The Belly of Paris (15 page)

Lisa called to her, “Tell me if these are thin enough.” On the edge of a board she was delicately cutting the lard. As she wrapped it up, she asked, “Can I get you anything else?”

“Oh my God, I must be losing my mind,” said La Sarriette. “Give me a pound of saindoux. I just love fried potatoes. I can make a lunch of nothing but two sous of fried potatoes and a bunch of radishes. Yes, one pound of saindoux, Madame Quenu.”

Lisa took a thick piece of paper on the scale and, taking the crock of saindoux from under the shelf, scooped out globs with a wooden spatula and built a mound on the paper with gentle taps. When the scale plate dropped, she took the paper and quickly twisted the ends closed with her fingers.

“That's twenty-four sous,” Lisa said, “and six sous for the larding strips, that makes thirty sous. Did you need anything else?”

La Sarriette said, “No.” Still laughing, showing her teeth, she paid. Staring at the men, her gray skirt a little off kilter and her carelessly tied red scarf revealing just a little bit of the white of her bosom. Just before leaving, she challenged Gavard again: “So you're not going to tell me what you were talking about as I came in. I could see you laughing from the middle of the street. Oh, you sly one, I won't love you anymore.”

She walked out and crossed the street. Lisa dryly observed, “Mademoiselle Saget sent her.”

Then it was back to silence. Gavard was taken aback by Florent's response to his proposition. Lisa spoke first.

“It's wrong of you to turn down the position of fish inspector, Florent. You know how hard it is to find a job, and you're hardly in a position to be choosy.”

“I have my reasons,” answered Florent.

Lisa shrugged. “Come on, you can't be serious. I understand how much you dislike the government, but it would be stupid to let that stop you from earning a living. Besides, dear, the emperor isn't a
bad man. You don't believe, do you, that he knew of your suffering? How could he know if you were eating moldy bread and tainted meat? He can't be held responsible for everything that happens. You can see for yourself that he hasn't interfered with the rest of us. You're not being fair, not at all.”

Gavard was feeling more and more uncomfortable. He could not stand hearing these tributes to the emperor.

“Wait a minute, Madame Quenu,” he murmured. “You're going a bit too far. He really is trash.”

“Oh, you!” the energized Beautiful Lisa interrupted him. “With all your stories, you won't be satisfied until someday you get robbed and massacred. Don't talk politics to me, because it will make me mad. We're talking about Florent now and saying he should take the inspector job. Isn't that right, Quenu?”

Quenu, who until then had not breathed a word, was caught off guard by the abruptness of his wife's question. “It's a good position,” he said without committing himself.

Once again an awkward silence fell on the room, and Florent said, “Please, just forget it. My mind is made up. I'll wait.”

“You'll wait!” shouted Lisa, at the end of her patience.

Two reddish flames were burning on her cheeks. Planted firmly there in her white apron, her hips wide, she struggled to resist unleashing unkind words. Then another customer came into the shop, deflecting her anger. It was Madame Lecœur.

“Could you please give me a half-pound assorted plate at fifty sous a pound?” she asked. At first she pretended to have not seen her brother-in-law; then she greeted him with a nod. She studied the three men from the tops of their heads down to the tips of their toes, no doubt hoping to find their secret somewhere in the manner in which they were waiting for her to leave. She could sense that she had somehow disturbed them, and that made her look even sharper and more sour than usual in her drooping skirts, with her long spidery arms with their gnarled hands held under her apron. Gavard, ill at ease in the silence, detected a slight cough and asked, “Have you caught a cold?”

“No,” she said curtly. In the places where the bones neared the
surface of her face, the skin was stretched brick red and the dark flame that touched her eyelids pointed to a liver ailment fed by the bitterness of her jealousies. She turned back to the counter and followed Lisa's every gesture with the untrusting eye of a customer convinced she is going to be cheated.

“Don't give me any cervelas,” she said. “I don't like them.”

Lisa cut the thin slices with a small knife. She moved to the smoked ham, then the ordinary ham, curling off fine slivers that curled in her hand as she leaned slightly forward to keep her eye on the knife. Her plump, ruddy hands, which worked around the meats with a light, dextrous touch, seemed to have acquired the suppleness of fat. She held out a terrine and asked, “You'd like some larded veal, wouldn't you?”

