Paris Noir (28 page)

Quite naturally it was there that most people ended up. I was with Fernand‚ whom I tried to lead towards the back. I was watching the door. Keep-on-Dancin’ came in‚ the fool. And just behind him‚ two big lads I didn’t recognize and who didn’t much look like the type to be interested in Karel Kapek’s marionettes. Keep-on-Dancin’ – what an idiot! – spotted me in the smoky fug‚ came over and shook hands warmly. He saw Fernand‚ whom I’d introduced to him in the past‚ and stuck out his paw which the other didn’t take straightaway‚ busy as he was – hmm! – rummaging in his pockets.

‘No change? Don’t worry‚ I’ll pay for this round‚’ said Keep-on-Dancin’ in his usual way.

He too searched his jacket‚ stuffed with small banknotes and coins. The first thing he laid on the counter was a dessicated human ear that looked as though it’d been tanned‚ a right ear.

Fernand smiled.

‘What a coincidence!’

Alongside the right ear‚ he laid the one that matched it‚ the left ear‚ less well preserved than the other. It was slightly crumpled.

The two big lads had closed in on us.

‘The game’s up‚’ said Keep-on-Dancin’‚ holding out his wrists.

‘There’s no hurry‚’ said Fernand. ‘Take your time‚ finish your drink.’

We stuffed Keep-on-Dancin’’s pockets with sandwiches. I borrowed two handkerchiefs and a blanket from the
patron
. No one noticed the handcuffs. As he went through the door‚ Keep-on-Dancin’ uttered these three words: ‘Free at last!’

Probably the last I’d ever hear from him. The police Citroen pulled away silently.

One day I took Zoltan and Simon to lunch at a Jewish restaurant in Rue des Ecouffes. I like this melancholy part of town‚ all squalor‚ and beards‚ steeped in legends and the Orient.

It was during those months when the survivors of the death camps were arriving in batches before travelling on to the countries of their choice.

Around us‚ incredibly thin people‚ their faces stamped for ever with definitive and seemingly age-old sadness‚ were slumped with dignity‚ if we can accept such a paradox. A woman who was once beautiful‚ with a five-figure registration number tattooed on her forearm‚ was serving mushy food that they swallowed slowly‚ with difficulty.

We were sat at a table. There was an uncomfortable oppressive silence. I was ashamed‚ and Zoltan too‚ of presenting these people with the spectacle of our good health‚ our freedom from care.

Simon‚ sitting next to me‚ seemed preoccupied‚ perhaps intimidated. His face gives little away about the feelings that stir him‚ or rather arrest him.

On Simon’s left was a skinny young girl‚ in crumpled clothes‚ with a shawl over her head. Tentatively and with infinite difficulty she was trying to eat her way through a tiny portion of salmon roe.

Her hands were translucent. Cord-like veins throbbed in her neck. Zoltan had noticed this image of the most appalling distress. Simon seemed oblivious.

An ordinary Jewish meal: fish stuffed with bread‚ boiled beef with horseradish sauce. The pot of horseradish was close to the young girl. Zoltan asked Simon to pass it. Being clumsy‚ Simon knocked it over.

‘Forgive me.’

‘
Pozhalusta
(That’s all right)‚’ said his neighbour with a wan sad smile.

Simon gazed at us very proudly. He too was smiling. That was something we hadn’t seen for a very long time.

Faltering at first‚ then more sustained‚ a conversation in Russian began between Simon and the young girl. Her name was Ida Bleivas‚ and she was from a remote village on the Russo-Lithuanian border. Liberated just in time from a camp devastated by typhus‚ she was part of a convoy of displaced persons on their way to the newborn state of Israel. She looked exhausted. We caught sight of her‚ in the back room‚ adjusting her shawl in front of a mirror. Her head was shaved. At last Simon had found a wretchedness to equal his own: he was happy.

Simon met up with his friend every evening. He became almost gallant. He offered her tea‚ held her hand‚ and took her wandering through the streets of the sorely depleted ghetto. They spoke little. These two afflicted souls didn’t have much left to entrust to each other but their mutual presence.

Zoltan celebrated with me this unexpected turn of events. Finally‚ it was possible to envisage for our Simon the prospect of a more or less normal future.

Simon was disconsolate over the imminent departure of young Ida. But meanwhile difficulties arose in Israel where the arrival of thousands of helpless starving immigrants was viewed with some alarm. And Ida Bleivas’s stay in Paris was extended.

