Petite Mort

by Beatrice Hitchman

  Later, I walked back to my rented apartment from gas lamp to gas lamp. It was that point of the night when everything had shut down. Cafés had been closed for hours, their signs extinguished, the revellers long since gone to bed.

  As I walked past the wide, tree-lined junction of Raspail, I thought I heard a footstep in the street behind me, and turned, my mouth opening as if I was going to scream for help.

  But it was only an old paper bag, which rose in front of me, crackled and wafted away across the cobbles and sank out of sight.

  Juliette, ix.

  It is late afternoon by the time I reach the address, fifty miles into the wooded country south of Paris. I miss the turn-off the first time; reverse perilously in the 2CV to make the turn. Sunlight dapples through the leaves of the plane trees that line the private drive. Beyond that a field of cows lift their heads to watch me pass; the car bounces from pothole to pothole.

  Holding the door open is a small, elderly man in a tweed jacket. He smiles and beckons, beams as I shake his hand. Then he turns away into the hallway: ‘Follow me.’

  The corridor is lined with burgundy candy-stripe paper: after a few metres the space widens suddenly into a light and airy room, with open French windows leading out onto a lawn.

  Rinaldi moves towards a sagging armchair next to the French windows and lowers himself, wincing, into its cushions. I choose the seat opposite.

  ‘You’ve come all this way,’ he says. ‘It must be important.’

  ‘I wanted to ask you about the Pathé fire.’

  ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘That. Such a long time ago. I’d almost forgotten.’

  ‘Were you there?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ he says, waving a hand. ‘I was in the complex, working in accounts, as usual. A sad day. All those things destroyed, all that equipment. You could feel the heat of it right across the other side of the factory.’

  I take the photograph from my bag and hold it out to him. ‘I found this in the Pathé archive. Can you identify any of the back row?’

  He smiles, reaches for spectacles on a thin chain and, levering himself forward, takes the picture. ‘Oh, now, that is a thing,’ he says. ‘What memories. Thank you for bringing me this.’

  He points to a figure on the far left: wrinkled forehead, receding hair. ‘There I am,’ he says. ‘In my Sunday best.’

  I say: ‘I’m wondering whether one of these people might have started the fire. The witness statements imply that a director borrowed a key to get into the post-production building. And there was nothing in the dossier apart from this photo. It’s as if it was left there for me to find.’

  Outside, the sun is at its lowest point before vanishing: the light has thickened to burnt orange through the French windows.

  M. Rinaldi places the photograph on the table.

  ‘Well,’ he says, ‘aren’t you thorough.’

  He traces the photo with his fingertip. ‘You’re correct. There is someone in that photo who wishes they weren’t there,’ he says. ‘The factory was always full of gossip. That’s Basile, the Basque – dreadful accent. This was my friend Paul Leclerc, who went mad over a girl from the factory and tried to hang himself.’

  ‘Adèle Roux knew him.’

  Rinaldi nods briefly, uninterested. ‘And this was the keeper of the menagerie they used for dramatic tableaux – Otto, from Bavaria.’

  He hesitates, then his finger moves over the back row, skating over the smiling faces and coming to rest on a man a head shorter than the others; a pointed white goatee, a round face and blackcurrant eyes. Unlike the others, whose broad grins are full of lazy confidence, his smile is tentative.

  ‘This is my friend Robert Peyssac.’

  ‘Peyssac who made Petite Mort?’

  Rinaldi puts his palms on his knees and sighs. ‘The story was that he used to meet young people, young workers, in empty buildings of an evening. He was fond of borrowing the keys from different security men each time, so as to cover his tracks.’

  In the photograph, Peyssac’s hand is resting lightly on the young Rinaldi’s shoulder.

  I ask: ‘And what happened to him after the fire?’

  Rinaldi sighs. ‘He died.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘In the war. Like everyone else.’

  ‘Wasn’t he too old to fight?’

  He says: ‘Almost. For all the other directors, Charles Pathé obtained a dispensation to save them from the Front: he got permission for them to make patriotic films. But not for Peyssac.’

