The Blood of Lorraine (14 page)

A little joke, almost bringing Martin to tears.

“I just don’t want you to be angry with me. My father said it would be all right.”

“What, darling? Tell me. I’m sure it was fine.” Martin glanced up at the doctor who stood by, waiting to have his say.

“Madeleine and your mother convinced me that Henri-Joseph should be baptized. That he was healthy enough to go to the cathedral.” She raced on as if to forestall any questions or objections. “Papa said he would make sure that Henri-Joseph would be nice and warm. That not a flake of snow or drop of rain would touch him even in a storm. You know Papa’s arms. So strong. So warm. So I let them take him.”

Martin kept on smiling and holding Clarie’s hand, although a flush of angry heat was rising up his face as he imagined what had gone into that little drama: Madeleine and his mother conspiring with each other to thwart Martin’s will, talking about him as if his doubts about the Church were some kind of blind fanaticism, when of course he would have allowed his son to be baptized. He didn’t hate God or true men of faith: he only hated authoritarian bigots, the kind that had brought him up and produced narrow-minded men and women like his own mother.

“Why should I be angry?” he asked. “It must have been safe. The cathedral is just around the corner.” The smile was so firmly and falsely plastered on his face that he was sure she would see through it straight to his soul, as she always did.

“You know, sometimes you talk about the Church and the Republic and how they are against each other—”

He pressed her hand harder, trying to find the words to show that nothing she could do at this moment would upset him. They came to him in a flash of inspiration. “Clarie, when we first met, you told me that although your father was ‘the biggest Red’ in all of Arles, he sometimes liked to carry the holy statues in procession. You said that your father was big enough and generous enough to fight for the workers and love God at the same time. And,” Martin continued, riding on the wave of this memory, “that his God was big enough to want justice for the workers too.”

She nodded and smiled, remembering that happier time, in Aix-en-Provence, when she had spoken so proudly of her beloved father. She moved her own child closer to her breast.

“I know I’m not as big a man as your father. Yet,” he added with sudden insight, “when I get older and wiser, I hope to be like him, a man of many worlds.”

“You’re not jealous of Papa, are you?” Even now, with her dying baby in her arms, she saw through him enough to tease him.

“Of course not,” although, in truth, he was a little. More than anything except the life of his son, he wanted Clarie to admire him above all men.

Henri-Joseph gave out a weak little cry. Martin watched as his fingers wriggled with pathetic slowness.

“Here, here.” Clarie placed her son on her chest and patted him on his back before turning to Martin, smiling. “You’re every bit as good as Papa, and Henri-Joseph will be, too. Won’t you?” she said to the top of her baby’s head, then kissed the little wool blue cap that covered it.

“Of course he will,” Martin said, although he was afraid that Clarie would see through this lie. Gazing at the inert tiny fingers splayed across his wife’s breast, he knew. And he realized what he had hated most about the “secret baptism” was not the scheming—or the idiotic assumption that he would not have been willing to baptize his son into the Church—it was that Madeleine and his mother and Giuseppe Falchetti knew too. There was very little time.

Martin’s mouth had gone completely dry. He could find no other words of comfort for his wife. He looked up at Dr. Pinot, who had put on his jacket and was motioning with his head that they had to talk.

Martin got up, kissed Clarie on her forehead and lightly rubbed his baby’s back. It was very warm. Soon, Martin wondered, as chill ran down his spine, will it be very cold? “I think Dr. Pinot has to leave,” he whispered to Clarie, “so let me show him to the door. I’ll be right back.” By this time, he thought the smile would crack his face open and all his falsehoods would come tumbling out. But Clarie’s attention had once again turned to the baby. She was rocking him slowly on her chest, kissing the top of his head, trying, without being aware, to bring him to life.

With a nod from Martin, the two men left the room and hurried to the foyer. Pinot put on his coat, scarf and hat in silence before indicating that they should go out in the hall, away from everyone else in the apartment.

