The Belly of Paris (20 page)

Monsieur Lebigre ran a handsome establishment done in the latest modern style. Located on the right-hand side of rue Pirouette with a view of rue Rambuteau, the doorway flanked by four Norwegian pines in green planters, it was a worthy neighbor to the big Quenu-Gradelle charcuterie. The interior could be seen through the clear windows that were decorated with paintings of leaves, vines, and grapes against a muted green background. The floor was covered in large black and white tiles. At the far end yawned the entrance to the basement, above which a spiral staircase draped in red curtains rose to the second-floor billiard room. The bar on the right looked especially luxurious, glittering like well-polished silver. The bulging border of the zinc hung over red-and-white marble, edged with rippling metal like embroidery. At
one end, porcelain pots decorated with brass rings stood over gas burners, heating punch and wine. At the other end, an ornately sculpted marble fountain continually spilled a stream of water into a basin, flowing so perfectly that the water appeared to be motionless. In the center, surrounded on three sides by sloping zinc, was a cooling basin where partially emptied green bottles showed their necks. Armies of glasses, arranged in rows by size, stood on both sides—little eau-de-vie glasses, thick goblets for table wine, cups for fruit, absinthe glasses, beer mugs—the long stems upside down with their butts in the air, shining in the pale bar light. On the left, a metal urn bristled with a fan of spoons.

Usually Monsieur Lebigre was enthroned behind the counter, seated on a tufted red leather bench. The cut-glass liqueur decanters half concealed in the wells of a cabinet were within easy reach. His round back rested against a huge mirror that filled the entire panel behind him. Across the panel ran two glass shelves filled with an assortment of bottles and jars. One of the shelves held jars of preserved fruit—cherries, plums, peaches—in dark colors. On the other, between symmetrically arranged packages of cookies, were bright flasks—soft green, yellow, and warm red— suggesting unknown exotic liqueurs from flower extracts. On the glass shelf against the white glow of the mirror, these flasks seemed to be suspended in midair.

To give his establishment the ambience of a café, Monsieur Lebigre had placed two little tables and four bronzed metal chairs against the wall facing the counter. A chandelier with five lights in frosted globes hung from the ceiling. At the left, a gilded clock hung from a rotating mount on the wall. At the far end was a private section shut off by a partition of small squares of frosted glass. During the day a window let in a little light from rue Pirouette. In the evening a gaslight burned over the two tables, which were painted to resemble marble.

It was here that Gavard and his political friends met after dinner every night. They all felt perfectly at home there and had convinced the owner to reserve their spot. When Monsieur Lebigre
closed the doors of the partition, they felt sealed from intrusion and spoke without reservation of “the big housecleaning.” No unauthorized customer would have dared intrude.

The first day, Gavard gave Florent some details about Monsieur Lebigre. He was a good man who sometimes came and had a coffee with them. You didn't have to be uneasy in front of him since he said that he had fought in '48. He didn't speak much and even seemed a bit stupid. As they passed in front of him to enter, each one grasped his hands in silence across the glasses and the bottles. Usually a small blond woman was at his side on the red leather couch, a girl he had hired to work at the bar along with the whiteaproned waiter who tended to the tables and the billiard room. Her name was Rose, and she was a sweet, obedient girl. Gavard winked as he told Florent how obedient she was with her employer. The men in the back room were served by Rose, who entered and exited with a humble, happy air in the middle of the most stormy political disputes.

The day the poultry merchant introduced Florent to his friends, the only one they found in the glassed-in room was a fiftyish man, who seemed quiet and thoughtful. He wore a somewhat seedy-looking hat and a long chestnut-colored overcoat, and he sat resting his chin on the ivory knob of a thick walking stick in front of a glass mug of beer. His mouth was hidden by a bushy beard, which gave his face a mute, lipless appearance.

“Robine, how are you?” Gavard asked.

