The Belly of Paris Page 30

  The women then put their heads together, lowering their voices, and decided that it might be dangerous to attack Beautiful Lisa; they had better keep an eye on the Red so that he didn't eat up any more of poor Monsieur Gavard's money.

  At the mention of Gavard's name, they fell into silence. They all looked at one another cautiously. And since they were breathing heavily, it was the Camembert they smelled. The Camembert had a scent like venison and had won out over less assertive smells such as the Marolles and Limbourgs. It exhaled more extensively, smothering the other smells with its surprising amount of foul breath. Into this powerful assertion, the Parmesan still periodically added a thin high note as from a panpipe while the Bries kept thudding like damp tambourines. Then the Livarot smothered with its reprise and the symphony was held for an instant by the high sharp note of anise-seeded Géromé, suspended like the breathing chord of an organ.

  “I saw Madame Léonce,” continued Mademoiselle Saget with a look fraught with meaning.

  This made the two others pay attention. Madame Léonce was Gavard's concierge on rue de la Cossonnerie. There she lived in an old house that was set back from the street. The ground floor was occupied by a distributor of oranges and lemons who had painted the facade blue, clear up to the second floor. Madame Léonce looked after Gavard's housekeeping, kept the keys to the cupboards, and brought him herbal tea when he had a cold. She was a stern woman, a bit more than fifty years old, who spoke slowly and interminably. One day she was angry because Gavard had pinched her, but that hadn't stopped her from placing leeches on him in a very delicate spot after he hurt himself in a fall.

  Mademoiselle Saget, who had coffee at her home every Wednesday night, had forged an even closer friendship with her when the poulterer moved in. They chatted for hours about the fine man. They were very fond of him and wished him well.

  “Yes, I saw Madame Léonce,” Mademoiselle Saget said again. “We had coffee together yesterday. She was extremely upset. Apparently Monsieur Gavard does not come home before one in the morning anymore. On Sunday she thought he wasn't looking well, so she brought him up some broth.”

  “She knows what she's doing,” said Madame Lecœur, who was bothered by the concierge's attentions.

  “Not at all. You're mistaken. Madame Léonce is too good for her station in life. She's a very proper woman. Obviously, if she had wanted to help herself to Monsieur Gavard's things by the handful, she could have long ago. All she had to do was open her hands. It seems he leaves everything just lying around. That's really what I wanted to talk to you about, but you have to promise not to breathe a word of this. You have to swear to it.”

  They swore to the gods in Heaven that their lips would be sealed. They stretched their necks to get closer. Then Mademoiselle Saget said with great solemnity, “You know, this has been going on with Monsieur Gavard for some time. He has bought a weapon—one of those big pistols that revolves, you know. Madame Léonce said that it's horrible, that the pistol is always on the table or the mantel and she's afraid to do the dusting. And that's not all. His money …”

  “His money,” Madame Lecœur repeated, her cheeks turning bright red.

  “Well, there are no more stocks. They've all been sold. All he has left is a pile of gold in the closet.”

  “A pile of gold!” repeated the enraptured La Sarriette.

  “Yes, a big pile of gold. A whole shelf stuffed with it. It's stunning. Madame Léonce told me that one morning he opened the armoire when she was there, and it glowed so brightly, it hurt her eyes.”

  Silence fell once again. The three woman batted their eyes as though they had just seen the pile of gold. La Sarriette was the first to start laughing as she muttered, “If my uncle gave it all to me, what a time I could have with Jules. We'd never get up. We'd have scrumptious treats brought to us by the restaurant.”

  Madame Lecœur seemed dumbfounded by this revelation, by this gold that she now could not stop picturing. She was gripped by envy. Finally she raised her skinny arms, her dry hands dripping butter from the fingernails, and could only stammer with anguish in her voice, “I cannot think about this. It's too painful.”

  “It would be good for you if there were an accident,” said Mademoiselle Saget. “If I were you, I'd watch out for my interests. You see, nothing good will come of this pistol. Monsieur Gavard is getting very bad advice. This is not going to end well.”