Madame Lecœur seemed to think about this for a long time; then she agreed. Lisa then sliced from the terrine. She took some slices of larded veal and a slab of hare pâté on the end of her knife blade. Each slice was placed in the middle of a sheet of paper on the scale.

“Aren't you going to give me any boar's head with pistachios?” asked Madame Lecœur in an unpleasant voice.

So she had to give her the boar's head. This butter vendor was becoming difficult. She wanted two slices of galantine, she liked that. Lisa, already irritated, fidgeted with the knife handle and pointed out that the galantine had truffles and could be included only in an assortment at three francs a pound. The customer continued to sniff around the plates to look for more things to ask for. When the assortment was weighed out, she insisted on Lisa adding some aspic and cornichons. The block of aspic, in the shape of a gâteau de Savoie in the middle of a porcelain platter, jiggled in the grasp of Lisa's angry hands, and vinegar squirted from the jar as she grabbed two cornichons with her fingers from behind the dish warmer.

“That's twenty-five sous, isn't it?” Madame Lecœur asked in a casual tone. She could clearly see and tremendously enjoyed Lisa's repressed irritation, slowly taking out her money, as though the coins had gotten lost in her pocketbook. Then she glanced disdainfully
at Gavard, reveling in the strained silence that her presence prolonged, vowing that she would not leave as long as they were concealing some “chicanery” from her. But Lisa finally placed the package in her hand and she had to leave. She exited without saying a word, casting one last stare around the shop.

Once she was gone Lisa exploded, “La Saget sent her too! Is that old battle-ax going to march everyone in Les Halles in here to find out what we were talking about? And what vicious people they are! Whoever heard of breaded chops and assorted plates being sold at five in the afternoon? They'd rather make themselves sick with indigestion than miss out on what we were saying. If La Saget sends anyone else, wait and see the reception she gets. I'll show her the door, even if it's my own sister.”

The three men were silenced by Lisa's anger. Gavard had leaned over the brass railing, where, lost in his thoughts, he absentmindedly fiddled with a little glass railing that had come loose. Then he raised his head. “Personally,” he said, “I look at the whole thing as a big farce.”

“What's that?” asked Lisa.

“The fish inspector job.”

She raised her hands, shot one last look at Florent, and then sat on the cushioned bench behind the counter with her mouth sealed. But Gavard began to expound on his theory, the idea being that the government would get fleeced because Florent would get their money. He repeated with satisfaction, “My dear friend, weren't those the bastards that nearly starved you to death? Well, now's your chance to make them feed you. It's a beautiful thing. It struck me immediately.”

Florent smiled but still said no. Quenu, to please his wife, tried to come up with a good argument. But Lisa seemed to no longer be listening. She was staring at the market. Suddenly she sprang to her feet, shouting, “Aha, now they're sending the Norman to spy on us. She's going to pay for the others.”

A tall brunette pushed open the shop door. It was Louise Méhudin, the beautiful fish woman whom everyone called the Norman. She had a brazen kind of good looks and delicate white
skin. She was almost as assertive as Lisa, the look in her eyes was even bolder, and her breasts were more alluring. She came in with a prancing gait, a gold chain jingling against her apron, her uncovered hair combed up in the latest style, and a bow at her throat, a lace bow that made her the queen coquette of Les Halles. She had about her a slight scent of the sea, and on one of her hands, near the little finger, a herring scale shone like a small patch of mother-of-pearl. The two women had lived in the same house on rue Pirouette, where they had been close friends, linked by a rivalry that kept each thinking about the other. In the neighborhood people said “the Beautiful Norman,” just as they said “Beautiful Lisa.” This made them competitors, always compared, forcing them both to live up to their reputation for beauty.

If Lisa leaned over a little at her counter, she could see the fish woman working in the pavilion across the way amid salmons and turbots. Each kept an eye on the other. Beautiful Lisa tightened the laces on her corset and the Beautiful Norman responded by adding more rings to her fingers and bows to her shoulders. Whenever they saw each other, they were very sweet, very flattering, while their eyes darted from under lowered lids, searching for defects. They were always very attentive to each other and professed the greatest affection.

