Paris: The Novel (40 page)

Had he left because his wife was a foolish drinker, or had she got that way because he left? Édith suspected it was the latter, but she wasn’t sure, and Aunt Adeline would never discuss it. Where had he gone? “Who knows?” her aunt would say with a shrug.

Sometimes Édith would imagine that Aunt Adeline did know where her father was and that she was keeping it a secret. Perhaps he did not want to live with her mother. Perhaps there was some other trouble that he had to hide. Perhaps he was in prison. But she liked to think that, wherever he was, he cared about her. She pictured him asking Aunt Adeline for reports of her, and listening to them eagerly. He might know all about her. He could even be secretly watching her sometimes as she walked down the street—watching her with love and pride. It was possible. You never knew. She realized that these were childish fantasies, but she could not help it if, when she was in her bed all alone at night, she sometimes allowed herself to dream of such things before she went to sleep.

Lately, she had been thinking of her father more often. And she compared in her mind the feelings of warmth that these foolish dreams
brought her with the feeling of warmth and comfort she experienced when she was with Thomas, and he put his strong arms around her, and held her. And sometimes when she thought of him like that, she thought she would tell him about the baby growing within her, and sometimes she wasn’t so sure. But she was beginning to think that perhaps she would.

So when he suggested that they meet Pepe and Anna on Sunday, because Pepe had discovered an Irish bar where you could eat cheaply—he was always inventive like that—she’d agreed, thinking that maybe at the end of the day, when she and Thomas were walking back together, she might tell him her secret.

They met at the Irish bar in the middle of the day. It was on the edge of the Saint-Germain quarter near the old Irish College. The two young men were especially pleased with themselves because their crew had been among the last twenty men working at the top of the tower. This was a special badge of honor.

Pepe insisted they all drink the dark Irish Guinness with their meal, which they were not used to. Then they drank some red wine. Thomas amused them all by confessing how he’d sworn to Monsieur Eiffel that he had an excellent head for heights, and then frozen with panic before the building even got to the first platform. Anna told them stories about her huge family in Italy. By the time they were finally ready to leave, they were all very happy, but a little tipsy.

They strolled back together, along the left bank of the Seine. The tower, virtually completed, rose into the blue sky ahead of them. They reached the great site, where numerous halls were already being prepared for the huge exhibition. Some way off, there were people on the bridge staring up, but the fenced-off site was empty.

And they were just about to go their separate ways when Pepe said: “And now, Thomas and I will give you a demonstration of the fearless flyers of the Eiffel Tower.”

He led them to a small gap in the fence and in another minute they were in the quiet space under the huge southern archway of the tower.

“Want to come up?” he asked the girls.

“No,” said Édith. “Anyway it’s all locked.”

But Pepe only laughed.

“Come on, Thomas,” he cried. “Let’s go.”

Édith stared in horror. It suddenly occurred to her: If anything were to happen to Thomas, now of all times …

“Stay here. Thomas,” she begged him. “Don’t go up. You’ve been drinking.”

“We’re not drunk,” Pepe cried. “They give us wine up the tower every day.”

“Please, Thomas,” she implored.

But the two men were already swarming up the huge framework. After a while they got into the stairs. She and Anna could see them running happily up them, laughing as they went. Then, for a short while, they couldn’t be seen.

“Where do you think they are?” she asked Anna.

“Perhaps they’re going to the top,” Anna suggested.

“Oh my God, don’t let them do that,” Édith prayed. She looked up the huge iron network reaching into the sky. The safety barriers were all gone now. There was nothing to protect anyone out there on the girders. She still couldn’t see them. She and Anna moved in closer, almost under the arch.

Then, somewhere up there, she heard Thomas’s voice calling down.

“Édith! Can you see me?” And then, just behind the huge arch under the first landing, she saw him balanced on a girder.

“Yes. But take care,” she cried.

“It was here exactly. This is where I panicked.”

“Are you all right?”

“But of course.” He waved.

“Where’s Pepe?” called Anna.

There was a brief silence. Then Pepe’s voice floated down to them.

“Anna. Look to the left of Thomas.”

He was on a beam, a little higher, standing very comfortably with his hands on his hips, and staring down at them as if he owned the place.

Édith called out to them both that they should come down now or someone would see, and they’d all get into trouble. Reluctantly, Thomas moved to one side, and she could see him getting near the stairs. But Pepe hadn’t come in yet. And then, suddenly, he began to sing.

The strains of the Neapolitan song wafted down. He had a pleasing tenor voice. Édith could hear every word. Anna clapped her hands with pleasure. Could the people out on the bridge hear this concert performance emanating from the depths of the huge iron structure? It was possible. His voice was very clear. He came to the chorus.

Anxious that he shouldn’t sing another verse, Édith applauded vigorously. And then, hoping to get him off the tower quickly, she shouted out:

“Take a bow, Pepe, and come down.”

