The Remaining Voice (3 page)

“I’m not sure what my plans are. Can I let you know later?”

Monsieur Daviau shrugged. “
Bien sȗr.
You have my number. I look forward to talking with you again.” He was nothing if not a gentleman.

“Thank you. You’ve been most kind.” I felt his eyes bore into my back as I opened the door. Jacqueline looked up as I descended the stairs. She scow
led and I smiled at her. Poor thing. I would bet a cent to the dollar that Laurant Daviau had never asked her out for supper.

Chapter 3

The Rue Tronson Du Coudray was narrow and full of tall buildings, each with differently dressed windows. Some had white shutters, like country homes, and some like number twenty-five, had iron balustrades and pretentions to greatness. Berthe’s former home sported the latter and had a huge bronze door the colour of mahogany. I knocked and waited. The manager sounded angry at having been disturbed. I apologised profusely and asked to be let in.

“
Je suis le nouveau propriétaire de l'appartement de six
,
”
I said, as best as I could. He stood aside, all the while coughing and grunting. I pushed inside and stood in the cold echoing gloom.

“
Personne n'a
vécu là-bas
pendant une longue période,”
the building manager said. He was a scruffy man with a barrel chest. He smelled of tobacco and stale sweat.

“Oui, je sais.”

He stared at me, hands on hips, breathing hard like a train that’s run out of steam.
“Qui êtes-vous?”
he asked, through gritted teeth.

“
Je m’appelle Sophie et je suis sa petite-nièce de Berthe Chalgrin.
She has died
–
erm
… Elle est décédée et a quitté l'appartement pour moi.”
I hoped he would understand my poor French.

“Vous êtes une Américaine.”
he said, squinting at me. “She went away.” His English was thick with misuse.

“Berthe? You knew her?”

“
Mais oui
. I have been here a long time. You look like a nice girl. Too nice for this place. Monsieur Pascal. You may call me Armand.” He offered his hand to shake. It was warm and damp. He attempted a grin. His face broke out in a volley of twitches. “It is a long way up.” He pointed to the stairs. “If you need anything Mademoiselle, let me know.” He pursed his lips. I nodded my thanks and glanced upwards. The wooden handrail shone with a burgundy hue.

“C’est tout. Allez-y.”
Monsieur Pascal waved his hand at me. “Go. See what the old witch has left you. Then you come to me. There is a story to tell.” He twitched a grin, cocked his head and turned on his heels.

I waited until he had gone before I started up the stairs. He would tell me a story? I should have asked him there and then. I did not want to enter his lair. I wanted only to talk to him on common ground… with the front door open for preference, so that I could slip out, or hail a passer-by, just in case Monsieur Pascal tried anything untoward. I shuddered at the thought that he might want more from me than conversation.

On the second floor I stopped to get my breath back and promised I would do more exercise when I got home… Home? Where was that exactly? All my belongings were in storage. I had only the clothes I had brought with me to Paris. I looked through the well of the stairs to the third floor and saw it spin above me. Boy, was I tired.

“Okay, okay, I’m coming.” My voice echoed whispers until I could no longer recognise it. My heart pounded and a wave of heat, like desert sand, blew through me. I was shaking - but why? What was there to be afraid of? I was simply going to open up an apartment that had been closed for a very long time. I would probably find mouse droppings and old newspapers, and nothing much else. I could not let my fears get the better of me.

I reached the third floor landing and leant on the bannister awhile. Dust danced in the shafts of light coming through the small-paned window behind me. The walls were cream coloured, the woodwork dark with age.

“I will keep you in my heart like a treasure,” I said, fitting the key in the lock. It was difficult to turn and for a moment I thought I might have to go back downstairs and rouse Monsieur (call me Armand) Pascal again, but then I heard the tumblers groan and the door gave, grudgingly.  I did not open it all the way. I allowed it only a three inch gap. A susurration, warm like summer air, issued forth, as if the apartment was a living being and I had just nudged it awake. The lightest of touches on my shoulder made me spin round. I almost lost my balance and fell headlong down the flight of stairs, but I reached out and grabbed the bannister. My hat, set until then at a jaunty angle on my head, soared like a bird and came to rest on the first step of the last flight up. When I looked, there was no one on the landing. There was no one on the stairs either above me or below. I was completely alone
.