As soon as they closed the door, Martin asked, “Where is the wet nurse? I thought you were going to—”

Pinot grabbed his arm. “It’s an infection. Something in the blood, coursing through his body. The wet nurse wouldn’t have helped. It’s over. You know that.”

Martin wanted to argue, to deny, to plead. But he could not find the strength. “Yes,” he finally said. “I know.” He swallowed hard and waited.

“What you have to worry about is your wife.”

“She seemed fine,” Martin said in desperate hope.

“No, no.” Pinot shook his head. “The maid told me that when they took the child to be baptized, she kept calling for him, wanting him near her.”

“I suppose that’s natural. She wants to hold him, feed him—”

“No!” Pinot took hold of both of Martin’s arms. “You have to understand what is happening to her, in her body, in her mind. Childbirth is a shock to the female system. Her fluids are rushing through her, blurring her thinking, perhaps at this time even protecting her from reality. But when reality hits, she may go a little mad. I’ll do what I can. But you may have to look for some other help.”

“No, no.” Martin backed up against the wall as tears began to flow from his eyes.

“That is what she does not need. Your tears. You must be strong.”

“Of course.” Did Pinot think that he would burden his wife with his own weeping?

“All right, then, listen to me.” Pinot waited until Martin had straightened up and was staring into his eyes. “Tonight will be the night. I’ve left a bottle of laudanum on the nightstand. Make sure she drinks two spoonfuls. Then you must get the baby out of her arms. And when it happens, you must remove the baby and all his things as soon as possible.” Pinot reached inside his pocket and handed Martin a card. “Here. I’ve worked with Monsieur Girard before. He can arrange a quick burial. And after that, all your attention must go to your wife.”

Martin took the card. “Gustave Girard. Funeral Arrangements,” it read in plain black letters. He wanted to tear the card into pieces and throw it down the staircase. To spit on it and stamp on it. Instead he crumpled it just slightly before placing it in the pocket of his suit jacket.

“I am so sorry, Bernard.” These were Pinot’s last words before he put on his bowler and headed down the stairs.

Tuesday–Wednesday, November 27–28

M
ARTIN AWAITED THE DAWN WITH
dread. He hadn’t slept all night. He lay, holding the baby, with his back to Clarie, listening intently for her every slow, steady breath. It had taken all of his powers to persuade her to get some sleep. He promised to wake her if Henri-Joseph needed her, to tell her if anything went wrong. Of course, he had no intention of keeping these promises once she fell into a merciful laudanum-induced sleep. So, during that long dark night, he lay as still as a sentry at his post, only daring to move once. At three o’clock he had slowly, carefully reached for his watch to record, in his mind, the moment of Henri-Joseph’s death, although he had no way of really knowing it. His son’s exit from their world had happened gradually, without a murmur, so unlike his bloody and glorious entrance into it.

Martin shifted a bit as the light began to pierce through the curtains. He pressed his son closer to him, not wanting ever to let him go. Why? That was the question that haunted him through the night. Why did his son have to die? When he had asked Pinot that question, the doctor had been judicious, clinical. These things happen. Martin was fortunate to have a strong, young wife who would bear him other children.

This told Martin nothing. It certainly did not explain how he had come to love so desperately a tiny being that he had hardly known. His son. Even the puerile words of Pierre Thomas came back to Martin during the night as he thought of all the things he would not have: my son, the dolt had shouted, someone to look up to me, to show off to my comrades, to teach. My son, Martin cried in his heart and bit his lip to squelch the sound, someone to love.

The worst was yet to come. How was he going to tell Clarie? Thank God Giuseppe is here, he thought as he maneuvered his stiff body to the side of the bed. Always, knowing how little Giuseppe could afford a hotel, Clarie and Martin had tried to persuade her father to stay with them. Only when he saw how much they needed him did he agree. Never had Martin needed him more.