  Then they went back to Florent, ripping him apart with even more fury than before. They calculated where the troubling stories of Florent and Gavard would lead. A long way down, if certain people didn't hold their tongues. Then they resolved to keep their mouths shut, not that this lowlife Florent was worth worrying about but because they had to do what they could to save Monsieur Gavard from trouble. They all stood up and were about to leave when Mademoiselle Saget turned and asked, “But if there were to be an accident, do you think we can trust Madame Léonce? Does she have the key to the wardrobe?”

  “Now you're going too far,” said the old woman. “She's a very fine woman, but of course, I don't know, under the right circumstances. In any case, I've warned you both. It's up to you.”

  They stood there saying their farewells in the last bouquet of the cheeses. At this time of day, all the cheeses exhaled together in a cacophony of bad breath, from the heavy softness of the cooked preparations to the Gruyère and the Dutch cheese to the sharp, alkaline Olivet. The Cantal, Chester, and chèvres sang their muffled bass against the high pitched trills of the Neufchâtels, Troyes, and Mont d'Ors. Then the odors ran wild, collided with one another, the Port Salut, Limbourg, Géromé, Marolles, Livarot, Pont l'Evêques, merging and broadening into an explosion of smells. It rose and spread, no longer a collection of individual odors but a nauseating blend, a fierce and suffocating force. For an instant it seemed that it was the venomous words of Madame Lecœur and Mademoiselle Saget fouling the air.

  “Thank you very much,” said the butter merchant. “I'll remember you if I ever get rich.”

  But Mademoiselle Saget did not leave. She picked up a bondon, turned it over, and put it back on the marble counter. Then she asked the price.

  “For me,” she added, smiling.

  “For you, nothing,” said Madame Lecœur. “It's a gift.” And then she said again, “Oh, if I were only rich.”

  Mademoiselle Saget told her that someday she would be. The bondon had already vanished into her bag. The butter woman went back down to her cellar, while the old woman accompanied La Sarriette back to her stand. Surrounded by fruit with the fresh smell of spring, they stopped for a moment to talk about Monsieur Jules.

  “It smells a lot better over here than at your aunt's,” said the old woman. “I was starting to feel queasy. How can she live with it? At least here it's sweet and pleasant. It makes you look all pink and healthy, my dear.”

  La Sarriette began to laugh. She loved getting compliments. Then she sold a pound of mirabelles to a woman, telling her they tasted like candy.

  “I'd like to buy some mirabelles,” Mademoiselle Saget murmured after the other woman left. “But I can only use a few, you know, living alone …”

  “Then grab a handful!” exclaimed the pretty brunette. “That's not going to ruin me. Send Jules over here, will you, if you see him? He should be smoking his cigar on the first bench to the right, off the main road.”

  Mademoiselle Saget stretched her fingers wide to take a handful of mirabelles that joined the bondon in her bag. She pretended that she was trying to leave Les Halles, but she detoured through one of the covered streets, walking slowly and thinking what a meager meal mirabelles and bondon would be. Usually if she failed to fill her bag to the top while plying shopkeepers with gossip, she was reduced to eating leftovers. She slipped back to the butter market. There, near rue Berger and behind the offices of the oyster merchants, were the cooked-meat stalls. Every morning small covered wagons looking like boxes, zinc-lined and vented, stopped at the doors of large kitchens and gathered a jumble of left
overs from embassies, ministries, and restaurants. Then it was sorted out in a basement. At about nine in the morning platters were put on display, prettily garnished and trimmed and selling for three to five sous each. There were bits of meat, trimmings of game, heads and tails of fish, charcuterie right through to dessert, hardly touched pieces of cake, and other almost whole candies. The starving, part-time workers and women shivering with fever would line up. Sometimes the street children would harass them, calling out to these pale, elderly people, who nervously glanced around, hoping that no one would see them there.

