Thanks to this arrangement, tethered safely to the grille behind by the rope around his waist, Thomas could lean out to left or right as he pleased and watch everything over the heads of the people in front of him.
Across the avenue, the balconies were crammed with people; there were heads at every window. Some of these folk had paid large sums of money for these vantage points. But he had a view as good as theirs, for free.
To his left, the wide space around the Arc de Triomphe had been cleared for the dignitaries who were all in deepest mourning dress, or uniform. The great arch itself was an extraordinary sight. Three years ago, a huge sculpture of the goddess Victory in her chariot had been placed on top, making it even more dramatic than before. An enormous drape hung like a scooped curtain over one side of the monument; long banners hung from its corners. And taking up most of the great central arch was the ornate and massive catafalque, sixty feet high, in which Victor Hugo had been lying in state.
It was more than a funeral. It was an apotheosis.
The crowds were all in black. The better-off men wore top hats. Thomas himself had put on a short coat that was dark enough, but he wore a blue workingman’s cap. He supposed Victor Hugo wouldn’t mind.
He was staring toward the arch, where the funeral orations were beginning, when he saw the girl.
She was standing about fifteen yards away, in the front row. He could see only the back of her head, and there was nothing special about that. There was really no reason he should have felt drawn toward this particular head in the sea of people all around. But for some reason it seemed to him to be special.
He could see that she had frizzy brown hair. The skin on the back of her neck looked pale. He couldn’t tell what she was wearing, but he thought that she probably belonged to the poorer classes, like himself. He wondered if she would turn round.
The funeral orations were starting. He couldn’t hear them properly, but that didn’t matter. He was there. He was part of the great event.
And everyone knew what must be said. Victor Hugo wasn’t only a great romantic poet and novelist. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity were his watchwords, and he’d lived by them. When Napoléon III had made himself dictator, Hugo had shamed him before all the world, choosing exile in the island of Guernsey, and refusing to come back until democracy was restored. When the Germans invaded France, he’d returned at once, to share starvation with the people of Paris. He’d served as a deputy and a senator too, and taken up residence on one of the splendid avenues that radiated out from the Arc de Triomphe. He was France’s greatest patriot, the conscience of the nation, the finest spirit of the age.
A few years ago, as a birthday present, the city had even renamed the avenue where he lived: avenue Victor Hugo.
From time to time, an oration would end, and the echo of applause could be heard before another speech began. Each time, Thomas would watch the young woman carefully, in case she turned her head. But although she shifted her position a little, he never saw her face. Meanwhile, the clouds were departing from the sky, and the Arc de Triomphe was bathed in sunlight.
At last the ceremonies were drawing to a close. He heard a church bell start to sound the hour of noon. And at that moment, the entire sky above Paris seemed to shake as a huge roar of cannon split the air. Gun after gun saluted, each bang and rumble reverberating off the buildings, so that it was hard to guess where the guns were placed.
He saw the girl step forward into the roadway, trying to discover where the sounds were coming from. She turned right around, saw him and stared—which was hardly surprising since, thanks to his rope, he was leaning so far forward that he appeared to be hovering in the air above the heads of the people in front of him. As for Thomas, he was gazing at her as if he’d seen a vision.
She was wearing the plain dress of a simple working girl. Her face was lightly freckled, her nose small, her mouth was not too wide, but generous. Her eyes were hazel, as far as he could see. She looked at him quizzically. And then she smiled.
To his surprise, at that moment, he didn’t feel a rush of excitement. In fact, he felt strangely calm, as if everything in the world had suddenly fallen into place.
This was the one. He didn’t know how, or why he knew it, but he did. This was the girl he was going to marry. This was his destiny and nothing could change it. He was filled with a sense of lightness, of warmth and peace. He smiled back at her. Had she felt it as well? He thought perhaps she had.
But already the huge cortege was starting to move. A soldier was making her move back. Her head turned, there was a jostling in the crowd and he lost sight of her.
He must get to her side. He reached up and started to undo the knot in the rope. But he had been leaning out for so long that the knot was too tight for even his strong fingers. He felt for the knot where the rope went around his waist. The same thing. He struggled for a minute or two, without success.
“Has anyone got a knife?”
The black coach bearing the casket was passing. All the men were taking their hats off. Nobody even looked at him. He remembered, just too late, to remove his workman’s cap. The coach passed. A phalanx of the great men of France walked behind it.
“For the love of God, has anyone got a knife?” he called again. Slowly, the man whose head he’d stepped on turned up to look. Thomas gave him an apologetic smile. “Pardon, monsieur,” he said politely, “but as you see, I’ve been left hanging here.” The man considered him for a long moment. Then he reached into his coat pocket, drew out a pen knife and showed it to him.
“I have a knife,” he said.
“If you could do me the kindness …,” Thomas continued, using his best manners.
“It is a pity,” the man remarked pleasantly, “that the rope is not around your neck.” Then he put the knife back in his pocket, and turned to look at the cortege again.
