The Paris Hours

by Alex George

  They are bored with fairy tales.

  Souren thinks about the old Armenian, leaning on his cane as he hobbled along the sidewalk, clutching his newly purchased book. He is learning English and making plans to be reunited with his cousins in America. Despite all he has suffered, he has not given up. He, at least, is still hoping for a happy ending.

  All that lies between the old man and his family is the Atlantic Ocean. Such distances can be navigated easily enough. But there is no ticket that Souren can ever purchase that will reunite him with those he has lost.

  Suddenly he is drowning in remorse. What moved him about the conversation between his elderly countrymen, he understands, was not hearing his native language spoken, but hearing it understood. That sense of connection is what he misses so badly.

  Souren speaks Armenian when he performs, but it doesn’t matter what he says. The children hear what they want to hear.

  To be understood—that was the thing. As Souren left Younis’s shop with his two apples that morning, Bechir stirred in his chair and said something to his eldest son. It sounded to Souren like no more than a string of low, guttural sounds—scarcely a language at all. Younis laughed and responded in kind. Lucky Younis, thinks Souren now. He can still speak his native language, even if only to scold his siblings and joke with his father. People might stare suspiciously at him when he walks down the street, but at least he is not alone.

  On the puppets go.

  Souren’s performance becomes increasingly frenetic as he tries to edge out from beneath the weight of his sadness. A mawkish self-pity descends on him. How absurd he is, performing these plays that nobody understands! Even his delight at the discovery of the beautiful painting in the bookshop window dissipates. The little white house in the woods no longer offers comfort, only regret. What good does it do, he thinks bitterly, to be moved by the art of a stranger? What good does it do, to be one of a tribe whose other members you will never know?

  Arielle. Her mother. Younis. Thérèse, when he could afford her.

  His world is so small.

  This is why he performs. The pianist from downstairs plays only for himself, but Souren needs an audience. He tells his stories to communicate, to connect with others. That is why he returns to the Jardin du Luxembourg every day. The gasps from the audience, the cries of alarm, the applause—this is how he knows he is alive.

  * * *

  It is time for the final play.

  Souren moves the bucket of water in front of his feet. He places a small candle on the shelf beneath the stage and lights it with a match. The wick flares and then burns with a steady flame. He pulls a glove onto his right hand, then the puppet of Hector, the cherry-cheeked little boy. It is a snug fit. Souren takes a small tin of kerosene from his pocket and douses the tunic that he made in the early hours of that morning. The sharp smell hits the back of his nose, igniting old memories.

  He is ready.

  His hands begin to tell the story.

  Here is Hector. Here is the Turk.

  30

  The Cost of Six Hundred Francs

  GUILLAUME PUSHES THE DOOR open. There are three people in the room. He recognizes one of them—the small, rat-faced man he met in the café is sitting on the bed. But it is the other two occupants who draw most of his attention. One of them is a giant, so tall that the top of his head nearly scrapes the ceiling, and so broad that he blocks out most of the light from the window. His fists are the size of ham hocks.

  The other man is holding a knife.

  “There you are,” says the rat-faced man. “Close the door behind you.”

  Guillaume does as he is told. As the door closes the man with the knife moves in front of it.

  “You know why we’re here,” says the rat-faced man.

  Guillaume nods. “I have money for you,” he says.

  “All of it?”

  “Not quite.”

  “How much?”

  Guillaume crosses the room, reaches under the mattress, and retrieves Gertrude Stein’s money. Trying to stop his hands from shaking too much, he counts out the banknotes. Three unblinking pairs of eyes watch him. There is a long silence when he deals the last note onto the bed.

  “That’s six hundred francs,” says the rat-faced man. “You owe me twelve.”

  Guillaume swallows. “I can get you the—”

  “Did you not hear me say that we need every last sou repaid today?” interrupts the man. “Did you not understand? Or did you just not believe me?”

  “This was all I could get,” says Guillaume desperately. “I need more time for the rest.” He thinks of Gertrude Stein and Emile Brataille. Neither of them would have missed the six hundred francs he needs. Guillaume glances at the man by the door. The blade of his knife glints in the afternoon sunlight.

