The Red Necklace (9 page)

“He was the voice, and he read people’s minds.”

“Interesting,” said Cordell, handing Têtu an envelope. “Now, here is enough money to pay for your expenses.”

“No, I don’t need it.”

“My dear friend, take it. I know the proprietor at the Hôtel d’Angleterre, a Madame Saltaire. You’ll be safe there. I take it that the boy has no passport?”

“No.”

“Then I will have to get that organized. It will take a day. You must stay in your room until you hear from me. By the way, how old is the boy?”

“Fourteen. He is like a son to me. I love him as if he were my own flesh and blood.”

Charles Cordell smiled. “I will let Henry Laxton know to expect him.”

The two men shook hands.

Têtu sat in Charles Cordell’s carriage, grateful for the lift back to Moet’s Tavern, and thinking to himself about what he hadn’t told his friend. A secret that Têtu hoped to take to his grave, for some words can do as much damage to the living as a shot fired from a pistol.

It was at about the same time as the carriage pulled up outside the tavern that Monsieur Aulard lit his lantern.

chapter ten

If ann had waited in Moet’s Tavern until it had grown dark. He was beginning to think that Têtu was never coming back when, to his great relief, he saw the dwarf’s small shape push and jostle his way to where he was sitting.

“Everything is arranged,” said Têtu. “Come, we must get out of here.”

They walked swiftly away from the Palais Royal and down a tangle of narrow streets.

“Where are we going?” asked Yann.

“To a hotel. We’ll stay there for the night, and then you’ll get the coach to Calais and go to London,” said Têtu.

“London!” said Yann, stunned.

“Come on, keep up.” Têtu was now walking as fast as his legs would allow him. He looked anxiously around him. “Don’t dawdle. The sooner we’re off these streets the better.”

The entrance to the Hôtel d’Angleterre was a wooden door that opened into a courtyard overlooked by two other apartment blocks. At the far end, under a stone arch, stood a narrow door that led out onto the rue du Richelieu, a two-minute walk from the Palais Royal.

Here Têtu, as Cordell had suggested, took a room for the night.

“Why are we going to London?” asked Yann, the minute they were alone.

“Not we; you. You are going to London.”

“No!” said Yann. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”

“Paris is not safe. Kalliovski wants us both dead. I can disappear—I’ve done it all my life.”

Yann started to interrupt.

“Wait, wait. Before you say anything, listen. I have a great friend, an Englishman called Charles Cordell, who is a banker based in Paris. He has agreed to send you to London and put you in the care of his partner Henry Laxton, who will teach you to read and write and speak English.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

Têtu’s face looked as hard as ever Yann had seen it.

“Listen to me. You are not a baby. It will only be for a few months. You will do this and that is the end of it.”

Yann was too exhausted to argue any more, too angry to sleep. He lay facedown on the bed, furious, only to find that when he woke up it was morning.

Whether or not Têtu had slept, Yann couldn’t tell. The dwarf was pacing to and fro, mumbling to himself. On a table sat a bottle of wine and a loaf of bread.

Yann sat up and said, “I still don’t understand why I have to go away.”

“I’m going to explain. I’m going to tell you things you want to know. Will you listen, or are you going to block up your ears with anger, so that you won’t hear anything but your own thunder?”

Yann shrugged.

“You’ve often asked me about your mother, and now I will tell you,” said Têtu. “Your mother loved you dearly. She wanted no harm to come to you, and I promised her I would keep your Gypsy origins quiet.”

"Gypsy!” said Yann. It was a word like an old tin mug that had followed them wherever they went . . . a swearword, a figure of speech, an insult. It confirmed what he already knew, that he and Têtu were misfits, outcasts living on the edges of society. He had never imagined it to be the truth. He and Têtu spoke Romany for their own protection, Têtu had told him, because few people understood it or knew where it came from. Now he could see that these roots went far deeper than he had ever thought, and he wished with all his heart that it were not so.

“Yannick, we are an ancient and noble people,” said Têtu. “Take from this what is good, and learn from it. I regret that you couldn’t grow up in a Gypsy world where you would have known our ways and secrets.”

