Le Temps des Cerises (17 page)

‘See a cock you dislike,' Queenie gurgled in Eveline's ear and she felt a fleck of spit dribble down her neck, ‘and shoot to kill.'

Maria knelt down in front of them, showing them how to load and fire. ‘These are
chassepots
,' she said quietly. ‘We are lucky enough to have them. Most of the guardsmen are still using the
tabatière
system – a much heavier, less accurate weapon. Leslie, you first please.' She pointed to a thickset woman with a crooked nose and narrow eyes. ‘Are you shooting Tommy again?'

The woman gave a vehement little nod. She would always be killing Tommy, she said. He was an American cockroach and needed to be stamped out. ‘I will get him thwack in the nose just as he got me,' she announced.

And she did. She knelt down, one leg in front of the other, pressed the rifle butt very professionally to her shoulder, took aim and fired, hitting Tommy smack in the middle of his bulbous nose; and then, once again, in the middle of his minuscule manhood. ‘Hah!' She gave a satisfied gasp as she surveyed the damage. ‘Hah!' Then walked to the back of the queue.

Elizabeth's eyes were glittering as she watched, standing halfway between the women and the barrels. She looked more catlike than ever to Eveline with her silky hair and emerald eyes. And at the sound of each shot her back had arched up as Fifi's always did when she wanted to be stroked. Her fists were clenched at her sides and in the flickering light the tip of her tongue could be seen sticking out of half-parted lips. Like a cat, Eveline decided, watching a troop of mice.

A young girl came next, so small and light she could barely hold the rifle to her shoulder. It was obviously her first time. Maria had to show her the lesson all over again, explaining the technique carefully and considerately, gently pressing the gun into her hands.

‘Who would you like to shoot?' she asked softly.

‘I don't know,' the girl stammered.

‘Why don't you choose?'

‘I… I don't like to.'

‘Why did you come here tonight?' Maria asked patiently.

The girl screwed up her forehead. ‘I wanted to be able to defend my home and my little brother if the Prussians came.'

Eveline felt a pang of understanding. She would defend Jacques with her life if she had to. Not that he seemed to need it these days.

‘Oh, come on,' cried Elizabeth angrily, a spot of colour appearing on each cheekbone. ‘Have you ever been beaten?'

‘No,' the girl whispered, looking terrified.

‘Have you ever been raped?'

‘N… n… no.'

‘Has your father ever mistreated you?'

The girl shook her head as vehemently as Leslie had nodded. Definitely not. Her father was a good man, a grocer and even during these times of terrible hunger he had managed to provide them with carrots and potatoes almost every night for her mother to make a delicious stew with. She simply wanted to be able to defend the home if the Prussians came.

Elizabeth put up her hand. ‘Enough! Alright, imagine this: the Prussians are beating at your door, they are going to kill your brother and rape your mother… what are you going to do about it?'

The girl stared at Elizabeth in horror, uttered a strangled little sound at the back of her throat then burst into tears. The gun fell from her hands and Maria picked it up and handed it to the next woman then led the girl sobbing from the room.

‘Anyone else feel the same,' Elizabeth stood with hands on hips and glared about her, ‘they had better leave the room. Right now. We don't want time wasters.'

One or two girls left, giggling – it wasn't their cup of tea, they much preferred sewing and cleaning for their men to this sordid spectacle; but most people stayed. It was as bad as the queue at Potin's, Eveline thought
and she didn't know which was worse: queueing for food or queueing to kill.

Elizabeth was really getting into her stride now. She stood on the sidelines, goading the women on as they fired shot after shot at Andrés, Jeromes, Vincents and Guys or any name they particularly disliked.

‘All Peters are bastards!' shouted one, though she hit a Vincent by mistake while another brought a rain down on Simon because ‘it was the wettest name in the world'. A voluminous-looking woman overflowing in petticoats and bonnet streamers didn't fire at all but simply charged up to a Jerome and started bashing him in the balls with the butt of her gun. ‘What they want to do to you,' she shrieked, ‘is ungodly. Lord a mercy!'