  “You don’t have any more time.” The man picks up the money from the bed and counts it again. “You’ve given me half of what you owe. Half.”

  The man with the knife steps toward him and pushes the knife into Guillaume’s side. The sharp point of the blade presses through the fabric of his shirt. “Big mistake, mon gars,” he whispers.

  “I can get you the rest of the money!” cries Guillaume.

  “That’ll do, Claude,” says the rat-faced man. The man with the knife reluctantly steps back.

  “How?” asks the man on the bed.

  A glimmer of hope.

  “See all these paintings?” asks Guillaume. The man nods. “A famous collector is coming to view them this afternoon. She’s already bought one of my works. She says she’s anxious to see more.”

  The paintings are still arranged around the room for the morning’s viewing. The man looks at them, dubious. “How much will you get for them?”

  “A lot more than six hundred francs, you can be sure of that.”

  “What’s the name of this famous collector?” asks the man called Claude. The knife is twitching in his hand.

  “She’s called Gertrude Stein,” replies Guillaume. “She’s an American.”

  “The writer?”

  The giant speaks for the first time. The other three men look at him in surprise.

  Guillaume nods. “That’s right. She’s a writer.”

  The giant’s face lights up. “Oh, she’s wonderful,” he says.

  “You’ve read her stuff?” asks the rat-faced man.

  “Oh yes. She’s a genius.” The giant pauses. “A bit strange, but a genius.”

  “You’re such a pretentious ponce, Arnaud,” sneers the man with the knife.

  “It wouldn’t kill you to open a book sometimes, Claude,” says the giant mildly.

  The man on the bed waves at them to be quiet. He is thinking. “So this American is coming by later today?” he says.

  Guillaume nods.

  “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

  Guillaume walks over to the mantelpiece. There is Gertrude Stein’s card, exactly where he left it this morning. He hands it to the rat-faced man, who examines it closely.

  “You say this person is a writer?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is she rich?”

  “Rich enough.”

  The man stands up and begins pacing the room, weighing his options. “And you’ll have the rest of the money by tonight.”

  Guillaume nods and points to the wall where Suzanne’s painting used to hang. “She’s already bought the one that was here. That’s where the six hundred francs came from.”

  “He’s lying,” growls Claude. “I say we follow our—”

  “Would you shut up?” snaps the rat-faced man angrily. “If waiting a little longer is going to give us the full amount owed and one less body to dispose of, I’m going to consider it.”

  Claude spits on the floorboards. “You’re swallowing his story about this rich American?”

  “Let me remind you of something, Claude,” hisses the man. “My job is to make decisions. Your job,” he continues, poking an angry finger at him, “is to
follow my orders.”

  Guillaume sees Claude’s knuckles whiten around the handle of the knife. Perhaps, he thinks, they’ll all kill each other and he’ll be able to escape.

  The rat-faced man paces for a few more moments and then stops. He looks at Guillaume. “All right,” he says. “One more chance.”

  “Putain,” mutters Claude.

  “Thank you,” breathes Guillaume.

  “When is this American supposed to be coming by?”

  Guillaume shrugs. “She didn’t say.”

  A sharp look. “But today?”

  “Oh yes. Definitely today.”

  The man points at Claude. “He’s going to be waiting outside, watching the door. Don’t even think about trying to escape. He’s good with that knife. He’ll fillet you into ten pieces before your feet even touch the sidewalk.”

  “Why do I have to wait?” whines Claude.

  “Because I said so,” says the man, his face thunderous.

  “I’ll do it,” says Arnaud.

  The other two men turn to look at him. “Why?” says the leader.

  Arnaud puts up his huge hands. “Gertrude Stein,” he says simply.

  “Mon dieu, all right then.”

  Guillaume swallows. He points to the six hundred francs on the bed. “So is that sufficient for the moment, then?” he asks.