“Tell me, is it tomorrow that you make the boudin?” asked the Norman in a merry voice.

Lisa remained icy. She did not often get angry, but when she did, her anger stubbornly remained. She responded, “Yes,” in a cold voice, barely moving her lips.

“It's just that, you know, I love boudin hot out of the pot. I'll come back.”

She was aware of the icy reception by her rival. She looked at Florent, who seemed to interest her, and then, not wanting to leave without having the last word, she unwisely added, “I bought some of your boudins the day before yesterday. They weren't very fresh.”

“Not fresh!” Lisa repeated, her face turned white and lips trembling.

Up until that point Lisa might have kept her composure lest the Norman get the idea that it was the lace bow to which she was reacting But now not only was she being spied on but she was also being insulted, and that was going too far. Arching her back and planting her fists on the counter, she let loose in a harsh voice, “You don't say. Remember last week when you sold that pair of soles, did I go saying in front of everyone that they were spoiled?”

“Spoiled? My soles spoiled?” shouted the fish woman, her face turning purple.

For a moment they stood breathless, mute and infuriated beneath the meat rack. All the loveliness of their friendship had evaporated. It had taken only one word to reveal the sharp teeth hidden behind the smile.

“You are a crude and vulgar woman,” said the Beautiful Norman. “See if I ever set foot in here again.”

“Get out then, get out!” said Beautiful Lisa. “Everyone knows about you.”

The fish woman parted with a vulgar word that left the charcuterie woman's entire body shaking. The scene had unfolded so quickly that the three astonished men had not had time to intervene. Lisa quickly regained her composure. As Augustine, the shopgirl, was returning from her errands, Lisa took up the conversation where it had left off without making the slightest reference to what had just taken place. Pulling Gavard to the side, she told him not to give Verlaque a final answer. She would make it her mission to make up her brother-in-law's mind, for which she would need, at most, two days.

Quenu came back to the kitchen just as Gavard was taking Florent for a vermouth at Monsieur Lebigre's. He pointed out three women in the covered street between the fish and the poultry pavilions.

“They're gossping away,” Gavard muttered in a voice that was full of envy.

Les Halles was slowly clearing out, and there stood Mademoiselle Saget, Madame Lecœur, and La Sarriette at the
edge of the walk. The old woman was spouting, “Just like I told you, Madame Lecœur, they always have your brother-in-law in the shop. You saw him there yourself, didn't you?”

“With my own two eyes! He was seated at a table and looked completely at home.”

“Personally,” La Sarriette interrupted, “I didn't hear anything bad. I don't know why you're making such a fuss about it.”

Mademoiselle Saget shrugged. “Oh well, you're still an innocent, my dear. Can't you see why the Quenus are always enticing Monsieur Gavard to their shop? What do you want to bet he'll leave everything he has to little Pauline?”

“Do you think so!” exclaimed Madame Lecœur, pale with anger. Then, in a mournful voice as though she had just received some terrible news, she said, “I'm all alone, completely defenseless. He's completely free to do as he pleases. You just heard how his niece sides with him too. She has forgotten what she cost me and wouldn't lift a finger to help me.”

“Not so, Aunt,” said La Sarriette. “It is you who never has a kind word for me.”

Right there and then they reconciled their differences and kissed. The niece promised that she would stop her teasing, and the aunt swore on all she held sacred that she would treat La Sarriette as though she were her own daughter. Mademoiselle Saget offered them advice on how to keep Gavard from squandering his money. And they all agreed that the Quenu-Gradelles were unsavory and needed to be watched.

“I don't know what kind of shenanigans they're up to,” said the old spinster, “but there's something fishy going on. And that Florent, Madame Quenu's cousin, what do you two make of him?”

The three women huddled close together and lowered their voices. “Remember how we saw him one morning,” said Madame Lecœur, “with his boots falling apart and his clothes covered with dust, sneaking around like a thief who had just gotten away with something … That man frightens me.”

“No,” said La Sarriette, “he's very skinny, but he's not a bad man.”

Mademoiselle Saget was thinking out loud. “I've been working
on this for the past two weeks, trying to find out something about him. Clearly Monsieur Gavard knows him. I must have met him somewhere, I just can't remember where.”