Читать книгу Illumination - Matthew Plampin - Страница 13

The Café Géricault was on the rue des Acacias, a hundred yards from the place Saint-Pierre. Time was short – the march would be leaving for the boulevards at any moment – but Hannah could not ignore this. It was Lucien who’d directed her there. She’d encountered him in a bustling passage, quite by chance; clothing in disarray, missing his hat and one of his boots, he’d been so battered by drink that he appeared close to expiration. Having rejected her proposal that he join the march in the bluntest terms, he’d informed her that her twin brother had popped up again, not two streets away.

‘He’s with somebody, over in the Géricault,’ the painter had croaked. ‘One of Nadar’s men, I believe. Now please, Hannah dearest, could you possibly lend me five sous?’

The long room was so full that the bar itself was hidden from sight. Between the café’s peeling walls the noise of the lanes was concentrated, amplified fourfold; the mostly male clientele were drinking wine, coffee and spirits, and smoking as if the city’s tobacco reserves faced imminent confiscation. Clement wasn’t difficult to locate. Off to the left, against one of the frosted front windows, he stood out from the locals like a dusty brown beagle in a pack of whippets. There it was – Hannah’s mother and brother were still in Paris. They had been caught in the Prussian encirclement, as Jean-Jacques had said back in the shed. The sense of overpowering calamity she’d been expecting did not come. Given everything that was happening, in fact, their presence seemed almost inconsequential. Even Elizabeth Pardy would surely be dwarfed by the siege of Paris.

Clem was talking earnestly with a grey-suited man who had the look of a railway engineer or the humbler class of physician. This person was familiar – Hannah felt that she’d seen him about Montmartre – but he didn’t really belong in the Géricault either. Clem and he were a pair of misfits together. Hannah started pushing towards them. They noticed her when she was about halfway over – and to her surprise the man in grey promptly took his leave. Their eyes met as he crossed to the door. He lifted his hat; his expression was hard to read, somehow both evasive and enquiring.

Clem arrived before her. ‘Don’t be cross, Han. Promise you won’t. We missed the train, that’s all. Well – to be honest, I’m not wholly sure that there was a train to miss. Stupid, I know, damned stupid. And now we’re in for it, along with the rest of you.’

‘What are you doing in Montmartre?’ Hannah was calm – very slightly apprehensive, but nothing more. ‘Shouldn’t you be trying to find shelter in the centre of town?’

‘All sorted out.’ Clem laughed. ‘Two good rooms at the Grand Hotel on an indefinite lease. Conjured, I might add, from thin bloody air.’

Hannah recalled Jean-Jacques’s prediction in that alleyway across from the Danton: She’ll be well. Bourgeois like her always are.

‘I’ve just had the most extraordinary morning, as a matter of fact,’ Clem continued. ‘I saw a battle, Han. I saw it unfold right there in front of me.’ He peered after his departed companion. ‘And I made the acquaintance of a truly fascinating fellow. He’s an aérostier, would you believe, an honest-to-God balloonist. Émile Besson is his name. He lives here in Montmartre – says he’s talked to you before, actually, while you’ve been out painting.’

This was feasible. Many on the Buttes assumed that an artist at an easel must be lonely and would insist upon supplying conversation. Hannah thought of the letter. She’d been abrupt with a couple of these people in the past, and may well have caused offence. Had she acquired a foe in Clem’s Monsieur Besson without realising it – without knowing who he was?

‘I remember those plans you used to draw,’ she said, ‘the bat-wings and screw propellers and so on. It was a fixation, Clem, even for you.’

‘Yes, well, Elizabeth wasn’t keen on that one. Not at all. Far too much cash involved.’

Hannah crossed her arms. ‘Where is she?’

‘Back at the Grand, writing away busily I expect. She sees a book in this little episode – one that will prise her from the doldrums at last.’ Clem hesitated. ‘D’you know, Han, I can’t help but think that she might have anticipated our present predicament and not done … overmuch to prevent it.’

Hannah agreed. ‘She’ll have had this outcome in mind from the very beginning. From the moment she decided to make the trip.’

There was a roar in the street, and a discordant blast from a trumpet. Heads turned; the patrons of the Géricault raised their fists and shouted their support.

‘What about you?’ Clem asked over the noise. ‘Where’s that man of yours – the revolutionary?’

