Paris Requiem

by Lisa Appignanesi

  A hurrying figure caught his eye. Something about the grace of the man’s form, the passionate cut of the face, the agile speed, like an ancient Olympic runner weaving his way skilfully between strollers, brought to mind his brother. But this wasn’t Raf, James determined, as the figure grew closer. He looked at his watch again. With a wave of irritation, first at his brother for his incorrigible waywardness, then at himself for rising like a tin soldier to the trumpet call of familial duty, he headed for the streets.

  His carefully erected plans and the order of his days, James noted with passing irony, were already succumbing to the siren song of the city.

  Three hours later, having wandered a little, snacked in a terrasse and stopped at the American bank, James was hurtling across the river in a hackney cab. From his vantage point, both arteries, solid and fluid, seemed equally busy. Beneath him brightly painted barges moved alongside dark, heavy goods vessels and light fishing skiffs. The shores were lined with wash boats. As they turned onto the quay, he noticed a group of stout women carrying baskets loaded with linen.

  When the cab reached its destination on one of the old streets of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, he hopped out, no longer certain he had done the right thing in coming. The agreeable note he had received bore little relation to the grim, darkened stone and austerely formal façade of the house in front of him. Heavy doors creaked, as he considered. A carriage emerged. The horse, the vehicle, the coachman in his black cutaway, all bore a marked resemblance to those that had ferried him from the station not so very many hours ago.

  He murmured his name to the uniformed footman, who ushered him through an arched passage into a courtyard. Its aspect astonished him. He was in a garden. Cherry trees in full blossom graced every corner and dappled the light. Orange shrubs grew from ornate stone urns to flank long windows with their glossy leaves. Wisteria climbed, softly purple against a wall. The unexpectedness of it all rendered it even more beautiful. He stopped for a moment to take in a bird’s song and sniff the fragrant air.

  ‘You like my greenery, Mr Norton.’

  James veered to see a woman walking towards him. He had an impression of slenderness, a graceful step, light hair intricately coiffed, a dress in the same shade as the wisteria, an outstretched hand which was so proffered as to demand a response of hand and lip.

  ‘Madame de Landois.’ He bowed, found his voice. ‘Your English is very good.’

  Her laugh rustled. ‘I do my best.’

  ‘And your secret garden, exquisite.’

  ‘Ah, for that you must thank Pierre. He spent his childhood in England.’

  James nodded sagely, though he had no idea to what she was referring. On closer inspection though, he noticed that her eyes were warmly brown, like milk chocolate, but streaked with yellow and as full of humour as her voice. He wondered if he cut a comical figure, standing there now, his hands hidden in his pockets like an awkward youth. He straightened himself as he felt her direct gaze.

  ‘I am so glad you could come. We shall be quite alone.’ She tilted her chin a little. ‘Yes, the resemblance to your brother is clear. Not the eyes, of course. And you are – how do you say, a little more costaud – sturdier. But the rest … I hope you are not too tired. Come. Tea will restore you.’

  She was already through one of the glazed doors and he followed dreamily, shaking himself once he was inside as if to throw off a mesmerist’s far too pleasant pass.

  The airy room that bordered the side of the garden had a grand piano at its far end. Next to it stood an easel, supporting an unfinished canvas.

  James cleared his throat. ‘You paint, I see.’

  ‘That is to flatter me, Monsieur. I dabble. It helps me to see things clearly. And to pass the time.’

  ‘You have too much of it?’ It was an idea he had never really contemplated. Time, for him, was something there was never quite enough of.

  She stopped to consider him. ‘Sometimes there is that illusion. Yes.’ Irony played over her features. ‘I am a woman after all, Monsieur. A French woman of little gainful employment. But I see we shall get on.’

  It came to him that he was no longer used to the company of women.

  They were at the base of a grand marble staircase and she moved her skirts aside to take the steps more quickly. ‘At this time of day, the light is best in the library. You will see.’

  He did. The high-ceilinged room, lined with tomes he would have liked to examine at his leisure, seemed to float on a lake of pink blossom. A small round table, sparkling with silver, had been set in one of the tall window alcoves.

