Le Temps des Cerises (43 page)

‘Make it quick,' he pleaded with the last of his voice, still holding onto the iceman's rapidly cooling wrist; and the captain ever so softly obliged.

Chapter thirty-five

The Versailles army was making good progress, taking one barricade after another on the squares, boulevards, railway lines and bridges – just as Laurie had predicted. Sometimes they met with little resistance, the defendants firing a few shots then fleeing, dumping their guns and uniforms until the street resembled an arms depot. Other times the resistance was fierce, bloody, terrifying, confirming every Versailles soldier's worst fear that Parisians really were made up of half tiger, half monkey. In the red districts, particularly, defence was known to be savage and it was here the Versaillais sent their sharp shooters ahead to foil traps, winkle out rogue and maverick targets and provide a decoy if necessary. A sharp shooter by definition was a man whose eye was ninety per cent accurate one hundred per cent of the time or vice versa.

André Provost was just such a man. Having spent the last few months in a prisoner of war camp, he was itching to get his feet wet again; and he moved with a suppressed energy up the street. The prelude of shots had been fired – beating the bush it was called, to make the birds fly – and now he, André Provost, was ready. His wing man, Lapin, was keeping parallel, almost dancing up the other side of the Rue Ramponneau, so pleased was he to be back in the action at last. They'd met in the prisoner of war camp, become firm friends, swapping bootleg Belgian cigars, cadging dumb-bells and newspapers off the Prussian bear of a guard they'd nicknamed Hortense; and hotly debating what was going on in France, especially Paris, in their absence. That was how it had felt – everything going on in their absence. But now they were back on the scene again, ready to can-can. The only difference between them was that Lapin was keen to earn some stripes, if not the
légion d'honneur
, whereas he was happy simply to do his duty by God and by his country.

It was how he had been brought up – to do his duty by God and by his country. In the village he came from you grew up, found work (in the fields, the church or the army), married your childhood sweetheart, had a tribe of children, did your neighbour a good turn when you could, put aside for a rainy day… you were rooted, you belonged. You knew where you came from and where you were going – the baptismal font at St Alders and the line of Provosts under the shady chestnut trees in the churchyard had forever told him that. It wasn't a bad life if you didn't think too much about it. But in Paris it was different. Nobody knew each other, nobody spoke to their neighbour let alone did them a good turn. People worked all hours in factories then drunk their wages or debauched them! Women whored themselves mercilessly, until they were half dead from it. There was no religion, only opinions
. Morally gangrenous
, the papers had said.
Paris is the moral gangrene of France and needs to be cut off!
Even their accents offended him – clipped and emphatic sounding as if they were too busy, in a hurry and you didn't matter.

That was the worst of it. They acted as if the rest of France didn't matter. They acted as if they had sole rights to the city. They could dismantle it, exploit it, set it alight if they felt like it! Set history and tradition alight with a box of matches and bugger the rest of France! Bugger the anguish and glories of France. He wondered if all capitals were the same. Did Londoners ignore the rest of the country, poke fun and make jokes about the Irishmen, the Welshmen, rip up the lions in Trafalgar Square just for the hell of it?

Lapin was mucking about on the other side of the street, mouthing Hortense at him and he gave him the thumbs down to shut him up. After the first volley of shots it was hard to see and they needed to keep their wits about them. All it needed was a maverick target and a well-aimed firebomb and they would be set back by several lines of men, possibly a cannon, not to mention a limb of his own! The barricade was relatively formidable looking and he'd ducked a couple of singing balls already.

‘Shut up!' he called across with a smile, ‘and let the birds fly, you arse-hole!'

