Crossings

by Alex Landragin

  Behind me, I heard Vennet stumble out of the shop and yell, ‘Hey! Hey there! What is the meaning of this?’ I continued running, the coins in my pocket jangling like a tambourine as I did, to such an extent that I had to hold my hands against my thighs to keep them quiet. I darted across the Boulevard Montmartre and into the Passage des Panoramas, without looking behind me to check if I was being pursued. I weaved around some window-shoppers, ducked left into the Galerie des Variétés and left again, up a narrow stairwell, three steps at a time until I reached a door at the top. I entered a softly lit room where a stout woman in her fifties sat smoking from an opera-length cigarette holder behind a Second Empire desk.

  ‘Bonjour, Madame Yolande,’ I wheezed, puffing, my every heartbeat the thrust of a dagger in my chest. ‘I’m glad to see you’re still open, despite everything.’

  ‘Bonjour, monsieur, good to see you again,’ replied the madame. ‘We’ve never been busier. Is everything all right?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ I panted, ‘all is well.’ I bent forward to catch my breath. ‘I just . . . ran into someone . . . I didn’t want to see.’

  ‘Have you brought trouble with you? You know we don’t like trouble.’

  ‘No trouble, madame, no trouble at all . . . Room 12, please.’

  ‘Room 12 is Simone’s room, monsieur. As you know, Simone sees customers by appointment only, without exception.’

  ‘Simone, yes, of course, it slipped my mind, my apologies. What about Room 11?’

  ‘Room 11 is Paulette. Is it Paulette you wish to see?’

  ‘Yes, Paulette. Thank you.’ Madame Yolande looked me up and down with narrowed eyes before shrugging her shoulders and handing me a key. I paid the usual sum, adding a tip for the madame. In return, she gave me the slightest hint of a smile, signalling that while she disapproved of my behaviour, I could count on her discretion.

  Crouching so that I wouldn’t be seen from below, I made my way down a corridor with doors to the rooms on the left and windows on the right overlooking the arcade. I opened the door to Room 11 and stepped into a consoling hush. I left the door slightly ajar and peered through it onto proceedings downstairs.

  ‘Bonjour, monsieur,’ I heard Paulette say from over my shoulder. ‘I haven’t seen you in such a long time.’

  ‘Bonjour, bonjour, dear Paulette,’ I replied, still peering through the gap in the door. The arcade below was as still as a postcard. There was no sign of Vennet or his pursuers, only a lady choosing a magazine at the newspaper kiosk and some youths inspecting a tobacconist’s window. I closed the door and locked it, turning around to face Paulette. She was reclining on an uncovered bed with one raised knee, wearing only a black negligee, silk stockings and a great deal of makeup. A brocaded lamp glowed in a corner and from an old phonograph player warbled a violin and a guitar. The room smelled of perfume and hashish. ‘Pardon the subterfuge,’ I said, taking off my jacket and hat and placing them on a stool by the phonograph player. Approaching the bed and sitting on its edge, I reached out and brushed the dyed blonde hair from Paulette’s face to better see those blue-grey eyes of hers, which had so bewitched me once upon a time. Now they had no effect at all.

  ‘What can I do for you today?’ she asked.

  ‘Just keep me company.’

  ‘I see. Nothing more?’

  ‘If someone knocks at the door, I shall kiss you. But otherwise, just keep me company.’

  She reached beside her and took up a pack of cards. ‘In my experience, nothing soothes a troubled heart better than a game of double solitaire.’

  ‘I know it well.’

  {11}

  The Palace of Justice

  WHEN I RETURNED TO the apartment that evening, its emptiness struck me like a blow to the stomach. I thought I could detect a faint aroma of sandalwood, and I sniffed various things – the pillow, the sheets, a towel – in search of a more tangible sense of her presence. I half-expected Madeleine to have somehow returned, to be lounging on my bed, wearing one of my shirts, smoking a Salomé. I wanted to tell her that she had been right, that the auction had gone exactly as she had foretold, that I had done what she had instructed me to do, that I ought not to have doubted her. But I could only speak to the Madeleine in my mind. That imaginary Madeleine was very much alive – I found myself talking aloud to her, continuing our long conversations – but there would be no touching her, caressing her, holding her. I had a feeling that, this time, she wouldn’t be back. At least she had left me a keepsake to remember her by.

