The Belly of Paris (42 page)

Like a cheated husband, who is always the last to learn of his misfortune, he had an impenetrable ignorance that kept him in a happy frame of mind as he stopped some neighbor on the street to
inquire after her Italian cheese or her pig's head in aspic. The neighbor would always assume a look of condolence, as though all the pigs in his charcuterie were suffering from jaundice.

One day he asked Lisa, “What's going on with all these women? They look at me as though we were at a funeral. Do I look ill or something?”

She reassured him that he looked fresh as a rose, because he had a terrible fear of illness, moaning and disrupting the entire household with the least sniffle. But the truth was that the handsome Quenu-Gradelle charcuterie was becoming a gloomy place—the mirrors looked pale, the marble was white as ice, the cooked meats on the counter lay sleeping under a cover of yellow fat or sitting in lakes of troubled jelly Even Claude dropped in one day to tell his aunt her display looked “all agitated,” and it was true. The stuffed tongues from Strasbourg on their bed of blue shredded paper had white spots like the tongues of sick people. The fine yellow faces of the jambonneaux looked sickly, garnished with sorry wilted green pom-poms. Furthermore, customers never came into the shop to ask for a link of boudin or six sous' worth of saindoux without lowering their voice as though in the room of a dying man. There were always two or three despondent-looking women lingering by the cooled-off warming oven.

Beautiful Lisa supervised the charcuterie-in-mourning with perfect dignity. She smoothed her white apron over her black dress with even more than the usual correctness. Her clean hands were clasped at the wrists by long sleeves, and her face was even more lovely with this proper sorrow, all of which sent a clear message to the neighborhood and all the inquisitive women who stopped there from morning until night that they were the victims of undeserved misfortune, but that knowing the cause of it, she would triumph in the end. Sometimes she would bend down and with her eyes reassure the two goldfish who swam joylessly in their aquarium that better days were coming.

Now Beautiful Lisa allowed herself only one pleasure. She could chuck Marjolin under his satin chin without fear. He had just returned from the hospital with his skull restored, as fat and happy
as ever—but stupid, even stupider than before, in fact a complete idiot. The blow seemed to have gone to his brain. He was stupid as an animal. With the body of a Goliath, he had the mentality of a five-year-old. He laughed and lisped, completely failing to pronounce some words, and was as obedient as a lamb. Cadine once more completely took him over, shocked at first but then thrilled with this wonderful pet with whom she could do as she liked. She would bed him down in a basket of feathers, take him to romp and play in the streets, use him according to her whims as a dog, a doll, or a lover. He was her cookie, a delicious little part of Les Halles, blond flesh available for whatever she wished. But though the girl took all he had and kept him trained at her heel, a submissive giant, she could not keep him from going back to Madame Quenu's. She would pummel him with her fists. He didn't even feel it. As soon as she slung her flower tray over her neck and left with her violets down rue du Pont-Neuf or rue de Turbigo, he wandered around in front of the charcuterie.

“So come in!” Lisa would shout out to him.

Usually she would give him cornichons. He loved them and ate them at the counter with his childish giggle. He was overcome by the sight of this beautiful woman, and it made him clap his hands together with joy Then he would hop around the shop letting out little shrieks, like a street child confronted with something exquisite.

At first she had been afraid that he would remember. “Does your head still hurt?” she would ask.

He said that it didn't and he balanced and swayed merrily. Gently she pushed on: “What happened? You fell?”

“Yes. Fell. Fell. Fell,” he started singing to a happy tune as he started smacking his head.

Then seriously and with excitement he started repeating the word “Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful.”

Lisa was deeply moved. She urged Gavard to take him and look after him. It was when he sang his song of simple tenderness that she would stroke him under the chin and tell him that he was a good boy. Her hand would linger there for an instant, warmed by
a discreet pleasure, a sign of friendship, accepted by the giant with a child's trusting eyes. He would bend his neck a bit and close his contented eyes like an animal being petted. In order to convince herself of the respectability of this pleasure she indulged in with him, Lisa told herself that she was making it up to him for the blow she had dealt him in the poultry cellar.

