Le Temps des Cerises (22 page)

Eveline brought a hunk of dark bread and a glass of wine back for Laurie who was bundled up in a back pew, still feeling the cold despite a church full of heated bodies. She and Alphonse had been cracking jokes with him all evening to distract him from Tessier and his own recent brush with death. He'd already taken a dislike to Miss Grist, more out of loyalty to his old friend Tessier than anything else, and he eyed her sullenly from beneath his woollen cap as he dunked his dark bread in the wine.

‘She's doing very well,' he began with ostensible fairness, ‘but Tessier joined in more. Tessier was more of a team player don't you think?'

Alphonse and Eveline exchanged a small smile. At least he was talking about Tessier without getting hysterical – that was a good sign. The doctor had said it would take a long time for such a sensitive soul to recuperate but he seemed to be getting there.

‘I should go into hospital more often,' he said then, smiling at them both, ‘if this is how I get treated when I come out! I like being waited on hand, foot and finger!' In truth he had been amazed by the solicitude of his friends and deeply touched by it
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Eveline blushed and patted him on the knee. ‘What are friends for?' she whispered in a strange little voice and he stared at her in surprise. She'd been acting strangely ever since his spell in hospital. At first he'd thought it was her fears over Jacques but now he wondered if there was more to it than that. He'd never known her be so kind and considerate, almost tender in her dealings with him, thinking of every whim he might have even before he'd thought of it himself. And Alphonse, normally so aloof, had been dancing attendance upon him like a long-lost brother. He wondered suddenly, with a flash of suspicion, if something had gone on in his absence – and then he let the matter drop. That happened to him a lot nowadays and he thought it was probably a result of his illness. Thoughts came up then drifted off, floating to the edges of his brain. It was like watching a theatrical farce – a medley of characters chased each other across the little stage of his mind – garish, caricatured, grotesque – and he watched them go, sometimes with regret, though he never bothered to pursue them. And they rarely came back for an encore, even the most entertaining. He sat and watched from the gallery, more of an outsider than ever, more detached than ever before.

The three of them chatted on then about the meeting so far. The speakers had all been terrible, Alphonse admitted, grimacing at the memory of the irate-looking gentleman, though to be fair he had spoken for the majority. Laurie urged him to change his mind and speak himself that night but Alphonse shook his head. No, he would remain silent this evening as a mark of respect for Tessier, however much they provoked him! Added to which, the meeting was so out of control that no speaker worth his salt would dare take to the stage for fear of being dragged off it. The crowd wasn't listening to reason tonight – that much was clear already – and Eveline wholeheartedly agreed with him. Laurie sipped his wine thoughtfully, almost choking on one or two dark soggy crumbs and feeling more apprehensive than ever. He'd never felt this way in a meeting before and he'd been hoping it was simply another consequence of his illness but Alphonse had put his very own fears into words for him. Even Alphonse could see that the crowd was not the same. It seemed to Laurie like a wild beast, famished and mistreated, turning brutal and savage and he didn't want to be a part of it or get in its way. He was secretly glad that the war was over but he didn't dare admit it, not even to Eveline; and he shrank back in his seat, pale and afraid, fidgeting nervously with the edge of his blanket.

Miss Grist put up her hand to signal the end of the intermission and duly wrote:
This is Miss Grist signing in again at 8.30 precisely after an interval of fifteen minutes where there was some singing and much inebriation, a broken nose resulting from a fist fight and three spilt bottles of a red wine (Normandy variety)
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A sly little chap took to the stage then, his eyes darting about in his head like marbles. His hands trembled as they gripped the lectern and one or two members of the audience sniggered in anticipation.

‘They've been secretly negotiating for weeks,' he began in little more than a whisper, his eyes bashing into each other then rolling away with the shock. ‘Favre, Trochu, the lot of 'em have been secretly negotiating with Bismarck for weeks.'

‘Speak up!' someone shouted. ‘It's not a fucking confessional!'

‘What was that?' asked the little old woman in the pew, jabbing her son in the back.

‘He says it's not a bloody confessional,' a National Guardsman explained with a hint of irritation in his voice. ‘It's not a confessional here, ma'am.'

The old woman looked more perplexed than ever before and she knelt down, clasping her hands together like a young girl in prayer.

