‘My poor boy, you’re all out of breath! Did the brigands chase you? I told you, didn’t I, Monsieur Legris, they’re nothing but a pack of wild animals! Look at the poor lad! He’s dripping with sweat!’
‘Maman!’
‘Calm down, Madame Pignot, he’s not going to dissolve in a puddle,’ retorted Victor, prising his clerk from his mother’s grasp.
‘B-boss, it … it’s terrible! Monsieur Andrésy … The bookbinder … He’s dead! Burnt alive!’
‘Oh, God help us, those monsters are setting fire to people now!’ howled Madame Ballu.
Victor tried to usher Joseph to the back of the shop, but the three excited women blocked their way.
‘Let the boy speak!’ thundered Victor.
‘Some say it was the students, some the anarchists, others think it was an accident, but for the moment they’re groping in the dark, clueless, flummoxed,’ exclaimed Joseph, who had recovered the use of his tongue.
‘Flummoxed?’ asked Helga Becker.
‘In the schwarz,’ barked Victor.
‘There was a fire, a huge fire. The place was burnt to the ground!’ concluded Joseph.
‘I’ll go there straight away. You stay and look after the shop, and not a word to Monsieur Mori about this,’ warned Victor, pulling on his jacket and reaching for his hat and cane.
‘What shall I do if Mademoiselle Iris asks where you’ve gone?’ murmured Euphrosine, glancing at Joseph.
‘Remain as quiet as the doe in the hunter’s sights,’ Victor commanded, with an inward nod of approval to Alphonse de Lamartine for this fitting aphorism.
Madame Pignot wrinkled her mouth, flattered by the comparison. Joseph stood motionless, his gaze fixed on the beautiful half-Asian young woman in a red and white striped chiffon dress and silk ruff fastened with a black ribbon.
‘What are you worried that I might ask, Madame Pignot?’ enquired Iris, her eyes sparkling.
As he was trying to hail a cab, Victor recalled the strange creature who had caused such a sensation at the Folies-Bergère the previous winter. That will-o’-the-wisp in gossamer veils, flapping like a butterfly in the projectors’ coloured beams, reminded him of his own life. His routine was occasionally interrupted by complex choreographies à la Loïe Fuller;22 he cavorted with the unknown, tussled with danger, only to fall back, exhausted, into the clutches of an ennui that had been the bane of his life. Only Tasha had the power to draw him out of these depressions and give his life meaning.
The traffic was inching forward. There wasn’t a cab in sight. He decided to walk. Having finally left the hubbub on Boulevard Saint-Germain, he reached Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, where he came across a sign:
ROAD CLOSED
He walked round it and arrived at what had once been the bookbinder’s shop. The firemen’s hoses had transformed the charred rubble into a boggy mess. A crack, like a grinning mouth, had spread across the wall of the adjoining building. The remains of books and half-burnt pages lay strewn across the pavement where somebody had left a pile of chairs and a trunk.
‘Any victims?’ he asked a policeman on watch.
‘Fortunately, the men at the storehouse were having lunch at Fulbert’s when the fire broke out!’
‘What about the bookbinder?’
‘He wasn’t so lucky – burnt alive.’
‘He was a friend of mine.’
‘According to the firemen what’s left of him is not a pretty sight.’
Victor shuddered inwardly; burning your finger with a match was bad enough … imagine the agony of being consumed by fire! He could only hope that Pierre Andrésy had been overcome by fumes first.
‘Does anybody know how it started?’
‘The firemen think a gas lamp probably blew out, and the poor wretch lit a pipe or a cigarette and boom! The inspector and the coroner will accompany the body to the morgue, but with all the to-do in the neighbourhood it’ll take time.’
‘I assume there’ll be an investigation?’
‘We’re expecting the detectives to arrive at any moment.’
While they were talking, Victor surreptitiously stepped over the rope cordoning off the area around the shop. The policeman held him back by his sleeve.
‘You can’t go in there, Monsieur. You might destroy vital evidence.’
‘I’m terribly upset. I just wanted to make sure that …’
‘Give me your card and if we salvage any of his personal effects we’ll let you know.’
Victor walked away slowly. Pierre Andrésy’s death had set him thinking about his own existence, which he had been deliberately avoiding. More than half his life had gone by and what had he done with it? The hours spent hunting for rare books, trawling through catalogues, outbidding other dealers at auctions appeared as meaningless to him as his numerous conquests of women – pleasurable interludes that only satisfied a sexual need. By the time he reached Rue des Saints-Pères, he had come to the conclusion that his love for Tasha was what compelled him to engage in battle with this chaos of cruelty, greed and beauty.
Man believes he is able to commune with the divine powers by building places of worship, he thought. Can he not achieve that communion by considering a blade of grass or a bird on the wing, by marvelling at a work of art, or listening to the wind or contemplating the stars at night …
Upon entering the bookshop, Victor was horrified to discover that the three Fates had been replaced by two of the battle-axes. Blanche de Cambrésis, her sharp chin wagging in the direction of the Maltese lapdog Raphaëlle de Gouveline was clasping to her bosom, was as oblivious to his entrance as she was to her companion greeting him with a nod. She was too busy venting her virulent opinions.
‘These excesses are an utter disgrace! The authorities must show these degenerate students no mercy. My husband is quite right. Our Catholic youth is being manipulated by hidden forces that threaten to destroy the very fabric of society. The flood of immigrants from the East is encouraging the spread of socialism! What is this country coming to! … What is it, dear? Do you have a crick in your neck?’
Raphaëlle de Gouveline cleared her throat. The lapdog yapped, and she set it down on the floor next to a schipperke, which growled and bared its teeth.
‘Come now, Blanche dear, you’re letting yourself be influenced by a lot of nonsense. Christian charity teaches us to be tolerant, isn’t that so, Monsieur Legris? What a naughty man you are keeping us waiting like this!’
Blanche de Cambrésis quickly changed the subject when she saw Victor.
‘Did you know that divorce is on the increase worldwide? In Japan one in every three marriages ends in it. Good afternoon, Monsieur Legris. I’m back. This time I’m looking for The Blue Ibis by Jean Aicard.’
Victor doffed his hat, taking care to hide his displeasure: he found Blanche de Cambrésis’s aggressive voice as insufferable as her diatribes.
‘Good afternoon, ladies. Joseph will take care of you.’
‘I’m still waiting for him to come back from the stockroom. A charming reception, I’m sure!’
Victor curbed his irritation.
‘I shall return in five minutes. I must speak to Monsieur Mori.’
He left them, and hurried upstairs to the first floor.
Blanche