Petite Mort (2 page)

By the time we arrive, the entire village is already huddled together on the broken-down pews. At the back, I recognise Eluard and his surly, faithful followers; and at the front stands Père Simon, folding and re-folding his hands in amazement at the size of the congregation before him. The church is open to the elements, but a white sheet hangs down from the rafters, held by twin pegs and rippling in the evening breeze. Behind Eluard’s gang there is a mechanical contraption propped up on a table. A man I don’t recognise stands with one hand on a large wheel attached to the machine, watching Père Simon. A cigarette droops from one corner of his mouth, smoke trails
heavenwards and, as I watch, Père Simon points at him with one trembling hand, the man begins to turn the wheel, and images begin to pour out of the white sheet.

Next to me, Camille breathes an almost silent
oh
. My superstitious aunt shrieks; in the front row a fully grown man kicks out his legs and snorts like a frightened horse. A woman has appeared on the sheet, sitting on a garden bench, one hand across her brow. OH! says white writing on a black background, WHO WILL RESCUE ME FROM MY PLIGHT? The woman turns to face us. She is so real, more real than anyone I know. I put my hand out in front of my face and compare it to her: she wins. Now another figure has appeared on the sheet: a man with eyebrows like upside-down Vs. He moves stealthily towards her: she cringes away from him. HELP! says the writing, I FEAR FOR MY VIRTUE! By now half the village are on their feet. The men shake their fists as the vicious baron advances, uttering words I was told I should never have to hear. And then, in a puff of smoke, grimacing wildly, the baron snaps his fingers and vanishes. The audience looks around the church, astonished. Père Simon stands up and pleads for calm; his palms try to flatten out the uproar, but Eluard is on his feet, trying to wrestle the machine out of the operator’s hands. It takes several men to drag them apart.

When the film comes back on, the woman in white is wearing a veil, standing next to a handsome moustached man. AND SO THEY WERE MARRIED says the writing. The woman turns to look at her new husband, as from one corner of the frame the vicious baron capers and grips the bars of his cage. Her look says everything: I don’t need the rest of the story to tell me how happy they will be. After the sheet goes blank, the others get up and mill about, re-enacting the story in hoarse leaps and shouts. I continue watching, desperately hoping the woman’s face will reappear.

The neighbours beg the machine-operator to tell us another
story, but he snorts and shows us the damage Eluard has already inflicted on his projecting device. ‘Twelve sous,’ is all he says, holding out a calloused palm.

The following afternoon I shrug off my chores and trot down the hill to Père Simon’s house. Up close, it doesn’t seem as clean: paint peels and flutters from the door as it creaks open. And close to, Père Simon’s skin looks white and fragile, like parchment. I had always thought of him as a young man, but now I wonder how old he really is.

‘You’ve come about last night,’ he says, following me into the one main room. My mother has taught me that a lady always sits, so I take the only chair and press my knees together. Père Simon remains standing, fingers laced behind his back.

As I speak, I feel ashamed of myself and of what he must see: a girl with her hair in disarray, eyes large and pleading in a thin face. I ask him what the name of the woman is, where she lives. I ask him who was responsible for last night’s story, whether there will ever be any more like it.

He stoops and folds his hands round mine.

‘The woman’s name is Terpsichore,’ he says. ‘She has her own particular magic, Adèle, a quality all her own: one of the greats. At her first premiere, in Paris, of
La Dame aux Roses
, the audience was moved to tears.’

I ask him how he knows that. He pauses. ‘Because I was one of them.’

Père Simon watches me for a moment, then moves to the fireplace. He moves jerkily, just like the woman in the film, half-eager, half-held back, leading me to it: what I didn’t see before, which is that the wall above the mantel is covered, to the ceiling, in photographs of people. They are laid half over each other in a jumble, hundreds of them.

I have only ever seen one photograph before: a daguerreotype of my grandparents, who had left us the money that my
father drank, and the farm we lived on. My father’s father sat; my father’s mother stood, her hand on his shoulder. Neither of them was smiling. But these: these were a thing apart – each one was a young man or a woman with a dazzling grin and gleaming hair, staring out directly at me as if it was me making them laugh.

I cross the room to look more closely.

Père Simon says softly: ‘Promotional postcards. The studios, who make the films, hand them out in advance of the films’ release.’

