Illumination

by Matthew Plampin

  ‘I thought of Le Loup first,’ she’d confided, ‘but they are pack creatures; it is the Prussians who are the wolves here, wouldn’t you say, circling us as they do? No, I wanted a beast that creeps, that stalks, that pounces with deadly force – that has a beauty to its actions, even as it kills. In short: Le Léopard!’

  Clem had tried to talk to her about Hannah and her obvious despondency, how she seemed trapped by the whole business, but Elizabeth had been without mercy.

  ‘I will not try to rescue the girl for a second time, Clement,’ she’d said. ‘This is what she wanted. Don’t you recall how angry she was to see us here? Besides, that sweetheart of hers is about to become a hero. She’ll soon be the most envied woman in Paris.’

  Besson smoothed his Figaro and translated a few sentences aloud. ‘The great gun stood useless, so much dead metal, robbed forever of its fire. Its operators, coming to investigate, met their ends without ever seeing their assailant. Major Allix, our Leopard, having primed a powder keg to burst, slid back soundlessly over the emplacement wall; and by the time it blew, knocking down two more of the foe, he had vanished. A relief party arrived, searching this way and that for the saboteur; but all they could do was curse the night – curse fate and the greedy Kaiser who had led them on this needless, ignoble invasion.’ The aérostier was impassive. ‘Quite an adventure, no?’

  ‘Somewhat over-dramatised, perhaps …’

  ‘It is signed only “a friend of free Paris”, but everyone knows it is your mother. She is famous once again. And this creation of hers, this Leopard, is being talked of in every arrondissement.’

  The coffee and brandy were brought. Clem frowned; there was accusation in Besson’s voice. ‘What can I tell you? It has absolutely nothing to do with me. He sneaks up to talk with her while I’m out in the city. I know literally as much as you do – as any reader of the Figaro does.’

  Clem had been consigned to the sidelines, required only to admire. Elizabeth, having Allix at her disposal, no longer troubled herself very much to learn what he’d seen. ‘If I ever pen a report on harlots’ boudoirs or low drinking dens, Clement,’ she’d told him, ‘I’ll be sure to consult you.’

  Besson was eyeing him steadily; he had more to say, but was holding his tongue. Sipping his coffee, he allowed Clem to switch the subject to ballooning – even to get out his designs and lay them over Encore Saute le Léopard.

  ‘Changes are coming to the balloon post,’ he said, picking up the topmost. ‘Nadar has decided to move all operations from the Elysées-Montmartre to the Gare du Nord.’

  Clem was impressed; this would be a significant undertaking. ‘A question of space? I recall you bemoaning the height of the ceilings in the dancing school.’

  ‘In part. There is a feeling, also, that Montmartre is turning against us. Our position has become fragile since the evacuation of Monsieur Gambetta. Les Rouges now believe that we are merely an arm of the government.’

  Just over a week earlier Léon Gambetta, Trochu’s Minister of the Interior, had flown out from the place Saint-Pierre, with instructions to head for Tours and assemble an army that could come to the aid of Paris. Clem had been in the crowd that gathered to cheer Gambetta’s departure. The brave statesman had looked distinctly sick as he climbed into the tiny wicker basket – and close to fainting as he was carried up and off, away into the dreary October sky.

  The reds hadn’t liked this development at all. It was said that they wanted Paris to be left entirely alone and unaided, their leaders convinced that they could vanquish the Prussians with their ragtag militia battalions and then establish their socialistic commune before anyone from outside had a chance to stop them. The radical agitations were becoming more violent and determined by the day; the brawl in the street just then had been the smallest taste of the discontent that seethed across the city, boiling down from the north. Clem thought it pretty obvious that these rampaging ultras would single out the Elysées-Montmartre as a target. Perhaps this was the story behind the aérostier’s beating.

  Besson was studying Clem’s design: the best one in its author’s opinion, detailing a two-tier steam propeller mechanism. He didn’t reel with amazement or anything like that, but his half-smile held genuine approval.

  ‘There is work here,’ he said, ‘serious work. I take it you are not so committed to your cocotte as previously?’