  Somewhere on a floor overhead, a clock chimes softly, over and over again.

  ‘That would explain why they didn’t involve the police,’ I say. ‘They knew who it was and dealt with it on their own. And why the dossier is so slim. They only kept the pieces of evidence that proved the case.’

  He nods.

  I say: ‘I don’t understand. He was so excited about it. Why would Peyssac steal his own film?’

  Rinaldi lifts his shoulders. ‘Something that happened all the time: espionage. If he was in the pay of a rival studio, destroying the film could have earned him a substantial bonus.’

  ‘But why? He was an artist…’

  He says: ‘But he liked money, too.’

  I think about Peyssac’s apartment on the Ile St Louis, the silk chairs that Adèle was not allowed to do more than perch on.

  ‘But why would he cut out one of the scenes?’

  Rinaldi shrugs. His finger brushes the photograph where Peyssac’s hand falls on his younger shoulders. ‘A memento?’ he says.

  Testimony of M. le Docteur HARBLEU, ii.

  8. avril 1914

  Q: Dr Harbleu, I understand you also work on psychological cases for the Hôpital Pitié-Salpétrière.

  A: That is correct. I am considered an expert in the assessment of the psychological state of patients, specialising in hysteria.

  Q: But you have said that Mlle Roux appeared quite calm when you met her.

  A: That is true.

  Q: And since? Have you had much contact?

  A: I have been to visit her once or twice, at the behest of the Police Chief, in my role as attendant medical officer. It has been my business to check on Mlle Roux’s wellbeing and fitness to give evidence.

  Q: So you would say you have a fair grasp of her, how shall I put it, mentality?

  A: I would.

  Q: And what is your opinion?

  A: At no point from the shooting onwards has she displayed any of the redeeming female emotions – no crying, or remorse, or agitation.

  Q: And your thesis?

  A: I can only go on a similar case some years back.

  Q: To whit?

  A: The case of Bertrande Iliot, chambermaid to a prominent civil servant, Aristide Perrin and his family, of Nîmes. Note the similarities instantly: a woman of the servant class, young, relatively attractive, living in the same house as a rich and powerful man.

  Q: Go on.

  A: Obsessed by Perrin to the point of illness, Bertrande Iliot took a kitchen knife and slashed at her forearms, then presented herself with these injuries to the local gendarmerie. She claimed that Perrin had inflicted the injuries. A classic obsessional fantasy of the ill-educated female mind.

  Q: How does that relate to the gunshot wounds in the case of Mlle Roux? Surely not self-inflicted?

  A: No, in that case, an accomplice. As M. Durand hinted previously, he suspected that Mlle Roux had a romantic liaison outside the house – some youth whom she persuaded to carry out her shooting.

  Q: But that is grotesque!

  A: True psychopathics are, when challenged, extremely frightening. They do not understand that you are telling them ‘no’. I would not like to have to set my will against Mlle Roux’s on any point at all.

  Testimony of M. DURAND

  8. avril 1914

  Q: M. Durand, you have agreed to take the stand again to clear up some small points pertaining to the alleged valise discovered by M. l’Inspecteur Japy on your property. />
  A: Quite so.

  Q: In his statement, M. l’Inspecteur says he found burnt pieces of Mlle Roux’s suitcase in a side-passage by your house – Exhibit A, thank you, clerk. Now, in his statement he also says you were quite specific that Mlle Roux took the suitcase with her?

  A: I was.

  Q: And yet, here was the suitcase, burned!

  A: Permit me to elucidate. Inspector Japy arrived unannounced, catching me quite unawares, and still perturbed by Mlle Roux’s disappearance. He introduced himself, sir, as a Mesmerist.

  Q: A Mesmerist!

  A: He proceeded to sniff the air of Mlle Roux’s room, and say with confidence that she had gone, I don’t know, to the East or something.

  Q: Really!

