Sepulchre (3 page)

'Aufeu! Aufeu!

 

At this, another level of panic swept through the auditorium. The memory of the inferno that had swept through the Opera-Comique five years ago, killing more than eighty, took hold. 'Let me through!' Léonie shouted. 'I beg you.'

No one heeded her. The ground beneath her feet was carpeted now with abandoned programmes and feather headdresses, lorgnettes and opera glasses, like dry bones in an ancient sepulchre, splintered underfoot.

Léonie could see nothing, but elbows and the bare backs of heads, but she kept moving forward, inch by painful inch, succeeding in putting a little distance between herself and the worst of the fighting.

Then, at her side, she felt an elderly lady stumble and begin to fall. She will be trampled.

 

Léonie shot out her hand and caught hold of the woman's elbow. Beneath the starched fabric, she found herself gripping a thin and spindly arm.

 

'I wished only to hear the music,' the woman was weeping. 'German, French, it matters nothing to me. That we should see such sights in our times. That it should come again.'

Léonie stumbled forward, taking the entire weight of the old lady, staggering towards the exit. The burden seemed to become greater with every step. The woman was slipping into unconsciousness.

'Not much further,' Léonie cried. 'Please try, please,' anything to keep the old woman upon her feet. 'We are nearly at the doors. Nearly safe.' At last she glimpsed the familiar livery of an opera house flunkey. 'Mais aidez-moi, bon Dieu,' she shouted. 'Par ici. Vite!' The usher obeyed at once. Without a word, he relieved Léonie of her charge, sweeping the old lady up into his arms and carrying her out into the Grand Foyer.

Leonie's legs buckled, exhausted, but she forced herself on. Only a few steps more.

 

Suddenly a hand grabbed her wrist. 'No,' she cried. 'No!'

She would not let herself be trapped inside with the fire and the mob and the barricades. Léonie struck out blindly, but connected only with air. 'Do not touch me!' she screamed. 'Let go of me!'

CHAPTER 3

 

Leonie, c'est moi. Leonie!' A man's voice, familiar and reassuring. And a smell of sandalwood hair oil and Turkish tobacco. Anatole? Here?

 

And now strong hands were circling her waist and lifting her up out of the crowd.

Léonie opened her eyes. Anatole!' she cried, throwing her arms around his neck. 'Where have you been? How could you!' Her embrace turned to attack, as she pummelled his chest with furious fists. 'I waited and waited, yet you did not come. How could you leave me to-'

'I know,' he replied quickly. And you have every right to rebuke me, but not now.' Her anger left her as quickly as it had come. Worn out, suddenly, she let her head fall forward on to her big brother's chest.

'I saw-'

 

'I know, petite,' he said softly, running his hand over her dishevelled hair, 'but the soldiers are outside already. We must leave or risk being caught up in the fighting.'

 

'Such hatred in their faces, Anatole. They destroyed everything. Did you see? Did you see?'

 

Léonie felt hysteria building inside her, bubbling up from her stomach to her throat, to her mouth. 'With their bare hands, they-'

 

'You can tell me later,' he said sharply, 'but now we must get away from here. Vas-y.'

 

Straight away, Léonie came back to her senses. She took a deep breath.

 

'Good girl,' he said, seeing the determination return to her eyes. 'Quick now!'

 

Anatole used his height and strength to forge a path through the mass of bodies fleeing the auditorium.

They emerged through the velvet curtains into the chaos. Hand in hand, they ran along the balconies, then down the Grand Escalier. The marble floor, littered with champagne bottles, overturned ice buckets and programmes, was like an ice rink beneath their feet. Slipping, but never quite losing their footing, they reached the glazed doors and were out into the Place de l'Opera.

Instantly, behind them, came the sound of glass breaking. 'Leonie, this way!'

If she had thought the scenes inside the Grande Salle impossible, on the streets outside it was worse. The nationalist protesters, the abonnes, had taken possession of the steps of the Palais Garnier too. Armed with sticks and bottles and knives, they stood in lines three deep, waiting and waiting, chanting. Below, in the Place de l'Opera itself, lines of soldiers in short red jackets and gold helmets knelt with rifles trained on the protesters, hoping for the command to fire.

'There are so many of them,' she cried.

