persian manuscript and anything relating to the Parsees attracts Hagop Yanikian like a bear to honey.’
Kenji was beginning to think that the man had lost his reason, when he added in a hushed voice, ‘Hagop Yanikian is an employee of Armenian extraction whose job it is to deliver books for rebinding to the acquisitions office. Only, whenever he comes across a Persian text, he spirits it away so that his cousin can copy out any passages that might interest him.’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘It’s quite simple, Monsieur. If you return to the reading room, you can’t miss this famous cousin, Aram Kasangian. He sits at the end of the big table to the right of the main desk. He’s spent the last fifteen years wearing himself out compiling a Persian–French dictionary. He’s a permanent fixture here. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had your manuscript.’
His head spinning, Kenji left, after half-heartedly thanking the clerk, who looked up triumphantly at the clock. Hurrah! Only five minutes until closing time.
Outside, the heat was oppressive. Kenji stopped at a drinking fountain and quenched his thirst with the aid of a tin cup attached to a chain. It was almost six o’clock. Suddenly faint, he flopped onto a bench in Place Louvois.
‘You miserable swine! What kind of performance do you call that? Are you going to make an effort or do I have to force you! You deserve a kick up the backside, you jackass! Do you want us to be booed off stage on opening night?’
Edmond Leglantier flung his plumed hat furiously onto the stage of Théâtre de l’Échiquier as he railed at his fellow actor. Sheepishly Ravaillac retreated stage right to prepare for a second offensive against the Gallic Hercules.
‘Well, what is it? Why is our stage manager twitching like a scared rabbit?’
‘Quick, Monsieur Leglantier, hide, it’s Monsieur Vannier!’
On hearing the name of his main creditor, Edmond Leglantier rushed over to the prompter’s box and opened a trapdoor, vanishing from the stage and ending up beneath the auditorium. He could hear a general commotion above him as his company scattered. He walked down a narrow passageway leading to the props room and bumped into a female figure bending over a trunk, putting away some pasteboard plates.
‘You can’t see a thing down here! Who’s that?’ he asked, feeling an ample behind.
‘It’s me, Andréa,’ the young girl squealed.
‘Well, I never. What a shapely pair of haunches you have, my lovely. You’d be an absolute knockout in a tightfitting bodice. No need for the claque, the fellows in the stalls would be crying out for an encore!’
Andréa took a step backwards, pressing herself against the wall; Leglantier’s wandering hands were already exploring her.
‘Don’t be shy – let me look at you! Oh, what a lovely pair, and all your own,’ he muttered, feeling up her bodice.
Andréa gave him a resounding slap and promptly burst into tears. Edmond Leglantier rubbed his cheek.
‘A spirited wench! If you’d only stop blubbing, you’d be sure to impress the crowd.’
She could star in a classical sketch, all transparent veils and revealing robes. Nothing too deep; she’s still wet behind the ears. Or a saucy pantomime with pan pipes, he thought to himself.
‘You could play the Valkyrie,’ he said, as an afterthought.
‘Who’s that?’
‘A kind of Amazon, but with a winged hairstyle – daughter of the god Wotan.’
‘The coast is clear,’ the stage manager boomed.
‘Blow your nose, you silly girl, I’m going back up,’ Edmond Leglantier said to Andréa.
The royal carriage stood centre stage hemmed in by two carts outside a tavern called the Crowned Heart Pierced by an Arrow. While the actors were busy straightening their wigs, Edmond Leglantier reflected with satisfaction that he no longer needed to live from hand to mouth now that the Ambrex swindle had paid off. He was back on his feet again, but he didn’t want the news getting out or else every sponger in France and Navarre would be rolling out the red carpet for him, beginning with his mistress, Adélaide Paillet, of whom he’d grown weary. I’ll replace her with the luscious Andréa, he thought.
‘You look like a scarecrow,’ he yelled at the actor playing the Duc d’Épernon. ‘Try to look intelligent, and read aloud that letter for me from the Comte de Soissons.’
‘The Comte de Soissons has written to you?’
‘Not to me, you dunderhead, to Henry IV! Only Henry IV has left his spectacles at home so he’s asking you politely to read the blasted letter, get it?’
‘Should he be reading it?’ asked Ravaillac.
‘As for you, you ham, shut up and concentrate. This time you must run me through shouting: “Have at ye, man of straw!”
Henry IV and the Duc d’Épernon heaved themselves into the carriage. Lying in wait behind a barrel, Ravaillac bit his nails nervously, trying to remember his solitary line.