Hannah could tell from his voice that Jean-Jacques had been discussed in some detail. ‘He’s outside, gathering our friends – the people of Montmartre. We’re going to the place de la Concorde. To the Strasbourg.’

Clem’s face was blank. ‘Another bar?’

‘A statue,’ corrected Hannah with a smile, ‘representing the city. It’s the capital of Alsace, a province occupied by the Prussians. Strasbourg has been under a heavy siege for the past four weeks yet is holding fast. She is an example – a noble example for Paris to follow.’

A party of guardsmen, overhearing the Alsatian city’s sacred name, began to bellow it up at the ceiling, along with extravagant boasts about their fortitude and the pain that awaited their enemy. This served as a signal; customers began to flow from the Géricault, adding themselves to the current that coursed along the rue des Acacias.

‘I shall come,’ said Clem impulsively. ‘I shall come with you, Han, and see what all this is about. You can introduce me to your Monsieur Allix.’

Hannah’s smile grew uneasy. Seeing Clem like this, talking with him after such a long absence, had reminded her that she loved her brother, but what he was suggesting would cost her dearly. She’d strived to disguise her background, modulating her accent and every aspect of her behaviour, smoothing herself into this community as best she could. The sight of Clement Pardy parading at her side, so genial and curious and so very English, would undo these labours at once. She didn’t have it in her to send him back to Elizabeth, however; heart like a lump of pig iron, she nodded towards the door.

Raoul Rigault was passing on the rue des Acacias – a stocky, full-bearded man of twenty-five in a discoloured black suit, loudly promising the crowds all manner of unlikely things. Rigault was a radical agitator from Montparnasse, a political ally of Jean-Jacques’s, renowned both for his dedication to their cause and his casual mistreatment of women. He always paid Hannah a little too much attention – standing too close when they spoke, holding onto her hand for a few seconds too long, touching his tongue against his upper lip as she answered his questions. Spotting her now he sidled over, flanked by a mixed gang of black suits and militia uniforms, and tried to snake an arm around her waist. She squirmed away with a curse, tearing off his kepi and casting it on the cobbles.

Rigault bent down to retrieve it. ‘Citizen Pardy,’ he grinned, slapping the cap into shape and fitting it over his shaggy, unwashed head, ‘are you ready for what needs to be done?’

Hannah had lost count of the number of times she’d been asked this. ‘I am, Rigault. I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.’

The agitator regarded her with mock admiration. ‘If only the rest of Paris could partake of your bravery. Why, this very morning French soldiers fled from the enemy – Imperial Zoaves no less, flinging aside their rifles and running like chastened children. The curs should be bound to posts atop the enceinte, should they not, and made to weather the Prussian artillery.’ He turned to Clem, who was trying in vain to follow their conversation. ‘This must be your brother. I’d heard he was in the city. Quite the rosbif, isn’t he – rosbif to the damned bone!’ A bushy eyebrow arched. ‘Makes one wonder how you yourself must have been, before Paris sank her teeth into you.’

As Hannah was considering her response, a young woman shoved her way through Rigault’s gang and leaped onto Clem. They collided heavily with the window of the Géricault; she began to kiss him with an abandon that anywhere else would have been thought nakedly indecent, but here was met with claps and whistles. It was Laure Fleurot, dressed in an approximation of National Guard uniform: a kepi, double-breasted tunic and pantaloons, all in dark blue. One of Clem’s hands remained outstretched, the fingers slowly contracting, as if half hoping that someone would seize hold and drag him to safety.

Hannah’s guilt returned. She’d left Clem at Laure’s mercy and this was the result. She’d been quite wrong: of course her feckless brother had been unable to repel such a woman. The cocotte had worked her devices – bound Clem up in grubby silken cord. It felt deliberate, as if he’d been singled out. It felt suspicious.

There was a coldness between Hannah and Laure, growing slowly closer to open enmity. The origins of it were in that portrait, now more than two months old. Laure had come to the rue Garreau to sit, and it had gone well indeed. The cocotte had talked about her time in the ballet schools; how she’d been expelled after one of the masters had seduced her, forcing her to adapt both her style and her expectations to the dancing halls. There’d been no self-pity to this tale. Laure had seemed largely satisfied with her lot. Hannah had respected her resilience and enjoyed her coarse humour – only discovering after she’d gone that fifteen francs had been taken from her drawer, along with several pairs of stockings and an ivory comb. Laure had denied this theft vehemently when they’d met by accident in the Moulin de la Galette a few days later. There had been a brand new hat perched on her head, though, and paste diamonds glinting in her ears.