  “No, mon ami, it’s not sufficient at all,” says the rat-faced man. Then without warning he throws a strong, low punch into Guillaume’s gut. Guillaume doubles over, and as he goes down his attacker takes a step forward and drives a ferocious knee into his face. Guillaume’s nose erupts in blinding pain. He falls to his knees.

  The man bends down so that his mouth is right next to Guillaume’s ear. “You’re getting one last chance,” he says. “But all that means is that you’re not quite dead yet.”

  Guillaume clutches at the smashed cartilage in the middle of his face. His fingers are slippery with what he supposes must be his own blood.

  31

  Verdun, 1916: Passacaille II

  THE CROWD IN FRONT of Jean-Paul settles down for the next puppet play, still with expectation.

  A boy is alone outside his family’s house. He climbs a tree, he spins a wooden top. He is quiet and content, until the peace is shattered by the arrival of a scowling warrior, who wears a purple turban and has a grotesquely hooked nose—a Turk, Jean-Paul supposes. The warrior shakes the boy roughly and yells at him in the same, unintelligible language as before. The boy, clearly terrified, replies in a high-pitched voice, but his answer just makes the Turk angry. He starts to hit the boy with a long stick. The boy collapses under the blows. Some of the children are yelling, urging the boy to escape. The warrior waves the stick over his head, bellowing in fury. The children boo and hiss as he leaps across the stage. Finally the Turk puts down the stick and ties the boy’s hands behind his back. The boy is shaking in terror. His assailant waves his arms, and lets out a murderous cry. At this, the boy appears to burst into flames, and the audience gives a collective gasp. Jean-Paul can’t help but be impressed. As gory as the puppet show is, the effects are very realistic. Then he sees wisps of black smoke spiraling upward into the canopy of trees overhead. He looks more closely, and realizes that this is not a trick. The flames are real. The puppet is actually burning. The boy remains quite still in the middle of the stage as the fire engulfs him. He does not make a sound. His head finally slumps forward, and the next moment he vanishes behind the tent’s striped awning. The stage is empty.

  This time there is no applause. The audience waits to see what will happen next. All eyes are fixed on the empty stage. Just then a child begins to cry. Jean-Paul turns toward the sound. Not far away from him, a young girl is sobbing. Her face is buried in the folds of the skirt of the woman standing next to her.

  “Ah, maman!” the girl weeps. “That poor little boy!”

  The woman holds her daughter close. “Don’t cry, chérie,” she says. “It’s just a puppet show.”

  Except it’s not, thinks Jean-Paul. This is more than just a puppet show. The burning boy is more than just another gruesome story. He looks back toward the stage. The puppeteer has not reemerged to pass the hat. This time he has remained behind the striped awning. The girl’s tears have broken the spell cast by the burning puppet. Parents are collecting their children and pulling them away. In a matter of minutes the grassy area in front of the theater is nearly empty. Still the puppeteer remains inside the tent. What is he waiting for? Jean-Paul wonders. Why did he not pass the hat?

  The crying girl and her mother have not moved. The woman is stroking her daughter’s hair, trying to calm her tears. The girl’s shoulders are shaking. Her face is still hidden in her mother’s skirt.

  “Hush now,” says the woman. “It’s over.”

  But the girl cannot stop crying. After a moment, her mother begins to sing a gentle, wordless melody. Her voice is slightly breathless, and beautiful. The tune is sweet and sad. Jean-Paul closes his eyes and listens. The music catches somewhere deep within him.

  In this day full of memories, another falls into place.

  * * *

  After the explosion, the first thing he noticed was the absence of sound.

  When Infantryman Jean-Paul Maillard of the French army’s 203rd Regiment opened his eyes, the devastation in front of him was accompanied by a terrible silence. As the smoke cleared, he saw five bodies lying in the middle of the road. Not one of them moved. A helmet lay in front of him on the tarmac. Next to it there was a crooked bayonet, its blade warped by the blast. Not far beyond that, a single boot.

  From the corner of his eye, he sensed movement. He turned his head and saw Grasset staggering toward him. Grasset’s mouth was open. He was yelling, but Jean-Paul could hear nothing.

