The Black Tower

by Louis Bayard

  Night after night, the occupants of Maison Carpentier have waged war across the dinner table. In extremis we find a fraternity. Neighbors swirl round us—Monsieur Sénard the moneylender, Madame Fleuriais and her elderly aunt and their Pomeranian—full of questions and commiserations. We turn our backs to them. This is our calamity.

  And when the front window cracks open and a jet of white flame shoots out, bisecting the air around us, we shout in unison. Another window splinters. The building’s bass rumble rises to a baritone, and just then I hear Charlotte say:

  “Where’s Madame?”

  It’s in the firelight that I find her: a swaddled figure stealing toward the house like a burglar.

  “Mother!”

  Charlotte and Father Time both try to restrain me, but I’m too fast for them. I’m too fast for all of Paris, I’m racing the entire populace toward that front door, but the fire wants only me, for the heat that greets me as I step over the threshold seems cut to my exact form. I sink into it, and everything goes black for a second, and then I find myself crawling across the remains of our dining room, I feel the crunch of glass, I smell the contents of Charlotte’s pantry: burnt flour, caramelizing sugar. My throat seizes up, my lungs squeeze down. And my brain turns to fog, which is why it takes me several seconds to recognize the obstruction in front of me as my mother.

  I wrap my arms round her, and I try to lift, but the sheer mass of her defeats me. Rolling her over, I find, pressed against her bosom, her box of silver.

  In vain do I try to pry it from her. I have to hoist her and the box and carry them both to the door, the fire roaring after us. Within seconds, the rectangular fruitwood table and the convict-made china and the ivory landshape have been submerged in flame. And as I race out the front door, I can feel the fire skipping after me, stinging my heels, pulling my hair.

  It’s only when I reach the street that I realize my nightshirt is on fire. Jeanne-Victoire is the one who pulls it off me, stamps the flames into silence. I almost laugh, finding myself half-naked again in her presence, but there’s no air to laugh with, and I drop to my knees and bend over Mother’s half-conscious form.

  Her skin has turned a faint blue, and her mouth is smeared black, and the spasms in her vocal cords make a strange music, high and thin, like a recorder.

  “Don’t worry,” I whisper. “You’re safe.”

  The sound stops. The tarred fingers of her right hand reach for mine, and the heat of the house seems to weld us together. By degrees, though, the heat evaporates, and her fingers grow cold, from the tips down to the root. Then the palm turns cold. Then the arm.

  I reach for the other arm, still folded round that box of silver. It’s every bit as cold. Every bit as still.

  No one says a word to me at first. Then Charles steps forward. His arms form a kind of fidgeting square around me. Later I will realize he is trying to touch me.

  “I know how it is, Hector. I lost my mother, too.”

  PART III

  Place de Grève

  17 FLORÉAL YEAR III

  Is my mother alive?

  Charles posed that question to me today. I reminded him it was not my position to say. Am forbidden to speak of outside events, on pain of…etc., etc.

  Very well, he said. You neednt say a word. If my mother lives, then simply nod, how shall that be?

  After sm time, he said: You’re not nodding.

  19 FLORÉAL

  This A.M., on tower platform, Charles made a point of collecting flowers & laying them outside door of his mother’s cell.

  26 FLORÉAL

  Charles’ symptoms have become most alarming. Tumors have proliferated in right knee & left wrist. Fainting fits increasingly common. Weakness excessive. Feet too tender to permit of much walking. This A.M., I was obliged to carry him up final steps to platform.

  Spirits have also taken decided plunge. Even sight of “his sparrows” did nothing to gladden him. Ive entreated him to be of gd cheer. All not lost. His sister in gd health, has asked af him daily. Many people, myself included, long to see him better—

  You dont understand, he cut me off. My mother is dead because of me.

  Cit Simon, he said, had forced him to say terrible things about his mother & aunt. How they had touched him in private places & done unspeakable things to him, & he knew it to be lies, but Simon kept at him & wdnt let him sleep, and finally he came to believe it was true, and thats what he signed his name to, he scarcely knew what he was doing. And then they used those lies against his mother, and thats why shes dead, and how cd he ever forgive himself?

  No argument wd dissuade him. Again & again he berated himself. Said he feared death all the more now because he was sure God wd judge him most harshly.

  I replied that, on contrary, God wd frown on men who so cruelly used a child to serve their bloodlust.

  He was not used to my speaking so frankly. How angry you sound, he said.

  1 PRAIRIAL

  Charles experiencing prolonged & extreme episodes of sore throat & fever, w/accompanying delirium. Leblanc reports child has claimed to hear his mother’s voice. Insists she is in “next tower.”

  6 PRAIRIAL

  This A.M., Mme Royale once more asked me about her brother. I said his condition was not improving as rapidly as Id like.

  She saw thru my evasions at once. He’s dying, she said.

  Then something unaccountable. My self-mastery gave way. I turned to one side, explaining I had piece of grit in my mouth.

  Youve done your best, Doctor, she said.

  7 PRAIRIAL

  Genl Barras has left orders he does not wish to see me. His attaché informed me if I have any questions relating to my official duties, Im to take them up w/Comm for Genl Security.

