Paris Requiem

by Lisa Appignanesi

  A few hours later, the grime of the Salpêtrière scrubbed from his pores, his frock coat smooth over the glisten of a fresh shirt, James made his way round the neo-classical harmony of the Place Vendôme and into the Ritz. The well-appointed bar wasn’t large, but it was crowded and dim and he doubted once more that he would recognise the man Marguerite had described in her letter. Olympe’s friend, Marcel Bonnefoi, she had said, would be wearing a white carnation in his lapel. She had added that James wasn’t to worry, Marcel would be certain to detect a tall, fresh-faced American amidst the bar’s regulars.

  James peered round the room, penetrated clouds of smoke to focus on lapels, on glittering jewels, on bored or laughing faces. What kind of man would embody the subtle, well-judged prose of those letters he had once again studied before setting off? He moved slowly towards the counter, his eyes drawn towards the tableau above it with its racing horses and floral extravagance, when a lazy wave from a far table caught his attention.

  He turned towards the waver who reclined with marked indolence in a discreet corner chair, his legs in dapper striped trousers stretched before him. He had dark brows and thick black hair of remarkable glossiness which fell over one eye. In the other sat a monocle, which gave his face a leftward tilt. That apart, it was a well-disposed face, if rather feminine in the smallness of its features. James found himself thinking of the man Olympe’s actress friend had depicted to him – the swell who had dropped Olympe off on the last day her fellow players had seen her.

  ‘Marcel Bonnefoi?’

  ‘Monsieur Norton.’ The man’s voice was husky as he stood to give James an all but imperceptible bow. He fingered the carnation in his buttonhole. ‘Madame de Landois described you perfectly. I rue the tragedy which has brought us together. Please, do sit.’ He signalled to a waiter who appeared with remarkable swiftness to take James’s order of a Scotch.

  James took in gloves the colour of fresh butter, a chest swollen under a white satin vest which had the word ‘dandy’ written all over it. He lost no time. ‘I believe, Monsieur Bonnefoi, you might have been one of the last known people to see Olympe Fabre. Was it you who dropped her at the theatre on Thursday the first of June?’

  The man pursed his lips round his silver cigarette holder in studied reflection, then blew out a perfect circle of smoke. ‘It could very well be. Yes, yes. Thursday. Indeed. I dropped her at the theatre on Thursday. We had taken tea together.’

  ‘How was she?’

  Bonnefoi frowned. ‘As far as I could see, she was no different from usual. Olympe was a special person, Monsieur. A true artiste. I wish you could have heard her analysing the great Bernhardt’s rendition of Hamlet. It was the last play we saw together and Olympe had studied every movement of hand and face, every inflection of voice.’

  James cut him off. ‘What did you talk about on Thursday?’

  The man raised a slightly querulous eyebrow, so that the monocle dropped from his face to hang from its black ribbon. He replaced it carefully. ‘If I remember correctly, we spoke, Monsieur, of L’amour fou, the play Olympe was starring in. The second, no the beginning of the third act of the play, to be precise, where Olympe says goodbye to her sleeping child. The last time I had seen her in it, it had struck me that Olympe could put more emotion into this scene. Her movements had been a little rushed. They didn’t hold a sufficient poignancy …’

  He puffed elegantly at his cigarette and James was suddenly aware of the smoothness of his face. It was untouched by beard. The hands too were delicate. They made James’s own look huge, an ungainly spread of rough skin over bone.

  An uncomfortable queasiness took James over. He stared at the man more blatantly than he had intended. The stare made Bonnefoi pause in his protracted exposition of the scene. He met James’s gaze. James looked away abashed, hurriedly downing some whisky. ‘Do go on,’ he murmured, though he was only half listening now to the man’s flow of rhetoric. It had struck him that Bonnefoi could well be one of those indeterminate creatures, neither quite male nor female. But there was something else. Something he couldn’t put his finger on. Yes, he was almost certain he had seen the man before. At Marguerite’s soirée perhaps. But it couldn’t have been. She had said she only knew Bonnefoi distantly. It must have been somewhere else.

  His mind flew through possibilities and all at once he heard himself cut the man off and ask, as flagrantly as some policeman. ‘Were your relations with Olympe Fabre intimate, Monsieur Bonnefoi?’

