Paris Requiem (9 page)

James sighed. ‘I’m sorry if my logic offends you, Raf. But if we’re going to get anywhere, be any more useful than Durand – whom you’ve probably been too hard on – I suggest we split up the territory. Rationalise our efforts. Touquet is evidently an expert on the vice police. Get him to sniff around there. See if any of them knew Olympe, for whatever reason. And so on. You – well, judging from your Dreyfus articles, you must have contacts aplenty amongst the patriotic and anti-Semitic leagues …’

Raf nodded.

‘Hang out with them a bit. See if anything smells like a lead. You remember you said there were demos, rioting on the day that deputy was acquitted. That was a Thursday, wasn’t it – the last time Olympe was seen. Maybe, just maybe, she got caught up in something unpleasant.’

Raf shivered. ‘All right. What about you?’

‘Well, I guess that leaves me to probe Olympe’s past and present.’ He put out a hand to stay Raf’s protests. ‘In a way, it makes more sense, Raf. I’m not involved. Also my French is better in one to one’s.’

‘I’ll work with you.’ Raf’s flare of jealousy was unguarded.

‘Fine. The first thing you can do is take me to her rooms. I need to get a sense of her.’

Arnhem wasn’t in. After leaving a note, they carried on towards the Boulevard Malesherbes. James wondered at his own surge of relief as their vehicle moved into more
decorous
streets. Here was the Paris of dream and history, with its spacious boulevards, its elegant women and dapper men, its majestic buildings a stage set for the theatre of everyday life. This was the Paris the newspapers lauded in their evocation of the belle époque. But there was nothing beautiful about the underbelly of the city. It festered in poverty and gave off a distinct aroma of menace.

He let his eyes play over the fresh green of the plane trees, their dappled bark, and for a moment he was overcome by a nostalgia for the gentle roll of the Massachusetts countryside with its dense colour, the simplicity of the pursuits it fostered. Yet he had to admit to himself that he had woken this morning with a sense of new energy, a kind of lucidity which had too often eluded him in these last years.

A woman stepped gracefully from a stationary carriage. Long, gloved fingers rose to adjust a hat. Madame de Landois came into his mind. He must arrange to see her soon. There were things she would be able to tell him about Olympe that would almost certainly have eluded his brother-in-love.

For once the curtains were wide open in Ellie’s apartment. So too were the doors to the terrace. Motes of dust paraded in the sunlight as if relieved to be allowed to fly. Harriet Knowles ushered them in with her direct gaze. ‘Elinor will be so pleased. You’ll join us for lunch, of course.’

James nodded, aware that Raf might demur.

‘I’ll alert Violette. You’ll find Elinor on the terrace.’ She met Raf’s eyes for a moment, then looking away with the
swiftness
of veiled disapproval, she strode towards the kitchen.

‘Is that my dear elder brother I hear?’ Ellie’s melodious voice reached them as they made their way through the room.

‘You do.’

‘And my oh so remiss younger one. Well, Raf, it has been an age. You’d think we were divided by an ocean rather than a corridor.’ She fixed Raf with her dark eyes. James could feel him wriggling like a butterfly about to be pinned in a
collector’s
cabinet.

‘I’ve been busy, Ellie. Preoccupied.’ He patted her on the shoulder.

Poised in her wheelchair, so that she could take in the trees and the placid activity of the street, Ellie looked for all the world as if she were at the seaside. She was wearing a fresh blue-striped dress with a row of tiny buttons at the bodice. Beneath the straw hat, which protected her from the terrace sunshine, her hair was newly coiffed. Her fine aquiline nose trembled a little in response to Raf’s comment.

Sensing danger, James interceded. ‘You’re feeling better, Ellie. I’m so pleased.’

‘Yes, Jimmy, as you can see.’ She gestured grandly towards the cumbrous mass of the chair. ‘I’m about, if not altogether up. Harriet has been a veritable ministering angel. She’s cheered me no end.’

The woman had come up silently beside them. Her face was grave.

‘But it isn’t time for cheer, is it, Raf?’ Ellie’s tone grew soft. ‘I’m so sorry. So very sorry. Olympe was such a rare being. I can’t bring myself to accept it.’ Tears moistened her eyes. She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve. ‘She shouldn’t have done it. If anyone … it should have been me.’

‘Stop it, Ellie.’ Raf was brusque. He turned away abruptly.

James saw Harriet cast a bitter look at his back.