Alphonse stood up, stamping his feet. ‘This is gibberish,' he said angrily to his friends. ‘It's like trying to keep a runaway train on the tracks. Let's get out of here.'

Laurie was more than happy to oblige and Eveline helped him up with his heavy coat and blanket.

‘Before things turn nasty,' Alphonse finished, running his hands through his dark spiky hair and eyeing the crowd warily.

In Laurie's opinion things had already turned nasty. Fights were breaking out all over the place – in pews, in aisles, under stained-glass windows depicting gentle scenes of Jesus with a distaff, Mary with a crown of stars, Mary with a little lamb… Right hooks were being hurled as easily as insults and most people were on their feet, creating a furore with their
neighbour. Miss Grist seemed to be the only one still seated, valiantly recording the minutes for posterity with a steady hand and pursed lips; and Laurie silently saluted her courage. The tiddly winking man had already been seized and thrown out into the snow to cure his wits and perfum­ed breath; and the crowd was baying for more blood, like a pack of dogs.

Alphonse gripped Eveline's hand and guided her firmly to the door with Laurie following closely behind, trying not to cry out at the pain of bruised toes and stepped-on heels. He overheard a girl whispering daringly to her friend that she didn't care about Mr Favre or Mr Trochu. All she wanted to know was when the food was coming in and he nodded in sympathy. What did it matter if the peace terms were atrocious – he'd lost his revolutionary zeal for good – if the people ate again, smiled again, were happy again, the boulevards busy and bustling again. He didn't want vengeance. Vengeance or justice even. He just wanted life to return to normal – to pick up Eveline every afternoon from the pâtisserie and get back to his poetry. Maybe taste a decent dinner. Take a trip to Toulouse.

He stared at the clasped hands in front of him and felt a pang shoot through him. What if life never did return to normal? What then? What if this was it? What if this was the beginning of the end for himself and Eveline? He stumbled after his friends, not daring to think the unthinkable and wishing he could turn off the little theatrical farce in his head. He was so depressed by the evening's events that he didn't notice Monsieur Lafayette waiting for them all at the door until the three of them had almost bumped into him.

‘You, sir,' the old man accosted Alphonse without preamble, his eyes small as pins, his fat lip wobbling in agitation. ‘When you were a waker-upper, sir, how many beauties did you wake up? How many did you put to bed? Mmm?'

‘I beg your pardon?' asked Alphonse, staring at Monsieur Lafayette in astonishment, still gripping Eveline by the hand.

The old man looked at him in silence for a moment and Laurie was aware of the racket going on behind like a turbulent stream. ‘I said, when you were a waker-upper, sir, how many beauties did you wake up and how many did you put to bed?' he repeated with undisguised malevolence.

Eveline turned to Laurie with a strange expression in her eyes and he had a feeling he was missing something vital and absurd like a jester running across the stage with no clothes on and giving the game away to the audience at the top of his voice.

‘You may be a fox with a magnificent brush but sometimes the fox is outwitted by the tortoise!'

‘Is that so?' Alphonse drawled, recovering himself sufficiently to speak.

Monsieur Lafayette turned to Laurie then and bowed his head. ‘Your fine friend is a traitor. I give you fair warning. A veritable Brutus.' He tapped his nose. ‘Watch your back!' And without another word he strode off into the church, leaving Laurie with the feeling that he was peering into the mouth of hell or missing another vital scene in this most peculiar of farces.

‘What on earth did he mean?' he cried. ‘The man's half mad. I've always said as much. You shouldn't let him in the house, Evie, even if he is an old friend of your father's. Alphonse Duchamp a traitor!' he giggled, clutching nervously at the scarf about his neck as they stepped out into the cold grey night. ‘That's a good one! What does he think you are, for heaven's sake? A Prussian spy?'

Alphonse and Eveline bowed their heads, seemingly against the wind, though their hands remained clasped together, tighter than ever.