Robine silently offered his hand without answering, but his face softened with a slight smile to greet him. Then he replaced his chin on the knob of his walking stick and looked at Florent over the top of his beer. Florent had made Gavard swear not to tell anyone his story for fear someone might be dangerously indiscreet, and he was not displeased to detect a little distrust in this gentleman with the thick beard. But in truth Robine was rarely any more talkative than he was just now. He was always the first to arrive just as the clock struck eight, always installing himself in the same corner, never letting go of his cane or removing his hat or overcoat. No one had ever seen Robine bareheaded. He sat there, listening to the others
until midnight, taking four hours to empty one mug of beer, studying each speaker in his turn as though listening with his eyes. Later, when Florent asked Gavard about Robine, the poultry merchant seemed to have a high opinion of the man without being able to offer any reasons why but said that he was one of the government's most ardent opponents.

No one ever entered Robine's apartment on rue Saint-Denis, but Gavard claimed actually to have been inside it once. The polished floors were protected with green canvas runners. The furniture was covered, and there was a clock on alabaster pillars. He thought he had caught a glimpse of Madame Robine's back between two doors; she seemed to have been a very proper older woman with her hair done in English ringlets—but he couldn't be sure. It wasn't known why they lived in the commotion of a commercial district. The husband did absolutely nothing, spending his days who knew where, living on who knew what, and showing up every evening looking weary but excited by his journey to the pinnacle of the political scene.

“So,” said Gavard, picking up a newspaper, “have you read the speech from the throne?”

Robine shrugged. But the glass-paneled partition slammed noisily and a hunchback appeared. Florent recognized him from the market, now with washed hands and clean clothes, wearing a big red muffler, one end draped over his hump like the corner of a Venetian cape.

“Ah, here's Logre,” Gavard continued, “and he's going to tell us what he thought of the speech from the throne.”

Logre was furious. He almost yanked the hook off the wall as he hung up his hat and muffler. He sat down violently, banging the table with his fist and shoving away the newspaper as he demanded, “Did I read that pack of lies?” Then he exploded: “Did you ever hear of an employer treating his staff like this? I waited a good two hours. There were ten of us in the office biding our time. Finally, Monsieur Manoury arrived in his carriage, straight from some tramp, no doubt. Those agents do nothing but steal and cheat. And then the pig paid me with nothing but small change.”

Robine made a slight movement of his eyelids to show sympathy for Logre. The hunchback quickly found his victim. “Rose! Rose!” he called, leaning out of the room. When the girl was facing him, trembling, he snapped, “What's going on? You saw me come in. Where's my coffee?”

Gavard ordered two more glasses of black coffee. Rose hurried to serve the three under the glare of Logre, who seemed to be studying his coffee and the little trays of sugar. After a sip he calmed down a bit.

“Charvet ought to come have a seat,” he quickly said. “He's out on the sidewalk, waiting for Clémence.”

Just then Charvet entered, followed by Clémence. He was a tall, bony youth with a pinched nose and thin lips who shaved carefully and lived behind the Luxembourg Gardens on rue Vavin. He called himself a freelance teacher, and politically he was an
hébertiste.
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With his long, curly hair and the wide lapels on his threadbare coat, affecting the manner of a politician, he would unleash a flood of bitter words and demonstrate such a strangely lofty erudition that it instantly defeated most of his adversaries. Gavard was afraid of him, though he didn't admit it. Instead he would declare, when Charvet wasn't there, that he thought he went too far.

Robine agreed to everything with a slight movement of his eyebrows. Logre would occasionally take on Charvet on the subject of salaries. But Charvet remained the despot of the group, the most authoritative and the best informed. For more than ten years Clémence and he had lived together under a mutual agreement strictly observed by the two of them. Florent, who was slightly thrown by the sight of the woman, finally remembered where he had seen her. She was none other than the tall, dark secretary at the fish market, who wrote with long, graceful fingers, like a well-taught young woman.

Rose appeared on the heels of these two newcomers and without saying a word deposited a stein of beer in front of Charvet and a tray in front of Clémence, who began preparing grog, pouring hot water over the lemon, which she crushed with a spoon, adding
sugar and rum with a measure to avoid exceeding the correct amount.

Now it was time for Gavard to introduce Florent to the group, especially Charvet. He presented them to each other as fellow teachers and very capable men who would understand each other. But apparently Gavard had earlier let slip some indiscretion, for they all shook hands tightly, squeezing fingers in the manner of Masonic lodge brothers. Even Charvet was almost friendly.