Hannah caught her breath: Laure Fleurot sent the letter that had summoned her family to Paris. It was obvious. The cocotte was certainly capable of such a step. Numerous morsels of Montmartre gossip attested to her malicious, unforgiving nature. She’d have hired someone to pen the letter itself, naturally; she no doubt pulled tricks like this all the time and would know the best people in the city for such work. The purpose would have been the mortal embarrassment of Hannah – the humbling of one who’d besmirched her name, albeit with complete justification. Upon Clem and Elizabeth’s appearance, Laure had plainly decided to seduce the brother to cement the scheme. What better way to ensure that a gauche English brother would be hanging around Montmartre throughout these critical days, making Hannah look ridiculous? Like most of her kind, the cocotte was also an out-and-out mercenary; she’d be watching for a chance to wring whatever she could from the Pardy family. While investigating Hannah’s past she’d have learned that Elizabeth had once been rich and famous, and had probably assumed that there’d be gold for the taking. In that, at least, she was in for a disappointment.

Hannah resolved to haul Laure off her brother and demand a confession. Before she could act, however, a company of drunken National Guard burst from the Géricault. They hailed Rigault with great enthusiasm, sweeping the agitator and his gang back into the main body of the march. Hannah was carried along with them; there were three bodies between her and Clem, then three dozen. She could see him still, just about – the kiss had finished, but he was utterly upended, protesting his innocence as the cocotte accused him of something, stabbing her forefinger against his chest.

Rigault was eyeing Laure approvingly. ‘Conquered,’ he declared, ‘by a warrior princess. By an angel in uniform.’

Hannah turned away, pulling her canvas jacket tightly around her and buttoning it to the neck. ‘Why is she in uniform? Are the National Guard taking women now?’

‘She’s a vivandière. They’re attached to Guard companies to supply food, wine, bandages … and various other services. Their recruitment is a priority, I understand. Someone of Mademoiselle Laure’s indisputable abilities was not about to go to waste.’

‘You know her well, then?’

Rigault chuckled. ‘Citizen, Laure Fleurot is a celebrated lady in Montparnasse – a celebrated lady indeed. Circumstances may have compelled her to move on, but the mere mention of her name is still enough to make grown men weep with longing.’ He looked around again. ‘I suppose it’s the turn of Montmartre now. Or rather your brother, the lucky dog.’

‘She’s using him,’ Hannah said.

The agitator straightened his necktie. ‘I was once used in that fashion,’ he confided. ‘It was divine.’

From the outset this march was different. The sky had clouded over, bleeding what light and colour was left from the lanes. Beneath the pounding of the marchers’ drums was the dull boom of cannon-fire; no longer confined to the south, it now came from every direction, gathering in both pace and volume. As Hannah left the Buttes Montmartre, moving onto broader, straighter streets, she saw teams of military engineers felling trees to widen the thoroughfares for the passage of heavy guns. She heard the rasp of long saws, along with shouts and sudden cracks; a shudder ran through a mature beech and it toppled over, its globe of golden leaves collapsing as it crashed into the mud.

The people were unbowed, but in place of their usual jubilation and patriotic fervour was an angry unrest. There was just one topic of conversation among them: the crushing defeat dealt to the French forces at Châtillon. Details of the action were sketchy. Hannah heard it said that the French regiments had fired on each other in their panic; that they’d bolted at the first peal of the Prussian artillery, as Raoul Rigault had claimed. All sorts of retributions were being promised, against Prussian and cowardly Frenchman alike.

Hannah had marched more times than she could recall; it was one of the experiences barely known to her before Jean-Jacques that was now among the better parts of her life. She found an intense joy in surrendering herself to the multitude, blurring into an entity that was huge and ancient and unstoppable. That afternoon, however, she was distracted, beset with fears for Clement. Her twin had become doubly ensnared. He was caught in besieged Paris, a city in which he really didn’t belong; and he was caught between the thighs of a deceitful cocotte who sought only to bend him to her wicked ends. She expected them to be at the front of the procession – Laure displaying her prize, inviting him to wave at his sister and show everyone what Hannah Pardy really was. They weren’t there, though; no one she asked had seen them. It was as if they’d been lost, left back on the Buttes. This would surely run against Laure’s plan. It defied understanding.