‘SATANS!' roared Elizabeth in agreement, clapping her hands and stamping her feet. ‘Bravo, madame. Bravo!'

Eveline didn't know how she would react when it came to her turn and she could feel her stomach fluttering with butterflies. She didn't particularly dislike any names – none that were present in any case – and she had no desire to go for a phallically inspired doodle. Perhaps she would gun down a smirking face. One or two were quite life-like and they reminded her a little of her father after he'd taken a drop. Many's the time she would have liked to wipe the smile off his face…

‘Be my guest,' Queenie was gurgling in her ear. ‘Francis can take as many hits as he deserves as far as I'm concerned.'

Maria handed her a loaded gun and Eveline, keeping her body very straight, knelt down, aimed and fired. She felt the gun jerk in her arms and heard the reassuring smack of splitting wood. Her heart beat a little faster and a surge of hot blood coursed through her veins. She fired again at another smirking face and got him right in the middle of the mouth.

‘Are you a slave in your own home?' Elizabeth was shouting from the sidelines.

Yes she was. A mouse and a slave. Well, not any more. With a gun in her hands she was all-powerful, omnipotent.

Mouse, am I? Slave, am I?

The violence inside her was like a dam bursting – it flooded through her body in warm, angry waves. ‘Mouse, am I? Slave, am I?' she sang to the rhythm of the load and fire technique. She wasn't even surprised when a smirking face suddenly spurted blood from one of its eyes though many of the women behind her gasped.

‘You've been bloodied!' Elizabeth whooped gleefully, racing over to the barrel and holding out her hands to catch a few drops. Then she walked solemnly over to Eveline and traced the mark of a cross on her forehead. ‘You've been bloodied
, ma petite
,' she whispered, kissing her on the cheek.

Eveline smelt the familiar smell of wine and it brought her rapidly back to her senses. She watched the women crowd around the barrel, licking drips from their fingers – anyone would think it was the fountain of life – or crouching down and opening their mouths like a bunch of pickled herrings. Some even pressed their lips to the hole as if to suck the barrel dry. Eveline stood, feeling drained, a little ashamed and vaguely repulsed. Even here she didn't belong. It was like being with her father and his cronies when she was stone-cold sober – how stupid they seemed with their red faces and exaggerated gestures, their displays of emotion and heart-to-hearts that left you feeling awkward and embarrassed the next time you saw them. Here it was almost the same feeling: the women appeared half mad to her now, lunatic, demented, sticking their fingers in a barrel of wine like a group of greedy vampires – worse than Papa and his cronies!

She felt suddenly suffocated by the odour of wine, spent guns and sweating women. If this was her own little adventure she'd had enough of it. She picked up another gun and a National Guard uniform and made her way out of the suppurating basement, up the cold hard steps, down the corridor and past the room full of rugs like glowing sunsets and silvery deserts and the scatter cushions – pink, azure and rainbow hued. Elizabeth caught up with her at the front door and grabbed her elbow.

‘Why so soon?' she demanded, raising a quizzical eyebrow.

‘Intuition,' Eveline replied for want of anything better to say. And yet it was true in a way. Something in her heart or head had told her to flee, flee while she had the chance. There was an undercurrent between the women – and in herself – that she didn't understand and didn't care to understand.

Elizabeth's eyes crinkled up into a smile. ‘Well done,' she smiled, kissing her on the lips, ‘
ma petite
.'

Her breath tasted like cinnamon and her hair felt like silk; and Eveline left the Rue de Turbigo with the faintest hint of regret for an opportunity missed. A trip not taken. An avenue unexplored.

Chapter fifteen

Eveline had left Jacques fast asleep – or so she thought – but as soon as she
closed the front door behind her he was climbing stealthily out of bed, lighting the lamp and pulling on as many thick clothes as he could muster. Summer layers under winter layers. Vests under shirts under waistcoats under jerseys. Stockings under socks under short trousers under long. Gloves, mitts and scarf – he bundled himself up so much he looked like a little snowman – but no hat. ‘Heads can swell,' the Professor had warned time and time again. ‘Heads can swell and tongues turn black!'