  The man brushed a speck from his trouser leg. ‘Do you mean in the way of your brother, Monsieur?’ A small smile tugged at his lips and James felt his face grow hot.

  ‘So Olympe told you of that?’

  ‘I don’t wish to be indiscreet, Monsieur. A lady’s honour …’

  ‘Of course, of course. Did … did she mention any other intimates to you?’ James stumbled over his own words.

  ‘Not to me, Monsieur. That was never the main subject of our conversations.’

  ‘Did you know her long?’

  ‘Several years now.’

  ‘And was there anyone in that time, anything that might help to explain her death?’

  ‘I wish I could assist you, Monsieur …’ He shrugged trim shoulders. ‘I really do. I have been thinking of nothing much else since I heard.’

  ‘Did Olympe ever mention the subject of blackmail to you?’

  ‘Blackmail?’ Bonnefoi’s voice rose into sudden shrillness. He corrected it. ‘What do you mean, Monsieur?’

  ‘I was told that Olympe might either have been blackmailing someone or the reverse, someone might have been blackmailing her.’ James had a vivid memory of the obscene photograph he had found on Raf’s desk.

  It was as if Bonnefoi shared it. He was visibly disturbed, clumsily stubbing out his cigarette in the square ashtray. ‘Where did you hear this, Monsieur?’

  James waved in a vague manner. ‘At the theatre.’

  ‘Why would Olympe wish to blackmail anyone? Had she been in debt, she could have approached me.’

  ‘That is what I don’t know, Monsieur. I thought you might be able to help me.’ As he said it, James realised that the man had helped him. Bonnefoi had assumed that it was Olympe who was carrying out the blackmail, not as James had thought, that she was its object.

  Bonnnefoi shook his head once, in a gesture of severity which put a definitive end to James’s line of questioning. Evidently this indeterminate character didn’t like the idea of blackmail. Blackmail was something he probably feared for himself. James scrutinised him closely. Could he inadvertently have struck a chord. Could Olympe indeed have been blackmailing Bonnefoi himself and it was he who had arranged for her death. He put the thought to one side. Only Chief Inspector Durand would have the authority to investigate Bonnefoi’s finances. Yet the man didn’t have either the face or the manner of a killer. Not like that fleshy doctor at the Salpêtrière.

  ‘Did you ever meet Judith?’ James heard himself ask.

  ‘Judith?’ The man repeated. He was gazing down at his feet reflectively as if the answer lay in the supple black leather of his trim boots. James too found himself looking at their glistening softness. ‘Judith? Is she a fellow actress?’

  ‘No, no. Olympe’s sister.’

  ‘Oh, I see. No, I had no occasion to meet Olympe’s family. Nor, indeed did I meet many of her colleagues. It was Olympe herself I admired. I am interested in the actor’s art, Monsieur. Had my life been different, perhaps I, too …’ The gravelly voice trailed off.

  ‘Yes, of course.’ James had the sense the interview had wound itself to an end. Yet he felt there was more he wanted to know of Bonnefoi, though he didn’t know how to put his unease into words. Where had he seen the man? In the hospital amphitheatre this afternoon? That was it, perhaps. He had noticed him in the crowd, while his full attention was directed elsewhere.

  Bonnefoi was already signalling for the waiter.

  ‘May I call on you if anything else emerges, Monsieur?’ James asked


  ‘Unfortunately I leave Paris at the end of the week. But Madame de Landois will know where to reach me. In the meantime, if you see her before I do, please convey my best wishes.’

  It seemed to James as he left the bar and walked past the ornate ironwork of the hotel’s enclosed drive that the admirable Marguerite really did hold the keys to le tout Paris. He determined to telephone her as soon as he reached the Grand.

  FOURTEEN

  The weather had turned in the night. The skies wore a swirling cloak of steely grey. By the time James reached the ancient chalk quarry which was now the Cimetière de Montmartre, the heavens had begun a slow incessant weeping, as if they too mourned the passing of Olympe Fabre.

  He was early. He had set off in good time, not sure how long the journey would take and now the attendant at the gates eyed him curiously before directing him towards the East Wall which housed the Jewish enclave.