Thomas thought for half a minute.
“Hey,” he called down. “Monsieur with the knife.” The man paid no attention. “I’ve got to pee. You want it on your head?”
The man looked up furiously. Thomas shrugged, put his hands to his front and started to unbutton his fly. The man tried to move away, but the crowd was pressed so thick he couldn’t budge. With a curse, he reached into his pocket again.
“Cut your cock off, then,” he replied. But he handed up the knife.
The knife was quite sharp. It took only a few seconds for Thomas to saw through the rope and release himself. He folded the knife.
“Merci, monsieur,” he cried. “You are very kind.” Then he tossed the knife down so that it fell just behind the man’s back, leaving him trying helplessly to pick it up from the ground.
Using the narrow ledge and where necessary the heads of the spectators, he managed to move along the building to the corner, where he found enough space to get down. Worming and discreetly kicking his way forward, he began to work his way toward the street. “Pardon, madame, pardon, monsieur, I have to pee,” he cried. Some let him push through. Others resisted. “Pee in your pants, you little shit,” said one man. But eventually Thomas reached the roadway.
Ducking and weaving behind the soldiers lining the route, he managed to get back to the place where he had seen the girl.
But she wasn’t there. He looked right and left. No sign of her. It was impossible, he thought. No one could move far in that crowd—unless they used tactics like he had.
But somehow she had gone.
He managed to get a little farther along the line of spectators, before a soldier stopped him and made him stand still. Detachments of cavalry passed, and important men in top hats, and bands. The cortege seemed endless. Though he continued to crane his head this way and that, he never caught sight of the girl again.
It was mid-afternoon when Thomas arrived back at Montmartre. Monsieur Gascon had declared that he could honor Victor Hugo best by taking a drop of wine at the Moulin de la Galette, and his wife, who’d been suffering lately from a painful vein in her leg, had bee
n glad to go there with him. As for young Luc, he had declared that it was his duty to keep his parents company, though Thomas knew very well that his little brother was just being lazy.
So Thomas joined them at the Moulin, and gave them a general account of the proceedings. It was only later, when they were alone, that he confided to Luc about the girl.
Although Luc was still only twelve years old, it sometimes seemed to Thomas that his little brother was already more worldly than he was. Perhaps it was his constant hanging around places like the Moulin, or perhaps it was just something innate in Luc’s character, but Thomas was more likely to confide such information to him than to most adults.
“You had a touche,” Luc said. A mutual attraction.
“No,” said Thomas, “more than that. A coup de foudre.” A thunderbolt. Love at first sight.
“How will you find her again?”
“I don’t know. It’ll happen.”
“You think it’s fate?”
“Yes.”
“That’s impressive.”
But he didn’t find her. He had no information he could use. The city and suburbs of Paris now contained more than three million people, and she could be anywhere. She might even have come from another town.
At first, on days when he wasn’t working, he’d go to the spot where he had seen her. He’d go at noon, the exact moment when their eyes had met. Might it be that she was also looking for him? And if so, mightn’t she have the same idea and find him there? It was a long shot, but it was the only hope he had.
As the weeks and months went by, in his spare time, he’d go for a walk in a different part of the city, just in case he might catch sight of her. He came to know Paris far better, but he never saw the girl. Only Luc knew about these wanderings.
“You’re like a knight in search of the Holy Grail,” he told his older brother, and each time Thomas returned, Luc would quietly ask, “Did you find the Grail?”
Though he did not find the Holy Grail, these wanderings had another effect upon Thomas that was profoundly to influence his destiny. That spring, he’d been busy at Gaget, Gauthier et Cie. Although the Statue of Liberty had been completed in time for the Fourth of July the previous year, the huge pedestal on which it was to rest in New York had not been ready. It wasn’t until the start of 1885 that Thomas had helped dismantle the huge statue, which was finally packed into 214 large crates and shipped across the Atlantic. It had been on its way to New York on the day of Victor Hugo’s funeral.
The question then became, what was he to do next?
To his mother’s delight, Gaget, Gauthier et Cie were happy to employ him. Evidently his hard work and his good eye had impressed them. “They tell me that in a few years, I could become one of the skilled men who make the carvings and the ornaments,” he reported. Skilled work. Safe work. It was everything his mother had always hoped for.
The trouble was, he didn’t want it.
Was it the long walks in his quest for the girl? Was it the feeling of being cooped up when he was working in the sheds at the foundry? Or the prospect of one day sitting at one of the long work tables with all the craftsmen and being unable to move? Whatever the cause, his strong young body revolted against the idea. He wanted to be out of doors. He wanted to feel the strength of his arm. He scarcely cared about the weather, even when it was cold, or raining, as long as he was physically working.
He was young. He was strong. He rejoiced in the sense of his physical power.
He loved to watch the men on the bridges, the riveters on the building sites. One day, without telling his parents what he had done, he politely explained to the foreman at the rue de Chazelles that he was quitting. A week later, he had joined a gang of ironworkers as the most junior member of a riveting gang, and he was working on the railways.