  It had been Grasset’s nineteenth birthday the day before. General Pétain himself made a surprise visit to the front, shook the boy’s hand and gave him a medal. The other members of the platoon had cheered and slapped their young colleague on the back. That evening Grasset had proudly sewn the medal onto his uniform with a blunt needle and some old black thread. Now, as Grasset stumbled through the smoke, Jean-Paul saw the bloodied stump of the boy’s upper arm protruding from his uniform. Grasset did not appear to have noticed that his right arm had been blown off. Instead he was clutching at his chest with his remaining hand, his mouth contorted into a silent scream of fury.

  The medal was no longer there.

  Suddenly a hole appeared in the middle of Grasset’s forehead, and his body crumpled to the ground.

  A sniper, mopping up survivors after the mortar attack.

  Jean-Paul thought of Anaïs, his new bride. They were married two days before he shipped out to the front, not knowing if they would ever see each other again. Every morning he woke up to the sound of German shells screaming overhead, and wondered if that day would be his last. Verdun, the bloodiest battle ever fought. Soldiers on both sides were being massacred, the scale of daily human destruction beyond comprehension. There were mountains of slain bodies everywhere, pushed to one side to allow those troops who had not yet perished to keep fighting. There was no time to bury the dead. For months Jean-Paul had marched past the corpses of his countrymen, numb to the horror of it all. He was waiting for the grenade explosion that would be the final thing he heard, the last crack of the sniper’s gun. Within a week of arriving at the front he had stopped daring to hope that he might make it out alive. But as he looked at Grasset’s inert body lying in the middle of the road, a ferocious instinct for survival surged through him. He was not ready to give up, not yet.

  He knew that the sniper would be watching for the slightest movement. He closed his eyes and pretended to be dead. As he lay there, wondering when it would be safe to move, he became aware that something was wrong with his leg. Terrible pain was radiating up his thigh. He could feel his toes pressing against the hardened leather of his boots, which meant that his foot hadn’t been blown off. There was still hope, he t
old himself, just before he passed out from the pain.

  When Jean-Paul regained consciousness, the sun had dipped behind the line of trees to the west. Several hours must have passed. Through half-closed eyes he scanned the scene. Nothing had moved. The pain in his leg was worse than ever. For the first time he dared to look down. A piece of twisted metal was sticking out of his right calf. He struggled into a sitting position and unhooked his combat knife. He hacked away his fatigues and examined the wound. The shrapnel emerged from his flesh at a grotesque angle, bloody and incongruous. When he tried to bend his knee, the pain was excruciating. If he wanted to move, he would have to pull the metal out of his leg.

  Now Jean-Paul wished he had been more careful when he cut away his uniform. He needed a good length of strong material for a tourniquet. He looked around him. To his left he saw something on the ground. It looked both familiar and yet entirely alien. He stared at it for a moment before he realized that he was looking at Grasset’s arm. With a monumental effort he stretched out and grasped the bloodied fringe of the fabric. Grimacing, he shook the material until the dead boy’s pale limb fell out. Jean-Paul did not give it a second glance. With his knife he sliced Grasset’s sleeve into two long strips. He pulled the first around his leg, just above the shrapnel’s entry point, and knotted it as tightly as he could. He had yawned his way through the mandatory first-aid lessons when he’d enlisted, but he was grateful for them now. The tourniquet would reduce the blood flow to the lower part of his leg, which in turn should reduce blood loss. He looked down with dread at the twisted piece of shrapnel. He gripped the metal, took three deep breaths, and then pulled as hard as he could.

  A terrible scream escaped his lips. The blood glistening on the metal marked how deeply it had been buried in his flesh. While the shrapnel was in his leg it had acted as a plug; now the wound became a dark geyser. Gasping, Jean-Paul reached for the second strip of Grasset’s sleeve and wrapped it around the lacerated flesh to stem the flow of blood. Within moments the material was sodden, but now he could bend his knee without the whole world exploding.