One day she told Simon she’d like to have heard him speak Yiddish. That devil Zoltan more or less knew the language: and he starts repeating the same experiment as before on Simon. In less than two weeks he instilled in him not just enough to get by‚ but the ability to speak almost fluently.

Simon was transformed: quicker-witted and more lively‚
with even occasional bursts of sheer joyfulness. When he spoke French his mispronounciations had almost disappeared.

One evening when we were taking the air together‚ Simon told us that he didn’t after all much care about having French nationality‚ he wanted to share his life with the girl and follow her to Israel. I regarded this decision as his only hope of happiness and warmly approved it. But to my great surprise Zoltan became sullen.

From that moment I witnessed an extraordinary phenomenon: Zoltan was tormented with intense jealousy originating beyond any extremely improbable physical attraction. He’d developed such an attachment to the boy he called his ‘burdensome beast’ that the thought of their separation unhinged him. All my efforts to calm him‚ to make him see reason‚ proved futile.

One day he uttered these dreadful words in my presence: ‘I shall wipe from his mind everything I put there.’

An expected assignment suddenly sent me off on a mission to Germany for six weeks. During my absence Simon’s regular certificates of leave couldn’t be renewed. But in the ordinary course of events he should have been free every evening.

I found out on my return that Simon had started stammering‚ then dribbling a bit.

He was admitted to Val-de-Grâce military hospital. He soon proved incapable of uttering anything intelligible whatsoever‚ even in French.

Then came the day when he was struck down with an epileptic fit. He was immediately invalided out of the army.

Ida Bleivas was woken at dawn one day by ‘officials’ of I don’t know which organization‚ and given an hour to pack her meagre belongings and join a convoy on its way to Marseilles‚ as a first stop.

No sign of Zoltan. His landlord had to force the lock. His room was found neat and tidy‚ containing his clothes and work tools.

Where else would Zoltan be if not in La Mouffe?

Which is where I came across him several months later.
Terribly aged‚ emaciated‚ all he said was‚ ‘It’s worse than if I’d committed a crime. I don’t know whether I can ever redeem myself. But I’m trying to.’

He wasn’t resurfacing wooden floors any more. For a glass of wine‚ a bite to eat‚ often for nothing at all‚ he was teaching Russian to generous-spirited and ‘committed’ students. Let there be no misunderstanding: he enabled them to make such rapid progress that ‘someone very respectable‚ wearing glasses and with a slight accent’‚ became intrigued by his method of teaching and forcefully insisted on taking him on a journey. No one could tell me where.

There are in every ghetto in the world street-pedlars selling pumpkin or melon seeds – I’m not quite sure what they are. The Jews chew these the way others chew hazelnuts.

Over in Belleville‚ round République‚ there are cinemas where they often show pre-war yiddish films:
Yidl mitn Fidl‚ Der Yidisher Kenig Lir‚ Der Dibuk
 …

At the entrance is a pathetic figure selling seeds‚ or trying to. He’s constantly nibbling at them; he looks increasingly rodent-like.

He can’t speak. From the sounds that issue from his constricted throat you can just about make out two syllables: I-da … I-da …

…the question is precisely to know whether the past has ceased to exist‚ or ceased to be useful …

Bergson

1947

I’m trying to take stock of Paris‚ to rethink it. The convulsions that shook the world seem‚ in the eyes of those wilfully short- sighted people who reduce them to human proportions‚ to have subsided for a long period. I don’t believe it. Nowhere in this City of mine‚ so thoroughly explored‚ so probingly questioned‚ so deeply penetrated‚ have I found the torpor‚ the weary calm that are symptoms of a lasting peace. People are tired‚ it’s true. Tired and disillusioned. They’re fed up with everything. But not the City. It’s still edgy. Just as there remain‚ to the great disadvantage of arms manufacturers‚ enormous quantities of ordnance that have not yet been destroyed‚ are indeed being carefully preserved‚ there is pent-up rebellion beneath the paving stones. Anything could happen.

The events I’ve chosen to record are only the most spectacular manifestations of forces that – out of fear‚ ignorance‚ everyday stupidity – are deemed ‘obscure’. But it’s now an indisputable fact that the most innocent words‚ the most harmless gestures in certain places and at certain times acquire an unwonted importance and weight‚ and have repercussions that far exceed what was intended.

It’s a joy‚ a pleasure to discover in Paris an oasis of calm – they’re rare – and to visit it sometimes‚ returning from aggressive streets there to immerse yourself as if in a warm and placid lake.

