Illumination (16 page)

Clem smiled and clapped, but his mystification was growing. What was going on here? What could she possibly want from him? They were long past the point where she might ask for money; besides, he’d never felt that what was happening between them was any sort of transaction. He’d assumed that they had simply ended – that it had gone as far as it could. He wasn’t at all sure of his experiences in the later stages of that night, but he suspected that he’d drifted a good few feet out of his depth. Watching Laure now, in fact, triumphant after her pirouette, caused a memory to resurface: her lying in the arms of her friends, her blouse open, laughing like a docker as one of them licked her nipple. Could a girl really share the embraces of other women and then return to her lover afterwards without a care? Was it just how things worked in Montmartre – the habit of a certain class of
Parisienne
? Clem considered himself a thoroughly liberal-minded chap, but this made him pause for thought.

Laure had no time for his confused deliberations. She sucked a last drag from her cigarillo before reaching out to take his hand. ‘
Viens
.’

Her skin was cool and slightly damp; its touch negated every question, every other concern. The events of that night were plainly nothing to her, so they were nothing to him. It was as simple as that. Clem looked at her again, the mischievous, voracious smile, the perfect line of her nose, the fine china complexion, and knew that he’d do pretty much anything she wanted him to. She tugged him downhill, towards the boulevard de Clichy. A few more steps and she’d moved to his side, her breast pressed against his upper arm. Before very long her hand settled on his midriff, soon finding its way through both his waistcoat and shirt; and then Laure changed her mind, altering their course, steering them to the nearest alley-mouth.

‘Mademoiselle Laure,’ said Clem as they stumbled inside, her lips seeking his, ‘you are completely bloody
amazing
.’

The
Neptune
could be seen from several blocks away, huge and dirty white between the buildings, bulging like a sack of flour. Laure squealed, removing the cigarette from her mouth to plant a smacking kiss on Clem’s cheek. It was only a few minutes after seven, the sun just breaking over the rooftops, but many hundreds had already arrived in the place Saint-Pierre. A good number had come up from other districts, filling Montmartre to capacity; balloons were common enough in Paris, but this first expedition of an aerial post, in a city still reeling after its encirclement, was being exalted as a grand act of defiance.

Clem and Laure hadn’t slept. They’d stayed in bed all of the previous day, emerging at last in the early evening. The cafés had been starting to close, operating on an austere siege timetable. Laure had convinced the owner of a small place on the rue Pigalle to serve them an entrecôte, which they ate as he mopped the floor around them. The main streets were soon dark and dull so they’d returned to the
assommoirs
, embarking on a second tour of backrooms, attics and basements. There had been demonstrations against the government that afternoon, they’d learned, down in the square before the Hôtel de Ville. National Guard battalions from the northern arrondissements – the red battalions – had come out to demand that none other than Victor Hugo be given a seat in Trochu’s cabinet, to serve as their voice. Clem had felt a vague guilt at having missed this – that instead of fulfilling his role as Elizabeth’s eyes and ears he’d been engaged in vigorous and ever more inventive fornications – but he couldn’t honestly say that he regretted it. There’d be another protest soon enough.

They approached the southern side of the place Saint-Pierre. The
Neptune
seemed almost to block out the sky. Recent repairs marked the side of the old balloon – sections that had been patched up like the elbows of an old coat. Clem took Laure’s cigarette and puffed on it happily. He’d avoided absinthe, hashish, and any other strange pipes or powders – he was just drunk, and proudly so. Laure was still in uniform, trading flirtatious salutes with passing guardsmen, although he had yet to gain any idea of what her actual duties were or when she might be required to perform them.

In Clem’s hands was a bottle of champagne, bought in the last bar they’d visited. It was for Émile Besson; Clem envisaged them toasting the balloon post as the
Neptune
rose into the air. He was determined to make amends for that unfortunate conversation in the balloon factory – and to show that if the
aérostier
had sent the letter, he admired him for it more than anything else. The bottle had been out of ice for over an hour and was starting to lose its chill. For the fourth or fifth time Laure indicated that he should just open it, turning away with an exaggerated sigh when he refused.