She is right in the centre of the display: unlike the others, she isn’t smiling, just staring back at me, her huge eyes rimed with kohl, the rest of her body stretched out on a chaise longue. There is a scribble in the corner – I can just make out the words,
Best wishes
– and before I can stop myself I have reached out and snatched the card from the wall.

I imagine the spells I would need to transform myself into her. In my mind’s eye I see myself in a dress that shimmers like fish-scales, my face heart-shaped, all my gestures graceful, surrounded by people who love me.

Père Simon is standing with me. He sees how shocked I am, and gives a bitter little laugh and a shrug. How must it have felt for him: the young priest, stepping out from his seminary one evening, wandering the Paris streets, perhaps visiting a cinema of attractions on a whim, and leaving an hour later with his carefully constructed world a world away.

And that was how I got religion: my parents watched in amazement as I walked dutifully down the hill to visit the priest every single Wednesday. Père Simon bought a second chair, and under his careful tutelage, I studied the dramatic monologues of the great playwrights until I was word-perfect. We nursed my ambition as Cleopatra nursed the asp, letting it grow over the years.

Juliette Blanc and Adèle Roux
1967

Adèle Roux fixes me over the rim of her coffee cup: all bird bones, black sleeves flapping around the wrists. Fine silver hair in a bun at the nape of her neck and one concession to couture, a miniature hat, perched at an angle and secured with vicious-looking pins. Perhaps it’s the cup, obscuring everything below the nose; perhaps it’s the way the waiter passes behind us, whistling, or reflecting light over us with his silver tray: but suddenly I can see it. And, seeing it, can’t see how anyone can have missed it.

Watching me, she smiles. ‘You are thinking,’ she says, ‘that the cheekbones are the one thing which never changes.’

‘I did wonder if you’d ever been recognised.’

‘Never.’

‘It was such a famous trial—’

‘Famous in 1914. People forget.’

‘But you’ve been living in Paris all this time…’

Her smile widens: becomes wicked. ‘You’ve read
The Art of Living Invisibly
?’

‘No.’

‘No? The ancient Chinese text by the philosopher, Sun Tzu? It’s a later book. Perhaps you are familiar with his more famous companion work,
The Art of War
?’

‘No.’

She raises her eyebrows; then waves it away. ‘A surprising number of lessons we can apply to 20th-century Paris. You’ll have heard how, struck by the way a panda-bear fades into the
forest of bamboo, Sun Tzu invented camouflage. But to my mind, the most important advice he gives to those seeking anonymity is the simplest:
be eccentric, but not too eccentric
.’

She nods as I think about it. ‘Take my hat. A relic. People look at it and think:
poor thing. Clinging to her youth
. They give me one swift glance and move on.’

I nod. Look down at my tape-recorder, because she really has embarrassed me this time.

She beams at me. ‘One other thing: Sun Tzu recommends particularly – I quote directly from the text –
in the quest for invisible living, do not offend your concierge. You’ll come home and find her going through your underwear
.’

‘They had concierges in ancient China?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she says. ‘They’re a universal plague.’

She holds my gaze for a moment longer. I feel myself go suddenly red.

Her eyes sparkle. ‘Admit it. The panda was a good touch.’

I don’t know where to look.

She says: ‘But how could I resist you? Such faith in the world.’

At 2 p.m. today, I was at my desk at
Le Monde
when the telephone rang.

‘A woman for you,’ said the switchboard operator – bored, Friday afternoonish. ‘Calling about your article. Says she has some new information.’

I was still scribbling on my yellow pad; a four o’clock deadline loomed.

‘Put her through.’

A hiss on the line; a crackle, and then the crisp voice, sounding as if it was coming from miles away: ‘Is this Juliette Blanc? The author of the article in last week’s paper, about the recent rediscovery of
Petite Mort
?’

‘That’s me.’

A breathy pause: high whining, ghost-voices brushing past.

‘This is Mme Roux, whom you mentioned in your piece.’

The phone clamped to my ear, some instinct forewarned me:
don’t gush. Don’t say: I thought you’d be dead. Say what’s on your mind
.

I said: ‘This is a surprise.’

