Floats the Dark Shadow (18 page)

Chapter Seventeen

The spell of stifling night and heavy dream

~
Paul Verlaine

PANTING, coughing, Michel took cover in the bombed ruin of a bakery. He had to get back to his sister. His father was dead—shot by the soldiers. They would have killed him if he hadn’t run—they killed children too. He had to have sense. That was what his father said. How much sense did his father have, getting shot?

Hot tears ran down his face. Michel scrubbed at them ferociously. Only babies cried. Tears helped nobody. He lifted his head, searching for a safe way back. There was none. His world was on fire. Everywhere he looked, flames climbed into the sky. Black smoke climbed above them. The vast dark cloud filled the sky like a soldier’s helmet—or an executioner’s hood. It looked like the shadow of the devil looming over Paris.

“The soldiers were supposed to join the workers,” Michel whispered. “Join them—not kill them.”

The sharp crack of a carbine merged with the crackle of burning wood. A bullet shattered plaster at his shoulder. Michel dodged and ran.

His eyes, his throat, burned from the smoke. Grey ash drifted down like filthy snow. It covered the ground and coated the piles of rubble in the streets—barricades erected by the people against the government army invading from Versailles. The workers were retaliating against Paris herself. The monument in the Place Vendôme had been pulled down, a hollow thing filled with rats’ nests. The Tuileries were ashes. Now the Palais Royale was burning—the rue de Rivoli was a boulevard of flame. He knew people were trapped in the burning buildings. Some were still screaming. He could smell their charred flesh. Sometimes he heard their skulls exploding.

The Communards were running past him toward the Palais de Justice. An old woman scuttled through the wreckage, swinging a can.
Une
pétroleuse
.
They threatened to burn Notre Dame and La Sainte Chapelle, to pour gasoline over the rooftops and ignite it.

His mother had loved La Sainte Chapelle. She would not want it to burn.

Then he was inside the church. His mother’s corpse lay on an altar, emaciated from starvation. Her open eyes stared upward. Michel looked above him, where the tall windows of stained glass glowed. But now all their colors were the hues of fire. They throbbed. Crimson. Orange. Gold. Yellow. Blood red. Then the glass broke and the fire rained down, cutting him to pieces….

Michel woke gasping. He trembled in the aftermath of the nightmare, trembled with fear, then with fury, to be so overcome by the corrosive images that ate into his soul.

It was not the Charity Bazaar fire burning in his brain. It was the Bloody Week—the Paris Commune of 1871—the great insurrection of the Paris working class after the ignoble defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War. That brief reign of the proletariat had ended in carnage. More people died in that urban civil war than had been executed in the Revolution. Thirty thousand men, women, children, or more. Most shot without trial.

He had been six years old. Had helped his father and his cousin Luc load guns when the government troops attacked and the Commune had recaptured Paris.

Michel got up, splashed water on his face, scrubbed his body. But he couldn’t scrub the memories from his mind. It had been May then, too.
Le Temps des cerises
. At Père Lachaise cemetery, in the last days, Communard heroines tucked the ripening cherries behind the ears of their lovers. Then they went to the slaughter. The poignant love song had taken on a deeper pain after that.

But cherry season's all too brief a time

when, dreaming, one goes out to pluck

two pendants for the ears

cherries of love in skins like

blood drops dripping down beneath the leaves….

Sometimes he forgot that he hadn’t always been Michel Devaux, son of Guillame Devaux, brigadier of the Sûreté. Before his rescuer took him home, covered in soot and blood, he was Michel Calais, son of the Communard Marcel Calais, executed by the firing squad, and Agnès Calais, starved to death during the Prussian bombardment. Brother of Marie Calais, raped and bayoneted by Versailles soldiers. A fate he barely escaped.

I'll always cherish cherry season

a time I keep within my heart,

an open wound….

With a sigh, Michel put on fresh clothes. The others would have to be cleaned.

A smoky pall clung to them. And to him as well….

The victims of the Commune were long dead. The victims of the charity bazaar fire awaited his attention. It was time for Michel Devaux to take his place in the world.

~

It was a hideous day. Grief and despair covered them all like a heavy shroud, slowing movement, thought, breath. More than 125 bodies had been removed from the wreckage and carried to the Palais de l'Industrie. Identifying them was another matter. All were carbonized—black, twisted forms burned beyond recognition. Michel, like many of the
Sûreté
, helped with the aftermath. He met with Cochefert, but the officer in charge of the investigation was the
Prefect of Police, Monsieur Lépine
. The National Guard was given the chore of sifting the ashes for what belongings might be salvaged.

“Not long ago, these walls were covered with the paintings of the Salon.” Cochefert stared around the bleak interior. With a huge sigh he returned to the list he held and marked off more names of those who had been identified. Michel was grateful that Cochefert was bearing the news to the families. Michel had done so as well, but for now he was helping to examine the corpses, making note of possible ways to identify them.