Bit by bit, Martin managed to put his feet on the floor without making the bed creak. Then as he tried to stand, he lurched to the side, upsetting the lamp. He grabbed it with his free hand and glanced at Clarie, who moaned and turned, still sleeping. His body felt so heavy, as if a giant stone were crushing his chest, squeezing the life out of him. He had known grief. His father’s death when he was twelve, the fatal shooting of Merckx in Aix. But nothing like this. Mme Ullmann had cried out from the pain of her howling emptiness. Martin didn’t feel empty. Yet. He was so weighed down by what lay ahead that he could barely move. His only thought for the moment was Giuseppe: he had to reach him. The emptiness, the howling would come later.

He stumbled to the door, took a breath and opened it. It was beginning. He had to say the words.

Bleary-eyed, Giuseppe stood up immediately, as if he, too, had not slept. They met in the middle of the room. Giuseppe took one look at the still, little body and knew.

“He has a peaceful look on his face.” These words shocked Martin, yet it was so like his father-in-law to try to find a way to bring Clarie and Martin comfort. This time he didn’t succeed. Martin clutched Henri-Joseph to his chest and began to cry. Giuseppe reached out and enfolded them both in his strong, stout arms. “You are the son I have always wanted,” he said through his tears, “a son I could never dream of having. And I know, I know, that you and Clarie will have more children. And I know I will live to see them and play with them. I know this. I do.”

Martin slipped away from him and fell into a chair. Tears ran down his face. His father-in-law gently pried Henri-Joseph out of his arms and offered him a handkerchief.

“Clarie.” That was the only word that Martin managed to say.

“Yes. My poor girl.” The weight of what was to come pushed Giuseppe into another chair.

It seemed they sat there for hours in silence as the light inexorably announced the day, the hour, the moment when it must be done. Still they did not move until they heard her call.

Numbly, grasping the chair by its arms, Martin managed to get to his feet. He no longer felt weighed down, he was weightless, unreal, moving through the thick, resisting air that separated him from the bedroom.

Clarie was already sitting up when he entered. “Where is he?” she demanded. “Where is my baby?”

Martin tensed as the words shot through every fiber of his body, almost locking him in place. He willed himself to her side of the bed. He edged onto it, bent over and kissed her. “He is gone,” he said. “Our little Henri-Joseph is gone.”

“No, he isn’t!” Her eyes flashed and her face, in the morning light was red and angry. “Bring him to me.”

Martin shook his head. “He’s gone. You were right. He was sick. The doctor said there was nothing we could do.”

“No! No! No!” She slapped him across the face. And then she began pushing him, and making fists, and punching him.

Martin did not even try to ward off the blows. He wanted to feel the pain, to be punished. For not being there every minute. For not paying attention. For being a fool who had gotten himself tangled up outside their world. Only Giuseppe’s strong arms stopped her. Her father had crawled across the bed. He held her close until her arms stopped flailing, and she began to cry.

Now, Martin thought with a start, would be the time for the tearing of clothes, the rending of garments. The vision of Mme Ullmann’s dignified and righteous fury flooded Martin’s mind. Yes, this is what Clarie would be like when the wildness had gone out of her, the futile, mad wishing to have her baby back. Burying his face in his hands, Martin knew that this was the most he could hope for.

In the end it was his mother and Madeleine who made the arrangements. Adele Martin got Gustave Girard to come to the apartment to talk with Martin about coffins and gravesites; Madeleine informed the other teachers at Clarie’s school, the maid, and the Steins of Henri-Joseph’s death; together they went to Madeleine’s parish and found a priest to say prayers at the grave. Martin’s mother, in an uncharacteristic demonstration of tact, even hired two carriages for the next morning, one for Martin, his father-in-law, and the tiny coffin; the other for her, Madeleine and the priest. Martin did little during that sad, long Tuesday, except to send a message to the courthouse. He lay in his clothes, on top of the covers, staring at the ceiling through eyes blurred with fatigue and the tears that dribbled down the sides of his face into the pillow. He held onto Clarie when she would let him. Yet he did not try, like Giuseppe or Madeleine or his mother, to console her with food, or words, or hope. The emptiness had begun to yawn open inside of him. It was Clarie who did the howling, crying out for her son, beating her fists on the bed, and sobbing. Martin marveled at the women. They did; they felt. The cynical Didier had said that birth and sickness was woman’s business. So, it seemed, was death. Were all men as weak as he? There were moments when he thought, even prayed, that the emptiness would swallow him up and make his jabbering, impotent mind stop.

