Le Temps des Cerises (27 page)

‘Chop the rat's head off!' the lantern-jawed man yelled then, bringing out a mouth organ and blowing a few dirgeful notes on it; and Laurie, flinging his cap in the air and giving vent to months of pent-up frustration shouted with him: ‘Chop it off! Chop it off!'

They bundled the General into the old National Guard headquarters at number six Rue des Rosiers, a homely little house kept in ship-shape condition by Madame Victoire, wife of the late and notorious Commander Bernard Victoire… It was the sort of house, Laurie thought, that Eveline would have liked, with its wooden shutters, vegetable plot and marked-out flower bed. One or two National Guardsmen were positioning themselves in the garden and around the building to prevent the crowd becoming too unruly and making a forced entry.

‘We are awaiting further instructions,' a bulky fellow called Lacroix informed them, raising his voice above the clamour. ‘The General is a prisoner, a prisoner of war if you like, and a potential hostage to bargain with Thiers over. So I'll thank you all to keep your distance.'

The crowd made it quite clear that it didn't give a jot about further instructions. They'd had enough further instructions to last them a lifetime. They were giving the lesson book today; and they meant to set an example.

‘Let the rat out, citizen,' someone shouted menacingly, ‘and I'll give him further instruction!'

‘Keep back, keep back,' Lacroix growled uneasily as more and more people pushed their way into the garden and the crowd surged forward almost up to the doorstep. And he fired a few shots into the air in an attempt to quell the uprising.

Madame Victoire (who kept the downstairs spick and span in exchange for living free in the upstairs) was about to make herself a nice pot of English tea when she heard the commotion and, clutching a little china cup to her chest, she dashed over to the window to see what was happening. She nearly fainted away at the sight of the rabble in her well-kept little garden. ‘Bunch of rascals!' she muttered to herself, pressing her nose against the pane to get a better look. They were doing untold damage to the cabbage patch, the flower bed looked to be utterly ruined (and the buds just budding) and a little unmentionable was making merry on the lawn with a handful of mud. The sight of a couple of uniforms reassured her somewhat until she saw one of them having a go at the windows – windows she'd sweated buckets over – with a large lump of wood. She'd kept the downstairs clean hadn't she? Ruined her knees on that stone cold floor, kept the garden immaculate… all in exchange for this little pigsty. She clutched the china cup to her chest and strained to hear what was being said amidst the cacophony.

‘Let the rat show its face,' she thought she made out and she bristled visibly. Rat! What rat! She'd know about a rat if there was one in the vicinity. She peered out again in mild surprise, scrutinising the thin and emaciated faces. Were they still hunting rat, in any case, for food? She'd heard about such goings on in the poorer quarters when food was scarce but now when food was plentiful? Surely not. Rat hunting in the Rue des Rosiers didn't seem possible unless they were taking it up as a hobby, a sport akin to fox hunting in England. She tried to remember what her late husband had said about fox hunting in England. ‘Merciless to the end,' she thought she remembered, ‘but there are worse things at sea.'

The kettle boiled furiously behind her, gently misting up the pane and she wiped the steam away with her finger, her fist and finally the whole of her sleeve, transfixed by the scene outside. It was chaos. The rabble was flinging anything it could think of at the windows – rocks, branches, even bayonets – and the noise was deafening.

‘Flush the rat out,' somebody roared and a great cry went up. There was a sudden crash followed by the sound of boots stampeding over a stone floor – the stone flag floor she had ruined her back over – and she dashed across to the door to peer down at the downstairs. She was just in time to catch sight of a man sitting quietly in the armchair by the fireplace, his head bowed over the empty grate as if silently contemplating his fate. He must be the rat, she muttered to herself before bolting her door and rushing back over to the window. Another venomous cheer went up as the General was dragged out into the garden; Madame Victoire felt cold. What had he done to deserve this? They were even taking his money off him! She distinctly saw him hand a bag of money to a National Guardsman. How despicable. It was the last time she'd clean the downstairs for that little lot. They could chuck her out on the street if they wanted. She pressed the china cup absently to her chest, thanking her stars that her husband had left her with a small but manageable pension. At least she wouldn't have to eat rats! She thought the General looked very handsome in the sunshine, his medals glinting. Most dignified, the way he held himself. Tall and erect – not unlike her husband in that respect… the first shot took her quite by surprise and she thought the General had simply fallen. The second, third and fourth, fired by anyone, it seemed to her, who had a gun, left her in no doubt whatsoever and she stood trembling at the window, her face white with shock. The kettle shrieked merrily behind her as she kept wiping blurrily with her sodden sleeve, desperately trying to remember what her husband had said about executions in England. ‘Merciless to the end,' rang a bell in her head, ‘but there are worse things at sea.'
20