The Place Dauphine is one such oasis. You feel somewhat captive in this shady‚ semi-provincial triangle‚ where the
inhabitants are all known to one another by name and wouldn’t know how to greet one another without a smile.

I’m particularly fond of Suzanne’s grocery-cum-bar. She and her husband run a shop a few square metres in size that somehow manages to accommodate‚ in an amazingly restricted space‚ dried and cooked vegetables‚ tinned foods‚ litres of vintage wine‚ and the tiny bar counter behind which reigns Monsieur Suzanne‚ in other words Old François. At what is considered the time of day for an aperitif‚ the place is invaded by as mixed a crowd as you could hope to find. It ranges from drab young housemaids‚ who refer to themselves as ‘governesses’ here‚ to certain illustrious members of the bench who are not above standing a drink to persons of a disreputable and scruffy appearance (the jail is near by)‚ or indeed clinking glasses with the gaolers and wardens of the Prison Service.

It was there‚ on a day ‘unlike any other’‚ that I met one of my old friends. A documentary work I was trying to put together was the reason I’d gone wandering round Rue des Blancs-Manteaux. At the corner of Rue Ste-Croix and Rue Aubriot there’s a shabby little café with a Virgin watching over it‚ forbearing and indulgent‚ just like all the naive devotional images‚ Christs and saints installed by the populace of ‘working men and women’ for their ‘own personal use’. I was proposing to chronicle the events that this congenial watering-hole might have witnessed‚ and depict the characters who’d surely drunk here over the course of bygone ages.

In the thirteenth century‚ a period when the present Rue Aubriot was known by the name of Rue à Singes [Monkey Street]‚ one of the most interesting and colourful characters in the neighbourhood without a doubt was Sieur Michel de Socques. Before coming into possession of considerable wealth‚ this gentleman must have been some kind of strolling player or exhibitor of animals: for he devoted the rest of his life to assisting the former and offering a home to the latter. Whenever there was fear of certain types of epidemic‚ animals of exotic origin had to be placed in quarantine before their owners were allowed to exhibit them ‘in the thoroughfares of
the fair city’. So Sieur Michel would take in the animals whose exhibitors couldn’t afford to keep them in isolation without their help to earn a living. His residence‚ ‘Monkey House’‚ gave its name to the street. A nearby passageway has retained this designation.

On bears and popinjays (parrots) there was an admittance toll levied‚ which was paid at the Passage du Petit-Châtelet‚ in front of the Petit-Pont. As for monkeys‚ ‘The Rules Governing the Trades of Paris‚ by Etienne Boilève‚ Provost of this City’‚ lays down the following:

‘The Merchant who brings a Monkey to sell must pay four deniers: and if the Monkey belongs to someone who has bought it for his own amusement‚ it is exempt‚ and if the Monkey belongs to an exhibitor‚ the exhibitor must give a performance for the toll-collector‚ and in exchange for his performance be exempted on everything he buys for his needs: and minstrels too are exempted in exchange for singing one verse of a song.’

What this amounts to is that the animal exhibitor‚ instead of paying the four-denier toll the merchant has to pay‚ would pay his due in songs and capers. Hence the expression:
payer en monnaie de singe
‚ literally‚ to pay with monkey money‚ ie avoid paying a debt‚ with fine words and empty promises.

So it was that after a pleasant stroll‚ my mind filled with gladdening thoughts‚ I quite naturally returned to the banks of the Seine and crossed the first bridge I came to.

It was evening. At Suzanne’s‚ the regulars were as usual chatting quietly‚ sipping an inoffensive rosé. The man who came in was tall‚ bony and dark-haired‚ wearing a wide- brimmed hat and long khaki cloak‚ probably of military provenance.

Even then we were all intrigued by this new arrival: you never see a strange face at Suzanne’s at this time of day.

The guy went up to the counter and ordered an anisette. To
pay and raise the glass to his lips he used only his right hand. Another glass. And another. Now where had I seen that face before? The collar of a large-checked shirt could be glimpsed under his cloak. That‚ the hat and the distant gaze more or less placed my man: he must work in a circus.

The guy noticed some little bags of macaroons hanging on the wall. He pointed to them‚ and said to Suzanne‚ ‘How much?’

Still using only his right hand he tore open the packet‚ crushed one of the macaroons on the counter and‚ having tasted it‚ started to slip a tiny mouthful of cake inside his hermetically buttoned-up cloak. A hand emerged‚ a minute woollen-gloved hand‚ which grabbed the morsel. From under the cloak came a crunching sound.