Cezanne's Quarry (20 page)

Merckx had said nothing, and he certainly had never thanked Martin. He would never recognize anyone else in that class as being as courageous as he. But he had befriended Martin and shown him an entirely new world: a world where whole families cooked, slept, and propagated in a single room in tottering wooden buildings; a world where merit was measured not by wealth, education, or piety, but by loyalty and solidarity—and by a distrust of the rich. What a different view Merckx had given him of the DuPonts. Merckx taught him that his benefactors made the money that funded their “charities” by exploiting women and children. His mother and sisters worked fourteen hours a day on DuPont’s loud, clanking, dusty looms, which never stopped for any reason. What Martin remembered most vividly is that in Merckx’s world everyone coughed. The women wheezed out the brown detritus of the woolen mills, while the men spat out the coal-black dirt of the mines. And Merckx himself, it seemed, had been born coughing. That’s why they let him go to school. They had ceded their weakest child to the bourgeoisie and the Church, in the hope that he might somehow survive.

Now Merckx sat on Martin’s bed, doubled over, his hacking cough worse than ever. What did Martin really owe Merckx? His sense of justice? His vocation? If that were so, he had certainly never been able to live up to his friend’s standards. Merckx denounced him for going to law school, mocked his choice of the magistrature, and, during their last angry encounter in Paris, even berated him for “exploiting” a working-class girl, the ever-willing Honorine. If he hadn’t been so frightened, Martin might have enjoyed the irony of his situation. Maybe Merckx
had
become his conscience, a confessor more fearsome than anything the Church had ever produced.

And maybe Merckx was the only thing keeping him from the complacency of a slow, predictable climb up the ladder in the civil service. Maybe Merckx was his one true friend.

As he watched Merckx struggling to sit upright on the bed, Martin knew that he would never give him up. Merckx was everything, everyone that Martin hoped to protect in his chambers: the poor, the suffering, those who struggled merely to survive. Like Arlette, Martin thought, and like the boy he had seen this morning, who had unwittingly sacrificed his life for a pittance.

As their eyes met, Martin spoke. “I can’t keep you here. The landlord and his family are returning tomorrow. If you decide to go back, I can help you.”

“I can’t. Don’t you understand? They’ll send me to Devil’s Island this time.”

They both knew what that meant. More beatings, and a slow, rotting death in the hot sun thousands of miles away from everything Merckx had ever known. There was really nothing else for Martin to do. He asked, “What do you need?”

“Not much, just enough to keep on going.”

“But where? You are in no condition—”

“I’ve made it this far. When I get there, they’ll take care of me.”

“Who?”

“My
real
brothers.”

Martin ignored the intended insult. If he were going to help Merckx, if he were going to keep them both out of trouble, he had to keep a cool head.

“Where are you going, Jean-Jacques? Who are these people?”

“If I can make it to Italy, I have contacts there who will help me get to Switzerland. I can stay with one of the Swiss workers in the movement, or with other exiles, Russians, Poles, Italians. Some are even training to be doctors so they can go back to their countries and serve the poor while they talk sense into them. Maybe I’ll do that, become a doctor. You’d like that, Bernard, wouldn’t you? You always told me to make something of myself. I’ll get a new identity card, sneak back in, and help my people.”

Without knowing it, Martin had begun to shake his head in disbelief. He could not imagine Merckx living long enough to become a doctor. He could not even imagine how Merckx would complete his dangerous journey.

“All right. So I won’t become a doctor. Maybe I’ll just sneak back in and bomb your Palais.”

“Stop it! Stop this talk.” Of course Merckx would never demonstrate any sentimentality, even at the thought of his own demise. Only Martin was weak enough to do that. “You need to get away. All right. Maybe you can make a new life. Good. But I don’t need to hear about your crazy anarchist plots.”

“Or what? You’ll turn me in?”

“What do you need?” Martin punctuated each word. This was not a game.