Jean-Jacques appeared through a screen of banners, about halfway down the rue des Martyrs. They’d missed their rendezvous in Montmartre; the crowds had simply been too dense, too determined in their progress down to the centre. He was in conference with some well-known radicals – ageing veterans of the 1848 uprising, peripatetic speakers from the provinces, the proprietors of red newspapers banned under Louis Napoleon – a ragtag group of extremists and eccentrics over whom he towered in every sense. Noticing Hannah, he made an excuse and came to walk alongside her. They met as comrades but stood very close, his arm brushing gently across her back. There was a new pin in his lapel, enamelled with the number 197 – a battalion number.

‘I have accepted a commission,’ he said. ‘I am a major in the National Guard.’

Hannah looked up at his face – at the scar carved so deeply into his jaw that it had nicked the bone beneath. She found herself imagining what fresh injuries might await him outside the city wall, but buried these thoughts immediately: she would not play the hysterical lover, screaming and begging and tearing at her hair. Jean-Jacques was a soldier and the battle for Paris had begun. He had to fight.

The march cut across the rue Lafayette, merging messily with another coming down from the north-east. They’d reached the boulevard des Italiens – the grandest part of town. The workers’ chants echoed off the massive buildings; their boots rumbled over acres of smooth asphalt. Off to their left was the premises of a picture dealer Hannah had petitioned for several months soon after her arrival in Paris, trying without success to get the man to take on a single small canvas. The once-sumptuous shop now had a barren aspect, its wide window iron-clad and blank. Across the door, in red letters a foot high, someone had daubed the old revolutionary slogan: Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.

Jean-Jacques was up on a bench. ‘The Imperial army may have failed today,’ he proclaimed, ‘but the people have not failed. We will save this luxury and bourgeois wealth from the Prussians. We will save it, my friends, and then we will see it apportioned fairly, for the benefit of all!’ He pointed along the boulevard, in the direction of the place de la Concorde. ‘To the Strasbourg! City of my forefathers – a steadfast people, inspiring us with their resistance! Showing us what can be done – that these Prussians can be held back! To the Strasbourg!’

Those around echoed his call: To the Strasbourg! Their black-clad leader returned to the street, unruffled by his impromptu address; Hannah felt his hand rest briefly on her hip.

‘We should hurry,’ he said.

Ahead of them now, on the western corner of the place de l’Opéra, was the Paris Grand. The hotel looked deserted, a majestic hulk adrift among the crowds. They pushed on past the long row of plate-glass doors, already opaque with grime; and then a voice scythed through the shouts and the singing, calling Hannah’s name with commanding clarity. Elizabeth.

Hannah hadn’t been worried. She’d assumed that her mother would still be somewhere in the outer regions of the city, seeking adventure and noteworthy sights – that the chances of them seeing her were simply too remote to bother about. This had obviously been a mistake. A neat blue-grey hat was moving around a Morris column covered with tattered theatre bills; Elizabeth had been lying in wait outside her hotel and must have seen Jean-Jacques make his pronouncement from the bench. Behind her was a lean, bearded man, smartly dressed, wearing a jet topper and an aloof air. They closed in fast, preventing escape. Elizabeth kissed Hannah’s cheek and shook Jean-Jacques’s hand – appearing to note the feel of his artificial fingers as she did so.

‘Your scheme worked,’ Hannah said, scarcely keeping her temper in check. ‘You are here with us after all.’

Elizabeth gave her a cool smile before addressing Jean-Jacques. ‘Monsieur Allix, I must ask – are the workers marching against the Prussians today, or the men who have set themselves up in the Hôtel de Ville?’

To Hannah’s surprise, Jean-Jacques answered in serviceable English. ‘We wish to beat our enemy, Madame. We wish for revenge. It can be done.’

His accent was strange, a mix of Alsatian and American; Hannah guessed that he must have learned something of the language while fighting for the Union. Elizabeth tried to revert to French – which she clearly spoke better than he did English – but he insisted with a politeness that was faintly confrontational.