Cochefert was especially good with the grieving relatives. His compassion was huge, as sincere as a stranger could offer. Michel appreciated it all the more because it wasn’t a quality he possessed. He tensed and seemed cold while simply trying to retain his composure. He did not find it difficult to be calm in the midst of violence. It was dealing with emotional wreckage that ate holes in his belly. Here especially, where a terrible hysteria of bewilderment and rage churned beneath the mournful surface.

Noise jarred the constrained conversations around them. Another body had been claimed and was being nailed into a pine coffin. Or mahogany, perhaps. The undertaker had hurriedly returned with more expensive housing for the wealthy cadavers. The stink of the scorched corpses, which Michel had forced himself to ignore, invaded him again. He caught himself trying to hold his breath. Foolish. He inhaled deeply. The odor was nauseating, overwhelming, clotting every sense. Then, then after a moment, it faded. Michel returned to the task at hand, searching for some scrap of identification on the pathetic corpse of a young girl. He found a comb with jeweled butterflies annealed to her skull. Sensing someone watching, he looked around. Saul Balsam waited quietly, head cocked, pencil in hand in hope of an interview.
Bonjour
seemed ludicrous on such a gruesome morning, so Michel simply said, “Monsieur Balsam.”

“Inspecteur Devaux,” Saul greeted him then took out his notepad. “I have been interviewing Monsieur Gomery, the butcher who broke the window of the Hôtel
du Palais
to reach the bazaar. He told me you helped with the rescue effort?”

“Yes, but not in an official capacity.”

“Why were you at the bazaar?”

“Like everyone else, I wanted to see the cinema presentation. I decided to have some wine first, to fortify myself before squeezing through the crowds. When the fire broke out, I thought there might be a way through the walls and went in search of it.”

“So you organized the men?”

“No, the rescue was already underway. I helped, that is all. I would rather you do not mention my name.”

“It never hurts to have a police hero.”

“Perhaps, but I would prefer the working men get full credit.” Saul nodded. Michel knew he would take him at his word, not presume it was false modesty. He’d made a couple of quick suggestions, no more. A curious pride linked him to these workers. They had been caught up together in a resoluteness that transcended the fear and horror. For once he had felt part of a whole that had nothing to do with his chosen profession.

“You and your compatriots must have saved a hundred people.”

“Close to two hundred,” Michel told him.

Saul looked around at the terrible display. Michel saw his jaw tighten. “How many of these bodies were men?”

“Only five.” Michel was being generous, one was an adolescent groom.

“It is a great scandal. The men—if you can call those rich brats men—beat their way to safety over the women and children.” Saul sneered. “It was the simple workers who risked their lives to save strangers.”

“The duchesse d’
Alençon
acted with the courage her class claims. One of her servants begged to carry her out. She told him her rank gave her the privilege of entering first, and so she would leave last.”

“Yes. She was valiant,” Saul admitted, then added, “The duc escaped unscathed.”

“Baron de Mackau returned to the fire seven times and saved seven women. There was a doctor—curator of the wax museum of the Hôpital Saint-Lazare—who ran back into the building to try and save his daughter,” Michel said.

“Tried?” Saul asked.

“Both died, but he had already saved his wife.” He gave Saul the man’s name, and one or two others he’d learned. “Many of the bourgeoisie joined in the rescue attempt.” When Saul frowned, Michel conceded, “But the butcher, the plumber, the street sweeper were heroic. You have your story in them.”

Saul glanced at his notes. “Many were saved by being doused in a water trough?”

“You can add a cabdriver to your heroes. He grabbed General Munier as he ran down the street with his clothes ablaze, and flung him into the watering trough of the Rothschild stables. The Rothschilds opened their doors when other families shut them against the burning victims.” Michel watched Balsam scribble the information.

“Did you hear the explosion?”

From down the aisle came a wrenching cry. “No! No, monsieur! Stop!”

Michel turned to see one of the white sheets covering a body swept into the air, swirled, dropped—like a magician flourishing a cape during a magic trick.

It was Vipèrine.

Surprise and anger stung Michel like vicious slaps. He had not seen Vipèrine since his release. Today he was not dressed in an outlandish occult costume, but in mourning so elaborate it might as well be one. He had uncovered half a dozen bodies, displaying them for his quavering band of followers. No one searching for family or a friend would do that. Another gendarme, angrier than the first, muttered,
“Bougre de canaille
.” Michel could only agree. Buggering dog. The insult was audible to Vipèrine. He smiled.

Michel’s nostrils flared with disgust, as if the avowed Satanist emitted a sulphurous stink worse than the stench of burnt flesh. Vipèrine probably wanted to steal fragments of the dead for some ludicrous spell. As Michel moved forward, Cochefert was there, blocking him. He lifted an eyebrow, looking like a mournful walrus. Michel realized that he had let his anger rise to the surface. Instantly he swallowed it back. Tempers must be controlled or there would be violence. Cochefert nodded and stepped aside.

Vipèrine departed, trailing acolytes. Michel recognized one of the Revenants, the shabbiest one, and made a mental note that they were connected in some fashion.