Le Temps des Cerises (33 page)

Chapter twenty-six

Eveline was sleeping fitfully through the storm until the loudest clap of thunder she'd ever heard in her life woke her up completely; and she leapt out of bed, almost tripping over her nightgown, to shut the window that had blown half open. It was then she saw Alphonse – lit up for a moment as if it were day – standing on the doorstep and holding a hessian sack over his head to protect himself from the rain.

‘I'm almost hoarse from shouting your name,' he called up grimly, peering out from under the sack. ‘Hurry up, for goodness sake Evie, and let me in.'

There was something in the tone of his voice that made Eveline decide to obey, though a part of her wanted to let him dangle out there in the thunderstorm as he had left her dangling for the past few days. She wondered for the umpteenth time as she scampered down the stairs, her heart beating uncontrollably at the unexpected sight of him, where he'd been and what he'd been up to. She hoped it was simply political business that had kept him away for so long.

She tiptoed over to the door and quietly slid back the heavy bolts, careful not to disturb her father who was slumbering peacefully in his coffin, seemingly oblivious to all the commotion. He looked quite peculiar crammed up beside his statues, like a freshly dug corpse in the Père Lachaise amidst a sea of grinning headstones; and in the lurid light of the storm even the bottle of otherworldly nectar took on the slightly sinister aspect of something left behind after a ghostly repast.

‘What is it?' she demanded a little coolly as Alphonse barged past her, almost soaking her to the skin with a single brush of the arm. His hair stood up in black wet spikes like little exclamation marks about his cheeks and his face was white as a sheet. Without answering her he went over to the sink and proceeded to wring out the hessian sack as violently as if he were wringing someone's neck. He seemed quite unable to speak – as if he'd lost his voice for good – and Eveline watched for a moment, alarmed, before stepping up and tapping him on the shoulder.

‘What's the matter? What's happened? You're scaring me with your silence. Here, give me that,' she added quickly, as he made a bungled attempt to lay the hessian sack out over the warm oven; and she deftly whipped it out of his fingers and hung it on the line Mistigris had devised for the purpose. Then she led him gently to the dining room table and pulled a chair out for him. She was shocked to see by the light of the lamp that his eyes were quite bloodshot as if he hadn't slept for weeks and his face was as crumpled and lined as an old man's.

‘You can't come here looking like that,' she cried suddenly, her concern spilling out into anger, ‘and not tell me what has happened. Have you been in a fight? For goodness sake say something!'

‘I'm sorry,' he spoke at last and the note of despair in his voice was unmistakable. ‘I didn't mean to scare you, Evie, it's just that, well, it's over, we're doomed…'

Eveline's heart leapt into her mouth...

‘…The Versaillais have entered the city and…'
24

She bit her lip with relief because for one appalling moment she'd thought he meant that
they
were over, finished, doomed.

‘Passy and Auteil are occupied already. It is only a matter of time before they reach Montmartre and Belleville. There is no time for an offensive action. We are caught like flies in a honey trap and in the end it will be every man for himself.'

‘But the barricades?' Eveline stuttered. ‘We will defend at the barricades.'

Alphonse gave a dry little laugh. ‘Have you seen them? The last one I clocked consisted of a garden bench and a chaise longue. The only way that'll stop 'em is if they feel a little tired and fancy putting their feet up for a bit. No, it is a lost cause I'm afraid, Evie.'

She stared at him in amazement, unable to believe her ears. This was Alphonse Duchamp the revolutionary talking like an old woman, talking like the bitter, cynical hecklers at the political meetings. Where was his moment of transformation? His tearing destiny his way? She held out her hands, palm upwards, hoping to knock some sense into him. ‘Look at these you idiot. They're red raw from piling pebbles into beer barrels, carting lumps of wood about like the rest of Paris, even the children. Are you saying we've wasted our time?'