Even now he didn't really understand the revolution, didn't understand why the people of Paris had revolted. It seemed to him they had revolted simply because they'd been able to, like a pack of dogs who'd got out and, not knowing what to do with their freedom, had turned on each other, biting and snarling. Freedom rather than liberating them had sent them mad. One member of the revolutionary party, the papers related, had had himself photographed blowing his brains out, or at least pretending to! What sort of an idiot did that? If that was the kind of man running the show it explained a lot, in Provost's opinion. In fact it explained everything – the fires, the murders of two generals, the destruction of a famous war memorial… It was the fires incensed him most, he decided, gazing at the glowing horizon. How many times had he promised his brothers and sisters a trip to the city to see the sights and now it was all a roaring furnace, just dust and ashes.

He scanned the tops of the buildings, his body tense. The chimney stacks were the worst and the mattresses stuffed in the windows. He hated being fired down upon – the enemy had the advantage of the sun behind them whereas you were half blinded, squinting up into it. Sometimes their weapons flashed, giving them away, or bits of moss fell from the tiles but more often than not you had to wait patiently until they panicked and flew. Provost flattened himself as best he could against the sides of the buildings that lined the Rue Ramponneau, just as he'd done as a boy playing hide and seek in fields of corn. The sweat dripped down his neck – for even the sun was hostile here – but he dare not bring out a handkerchief yet.

‘HORTENSE!' yelled Lapin and this time he wasn't mucking around – he'd spotted a flying bird and was warning his friend accordingly. Provost threw himself to the ground, keeping his rifle at shoulder height by rolling over onto his elbows, just as he'd been trained, his eyes peeled for the maverick target. He could see nothing for a moment and then there it was, a figure weaving in and out of the smoke. A civilian by the look of it, possibly a woman. She was holding something in her arms, clasping it tightly to her chest. With the flames and the smoke behind her she could have been a soul spewed from the mouth of hell. One or two warning shots came from the barricade, a few desperate shouts but the woman came on regardless. Lapin was hopping up and down on the other side of the street, practically doing the can-can, so eager was he to bring the target down; but Provost stayed him awhile with a wave of the hand. They had to ascertain her status first. You didn't get the
légion d'honneur
by bringing down a woman unless she was armed and dangerous.

This one was certainly crazy – running back and forth, spinning in circles, disorientated presumably by the smoke and the noise. Provost, keeping her in his sights, was glad of the dumb-bells he'd cadged off the Prussian guard – he could hold the position for as long as it took her to make her mind up. He hoped she'd go back, for her own sake and everybody else's. He feared she was a
pétroleuse
– one of the women they'd been warned about. Tales of the
pétroleuses
had made his hair stand on end! Half man, half monster, they had an array of tricks up their sleeves apparently from boiling kettles and deadly knitting needles to firebombs and acid tea flasks. One of their commoner ploys was to beguile the enemy by flashing their wares at him, thereby creating havoc on the battlefield. Many of them were willing to martyr themselves for the cause.

She suddenly seemed to get her bearings and Provost watched in dismay as the woman looked about her then came on with, if anything, increased urgency, still holding onto the bundle as if her life depended on it. As she came closer he could see her face quite clearly – deadly pale, her eyes huge and dark ringed from nights of debauchery, he supposed. With her tight helmet of short red curls she could have been an engraving of Joan of Arc, without the nobility of course. She was ludicrously got up in a tight bodice and short skirt (mutton dressed as lamb his mother would have called her for she must have been thirty at least); and his guts sudden­ly churned with anger and disgust. This was no Joan of Arc! This was the moral gangrene of Paris incarnate! The moral gangrene of Paris in the flesh! Green to the very soul she was bearing down upon him with her odd, steely determined gait and nothing-to-lose eyes, ready to spill her wares all over the place. Well, he wasn't buying today and nor was Lapin. His wing man was poised but still hopping, ready to clip her wings at any moment and he gave him the nod. There was no time to analyse, no time to think. The definition of sharp shooting was to think long enough to be able to react... hopefully the right way. Better to be too early with the wrong decision than too late with the right one. If they didn't take care of her now they could lose a few good men who, thinking the coast was clear, were bringing up the rear to pulverise the barricade. Not to mention a limb of his own. He took one last look in the deadly pale face, the dark and debauched eyes, black with determination and nothing to lose. She was on a suicide mission for sure. He touched the religious amulet on his arm and, praying he was doing his duty by God and by his count­ry, fired immediately, at the same time Lapin did, both of the men careful to avoid the bottle of nitroglycerine in her arms, both of their fir­ing eyes ninety per cent accurate one hundred per cent of the time; and the woman fell, still clutching onto the firebomb as if her life depended on it.