  I stroked the cold, metallic contours of the derringer as if they were Madeleine’s own flesh. I knew exactly why she’d left it behind. We’d talked about it. She was asking me to do something on her behalf, something unconscionable. She wanted me to commit a crime – to murder someone, to be precise. And not just anyone; she had asked me to murder Coco Chanel. There was no point asking why, it was all part of her paranoia – otherwise known as the tale of the albatross. Of course, there was no question of my doing it. Even had I wanted to, where would I find bullets for a derringer?

  A letter had arrived by pneumatic tube and been slipped under my door. It was from Fritz, who had spent several nights camping on a platform at the Gare de Lyon in the hope of securing a seat on a southbound train. He’d bought two tickets for a train leaving the following morning, and the second ticket was mine if I wanted it. But there was never any question of taking up the invitation. I was too deeply involved in this affair with Madeleine and the manuscript.

  I spent a sleepless night, haunted by memories, and dawn came as a relief.

  On my habitual morning walk, I went to the station, skirting the Montparnasse cemetery, which had yet to open. The memory of our meeting – barely more than a week ago, and yet already an age – was almost too painful to bear. The Gare de Lyon was swarming with unhappy, dishevelled Parisians, many of whom had been here for days, hoping to leave before the arrival of the Germans. When I found Fritz he was standing in a long, unmoving queue, waiting to board a steam train – even decommissioned steam locomotives had been brought out of retirement for the exodus. All around, entire families were splayed on the ground, surrounded by their baggage and possessions – umbrellas, flower pots, chickens, coffee-makers, birdcages, sheets, curtains – awaiting their turn to leave on the next train, or the one after that. I saw Fritz from a distance, but we didn’t speak until we were quite close, so as not to be overheard speaking German in public and denounced. ‘Where’s your suitcase?’ he asked. I told him I couldn’t leave, that he should give the spare ticket to someone else. He looked at me in disbelief. ‘Why?’

  I looked helplessly at my old friend. ‘I’m still waiting for my American friends to wire me money.’

  ‘I can lend you money, if that’s all it is. Have them wire it to Marseille.’

  ‘There’s something else, a manuscript.’ Listening to myself, I realised how foolish my words must seem to him. I didn’t want to mention Madeleine, whom he hadn’t met, and this reluctance bothered me. Was I ashamed of her – or of myself?

  ‘A manuscript!’ He couldn’t help but smile and shake his head. ‘You’re going to risk your life for a manuscript!’ I shrugged, as if to say, there’s nothing to be done, I can’t go. He nodded sadly. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Well, if you change your mind, go to Marseille, it’s your best chance of getting out of France alive. Leave a message for me at the Hôtel Splendide.’ There was a youth standing alone nearby in a cap and long shorts, looking forlorn. Fritz offered him the ticket and the boy lit up with happiness. We smoked cigarettes together until a whistle blew and the line began to move. One by one, people entered the carriages and hauled their suitcases aboard. The train vanished in a cloud of smoke and steam.

  I left the railway station and walked towards the river and the Île Saint-Louis, then across the Île de la Cité to the Quai Malaquais. Despite the circumstances, some of the booksellers were opening their stalls, setting up their wares, tending to shelves, gossiping among themselves, smo
king. Were it not for the evacuees streaming across the Pont Saint-Michel on their carts and lorries, it might have been any ordinary, sunny day. At the corner of the bridge, I recognised the pear-shaped figure of the bookseller Lanoizelée, wearing his customary round glasses and black beret. I’d been a customer of his for years; we trusted each other. We exchanged nods and said bonjour. I flicked through the detective novels on his shelves. I’d read most of them, some of them several times, but all the same I found a couple I thought I could bear to read again. ‘By the way,’ I said, as if it was of no particular consequence, ‘have you heard of a bouquiniste called Vennet?’