Anatole did not reply, as he pulled her through the crowds in front of the baroque facade of the Palais Garnier. He reached the corner, and then turned sharply right into rue Scribe, out of the direct line of fire. They were carried along by the mass of people, their fingers laced tight so as not to be separated from one another, for almost a block of buildings, jostled and bustled and knocked like flotsam on a fast-flowing river.

But for a moment, Léonie felt herself safe. She was with Anatole. Then the sound of a single shot from a rifle. For a moment, the tide of people halted, then, as if in one single movement, pushed once more. Léonie could feel her slippers coming unfastened from her feet and was suddenly aware of men's boots snapping at her ankles, trampling underfoot the torn and trailing hem of her dress. She struggled to keep her balance. A volley of bullets erupted behind them. The only fixed point was Anatole's hand.

'Don't let go,' she cried.

Behind them, an explosion ripped through the air. The pavement shuddered. Leonie, half twisting around, saw the dusty, dirty mushroom of smoke, grey against the city sky, rising up from the direction of the Place de l'Opera. Then she felt a second blast reverberating up through the pavement. The air around them seemed first to solidify, then fold in on itself.

'Des canons! Ils tirent!'

 

'Non, non, c'est des petards.'

Léonie cried and grasped Anatole's hand tighter. They surged forward, ever forward, no sense of where they would end up, no sense of time, driven only by an animal instinct that told her not to stop, not until the noise and the blood and the dust were far behind.

Léonie felt her limbs tire as fatigue took hold, but she kept running, running, until she could go no further. Little by little the crowd thinned until at last they found themselves in a quiet street, far removed from the fighting and the explosions and the barrels of the guns. Her legs were weak with exhaustion and her skin was flushed and damp with the night.

Coming to a halt, Léonie reached out with a hand to steady herself against a wall. Her heart was thudding feverishly. The blood was hammering in her ears, heavy and loud.

Anatole stopped, leaning back against the wall. Léonie sagged against him, her copper curls hanging all the way down her back like a skein of silk, and felt his arms go protectively around her shoulders.

She gulped at the night air, trying to regain her breath. She pulled off her stained gloves, discoloured by soot and the Parisian streets, and let them drop to the pavement.

Anatole smoothed his fingers through the thick black hair that had fallen down over his high forehead and sharp cheekbones. He too was breathing hard, despite the hours he spent training in the fencing halls. Extraordinarily, he seemed to be smiling.

For a while, neither spoke. The only sound was the rise and fall of their breath, clouds of white in the cool September evening. At last Léonie drew herself up.

 

'Why were you late?' she demanded of him, as if the events of the last hour had never happened.

Anatole stared at her in disbelief; then he started to laugh, softly at first, then louder, struggling to speak, filling the air with guffaws. 'You would scold me, petite, even at such a moment?' Léonie fixed him with a look, but quickly felt the corners of her own mouth starting to twitch. A giggle burst out of her, then another, until her slim frame was shaking with laughter and the tears were rolling down her grimy, pretty cheeks.

Anatole removed his evening jacket and draped it across her bare shoulders.

 

'You are really the most extraordinary creature,' he said. 'Quite extraordinary!'

Léonie gave a rueful smile as she contrasted her dishevelled state with his elegance. She glanced down at her tattered green gown. The hem hung loose like a train behind her, and the remaining glass beads were chipped and hanging by a thread.

Despite their headlong flight through the streets of Paris, Anatole looked all but immaculate. His shirt sleeves were white and crisp, the tips of his collar still starched and upright; his blue dress waistcoat was unmarked.

He stepped back and looked up to read the sign on the wall.

 

'Rue Caumartin,' he said. 'Excellent. Supper? You are hungry, I suppose?'

 

'Ravenous.'

 

I know a cafe not far from here. Downstairs is popular with the performers, and their admirers, from the cabaret Le Grande-Pinte, but there are respectable private rooms on the first floor. Does that sound acceptable?' 'Perfectly so.'

He smiled. 'That's settled then. And for once, I shall keep you out late, well past a reasonable bedtime.' He grinned. 'I dare not deliver you home to M'man in such a state. She would never forgive me.'

CHAPTER 4

 

Marguerite Vernier disembarked the fiacre at the corner of the rue Cambon and the rue Sainte-Honore, accompanied by General Georges Du Pont.