A detachment of National Guard – not from the Montmartre battalion – had cordoned off an area beside the merry-go-round. Arrayed around the
Neptune
were several ranks of dignitaries, many in uniform, lending the launch a ceremonial atmosphere. To his excitement, Clem spied the great Nadar among them, a corpulent, pale-suited impresario with an impressive waxed moustache, beaming at everyone as if savouring a moment of vindication. And there was Besson, one of a small team carrying out the final operations – winding back the coal-gas pipe that had been used to inflate the envelope, checking the valve at the base of the balloon, loading on the ballast. He was doing all this with the same precise, measured manner he’d gone about his photography.

Clem pointed him out to Laure. ‘
Mon ami
,’ he said.

She nodded absently, kissing him again before joining in the inevitable ‘Marseillaise’ that was building around them. A tent had been pitched nearby, behind the dignitaries; the crowd cheered as several large canvas mail-sacks were carried from it and secured in the
Neptune
’s basket. Besson was now standing to one side, his work done. Clem tried to lead Laure towards him, within earshot at least, but with no success. There was much he wanted to ask. Could the Prussians try to shoot the
Neptune
down? Could they send their own aerial contraptions after the balloons of Paris – mount an airborne pursuit? Would the Parisian
aérostiers
be able to outmanoeuvre them?

The
Neptune
’s pilot appeared from the tent, causing a surge towards the cordon. Clem felt a sudden impact, liquid gushing across his thighs and stomach – the champagne cork had popped out. He swore, searching about for it, thinking that he could maybe work the damned thing back into the bottle neck. When he gave up a minute later the pilot was in the basket. The fellow was young, no more than twenty-five, and looked undaunted by the voyage ahead of him; his jacket was made of heavy brown leather and the letters ‘AER’ had been stitched in gold on his flying helmet. Raising a gloved fist, he shouted ‘
Vive la République!
’

As the crowd roared it back the tethers were released; and very slowly the balloon left the ground, like an ocean-going steamer easing from its berth. The pilot let down two of his ballast sacks, then two more. This accelerated his ascent dramatically; in two seconds flat the balloon had cleared the rooftops of Montmartre and was breaking out into open sky, the morning sun blazing against the envelope. Clem watched it get smaller and smaller, gaping with tipsy exhilaration. Standing on the stones of the square, it seemed to him that gravity had been reversed – that the balloon was actually falling upwards, away from the earth, a bright white ball plummeting into the heavens with some brave fool roped to its underside.

A breeze caught the
Neptune
and it was carried off to the west – prompting massive movement in the place Saint-Pierre as many made to follow. Across the square, among the blues, greys and browns of the remaining crowd, Clem noticed a spot of coral. It was Elizabeth, up from the centre of the city to witness the launch. In her hands were her notebook and a pair of binoculars. Inglis was next to her, feigning boredom with the whole business. Clem got an uncomfortable sense of how he must appear: pink-cheeked, clothes dishevelled, clutching a bottle to his chest. He wanted to look away, to pretend he hadn’t seen her, but he couldn’t.

Elizabeth had seen him too, of course, and Laure; she knew very well that he’d been neglecting his task – taken on barely a day before – to romp about with his cocotte. A cold nod directed her son’s attention to the opposite side of the square. Jean-Jacques Allix and some others were at the mouth of the rue Saint-André, surrounded by a company or two of the Montmartre National Guard; Clem recognised a couple of faces from the evening after Châtillon. They were standing apart from the rest of the crowd – watching the event rather than participating in it.

Hannah stood on the edge of this group, dressed in a uniform similar to Laure’s. This was worrying; Clem recalled an intention to call on her, smothered by recent distractions. It was clear, anyway, what Elizabeth expected of him now. He assessed his wine-drenched trousers: nothing could be done about it. Laure was still staring after the
Neptune
, a hand over her eyes, squinting as she tried to keep the minuscule sphere in sight. He touched her shoulder.

‘
Ma soeur
,’ he said.

His lover turned neatly on her heel. She glanced at Hannah with magnificent disdain before plucking the champagne bottle from his grasp, firing out a half-dozen words as she lifted it to her lips. Clem didn’t understand them, but her meaning was plain enough:
Off you go then
.