  ‘Vennet? Yes, he’s down on the Quai de la Tournelle, near the wine market. Sells vintage lithographs to tourists with a side trade in antique pornography. Are you after some racy pictures?’ He showed me an illustration of a dark-skinned woman wearing only a boa constrictor. ‘Look at this – look at the detail. A real work of art.’ I shook my head with a smile. ‘Maybe next time,’ he said.

  ‘There may not be a next time.’

  ‘Oh, there’s always a next time.’

  I continued walking upriver towards the Quai de la Tournelle. Away from the southbound boulevards, the sunshine and pre-invasion quiet lent every scene a summer holiday tone. Near the wine market, I found a woman in her sixties smoking a pipe. She sold romance novels.

  ‘I’m looking for Vennet’s stall.’

  ‘It’s just here,’ she said, pointing to the next stall. It was locked shut.

  ‘Do you know where I might find him?’

  ‘He’s a popular man. You’re the second person to have asked after him.’ She puffed on her pipe.

  ‘Was the other guy big, thick neck, nice suit?’

  ‘No, he was thin, pencil moustache, homburg hat. Came looking for Vennet yesterday afternoon.’ A flash of panic shot through me. I was a day late.

  ‘Where can I find Vennet? I’m afraid he might be in some trouble.’

  She looked me up and down, sizing me up. My accent, I thought. I took a twenty-franc note out of my pocket and gave it to her. ‘He was closed yesterday too, but he came around as I was closing up. He seemed flustered, but I didn’t ask why. I don’t like to pry.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  Again she paused. I gave her another twenty francs. ‘He opened up the stall, rummaged around for a minute, then locked it up and left. He barely said a word, which is unlike him. He’s normally the talkative type.’

  ‘Did you tell the other guy this?’

  ‘He didn’t ask.’

  ‘What did he ask?’

  ‘He wanted to know where Vennet lives.’

  ‘And where’s that?’

  She looked at me without replying, puffing calmly on her pipe.

  ‘Where does Vennet live, madame? His life may depend on the answer.’

  ‘You’re German, aren’t you?’ she eventually spat.

  I took all the notes and coins I had in my pocket and gave them to her.

  The address the old woman gave me was in the Faubourg Saint-Marcel, one of the city’s most hard-pressed neighbourhoods. For centuries it had reeked with the stench of the tanneries that lined both sides of the Bièvre, the little stream that had since been covered over but still flowed under the streets, past the Jardin des Plantes and into the Seine. The neighbourhood had long been condemned as insalubrious, and what hadn’t already been demolished was slated for the wrecking ball. But all that was forgotten in the light of the noonday sun. It was lunchtime and the narrow streets teemed with children – at least, those too old to have been sent to the country – immersed in countless self-devised intrigues. They seemed unworried by the impending invasion. Their parents had no country homes to flee to, and they would simply have to make do as they had always done. As I wandered in search of Vennet’s apartment, the heat, the interplay of sun and shadow, the white waves of bleached linen suspended overhead, the smell of frying onions from open windows, all combined dizzyingly with less tangible things – my worries, my sorrows, my fears – so that, more than once, I had to stop and put my hand against a wall to regain my composure.

  Having found Vennet’s building, I groped my way up four flights of stairs in near total darkness, lighting matches to view the names written beside the doors. When I found Vennet’s place I knocked without reply. I tried turning the handle and the door swung open. I stood at the threshold for a moment before stepping inside. All was stuffy, gloomy – the smell of cigarettes and a human body. It was a single room much like my own, with a kitchenette in one corner. The curtain of the only window was drawn. Against every wall, stacks of books were piled waist-high. The middle of the room was strewn with more books, as if piles of them had been ransacked or knocked over in a struggle. I felt like King Kong standing in the middle of a ruined metropolis of books. There was a bed by the window with a body lying on the thin mattress, turned away from the door. I called out Vennet’s name but there was no response. Crossing the room with careful steps, I reached the other side, threw back the curtain and opened the window, breathing in the fresh air with the relief of a drowning man.

