Illumination (42 page)

This incident had occurred some days earlier at a boarding school on the rue de Vaugirard, just by the Luxembourg Palace. A shell had flown in through a dormitory window, killing four young boys as they slept. Righteous fury had swept the city; a great boost had been given to those calling for another sortie.

They were crossing the Concorde now, past the statue of Strasbourg with its lapful of withered garlands. Inglis accepted one of Clem’s stale cigarettes, exhaling a long feather of smoke. He appeared close to tears.

‘Have you been keeping up with your animals, Mont?’ Elizabeth asked, thinking to soothe him with a favoured topic. ‘We went to see the elephants slaughtered – but for some reason my foolish son then refused to queue up at Voisin to purchase us a portion of their meat.’

The journalist stayed quiet for a few seconds, squeezing the bridge of his nose and taking another drag on his cigarette.

‘Oh yes,’ he replied, his voice lighter and a touch forced, ‘I certainly had me some elephant. Had to try it, didn’t I? Trunk of Pollux, I believe it was, for no less than forty shillings a pound. I went at it like Pickwick’s fat boy, Lizzie, but I must confess that I found the stuff far from toothsome – damnably coarse and oily. The stranger the beast, it seems, the worse the dinner. Still, allowances must be made.’ He indicated the string of petroleum lamps running from the Concorde along the rue Royale. ‘Our cooks are out of fuel, and the solution advised by this blockheaded government is that they use those ghastly contraptions as an alternative source of heat. The chefs of Paris can work wonders with very poor materials, but when they are called upon to cook an elephant with a spirit lamp the thing is almost beyond their ingenuity.’

The entrance of the Grand was the only bright spot on the boulevard des Capucines, dozens of lanterns hanging from its porch to aid the medical personnel passing continually beneath. A terrible scene no doubt awaited them within. Clem had grown accustomed to much about life in besieged Paris, from the hunger and cold to the oppressive boredom; the constant cannon-fire was to him like the ticking of so many clocks. The horrors of the hotel lobby, however, especially in the aftermath of a battle, could never be diminished. He peered apprehensively at the canvas curtains, already hearing the shrieks and the pitiful, childlike whimpers – smelling the torn flesh and exposed organs.
Don’t look
, he instructed himself;
just don’t look
.

There were three militiamen, perhaps four; they barrelled into Clem, catching him completely unawares, shoving him to the ground and kicking at him with all their strength. Elizabeth was on them immediately, pushing them back and demanding an explanation. From the pavement, he watched his attackers yell and jab their fingers; they were reds, Montmartre men with little brass 197s on their kepis, and they were talking about Allix. Elizabeth protested, delivering her standard defence. Before she could complete it one of them struck her so hard around the face that she stumbled to her knees.

Clem tried to get up. Inglis appeared beside him, shielding Elizabeth and bellowing for assistance. An officer of the line strode from the Grand with a handful of orderlies. There was more shouting and some threatening gestures; and then suddenly the red guardsmen took to their heels, running off across the place de l’Opéra.

Elizabeth was already standing again, a gloved hand laid against her cheek. Without speaking, she made an adjustment to her hat and went into the hotel.

‘What – what the deuce was that?’ gasped Clem.

‘We should get inside,’ Inglis said as he helped him to his feet. ‘I really think it’s wise.’

‘What did they want?’

‘Blood, Mr Pardy,’ the journalist told him. ‘They wanted blood. And they will most assuredly be back.’

There was a thin crack of light beneath Elizabeth’s door. This was odd; surely nothing left burning that morning would still be alight. Clem was about to remark on this when his mother, who was half a dozen steps ahead, opened it and went through. On crossing the threshold she cried out and dropped to the floor as if she’d been shot. Clem rushed over to her: a stone-cold faint. He glanced up to see what had prompted it and almost joined Elizabeth on the carpet.

It couldn’t be true.

Hannah Pardy was dead. She’d been buried somewhere on the Villiers Plateau for almost two months now. Was this some kind of dream-vision, brought on by hunger and an overdose of death and doom? Clem had heard of such things, among the hardy community who still ate their ration in the Grand’s dining room. Only the day before a lady had confided to him that she’d heard her pet poodle yapping at the foot of her bed in the night, despite the poor creature having been given up for dinner several weeks before. These, though, were particular to one person. Elizabeth had plainly seen Han as well; Inglis, too, was gaping at the figure across the room.