A chuckle. Then she said: ‘Mlle Blanc, I wish to engage a person of vigour and conviction to write my memoirs. All about the film, and everything before and after. If this sounds like an assignment for you, please meet me at the Café Conti at five o’clock tonight. Café Conti, Place St André-des-Arts, 6ème. We will treat this first meeting as an informal interview of sorts. To see if we
get on
.’

She pronounced
get on
like an illness. I reached for a pen and paper, scribbled the address, and was about to ask any one of a hundred questions, when I realised the line had already gone dead.

CAMILLE’S BREATHING
stays steady. She is lying on her front: early light is creeping over her outstretched hand.

The mattress of my twin bed creaks as I pull out the little wallet from beneath it.
Enough to get you started
, Père Simon had said, dropping it into my satchel.
You’ll want to address yourself to Studios Gaumont in the 19th arrondissement. Ask for M. Feuillade.

When I tiptoe to the door and look back, there is a gleam underneath Camille’s eyelids.

‘You’re running away,’ she says.

Then she just looks at me: long and solemn like when she was small.

TO THE NORTH
, the tip of Notre Dame’s spire rises, cut out against a dirty gold sky. The plume of Agathe’s cigarette smoke lifts next to it, a signal; it drifts away from the windowsill and curls out over rue Boissonnade, hanging in the space between our attic apartment and the roofs across the street. A premature sun is winking and struggling over the rooftops opposite, and in one of these gleams the smoke is lit orange for a moment, then vanishes.

Beside me, Agathe lets out a hiss of a sigh. She squints as she removes the cigarette stub from her mouth. She doesn’t offer me a final pull, but presses the stub delicately out on the window ledge – the broken sill leans, slack as a jaw and pockmarked from this morning ritual. And then, as it does every morning, the camaraderie of the shared cigarette vanishes, and hostilities resume. The sill jumps as Agathe lifts her meaty forearms from it, jolting my elbows; she turns and lumbers back into the salon.

A nasal sound comes from the kitchen: it is Mathilde, our landlady, singing as she prepares breakfast for us. Agathe readjusts her dressing gown as she reaches the one plush chair in the tiny salon; she sits and snaps open
Le Temps
. I take my seat at the table, Mathilde’s song reaches a climax, and our meal arrives: thin porridge, borne aloft by Mathilde, like a waiter at a fashionable restaurant. ‘
Et voilà!!
’ she trills. The newspaper crumples as Agathe lays it aside; she lumbers over to the table;
chink
goes the bowl, set down on the table-top, and Agathe’s
spoon is already ploughing a furrow through the food, ladling an enormous portion onto her own plate. As usual, she starts to eat straightaway.

Mathilde smiles apologetically at me, and whispers
bon appétit
. I dip my spoon into the porridge and try a few bites. Only once she is satisfied that I’ve started eating will Mathilde begin her own meal, stringy wrist lifting and lowering mechanically. Her gaze flickers between Agathe and me as she watches for the first sign of trouble.

Agathe’s hatred for me sprang out fully formed on my very first day at 14 rue Boissonnade. The three of us sat in the salon, starchy with formality; I squinted into a patch of afternoon light, my valise propped next to my ankles, as Mathilde’s hands writhed over each other in her lap.

‘We are constrained by circumstance, Mademoiselle Roux,’ she said, ‘to invite another lodger into our little family.’

Agathe sat looking out of the window, ignoring us, her face wreathed in smoke. It was six o’clock in the evening; her scarlet silk peignoir was stretched tight across her stomach, her face painted into doll-like lines.

With a little jolt I realised what she was.

Mathilde leapt to her feet: ‘Let me show you your new room!’

Though it was low-ceilinged, dusty, and filled with drab things, I exclaimed over its quaint charm. After years of sharing with Camille, I truly was a little excited at the prospect of my own territory; and I had little choice – my small fund would not stretch to anything better.

In the salon, I bent out of the window to admire the view; I did not notice how thin and grey the curtains fluttered in the evening breeze. I admired the room’s one ornament, a fine miniature on the mantelpiece. ‘My dear mother,’ Mathilde sighed, pressing a hand to her breastbone, ‘from whom I
inherited the apartment.’ Agathe snorted, and I wondered whether we were thinking the same thing: that Mathilde had also inherited the beaky nose and querulous expression.