The Blood of Lorraine (5 page)

That was it. A grieving father voluble with drink and grief. A fairy-tale version of the lone bloodthirsty Jewish male stalking the home of a widow and her children. Singer was right. They were all lying. But who created this particular lie? Martin scanned the report again. And where was the grieving mother in all this? Jacquette was a good man. If she had anything to say, he would have reported it. Yet she was silent. Dumbstruck by the loss of her child? Or by the clumsy scheming of those around her?

Calmed by the absurdity of the fabrication, Martin closed the file and started down the stairs, holding on to the banister, taking one slow step at a time. All he needed was to get one of them to tell the truth, and it could all be over today or, at most, tomorrow. An ignorant, talkative woman was likely to be the weakest link in the chain of lies. It should be easy. He would interrogate Geneviève Philipon first.

M
ARTIN’S CHAMBERS WERE NOT AS
commanding as Didier’s. Yet if you were accused of a crime or had lied to the police or simply happened to be numbered among the unschooled poor, crossing the threshold from the little vestibule into the spacious office with its hard wooden chairs, document-laden desks, and austere white walls had to be nerve-racking, for you were about to encounter an examining magistrate who had the right to question you endlessly, jail you indefinitely, search your home and belongings at will, interrogate everyone near and dear to you, use the words of your enemies against you, and, finally, by a legal logic well beyond your ken, decide what crime to charge you with and what court to send you to. If he chose the big one, the
cour d’assises
, well, then, you could be facing years of hard labor, or even the guillotine.

No wonder the wet nurse could barely move her feet. Although he never undermined his authority by showing it, Martin usually sympathized with the more humble suspects that were hauled into his chambers. Not today. Didier had made it abundantly clear that any of the crimes Geneviève Philipon had allegedly committed—neglect, murder, the brutal disgorging of an innocent child—had repercussions that reached far beyond her little village because of the story that she had invented to cover up her deeds. Repercussions for the courthouse, for the city, for Martin. He needed to find out the truth about what had happened to little Marc-Antoine Thomas before Philipon had a chance to spread her dangerous lies.

While the police officer led Geneviève Philipon into the room, Martin made a show of studying the papers on his desk in order to reinforce the frightening impression that he was in the midst of making important, mysterious, even fatal decisions. Martin fully recognized in her slow, shuffling steps the sound of one resisting her fate. When he looked up, he was not surprised that she was trying to shield herself by hiding her sallow face with the threadbare brown woolen shawl she wore over her head. Gripping it at her neck, she glanced furtively at both Martin and Charpentier as the police officer placed a hand on each of her shoulders and pressed her into the chair.

Although she was a pitiful little creature, Martin glared at her in stony silence for a full minute before introducing himself. Her black shoes and patched green dress, each too thin to ward off the wintry cold, were as drab and worn as she was. Aware of his scrutiny, the wet-nurse lifted the shawl from her head and brought it down to her shoulders, clutching it with both hands across her bosom. Was she possibly hiding the fact that the breasts she was supposed to be using to feed the little victim had dried up? If so, her attempt at subterfuge encouraged Martin to draw out the silence. When she began to breathe through her mouth, almost gasping for air, he could see that her teeth, like the strands of hair on her head, were dingier and sparser than they should be. An unpleasant fetid odor, a potent mix of malnutrition and fear, emanated from her open mouth. Martin drew back in his chair. How had this unhealthy creature come to be a wet nurse? Wealthy families examined their live-in nannies from head to foot before employing them, even counting and pulling at their teeth, as if they were horses or cattle. Obviously, Martin thought, poorer families had fewer choices. Or had Marc-Antoine’s parents simply cared less? This is one of the things that Martin needed to find out. Had little Marc-Antoine died by intention, or neglect?

By the time Martin took up his pen, Geneviève Philipon’s hands were visibly shaking. As if on cue, Charpentier, who had been mirroring the relentless severity of his superior, flipped open the notebook that would contain the official version of the interrogation.

Judge and clerk always began with the preliminaries of identification and background—Where were you born? Where have you lived? How much schooling do you have? What is your work? How much property do you own? Whom did you marry, and when, and why? And, of course, have you ever been in trouble with the authorities? First-time suspects were often puzzled, even visibly annoyed by these drawn-out preliminaries. So many questions, and for what? An examining magistrate knew exactly what: he was building a portrait of the witness, in order to understand her motives and gauge what punishments to mete out. And if it drove a suspect a little mad, that was fine. The better to get her to blurt out an incriminating response. The wet nurse, being humble and puzzled, mumbled her responses to dozens of questions as her eyes darted back and forth between Martin, the inquisitor, and Charpentier, his recorder.