“I’ve asked you so often if we were Gypsies, and you’ve always shrugged your shoulders and said no,” said Yann.

“It was for your own safety. You know there is a price on every Gypsy’s head. The gallows and the huntsman’s gun wait for us.”

The seriousness of what Têtu was saying took away all Yann’s anger. Maybe this explained why they were not like other people. Maybe it at last explained why he could read minds and see into the future.

“I have done my best by you, Yannick,” said Têtu. “I have given you a piece of your Gypsy origins by teaching you our language. Your mother didn’t even want me to do that, for fear that you would be taken away from me, that you would be branded like cattle and sent away to sea. It was for the best that I kept silent.”

Yann sat down on the edge of the bed. “Go on.”

Here Têtu stopped, as if reconsidering all he had said so far.

“Your mother was called Anis, and she was beautiful. She had your eyes, dark as ebony and deep as a well. When I met her at the circus in St. Petersburg I knew straightaway that she was Romany, like me. She told me that each year her people followed the ancient routes, wintering in caves, and when the snows passed they traveled deep into the forests, far away from the house-dwellers.

“Anis’s mother was the keeper of the arts of sorcery among her tribe. She had extraordinary powers. She could move objects without touching them. Her daughter could do it too.”

“And so can you.”

Têtu continued. “All objects have threads of light coming from them. Living objects have the brightest threads of light, energy that flashes like lightning. Lifeless objects, such as cups, jugs, or beds, have dull threads of light. If you can see this light, then you can become a master, able to move things at your will. Think, Yann, what power that would give you.”

“Is that how you work the Pierrot? Is it? Tell me.”

Têtu said nothing.

“All right,” said Yann. “If you won’t answer that, tell me how my mother ended up in a circus.”

“Something terrible happened. It was Anis’s wedding day. She was fourteen and the boy was sixteen. She believed that they were one soul divided into two bodies, and that only when they were together were they whole.

“The ceremony started at daybreak round the campfire, when the marriage was sealed with a cut made on the bride’s right wrist and the groom’s left wrist; then their hands were bound together and they took an oath to free each other when love had left their hearts.

“There was singing and dancing to celebrate—and then the huntsmen came to kill the Gypsies. Anis’s mother saw them sitting on their fine horses watching, waiting. She ordered her people to carry on dancing, shouting out “Life is life!” in Romany. The Gypsies went on playing their fiddles and singing their songs. They didn’t run. Until the shooting started.”

“But my mother must have managed to get away,” said Yann.

“Anis said she never knew how. It was as if her mother had made her invisible. But she remembered the last thing her bridegroom said to her: ‘In death they will never catch us, my beloved one. We are birds, we are free.’

“She remembered nothing more. When she woke up she found herself in the hollow of a tree. It was getting dark. She stood in the middle of that clearing and saw them all hanging in the trees like songbirds, colorful but lifeless: her bridegroom, her mother, every one of her tribe. Even the babies had been slaughtered. Blood dripped from the oak leaves. That day, her wedding day, she lost everything.

“She ran far away and joined a circus, never speaking of her Gypsy roots, though her dark hair and eyes told the truth of it. She never spoke of it, that is, until I met her.”

Yann was very quiet. Of all the things he had imagined about his mother, he had never once imagined this.

It was Têtu who broke the silence.

“It is nothing to be ashamed of. Far from it—it is a source of pride.”

“Are you a French Gypsy?”

“No, I come from Romania. It is another story for another time. I have told you how I met your mother. That is enough.”

“So am I only half Gypsy?”

“No.”

“You know that for certain?”

“Yes.”

“My father was the Gypsy boy my mother married?”

“No, Yannick, he was killed some seven years before you were born. Who your real father was, I do not know, but Anis believed you were a gift from the spirit of her one true love. We Gypsies know and understand things that those attached to houses and land will never comprehend. We have outlived and outwitted great civilizations.”

“Do you think I have inherited those gifts?”

“You are a natural. You have an exceptional talent already.”