  The aérostier had seen Clem and Laure together at the launch of the Neptune. He derived some mysterious amusement from the thought of their liaison.

  ‘Don’t, old man.’ Clem knocked back his brandy. ‘Things in that quarter, to be quite frank with you, have grown somewhat strange. I’ve been trying to stay away a bit, in fact, as much as she lets me, in the hope that this might cool it all down a fraction. I don’t know if it’s the boredom of the siege or just the normal course of things for a woman such as her, but …’

  Besson returned the propeller design to the pile, looking over as if inviting him to go on. Clem put his glass on the table and sighed. There really was no one else he could tell about this.

  ‘God knows, I am no prude,’ he began. ‘Oral pleasures I can deliver, enjoy even. Her apparently quite pressing need to insert her finger into my … well, you know … may not be something I’ve encountered before, but I can submit to it.’ He cleared his throat. Besson was sitting very still. ‘Her wish to bring others into the room, however, of both sexes, and involve them in the proceedings – or to introduce these … objects of hers … These things I find more difficult to accept. Why, only the other day she commanded me to push a hen’s egg up her—’

  Besson rose suddenly from his chair. ‘I must go,’ he said. ‘Really I must. My appointment – time has run on. I apologise, Mr Pardy. I will see you before long, I am sure.’

  The aérostier pressed a coin into the hand of the nearest waiter and put on his hat. Clem, left sitting alone, had to laugh; he tried to make an affable protest, to plead a few more minutes, but found himself addressing the inside of the restaurant’s door. He stared at his designs; at Besson’s forgotten newspaper; at the starched tablecloth beneath them both. His confessions had been too graphic. He should catch the fellow up and apologise for his thoughtless crudity. The aérostier’s meeting was sure to be at the offices of the Balloon Commission, near the Gare d’Orléans. It occurred to Clem that he could tag along – ask for an audience with whichever official was available and present his designs to them. He smiled, his belly warm with brandy; this was a brilliant idea. He gathered the balloon drawings and hurried into the street.

  The grey-suited aérostier was heading in altogether the wrong direction for the Balloon Commission. Clem gave chase anyway, and was soon walking along the boulevard de Clichy – passing Laure’s apartment and looping westwards into Les Batignolles. Besson led him down avenues of looted townhouses; around a park packed with tents; over intersections barricaded with prised-up paving stones. Whilst turning a corner the aérostier looked back – and without thinking Clem ducked behind a cast-iron water fountain. Nose to nose with an oxidised angel, he admitted to himself that he was now tailing Besson rather than pursuing him.

  The walk continued. Clem’s thoughts went to his luncheon, which was getting later by the yard; even the prospect of his horsemeat ration became appealing. The mystery of it spurred him on, though – the thrill of detection. This siege had focused people. No one strayed from the path dictated by their duty; yet here was Émile Besson advancing into a quarter uninvolved in the balloon post, miles from his designated place. Clem resolved to know why.

  They arrived in a long street of mansion houses. One of the grandest was festooned with flags, half a dozen Old Glorys, and had a queue of civilians stretching from its doors: the American Embassy. Besson approached a man standing outside and engaged him in conversation. Dressed in a porter’s uniform, this person was grey-bearded and bandy, with a leathery, well-smoked look. His coat and cap were smart but there was something of the stray about him, as if he was no s
tranger to sleeping under bridges and carts. After a few seconds they crossed the road, going down a side street and into a café.

  Clem took up a position opposite, beside a green barouche that seemed to have been parked there for several weeks. The lane was dark, its buildings tall and close. He peered into the café’s front window; each occupied table was picked out by a candle. Those he sought were over in a corner. Besson had obtained this porter a plate of meat – his own ration, it had to be – and a carafe of wine. Ignoring his cutlery, the man drew a clasp-knife from his pocket and hewed the unappetising lump apart; he then speared a large piece and worked it into his mouth, chewing industriously, inserting a second chunk before the first had been swallowed. Clem watched with some fascination. Christ, he thought, is the fellow actually starving?