  He pulled back a chair for her, surprised that the splendour of the house did not dictate the constant presence of servants. She seemed to read his mind.

  ‘I thought it would be pleasant to be informal. You Americans prefer that, no? Everything is ready.’ She gestured at the array of small cakes and sandwiches and poured amber liquid into thin porcelain. ‘We shall help ourselves.’

  James filled his plate, but he didn’t eat. He was too full of questions, yet altogether uncertain where to begin.

  ‘This is all very kind of you.’ He stammered a little.

  ‘Oh, I am kindness itself. When I choose, of course.’

  He met her smile. ‘I’m happy that you’ve chosen then. I shall thank my brother for it. Have you known him long?’

  ‘How does one measure the length of friendship, Monsieur? Months, years, seem to have little to do with it. Let us say that I count Rafael’ – she gave the name the lilt of all its syllables – ‘and Elinor amongst my good friends. When they asked me to help look after you during your stay here, I was more than happy to agree.’

  James was not indifferent to the stress she had put on Ellie’s name.

  ‘Rafael is so busy these days and Elinor, sadly, indisposed.’

  ‘So she says. She preferred to see me tomorrow.’ He had a sudden image of Ellie in a darkened room and he noticed that he was tugging at his collar. ‘Is it very worrying?’

  Madame de Landois’s voice was soothing. ‘I have recommended her to the best doctors. Let us hope one of them will find a cure for her.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She has such a complexity of character. It can produce such a complexity of symptoms.’

  James sat back in his chair with abrupt awkwardness. He found he didn’t like this stranger speaking of Ellie with that peculiar mixture of familiarity and clinical distance, as if she knew her better than her own brother.

  Madame de Landois arched a well-formed eyebrow. ‘Have I overstepped myself. It is only that …’

  James cut her off, more rudely than he wished. ‘Do you know where my brother might be, Madame? He hasn’t come to me yet. And I had hoped to catch up with him today.’ He stopped himself and changed tack. How could this patently aristocratic woman possibly know where his brother had got to, let alone anything about the murky business that had brought James to Paris. ‘I have so little time, you see.’

  ‘Rafael is negligent.’ She filled James’s pause lightly. ‘But I know he is “chasing a story”, I think you say. And when he is chasing …’ She held her hands up and shrugged. ‘C’est comme ça. So much has been happening these last weeks. The Cour de Cassation, our supreme court’s decision to look again at the Dreyfus case. Then the attack on our new President by this madman, the Conte de Dion, at the races. Such tumult. I don’t know if you had the news of all this on shipboard.’

  ‘Indeed. Nonetheless …’

  ‘You would like to see your brother immediately, n’est-ce pas?’

  James met the irony in her eyes and had a passing sense that she was older than he had first assumed, closer to his age, perhaps, than to Raf’s. But the intervening decade only hovered over her expression without quite settling on her face. He found himself wondering about her husband. It was unthinkable that she didn’t have one.

  ‘Yes, I can see it now. You share Rafael’s tenacity, but you are reticent, more secretive. Though you have cul
tivated a certain bluntness to hide it. Or perhaps had it thrust upon you?’

  A knock at the door saved him from having to answer. Madame de Landois seemed a little taken aback as she called out a ‘oui’.

  A trim, balding man came in and in a low voice proceeded to pour out a hurried sequence James couldn’t quite catch.

  ‘Faites-le monter, Pierre. Apportez une autre tasse.’

  It took the last phrase for James to shed his prior thoughts and realise that the man was a servant.

  ‘Are you interested in life in France, Monsieur Norton?’ Madame de Landois’s next question caught him off guard.

  ‘I … I hope so. Do I strike you as too enmeshed in my own affairs?’

  ‘No, no. It’s understandable.’ She studied him, then rose to pace a little. It gave him the full benefit of her fine figure. She was, he decided, remarkably pretty, rather tall, too, for a French woman.

  ‘You may, however, be interested in my visitor.’ She carried on with her previous thought. ‘I doubt that you have ever met quite his kind before.’