  I swallowed my pride & approached Cit Mathieu. Apologized for my intemperate remarks in earlier meeting. Said I had come to speak w/him on matter of utmost urgency.

  Yes? he said. (Looking v. weary.)

  Louis-Charles, I said, must be removed fm Temple. Poisonous air of cell laying waste to his powers. In healthy mountain climate—Switzerland, e.g.—he might recover his strength, reverse progression of disease. Leaving him where he is wd be death sentence. Surely a civilized society cd not desire that? Surely Charles is worth more to them alive than dead?

  I assured Mathieu I wd be only too glad to accompany child, w/as many armed guards as Comm saw fit. Said I wd agree to any restrictions—work w/o compensation—if Comm wd just agree to remove him fm his cell.

  He frowned & was silent for gd while.

  I dont understand, he said. Why are you bothering so much about this child?

  Because he cd be my own son, I said. And if he were, then I shd wish someone to care—as I do.

  I hf expected him to laugh. Instead, he said, in a tone almost kindly: Doctor, that boy cannot leave. You & I both know it. If you can make his final days easier, so be it. If not, you have done what you can. The Republic can ask no more of you.

  I believe he expected that to be a comfort.

  10 PRAIRIAL

  Charles able to eat only a little soup + a few cherries. Time running out.

  11 PRAIRIAL

  Junius will know what to do.

  13 PRAIRIAL

  Enough for now.

  CHAPTER 40

  The Rebirth of Junius

  MY MOTHER IS BURIED next to my father under an old yew. The Vaugirard Cemetery is mildewy and unfashionable, and the mourners are few: Charlotte, Charles, myself, and Vidocq, in a black-banded hat. Vidocq himself tips the pallbearers and the gravedigger and the priest and, after paying for Charlotte’s cab and dispatching Charles to Sûreté headquarters, he treats me to a bottle of Argenteuil at the Good Quince. I drain two glasses in quick succession.

  “How are you holding up?” he asks me.

  I query myself as if I were my own doctor. Pulse: regular. Breathing: regular. Hand: steady.

  “I seem to be fine.”

  “You’re not,” he says. “I
think you should rest a few days, Hector.”

  The black suit I’m wearing is one of Vidocq’s castoffs, far too large in the legs and shoulders and forcibly cinched to my waist. The wine has stirred a dull sputter in my head, and the tavern air is thick with mouse droppings, and over Vidocq’s massive shoulder, I can see the sun, relatively puny, setting over the dome of the Invalides.

  “Three people are dead,” I say. “I might have been one of them. That’s reason enough to stay awake, don’t you think?”

  Staring into my glass, I find my own thumbprint glowing back at me. I try to remember what Vidocq used to say about fingerprints…no one’s the same as anyone else’s….

  And then I’m remembering something else. The last glass of wine I had with Mother. The way the light folded round us.

  “Have you learned anything?” I ask.

  “As best we can tell, the fire started in the grease drain between the woodshed and the kitchen window. Seems to have spread from there to the meat cage. As to what started it, we didn’t find any incendiary devices, but we did find the remains of a phosphoric bottle.”

  The news filters slowly down through my skull.

  “Arson,” I say, nodding.

  “Likely, yes. Of course, we don’t yet know if it’s connected to Charles.”

  And for the first time in memory, he can’t hold my gaze. Makes a point of brushing the crown of his hat.

  “Do you remember what Monsieur told Herbaux?” I ask, pushing my chair back from the table. “‘Don’t kill them,’ he said. ‘Just scare them away.’”

  “I remember.”

  “Then why would he try to burn us all alive? A houseful of people to get to one man…”

  Vidocq shrugs. “Just because you start a carriage rolling doesn’t mean you can stop it.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “It means Monsieur may no longer be master of himself. Or his schemes.”

  Vidocq empties the rest of the bottle into my glass. Watches with an air of regret as the last drop rolls out.

  “Where do you and Charles propose to stay, Hector?”

  It’s a good question. Father Time is staying with friends in the Rue Gracieuse. Charlotte is ensconced with her sister’s large brood in the Marché Lenoir. Until now, it’s never once occurred to me I need shelter myself.

  “There must be someplace,” I say.

  “There is,” says Vidocq.

  TEN SPITS FROM Notre-Dame, a mere block from the river, just around the corner from the Place Saint-Michel…and yet chances are good you’ll walk right past the Rue de l’Hirondelle without knowing it. Which is exactly how Vidocq likes it. Few people come to this narrow cobbled street, not even Vidocq’s own staff, so it is with some sense of my own unworthiness that I pause before the imposingly high front of number 111.

  Charles has no such inhibitions. He’s already charging up the marble steps.

  “Look! They’ve got salamanders carved over the door.”

  “Now listen,” growls Vidocq. “When you get inside, take your boots off. That’s an Aubusson rug, do you hear?”

  It is, indeed. And an Empire console table and a marble staircase. And high ceilings and burnished parquet floors and two maids. The boy from Arras has done well.

  Without leaving Arras behind. It is still very much present in the round person of Vidocq’s mother: peasant earth in the midst of beribboned sleeves and lilac powder.