  Besson was asking questions, jotting down the porter’s monosyllabic answers in a notebook. The aérostier appeared to be verifying things he already knew, checking facts rather than discovering them. This interview did not last long. Once he’d reached the bottom of his page Besson prepared to leave, laying a banknote on the table. The porter barely glanced up from his plate. The café door opened; Clem pulled back behind the barouche. Besson didn’t see him. He strode towards the embassy and went north.

  Clem thought for a moment. In all likelihood, Besson was the one who’d sent that anonymous letter – the one who’d brought Clem and Elizabeth to Paris. He plainly had a new project underway, a secret scheme that might very well involve the Pardy family again. Clem straightened his hat; he collected his wits. He had to find out what it was.

  The porter was devouring the last of his meat, wiping up gravy with a tendril of fat. Clem stopped at his shoulder; he decided not to sit.

  ‘Excuse me, sir, could you—’

  ‘A John Bull, by God.’ The man gulped down the fat and turned without interest. Clem had taken him for about sixty; he now saw that he was rather younger. ‘What the devil d’you want?’

  ‘Are you an employee of the American Embassy, might I ask?’

  ‘I am. Sergeant George Peabody is my name.’

  Sergeant. He certainly had the manner of a veteran – an uneasy, faintly angry quality. ‘You were once a military man, I take it?’

  Peabody cleaned his knife on the tablecloth, folded it away and returned it to his jacket. ‘What goddamn business is that of yours?’

  Clem produced a silver ten-sou piece and placed it beside the prongs of the American’s unused fork. ‘Did you fight in the late war, by any chance?’

  Peabody took the coin; he shook his head. ‘I ain’t going through all that again. Not in one goddamn meal. Not unless you got a huge stack more o’ these.’

  There could be no doubt: Émile Besson had been questioning a veteran of the American Civil War. It was true that balloons had been used widely in that conflict, for artillery spotting mostly, and a number of sieges had been fought. The aérostier’s interest could be wholly professional. But if this was the case, why had he been so damned secretive – so abrupt in his departure? Clem couldn’t explain it. Then he thought of that rainy morning a week or so before; the black-gloved hand lying inert on the arm of one of Elizabeth’s parlour chairs. Jean-Jacques Allix had been in America. He’d fought heroically for the Union – endured horrible injuries for the cause of liberty. Elizabeth referred to this often in her Leopard articles. Could it be that Besson, so convinced of the danger Allix posed to Han and others, had started an investigation into his past? What on earth, though, could he be hoping to discover? And had he found anything?

  Clem searched through his empty pockets. ‘Would you accept a note of credit, sergeant? I can guarantee—’

  ‘You got nothing, John Bull.’ Peabody stood, studying Clem scornfully; he swiped the wine carafe from the table and started for the door. ‘I believe I’ll bid you good afternoon.’

  Three days later a soft ruby light spread out across the evening sky, hiding the stars; it was as if Paris had been transported to the bed of a claret sea, a tinted sun shimmering down through the waters. The various residents of the Grand Hotel – guests, nurses and walking wounded – clustered in the middle of the boulevard des Capucines to gaze up in wonderment.

  Elizabeth identified the phenomenon immediately. ‘Aurora borealis,’ she said, wrapping herself in a shawl. ‘I saw one in Norway, back in fifty-nine. That, though, was aquamarine; I suppose red is more appropriate for our current circumstances.’

  Those around them were chattering excitedly in French.

  ‘Our friends here think that the Prussians must be responsible – that they must be testing a new weapon of some kind, or setting the whole of the French countryside on fire.’ Elizabeth listened again and made an impatient sound. ‘Now they are claiming that it is a sign from God, warning of some imminent disaster. Honestly, the popular imagination is so shockingly confined.’

  ‘It’s the result of natural electrical activity on the surface of the earth,’ Clem volunteered. ‘Or so I’ve read, at any rate.’

  His mother regarded him with condescending pride – see, Clement, said her eyes, you are not a total loss – before addressing the other spectators. Clem understood enough to know that a forceful appeal was being made on behalf of science and rationality.