‘Dear Lord,’ Clem said.

Hannah Pardy was alive. She was sitting in an armchair in the Grand Hotel, a candle on the table at her side. She wasn’t starved, but in every other respect appeared pretty wretched. Her militia uniform was filthy and growing threadbare; her pale skin was marked by anxiety and exhaustion. As she moved forward in her chair, looking with concern at their unconscious mother, he saw that her face was bruised, as if someone had socked her in the eye.

‘Is she all right?’

Clem checked Elizabeth’s pulse. ‘Merely a swoon.’

Hannah’s attention shifted to Clem. ‘What the devil are you still doing in Paris?’ There was conflict in her voice; she was both glad to see him and dismayed that he was there. ‘I was told you’d flown off in a balloon with Monsieur Besson.’

Clem got up from the carpet. Allix had lied. He’d let them suffer a devastating grief for nothing. Why had they taken him at his word – and why had he deceived them? What on
earth
was going on? Clem felt a strong need to tell his sister everything he knew.

‘We were brought down,’ he said, ‘by your man Allix, according to Besson – reckons he loosened the stitching of the envelope.’ He took a breath. ‘There is something very wrong with that fellow, Han, something—’

Hannah slanted her head ever so slightly towards one of the windows; and Clem saw him standing in the shadows, watching the streets below. The situation between them was plain. Han’s lover, the famous Leopard of Montmartre, was keeping her in the Grand Hotel against her will.

A gasp from the floor signalled Elizabeth’s revival. Before Clem could even look down she was across the room, arms clasped around her daughter.

‘My girl, my dearest girl! I thought you were gone for ever – I thought you were lost to me! My sweetest, most precious one!’

Hannah returned this embrace a little awkwardly, unable to match her mother’s effusiveness. Things were not as joyous as they seemed. She’d returned from the dead, Clem saw, straight into a nasty bit of trouble.

‘Mr Inglis,’ said Allix, ‘be so good as to shut the door.’

‘What the deuce happened, then?’ Clem demanded, determined to have it out. ‘What’s the story here, Allix? Did you rescue her, pray, from some Prussian dungeon? Or just dig her up and breathe life back into the body? Explain yourself!’

Allix turned to the room. Sight of that scarred visage, the eyes so still and evaluating, nearly caused Clem’s courage to fail.

‘He’s a Prussian,’ Hannah said. ‘He’s a spy.’

For several seconds nobody spoke or moved.

Perspiration broke out across Clem’s upper lip, tickling in the bristles of his beard. He was acutely aware, all of a sudden, of the closed door behind him.

Elizabeth rose from the side of Hannah’s chair, wiped the tears from her cheeks – one a mottled red from where the militiaman had struck her – and fixed her Leopard with a cool stare. She wasn’t outraged or mortified; Christ above, Clem thought, she isn’t even particularly surprised.

‘That,’ she said, ‘is disappointing.’

Clem couldn’t help it; he laughed. ‘Had your suspicions, did you?’

‘I knew that he wasn’t what he claimed, certainly,’ Elizabeth replied. ‘He couldn’t have been. One simply needs to consider the other red leaders – that old pipeclay Blanqui, that posturing dandy Flourens, the idiot Pyat – to realise that this man has no natural place among them. He is of an altogether different stripe. I had imagined that he might be a radical from the east, from Russia perhaps; a true libertarian socialist, an anarchist in the mould of Bakunin, brought in from outside to help this city towards its revolutionary commune.’ She lifted her chin. ‘To learn that he is only a
Prussian
, however, an obedient servant of the old world, is quite upsetting.’

This finally goaded the fellow to speak. ‘There is nothing old,’ he said quietly, ‘about the united Germany.’

‘Hell’s bells, Elizabeth,’ blurted Clem, ‘your man is a spy! A bloody
spy
! D’you realise what this means for us?’

His mother gave him a level look – a restraining look. They needed to remain calm. ‘
Provocateur
is a more accurate term, I think, Clement,’ she said. ‘The gentleman before us now, Herr …’

She hesitated, inviting this person to provide a genuine name. He declined to take it. He clearly wasn’t going to tell them anything.