‘There’s no crime in suicide, whatever the clerics say.’ Ellie’s voice rang a challenge after him, ‘I’ve thought about it a great deal. After all, we’re born without being consulted. Why consult at the other end?’

‘Hush, Ellie.’

‘Help me in, Harriet. I can’t get used to manoeuvering this blasted contraption.’ She crushed the chair’s weight against a rail as she tried to turn it round, then waved her hand in irritation.

‘We should have the men move some of the furniture back against the walls. It would give you more space.’
Harriet
soothed.

‘That’s a splendid idea.’ James was already through the door, repositioning one armchair, then a second, creating an aisle. The encased bird met his eye. ‘What if we clear the surface of this table, as well, Ellie?’

She wasn’t listening. She was calling after Raf who had preceded them. There was a glimmer of fear on her face. The front door slammed.

James had the impression he had walked in on a
relationship
he no longer understood. What was it that had set his younger siblings at odds? He caught Harriet’s gaze. She seemed to be signalling something he couldn’t make out.

He remembered the present he had left on the hall table and rushed to fetch it. ‘A little token, Ellie. I thought you might like it.’

Her eyes fell on him from a distance of miles. ‘You are a dear one, Jim.’ Her fingers pulled ineptly at string until at last the box he had purchased for her in the Arcades lay revealed. ‘Oh it’s lovely. Look, Harriet. All these secret drawers. What shall I hide away in them?’

They watched her, like parents wary of an
unpredictable
child.

As suddenly as he had left, Raf reappeared. He held a bottle of wine in one hand, a package in the other. ‘And here’s something else, sister mine. For our days out in the Bois de Boulogne.’

Ellie looked up at him. ‘Oh, I hope we will go, Raf. I do hope so.’ Her voice fluttered, hiding a tremor.

‘We will. Never fear.’ Raf was making a great show of uncorking the bottle. ‘And meanwhile, a little of this red in our veins won’t do any harm. What do you say, Harriet?’

Harriet smiled for the first time, revealing a row of strong teeth. ‘I say we can go in to lunch.’

Elinor was pulling on the gloves. ‘Perfect. So clever of you to get the right size.’

‘Thank Jim, Ellie. He seems to have become an expert.’

James saw Ellie’s face tighten, but she was gracious. ‘Yes, perfect. Thank you, Jim. All I need now is a parasol. And a new pair of legs.’ Her laugh teetered, reminiscent of a sob.

The dining room gave out onto the gloom of a narrow courtyard. Burgundy curtains arched the windows. A stiff white cloth covered the mahogany of an over-large
rectangular
table set with gold-rimmed china. On an expanse of
sideboard
, which reminded James of the Boston family home, Violette had spread an assortment of cold meats, cheeses, breads and condiments. A small bowl of pinks and lily-
of-the-
valley sat like a breath of fresh hope in the midst of the dark stolidity. James sniffed Harriet’s hand in their choice.

He wondered at the change the woman had wrought in Ellie in so short a span and he smiled at her in gratitude. He would have to take her aside and speak to her about his
sister’s
condition. She would, he was certain, be full of the good sense his siblings seemed to have left behind like forgotten tools, so that the construction of their daily lives had gone seriously awry. That reminded him that he must write to his mother as soon as he got back to the hotel.

Violette served them, James first, then Raf, then Ellie, and finally Harriet, as if she had intuited her place in an unspoken hierarchy. James tried to remember what he knew about the Knowles family, but came up with a blank. Ellie’s animated voice overrode his thinking. Her cheeks had grown flushed with the effort or pleasure of gaiety. She was in control again,
entertaining them as she was wont to do in Boston when friends and family gathered.

‘Harriet’s been reading to me, you know. She’s afraid I may grow stupid and cease to be good company for her.’

‘That’s not true, Elinor,’ Harriet demurred.

‘True enough. When you arrived, she was reading to me from the
Figaro
. President Loubet is apparently recovering well from his attack at the races by that demented aristocrat. Canes aren’t killing-implements, it seems. Only a passing injury for “the synagogues’ candidate” – did you know that’s what they call him, Jim? Bet Raf never put that into one of his articles.’ She laughed. ‘I wonder whether the attack will make Loubet a fiercer Republican or still his ardour. He really shouldn’t have chosen the day of Zola’s return from exile to go to the races. You know he was never elected by the populace, Jim? The senate and the assembly stitched it together, after old Faure croaked in the arms of his mistress. Quite a country, isn’t it? Rather more eventful than our staid Mr McKinley. They’ve had more governments here in the last years than I think I’ve known in my entire lifetime at home.’