  Her expression bore the glimmer of a challenge. James was more than prepared to rise to it.

  A thin, stoop-shouldered man shifted from foot to foot at the open door, as if to cross its threshold marked a transgression.

  Despite the warmth of the weather, he was all but muffled in a shabby black coat. His streaked, ragged beard half covered his gaunt face. Dark eyes blazed from between jagged cheekbones. His prominent forehead was moist with perspiration, the ungroomed hair above an untidy grizzle. A sizeable black felt hat sat in his hands. He played nervously with its brim as he bowed and bowed again.

  ‘Thank you for seeing me, Madame. Thank you.’ He spoke in a deep baritone of a voice, his tones hesitant, accented.

  The slowness permitted James to understand him clearly. He also understood that the man was unmistakably a Jew – a Jew of the kind he had only ever glimpsed before in the nether reaches of New York.

  ‘Come in, Monsieur Arnhem. Please sit down. Take a cup of tea with us.’

  ‘No, no.’ The man stretched out a staying hand. ‘I don’t wish to disturb. I would not have bothered you, except for my worry. My great worry.’

  ‘Please, Monsieur Arnhem.’ Madame de Landois insisted. ‘And let me introduce you to Monsieur James Norton. I believe you have met his brother.’

  A shadow crossed the man’s face, but he bowed again, deeply. ‘Honoured, Monsieur. I am honoured.’ He quickly turned his attention back to Madame de Landois. ‘Rachel …’ he faltered, ‘I mean Olympe. Olympe would not be pleased if she knew I were here.’

  James edged forward on his chair. Olympe was the name of the woman his mother had called a harlot, the woman with whom Raf was purportedly enmeshed.

  The man continued. ‘Olympe has always named you as a great friend, a benefactress. And I didn’t know where else to turn. Forgive me. Forgive.’ His fingers fretted with his hat, edging it into circular motion.

  ‘Do please sit down, Monsieur Arnhem.’ Madame de Landois took the hat a little impatiently from his hands and placed it on a side table. ‘Now, tell me what the problem is.’

  ‘Rachel. We were due to meet for lunch on Monday. Two days ago. Rachel never lets me down. She is a really good daughter, you must know that, whatever our disagreements.’

  James’s cup rattled in its saucer as he placed it roughly on the table. Olympe was this man’s daughter. This man’s. That could only mean … He swallowed hard. No wonder his mother had insisted on his mission. Olympe was the daughter of a Jew. He tested his own reaction, but the man’s narrative gave him no time for reflection.

  ‘Olympe didn’t come. I waited, waited well beyond the time. There was no message from her at home either. I went to her rooms. I am barred from them, but I went. No sign of her. Nor at the theatre the next day. They had not seen her since last Thursday. They are angry. It isn’t like her. No word. Nothing.’

  Like a wiry mongrel contained for too long, he seemed about to leap from his chair, but the chains of decorum kept him in place. He looked round the room distractedly. ‘I have this premonition.’ His voice had become a hoarse plea. ‘Please, have you heard anything from her? Do you know where she might have gone?’

  Madame de Landois shook her head slowly. ‘When did you last see her?’

  ‘Two weeks ago. A little more now.’

  ‘Is your premonition … your fear … that she may have … taken off?’

  The man lowered his burning gaze. He wrung his hands. The ability to speak had left him. Instead, he took a large handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow.

  Madame de Landois turned to James and murmured in English. ‘Some years back, Olympe had a spate – I don’t quite know how you describe this in American – of, well walking. Walking, in something like a trance, and disappearing for days on end. Not quite knowing where she’d gone and then waking up in a strange, sometimes precarious place.’

  Had his mother been privy to this biographical item, too? No wonder she had wrung her hands.

  ‘No, no.’ The man spoke at last. ‘I don’t believe so. All that is in the past. She has been much, much better. Her work was going well. She …’ He leapt up suddenly like a spring that had to be released. ‘I mustn’t trouble you any further. But if you hear anything, please let me know. I have given myself another twenty-four hours. And then I go to … to the police.’

  The last word was a scraped breath. He rubbed his throat, then bowed again before reaching for his hat.