‘Beer barrels – that'd be right. No wonder they say we are a city of profligates and…' he peered over at Mistigris ‘…drunks!' At that moment her father gave an extraordinarily loud snore and at any other time they would have laughed together. Alphonse went on bleakly: ‘Time after time we petitioned the Committee of Public Safety to build a coherent system of barricades, not this piecemeal nonsense. But they were too busy with their ideals…'

‘But we will fight them,' Eveline insisted, a little nonplussed. ‘We will still fight them?'

‘Oh yes, we will fight.' Alphonse gave another one of his dry little laughs. ‘The hour of revolutionary warfare has struck. Soon the bells will toll, the bugles and the drums, to call the people of Paris out to arms. To arms! We will fight at the barricades as we always do, like animals defending our territory, our little patch.'

His voice was heavily laid with sarcasm and Eveline turned away in fear and disgust. She didn't understand him tonight and it made her afraid of what was to come. He reminded her of her father when he was drunk, when everything she said, every reassurance she gave, simply fell on deaf ears; but she decided to deal with Alphonse exactly the same way as she always treated her father. She left him alone for a while slumped in his chair and moved about the kitchen, brewing up some old coffee, bringing out a milk pudding and some oatcake biscuits. The biscuits were a little stale but mixed in with the milk pudding they would be passable enough…. She thought of the troops pouring into the city at that very moment and she shivered in her nightgown, becoming aware once more of the storm rattling around the house, the wind whistling down the chimney like a draughty Father Christmas and rapping at the panes like Madame Larousse on the look-out for grub. It would be a fine thing, she laughed to herself, if the chimney were to fall in right now on top of them all. Crashing down amidst yellowing stucco and overgrown vine, saving Thiers and his lot the job. At least her father was prepared for his trip to the next world, having practised for so long. She smiled fondly at the sound of snores from the other room and her thoughts flew to Jacques. Thank goodness he was far away from all this, the little wretch. He'd have managed to get himself killed one way or another, she supposed, if he'd stayed.

She piled up a tray with the coffee pot, milk pudding and oatcake biscuits and gazed with affection at the tiny kitchen. Now that she faced the possibility of losing her home it suddenly became the dearest place on earth to her. Forget the Rue Ornano with the sales girls twitching behind their lace curtains and the apartments on the Champs Élysées where La Païva bathed in golden bathrooms. (Well, maybe the golden bathroom would be nice but...)
This
was what mattered. This home. Her home. She would protect it with her life if she had to. Keep it safe for Jacques' return. Keep it just the way it was. A thought suddenly struck her and she spun round to face Alphonse, almost dropping the tray on the floor and startling him out of his gloomy thoughts.

‘Hold on a minute,' she cried. ‘Think about it. It'll be like last time when they tried to take the guns – they won't fire on their own countrymen. They won't attack their own city, their own homes even. How could they? It would be like turning against your own family, tearing down the place you were brought up in. They will come and they will realise that they cannot do it.' She was convinced then that she was right for it was inconceivable to her that anyone could come and see the great parks, the grand boulevards, cafés and operas, hear the rustling of the Seine beneath the old stone bridges and not be bewitched by it all. She who'd never had much time for the capital, well, now she could write a tourist book on it.

‘I'm not so sure,' Alphonse responded quickly as if he too had weighed the possibility and come to the opposite conclusion. ‘Thiers has recruited rurals and prisoners of war that Bismarck has released for this express purpose. Who knows what lies he has fed them. We are savages, animals, half mad anarchists – that is the line he will be taking. They are coming to save Paris from destruction – don't forget the Vendôme column – they are coming to save the good citizens, the wealthy bourgeoisie.'

‘I still think I'm right.' Eveline shook her head stubbornly; but Alphonse hardly hearing her went on grimly: ‘Oh, they mean business this time alright, there's no question about it. And everybody knows it. The Commune is starting to disintegrate already, its members fleeing while they've got the chance. It's the man in the street who will suffer: the ordinary man in the street. Many are getting rid of their guns and uniforms – I came across a pile by the Trocadero – pretending they had nothing to do with the Commune. There have even been denunciations…'

‘What denunciations?' asked Eveline, alarmed.