He hadn't forgotten the brandy – to pour over blackened tongues and swollen heads. He'd packed it away in his satchel the night before along with a cushion to sit on, an opera glass stolen from one of the Brothers who liked to watch the boys from afar, and a teaspoon for handling the sand ballast. Eveline would miss it but it couldn't be helped. He was a man on a mission and the handling of ballast was a most delikat affair. Like baking a cake or bread – a teaspoon here, a teaspoon there of sugar, yeast, sand, air and you could rise or fall flat in a matter of seconds! His sister would understand that to be sure. The Professor had entrusted him with his apparatus too – an altazimuth for the axes, a sextant for the angles and a map used in Zanzibar! Jacques sucked on the words as if they were candies that gave off flavours unknown and undreamed. Altazimuth, sextant, Zanzibar! Bitter, tangy, strangely sweet.

Still he couldn't help feeling a little guilty about Eveline; and he sat down and wrote a note, explaining his secret mission as best he could, then looked around the room. He would tidy up. He would tidy up for her sake. It was the right thing, the proper thing, the brotherly thing to do. She was always complaining about his desk and under the bed. He lifted the lid of his desk and heaved a small sigh. It was cram full with odds and ends, lesson books and some of his most treasured possessions: a peachstone whistle, an owl's pellet, a shell fragment he'd found on the Esplanade des Invalides and half of Lippy Buggins' front tooth. He ran his fingers thoughtfully over the items and, deciding the peachstone whistle might come in very handy, stashed it away in his satchel, faithfully record­ing it on his weight inventory.
Two ounce mergency whistle
, he wrote under:

Balloon, netting, car – 700 pounds

Ballast – 1500 pounds

The Prof – 3000 pounds

Monsieur Renan (me!) – 3 pounds

Grapnel and rope – 50 pounds

Apparatus: clocks, barrow-meters etc – 30 pounds

TOTAL – too heavy. Far too heavy!

And that wasn't including the mail, the pigeons and Fifi. He always concluded the total was far too heavy though he never could add it up correctly. Addition had never been his strong suit. School, in fact, had never been his strong suit.

He was beginning to feel very hot in his bundle of clothes and he stared at his lesson books in irritation. How boring! Wool, the seasons, paper, silk, railroads, vines, honey and bees.

‘Bees show us that we must love Work,' Brother Mathias had written on one of his assignments. ‘And Work assures Success.'

It seemed so far removed from him now. School! How silly! Those days were long gone. He had simply, he told himself, outgrown them. Not that he had enjoyed any of it anyway. The only lesson he could remember was the one on Christopher Columbus who'd brought back chillies and parrots from America, amber, gold and red peppers. And Icarus of course. Icarus who'd wanted to fly, built himself wings and flown too close to the sun.

Luckily they were travelling by the light of the moon. The light of the silvery quivering moon. When the moon turns to green cheese, the Professor had said, we will go. It was mouldy and ripe as a Brie and he'd given Jacques the nod just yesterday afternoon. He padded over to the window and stared up as always at the heavens, the domain of gods and insects. It was a cloudless night – there would be no water vapour in the air – and full of stars. Calling at Little Bear Corner, he whispered to himself in an awestruck voice, Angel Gate, Lucifer Heights, Icarus Straits. Then he looked down at the ground as if in farewell, at the neglected yard and the step Eveline scrubbed every week with a hard, bristly little brush, though it never looked any different to him. He felt suddenly guilty again, thinking about his sister. He was meant to be tidying his room.

He went back to work, fishing out the unpleasant little morsels that lurked in the dark beneath his bed: a rotten apple core which he threw out of the window, a bit of cobwebbed chocolate which he ate heartily, plen­ty of dust which he left well alone, and to his surprise a letter he had begun and then discarded to Amelia Botton. Amelia Botton! The name was like a long forgotten summons in his head. Amelia Botton! How many nights had he burnt up with the thought of her? He marvelled at it now. Amelia Botton who threw stones at policemen and ate sherbet with her eyes shut.