Merckx shrugged. “I have nothing, as always. I’m hungry, as always. I get cold at night, and I need something to lay my head on. And, yes, Bernard, I want to get away from here as much as you want to get rid of me. If you can’t help, I’ll just leave now.”

“No.” Martin held up his hand. If Merckx had to go begging, both of them were doomed. “Stay back there.” He pointed toward the wall behind Merckx and turned the lamp higher. He shuttered the window, then opened the drawer of his table and pulled out the box that held the money he intended to send to his mother. He laid it on his table. It was enough to buy Merckx food and lodging for a week, if he was careful. Martin looked around. He had a bottle of wine on his bookshelf, but little else to offer his friend. He went to the armoire and took out his student jacket and a pair of boots.

“Do you have something to carry these in?”

“Yes, my sack.”

“Good. But you still need food.”

“Yes, I ate the piece of bread—” Merckx began coughing again.

“But you’ll need something for tomorrow.”

“Even tonight, brother.” Merckx smiled that old smile of complicity, reminiscent of the secret jokes they used to share against the rich and well-larded.

“Yes, even tonight,” Martin echoed dryly. After all that had been said and implied, it was too late to fall back into old times, even if Merckx had suddenly become willing to do so. Besides, Martin had to act quickly. Where could he get food? Only restaurants would be open. He could not carry away a meal. Then he saw Clarie Falchetti in his mind’s eye. She was a bold girl. She would help a starving judge who, in the anxiety of solving an important case, had forgotten to eat his supper.

Martin peeked through the white lace curtains into Chez l’Arlésienne to make sure that Franc was gone. The place was almost empty; the last customers were already pulling away from their table. The bell announcing his entrance jangled his nerves, but he pushed himself forward, toward the center of the restaurant. When Mme Choffrut spotted him, she clasped her hands together in delight and invited him to a table.

Martin demurred. “I know it is late. I wouldn’t impose upon you to serve a meal at this time. I was just wondering. . . .” Suddenly his story seemed quite feeble.

“Are you hungry?” she smiled.

“I do need something. . . .”

“And you’d like to see Clarie!” She almost clapped her hands.

He had been counting on her desire to get Clarie and him together, but, confronted with her enthusiasm, felt ashamed of himself. Why was deceit so easy in his chambers and so difficult here?

“Clarie! Clarie!” Mme Choffrut called, then made a show of going into the kitchen to leave them alone.

As soon as Clarie saw Martin, she stopped and stood with her hands on her hips and her lips pursed in a questioning, lopsided grin. He had meant to play the role of the absent-minded, hungry judge, but he could not play the fool in front of this straightforward girl. He moved to the table that was farthest from the kitchen and sat down.

When Clarie joined him, Martin explained that he had an unexpected visitor, an old school friend, who was in dire straits. They needed food for the night, but no one should know about the friend. This was the reason he had to carry something away. Martin took some francs out of his pocket and laid them on the table. “Anything portable.” He was taking a risk, but he somehow knew he could trust her with his secret. Before answering, Clarie stared at him, considering his request. Then she nodded and touched his arm. “I’ll think of something. And someday you will have to tell me more, yes?”

Martin nodded, “Yes,” although he could not imagine telling anyone he was abetting a deserter.

When Clarie returned from the kitchen, she handed him two loaves of bread and some pears and cheese wrapped in an old newspaper. Martin rose to receive them. Clarie took money from the table, counted out some for the Choffruts, and thrust the rest into the pocket of Martin’s coat.

“There, that’s fair.”

“Thank you.” Martin saw Mme Choffrut watching them from the kitchen, so he said no more.

Clarie walked him to the door and, as the bell chimed, he turned to thank her again. Her only response was a look of concern.

Up until now, science like law, made exclusively by men, has too often considered woman as an absolutely passive being, without instincts or passions or her own interests; as a purely plastic material capable of taking any form without resistance; a being without the inner resources to react against the education she receives or against the discipline to which she submits as part of law, custom or opinion. Woman is not made like this.