“Did Manoury pay you in small change?” Logre asked Clémence.

She said that he had and showed a roll of one- and two-franc bills. Charvet looked at her and watched her movements as she rerolled the bundles of bills one by one in her pocket.

“We'll have to settle up,” he said in a half whisper.

“Sure, this evening,” she murmured. “I'd think this is about even. I had lunch with you four times, didn't I? But last week I loaned you a hundred sous.”

Florent, surprised, turned his head away so as not to intrude. Clémence, removing the last roll from view, took a sip of her grog, leaning against the glass paneling as she listened to the men talk politics. Gavard had again picked up the newspaper and was reading fragments of the speech from the throne that morning at the opening of Parliament, in a voice he tried to make sound comical. Charvet began to have fun at the expense of the official language. He didn't spare a line. They were particularly entertained by the sentence “We have every confidence, gentlemen, that, supported by your light and the conservative sentiments of the country, we shall succeed in increasing the public prosperity day by day.”

Logre stood up and pronounced this sentence, mimicking the emperor's drawling voice by speaking through his nose.

“Isn't it great, this prosperity,” said Logre. “Everyone's starving to death.”

“Trade is bad,” said Gavard.

“And what in the world is it supposed to mean, ‘supported by your light’?” continued Clémence, who prided herself on her literary background.

Even Robine released a little snicker from the depth of his beard. The conversation began to heat up. The group took on the Corps Législatif, tearing it apart. Logre did not let up. To Florent he was exactly the same as when shouting fish prices at the auction, his jaw stuck out, his waving hands hurling words into midair, and the posture of a snarling animal; he served up politics the way he would a tray full of sole.

Charvet, on the other hand, grew colder and quieter amid the pipe and gas fumes that were now filling the little room. His voice became dry and razor sharp, whereas Robine gently nodded his head without ever removing his chin from the head of his stick. Then Gavard turned the conversation toward women.

“Women,” Charvet declared authoritatively, “are the equal of men and being so ought not to inconvenience men with the daily affairs of life. Marriage is a partnership in which everything should be divided in half. Isn't that so, Clémence?”

“Of course,” the young woman answered with her head against the paneling, looking into space.

Florent noticed Lacaille the grocer and Alexandre the fort, the friend of Claude Lantier. The two men had been at the other table of the little room, apparently belonging to a different world from the other gentlemen. But at the mention of politics their chairs had drawn nearer until they became part of the group. Charvet, in whose eyes they represented “the people,” tried to indoctrinate them with his political theories, whereas Gavard played the prejudice-free shopkeeper, clinking glasses with them. Alexandre was a handsome cheerful giant who seemed like a happy child. Lacaille, embittered, already gray-haired, his shoulders stooped by his endless walking in the streets of Paris, sometimes cast a suspicious glance at all this bourgeois complacency, at Robine's good shoes and fine coat. Each of them was brought a small glass, and the conversation continued, more heated and tumultuous than ever, now that the social order was complete.

That evening, through the half-open door of their section, Florent glimpsed Mademoiselle Saget standing at the counter. She had pulled a bottle from under her apron and was watching Rose
fill it with a great deal of black-currant liqueur and a touch of eau-de-vie. Then the bottle vanished back under her apron and Mademoiselle Saget, her hands hidden, chatted in the bright light of the counter in front of the mirror where bottles and jars hung like Viennese lanterns. In the evening all the crystal and metal gave the place a warm glow. The elderly woman, standing there in the gaudy light in her black skirt, looked like a strange large insect.

Florent noticed that Mademoiselle Saget was trying to entrap Rose in a conversation and cunningly suspected that she had noticed him through the half-open door. Since he had started working at Les Halles, he had seen her every time he took a step, dawdling in one of the covered streets and usually accompanied by Madame Lecœur and La Sarriette, the three of them studying him and completely confounded when he had become an inspector. But this particular evening Rose did not want to converse with the old lady, for she finally turned around, apparently planning to approach Monsieur Lebigre, who was playing piquet
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with a customer at one of the bronze tables. Sneaking softly along, Mademoiselle Saget at last managed to install herself beside the partition, where she was noticed by Gavard, who detested her.