Le Temps des Cerises (38 page)

‘Highly original piece of furniture,' the captain murmured in an undertone, kicking the coffin with a polished toe. ‘You, neither of you are men of the cloth so why the crozier, bishop's hat, religious ornamentation? Were you hoping to disguise yourselves as members of the clergy to evade capture as revolutionary Communards?'

‘We are about as revolutionary,' the bald-headed man, seemingly unfazed by the rapid line of fire, put in blithely, ‘as cats in the sunshine.'

‘Cats,' the captain raised his voice a fraction along with one pencil-thin eyebrow, ‘with mice are about as revolutionary as it gets. I met a red the other day dressed as a priest and let me tell you I saw through him immediately. I have seen better acting at the
Alcazar
. Are you telling me then that these items are theatrical props?'

There was the faintest glimmer of hope in the captain's voice and the corporal sighed audibly with exasperation. The theatre was the captain's greatest passion, his grand passion, his one and only abiding passion. That apart from money and only money insofar as it enabled him to go to the theatre as often as he liked which, it seemed to the corporal, was once a night at the very least. It was all he cared about, all he talked about. He had no wife or family to occupy his mind. How many times had the corporal had to listen to the captain and been pleased not to catch each excruciating detail of the previous night's performance at the Théâtre des Variétés. If these three old duds turned out to be theatre lovers, however, the search would be delayed somewhat. If that was the case he may as well pull up a chair, save the swelling in his legs a little, maybe get himself a bowl of soup.

‘Our guilty pleasure.' The bald-headed man confirmed his fears. ‘We like a little pretence in this house.'

The captain gave the briefest of smiles. ‘There is nothing like a little culture after a day's bloodshed,' he murmured gently. ‘It calms the nerves, puts everything into perspective: planets, people, begonias, lizards.'

Two pairs of ears at least heard pagodas instead of begonias but it didn't much alter the sentiment of the captain's words. His eyes had a faraway look in them, as though he were thinking thoughts beyond the ken of ordinary men and his mouth twitched solemnly as he spoke. ‘One night at the theatre and you run the gauntlet of emotion from sorrow to adulation...'

The corporal crept into the kitchen and helped himself to a bowl of soup. He spotted a hunk of bread on the sideboard and he took that too, shoving it into his pocket for later. It had been a long trek from Versailles and he was starving, not to mention his throat which felt as if it were being stabbed by hundreds of sharp bayonets. He plonked himself down on a chair by the door and ate heartily. The soup was good, warm and spicy tasting and it reminded him of his young wife in the country who always gave him tomato soup and cheese toast when he was off colour, sometimes a chocolate biscuit for dessert. He did miss her but he reminded himself that he was doing all this for her. When he shared the reward with the captain he would be able to get them all a bigger house, maybe a garden for the boy to run around in. It wasn't too bad having given up on his medical training. At least he had learned some psychological skills. He could eat and listen at the same time and he knew for a fact that very few men could do that…

‘I don't know where he lives,' the old gent was crying plaintively as the captain circled him like a buzzard. ‘Honestly I don't. I didn't even know he was a criminal. Did you, Modeste? Did you know he was a criminal?'

‘No.' The bald-headed man was staring into the grate like Cinderella and he was obviously suffering from inner turbulence again. For the first time the corporal noticed he had stained fingers, blackened at the tip from using the
tabatière
rifle no doubt. Whatever he said about cats he was a revolutionary for sure. He must know the iceman's whereabouts. Maybe he was wondering whether to protect his own hide or that of his friend's. No wonder he was suffering from inner turbulence. If the captain noticed those fingers he'd finish him. But the captain hadn't noticed. He was focusing on the old gent by the chessboard, surprised, nay incredulous that a father should know so little about his daughter's activities and acquaintances.

‘It is true.' The old gent's face suddenly crumpled and he wept so hard the old woman had to put an arm around his shoulders. ‘I should have known. I should have known. I am a travesty of a father. She will end up in the Seine,' he gasped between sobs, ‘green and bloated like her mother.'

The captain hadn't bargained on this genuine display of emotion. Running the gauntlet in the theatre was one thing but in real life quite another. He turned impatiently to the corporal, eyeing him unpleasantly.