  A: Your Honour, I ask you: which is the most preposterous? A grown man claiming to smell out the spectres of objects-gone-before, or a busy and preoccupied husband, forgetting a small fact about someone else’s suitcase? I realised later that Mlle Roux must not have taken her valise, and that it, along with the other sundry items she had abandoned, had been burned by my manservant.

  8. avril 1914

  AS ANDRÉ STEPPED DOWN from the witness stand he winked at me.

  It was not the subtle half-droop of an eyelid you might expect from a man on trial. The audience laughed and nudged one another, liking to have caught the little dumb show.

  Denis laid a hand on my forearm. I looked to my right, to where Luce sat; there was just the habitual stare straight ahead. If looks were gunshots, that one mahogany panel next to the high window would be bored right through. André reached the seat next to her, fluffed his coattails out behind him, sat and whispered something to her with a smirk; she nodded vaguely, her eyes never leaving that spot on the wall.

  The judge pinched the bridge of his nose thoughtfully and said: ‘Maître Poperin, have you any more witnesses to propose for the prosecution?’

  ‘No, Your Honour.’

  ‘Maître Lazard? For the defence?’

  Lazard, reptilian eyes half-closed, shook his head.

  ‘Then I cannot see how we can drag this out further. We’ll proceed straight to the closing speech for the prosecution. Maître Poperin, are you prepared?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Then I suggest you gather your notes.’

  These last words were said in a raised voice; I was vaguely aware of the sound of a door opening at the back of the courtroom; hushed voices; heads turning. The judge glanced up over his half-moons. ‘And then, Maître Lazard, we shall proceed to your closing speech, if there’s enough time in today’s session.’

  I turned to see what the commotion could be: it seemed someone had broken into the courtroom. The guards were holding onto the woman’s dark coat by the elbows; a small boy, not more than five, hung from her hand.

  ‘No women in court. You must come back later, Madame, if you wish to admire the frescoes.’

  There was a current of laughter; the woman tugged herself free of the court officials and took a few steps down the central aisle, dragging the child with her.

  At first I was not sure it was her. All the fight had gone out of her face, and the plump cheeks had sunken in. I could not fathom what she might be doing there, in her best hat and good coat and kid gloves.

  ‘I must speak to the court,’ she said. Now I knew it was really her: that you-and-your-fine-ways voice, hard and clear. ‘I have new information about the case.’

  Denis reacted first. ‘Your Honour: for the defence or for the prosecution?’

  The judge had taken off his half-moon glasses; he folded them away under his robe, frowning. ‘Well, Madame?’

  Her voice hardly wobbled. ‘The prosecution.’

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw André lean forward suddenly, his head close to Maître Lazard’s; the judge frowned.

  ‘What new information, Madame?’

  Her voice turned belligerent. ‘Swear me in, and I’ll tell it before the court in the proper fashion. I know how these things ought to go.’

  Maître Lazard was shaking his head; in André’s fierce whisper it was not quite possible to make out the words. At last André sat back, but not fully – his hands gripped his knees.

  The judge looked towards the window for inspiration, and then said: ‘Come up to the stand, Madame, and we will ask you to say your piece. Come now, you can leave your boy in the back there.’

  While she was sworn in, André turned to look at Luce. She was looking at me, head tilted back, her eyes half-closed.

  Testimony of Elodie KERNUAC

  8. avril 1914

  Q: What do you have to tell us that’s so important? What is your connection to the case?

  A: I work at the Pathé costumery, I’m the chief costumière there. Where Mlle Roux worked – we knew each other. Before she moved to the Durands’.

  Q: So?

  A: So I also knew M. Durand. He was our boss.

  Q: Come to the point, Madame.

  A: Please will someone stop up the ears of my boy, Charles-Edouard? I don’t want him to understand what I am about to tell you.

  Q: Very well, Madame. See. Your son is outside.

  A: While I was there – when I had first started at Pathé, some five years ago – this is difficult for me to say, as a respectable woman – M. Durand made certain advances on me, which I did not repel.

  Q: To clarify: you were his lover?

  A: I would not call it love. We often used to meet in the basement where the costumières worked, after hours. I was flattered by his attentions. He was very dashing and handsome and attentive, and I was very young.