  It was a chilly night; realising that nothing was going to happen beyond the spectacle itself, most of the hotel’s inhabitants went back inside. Elizabeth soon followed, declaring that she had deadlines to meet. Clem sat on a bench, staying out in the street long after the aurora had faded away. He stared along the boulevard; once the world capital of luxury, Paris was now as barren and dirty as a failing port-town. The sense of imprisonment had grown unexpectedly profound. Many people lived through their entire lives without leaving their home city; Clem himself had seldom wandered far from London. To have the option of departure removed, however, to be forcibly confined to the six square miles of Paris, was beginning to feel intolerable – and the glorious French capital cramped beyond belief.

  Worry didn’t help. Clem had tried repeatedly to meet with Besson, to see if he could learn any more about the aérostier’s clandestine conversation with Sergeant Peabody. He’d remained out of reach, though, occupied day and night with the relocation of his workshop to the Gare du Nord. Serious thoughts about Jean-Jacques Allix, about what his ultimate goal might be, had started to gnaw at Clem; it seemed pretty clear to him that the black-clad radical and his friends were building towards something that would count more than Prussian sentries among its victims. He’d considered arguing for a little bit of distance, but knew that neither his sister nor his mother would heed him.

  Elizabeth’s siege was going very well indeed. For the first time in many years her words were reaching a large and enthusiastic audience; the people of Paris all but tore papers from the stands when they carried a new Leopard article. Major Allix was fast becoming a legend, celebrated in scrawled slogans across the city. Since Clem’s exchange with Peabody, Allix had killed his first officer, a captain, returning with his sword. The Leopard’s grim tally was now well into the twenties; the Café-Concert Danton, his personal stronghold, had a small armoury of enemy equipment on display. And he spoke only to Mrs Elizabeth Pardy, the ‘friend of free Paris’. Any volume assembled at the siege’s conclusion would make her rich – as famous and admired as she’d ever been. She would hardly agree to break off midway and leave the story unfinished.

  Hannah was a rather different matter. She’d been a sobering sight back there in the Grand, so bloody miserable – appalled both by the course her lover was taking with this Leopard business and the part she was being made to play in it. The memory weighed on Clem’s conscience; once or twice he almost reached the point of going up to find her on the rue Garreau. He’d stop though, as he reached for his hat and coat. He was certain that she’d be unreceptive, perhaps actually hostile, to anything he might say. These are my decisions to make, she’d shout; it has nothing whatever to do with you. So Clem stayed around the Gr
and, biting his nails and smoking endless cigarettes, forever on the verge of meaningful steps.

  In the week after the red aurora the siege went through several swift, lurching turns. The first was an advance, a victory so surprising that at first Paris scarcely dared believe it: the French army, the regulars camped outside the walls, retook Le Bourget from the Prussians. News of the conquest was announced from the door of every mairie and emblazoned across the top of that evening’s Gazette Officielle. Elizabeth was quick to remind her readers that Le Bourget had been the site of Allix’s first raid. She stated that the French government had been obliged to act by her Leopard’s gathering fame – ignoring a rumour that the village had in fact been attacked impulsively by the commander of Saint-Denis, against General Trochu’s instructions.

  Mere hours after this article was published, Le Bourget was claimed again by the invaders. Word went around that the French soldiers had got blind drunk on wine found in the village’s cellars, fallen asleep at their posts, and been caught unawares by a Prussian force more than twenty thousand strong. Their resistance was accordingly brief; the 14th battalion of the Seine and a legion of francs-tireurs were annihilated. Le Bourget had been held for just under two days. Elizabeth went back to her desk. The Prussians had planned the whole misadventure, she asserted, as punishment for the Leopard’s stunning depredations; he very obviously had the enemy scared, and would keep striking at them as long as there was breath in his body.

  On the same day as the rout at Le Bourget came confirmation that Metz, the final point of French resistance in the east, had surrendered the week before, along with one hundred and eighty thousand troops. Allix’s prediction had been correct. Marshal Bazaine, the commander of the town, had made no attempt to break out, simply sitting behind the walls until his supplies had dwindled away. The battle-hardened Prussian Second Army was at liberty to join the siege of Paris.