  I went to Vennet’s side, called his name and shook him gently. The bed hadn’t been slept in. His body, lying on its side, was cool. He was fully dressed, in the same clothes he’d worn the previous day, minus the trench coat. He wasn’t breathing. In fact, rigor mortis had set in and at his chest his shirt was soaked in congealed blood. Blood had trickled through the thin mattress and formed a little pool of crimson under the bed. There were traces of blood on the floor, and a jet of it had squirted across the room as far as the opposite wall. I turned my attention to Vennet’s face. Where the eyes ought to have been were two voids underscored by tentacles of dried blood. His eyeballs had been removed. I turned away, stomach heaving, leaning against a wall to regain my composure. I thought of Madeleine. She’d warned me about this.

  I heard a rustle behind me. I spun around to see, standing in the doorway, the thin, bespectacled man in the grey homburg hat I’d seen the previous day. ‘Looking for someone?’ he said.

  ‘I found him.’

  ‘He doesn’t look in great shape.’ The man stepped over some books and into the apartment. ‘I’ve seen you somewhere before.’

  ‘The auction, yesterday.’

  ‘Ah yes, and afterward in the Passage Jouffroy. What did you say to Vennet that alarmed him so?’

  ‘I gave him a warning.’

  ‘You told him his life was in danger,’ said Massu. ‘Rather prescient, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘A lucky guess,’ I replied.

  ‘Who are you and how did you come to be muddled in this business?’

  ‘Who wants to know?’

  ‘Commissaire Georges-Victor Massu of the Police Judiciaire.’

  ‘You’re from the Quai des Orfèvres?’

  ‘Indeed. Do you know it?’

  ‘Only from pulp novels.’

  ‘That’s a pity. They don’t do it justice. It really is worth a visit. In fact, why don’t we go there now? I have a car waiting outside.’ He stood to one side of the doorway and beckoned to me. ‘You know,’ said Massu, ‘they say you haven’t really seen Paris until you’ve seen the Quai des Orfèvres.’

  ‘Who says that?’

  ‘Everyone and no one.’

  The black Citroën rattled across the paving stones of the Pont Saint-Michel, over the mercurial waters of the Seine flowing darkly below, through the stream of cars and carts fleeing southward. Beside me, Massu hummed tunelessly to himself. Meanwhile, I was nauseously remembering the cadaver I’d just seen, and Madeleine too. For Vennet’s murder corroborated the most paranoid of Madeleine’s delusions: that someone at the Baudelaire Society – Coco Chanel, no less, or some hired proxy – was killing people, and gouging out their eyes, as part of some ancient vendetta between them that I could never quite understand. All the signs indicated that what Madeleine had told me was true, which meant that I was suddenly neck-deep in a sordid affair th
at I barely understood, in a city where I was persona non grata. And what was worse, I was now in the hands of the police, the very people I most needed to avoid. Luckily, I’d left the derringer hidden in my apartment.

  The police car lurched left onto the Quai des Orfèvres, swerving through an arched entranceway and heaving to a stop in the courtyard of the Palais de Justice, headquarters of the Police Judiciaire, which investigated all of Paris’s homicides. In the middle of the courtyard a large fire was burning while several men stood by with trolleys. One of the men was stoking the fire, and from the shade of the early afternoon sparks rose into the patch of blue sky above. I was led inside, through a gloomy maze of corridors and stairwells to a room where I was fingerprinted and photographed. My notebook was confiscated. Then I was marched across the building, up more stairs to the top floor, through a commotion of voices, typewriters and ringing telephones, and instructed to wait outside an office marked Brigade spéciale N° 1. Occasionally someone would enter or leave the office, and I would catch glimpses of a large smoky room filled with desks facing each other, each with a typewriter on it. Men milled about purposefully, or sat at one of the desks, typing with two fingers. There was a smell of burning paper mixed with tobacco and body odour. I must have sat there for an hour or two, fretting at this unexpected turn of events, smoking Salomés while my heart thudded painfully in my chest. Now that I was a guest of the judicial police, my main goal was to avoid ending up in the hands of the secret police. I was counting on the famous interdepartmental hostility of the French police. With any luck, I thought, I might still walk out of here a free man.