Laurie found himself outside the Renans by nightfall, rubbing his eyes as if to dispel the dreadful events he had witnessed. It had been like a dream – one you couldn't wake up from – and yet, in his dreams he was always a hero, never a party to murder. It didn't seem possible that only that morning he had woken up to the rappel. A lifetime surely had aged him since then. A lifetime in one crowded day. He rapped dully at the front door, hoping against hope that Eveline would be there but the familiar voice of Mistigris bade him come in.

‘If I turn my back for a moment,' the old stonecutter explained cheerfully as Laurie entered, ‘Madame Larousse is bound to cheat!' He indicated the chessboard sitting on the table between himself and the infamous lady who, strange to say, seemed quite tickled by the remark, helping herself to an enemy pawn with a satisfied little grin.

Laurie waved away the apology and stood aimlessly staring about him. It was true what Eveline said about the statues – they did look just like bodies in the morgue. And yet, he thought gloomily, everything after today would look like a body in the morgue to him. Even Madame Larousse in her purple hat. Especially Madame Larousse in her purple hat. Mistigris was wearing a tattered old dressing gown and he kept batting his tassel in front of Madame Larousse as if trying to hypnotise her out of her tactics. They were evidently ensconced in the game for they fell into silence as if forgetting they had a visitor; and Laurie stood hesitatingly in the shadows, waiting for somebody to say something.

‘Is Eveline with you?' he ventured at last as the minutes ticked by.

‘Eveline?' Mistigris started up. ‘Is Eveline with you?'

‘N… no,' stammered Laurie. ‘I assumed she was here.'

‘Poor old fellow,' Mistigris whimpered then, referring to himself. ‘Poor old lad, poor old lad. They have all deserted him: wife, son, daughter who is not his daughter.'

‘
I
have not deserted you,' interposed Madame Larousse, rapping her knuckles on the board to bring his attention back to the game; and Mistigris winced and took a long slug of gin.

‘Is Eveline not with you?' Laurie repeated, a note of alarm in his voice.

‘No, she has deserted me too. She went off with that fine friend of yours the other night and hasn't been back since, not even to feed her dear old papa.'

Laurie's heart flickered uselessly like the embers of a dying fire. This is revolution he kept whispering to himself, and he felt completely numb.

‘
I
have been feeding you,' Madame Larousse reminded gently; and Mistigris winced again and took another long swig of gin. ‘I hear there has been a kerfuffle out in the streets,' he added, changing the subject quickly.

Laurie almost smiled at the word. A kerfuffle, yes. There had been a kerfuffle of a sort. The government had fled Paris. The city was an open space. She was anybody's for the taking.

Madame Larousse made a noise somewhere between a snort and a chortle.

‘A Commune is now inevitable. Paris will have its Commune at last.'

Mistigris stared at the boy's intense little face. ‘And what is a Commune exactly?'

Laurie half smiled again through tears. ‘Something Alphonse and I have dreamed about. A government based on the rights of the working man. A government based on the people…'

‘Ah.' Mistigris was losing interest and he went back to the game, his eyes suddenly gleaming with triumph. ‘I can take you from behind, my dear, with my great big Bishop or direct from in front with my simple little pawn.'

‘…a
revolutionary
government,' Laurie finished in an effort to convey the enormity of the day's events.

‘Dirty beast!' Madame Larousse shivered across the brightly painted chessboard. ‘What a dirty beast!'

