The Thief of Time (21 page)

‘And where are Monsieur Lafayette and his wife tonight?' I asked, referring to the elderly couple who shared the boarding house with us. ‘They've surely not deserted their usual seats for the evening air.'

‘Oh, didn't you know?' asked Therese, putting her wine bottle down on the sideboard and fingering it for dust. ‘They've left us. Gone to the country, I believe.'

‘The country?' I asked, surprised, for we had struck up an awkward friendship, the four of us, and I was taken aback that they would leave without saying goodbye. ‘Well, how long are they going for? I thought they would be here ‘til they were in their shrouds.'

‘They're gone for good, Monsieur Zéla,' she replied.

‘Matthieu, please.'

‘They packed their bags early this morning and took a coach towards the south. I'm surprised you didn't hear them. Madame made a fuss about who should be carrying her bags. I told her there are certain things I'm paid for and certain things I'm not but she -'

‘I never heard a thing,' I said, cutting her off before she could continue with her grievance and my abruptness merited a look of anger from the girl. Tom coughed in order to break the moment and turned around in his chair to look at her.

‘At least you should have some more time to yourself with two less mouths to feed,' he said and she continued to stare at me for a moment before averting her gaze to my nephew and smiling at him.

‘It's no trouble,' she said, as if he had suggested that it was. ‘I enjoy it here.' My burst of laughter, quickly muffled, earned another look from Therese, whose eyes narrowed into thin slits as she considered a response. I decided to forge a reconciliation.

‘Why don't you sit down?' I said, standing up and pulling out the spare armchair that formed a triangle between my nephew's seat and my own. ‘Enjoy a glass of wine. Your day's work must be over by now.'

Therese looked at me in surprise before turning to Tom, who nodded his approval and encouraged her to join us. She shrugged and with great dignity walked to the armchair and sat. Tom reached for another glass and poured her a healthy measure which she accepted with a smile. The gesture made, I wondered where our conversation could go from here and sat back, racking my brain for suitable topics. Fortunately the silence lasted only a moment as the wine immediately loosened Therese's lips.

‘I never liked Madame anyway,' she began, referring to our recently departed housemate. ‘She had some ways of which I could never approve. Sometimes her room in the mornings ...' She shook her head as if she didn't want to cause us any horror by informing us of the devastation the Lafayette family could inflict upon their small room.

‘She was always quite polite to me,' I muttered.

‘She invited me into her room once,' said Tom suddenly, his voice overly loud as if we were in danger of not hearing him. ‘She said that she was having some difficulty with her curtain rail. When I stretched to replace one of the hooks, she took a step towards me and ...' He suddenly blushed a crimson red and I guessed that he had not thought this story out in advance. ‘She behaved inappropriately,' he muttered, his voice low now. ‘I ... I'm ...' He looked around at us in confusion and, for the first time ever, I heard Therese laugh.

‘She thought you a handsome young man,' she replied, and I thought I saw her give my nephew a wink. T could tell from the way she would look in your direction when you entered a room.' Tom frowned, as if he regretted the turn this conversation had taken.

‘My God,' he said, clearly appalled. ‘She must be forty if she's a day.'

‘A veritable Methuselah,' I muttered, but neither of my companions acknowledged the comment.

‘She treated me with contempt', said Therese, ‘because she was jealous of my youth, no doubt. And my beauty. She has several entries in my occurrences book.'

‘Your what?' I asked, unsure whether I had heard her correctly. ‘What is an occurrences book?'

Now it was Therese's turn to look a little unsettled, having perhaps said more than she intended. ‘It's a silly thing,' she said apologetically, refusing to look me in the eye. ‘A thing I keep for my own amusement. Like a diary.'

‘But a diary of what?' asked Tom, like me intrigued by the phrase.

‘Of people who offend me,' she said with a slight laugh, but I could tell that she took it very seriously indeed. ‘I keep a log of anyone who treats me badly or offends me in any way. I have done so for years.'

I stared at her. I could think of only one question. ‘Why?' I asked.