II

Hannah sat in a corner of the Club Rue Rébeval, a gas jet hissing at her ear, sketching the left-hand section of the stage with a piece of charcoal. She worked fast, the brittle black stick scratching into the paper, attempting to cast off her intellect, her artistic training – to make the act of drawing as instinctive and unthinking as she possibly could. The
effect
of the hall was what she sought: the effect of being in the hall at that precise moment, rather than a mere record of its appearance. A rapid touch was vital. She drew an elbow, the back of a hat and the hair poking beneath it, hatching in shadows, not labouring the lines or dwelling on details. All of it would pass – the knot of kepis and cheap bonnets by the stage, the fall of the light – shifting about then breaking apart for ever. She had to be quick.

The Club Rue Rébeval was in the north-east of Paris, amongst the serried tenements of Belleville. The hall had been used for dancing before the war – decorative tin stars were still nailed around the gas fittings – but like hundreds across the city it was now given over to political debate. It was full, the air close with the heat and stink of several hundred clustered, unwashed bodies. Most were red National Guard or their wives, many of whom had infants on their hips and children clinging to their skirts. These women participated in the evening’s discussions with even more energy than their husbands, cheering riotously when the government or the clergy were denounced – which was often.

Hannah grinned with every shriek. She wore the uniform of the 197th – Jean-Jacques’s battalion, and as red as ripe tomatoes. They’d taken her almost without question, not even commenting on her nationality. She’d told her recruiting officer that she’d lived in Paris for a decade, considered France her mother country and would willingly die for the cause of French honour; he’d murmured
bravo
, made an entry on her form and waved her through to collect her uniform. She hadn’t expected to be so affected by the sensation of belonging. Strangers who might have sneered a week earlier now smiled and saluted as they hailed her as a brave citizen – a sister-in-arms.

The day after she joined had been the 22nd September: New Year’s Day by the Republican calendar of ’93 and a sacred date for any French revolutionary. It had been marked by a demonstration before the Hôtel de Ville, attended by ten thousand red guardsmen and as many civilians. Their initial demand had been a seat for an ultra in Trochu’s cabinet, in the hope that such a representative might be able to challenge the hesitancy that was already coming to define his administration. When they arrived before that great palace of a building, however, with its statues and grand gates, it soon became plain that this wouldn’t be enough. Chants against the Prussians became chants for the resignation of the entire provisional government – and then, for the first time, for a people’s commune like that established during the first revolution. The commune was a hallowed idea for Jean-Jacques and his comrades: a society turned on its head, arranged from the bottom up, with administrative power shared between large numbers of citizens drawn from all stations in life. Hannah had added her voice to the chorus. It seemed like a clear improvement to her.

Guardsmen from the Marais battalions, local to the Hôtel de Ville, had appeared along the rue de Rivoli. Their uniforms were different, a little lighter, and all of them were armed – unlike the red units, who had at best one ageing rifle for every four or five fighting men. Hannah had taunted them along with the rest of her company, telling these petit-bourgeois soldiers to put on their aprons and return to their shop-counters and stock-rooms. As the insults had sailed across the square she’d felt a crazy flutter of joy. This was progress; this, at last, was
action
.

The protest had come to a disappointing end, guttering before it had a chance to flare. Someone had lost their nerve when a few stones were thrown, issuing the order to disperse. Nothing had been accomplished; no real statements had been made or concessions won. They were left simply to begin planning the next demonstration, endlessly formulating and debating their demands.

This night in the Club Rue Rébeval was no different from a half-dozen others Hannah had been to since the march on the Hôtel de Ville. Five speakers sat up on the stage, behind a table that had been put there solely to be struck by determined fists. It was a rogue’s gallery of Parisian radicals. In the chair was Auguste Blanqui, wizened and white-bearded, an elder statesman of the ultras known for his uncompromising views; he was said to advocate the shooting of some forty thousand men who’d been involved in the running of the Second Empire, for the good of the French state. To his right was Raoul Rigault, a little out of his league, blustering and boasting to compensate for his inexperience; and beside Rigault was the veteran journalist Félix Pyat, staring into the club as if searching for someone who’d done him a great wrong. This was the man who’d made Jean-Jacques search the rue Royale for Mrs Pardy on the opening day of the siege. He hardly seemed like Elizabeth’s typical reader, but Hannah had avoided him nonetheless. She had no desire to hear his laudation of her mother first hand.