  Q: We are not disputing his charms, Madame. But where is the relevance?

  A: We had – relations – for some months. At the end of that time, he proposed that I should come to live with him and his wife, and serve as her assistant. He made me promises of things – with my career – that he would see I had advancement, and all I had to do was tolerate his wife.

  Q: So effectively, he made the same offer to you as he made to Mlle Roux?

  A: It seems so.

  Q: And you say that you were his mistress?

  A: I was.

  Q: You are aware that M. Durand has sworn before a court of law that he is a faithful husband? You know what a crime it is to give false testimony in the sight of the Law?

  A: What I am saying is, he is not an honest man, like you all think.

  Q: And did you agree? To the offer of a job?

  A: I had heard of Terpsichore’s – pardon me, Mme Durand’s – reputation around the studio as a hard task-mistress, and I didn’t fancy it one bit.

  So I told him that it was a ‘no’, and from then on we met less frequently. In time the visits stopped altogether, and I understood that he had – shall we say, he had moved on to pastures new.

  Q: But all this is in the past? Five years ago, you say?

  A: Four.

  Q: So you allege an affair with M. Durand in 1910. What does this have to do with the possible attack on Mlle Roux?

  A: It was about a year after M. Durand left off coming to see me. I was working late one night, on some costumes for a big film with complicated ornaments – the last people had left the building hours ago. I remember because it was the start of the summer and you could just hear, if you strained your ears, the birds on the roof of the building, cooing like they do on warm evenings. I was hurrying to finish so I could get outside.

  Then I heard footsteps, the costumery door opened and M. Durand was there. I could see straight away that he was not himself. His shirt was unbuttoned down to three buttons and he smelled of alcohol and something else, something sharper.

  He came into the room and stood in front of my sewing machine. ‘Whatever is the matter?’ I asked. He half-fell into the chair I offered to him.

  He sat there and he just stared at me. ‘Whatever is it?’ I asked. I suppose I was fussing because he frightened me, just looking and looking like that.

  He tried to say
something then, but it was too garbled for me to make out. His breath reeked of wine; I thought he might be sick, and moved the costumes out of the way of him; he laughed to see me taking such care of my work.

  ‘You are a good employee, Elodie,’ he said. He reached out to touch my cheek but he missed, and his hand fell away.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean, sir,’ I told him; he was already looking around the room as if he wanted to speak, but had forgotten what he wanted to say.

  ‘Terrible things happen in the world every day,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I said. I started to pack up my desk. I thought I had the measure of him then: an argument with his wife, and he wanted a listening ear and a woman to tell him he was worth something. Well, I wasn’t employed for that; I wanted to go home.

  He mumbled some other things then which I couldn’t hear, and went suddenly to sleep, or seemed to, his chin on his chest.

  So I packed up my belongings and put my coat on, wondering whether to leave him there. Finally there was nothing for it but to go to the door and stand by the light switch ready to extinguish it.

  ‘Are you going to be all right?’ I asked him, trying to get him awake. On the one hand, I didn’t like to leave him; but the rest of me wanted to get clear.

  He half-woke up. He said, quite distinctly: ‘Unless the summer is a dry one.’

  I thought I’d misheard. ‘Whatever can you mean, sir?’ I asked him.

  At that he seemed to come to. He looked just like his old self: that brazen stare, undressing you, if I may be bold. Then he laughed at me and said, ‘You’re a good girl, Elodie.’

  I gave up trying to understand it. I shook my head at him and smiled back, and then I left. When I got to the courtyard I took a deep breath. I remember thinking how good it was to be there, in the fresh weather, with the evening ahead of me.

  Q: And then?

  A: Shortly after, the gifts began to arrive. A bunch of flowers, first, from him; but there was nothing between us any more – at work we avoided each other.

  I then came home to find a fine necklace in a box pushed under my door, and his signature on the card. After that, a box of exotic fruit; a hat from Mme Chanel in the wrong size.

  The kind of gifts men think women like. And never anything written on the card apart from his capital A.