‘So that I don't forget,' she replied with perfect equanimity. ‘What goes around comes around, Monsieur Zéla. Matthieu,' she added before I could protest. ‘It may sound ridiculous to you, but to me -'

‘It's not ridiculous,' I said quickly. ‘It's just ... unusual, that's all. I suppose it's one way to remember ...' I couldn't see where my thoughts were headed and brushed them off quickly with the phrase ‘... things that have happened.'

‘I hope I don't feature too heavily in your occurrences book, Therese,' said Tom, his face breaking into a broad smile, and she shook her head, smiling back at him as if the very idea was impossible.

‘Of course you don't,' she said, reaching out and touching his hand for a moment, stressing the word ‘you' to deliberately exclude me. She shot me a reproachful glance to reinforce her point and I shifted uncomfortably, wondering what I could possibly have done to offend the girl. I stayed silent for a time, refilling the three wine glasses, as the two young people flirted with each other, both ignoring me completely, and I was about to make my excuses and leave when something that Therese had said came to my mind and I wanted to ask her about it.

‘What goes around comes around,' I said loudly, in order to interrupt the pair, and they looked at me, perhaps surprised that I was still there. ‘Do you believe that, Therese?'

She blinked and considered the question for only a moment. ‘Why, certainly I do,' she said. ‘Don't you?' I shrugged my shoulders, unsure whether I did or not, and she took advantage of the moment to explain herself further. ‘Here, in this city,' she said, pausing dramatically between each clause, ‘at this time, how could I not?'

‘Meaning ...?' I asked.

‘Well, look around you, Matthieu. Look at the streets today. Look at Paris. Don't you think that those things which have gone around are, in a manner of speaking, coming around again?' Again, my silence betrayed my confusion and she sat forward, turning away from Tom and looking me directly in the eyes. ‘The deaths,' she explained. ‘The guillotine. The aristocrats. My God, the head of the king himself has fallen into the basket. There is some justice beginning in France, Matthieu. You cannot be oblivious to it.'

‘We haven't yet seen any beheadings,' said Tom. ‘My uncle feels it is barbaric and won't allow us to go.'

‘Do you feel that, Monsieur Zéla?' she asked, looking at me in surprise and reverting to my formal name as if to dissociate herself from me. ‘Do you feel it is barbaric?'

‘The method itself is quick and clean,' I said. ‘But do you really need the method in the first place? Do these people need to die?'

‘Of course they do,' said Tom, picking up on Therese's attitudes and pandering to them. ‘Filthy aristos.' I shot him a withering glance and Therese had the manners to ignore him and continued to look at me.

‘They have led bountiful lives,' she explained. ‘And they have exploited us. All of us. You are a Frenchman, are you not? You must see what their behaviour has been responsible for.' I nodded. ‘Their time has come,' she said simply.

‘Have you seen the guillotine in action yourself?' asked Tom, his bloodlust returning now as she talked of death. I could feel the growing tension between the pair as she spoke and knew that if they were not a couple already it would not be long before they were.

‘I have seen many,' she said with pride. T saw the king himself die and he was a coward at the end of course. As are they all.' Tom raised his eyebrows as his tongue licked quickly across his lips and he encouraged her to tell us of that day.

‘He was found guilty of treason by the National Committee,' began Therese, as if to justify what was to follow. ‘It seemed like half the city wanted to be at the Place de la Concorde for the fateful moment. I arrived early, of course, but stood near the sides. I wanted to see him die, Monsieur Zéla, but I do not like the baying of the crowds. But there were thousands there and it was difficult to get a good view. Eventually, the tumbrel entered the square.'

Tom raised an eyebrow and looked at her, unfamiliar with the word.