It turned out that hers was an all-too-common tale of woe. Born into an impoverished family of eleven children in the town of Tomblaine, married to a dirt farmer at the age of seventeen, widowed by a freak accident when pregnant with her third child, Geneviève Philipon had always been in desperate straits and was sinking fast.

Offering herself as a wet nurse had been her way of getting enough money to hire a man to help her with the planting and harvesting.

“So this is the first time that you have cared for another’s child?” Martin asked. Up to this point, he had tried to lull her into talking freely by maintaining a calm and matter-of-fact demeanor.

Geneviève Philipon nodded, as her lips stretched into a painful grimace. Tears and sobs followed as she let go of her shawl and hid her face in her trembling hands.

Martin shifted in his chair, waiting for her to calm down. Now that they were getting to it, she could not hide her despair. But he had to remain hard. Get this damned case over with.

“Then why did the Thomases hire you? Surely you were not the most qualified.” He didn’t like to think about how dispensable the children of the poor were, and felt blessed that Clarie was insisting that she would breastfeed their child herself.

The wet nurse wiped her nose with the back of her hand. She lowered her eyes, focusing on the floor. Martin could almost read an “if only” in them, if only she hadn’t been the one caring for the child. Then she wouldn’t be here now. Everything would be different! His chambers reverberated with the hard-luck stories of those who swore that if it had not been for an unexpected twist of fate, they would have never done wrong.

“I knew Antoinette.” This came out in a whisper.

“How? How did you know her?”

“She’s from my parts. We were in school together.”

Martin glanced at his notes. Geneviève Philipon had only had six years of schooling, so the women had known each other since childhood.

“She went to the city, hoping for a better life. But,” the wet nurse looked up at Martin, “she got started in that factory. I don’t think she wanted any kids until….”

“Until?” Martin raised his eyebrows. The fact that Antoinette Thomas did not want a child might be important.

“Until Pierre made enough money so she could quit.”

“And that didn’t happen?”

Geneviève Philipon shook her head. “He drinks too much.”

Martin leaned forward. “And you? Were you still able to feed the child from your own breasts when he died?”

Her eyes widened with fear as she folded her arms over her sterile bosom and slowly began to shake her head. “But,” she pleaded, “I gave him everything I could. By the name of Mary the Most Holy Virgin I swear it. I even took the cow’s milk from my own children’s mouths to feed him.”

“And what else did you feed him?”

The woman shrank back in her seat. “Nothing. Nothing, truly. He was not ready. I knew that.”

“You know that. Well—” Martin made a show of searching through the mounds on his desk. Although Fauvet had not yet submitted his report, any piece of paper would do. “This,” Martin said, holding up an official-looking document, “is from the doctor who examined young Marc-Antoine Thomas, and he reports that the poor child died from asphyxiation. Either smothered or choked to death on a piece of bone or meat or, even, a stone.” He paused before continuing. “Do you know why we don’t know what killed him? Why we don’t know what he might have choked on?” He stared at her until she met his eyes. “Do you know why? Because,” he said in a loud voice, “someone cut him open and gutted him!”

Her gasps came out in a series of low croaks. Martin was not sure whether they echoed her inconsolable sorrow, or guilt and naked fear.

“And,” Martin pressed on, “I believe that you are the one responsible for the death of this unfortunate little boy and that you are the one who heartlessly and savagely took out his insides.”

Her eyes grew wide. She gulped, then declared, “Oh no sir, no. ’Twasn’t me. Or my kids. ’Twasn’t any of us. It was that man. That Jew.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“But I told the policeman, and he wrote it all down. It was that man. I swear. It was the Jew.”

“There was no man. There was only you and your children.”

“No, no,” she wailed. “We wouldn’t do that. We loved Marc-Antoine more than—”

She stopped short, not daring to go on. It was one of those moments that occurs in so many interrogations, when the sudden silence is so palpable that you could reach out and clutch at it and will it to speak to you. Instead, Martin merely grasped the arms of his chair and leaned forward. “More than who?” he asked slowly and quietly.
The mother or the father?