I pushed the door all the way open on the dead air of decay. The smell was of mould, damp, dust, cobwebs and age. A deep hall lay ahead of me. There was just enough light to see a great shuttered window, to my immediate left, with drapes that had lost their colour in the gloom. I stepped onto a dusty carpet, and reached out to unlatch the shutters. They groaned their complaint in the hazy air, as a shaft of sunlight pierced the inner reaches of the apartment. Further along, to the left was second, similarly encased window. Between the two stood a gilt chair with velvet upholstery that may have once been pink, but was now faded and mouldy. On the opposite wall were two doors and between them a huge mirror with ornate frame threaded with cobwebs so that when I observed my reflection it was to see the ghost of Miss Haversham. I had not realised I was so gaunt looking, nor so badly attired in my spring gabardine and chequered scarf. I rubbed a spot clean on the mirror and touched my hair. I had no one to dress for, though Laurent Daviau must have seen something he liked, unless he was a perpetual lady’s man.  I sighed; exploring Berthe’s former home was going to be dirty work. What did it matter what I looked like?

I made footprints on the carpet back to the door and closed it, sealing the apartment once more from the outside world. Turning back inside, I saw for the first time the room beyond the hall. The black interior gave out only the looming shape of bookcase or some such piece of furniture on the far wall. The sound of singing startled me. It was coming from behind one of the doors to my right. I tried the first but it was locked. The second opened onto the kitchen. A dirt-dulled haze came in through the window. The room had a high ceiling, with an old fashioned stove against one wall and range of shelves and cupboards piled high with crockery and pans against the other. In the middle stood a table, doubtless once scrubbed clean, though now layered with grime. A scullery and I thought probably larder too, opened off at the end by the window. The singing had stopped and I assumed that it had been from the apartment above. I retraced my steps and walked into the main room, bumping up against a low table.

At first my eyes could not make anything out, but gradually they became accustomed to the quality of the light and I made a path to the window between a chair and a painting, propped against some boxes. The window, shuttered against the world, as had the others been, did not give readily, and I tugged on the boards, creating a miasma of choking dust in the process. I prised it open a couple of feet.

I had stepped into Aladdin’s cave.

It was on
one of my father’s trips to Paris, that he took me to a small house tucked away down a back street on the Left Bank. It was run by an old friend of his by the name of Jacques Le Brun, who had whiskers that curled up from his face like an over-sized smile, and who wore dog-tooth trousers and a red velvet waistcoat. I was nine and although the Second World War had just started, we Americans were as yet immune from its effects. From the moment I stepped inside Monsieur Le Brun’s home I was caught up in a fantasy. Never had I seen such an amazing collection of artefacts and all of them old beyond belief and each with fantastic stories that wove their magic spell over my childhood so that I wanted only to live in my imagination and nowhere else. The light was golden with enchantment and the dust-weathered collection a precious jewel to be cherished and loved back to life. I spent three charm-filled hours there, playing in the grime of yesteryear, while my father caught up with the news from his old friend. Monsieur Le Brun had been a circus high-wire artiste, a knife swallower, a brush salesman, and a con-artist, but his passion was antiques. He collected them avidly, not caring to collate or order them in any way, not bothering if spiders wove webs over them, or if they were correctly stored. “It is all about the patina,” he would say. “Everything should be allowed to age naturally. I do not care for science.” He was a curious man, out of time with trappings of modern life.

I had not thought about Monsieur Le Brun in many years, but here I was, entering a very similar realm to his. I had not been afraid when I was a child. I was excited, and intrigued, but mostly I was entranced. Berthe’s apartment was a perfectly preserved time capsule, and far from being devoid of her belongings, it was chock full of them. I could not believe that it had survived two wars, when all around it was so badly abused. It was as if Monsieur Le Brun had been keeping a watchful eye so that one day he could offer me another fantasy to explore.

“I will keep you in my heart like a treasure,” I whispered, again. The apartment was like a newly opened treasure chest, full of wonder and glory. Was this what Berthe was referring to when she wrapped the key in paper and placed it inside the envelope and deposited it with Fletcher Kingston?