  James made his way through a hollow, past a tangle of trees and statuary which mingled pomp and whimsy, and eventually found himself in the gloom of a steep reddish, ivy-clad wall. Here and there stood ornate domed mausolea, their doors decorated with ironwork candelabra or stars of David. Massed around them were less elaborate tombs, simple slabs of white stone. Close to the wall, a solitary gravedigger leaned against his shovel. Before him lay a mound of freshly turned chalk-like earth, too white in the sombre light. James waited, the damp attacking his bones, the rain pattering as noisily as hail on his borrowed umbrella.

  Gradually the mourners arrived. From his vantage point he could see them as they wove their way along the path. A gaggle of men and women whom he didn’t recognise but whose dramatic attire and gestures, he decided, placed them as Olympe’s colleagues from the theatre world. Artists, too, perhaps. He wondered whether the painter whose canvas he had purchased might be here. Yes, there was Oriane, her lips clamped shut as if she were afraid that a sudden giggle would erupt to desecrate the occasion.

  He spied Marguerite, a dignified, lonely figure, sylphlike in a black cloak and simple hat. He raised an arm in greeting and she stepped towards him, her feet squelching the dank earth, her face as unmoving as if she too were sculpted in solemn stone. Only when she was beside him did he see the anguish in her eyes. It took him aback. He hadn’t witnessed that in her before. Somehow it brought Olympe close, as if he, too, were now a cherished friend.

  ‘Ah mon ami …’ Her black-gloved hand squeezed his as she stared into the pit. She was swaying a little. ‘These occasions frighten me. The dead are so full of reproaches. Listen.’

  From above he heard the cawing and flutter of crows.

  ‘What is she saying to you?’

  ‘You didn’t protect me. You could have protected me.’

  ‘We can never protect enough,’ James said with so much feeling that her eyes stayed on him.

  ‘Ah yes, you understand. Too early a death implicates us all.’

  ‘Let’s move back to leave room for Monsieur Arnhem.’

  From a bend in the path, James saw a plain wooden coffin emerge. Six men held it aloft, foremost amongst them, Arnhem himself, ramrod straight beneath his burden. His eyes were fixed on an invisible distance. A small group processed behind the coffin. One man held the hands of Arnhem’s children. For a moment, James wondered if this might be Bernfeld. The man had bulging, mournful eyes, a ragged beard, and his hat was fur-trimmed in Eastern fashion. Drawing up the rear were Ellie and Raf and Harriet. Raf pushed Ellie’s chair. As he came nearer, James was startled to see that he had a black eye. His lip was gashed. He heard Marguerite take a deep breath.

  Ellie spied them and waved and a moment later they were all clustered together at the edge of the path, which was as far as Ellie’s wheelchair could go.

  ‘What happened to you, Rafael?’ Marguerite asked in a hoarse whisper.

  Raf shrugged. ‘It’s nothing. A little fight last …’

  He stopped speaking as a high plaintive song pierced the air. Its words were incomprehensible but the sound itself seemed to crystallise grieving lament. The coffin was being slowly lowered. The men encircling the grave rocked in rhythmic prayer, their chant growing louder as the coffin reached bedrock. Watching them, James had a sense of exclusion, as if he were doubly a foreigner.

  Still praying, one by one the mourners threw a handful of earth into the grave. Raf moved to follow in their wake. Ellie tugged at his sleeve, and he nodded, lifting her into his arms as if she were a wisp of a girl. A small smile lit her pale face. Harriet looked on in a severity tinged with disapproval.

  As James watched Raf place a small lump of soil in his sister’s hand, he had the distinct feeling that sometime in the last night or morning they had resolved their animosities. They seemed at one again. He wondered what had wrought the change.

  But now it was his turn to bend to the cold, sodden earth and fling it at the coffin. The coffin which contained Olympe. He shivered, suddenly transfixed as he imagined her lying there beneath the thinness of pine. Could she hear the thump of the soil covering her, one handful at a time, beneath the lamentations of her kin?

  Maisie’s coffin had been thick, solid mahogany, edged with bronze. To ease his own conscience perhaps. It had been laid next to that tiny one he couldn’t think about.

  He heard a sob and wondered whether it was his own. He had come a long way to do his grieving, here in this strange country amongst foreign people with stern, unfamiliar faces. He looked to Marguerite for solace and noticed that her skin was damp with tears and rain. Was there something specific Olympe might be reproaching her for?