But the charcuterie remained a sorrowful place. Florent occasionally ventured in to shake his brother's hand, in the face of Lisa's icy silence. Sometimes, not very often, he would even dine there on a Sunday. Quenu would make a tremendous effort to be jolly but he never managed to bring any warmth to the meal. He ate badly and ended up angry. One evening after one of these frigid family reunions, almost in tears, he said to his wife, “What in the world is wrong with me? Are you telling the truth when you say I'm not sick? You don't think I've changed? It's as though there is a weight pressing on me somewhere. And I'm feeling very sad, and I don't even know why. I swear I don't. You don't know, do you?”

“It's probably just a bad mood,” Lisa answered.

“No, no, it's lasted too long to be just a bad mood. It's choking me. Our business is not going badly. I've got nothing to be sad about. Everything is chugging along in its usual way. And you too, dear, you're not well. You seem overtaken with melancholy. If this keeps on like this, I'm going to see a doctor.”

The beautiful charcutière looked at him very soberly.

“There's no need for a doctor,” she said. “It'll pass. You'll see. There's an ill wind blowing at the moment. Everyone in the neighborhood is sick.” Then, as though suddenly overtaken by motherly love, she said, “Don't worry, my darling. I don't want you to get sick. That would be too much.”

Usually she sent him back to the kitchen, knowing that the sound of cleavers, the sizzling of fat, the clanking of pans, made him feel more cheerful. Also, she now avoided the indiscretions of Mademoiselle Saget, who had gotten into the habit of spending whole mornings in the charcuterie. The old woman had made it her job to shock Lisa, to push her to extreme measures.

First she tried to win her confidence. “Oh my, what evil people
there are,” she said. People who should really just mind their own business. “If you only knew, my dear Madame Quenu … But I wouldn't dream of repeating this to you.”

Lisa insisted that she was not at all interested, that she was above listening to malicious tongues. Then the old mademoiselle leaned over the meat counter and murmured in her ear, “Well, they say that Monsieur Florent isn't your cousin.”

Then, little by little, she showed that she knew the whole story. All of this was simply a way to put Lisa at her mercy. When Lisa confessed the truth, also for tactical reasons, to have someone at her disposal who could keep her up to date on the neighborhood gossip, the aged mademoiselle swore that she would be mute as a fish about it and would deny everything, even if they put her head on a block. She then took profound pleasure in the drama. Every day she delivered troubling news that she further enlarged upon.

“You should be careful,” she murmured. “At the tripe shop I heard two women talking about you-know-what. I can't tell people that they're lying, you see. It would look odd … But it spreads, it spreads. No one can stop it. The truth will come out.”

A few days later the real attack was launched. She arrived in a panic and made impatient gestures, waiting for everyone else to leave the shop. Then she hissed, “You know what they're saying? The men who meet at Monsieur Lebigre's, they all have rifles and they want to start up again just like in the uprising of '48. What a shame to see that good Monsieur Gavard, so rich and decent, mixed up with that trash. I wanted to warn you, because of your brother-in-law.”

“It's all nonsense, none of this is real,” said Lisa to push her into saying more.

“Not real, my goodness! In the evening, if you walk down rue Pirouette, you can hear the most horrible shouting. They're not bothered by anything. Don't forget how they tried to involve your husband. And what about the cartridges I see them making from my window, are they nonsense too? I'm only telling you for your own good.”

“Of course. And I thank you. But so much of this is completely fabricated.”

“Oh no, it's not. Unfortunately. Everyone in the neighborhood is talking about it. They say that if the police find out, a lot of people will be in trouble. Including Monsieur Gavard.”

But Lisa shrugged as though to say that Monsieur Gavard was an old fool and would get what he deserved.

“I mentioned Monsieur Gavard, but I could have just as easily named some of the others. Your brother-in-law, for example,” the foxy old mademoiselle continued. “It seems that he's the leader, your brother-in-law. It's very awkward for you. I feel bad for you, because if the police come here, it's possible they would also take Monsieur Quenu. Two brothers are like two fingers on the same hand.”