I could not move without bumping into furniture, or piles of books. Every chair was laden with miscellany - paintings being the most obvious items in evidence after boxes filled to the brim with paper and crockery, trinkets and… well, just plain junk mostly. A great fireplace, surrounded by ornate mantle and topped with huge vases the like of which I had only ever seen in museums, faced me. On the chimney breast hung a painting of a woman, looking very glamorous in a pink satin ball gown. In front of the fire was a chair with gilt legs and threaded gold satin cushions, on top of which rested a violin, a china cup with rose design and a shoe with a broken heel.

It was going to take me a lifetime to sort through this. Not to mention the cleaning. I noticed another door and wove between the furniture towards it. Beneath my feet was, what must have been at one time, a quite beautiful Turkish carpet, and on the walls, soft silk moiré paper, peeling and blackened with mould. I removed a wooden crate containing musical scores from the chair that was set against the door. I could not find anywhere to put the box, save to balance it precariously on top of another behind me. I pulled the chair forward and found there was nowhere to put that either. So I simply left it and squeezed behind. The door knob turned quite easily, but I could not open it more than a few inches.  I peered into the gloom beyond. Another hall. Another set of rooms. I was going to have to go out for cleaning products. I had no doubt there was a broom in the kitchen, but like as not it would fall apart with age, as would any rags or scourers. I would need an apron and rubber gloves. I made a mental shopping list and retraced my steps across what I had decided to call the ‘drawing room’. Time to discuss matters with Monsieur Armand Pascal.

Chapter 4

“Ainsi, vous voulez
connaître
Madame Chalgrin?”
Armand Pascal sported an old leather jacket and looked as if he was about to go out. I blocked his path to the street door and smiled my most winsome smile, though I did not feel kindly disposed towards him. Now I stood closer, he smelled of garlic and old man’s pee.

“If you don’t mind,” I said. “Only I do not have much time and there is so much to do. You said you would tell me stories… about Berthe Chalgrin?”

“
Oui
. I was a child when she left, but I know something of her.” He leaned in closely. “
Mon père, la connaissait intimement.”

“Really?” His father knew her intimately? What did that mean exactly? 

“C
est vrai.
She gave him a signed photograph.” He tapped the side of his nose.

“Signed? But why? Were they…” I dare not say the word ‘lovers’ for fear it was true.

“Come, come with me. You will find out.” Monsieur Pascal led the way. I was reticent to follow but I was curious, and if I was to learn about Berthe then it would by talking to the people that knew her. Armand Pascal opened the door to a small room and there, lying in sheets the colour of a cloudy sky and surrounded by a thick smog of cigarette smoke, was Pascal Senior, a wizened, hairless, toothless old man. He wore a nightshirt darkened with food stains and he smelled worse than his son.

“
Papa, c'est la femme. Elle est Américaine. Elle veut savoir à propos de Madame Chalgrin.” 

The old man beckoned me forth.
 “Oui. Viens ici mon cher,”
he croaked.

“Monsieur?”

Pascal Senior ground his gums. “You are not very much like her,” he said in perfect English, which took me by surprise. “Yes, yes. I have English. I knew many Americans during the war. What do you want?”

“I’m sorry. I am given to understand you have a photograph of Madame Chalgrin?”

“
Oui.
I do. She was a famous beauty and an even better singer. You may have it. I have no use for it. There, there…” He pointed a bony finger at the bedside table. “In the drawer. Open it. Take out the Bible. Be careful. God will rain terror on you if you damage his word.”

I did as he said. The Bible was leather-bound and greasy to the touch. I flicked through pages with curled edges and underscored passages.

The old man shrugged. “Ah but it was a long time ago.”

The photograph was on a postcard, as was the way in those days. It was tucked into Revelations. Berthe had been captured smiling coyly to the camera. Her hair was curly around her face, but the length pulled back into a loose bun, which was in turn tucked into a small feathered clip. She was corseted and wore a silk off the shoulder dress, as if about to go out to the theatre. She held an ostrich feather fan, open and dusting her chin. I had not expected her to be a great beauty, but she was. She had signed her name across the bottom of the photograph and when I flipped the card I read the message she had written there:
Mon cher Michel, avec tous mon amour. Berthe.

“Yes, with all her love,” growled Pascal Senior. “She wrote hundreds of them. Not simply to me. To all her admirers.”

“I don’t understand. She was on the stage?”

“But my dear, she was an opera singer. One of the best.” Michel Pascal broke into a volley of coughs and reached for his cigarettes. “Keep it,” he said, waving me away. “I am dying.” He made a vulgar gesture. I tucked the photograph into my bag and thanked him profusely.