  Mademoiselle Saget crept over to a stand that claimed its leftovers came exclusively from the Tuileries. One day the woman had talked her into a slice of lamb, claiming that it came straight from the plate of the emperor himself. This slice of leg of lamb, eaten with considerable pride, still appealed to the old woman's vanity. She tried to stay hidden so she could reenter the market to further browse without ever buying anything. Her approach was to get into a fight with one merchant and go to the next to calm down, working the district so that she managed to go to every stall and shop. She acted as though she were a big spender, but in fact she never bought anything, hoping to cajole vendors into little gifts; if that failed completely, she would actually spend money, but only on table scraps.

  On this particular evening only one tall elderly man was at the stall selling leftovers. He was examining a plate of mixed fish and meat. But Mademoiselle Saget was more interested in a plate of cold fried food. She bargained the saleswoman down to two sous and the fried food, too, disappeared into the bag. Then other people arrived and bent down to examine the food. It had a nauseating smell of greasy sinks left over from washing.

  “Come back tomorrow,” the woman said to Mademoiselle Saget. “I'll put aside something nice for you. There's a big dinner at the Tuileries tonight.”

  Mademoiselle Saget promised to come, and then, as she turned around, she saw Gavard, who had been listening and watching her. She turned bright red, hunched her thin shoulders, and left without showing that she had seen him. He followed her for an instant, then shrugged it off, muttering that the nastiness of that old magpie no longer surprised him and he was not in the least amazed to see that she ate that poisonous garbage they belched up from the Tuileries.

  The next day a rumor was circulating in Les Halles. Madame Lecœur and La Sarriette were supposedly honoring their vows to be discreet. But Mademoiselle Saget had been outstandingly sly this time, holding her tongue and letting the other two spread the story about Florent. At first it was a shortened version, just a few simple phrases that were whispered. Then a variety of versions began to spread, each one a little longer. The legend grew, and Florent appeared in the role of the bogeyman. He had killed ten gendarmes at the barricade on rue Grenéta. He had returned home on a private ship and had slaughtered every living soul on the high seas. Ever since his return to Paris he had been seen roaming the streets at night with suspicious-looking men who clearly followed his orders.

  From that point, the imaginations of the people of Les Halles had wings, and an array of the most fantastic things was fantasized—a band of smugglers in the heart of Paris and an organized crime ring that ran all the thefts in Les Halles. The Quenu-Gradelles were pitied when people enviously referred to their inheritance. It was especially the inheritance that fascinated them. It was generally stated that Florent had returned to claim his share of the treasure. But since it was problematic to explain why this had not happened, it was assumed that he was waiting for his opportunity to abscond with the whole thing. Surely, one day the Quenu-Gradelles would be found slaughtered. It was reported that already there were horrible fights every evening between Beautiful Lisa and the two brothers.

  When these tales reached the Beautiful Norman, she shrugged and laughed. “That's silly,” she said. “You don't know him. The dear man is as gentle as a lamb.”

  She had just harshly spurned the hand of Monsieur Lebigre, who had finally managed to propose. For about two months he had been presenting the Méhudins with a bottle of liquor every Sunday. It was Rose who brought the bottle over along with her submissive look. She was always entrusted with a compliment for the Norman, some profession of friendship that she faithfully recited without appearing in the least bit embarrassed by this strange errand.

  Now that Monsieur Lebigre was a rejected suitor, he was eager to show that he was not angry and still held out hope, so the following Sunday he sent Rose with two bottles of champagne and a gigantic bouquet of flowers. Rose dutifully presented it to the beautiful fishmonger, reciting in one breath this composition from the wine merchant:

  “Monsieur Lebigre invites you to drink this to his health, which has been much shaken by you-know-what. He hopes that someday you will cure him, for to him you remain as beautiful and wonderful as these flowers.”

  The Norman was amused by the servant's enraptured expression. She kissed her and talked to her about her monsieur, who, it was said, was very hard to please. She asked her if she liked him, whether he wore suspenders, and if he snored at night. Then she insisted that she take back the champagne and the flowers. “Tell Monsieur Lebigre not to send anything more. You're too nice, my dear. It annoys me to see you so sweet with your bottles under your arms. You ought to scratch his face, your monsieur.”

  “Oh, no! He's waiting for me,” was Rose's answer. “You're wrong to make him suffer. He's a fine, handsome man.”