‘Are you enjoying your soup, Schenowitz?' he asked with a dangerous edge to his voice. ‘Did you think I wouldn't hear you slurping away like a pig at the trough, you half Prussian bastard?'

The corporal stood hurriedly, placing the bowl on the table a little awkwardly with his bad hand.

‘I forget which side you get the Fritz giblets from. Is it your mother's or your father's? Was your father a kraut or was it your sow? Was your sow a kraut? Was your
sauerkraut
?!'

The corporal glowered at the tired old joke, used once too often by the captain. If he were a medical man he wouldn't suffer this sort of humiliation. He would be respected, part of the establishment. People would come to him with their boils, scurvy and rickets and he would prescribe lancing, orange segments, milk for the calcium. He beckoned the captain over and whispered in his ear. ‘Why don't you try old Cinderella over there. He knows more than he's letting on, just look at his hands.'

The captain turned swiftly and approached the fireplace. ‘Show me your hands,' he ordered quietly and the bald-headed man turned in surprise, opening his palms out for the captain's attention.

‘Oh ho, the tell-tale hands. The mouth may lie but the hands cannot. I suppose you are going to tell me you are a chimney sweep by trade.'

‘No,' replied the bald-headed man, gazing steadily at the captain with his small black eyes. He was no longer suffering from inner turbulence, the corporal noted, in fact his face was a marvel of composure. He'd obviously decided to save his own skin. ‘I am going to tell you where Alphonse Duchamp lives.'

There were gasps of astonishment from the two old duds in the corner and the captain suddenly started speaking unnaturally loudly; excited, perhaps, at the prospect of getting one step closer to his dream, his longing, his new box at the Odéon. ‘If you are telling the truth I shall give these hands the benefit of the doubt, if you are not I shall shoot you immediately. Do you understand?'

‘Perfectly.'

The captain spun on a polished heel, cracking his knuckles with satisfaction. ‘Then lead the way,' he entreated the bald-headed man, almost shooing him out of the room; and the corporal opened the front door in readiness. ‘Lead me to him.'

Chapter thirty

The sun burnt down on the Rue Ramponneau and Eveline stirred restlessly behind the barricade, hopping from one cramping foot to another. ‘When are they coming?' she'd asked Alphonse what seemed like hours ago and he had replied ‘soon'. This stretched-out time was unbearable – worse than the queue for Potin's. Ten times worse than the queue for Potin's when everyone had shouted ‘Soon. Soon. Soon there will be boiled beef, greens, carrots, new potatoes, lovely grub, shrimps and watercresses,' and in the end all that had turned up was watery soup with something inedible floating around on the top. With any luck the enemy would be a let down too – watery little men with something inedible floating around on top. She hid a grin and flicked a damp tendril out of her eyes. The hardest part was always the waiting, and waiting for something bad it seemed was the same as waiting for something good. You still wanted to rush to the event – for different reasons of course. You anticipated or dreaded, got it over with and then regretted. Maybe that's what life consisted of: dreading, anticipating, getting it over with and then regretting… ‘I sound like Laurie,' she muttered to herself, stretching her calf muscles one more time before settling back into her old position.

Not a breath could be felt behind the barricade though she smelt the garlic on one man's, the coffee on another's. A scent of rose crept out of an upturned wardrobe donated by someone on the Champs Élysées and Eveline wished she could take a peek at the lining in the ornate drawers, imagining the dresses that had swung and hung inside: silks and taffetas, ball gowns and evening wear… She had thought it was simply the women who waited – in queues for food, for their men to come home but now she saw that men waited too and for even worse things to come true – to fight, to kill, to test their mettle…. Some had fled already, downed weapons and fled in any direction, others prayed or perspired, crouching on their knees and bellies in the paltry shade of the barricade. She wondered if Laurie had been right after all. Was her place really here at the barricade or back home with her father and Jacques, waiting for them to come home.

She glanced nervously at Alphonse who stood stern and unyielding as always, his eyes on a thin column of smoke on the horizon which suddenly, before their very eyes, exploded into a fountain of sparks.