“I like a pretty face. It is better than looking at this monster.” Michel Pascal nodded at his son, standing with his back to the door.

“Tu vais bientôt mourir assez vieux fou,”
spat Pascal Junior. “Come. He has a dirty mind.”

I followed Armand Pascal back through his apartment. At the door he turned to me and said: “Come back later when he is asleep. I will answer your questions then. Here, you will need a key for the front door.” He handed me a key on a string.

“
Merci
. Please, thank your father again for the photograph.”  I did not like the old man much, but I was grateful to him all the same.

Armand Pascal shrugged and closed the door on me.

*

I found a small local shop and bought cleaning products: strong carbolic soap, a dust pan and brush, an apron, a roll of cheesecloth, two dusters, and rubber gloves. I asked the shopkeeper if she knew of anyone with a vacuum cleaner I could borrow. I doubted Armand Pascal owned one, given the state of his home.

The shopkeeper shrugged. ‘
Non
,’ she said, packaging my goods in brown paper and tying it with string.

I smiled bleakly at her. I had a mammoth task ahead of me. Sorting through the detritus of Berthe’s life was going to take forever. Not for the first time I wondered why she had just upped sticks and left.

I stopped at the café on the corner of the Rue Tronson du Coudray and ordered an omelette filled with tiny mushrooms and much garlic, and a coffee. My package sat on the chair next to me. The locals eyed me with suspicion. I ignored them.

The café owner leant over her counter and whispered in a loud voice: “
Qu'est-ce que dans votre forfait?”

“
Nothing,” I said.
“Rien.”

“Ah… You are American?”

“Yes, but my Grandfather is French.” I thought that might endear me to her and to others, listening in on our conversation.

“And you have moved here?”

“No. Not yet.” I was not sure I would be ‘moving’ to Paris as such. I gulped my coffee, eager to be gone.

The café owner pressed on: “
Où se trouve l'appartement ?”
Is it close?”

“Yes, just round the corner.” I had a thought. “Perhaps you know… Monsieur Pascal?”

“
Oh,
mais oui. Deux d’entre eux
. Him and his father. Though I have not seen the old man for a long time. You have moved into the old rooms, no?” She dusted the top of the counter with her dish cloth.

“Old rooms?”

“
Oui
, I know everyone who lives in that building. The old rooms are the only ones that are empty. You have heard the singing?
Non
?”

“Singing?” I was about to pick up my coffee cup and my hand froze mid-way. “What do you mean singing?”

The café owner came out from behind her counter, bringing the pot of coffee with her. She moved my parcel onto the floor and sat down next to me, setting the coffee pot between us.

“No one has lived in there for many years.
Personne
.” Her whisper grew louder.  All other conversation in the café ceased. “It is a sad place. Old man Pascal, he knew her. She was an opera singer you know.”

“He told me.”

The café owner stared deep into my eyes. “You have seen her,
Non
?”

“No, I never met her. She died a few weeks ago.” I was confused. What was this woman telling me?

“Ah… C
’est intéressant.
” She picked up the pot of coffee and rose from the table. “I wish you luck my dear. If you need anything…” she tapped her chest. “Colette is here.”

I thanked her, mystified by what she had said. I wanted to talk further, but she turned her back and busied herself with the coffee machine. Conversation amongst the other patrons resumed and I fell in to wondering what it was I had gotten myself into.

In the time it took for me to finish my lunch and down my coffee, the weather turned nasty. The driving rain sprayed under the café’s awning, the wind rattling the tables and chairs on the sidewalk. I clamped my hat firmly on my head, raised the collar of my mackintosh and tucked the parcel under my arm. I stood for a brief moment under the awning, and mused over whether I should wait out the shower, but in the end I made a dash across the street and round the corner. In no time at all my shoes were soaked and the brown paper on the parcel had stained dark like oil. By the time I reached the apartment I was wet through and the parcel falling apart.

I let myself into the building, thankful to be out of the rain. The heavy air closed around me and in the gloom I missed the bottom step on the stairs and the parcel and its contents rained down on me in a clatter that echoed in the vastness of the stairwell. I sat on the bottom step and burst into tears from the sheer frustration of it all. I did not want to be here. Not really. I wanted to be home in Manhattan. I wanted my life back. I wanted things to be normal.