Pepe obliged. He made a magnificent, theatrical bow. Then another to the left, and also to the right, and a final, still deeper bow to the center again. And lost his balance.

It happened so quickly that, apart from a tiny motion with his hand as he reached out for something to hold on to, it was almost as if he had purposely dived. His body fell. How tiny it seemed under the massive iron arch. They heard his voice, a single, fearful “Oh …” And strangely, neither she nor Anna screamed out, but watched, stunned, as the little body plummeted, one, two, three seconds and then, not sixty feet from her, hit the hard ground with a thud so terrible, so final, that she knew instantly that there could not be anything left of the person that, a moment ago, had been Pepe.

Thomas Gascon never knew he could think so fast. A year ago, on these same girders, he had stood paralyzed in panic. Today, as he clattered down the metal stairs, more than three hundred of them, flight after flight, after flight, taking them almost at a run, he found that he saw everything with a cold clarity that amazed him. By the time he clambered out onto the girders, slid down over the concrete base, and raced across to Édith and Anna, he knew exactly what must be done.

Anna was crouched on the ground beside Pepe’s body. She was shaking with shock. At least thank God she wasn’t screaming. Édith had her arms around her.

Thomas quickly inspected poor Pepe. His small body was a crumpled mess. His neck was twisted at a strange angle, a pool of blood already forming in front of his open mouth. He reminded Thomas of a baby bird
that has fallen out of a high nest. Wherever the spirit of his cheerful friend had gone, it was already somewhere far, far away.

“Édith,” he asked, “does Monsieur Ney have a telephone?” He knew there were only a few thousand people in all Paris who had one, but he thought the lawyer might be one of them.

“I think so.”

“Go to him as fast as you can. Tell him what happened, and that Monsieur Eiffel must be informed at once. Also the police. He will know what to do. Then you stay with your aunt. I shall wait here with Anna.” He reached into his pocket and gave her money. “If you walk fast you can reach him in less than half an hour. But if you see a cab, take it. And don’t say anything to anyone, even the police, until you get to Ney.”

“If he’s out?”

“Your aunt will help you. Try to find him. We have to tell the police, but it’s essential Monsieur Eiffel knows at once.”

Édith didn’t like to leave Anna, but she agreed to go. As she left, Thomas kissed her and repeated quietly, “Don’t come back.”

As she left, he wondered if anyone on the bridge had seen Pepe fall. They might have. But they might not. If they had, the police would probably arrive quite soon. That couldn’t be helped. But at least he’d done his best to protect the two people who mattered: Édith and Monsieur Eiffel.

Then he sat down, put his arm around Anna, and waited.

He waited an hour and a half. It seemed an eternity. Then a group of people all arrived together. Monsieur Eiffel and Ney and a small man with a neatly trimmed mustache were closely followed by a uniformed policeman, a young man with a camera apparatus and two men with a stretcher.

While Eiffel moved slightly apart, Ney spoke.

“As you see, Inspector,” he addressed the man with the mustache, “my client awaits you exactly as I said he would. And this young lady I am sure is the friend of the unfortunate young man.”

The inspector glanced at Thomas briefly, moved to Pepe’s body, gave it the briefest inspection, glanced up at the tower and nodded to the young man with the camera, who was already setting up a tripod to take photographs.

Meanwhile Ney had gone to Thomas’s side.

“You have shown intelligence by your actions, young man,” he said in a low voice. “Now listen carefully. Answer the questions that the inspector puts to you, and answer them very briefly. That is the only information he wishes to know. Add nothing. You understand? Nothing.”

Thomas saw the inspector look at Ney inquiringly. The lawyer gave him a slight nod.

“My client is ready to help you, Inspector.”

The inspector came across. Apart from his mustache, his face was clean shaven. His hair was thin over a broad brow. His eyes reminded Thomas of oysters. They were watchful and somewhat sad. He took out a notebook.

The preliminaries were brief: his name, the address where he lived—Thomas gave his lodgings in the rue de la Pompe. The time of the incident. The name and occupation of the deceased. He had been with the deceased before the incident? Where? The Irish bar.

“Had the deceased drunk anything at the Irish bar?”

“Yes, monsieur. Both Guinness and wine.”

“Was he inebriated?”

“Not drunk. He had control of himself …”

“But he had consumed both beer and wine.”

“Certainly.”

“Then he climbed up the tower.”

“Yes, Inspector.”

“How?”

“Up the girders at first, since the staircase is closed. Then into the staircase and up to the first platform, then out onto the girders.”

“You saw him do this?”

“Yes.” He was about to explain that he had gone up with him, but remembering what Ney had said, and since the inspector had not yet asked where he was himself, he did not offer this information.

“What did he do up there?”