Chapter thirty-six

Laurie felt his mind slipping away bit by bit and he was almost glad to be rid of it. He lay in a small pool of blood, writing a letter to his mother in his head. He couldn't remember the beginning or the middle, only the ending, but it didn't seem to matter. Once he knew the ending he would know how to begin. It was the same with his poems – the endings were always a new beginning for him.

In his imagination he sat at his desk, a zephyr breeze billowing through the porthole window – zephyr simply because he liked the word, reminiscent it seemed to him, of warm, exotic, welcoming places. With the gentlest of sighs he dipped his pen in the ink, cast the first stroke against the clean white page, swooping and gliding like a bird trying the air, trying its wings for the very first time. Everything was in its rightful place, he realised with a profound sense of peace. Everything was as it should be: the cuckoo clock popping out its yellow beak to chime the hour; the books (books about love, courage, duty, friendship – everything a human life was made up of) very properly stacked upon the shelf; the cobweb in the corner, billowing a little in the zephyr breeze and as big as the sail of a ship but he liked that somehow, ships being reminiscent it seemed to him, of journeys ending, journeys begun; and the gilt-edged mirror reflecting nothing (his real self having been and gone already) but its own frame shining out like a galaxy of stars. Stars to guide him home by.

He wrote decisively and very, very proudly for the very last time yet strangely too the very first:

Your son, Laurie.

Swooping and gliding across the clean white page like a bird claiming the air, proclaiming its wings.

Chapter thirty-seven

Eveline saw the woman fall and her heart flew into her mouth. Alphonse had fired a warning shot but she had carried on regardless, careering blindly into the line of fire. She lay now in the dirt and the rubble of the road, still holding on to her precious bundle. They waited for the explosion but none came and after a moment Alphonse bade them reload.

‘I thought she was a
pétroleuse
,' he commented, voicing everyone's thoughts; and Eveline's eyes smarted with tears and the earth that had blown up from the top of the barricade. It was all she could do to hold her rifle, take aim, fire, reload; and her breath came in great tearing pants as if she'd run a hundred miles or so. She felt embarrassed by her lack of strength, her trembling arms and hands all fingers and thumbs. This was nothing like the Rue de Turbigo! The woman who'd lost her sons to Prussia was crouching calm and dignified by the lazy Susan, her red face stern and unyielding, her calf muscles tougher than Eveline's; and the man who'd prayed incessantly while they waited was shouting now, mocking and derisive.

‘Have pity on their tears oh lord!' he cried as his gun jerked into action. ‘Refuse not to admit them to the mystery of the reconciliation!'

The air was thick with smoke and Eveline was glad she couldn't see the men with the tricolour flag, the faces of the men she was firing into. They looked like the wooden soldiers her father had made for Jacques, all of them with their hats pulled over their eyes as if they couldn't bear to look, all of them black moustached and gold buttoned. Jacques had thrown conkers at them and they had fallen with a plonk on the living-room floor, rolling a little to the right or the left. These ones, however, moved and fired back, had a terrible knack of gaining ground, creeping forward inch by inch. It wouldn't be long, Eveline thought, before she saw their faces clear as day, knew them as intimately as her own. She ducked down, gripped the rifle between her knees, bent the barrel back with both hands and fumbled in her cartridge belt. Her knees were already sore from gripping the rifle, her hands gashed and bloodied from loading the barrel. Alphonse had helped her once or twice but she dreaded being a burden. Not now. Not at the end like this. She glanced up at him, standing on his makeshift platform of empty wine crates, ignoring the loopholes and gaps in the barricade; and her heart pounded with fear and love for him.