The Belly of Paris Read online

  The wooden frame was filling up, and they could hear the blood dropping into the zinc tray below. Then Claude by chance looked at Florent and saw how pale he had turned. He hurried him out and made him sit on the top step by the street.

  “Look at you,” Claude said, clapping his hands. “There you go, fainting like a woman.”

  “It's the smell of the cellar,” said Florent, feeling a little ashamed.

  The pigeons, force fed seeds and then saltwater and then slashed in the throat, reminded him of the pigeons of the Tuileries strutting in their satin gowns over the grass, yellow with sunlight. He pictured them cooing on the marble arm of the ancient wrestler amid the great silence of the garden, while under the dark shadows of chestnut trees a little girl played with a hoop. It was then that his bones iced over, when he saw that huge blond animal conducting his massacre, stunning with the handle and stabbing with the blade in the depths of the fetid cellar. Then he felt himself falling, his legs buckling and his eyelids fluttering.

  “What the hell!” Claude said when Florent came to. “You wouldn't make much of a soldier. I have to say, whoever sent you to Guiana must have been some character to imagine you were dangerous. If you ever got involved in an uprising, my old friend, you wouldn't dare to fire your pistol, you'd be too afraid you might kill someone.”

  Florent got up without answering. He had become very somber, and there were worry lines across his face. He walked away, leaving Claude to go back down into the cellar. On his way back to the fish market he once more went over his plan of attack and the armed groups that would invade the Palais Bourbon. In the Champs-Elysées the cannon would roar, the gates would be smashed down; there would be blood on the steps and skulls smashed against the columns. A fleeting image of the battle passed through his mind. He saw himself in the thick of it, pale, unable to look, his face hidden in his hands.

  Crossing rue du Pont-Neuf, he thought he saw the pale face of Auguste at the corner of the fruit market, walking along, his neck outstretched. He seemed to be looking for someone, his eyes round with some extraordinary imbecilic emotion. Suddenly, he disappeared, running back toward the charcuterie.

  “What was that about?” Florent wondered. “Did I scare him?”

  That morning there had been serious events at the Quenu-Gradelles'. At sunrise Auguste had run to his mistress in great excitement with the news that the police had come to arrest Florent. Then, stammering even more, he gave a muddled account of how Florent had already left, no doubt to escape arrest. Beautiful Lisa, uncorseted and in her camisole, unfazed, hurried upstairs to her brother-in-law's room, where she took the photo of the Norman after a quick look around to make sure there was nothing to implicate any of them. On her way down, she ran into the police on the second floor. The police inspector asked her to go with them. They spoke in hushed voices for a few moments, and he and his men went into the bedroom, advising her to open the shop as on a normal day, so that no one would suspect anything. The trap was set.

  The only thing worrying Lisa in this entire episode was the blow it would be to poor Quenu. That was partly because she feared he would burst into tears as soon as he found out that the police were there. Because of this she made Auguste promise not to say a word about it. Then she went back upstairs to put on her corset and to make up some story for her husband to explain the commotion. A half hour later she was standing at the doorway of the charcuterie, coiffed and corseted, her face pink and smooth. Auguste was calmly working on the window display. Quenu appeared outside for a minute, yawning and trying to wake up in the fresh morning air. There was nothing to give away the drama that was about to unfold upstairs.

  But the police inspector himself had tipped off the entire neighborhood when he had visited the Méhudin household on rue Pirouette. He had remarkably detailed notes. In the anonymous letters sent to the prefecture, it had been established that Florent frequently slept with the Beautiful Norman. Could he be hiding there? The commandant, accompanied by two policemen, went over and pounded on the door in the name of the law. The Méhudins had barely gotten up. The old woman opened the door, at first in a rage and then more calm, even snickering when she understood the situation. Pulling up her clothes, she sat down and told her visitors, “We are respectable people with nothing to fear. You can search the house.”