Chapter twenty-two

Bernadine couldn't sleep, hadn't slept in weeks…. She knelt, in a state of undress, before the statue of the Virgin Mary that stood on her desk beside a calendar naming the month, year and saint of the day. (Saint Antony finder of all lost objects – pincushions, thimbles, keys and the like – but not people. Never lost people. It was God who found people and when he found them He kept them.) Bernadine frowned and raised a hand to her forehead. Thoughts lay too heavy upon her tonight. Too heavy for sleep. She listened to the rain patter softly over the rooftops – like the marching feet of some angelic little army – and unlaced the drawstring at the top of her stockings, peeling them carefully over her legs so as not to get any more holes in the toes. She stuffed them into her worn black shoes and folded her chemise neatly on top, smiling at the care with which she handled her clothes, despite her overwhelming fatigue. Everything in its rightful place. A tidy wardrobe is a tidy mind. A woman needs a man to govern her or a wall to contain her. She shivered and quickly pulled on her nightdress but not before catching sight of her naked silhouette against the wall, thin and wavering as the taper itself.

She threw a blanket over Aggie slumbering peacefully in her makeshift hammock and began pacing the narrow dimensions of her cell. Everything was changing. Her head was a whirlwind of fear and uncertainty and she didn't know which way to turn for the best. She even missed Brother Michael and his rather dubious counsel on nights like this and that was saying something! She smiled and listened to the April rain, trying to take stock of her situation. It was clear that the convent was no longer a safe haven, that much was true. If it ever had been. The wall that contained her was crumbling by the second under the new revolutionary Commune. Religion was in disgrace apparently – in cahoots with Versailles – and cries of ‘
À bas les prêtres! À bas les couvents!
' could be heard on almost every street corner. One member of the Commune had even issued a warrant for God's arrest because he lived everywhere and was therefore a vagrant! Half the clergy had fled for their lives, donning wigs and legal frock coats as a form of disguise; and several convents had been attacked by fanatical Communards.

‘Ravaged by revolutionaries,' as the Mother Superior had put it in a breathless little whisper the other night at Vespers. ‘Oh ye virgins beware, beware. What an ending! To be ravaged by a red hot and bothered revolutionary!'

It was as if the whole city had gone insane. As if everything that had lain quietly dormant for years was pushing up from underground with the shoots of spring; and bursting out into flowers of madness.

She decided to get herself a glass of water and maybe some tincture of valerian if Brother Michael had left any in the store cupboard. She must keep her strength up now, if only for the sake of little Aggie, and the nights without sleep were starting to take their toll. She crept out into the passageway and stared up and down at the warren of cells. There was no sign of life in any of them, no sign at all and she turned suddenly on impulse and went back for Aggie, scooping her up into a cotton papoose and hitching her over her shoulder. She was heavier now and Bernadine's back bent under the weight as she made her way out again.

It was cold and dark and she wished she'd had the sense to put on a dressing gown and shoes, but she carried on towards the chapel, hoping the infant wouldn't wake and cry out. The chapel was warm from the press of frequent bodies and a little light illuminated the main altar, still clothed in sumptuous purple from the Easter celebrations. A few painted eggs sat amidst a pile of hymn books and Bernadine stepped forward to take a closer look. She'd always loved Easter, ever since she'd been a little girl. The Easter story, she'd told her father, was the best of all because everything that seemed to be dead came alive again; and time that seemed to have stopped in the winter months started ticking again with the clean white snowdrops. ‘That is a story of dissembling,' her father had responded wearily, ‘because nobody who dies ever comes alive again and time never stops ticking, not for anyone.'

As Bernadine turned to look at the eggs she felt a sudden pain in her foot and, thinking she'd stepped on some broken eggshell, cursed out loud in aggravation. How clumsy the novices were and frivolous with their stupid painted eggs – their dots, stripes, smiley faces, silly little trees. When had any of them last seen a real tree for goodness sake? When had any of them last seen spring in all her glory, shut up here in this godforsaken prison where the changing colours of the altar cloths substituted for the changing colours of the seasons. She caught her breath at her own blasphemy and dropped to her knees, her long thin fingers tremblingly feeling for bits of egg shell and coming across shards of flask and broken glass instead. Someone had knocked over the altar cruets! Some idiot had knocked the altar cruets over! She got up, her right foot sticky with blood and hobbled off towards the kitchen, cursing under her breath again. She'd have to clean up this little mess in the middle of the night and all she'd wanted to do was get herself a glass of water.