Alphonse put his head in his hands and spoke in a flat, toneless voice like a little boy reciting his times table: ‘A. Saracen, carver, Rue de Jessaint, 14; Gelez, civil servant, Rue des Boulangers, 22; Pindy, joiner, Passage Raoul, 10…'

‘Stop it! What are you saying? Who are these people?'

‘D. André, machinist, Rue Neuve-des-Boulets, 6,' he went on mechanically. ‘Bucolin, painter, Rue Saint Michel, 34…'

The storm crashed overhead and Eveline shivered again in her nightgown. ‘Why are you saying their names like that?' she cried though she was beginning to understand why. ‘Stop it Alphonse for God's sake. Who are they anyway?'

‘Friends mainly. I have eaten with most of them, I know their families. André Saracen for example lives in a couple of pokey rooms with a crippled wife and two robust little sons. I count him one of the best. Père Bucolin, Vincent Bucolin is a fascinating character. He used to sleep on a decrepit old barge on the Seine. He is a great painter; I think one day he could produce a masterpiece. You should see his painting of the Seine below the Pont Notre Dame. Even his detail of the strewn flowers on the water on market day is…' Alphonse's voice tailed off distractedly and Eveline poured the coffee with trembling fingers, waiting to utter the question that had been on her mind from the outset. ‘Is your name on the list, Alphonse?' she said in the end as lightly as she could. ‘Are you one of the… marked men?' She strove to see his expression in the lamplight but the shadows connived against her, revealing simply one bloodshot eye that didn't meet her own.

‘There are many names,' Alphonse sighed and she could tell from his voice that what she feared was true. His name was on the list. At the top probably. ‘Men will betray their brothers to save their own skins at times. Not all men of course but… luckily for me I have no permanent address. They will have a job to find me.' He grinned suddenly, more like his old self and Eveline smiled in relief.

‘You're safe then?'

‘More or less. They may try and visit some of my old haunts and...' his face suddenly blanched. ‘They may come and look for me here. It is not impossible that they will look for me here.'

‘It doesn't matter,' Eveline reassured him, glancing nervously in the direction of her father. ‘It doesn't matter at all. If they come here Papa and I will send them on a goose chase to the Gare du Nord or some make-believe street. Here, have some of this.' She doled the milk pudding out into two large bowls and jabbered on quickly: ‘The biscuits are a little stale I think but it's all I can do to keep Madame Larousse's hands off them. I don't know where she puts it all, she's thin as a rake or a little bird. She reminds me of a bird with those feathers she wears in her hat. I think Papa is a little besotted, you know, in spite of himself…'

‘I have been so stupid,' Alphonse groaned on in an appalled voice. ‘I should go now, immediately.'

‘Eat!' Eveline commanded sternly, deciding to take control of the situation as she did with her father when he was drunk; and she even muttered grace under her breath out of superstition or habit or both. ‘Forwhatweareabouttoreceivemaythelordmakeustrulythankfulamen.'

They ate as the storm passed, Alphonse's mood lightening with its passing. It seemed to Eveline as she sat there watching him, that he was somehow connected with the storm, that he had come in with it and would one day leave with it, causing devastation in his wake; and then she laughed at her own melodramatics. At least he looked a little more human, having downed five biscuits and most of the milk pudding, despite having said he wasn't the tiniest bit hungry.

‘You put Madame Larousse to shame!' she laughed at one point and he gave the sprightly retort that that indeed was a frightening thought, more frightening even than the Versaillais entering the city.

‘What will you do?' Eveline asked him seriously then, leaning forward with her chin in her hands. ‘What will you do now?'

Alphonse shrugged. ‘Fight at the barricades I suppose like everybody else though we don't stand a cat in hell's chance. We might as well wave the white flags now, save ourselves from being slaughtered.'

Eveline felt the faint stirrings of anger in her stomach and she stood up, straightening her chair back noisily. ‘I don't know why you just don't get rid of your gun, your uniform and that… stupid hessian sack. Take a trip to the Trocadero and dump them there with the rest. You're just as bad.'