The Duc d’Épernon announced, ‘Your Majesty, it is
with great tardiness that I reply to your epistle. A rumour is abroad that the enemies of the kingdom are watching you and that your life will be in peril if you mingle with your subjects, for—’
Edmond Leglantier snatched the letter from him.
‘What drivel! Philibert Dumont is a good-for-nothing hack!’
He dropped the piece of paper. Just as he was bending down to pick it up Ravaillac leapt out, roaring, ‘Have at ye, man of hay!’
He lunged twice at the Duc d’Épernon who collapsed screaming, ‘Help! The fool’s run me through! Oh…the pain, it’s terrible.’
Edmond Leglantier leant over him ready to shower him with insults, only to discover to his horror a bright-red stain on the actor’s side.
‘What’s come over you?’ he asked Ravaillac, in a shocked voice.
Ravaillac, whose wig had slipped off to reveal his balding pate, looked aghast at the drop of blood on the end of his dagger.
‘I didn’t do it on purpose,’ he wailed.
‘You blockhead, a moment sooner and you’d have stabbed me!’ Edmond Leglantier bawled.
‘He’s killed me,’ moaned the victim.
‘There’s no button on the tip of the blade. It’s the props man’s fault. He—’
‘Don’t stand there bickering! Go and fetch a doctor!’ cried Maria de Medici.
The stage manager hurried off. Edmond Leglantier carefully lifted his fellow actor’s doublet and confirmed the existence of a superficial wound.
‘Nothing to worry about, my friend – it’s a mere scratch,’ he whispered, using his own shirt, which he’d taken off and rolled up in a ball, as a compress.
Bare-chested, he stood up and caught Andréa gazing admiringly at his muscular torso. He twirled his moustache and roared, ‘Bravo, everybody! A magnificent performance. Stunning dialogue, sublime, a true work of art! Well done! You wreck my production then you try to kill me! I’ll show you what I’m made of! For a start…’
With a ferocious smile he turned to Ravaillac, who shrank back.
‘Fire that bungling props man! I’m going upstairs to rest. You deal with the doctor. I want Épernon back on his feet in one hour, do you hear me?’
He strode across the auditorium with great dignity, puffing out his chest.
‘He’s got a nerve going off like that and making us hang about!’ exclaimed Maria de Medici.
‘And, anyway, I’m the one who’s been murdered, not him!’ whined the Duc d’Épernon.
‘The dagger I had yesterday was shorter with a thicker hilt. It was perfect. Who changed it?’ bleated Ravaillac.
Nobody answered.
Slumped in a wing chair, Edmond Leglantier forced himself to take deep breaths. His cast was a disaster. They’d never be ready to open by the end of the month. Gradually, he began to calm down. What good would come of fretting? By way of relaxing, he conjured up images of Andréa’s naked, lustful body yielding to his desires in the little love nest he would rent for her at Passy or Grenelle. His daydream was shattered by a violent knocking that shook the door.
‘You rat, just wait till I get my hands on you!’
Somebody was leaning against the door so hard that it creaked and groaned under the pressure.
Edmond Leglantier’s first response was to stare at the door handle, which was being jiggled fiercely up and down, and congratulate himself on having turned the key. Then he reflected that a scandal would tarnish his reputation. Still stripped to the waist, he opened the door so abruptly that the man standing there, who was tall, sharp-featured and as bald as a coot, stumbled forward into the centre of the room.
‘Monsieur le Duc de Frioul! To what do I owe the honour—’
‘You have the nerve to speak of honour! Here is my card, I have my seconds, choose your weapon.’
Edmond Leglantier swallowed, and curled his lip.
‘Whatever is the matter, my friend? I sense animosity in your voice. Have I offended you in some way? I don’t understand…’
‘Ah, so you don’t understand, you damnable vulture preying on honest men’s flesh!’
Brandishing a handful of Ambrex shares, the Duc de Frioul drove Edmond Leglantier back to the wing chair.
‘Monsieur le Duc, I beg you to be reasonable. I’m neither a rat nor a vulture. Why this amounts to—’
‘An outrageous amount of money! You extorted a fortune out of me, and in exchange for what? A few scraps of…of paper fit only for the sewer. They’re worthless, do you understand? Utterly worthless! I’m going to make you pay,’ the Duc hissed.
Rage had reduced his eyes to slits.
‘What! Worthless?…Why, that’s impossible! It’s an outrage! I can’t breathe,’ moaned Edmond Leglantier.
He fell into a swoon, taking care to land on a chair. Disconcerted, the Duc de Frioul shook him by the shoulder.
‘I know your game,’ he growled. ‘You’re sticking to your story, you rogue, and trying to wheedle your way out of it.’