  The Norman was seduced by Florent's gentle nature. She still sat in on his lessons with Muche under the evening lamp, dreaming that one day she would marry this fellow who was so good with children. She would keep working her fish stall and he would become an important figure in the administration of Les Halles. But this dream was obstructed by the respect with which the teacher treated her. He greeted her with a bow, keeping his distance, when what she wanted was to laugh with him and love the way she knew to love. His silent resistance was the reason she constantly played with the idea of marriage. She imagined how she would enjoy the self-esteem it would give her. Florent, however, was ever more aloof. Perhaps he would have given in to his passions had he not been so attached to little Muche. But in addition, the idea of being involved with someone in that house, so close to the mother and the sister, was not appealing.

  It was with great surprise that the Norman heard the stories about the man she loved. Never had he uttered a word about such things. She prodded him about it. These incredible adventures added yet another spice to her affection. So he spent whole evenings allowing stories to be coaxed out of him about the things that had happened. She shivered at the thought that the police might find him, but he reassured her, saying that it was ancient history and of little interest to the police anymore.

  One evening he told her about the woman in boulevard Montmartre, the one in the pink bonnet who had bled onto his hands from a wound in her breast. He still thought of her often. His bereaved memory had regularly surfaced on moonlit nights in Guiana. The memory had returned with him to France, and he had crazily half expected to see her walking down the sidewalk in bright sunlight despite the fact that he could still remember the feel of her dead weight on his legs. But suppose she had managed to get up? Often, walking down the street, he felt a jab in his heart, thinking he had just seen her. With his heart pounding, he would follow a pink bonnet and a shawl over one shoulder. When he closed his eyes, he could see her walking toward him. She would let the shawl slip down to show the two red stains on her bodice, and he could see her pale, waxy face with empty eyes and her mouth twisted with pain. For a long time he felt grief in not even knowing her name and having only her shadow. When the idea of her crossed his mind, it was as the one good and pure person he had encountered. Innumerable times he had found himself dreaming that she was searching for him on the boulevard where she had lain; that she could have given him a whole lifetime of happiness had he only found her a few seconds sooner. He wanted no other woman. No other woman even existed for him. There was such
a tremble in his voice when he spoke of her that the Norman, with the instincts of a woman in love, was jealous.

  “Well,” said the Norman mischievously, “it's better that you don't see her again. She can't be very pretty these days.”

  The blood went out of Florent's face, horrified by the image the Norman had evoked. His memory of love decayed into nothing. He did not forgive her this viciousness, which from that moment filled the lovely silk bonnet with the jutting jaw and gaping eyes of a skull. When the Norman joked with him about “the woman he had lain with on the corner of rue Vivienne,” he became hostile and his language became coarse.

  But what really struck the Beautiful Norman from all the revelations was that she was completely mistaken in thinking she was stealing Beautiful Lisa's lover. This so deflated her sense of triumph that for a full eight days she loved Florent less. She did find some measure of consolation in the story about the inheritance. No longer was Beautiful Lisa a perfect prude. She was a thief who had kept her brother-in-law's inheritance and put a hypocritical face on it to fool everyone. Now, every night, while Muche was copying his handwriting samples, the conversation turned to old Gradelle's fortune.

  “That was a funny idea the old man had,” said the fishmonger, bursting into laughter. “I guess he wanted to ‘salt away his money’ putting it in the salting tub … Eighty-five thousand francs, that's a lot of money, especially when you take into account that Quenu probably lied. There was probably twice that much. Three times! If it were me, I would insist on my share, now!”

  “I don't need anything,” was always Florent's answer. “I wouldn't even know what to do with it.”

  That angered her. “Are you a man? It's pathetic. Don't you see that the Quenus are laughing at you? That fatso hands you down old linens and her husband's worn-out clothes. I'm not trying to make you mad, but the fact is, everyone notices. Those pants you are wearing are thick with grease, and the whole neighborhood has seen them on your brother's rear for the past three years. If I were in your place, I'd throw their rags in their faces and settle accounts. It's forty-two thousand five hundred francs, isn't it? I wouldn't leave without my forty-two thousand five hundred francs.”