  Since the Norman was slow to open her door, the inspector had it knocked down. She was dressing. Her upper body was bare, her splendid shoulders showing, an undergarment clasped in her teeth. This violent, unexplained entrance infuriated her. She dropped the garment and was about to attack the men in her shift, reddened by anger and not embarrassment. The inspector, faced with this large, naked woman, stepped forward to protect his men, repeating in an icy voice, “In the name of the law! In the name of the law!”

  Then she fell into a chair, sobbing, overtaken by emotion at feeling so helpless and not understanding what was expected of her. Her hair had come undone, her shift did not even come down to her knees, and the policemen were casting sideways glances for a better view. The inspector tossed her a shawl that he found hanging on the wall. She didn't use it. She started crying even harder, watching the police roughly searching her bed, smacking the pillows, running their hands down the sheets.

  “What have I done?” she finally stuttered. “What are you looking for in my bed?”

  The inspector said the name “Florent,” and since the old woman had remained in the doorway of the room, the Norman shouted, “It's her doing, the old battle-ax!” and tried to lunge across the room at her mother.

  She would have pummeled her. But she was restrained and forcibly wrapped in her shawl. She struggled and managed to get out in a strangled voice, “What do you think I am? This Florent has never been in my room, do you understand? There's nothing between us. They're trying to smear my name in the neighborhood. But let just one of them come here and say it to my face. Then you'll see. Then you can send me to prison, I don't care. And Florent? I can do better than him. I can marry anyone I want and drive whatever woman sent you here crazy.”

  She was calmed by her torrent of words. Then her wrath turned to Florent for causing all this. She turned to the inspector and justified herself. “I didn't know, Monsieur. He looked so gentle, he fooled us. I didn't want to listen to the gossip—they're all so malicious. He came to give the child lessons, and then he left. Sometimes I fed him, and often I gave him a good fish as a gift. That's all. But that's the last time I'll let myself be used for my kindness.”

  “But surely he gave you some papers to keep for him?” the inspector asked.

  “No, I swear he didn't. I wouldn't care. I'd give you the papers. I've had it, you know? I don't enjoy watching you search through my things. Enough, it's pointless.”

  The police, who had examined every piece of furniture in the room, now wanted to go to the little nook where Muche slept. For a few minutes now, the child, awakened by the commotion, had been crying, no doubt thinking that someone had come to slit his throat.

  “This is my child's room,” said the Norman, opening the door.

  Muche, completely naked, ran up and threw his arms around her neck. She calmed him down and put him in her own bed. The police came out of his room very quickly. The inspector had just decided to leave when the child, still crying, whispered in his mother's ear. “They're going to take my exercise books! Don't let them have my exercise books!”

  “Ah, that's right! There are the notebooks. Wait, I'll give them to you, just to show you I have nothing to hide. Look, his writing is in here. You can hang him for all I care, and it won't be me who cuts him down.”

  She handed over Muche's notebooks with the writing samples. But the child got up from the bed in a rage, biting and scratching his mother, who shoved him down with a smack. He began to scream. At the doorway, Mademoiselle Saget was stretching her neck. She had come in, finding all the doors open, and asked Mère Méhudin if she could be of some help. She watched and listened and felt bad for these women
without defenders. Meanwhile, the inspector was reading the handwriting specimens with great seriousness. Words such as “tyrannically” and “liberticide” and “anti-constitutional” and “revolutionary” made him frown. Then he read the sentence “When the hour strikes, the guilty shall fall.” He tapped the page and said, “This is serious, very serious.”

  He gave the exercise books to one of his men, and then he was gone. Claire, who up to this point had not appeared, opened the door and watched the men leave. Then she entered into her sister's room for the first time in a year. Mademoiselle Saget seemed to be very friendly with the Norman; she was fussing over her, pulling the ends of the shawl to make sure she was well covered, and letting her discharge her anger with great sympathy.

  “You're a complete coward,” Claire said, facing her.

  The Norman rose to her feet, furious, and let the shawl slip off.

  “You lying snitch!” she shouted. “Say that again!”

  “You're a complete coward,” the young woman repeated in an even more sneering tone.