  “My boys!” she cries, drawing us toward her. “What you’ve been through! Never mind, you’ll sleep safe under our roof, I promise you. And you’re to stay as long as you need to, aren’t they, François?”

  “Whatever you say,” answers Vidocq, throwing up his hands in surrender.

  “Now you can wear François’ clothes until you find some of your own. They’re a bit large—yes, I do see that, Doctor—but Catherine will take them down for you, she’s a wonder with the needle. I’m told you’re to share a room, but don’t worry, the bed’s big enough for an army. Louis the Sixteenth, you know the style. By all means, sleep as late as you want. No one here will ever rouse you before you’re ready….”

  On an impulse, she cups her hand round my ear and whispers:

  “She’s at peace, you know. Just like my dear husband. The Lord has seen to them both.”

  That night, for reasons I don’t examine too closely, I choose to sleep on the floor, with rolled-up bedding for a mattress. Charles, for equally unexamined reasons, lets me do it. For a good hour, I lie there, and it’s as if last night’s fire is still raging. I can smell the smoke on my hands, I can feel the blisters on my back. I can see the black bundle of Mother on the dining room floor.

  Just after dawn, I wake to Charles’ long, riverlike breaths. Putting on Vidocq’s black suit, I tiptoe down the marble stairs. Turn the lock on the front door, step onto the doorstep.

  “Dr. Carpentier?”

  From the street below, a gendarme regards me fixedly.

  “Just going for a walk,” I explain.

  “Then you must bring me along. Chief’s orders.”

  It’s not, after all, a very long stroll to the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève. The smoke can still be smelled from a block away, and in the early-morning light, Maison Carpentier has the look of someone in a tavern brawl. Black-eyed windows, missing door-teeth…cauterized innards and shreds of curtain dangling like torn-off hair. Through the holes in the roof a half-dozen rooks wheel and dive. Colonizing the only home I’ve ever known.

  “Hector!”

  Father Time is coming down the hill toward me, wearing the same shabby clothes he took with him out of this house. In the light of dawn, he has the look of someone roused from the dead.

  “So glad I could—oh, I say,” he exclaims to the gendarme blocking his path. “Is this a friend of yours, Hector?”

  “It’s all right!” I call. “Professor Corneille comes in peace.”

  The gendarme grudgingly steps aside. Clutching his coat, Father Time minces toward me, a smile teasing his gray lips apart.

  “Thousand apologies for missing the funeral, my boy. Such a—such a dreadful business. I always assumed your parents would be burying me, you know, not the other way….”

  He’s stopped by the sight of that building, hollow and savage.

  “So…so very…”

  And for several minutes, we say nothing at all. We watch the rooks, we smell the fumes. And then, in a low and elegiac voice, Father Time says:

  “How I wish you could have known your mother, my boy. When she was young, I mean. What fire she had! Truly, a remarkable orator.”

  “Orator?”

  “Oh, yes! She was a leading light in the—the Fraternal Society for Patriots of Both Sexes. I remember the first time I heard her speak. ‘Toward the Next Enlightenment,’ that was her theme. Men and women, side by side, striding toward paradise. Rip-roaring stuff. I was ready to throw out civilization and start from scratch.”

  “But why didn’t she…”

  “Oh, well, you came along, didn’t you? Wouldn’t do to drag babies to midnight meetings, like some fishwife. No, in the end, she was the good bourgeoise. Stayed home with her baby.”

  And became…how did my mother put it? One of those helpless, sad women. Whose final act was to reclaim her dowry. The chest of silver that even now lies buried with her.

  “Are you all right, my boy?”

  I don’t answer at first. I just keep rubbing my face until the only thing I can feel is the friction in my skin.

  “I’m fine,” I say at last. “But what about you, Monsieur? Where will you go?”

  “Oh, as to that.” A flush of purple in his slackened cheeks. “You know the expression, desperate times call for—what I mean to say is I’ve contacted an old friend of mine—owns a charming cottage in Vernon and—well, not to put too fine a point on it, I’ve asked for her hand in marriage.”

  “And she—consented?”

  “Oh, my, yes. She’s been after me for years, you kn
ow. But I would insist on my bachelor ways.”

  His chuckle seems to separate his jaw from the rest of his skull.

  “Ah, well, it can’t be helped,” he says. “No more orchid volumes to sell.”

  He stares down at his miserable boots, with their lacquer of egg yolk, and I feel a sharp pang thinking of what he lost to the fire. That barrelful of Revolutionary artifacts. Tricolor snuffboxes and Rousseau’s mitten. Reams and reams of old…

  Old journals…

  “You’re Junius,” I say.

  I voice it in the very moment I think it. And the sound of that name jars open Father Time’s mouth, sends his hand beetling across his chest.

  “Well, yes. In another life, that was—”

  “Your pseudonym. When you wrote for the Courrier Universel. You’re the one who told them about the dauphin’s condition.” I pause to let the words seep back in. “Junius will know what to do. That’s what Father wrote in his journal. Just days before Louis the Seventeenth died. He was going to speak with you.”