“Will you teach me to work the Pierrot like you do?”

Têtu laughed. “In time, Yann, in time.”

There was a knock at the door. On Cordell’s instructions, Madame Saltaire had brought a package up to Têtu. It contained Yann’s travel documents and a passport.

“You leave tonight,” said Têtu after she had gone. “I’ll take you to the coach at seven. A man called Tull, an Englishman, will escort you to Calais, where there will be a boat waiting to take you to Dover. We must hurry, so as not to miss the tide.”

Yann wanted to say again that he didn’t want to go. This time, though, he knew it was useless. Instead he made up his mind that in this new country he would let no one know of his Gypsy origins. There he would have a fresh start. For once in his life he would be like everyone else.

As they left, Têtu had pulled Yann’s coat about him and buttoned it up as if he were a child. Yann had then an image of his mother, and a terrible sense of loss rushed in upon him.

“I can do that,” he had said.

Still Têtu insisted, standing on tiptoe to put the scarf around Yann’s neck and tucking it carefully into his coat.

The hall of the hotel was empty. The lantern outside was shining on the snow, making it look blue. A cat came meowing across the courtyard, lifting its paws in disgust at the depth of the snow and curling itself around their legs before going into the warmth.

Têtu seized Yann’s hand. "Now. We’ll make a run for it.”

Far too late did Yann sense the menace in the general silence. The windows of the building overlooking the courtyard were shuttered as if they had closed their eyes against what was about to happen.

“Here goes,” said Têtu.

A shot rang out, and suddenly Yann realized he was dragging a dead weight behind him. He stopped and stared down at Têtu, who was lying crumpled in the snow.

“Get up! Get up!”

The dwarf’s eyes were closed. His skin had already started looking translucent.

“No!” shouted Yann. “No!” He tried with all his strength to lift Têtu.

At that moment he saw the red necklace lying there in the blood.

“It’s no good,” whispered the dwarf. “Go, run like the wind. Life is life, Yannick.”

Yann felt a cold leather-gloved hand come down hard on his shoulder.

“Got you!” said a voice as the shadow of Milkeye fell over him. “There’s no escaping.”

Yann could feel the burning heat of the pistol butt as it was pushed into the side of his head. Suddenly everything both slowed down and speeded up. Yann shut his eyes. In that second, when life and death hung in the balance, the trigger clicked, the barrel jammed. Yann opened his eyes to see Milkeye staring ferociously at his weapon.

Madame Saltaire ran out of the hotel screaming, hands flying. Yann twisted himself free, conscious of nothing but escape. He was already at the street door when the second bullet ricocheted off the stone wall. He ran as fast as he could, soon to be lost from view in the maze of streets.

The sharp air rasped his throat painfully but still he ran, and soon the sound of the city enveloped him, calming him. Near exhausted, he stopped, and checking that no one was following him, backtracked toward the Palais Royal. He could hear the clocks chiming the hour. Seven o’clock.

A coach was waiting, its driver huddled against the icy wind in a great cape, his groom beside him.

The coach door opened and a man with an English accent asked, “Are you Yann Margoza? Where’s the gentleman who was supposed to bring you here?”

“Dead.”

“Too bad. Get in,” said the man. “There’s no time to lose if we’re to catch the tide.”

Stunned and grief-stricken, Yann climbed in. The man, the coach, all became a blur. He looked out of the window as the terrifying reality overwhelmed him. Topolain had performed the ultimate trick. He had taken with him Yann’s world, the theater, the actors, the scenery—all vanished, all gone, in a wisp of smoke from a pistol.

The coach rattled and shook. He could hear the horses snorting, their bridles jangling; and he could hear too the unmistakable voice of Têtu as he whispered to him, “Life is life.”

chapter eleven

Here, in London’s fashionable Bloomsbury, is a newly built town house that faces a tree-lined square, with streets leading to Piccadilly and Whitehall. To the back its windows look out to the rolling hills of Hampstead and beyond. The house, which is decorated in the French style, is charming, comfortable, welcoming. It is the home of Henry and Juliette Laxton.