‘There goes the Hôtel de Ville,' he muttered half triumphantly and Eveline turned on him in surprise: ‘What good will that do them, blowing up the Hôtel de Ville?'

‘Not them, us,' Alphonse corrected her and though his voice was harsh his frank blue eyes smiled down at her naivety. ‘Fire is a legitimate weapon in war, as legitimate as any other. We've probably slowed them down by half an hour.'

‘Oh, at least,' put in an oldish man who'd been praying most of the time Eveline had been at the barricade, and now seemed strangely exhilarated. He grinned across at Alphonse, raising his fist in a salute. ‘Paris will be ours,
n'est ce pas
, or Paris will no longer exist! If they ever come to power they will have nowhere to sit!'

Alphonse gave a curt nod. ‘
Oui.
Vive la Commune
!'

Vive la Commune
! The cries went up into the hot, parched air and Eveline watched the flames that had taken the place of the sparks in the distance. The sparks had popped and disappeared and the flames that followed were brutal and devouring, vying with the sun itself. It was madness really, blowing up a city to stop the enemy in its tracks. Blowing up a city rather than give her up. A crazy, terrifying, foolhardy madness. Like two grown men fighting over a woman. Paris was a beautiful irresistible woman and if one man couldn't have her, nor could any other.

She pitied Paris then and her citizens, pitied herself and the men who prayed or perspired beside her, the one woman who'd lost her sons to Prussia and had nothing left to lose. How many of them were there after all in total? Including herself and Alphonse she counted nineteen. Hardly an army. Nineteen souls crouching in the paltry shade of the barricade beneath sandbags, wardrobes, a lazy Susan and mounds of earth – mounds of earth that reminded her horribly of the freshly dug graves in le Père Lachaise where her father had once stolen gravestones for statues. How ashamed she had been of him, stealing gravestones for statues… Now it seemed a very long time ago. The cemetery had been redesigned since then with paved walkways and chestnut trees so the dead could be visited in a romantic landscape. It helped apparently, for relatives to be able to visit their dead in a romantic landscape. She wondered if the Rue Ramponneau would be described as a romantic landscape with its dirty guttering and squat houses. Most of them were shuttered up, awaiting the onslaught, their owners having fled or hiding under their beds; others were hives of activity with mattresses being dragged across the windows and men taking up positions on the uneven rooftops, like cats finding a favourable spot in the sunshine. It was romantic probably, she decided, if you lived on the street, if you loved it, like all ugly familiar things were romantic if you loved them. Eveline watched an old woman negotiating a rickety ladder just to hand a glass of water to her son who sat bare-chested on the blistering tiles. They spoke, it seemed, for a while, she perched on top of the ladder, he precariously on the rooftop, then he handed back the glass, kissed her gently on the forehead, and she clambered down again, carefully removing the ladder behind her…. Maybe it wasn't madness at all but love. A crazy, terrifying, glorious love. A love beyond hope, beyond despair, beyond choice even…

She slipped her hand into Alphonse's hand and he gave it a fierce tight squeeze in return… It was the sort of love in her heart of hearts she secretly admired, for what woman didn't want a man who would die rather than give her up, kill her rather than lose her to another? It was the only love worth having after all.

‘They're coming,' Alphonse whispered, his keen eyes being the first to spot the tricolour flag. And then a little louder to the rest: ‘They're coming!'

In the middle of the storm with Alphonse – that's where she was. It was strangely silent in the middle of a storm, Laurie had told her that. In the middle of a storm you were relatively safe – you had the advantage of being able to go out and meet your own fate whereas at the edges, the periphery, you got dragged into things and fate met you. It was best to be in the middle of the storm. She smiled up at Alphonse one last time and he grinned back, a wide, almost impertinent grin. There was nothing to say, nothing they didn't know already. Soon the mattresses would be smoking, as the Versailles army came to reclaim the hand of Paris, the men picked off the rooftops one by one like coconuts at the coconut shy, the mounds of earth sprinkling down on the heads of the eighteen men and one woman who were crazy, foolhardy and glorious enough to fight beyond hope, beyond despair, beyond choice even…