Beautiful Lisa contradicted her, but she had turned pale. Mademoiselle Saget had managed to hit on her deepest fears. From that moment on she brought in nothing but tales of innocent people who had been thrown into prison for harboring criminals. In the evenings when she went to collect her black-currant liqueur from the wine merchant, she filed away material for the following morning. But Rose was not very forthcoming. The aged mademoiselle had to count on her own eyes and ears. She noticed Monsieur Lebigre's affection for Florent, the attention he gave that was so little rewarded by the small amount of money the young man spent there. It was especially surprising to Mademoiselle Saget because she knew about the two of them and the Beautiful Norman.

“You would have thought,” she said to herself, “that he had been beak-feeding him from birth. I wonder who he wants to sell him to?”

One evening when she was in the shop, she saw Logre throw himself on a bench in the small room and talk about his exhausting travels through the suburbs. She stole a quick look at his feet and saw that his shoes did not have a flake of dust. She smiled discreetly, pinching her lips, and left with her black-currant liqueur.

Then, as usual, she sat at her window and put her information together. The window was on an upper floor and had a commanding
view of the neighborhood, which gave her endless pleasure. She would sit there at all hours of the day, as though in an observatory from which she could clock all the movements in the neighborhood. She knew all the windows across from her, on both the right and the left, knew them down to the smallest pieces of furniture. She could have listed the inventory without omitting a single detail, the habits of the tenants, who was a good or a bad housekeeper, how they washed up, what they ate for dinner, even who their visitors were. She also had a side view of Les Halles so that no one could cross rue Rambuteau without mademoiselle seeing her. She knew without error where the woman was coming from, where she was going, what she carried in her basket, her whole history, who her husband was, her habits of hygiene, how many children she had, and how much money. There's Madame Loret. She has given her son a fine education. That's Madame Hutin, a sad little woman whose husband neglects her. And that's Mademoiselle Cécile, the butcher's daughter, who could not find a husband because of her unappealing temperament. She could have continued in this vein for days, stringing together empty phrases, being incredibly amused by uninteresting facts dissected into small pieces.

But once eight in the evening came, she only had eyes for the frosted glass window that revealed the shadows of the people drinking in the little room. She had figured out that Charvet and Clémence had left, because she could no longer see their silhouettes on the milky glass. Nothing ever happened in there that she did not eventually figure out from abrupt revelations garnered from the actions of the arms and heads silently projected onto the glass. She was a very good guesser, interpreting the elongated noses, parted fingers, wide-open mouths, and defiant shoulders, following the conspiracy, step by step, with such accuracy that she could report daily on where everything stood. One evening she saw evidence of the conspiracy's brutal climax. She made out the shadow of Gavard's pistol, the enormous profile of a revolver, its long barrel, black against the pale window. The pistol appeared and disappeared several times. It was the weapon she had been talking about at Madame Quenu's. Then, on a different evening, she was
no longer able to follow, but she imagined them making cartridges as she saw endless lengths of fabric being measured out. She went in the following morning using the pretext of wanting to borrow a candle from Rose, and out of the corner of her eye, on the table in the little room, she caught sight of a pile of red cloth that seemed very frightening.

Her report for the following day was of the utmost gravity. “I don't want to frighten you, Madame Quenu,” she said. “But things are going too far. I'm afraid, I tell you. You cannot repeat what I am about to tell you for anything in the world. If they knew, they would slash my throat.”

Then, once the charcutière swore not to expose her, she told her of the red cloths. “I just don't know what it could be. There was a huge pile of the things. It looked like blood-soaked rags. Logre— you know, the hunchback—had one of them over his shoulder. He looked like an executioner. One thing is sure, it's some kind of underhanded plot.”

Lisa didn't answer. She was gazing downward and seemed lost in thought while she was fiddling with a fork handle and arranging petit salé on platters. Mademoiselle Saget continued softly, “If I were you, I wouldn't be too calm. I'd want to know. Why don't you go upstairs and have a look in your brother-in-law's room?”

This gave Lisa a slight shiver. She dropped her fork and examined the old woman with a worried eye, believing she had grasped what Mademoiselle Saget was doing.