  Then the Norman swung her arm all the way from behind and smacked Claire in the face so hard that she turned horribly pale as the Norman jumped on her and dug her fingernails into her neck. They wrestled a moment, pulling each other's hair, trying to strangle each other. The younger sister, frail as she was, violently pushed the older one with such superhuman strength that they both crashed into the wardrobe, shattering the mirror. Muche was sobbing, and the mother was shouting for Mademoiselle Saget to help separate them. But Claire pulled herself away, saying, “Coward, coward. I'm going to warn that poor man that you have betrayed him.”

  Her mother blocked the doorway. The Norman grabbed her from behind. With the help of Mademoiselle Saget, the three pushed her back into her own room, where they managed to double-lock the door, despite her furious struggle. She kicked at the door and smashed everything in the room. Then they could hear only a rapid scraping noise, the sound of iron against plaster. She was unhinging the door with the point of her scissors.

  “If she'd had a knife, she would have killed me,” said the Norman, looking for clothes to put on. “You'll see, someday that jealousy of hers will do her in. And nobody can open that door. She'd stir up the whole neighborhood against us.”

  Mademoiselle Saget had hurried down the stairs. She arrived at the corner of rue Pirouette just as the inspector was returning to the alley by the Quenu-Gradelles'. She understood what was going on and went into the charcuterie, her eyes glowing with such intensity that Lisa made a sign to be quiet, pointing toward Quenu, who was hanging strips of petit salé. When he returned to the kitchen, the old woman whispered about the drama that had just unfolded at the Méhudins'.

  Leaning across the counter, her hand resting on a dish of larded veal, Lisa listened with the happy face of a victorious woman. But then a customer came in to ask for pigs' feet, and she turned to wrap them carefully.

  “Personally, I don't wish any harm to the Norman,” she said when they were finally alone again. “I like her very much, and have always felt bad that we've had this falling-out. Here, this is the proof that I'm not vindictive. Look what I rescued from the hands of the police. I'm perfectly willing to return it if she comes and asks for it herself.”

  She pulled the portrait from her pocket. Mademoiselle Saget sniffed it and snickered as she read, “From Louise, to her friend Florent,” then, in her sharp-edged voice she said, “That may be a mistake. You should keep that.”

  “No, no,” Lisa interrupted. “I want all this foolishness to end. Today's the day of reconciliation. Enough of all this. Let's have a peaceful neighborhood again.”

  “So should I tell the Norman that you want to see her?” asked the elderly woman.

  “Yes, I'd appreciate that.”

  Mademoiselle Saget went back to rue Pirouette, where she alarmed the Norman by telling her she had just seen her portrait in Lisa's pocket. But she was not able to persuade the Norman to do as her rival had asked. The Norman had her conditions: she would go to the charcuterie only if Lisa would come out and meet her at the door. The elderly woman had to make two trips back and forth to settle the conditions for the upcoming encounter. But eventually she had the pleasure of negotiating an accord that was going to make some noise around the neighborhood. As she passed Claire's door one last time, she could still hear the sound of scissors in the plaster.

  After having gotten a definitive response from the charcuterie woman, she hurried off to look for Madame Lecœur and La Sarriette. The three planted themselves at the corner of the fish market, opposite the charcuterie. From there they would miss nothing of the encounter. Growing impatient, they pretended to chat among themselves, watching rue Pirouette, where the Norman was expected to be coming out. Throughout Les Halles, gossip about the meeting was already circulating. The women, standing stiffly in their stalls, craned their necks in order to see. Others, more curious, left their places and took positions along the covered street. Every eye in Les Halles was turned toward the charcuterie. The neighborhood had been alerted.

  It was a solemn moment. When the Norman finally emerged on rue Pirouette, no one was breathing.

  “She has her diamonds on,” La Sarriette murmured.

  “Look at the way she's walking,” added Madame Lecœur. “She's too aggressive.”