‘Our former Monsieur Allix,’ Elizabeth continued, ‘is a rare creature indeed. Many do not believe they exist. The provocateur is the tool of the most rapacious, the most devious nations; small wonder that Chancellor Bismarck has cultivated them. Men like this one have altered the course of history. They have performed roles that have passed without record – without credit or blame. That is their great skill. Theirs is the hand that angles the lens so that it starts the fire; that unlatches the gate so the bullocks can run wild. I should think that there are men like Jean-Jacques Allix throughout Paris, in all manner of places. There’ll be one in the Hôtel de Ville, close to Trochu and Jules Favre; one holed up with the Bonapartists at the Jockey Club; one with the Orléanists, even, bolstering their hopes for a new monarchy.’

The Leopard crossed his arms, neither confirming nor denying any of it.

‘Villain,’ muttered Inglis. ‘I always knew there was something rum about you. Those tall tales of Lizzie’s in the
Figaro
– those ludicrous, pantomime politics. I always knew that something was off.’

Clem’s mind started to settle – to process this revelation. Many nagging questions had been answered. This spy or provocateur or whatever he was had been aggravating the divisions of the city in order to weaken it. He’d encountered Han when he’d arrived in Montmartre to embed himself among the northern ultras. Recognising her name at once, along with the singular opportunity she represented, he’d seduced her and won her trust with his show of committed radicalism; and then, when the moment was right, he’d penned that letter. And it had been a stunning success, you had to admit. Only now, with Paris on the brink of capitulation, were people beginning to query him – with the exception, of course, of Émile Besson, his consistent and tenacious enemy. This was why the
Aphrodite
had been sabotaged. This was the secret Allix had been willing to kill for.

Han’s face was in her hands. She had it worst of all. Strip away the verbiage about wartime exigency and the fate of nations and the whole affair had the aspect of a loathsome confidence trick. It was maddening to think of what had been done – the liberties that had been taken with his sister’s feelings and her person. A true gentleman would insist on fighting a duel over this sullying of her honour, or at least break the nose of the fiend responsible. Clem looked warily at the Prussian. It didn’t seem like a very good idea in this instance. Neither could he just turn the scoundrel in. The Pardys had been chosen carefully. Foreigners, and the English in particular, were already considered highly suspect by most in Paris. They were implicated; if caught they’d probably be subjected to the same prompt punishment as the Leopard himself.

Staying in the darkness by the window, the Prussian agent laid out his demands. Firstly, and without delay, he wanted an article published in the
Figaro
: an account of an audacious one-man raid on the northern positions beyond Saint-Denis, designed to hinder the arrival of Prussian reinforcements at Buzenval, that would explain his absence from the attack. He wanted Elizabeth to stress that he held no formal rank in the National Guard, and that the provisional government continued to seek his arrest: appearing on the front line was therefore a serious risk to his liberty.

‘I can supply proof of the action,’ he added, ‘in the usual manner.’ There was a trace of irony in his voice. He was referring to the helmets and other trinkets brought back from previous forays – obviously taken direct from the Prussian commissariat.

Elizabeth did not react; she appeared, in fact, to be ignoring him. Some kind of contest, subtle but profound, was underway. She was stroking Hannah’s hair, demonstrating more tenderness than Clem had seen pass between them in years.

‘Where have you been, girl, for all these weeks, while I was mourning you so bitterly? Were you taken prisoner?’

Hannah nodded. ‘They kept me in a village, off to the north-east. I was well treated.’ She glared at the Leopard. ‘His doing, I suppose. Other girls were not so fortunate.’

‘Other girls?’ Elizabeth’s brow furrowed. ‘Do you mean Clement’s cocotte – the one Mont and I saw leave with you at the Porte de Charenton?’

The Leopard’s eyes were on them both.

Hannah opened her mouth, then shut it again. She looked at her boots. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘We were separated in Champigny, during the battle. I – I don’t know what happened to her.’

She was lying. The Leopard stepped towards her, passing before the candle, his shadow sweeping around the room. Elizabeth drew her daughter close, murmuring a warning; but he wished only to ask a question.

‘Did she run off at the same time as you? From Gagny?’

Hannah wouldn’t answer. She was attempting to remain impassive, to give nothing away, but there was a cruel imbalance here. While she couldn’t even call this man by his real name, he knew her with the intimacy of a lover.