‘The wooden cart,' she explained. ‘It is the feeling of the citizens that the simplicity of the cart makes it clear that the traitors are to die like citizens of France, and not in the manner of rich layabouts. I remember them distinctly: a young woman, with long, dirty hair. She didn't know what was happening and didn't seem to care; perhaps she was already dead inside. Behind her, a teenage boy who was crying in convulsions, afraid to look up to see the instrument of his demise even as the middle aged man behind him screamed and screamed and screamed in fear, pointing towards the guillotine with the most abject horror as his jailers held him tightly to prevent him from jumping out into the crowd and making his escape, although he probably would have been torn limb from limb if we had thought we were going to lose the biggest traitor of them all. That's when I saw him, dressed in dark trousers and a white shirt open at the neck. The king of France, the convicted traitor, Louis XVI.

I looked at Tom, who had eyes only for Therese, and the look on his face, the absolute thrill he was getting from her storytelling, the almost erotic excitement he was feeling, bothered me. And yet I must admit that it was difficult not to want her to continue, for there was a certain addictiveness to the drama of death which held us both. We weren't to be disappointed as she continued.

‘My eyes were focused upon his face, watching for any reaction that might come from him. He was pale, whiter than the shirt that he wore, and he looked exhausted, as if he had spent his entire life battling to prevent this moment from taking place and now that it was upon him he simply had no more energy left to fight it. As the tumbrel stopped before the steps, the six covered men who guarded the great machine stepped forward and took the young woman roughly by the shoulders, pulling her dress sharply so that it ripped at the top, exposing a pale, full breast to the crowd, who screamed in delight at her nakedness. These men ... they are great exhibitionists, performers of a kind. The largest of them nestled his head into the breast for a few moments before turning back to face us with a grin. For her part, she barely moved as she was led to the scaffold, her hair shorn quickly and her head placed within. The wooden semi-circle which held her in place was dropped and at that moment she suddenly came to life, her hands reaching to the sides to try to lift herself up, not realising that she was already caged in. Within a moment it was over, the blade whistling downwards and slicing her head off in a perfect motion but her body gave a quick spastic movement before collapsing backwards on to the platform, where it was quickly taken away.'

‘Therese!' gasped Tom, and there seemed to be no sentence to follow it; he merely wanted to cry out her name, as if engaged within a moment of passion.

‘One of the jailers reached forward then and showed the head to the crowd. We screamed, of course. The
tricoteuses
at the front kept knitting away contentedly. We were waiting for the main attraction,' she said with a smile. ‘Before that, however, the teenage boy was carried to his death. Before being placed with his head on the block, he stood weakly before the crowd, looking out at us, appealing for help, his tear-stained face unable to cry any more. I could tell that, unlike his predecessor, he knew exactly what was going on and it terrified him. He couldn't have been aged more than about fifteen and I realised that his thin trousers were growing more and more stained as he pissed on himself one last time, the thin material sticking to his leg with a coward's indignity. He struggled as he was placed inside the guillotine but he was too weak for these men and, within a minute, his life had ended too.'

‘And what was he guilty of?' I asked in disgust. ‘This boy. Who had he betrayed?'

Thérèse stared at me and her lips formed a thin smile. She ignored the question. The climax was approaching. Despite myself, I wanted her to continue. ‘For once,' she said, ‘the crowd went quiet as the king marched up the steps. He looked out, his face a mixture of stoicism and abject fear. He opened his mouth to speak but no words came and so he was led quickly and nervously to the guillotine. I admit that the atmosphere was that of horror, as if no one was exactly sure what might happen the moment his head was severed, whether the very world itself might come to an end. There seemed to be some confusion on the scaffold as none of the men wanted to be the one who actually put the king's head on the block but eventually one of them stepped forward and the wood was again lowered for the third time. Struggling to look at us, I watched as his head lifted slightly and his eyes caught the sunlight. Then he spoke for the last time.

‘ “I die innocent, and I forgive my enemies,” he shouted, no doubt hoping these platitudes could grant him an escape. “I wish that my blood -”'

‘The blade fell, the head fell into the basket, the body squirmed, the crowd bayed, the screaming was all around me. He was dead.'

A silence fell among us. I could see Tom's face in the firelight glowing with perspiration and even Therese shook slightly as she sat back in her chair and took a drink from her glass. I looked from one to the other, wondering whether there was any suitable response to this story. I could find only one thing to say.