‘No, I swear! I invested every penny I had in this scheme…I’m ruined…I might as well end it all!’ cried Edmond Leglantier, his voice quaking. ‘Bring me some water…This is a bad dream. You must be mistaken!’
‘I only wish I was. On the contrary, I’ve uncovered the fraud.’
‘Do you mean the shares are bogus?’
‘At first sight they appear flawless. The problem is the revolutionary substance they claim to be selling.’
‘I don’t follow you.’
‘You remember the cigar holders you gave me to convince me they were imitation Baltic amber? Well, they’re real. I was suspicious so I put a red-hot needle to one of them and it produced only a tiny blister. This proves beyond any doubt that they’re made of pure resin! You swindled me and my associates. We’ll drag you before the courts.’
‘You’re forgetting that I’ve been fleeced too.’
‘It’s you who sold us these worthless scraps of paper. You acted as the inventor’s guarantor!’
‘I’ll wring his neck!’
The Duc de Frioul sneered.
‘Right now, he’s probably smoking a cigar on the Côte d’Azur and splitting his sides at the thought of having cleaned us out.’
‘And what if you’re wrong? What if this substance has the same reaction to heat as real amber?’
‘How many times do I have to tell you? There’s no such substance, any more than there is money that grows on trees,’ the Duc de Frioul repeated, his face flushed, striking the keys of a typewriter forcefully to accentuate his words.
He composed himself, and added coldly, ‘I tried to find the notary, this Maître Piard. I made enquiries at the chamber of notaries. Nobody had ever heard of him. As for the printer, the courts will no doubt deem him to have acted in good faith; you, on the other hand…’
‘Me! Oh woe is me! I was taken in! I’m ruined!’
‘Stuff and nonsense! You have your theatre.’
‘It’s mortgaged up to the hilt.’
‘I couldn’t care less.’
‘It’s too dreadful for words!’
Edmond Leglantier then did something which neither he nor the Duc de Frioul would ever have expected. He began to sob. He made no attempt to hide his shame. The tears rolled down his cheeks, he sniffled and drooled, the very picture of despair. Bemused, the Duc de Frioul went over to pat him on the back. But it was no use, Edmond Leglantier’s howls grew steadily louder, and his face puffed up like a toad. Defeated, the Duc de Frioul beat a hasty retreat, abandoning his plans for a duel, incapable of heaping further suffering on a fellow already in such despair.
Edmond Leglantier waited for a few seconds after the door had quietly closed before grabbing his flannel waistcoat and drying his eyes and blowing his nose.
‘Hell’s bells! What a waste! With a performance like that I would have triumphed on stage. End of Act One. Beginning of Act Two: my great-aunt Augustine in Condé-sur-Noireau has just passed away and I will very shortly receive news that I’m her sole heir.’
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He stood squarely in front of the mirror, hand on heart, and declaimed, ‘Today tragedy, tomorrow farce! French farce, of course,’ he concluded, smothering his face in cold cream.
The chimneystacks stood out against the pink light glowing above the rooftops. Shut up in his lodge all afternoon, Casimir Myon twisted his neck to catch a glimpse of the tiny rectangle of sky from the bottom of the shaft that rose five storeys high. During this bright spell, he could smoke his pipe and lose himself in speculations about the weather.
‘Today has been thundery, but the sky is clear now, apart from a few fluffy clouds. Tomorrow will be fine…They look like grains of rice, no, more like tapioca.’
The idea of food made his stomach rumble and he felt a pang of hunger. It was time to prepare his supper. After filling a jug with water from the pump in the courtyard, Casimir Myon walked back into the cramped hovel allocated to him as concierge of Théâtre de l’Échiquier next to the stage door. On hearing the slosh of water in the pot, a black cat, which had been curled up on the ledge of the only window, stretched and miaowed.
‘Patience, Moka, I’ve only got two hands! I’ve got to peel the vegetables while the water’s heating up…Here, have this as an hors d’oeuvre.’
Taking his time, he cut a piece of lung into small strips and laid it on some newspaper. While Moka chewed, he sat down at the table and began peeling the potatoes and carrots which he would supplement with a piece of pork rind. The sound of hammering echoed down the corridor leading to the orchestra pit; the theatre was being renovated in anticipation of its reopening. On the left of the room, a padded door opened on to the foyer, which in turn led to the box office. Casimir Myon had put an armchair in front of it to stop the actors and props men from barging in all the time. These people hadn’t an ounce of common sense; they led riotous lives and were quite capable of sending him out on a whim to buy a cigar or deliver a love letter. He wouldn’t be surprised if they knocked him up in the middle of the night because they’d left a handkerchief on stage.