Chapter nineteen

March 10
th
1871

Dearest Maman,

I am back on my feet again after a brief spell in the Louvre! (Armament shop turned hospital) An extraordinary place to convalesce. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven when I opened my eyes to that angelic ceiling. Can you imagine hospital trolleys being wheeled over bloodstained marbled floors; and patient name tags hanging from the walls in a dusty space where the Mona Lisa smiled or a La Tour cavorted? I was treated better than any priceless antique, I am sure – buffed and polished until I felt quite rarefied. Even now it makes me chuckle to think I convalesced in the Palace of Kings!

We lost some good men at Buzenval. It was, as you may have read, a complete fiasco. I have come to the conclusion that death is meted out entirely at random – some strange design beyond any natural human justice. The good perish as easily as the bad, perhaps more so. Maybe it really is the case that those whom the gods love die young. They certainly use us for their sport. Tessier was the best of men...

Laurie broke off, undecided what to say. He didn't even know if he'd already told her about Tessier. He quite possibly had for he'd written all sorts in a state of delirium on the reams and reams of paper Eveline had smuggled in. Poems, dreams, love letters, regrets and lists and lists of things he wanted to do when he was well. God knows what else. He only hoped he hadn't sent any of it or if he had that the balloon had gone astray. Thoughts of balloons brought his mind back to Jacques and he wondered if he'd told his mother about that. Or about the French officer. He sat back and lit a cigarette with trembling fingers, gazing through the porthole window to the vast gardens by the belfry of St Jacques, which looked from this distance the same as ever though he knew them to be on closer inspection blackened and deserted. Nothing was what it seemed any more. Nothing worked as it should. Nothing behaved as it should. Everything was topsy-turvy, out of control, out of his ken. The whole world was in disguise in its giant theatrical production, at a masked ball, a fancy dress and he alone sat watching it. It was one of his worst nightmares – to sit alone watching the world, unable to penetrate its disguise: a hospital, an armament shop in the shape of the Louvre; a madman in the uniform of a French officer; a traitor with the face of a friend…

He frowned thoughtfully and picked at a sweet biscuit on the plate beside him, delighting in its crumbly texture and smell; and stretching his long legs luxuriously beneath his warm woollen dressing gown. It was good to be back. It was good to be back home in his own little room with his bed and his books, food and his own thoughts. He must take comfort in that at the very least. If he couldn't count his blessings now, when would he?

The amount of food entering the city from abroad is phenomenal. So far we have received 500 tons of corned beef, 26 tons of fresh fish, 70 tons of cake, 140 tons of butter, 1,500 tons of salt pork and 2000 tons of cheese!

You missed a treat on the first of March. Ha ha. The Kaiser and Bismarck doing their little triumphal march through the streets. It felt, that day, as if the city had died. No omnibuses ran. Fountains were stilled. No newspapers sold, no cafés open for business. Most people held their breath behind locked doors and shuttered windows, waiting for the dreadful event to be over. Bismarck apparently smoked a cigar by the Arc de Triomphe then strode off; and the Kaiser took the review of the troops at Longchamps.

There is much to be set to rights of course besides. There is still a burning anger in the city at the peace terms and the newly elected government set up at Versailles. How can we be led by a man like Thiers
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? That silly little septugenarian who spent the siege in Tours, fattening up on macaroni! How can he know what we suffered here? Indeed he cannot know for if he did he would not be imposing such draconian measures on a city that has been to hell and back. To demand immediate payment of rent suspended during the siege is not only criminal but foolish. 150,000 bankruptcies have been declared already and there are more to come. If he wants a rebellion he is going the right way of getting one, for Paris is brewing for a fight.

The city smokes, steams, burns, shines, boils and bubbles just as Victor Hugo said it did! Dearest Maman, do you remember the days I spent in Toulouse counting the hours till I got here? Desperate to reach the city of light, to make my name and earn my fortune. The nights I spent reading poetry books and drinking coffee just because Balzac did it, sending myself quite lightheaded in the process! And here I am still in the thick of it as you see, in this bubbling simmering cauldron, waiting to make my name and earn my fortune. It is a place like no other – it hungers, sleeps, weeps, breathes… a giant living organism. Even its buildings are permeable, like great sea sponges, taking on the imprint of the thousands and thousands of souls that live here and have ever lived here since time began. It pulsates to a rhythm quite unlike the rest of France and we dance here to a different tune. If Thiers thinks he can play the Pied Piper, the rats might follow him but the rest of us will not.