  He moved them both along, cast a last lingering glance at the coffin and edged further away up the knoll only to catch sight of little Juliet’s face. She was gazing at him, her eyes two sombre pools of fear until suddenly, she smiled and waved. He felt as if the sun had suddenly risen to brighten the day. He smiled in return.

  ‘A lovely child,’ Margeurite murmured. She had caught the exchange.

  He heard the faint note of yearning in her tone and met her eyes. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Her colouring is like Olympe’s, but nothing much else, really. There’s a brightness to her.’

  He wanted to ask her why she didn’t have a child of her own, but it wasn’t a subject he could raise. Instead he clasped her arm more firmly and glanced at her profile. The skin was perfectly smooth. Porcelain. Something about it fixed his gaze, made him inexplicably uneasy.

  ‘Look, Touquet is here, and Chief Inspector Durand,’ she said softly. ‘That won’t make Arnhem happy. I wonder what Durand wants.’

  ‘To take a good look at the mourners, I imagine. Perhaps to interview them.’ James turned towards the cluster of dark bearded men in their shabby black coats and wished that he could allow himself to do the same.

  Earth was being shovelled into the grave now and when it reached the surface, he saw Arnhem bend to pick up a large pebble and place it on the coarse ground. His lips were again moving in some kind of whispered prayer. Each of the pallbearers in turn replicated his gestures.

  ‘It’s to keep the dead from rising.’ Marguerite shivered. ‘A custom. Olympe told me about it once.’

  They watched as the rite proceeded and when it seemed to have wound its way to an end, she said softly, ‘I’d like to go and pay my respects to Arnhem. You know, I offered to have everyone back to my house. But he declined. Understandably, of course. Perhaps you might all like to come.’

  James nodded. As they moved through the disparate clusters of people, Marguerite now silently greeted a few of what James thought of as the theatre crowd. He, himself, said hello to Oriane, and found himself wondering why Marcel Bonnefoi wasn’t here. Perhaps no one had alerted him.

  ‘Is the painter, Max Henry, here?’ he asked Marguerite.

  ‘He is. We just passed him. He’s the little man, there, with the large hat, the cigarette dangling from his lips. But this is no time for your questions, James. He’s harmless. I assure you.’

  ‘How can yo
u assure me?’

  She shrugged. ‘Intuition. Olympe’s account. You can trust me. I knew her.’

  ‘Did you know about Bernfeld?’

  ‘That was before my time. Before we grew close. So I can’t be certain in the same way.’

  He nodded with a show of sagacity. But he was taken aback by her certainty.

  When they drew close to Arnhem, James saw that Raf was talking to him. Ellie was back in her chair, Harriet at her side, and he walked over to them. Ellie’s face was now set in grimness.

  ‘I don’t like that man, Jim.’

  ‘Ellie! He’s her father.’

  ‘I don’t think she liked him much either.’

  ‘Shush.’

  ‘Look. You can see. He’s angry at Raf.’

  ‘Maybe it’s something Raf has said.’

  She gave him a look which told him he was being perversely disloyal.

  ‘What happened to Raf’s face?’

  ‘He got mixed up in some kind of brawl last night. Apparently there were a lot of them. Around various newspaper offices. Everyone beating everyone up. I want to go home, Jim.’

  ‘Good.’ James felt a smile of relief stretching too wide for his face. ‘I’ll book your passage tomorrow.’

  She gave him a sly look. ‘Home with Raf and you.’

  ‘Harriet will travel with you. Won’t you, Harriet?’

  ‘If Elinor wishes it,’ the woman said stiffly.

  ‘Oh no, Jim. I stay while you do. We all go together or not at all. In any case, I can help keep you and particularly Raf out of trouble. Harriet understands.’

  Looking at Harriet, James wasn’t certain she did. ‘We’ll talk about it later, Ellie. We’re all invited to Madame de Landois’s by the way.’

  ‘Not me. I’ve had enough. Enough!’ She looked round her with a shudder. Her voice rose. ‘All of us, standing around like vultures picking at a corpse. Yes. All of us. Except me. I’m sitting.’ Her laugh peeled with sudden bitterness. Disapproving looks flew her way. ‘Olympe would have hated it. All those creatures in black.’