‘Don’t exaggerate, Ellie.’ Raf emptied his glass.

‘I know. All this heated democracy is rather more exciting for you journalists. Everyone takes you so seriously, too. Almost as seriously as the politicians themselves.’

‘That may not be so different,’ James said. ‘Mr Hearst managed to engineer quite a fuss over the Cuban war. Anyhow, you’ll be home in quieter spheres soon enough, Ellie.’

‘Are you going to bundle us all up, Jim? Put us in your cabin trunk? Better, I guess, than a coffin.’ She stopped herself, stole a glance at Raf.

‘Do have some more of this beef, Mr Norton.’ Harriet covered over for her.

‘I will, thank you.’ James helped himself.

‘There was an article about Olympe, too. A very nice piece.
Heartfelt. About the tragedy of her suicide.’ Ellie seemed unable to stop herself.

‘Where?’ Raf leapt up from the table.

‘Don’t be rude, Raf.’ Ellie snapped. ‘It’ll wait for coffee. There’s nothing there you don’t know already.’ She calmed herself. ‘It was about her career, her wonderful talent. She
was
wonderful, Jim. I wish you had been able to see her on the stage. And she sang … she sang like an angel. An Italian angel – the very best contralto. It was astonishing. She was quite delicate.’

‘I wish I had known her.’

Raf had stopped eating. ‘The
Figaro
said suicide?’

Ellie nodded. ‘I think so, too, Raf. You didn’t know her as I did.’

‘Didn’t I?’ Raf’s lips were so stiff, the words seemed to come from somewhere else.

‘She had a deep melancholy about her. A kind of inner
pessimism
. We women talk to each other about things. And I did know her well – and well before you.’

Raf sprang from his seat with the speed of an arrow
propelled
from its bow. As he raced towards the front room, he cast Ellie a look of bitter hostility.

‘You do goad him, Elinor. There’s no need,’ Harriet murmured.

‘But he’s partly to blame. And he won’t face it.’

‘Why is he to blame?’ James asked.

Ellie looked at him as if he were a stranger who had asked an impertinent question.

‘He shouldn’t have led her to think of marriage. It was altogether impossible. She wasn’t one of us. It confused her.’ She was staring out the window, seeing things that were invisible to him.

‘And you know he did?’ The notion troubled him. He hadn’t gone that far in his thoughts.

Ellie nodded once, almost imperceptibly, then slumped suddenly into her chair as if all her musculature had given out.

‘I’m tired, Harriet. I think, I really think I should lie down.’ She smiled sweetly at James. ‘You’ll forgive me, Jim. Violette will serve you dessert. And do tell Raf, when he calms down, to come and see me later.’

Harriet wheeled her from the room, while James sat and took in the wreckage of their meal. The destruction seemed to have gone deeper than that. Ellie and Raf were at war and it was evidently a battle that preceded recent events. Was it her standing out against him on the question of marriage to Olympe that had made Raf so irascible? Yet he must see her side, the family’s side. And he had always been so patient with Ellie, so solicitous of her needs, far more generous than James himself towards her eccentricities and her directness. He remembered when they all still lived at home, that Raf’s first point of call on returning from school was always Ellie. They would read books together, pass them between each other, talk or sit silently in each other’s company, play complicated word games. And later too, when Raf was at Harvard, he would bring his friends home to meet the sister he so patently admired, depended on, almost as if she were a twinned soul in a body of the opposite sex.

A knock at the front door intruded on his thoughts. He heard women’s voices, Violette’s and another, speaking French, and then Violette’s quick step. ‘Monsieur Rafael?’ her voice sounded.

James got up, saw the blowsy form of Raf’s housekeeper at the entrance and Raf himself following her across the corridor. With a guilty look at the table behind him and a sense of his own bad manners, he quickly went after them.

Raf’s apartment was the mirror image of Elinor’s, yet James felt he might have travelled to a different planet. Where Ellie’s was a dense hive of curios and bric-a-brac, patterned rugs,
brocades and velvets, here light and air poured from
curtainless
windows onto gleaming parquet and the barest essentials of furniture. A single large painting in dabs of almost garish colour dominated the space, though for the moment its drama was shrouded by Monsieur Arnhem.