“No one, I didn’t mean….” She brought the shawl over her face again, as if that would be enough to fend off Martin’s questions.

Martin glanced over to Charpentier and nodded. This was their signal that the clerk should be ready to take down a spurt of uninterrupted testimony. Charpentier responded with a cocksure smile. This was the part of any interrogation he liked best, the moment when a suspect either began to confess or, even better, got tangled up in a web of lies. He never wasted any sympathy on the poor and the ignorant.

“Very well, then,” Martin said, settling back in his chair again, “if what you say is true, I want the whole story from beginning to end of everything that happened on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning. Speak slowly so that Monsieur Charpentier can get it all down in the official record.” And, Martin thought, please tell the truth. All of it. Now.

Geneviève Philipon opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

“Please begin,” Martin said, as he clasped his hands together across his stomach and pursed his lips, making it evident that he was utterly comfortable in what was, after all, his command, and could wait her out, no matter how long it took.

The wet nurse swallowed hard before reciting a story that did not differ one iota from the account in Jacquette’s report. She had rehearsed it well. Despite his show of ease, tension rippled at the back of Martin’s neck and down his spine as she talked. She was lying. Yet from everything he had seen, Martin sensed she was incapable of making up such an elaborate story all by herself. He had to find out who had put her up to it.

The fingers in his clasped hands were gripping together so tightly that his knuckles were turning white. But his hands were below the wet nurse’s vision. All Martin hoped she saw was his stern, impassive stare. When she finally began to squirm, he pounced. “I don’t believe you.”

“It’s the truth, I swear it.” She tried to sit up straight, as if putting her rectitude on display.

Martin had seen it all before, the obvious fabrications, followed by righteous denial. But this poor woman, who for so many years had been bent over with work and cares, made only the most pitiful attempt at stubborn defiance. His body relaxed. He had her. “You must know that if you are caught lying to a judge, he can imprison you and sentence you to hard labor. For years.”

Her mouth trembled. “I…I…I….”

“Did you make up this lie? Or did someone else put you up to this? Pierre Thomas, for example?” This was Martin’s first opportunity to get at a motive behind the anti-Jewish slander.

“No, not him!” she blurted out, then covered her mouth. She had answered too quickly.

“Then was it Antoinette Thomas?” Martin shouted. He meant to frighten Geneviève Philipon, and he succeeded.

“No…Yes.” She began gasping for air again. “Maybe the two of us.”

“Why?” Martin was still shouting.

“Because,” the woman cringed, “because she was afraid to tell Pierre about what happened. She thought he would blame it on her. She wanted it to seem like he was murdered.”

“Marc-Antoine? Then he wasn’t murdered by a stranger? Is that what you are saying?” Martin lurched toward her with mock surprise.

She nodded and huddled down into the chair, as if she feared he was going to strike her.

“Then, if you have been lying, we must start all over again. With that afternoon. You must tell me everything you know about why Marc-Antoine died and why he was mutilated. Telling the truth now is the only chance you have to not go to prison for a very long time.” Martin sat back and gave himself leave to scratch the beard under his high collar. He was itching from the anxious sweating that a crucial interrogation always brought on. They were almost there.

Geneviève Philipon stared into space for a long moment, then, speaking as if she were in a trance, gave a very different account of little Marc-Antoine’s death. She had often left him in the charge of her two older daughters while she worked in the field. That afternoon, she heard cries for help. When she ran to the cottage, the seven-month-old was already blue and stiffening. Her older girls were hysterical. Their little sister was wailing in the corner. Apparently the baby had crawled over to the hearth while no one was watching and stuck a stone or piece of ash in his mouth. After ordering her children to wait inside the cottage until her return, she took the boy’s body up into the attic loft and left it where neither her cow nor pig could get at it. Then she ran to the factory to find Antoinette Thomas. Antoinette came and took the boy. She was the one who opened him up, gutted him and left the body by the river for Geneviève and the men from the village to discover the next morning.

“It was an accident,” the wet nurse whimpered and repeated over and over again.

An accident
. Martin had seen enough of Geneviève Philipon to be predisposed to believe her.
An accident
, not a crime. But one that had caused a child’s death and incited an incendiary lie. A lie that could set off a lot of mischief in the wake of all the panic about Dreyfus’s treachery, dangerous mischief; a lie that could be humiliating to Israelites like David Singer and his family. Martin had to squelch the story before it got out. He had to get all three of them to confess.