Was it right to let Girard take the body away, to put Henri-Joseph in a sealed wooden coffin? Was it right to remove every trace of his son from Clarie’s sight? Benumbed and drained, Martin did not have the answer to any of these questions. He only wanted it to be over. And he knew only one thing, they could not allow Clarie to go to the grave, to see the dirt shoveled onto her son. Pinot had to be right about that. This is why they left her, screaming and protesting, with Rose and Mme Stein holding her down, trying to soothe her.

At eleven o’clock, on an obscenely bright and sunny Wednesday morning, Martin and his father-in-law took the carriage across the railroad tracks to the cemetery. They rode all the way in silence, gently swaying side to side, staring straight ahead, as if any sight, any word might breach the dam of their pent-up sorrows. When they arrived at the gate, the other carriage was waiting for them. So was a line of beggars sitting against the cemetery wall. Martin saw them as a drab, annoying blur. He could not imagine why they were there. Who could know about the death of such a tiny being?

He did take note of the priest clapping his arms and stamping his feet against the cold, as if he could not wait for it to be over. Martin and Giuseppe lifted the small coffin together, and put it down on the ground while they waited for the women to alight. Madeleine came out first, heavily veiled in full black mourning, as if she were securing her place in the Martins’ tragedy. His mother also emerged in black, something borrowed? Something new? Before Martin could push these trivial thoughts away, the priest began to address him. “We’ve been watching them,” he said as he gestured up the path to where a congregation of top-hatted men were standing and talking. “Israelites. They carried the body through the town in procession. Whoever it was, must have been important.”

Martin had not even noticed the gathering of men near a thick high wall that marked one boundary of the cemetery. The first thought that ran through his mind was, why should anyone care? The second was: it is the Ullmann funeral.

“At least they separate themselves from us. I wouldn’t want them in Christian burial ground.” Madeleine’s remark was muffled by the veil, but not enough for Martin’s taste. He wanted to strangle her. Why were they talking this way? Why had he himself given one iota of thought to his mother’s clothing? His son was dead. That’s all that mattered. He was about to ask Giuseppe to join him in picking up the coffin when he saw that a man from among the Israelites had broken off and was walking toward them. Chin forward, the man was squinting as he strode down the path. As he neared, Martin recognized Singer.

Martin’s colleague tipped his hat toward the women. Martin was forced to introduce them, even though, at this moment, attending to the pieties of politeness struck him as irrelevant and insane. “And you know my father-in-law,” he mouthed as his heart began to flutter with a kind of hysteria, a need to get it over with. Singer put out his hand to Giuseppe, who took it gladly. “And Father—” Martin didn’t know his name and the priest did not come forward to introduce himself. “Father Clermont,” Madeleine mumbled. He did not offer his hand, but Singer, the ever-correct Singer, ignored the slight. He was staring at the little coffin.

When he looked up, Martin saw the sadness in his eyes. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered to Martin. Singer’s expression of sympathy hit Martin like a blow to the chest. When he staggered backward a step or two, Singer reached out to steady him, and kept holding him just above his elbows. Martin’s every instinct told him that Singer was too formal to embrace him, too polite to presume or to intrude. Yet he was a colleague and a friend. As Martin began to weep, he heard Singer say, “I understand. I know.” And then he caught himself, and with the humility of a true friend, he admitted, “but, of course, I don’t really know.” Then, with another slight bow, Singer turned and slowly walked up the hill, leaving them, in private, to perform their sad duties.