—Clémence Royer, “On the Birthrate,” 1874
⁵

H
ORTENSE
F
IQUET CLOSED HER EYES
and for one marvelous moment let the clink of silver and glass, the smell of hot, strong coffee, and the murmur of
real
conversation transport her to Paris, to the old days at the Café Guerbois, where sometimes she had been permitted to sit at the edge of the table listening to the arguments and laughter of enthusiastic young writers and painters. Now they were older, famous—her eyes shot open—unlike
her
artist. Instead, here she was with Marie Cézanne, who, as usual, was going on and on about something. Hortense sighed. Here she was, once again making it possible for the two Cézanne women to see Paul Jr. in the anonymity of a crowded café, far from the Jas and Papa. Here she was in Aix with everyone expecting her to eat humble pie. This time she would show them.

“Well, now,” Mme Cézanne interrupted her daughter as she put her hands on the table and pushed back her chair, “don’t you think that it’s time for a treat? Let’s see if there are any new shops on the Cours.” She was looking straight at Paul Jr., smiling. Then she nodded to Hortense and Marie, still smiling, eager as always to absent herself from the serious conversation that would ensue as soon as the boy was safely out of hearing.

Yes, time to get started. Hortense glanced with distaste at the melting remains of the extravagant dessert that Mme Cézanne had insisted upon ordering for her grandson. His spoon stood straight up at its center, signaling his final surrender. Dribs of chocolate and strawberry ice cream ran down his chin.

“Wipe your mouth, son. And this time—books, eh?” This was the first building block in Hortense’s case for indispensability, the fact that she was and always had been a devoted mother to the beloved grandson.

“Or paints?” the proud grandmother suggested, always trying to push Paul Jr. into his father’s footsteps. As if they were going to lead somewhere.

“Oh, Grandma,” the kid groaned.

“Run along, darling,” Hortense forced a smile, “and listen to your grandmother.” Accommodating, too. How could they wish for a better wife for Paul?

Her son ran his napkin over his mouth and sprang up to help Mme Cézanne out of her seat. He knew she’d get him anything he wanted. After all, given the fact that she could not bring him into the family house, invite him to a holiday dinner, or even introduce him to his own grandfather, what recourse did she have except to buy his love?

Hortense watched her son take the old woman’s hand as they threaded their way toward the front of the cavernous café. He genuinely cared for his grandmother. In any case, Paul’s mother was not the problem. Hortense turned to Marie, who sat against the mirrored wall. She was not the problem either. Although Marie Cézanne thoroughly believed in the sanctity of marriage, the real problem was that she and her mother refused to show any backbone against the old man. After all, the boy
was
thirteen years old. Hortense shifted her head slightly to catch an image of herself and pat back her hair.

Marie, all business, placed the key to the Cézannes’ town apartment on the table. “Paul told us we needed to bring this to you,” resentful that someone else should have access to the family property. She always acted so superior, despite the fact that she had never had a man, any man. “And,” Marie reached in her purse and took out some bills, “this should tide you over for a while,” as if Hortense Fiquet were some courtesan, instead of a member of their family in everything but name.

Hortense couldn’t let this get to her. She had to find out what they knew and what they had said. She leaned toward Marie. “We need to talk before they get back. That judge came to the Jas, didn’t he?”

Marie nodded, bending forward so that they could keep their voices low.

“I need to know what you told the judge. We need to get our story straight.”

“We told him the truth,” Marie said with a pious sniff.

Just then a waiter, in a white cotton jacket, appeared to clear the dishes. Hortense reached to retrieve the money and put it in her purse. “Another coffee, please.” Once that was delivered, he would leave them alone for a while. “Marie?” Cézanne’s sister shook her head. She was probably adding up the bill in her head, oblivious to how one should behave in any place more worldly than her provincial charity circles.