  ‘If you wish, I shall accompany you there, Monsieur.’

  An angel seemed to have alighted on Arnhem’s shoulder to lift him from his abject state. His face was transformed. ‘Ah, if you really would, Madame, my gratitude would be limitless.’

  ‘Of course I will.’ She rose.

  James watched her escort Arnhem to the door and murmur a few more words. He was thunderstruck by her liberality.

  His feelings must have made their way to his face, for when she sat down again her expression was wry. ‘I think, Monsieur Norton, that you disapprove of the company I keep.’

  ‘I …’

  Her laugh trilled. ‘You remind me of my husband.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Fortunately, for my freedom, we have lived our separate lives for some years now.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I’m not sure that you do.’

  ‘I … I was only somewhat surprised … at Monsieur Arnhem.’

  ‘Yes.’ She examined him forthrightly. ‘Our situation in France these last years demands that we show kindness to these people. They have suffered through no fault of their own. Captain Dreyfus, as you must agree, was wrongly indicted – set up as a spy, indeed, because his origins made him easy prey to prejudice. Then, too, Monsieur Arnhem’s daughter is a true artiste, a talented musician and dancer – and now an actress. She has even performed here on occasion for small gatherings of my friends …’

  James felt like a small boy chastised by a stern governess. He wouldn’t have expected this regal woman to so value a figure his mother despised. Perhaps she didn’t know of this artiste’s relations with Raf. There might even be more than one Olympe.

  ‘Olympe is also a friend of Rafael’s.’

  Madame de Landois responded to his scurrying thoughts.

  ‘A special friend?’ James stammered.

  ‘So you know?’

  ‘I know very little.’

  ‘You know that.’ She smoothed her dress and turned an innocent face on him, but the eyes glinted with something like humour. ‘Rafael warned me that I might find you a little cold, a little distant. But no, I do not altogether think so. The perceptions of brothers are often askew.’

  ‘He said that to you, that I was cold?’

  ‘Perhaps I should not have repeated it. You will think me interfering.’ She smiled a smile which made interference the best possible characteristic in the world.

  Before he could find an appropriate response
, a bell sounded and she leapt up.

  ‘Excuse me a moment.’

  Her expression was one of open relief as if she’d been waiting too long for the call. She walked lightly to the far corner of the room where she picked up the telephone.

  An odd sensation flickered at the edge of James’s mind as he surreptitiously watched her movements, some inchoate sense of familiarity.

  He set it aside to distil his admiration, for that was what he principally felt. Madame de Landois was a thoroughly modern woman, not at all what he had anticipated when he stood in front of the cold, formal stone of her hôtel particulier so little time before.

  Her profile was alight now. The voice at the other end of the line was distinctly in favour. Then he heard a sharp intake of breath.

  ‘Non, ce n’est pas possible.’

  He turned away in embarrassment and focused his attention on the garden. He didn’t want to be caught eavesdropping. The new technology engaged people in audible, yet private conversations. No set of manners existed for the excluded party. The situation always made him ill-at-ease.

  A few minutes later Madame de Landois, her face distraught, was beside him. ‘My apologies, Monsieur Norton. I shall have to cut our meeting short. Feel free to finish your tea. Pierre will see you out.’

  She was already halfway through the door when she turned back. ‘No, no. It’s best if you come with me. Yes. Far better. If you’re free, that is.’

  James rose with alacrity. He was about to ask her what was amiss, when she held up a staying hand.

  ‘No, please. No questions. Just come quietly. Things are bad. I need to think.’

  TWO

  The road which wound along the Seine was a clamour of construction sites. Everywhere ragged fencing squeezed traffic into ungainly rows. Men carrying planks clambered waist-deep through mud or hung from ladders. Shouts vied with hammering. A new railway station rose from the ground like the partial skeleton of some prehistoric dinosaur and abutted in jagged spikes where a roof might be. Along the Quai d’Orsay, scaffolding arced precariously across the river, a giant cobweb glistening in the amber rays of the low sun. Tiny figures clung to its many levels like so many marooned insects.