As my sobs faded, I heard the air move and I glanced up the stairs. I thought I saw a woman in a long gown, but I could not be sure. I brushed away my tears and stood to let her aside, but there was no one there. I leaned into the hall to check if she’d somehow passed without my knowledge, but all was silent…

… and then I felt the softness of silk on my face. I stood transfixed, not exactly scared but not exactly okay with it either. The maw of time yawned wide, though in reality, I could not have stood there for more than a few seconds. Then quite suddenly, the clouds dispersed, and sunshine streamed in through the skylight above the door. The air was heavy with a musky fragrance, dust motes dancing in the rarefied air.

I had not realised I had been holding my breath and it took me a while to come to my senses. My purchases were strewn across floor, and the brown paper a crumpled wet morass at my feet.  I snatched it up and hurried to collect the items. I do not usually spook that easily, but I have to admit, I was confused and not a little scared by what I had seen. Was she a ghost? Had she made her presence known to any of the other residents in the building? I vowed to knock on a few doors before the day was out.

*

Inside the apartment I shed my wet coat, but could not kick off my shoes because the floor was too dirty and I did not want to ladder my stockings. I donned the apron and deposited the soap and cloths in the kitchen. I would banish my fears by cleaning. It had always been my favourite way of dealing with uncertainty. I found a broom in a closet, but the bristles were falling out of the head. At least the bucket under the sink was good. I doubted there would be water, but when I turned the faucet I heard a suck of air and a clanging, which ended in a splutter of brown sludge. Of course, the other residents in the building had water and although the faucet was old and the Belfast sink cracked, I could place the bucket inside and fill it. It would suffice.

I pulled my notebook out of my bag and found a pen. Armed with wash cloth, duster, bucket, and soap, I took everything into the drawing room. I dropped the wash cloth in the bucket and placed the soap on the mantelpiece. My eyes were drawn upwards to the picture I’d seen earlier. It seems like a cliché but my heart really did skip a beat, for the ghost woman on the stairs was this woman here, right down to the silk of her dress. I was sure of it…

…but it did not make sense. Was this picture of Berthe?  I could not assume that it was. It could be anyone. I had no way of knowing, and then I remembered the photo that old Michel Pascal had given me. I almost ran into the kitchen to take up my bag and search for the autographed postcard. Where was it? I’d had it with me when… It should be… but it wasn’t there. It was gone. I searched my coat pockets. Perhaps I’d dropped it downstairs, or maybe I had looked at it in the café and left it on the table? Damn it. I flicked through the pages of my notebook and the coronation photo given to me by Berthe’s Hampstead neighbour fell out. Well…

I peered hard at it, trying to make out whether the Berthe photographed in the Hampstead garden bore any resemblance to this painted diva. I gave up. The photograph was not clear enough. Perhaps if I concentrated on making some order of this mess, I would find out what and who I was dealing with. For sure, the youthful apparition I’d seen could not be Berthe. She had been an old lady when she died. There must be other photographs here, perhaps even a diary or correspondence of some kind. It did not look as if anything had been thrown away in a very long time.

Setting aside my concerns for the moment, I worked steadily into the late afternoon. I started in one corner of the room and listed the larger items of furniture. I should have brought my camera with me because then I could have photographed everything and made my life a little easier, but that would have to wait. I moved on to the paintings, and as best I could stacked them against the long wall, thereby clearing a little floor space. Moving the books sent me into a paroxysm of sneezing, but I diligently freed a chaise longue from the weight of paper and burrowed into a box of crockery, most of which was wrapped in newspaper. It was as if Berthe had half packed her belongings, meaning to take them to England with her, but then, for some as yet inexplicable reason, gave up. I glanced at the painting over the mantle and something in the atmosphere shifted. The apartment had never been warm and it was only spring, yet now I could see my breath as I exhaled. Perhaps I had done enough for one day. I glanced round one last time. Tomorrow I would find out what rooms lay beyond this.

I hurried to shed my apron and shook out my coat, still damp from the rain. It was as I was picking up my bag that the singing began. I could not make out the words, but the voice… oh the voice was magnificent: crescendos of sound softened by delicate phrases here and there, terrifying in their intensity of emotion, and yet strangely soothing. I listened for a full five minutes before the sound began to fade and I was left in total silence.