When his mother discovered, she was distraught.
“You don’t understand,” she cried. “Laboring men get sick. They get injured. You won’t always be young and strong. But if you have a skill, you work indoors and you can always find employment.”
But Thomas wasn’t listening.
The Gare Saint-Lazare lay only a short walk southwest from the foot of the hill of Montmartre. Its ever-expanding railway lines serviced the many towns of Normandy, and there were always repairs and alterations to be done.
Through the second half of 1885, therefore, and the spring of 1886, Thomas Gascon went about his work quietly. Early each morning he would walk the mile from his home in Montmartre to the Gare Saint-Lazare. On his days off, he continued to trudge around the different quarters of Paris, in the hope of seeing the girl again. By the spring, he admitted the quest was absurd, but he still went out a couple of times a month, out of habit as much as anything.
“Time to look for another woman,” Luc remarked to him one day. “You’re too faithful.”
“One should be faithful,” Thomas answered with a smile.
Young Luc shrugged and said nothing.
It was in May 1886 that the competition was announced. It was not before time. There were only three years to go before the centenary of the French Revolution, which was, as all Frenchmen knew, the most significant event—with the possible exception of the birth of Christ—in the history of humanity. It was imperative therefore that Paris have another great exhibition. And at the gateway, the Republic wanted something dramatic. Nobody knew what, but it had to be a structure that would make the whole world gasp. On the first of May, the city asked for submissions. And they wanted them fast.
The plans soon started coming. Many were banal. Some absurd. Some structurally impossible. One, at least, was dramatic. It proposed a towering replica of the guillotine. This however was deemed a little grim. Would the world’s visitors really want to walk under a vast, hanging blade? Perhaps not.
And then there was the proposal from Monsieur Eiffel.
He had originally suggested the project some time before, but the city authorities had been uncertain. The huge iron tower he proposed was certainly daring. It was modern. It might be a bit ugly. But as they viewed all the entries now, one thing above all impressed the committee. After the complex construction of the Statue of Liberty, it was clear that Gustave Eiffel the bridge-builder knew what he was doing. If he said the thing could be built, then he’d do it.
All Paris had been following the competition. When the winner was announced, there were many protests. But when Thomas Gascon saw it in the newspaper, he knew at once what he wanted to do.
“I’m going to work with Monsieur Eiffel on his tower,” he told his family.
“But what about your job with the railway?” his mother demanded.
“I don’t care.”
They’d need a lot of ironworkers. He intended to be first in line.
Sometimes Thomas worried about Luc’s character. Had he been too protective of his little brother?
Luc had taken his advice. At school, he’d become the boy who made the other children laugh. Recently, his face had started to fill out, and together with his dark hair he looked more Italian than ever. He was clever, and worldly-wise. But it seemed to Thomas that Luc was also in danger of getting lazy, and soft. And he privately resolved to do something about this. It was part of his secret program that, one Sunday that October, he took Luc for a strenuous walk.
The mid-morning sun was on the autumn leaves when they set off. Luc had looked up at the clouds scudding in from the west, and told Thomas that he thought it was going to rain, but Thomas had told him not to be silly, and that he didn’t care if it rained anyway.
In fact, when he’d woken up that morning, Thomas had thought he might be starting a cold, but he wasn’t going to let a small thing like that distract him from the more important business of toughening up his brother.
“I’ll take you somewhere you’ve never been before,” he promised him.
Descending the hill of Montmartre and walking eastward, they crossed a big, handsome canal that brought water to the city from the edg
e of the Champagne region, and soon afterward were walking up the long slope to their destination. The walk made him feel good, and by the time they reached the entrance, he felt he had shaken off his cold.
Though Baron Haussmann had built many handsome boulevards, his most delightful project was not a street at all, but a romantic park on the city’s eastern edge. The Buttes-Chaumont was a high, rocky outcrop, about a mile north of the Père Lachaise Cemetery. Formerly it had been a quarry like Montmartre, but Haussmann and his team had transformed it into a rural retreat in keeping with the spirit of the times.
If the formal gardens of Louis XIV’s reign had given way to the more natural landscaping of the Age of Reason, the nineteenth century was enjoying a rich duality. On the one hand, it was the age of steam, iron bridges and industry. Yet in the arts it was the high romantic period. And while Germany had given the world the cosmic themes of Wagner, romantic France was more intimate and picturesque.
They entered through one of the western gates. The winding paths led through glades planted with all manner of trees and bushes, many of them still richly colored. In the middle of the park a small artificial lake surrounded a high, rocky promontory on the top of which a little round temple had been built. It looked like a scene out of some lush, Italian landscape painting.
They had brought some bread and cheese to eat in the middle of the day, and a bottle of beer. But before beginning their picnic, they agreed to visit the park’s best-known attraction. Crossing to the island by a long, suspended footbridge, it took them little time to find it.
Paris: The Novel Page 9