While her escort settled the fare, she pulled her evening stole around her against the chill of the evening and smiled with satisfaction. It was the best restaurant in town, the famous windows curtained, as ever, with the finest Brittany lace. It was a measure of Du Pont's growing regard for her that he had brought her here.

Arm in arm, they walked inside Voisin's. They were greeted by discreet and gentle conversation. Marguerite felt Georges puff out his chest and raise his head a little higher. She recognised he was aware that every man in the room was jealous of him. She squeezed his arm and felt him return the gesture, a reminder of how they had passed the last two hours. He turned a proprietorial look upon her. Marguerite granted him a gentle smile, then parted her lips slightly, enjoying the way he coloured from beneath his collar to the tips of his ears. It was her mouth, her generous smile and her full lips, that raised her beauty to the extraordinary. It carried both promise and invitation.

His hand went to his neck and he pulled at his stiff white collar, loosening his black tie. Dignified and entirely proper, his evening jacket was skilfully cut to disguise the fact that, at sixty, he was no longer quite the physical specimen he had been in his army heyday. In his buttonhole were threads of coloured ribbon signifying the medals he had gained at Sedan and Metz. Rather than a waistcoat, which might have accentuated his prominent stomach, he wore instead a dark crimson cummerbund. Grey-haired and with a full and bushy cropped moustache, Georges was a diplomat now, formal and sober, and wished the world to know it.

To please him, Marguerite had dressed modestly in a purple silk moire dinner dress with silver trim and beads. The arms were full, drawing attention all the more to the slim, tapered waist and full skirts. The neck was high, allowing no more than the slightest hint of skin, although on Marguerite, this made the outfit all the more provocative. Her dark hair was twisted artfully in a chignon, with a single spray of purple feathers, showing to best advantage her slim white neck. Brown, limpid eyes, were set within an exquisite complexion. Every bored matron and upholstered wife in the restaurant stared with dislike and envy, the more so because Marguerite was in her middle forties rather than in the first flush of youth. The combination of beauty and such a figure, matched with the lack of a ring on her finger, offended their sense of fairness and propriety. Was it right that such a liaison should be flaunted in such a place as Voisin's?

The proprietor, grey-headed and as distinguished-looking as his clientele, swept forward to greet Georges, stepping out of the shadow of the two ladies sitting at the front desk, the Scylla and Charybdis, without whose blessing not a soul entered the culinary institution. General Du Pont was a customer of long standing, who ordered the best champagne and tipped generously. But he had been a less than frequent visitor of late. Clearly, the owner feared they had lost his custom to the Cafe Paillard or the Cafe Anglais.

Monsieur, it is a great pleasure to welcome you once more. We surmised that perhaps you had received a posting abroad.'

Georges looked thoroughly embarrassed. So strait-laced, Marguerite thought, although she did not dislike him for it. He had better manners, and was more generous and simpler in his needs, than many of the men with whom she had been associated.

'The fault is entirely mine,' she said from beneath her dark lashes. 'I have been keeping him to myself.'

The proprietor laughed. He clicked his fingers. While the cloakroom attendant relieved Marguerite of her stole and Georges of his walking stick, the men exchanged courtesies, talking of the weather and the current situation in Algeria. There were rumours of an anti-Prussian demonstration. Marguerite allowed her thoughts to drift away. She cast her eyes over the famous show table of the finest fruit. It was too late for strawberries, of course, and in any case Georges preferred to retire early, so it was unlikely he would wish to remain for dessert.

Marguerite expertly stifled a sigh while the men concluded their business. Despite the fact that every table around them was occupied, there was a sense of peace and quiet comfort. Her son would dismiss the place as dull and old-fashioned, but she, who too often had been on the outside of such establishments looking in, found it delightful and an indication of the measure of security she had found with Du Pont's patronage.

The conversation over, the proprietor raised his hand. The maitre d' stepped forward, and led them through the candlelit room to a superior table in an alcove, not overlooked by any other diners and a long way from the swinging doors of the kitchen. Marguerite noticed the man was perspiring, his top lip glistening beneath his cropped moustache, and wondered what it really was that Georges did at the embassy that meant that his good opinion was so very important.