  The truth was that the Beautiful Norman walked like a queen who deigned to accept an offer of peace. She had primped carefully, with her hair all in curls and the corners of her apron turned up to show the cashmere skirt underneath; she even wore a lace bow of stunning lavishness. Feeling the eyes of Les Halles on her, she thrust her chest out and marched up to the charcuterie, stopping in front of the door. “Now it's Beautiful Lisa's turn,” said Mademoiselle Saget, watching closely.

  Smiling Beautiful Lisa walked away from the counter, crossed the shop without hurrying, and gently offered her hand to the Beautiful Norman. She too was very well put together, her linen brilliantly white, radiating cleanliness. A whisper ran through the fish market; every head outside drew closer together as they chattered excitedly.

  Now the two women were in the shop, and the paper from the window displays obstructed a clear view. But they seemed to be chatting cordially, giving each other little greetings, no doubt flattering each other.

  “Look,” said Mademoiselle Saget. “The Beautiful Norman is buying something … What could she be buying? Oh, I think it's an andouille. Ah, did the rest of you see that? Beautiful Lisa gave her the photograph when she handed her the andouille.”

  Then there were more pleasantries. Beautiful Lisa went beyond the courtesies she had planned on and said she would accompany the Beautiful Norman to the street. That's what she did, and they both laughed and showed the neighborhood what good friends they were. It was a cheerful moment for the neighborhood, and the fish women all went back to their stalls, agreeing that it had all gone very well.

  But Mademoiselle Saget detained Madame Lecœur and La Sarriette. The drama was reaching its climax. The three of them fixed their eyes on the house across from them with a curiosity that hoped to penetrate the stone walls of the building. To pass the time, they gossiped a bit about the Beautiful Norman.

  “Now she doesn't have a man,” said Madame Lecœur.

  “She has Monsieur Lebigre,” observed La Sarriette, chuckling.

  “Monsieur Lebigre isn't going to want her anymore.”

  Mademoiselle Saget shrugged, saying, “You don't really know him. He couldn't care less about all this. He is a man who knows how to do business, and the Norman is rich. In two months they'll be together, you'll see. Mère Méhudin has been working on this marriage for a long time.”

  “It doesn't matter,” the butter merchant insisted. “The inspector found her sleeping with Florent.”

  “No, that's not what I said. The big beanpole had just left. I was there when they looked in her bed. The inspector examined it with his hands. There were two spots still warm.”

  The
elderly mademoiselle paused to catch her breath and then said with indignation, “You know what hurt most? To hear of all the terrible things that evil man taught little Muche. You wouldn't believe it. There was a whole bundle of them.”

  “What horrors?” La Sarriette asked eagerly.

  “Who knows? Filth, profanity. The inspector said he could be hanged for this alone. The man is a monster, going after a child like that. Little Muche doesn't amount to much, but that's no reason to fill him with that red propaganda, the poor thing.”

  “Absolutely,” the other two agreed.

  “Anyway, they're starting to get this scheming straightened out. I told you, you might recall, that there was ‘something hidden at the Quenus’ that didn't smell right.' You see, I have a keen nose … Thank God, now the neighborhood can breathe a little. All it needed was a good sweeping—because, I swear, it was going to end up with everyone afraid of being murdered in broad daylight. You can't live like that. Upheavals and fights and killing. And all because of one man, this Florent. And now, you see, Beautiful Lisa and the Beautiful Norman have made up, which is good news for them, and they had to do it for everyone's peace of mind. Now everything else will fall into place, you'll see. Oh, look, there's poor Monsieur Quenu laughing over there.”

  Quenu was indeed outside again, his fat belly spilling over his apron, joking with Madame Taboureau's maid. He was in a good mood this morning. He squeezed the young maid's hands hard enough to make her cry out, in the best of charcuterie humor. Lisa had a hard time getting him back into the kitchen. She paced up and down the shop, fearing that Florent would appear at any moment and wanting to keep the two of them apart.

  “She's awfully anxious,” said Mademoiselle Saget. “Poor Monsieur Quenu has no idea. He's laughing like a child. You know, Madame Taboureau said she was going to get into a fight with the Quenus if they continued to ruin themselves by letting Florent stay there.”