Beyond Revanche, page 11
A human tidal wave rushed towards the two policeman, broke either side, and disappeared into the cavernous station. Mathieu tried to hold his head stiff and let his eyes absorb the onrushing passengers. Pascal’s head spun from side to side. Was that…? Time and again he thought he had spotted his target, but no. When the rush thinned, an aged residue slowly descended onto the platform, bones creaking silently, the pain of minor ailment and joint erosion, borne with considerable fortitude. Lastly, Jean Jaurès stepped down, laden with packages, briefcase, and assorted papers, his suitcase dragging behind, well-bruised by years of mistreatment. A porter ran to their assistance; man and baggage. Clearly he had been waiting patiently for this hire.
“Monsieur Jaurès, pardon my intrusion,” Mathieu interrupted the editor-in-chief and his helper. “We must speak with you.” He paused to show his identity card and stressed the immediacy of his quest by adding, “Urgently.”
“Do I know you, young man?” He paused to think. “We have met. But where?”
“Sous-lieutenant Mathieu Bertrand, Monsieur. I think we met briefly at the Palais de Justice. The Caillaux trial.”
“Ah, the young policeman. I recall now. You were one of the first to give evidence and the only one, let me assure you, who did not use the occasion to promote his own importance. Well done. The rest was an embarrassment to Justice. Shall we sit here?”
Jean Jaurès pointed to an empty bench on the platform. “Tell me, what is this urgency?”
Pascal cleared his throat. He was the senior man and felt the need to assert his status. “Monsieur, we have reason to believe that your life is in danger.”
“Ah.” Jaurès nodded, and looked beyond them both, as if he had a second sight. “Indeed.”
His features unmoved, his passive acceptance of a truth he had known for many weeks, bore no sign of fear. “It is the world we live in, my friends. If I reported every death threat I’ve received this year alone, little else would be done. Do you know of a particular threat?”
The policemen looked at each other. They had not considered how much they could share.
“Sir,” Mathieu made his decision, “I know you will not betray the confidentiality of this information. We have seen a file, an unusual file, which appears to have been created by a person or persons unknown. Could be military, could be political.”
“They might even have Russian connections,” Pascal Girard interjected.
Jean Jaurès nodded. “Ah, the ubiquitous they.”
“Whatever and whoever, we believe that they are stalking your every movement. They want you dead.” Mathieu looked around as if he might catch an unwary assailant. The platform had emptied.
Jean Jaurès rose to his feet, his dignity intact. The good that Mathieu had read about this man stood before him. He was indeed the peoples’ hero, if in want of some personal grooming.
“I know. I know, and I thank you. I cannot run from this.” He put his hand on Mathieu’s right shoulder and touched his soul. “Yes, I have to live with this possibility every day, but the truth is,” and he paused, face saddening, the light in his eyes dimming, “you are in far graver danger than I am. Before the week is out we will be at war unless people start to listen and do something about it. Take to the streets. Refuse to obey the call to war, because, when war comes, your generation will be sacrificed. We are all in danger and my death is no less likely than yours.”
Mathieu winced. He knew that war was coming, but hadn’t considered its consequence. It took Jean Jaurès to do that. They watched him saunter along the platform, talking all the while to the porter as if best friends. At the platform exit he turned back and shouted, “Thank you for your concerns, gentlemen. Take care.”
Commander Roux summed up the situation at their Friday morning meeting. Caillaux was still in Paris but out of the public eye. His days in the limelight had gone. Zaharoff was cocooned in his exclusive apartment on Avenue Hoche guarded day and night by his own liveried staff. Doubtless he was wheeling and dealing in the merchandise of death. Good times beckoned. Jean Jaurès was back at work feverishly trying to avert an international disaster. Effectively little had changed.
“Well, that’s not quite true. I have been informed from the Élysée Palace that Monsieur Basil Zaharoff has been ennobled today as a Commander of the Legion d’Honneur.” Roux almost spat his contempt onto the floor.
“He’s not even a real bloody Frenchman!” Dubois stamped his foot in exasperation.
“Naturalized. I told you already.” But the chief shared Dubois’s annoyance. “Fuck Poincaré. War tomorrow, so let’s reward the arms manufacturer today.”
Mathieu squirmed. Under normal circumstances no one would have dared swear in the commander’s presence, far less swear at the president. “Our problem is Jaurès, and he won’t hide behind anything or anyone.”
“You’re right. Try to stay close to him. We know they have him in their sights. But we don’t know who they actually are.” Roux shrugged his shoulders and opened his arms as if to say, what else can we do?
“What did Jaurès call them?” Pascal grimaced. “Ubiquitous? Don’t even know what that means.”
Roux had contacted Jean Longuet, the sub-editor of Jaurès’ newspaper, and insisted that his men accompany Jean Jaurès anywhere outside his office. It didn’t take the policemen long to appreciate his talents. Longuet possessed a powerful intellect, which others attributed to his grandfather, Karl Marx. With windswept strands covering a receding hairline, Jean Longuet looked through short-rimmed glasses, down an aquiline nose to a moustache which curved upwards, leaving barely a hint of smiling lips. To the left of his shaven face a minor mole broke the symmetry of his features. What made Longuet different to everyone else on Jean Jaurès team was the political telepathy through which they communicated. And the trust. Jean Longuet told Mathieu over a cup of passable coffee that he worked with L’Humanitè so that he could learn from the master himself. Jean Jaurès.
That last day of July was crammed with opportunities for Jaurès to spread his anti-war, anti-militarist gospel. He was the man of the moment, consumed by a single purpose. Stop war. Phone calls had been placed with Prime Minister Rene Viviani who agreed to speak with him in the early evening. Mathieu and Pascal accompanied the two Jeans to the Quai d’Orsay where the editor of L’Humanitè begged his prime minister to use his influence to bring pressure on the Russians not to declare war on Germany. If Russia showed restraint, there was yet a chance of peace. Viviani made unspecific promises to try to avoid the coming war, but Jaurès was not deceived.
Mathieu took the opportunity to catch up with Benoit Durfort when Jaurès was with the prime minister despite his dislike of the preening snob.
“Mathieu, what a pleasant surprise. To what do I owe this honor?” Durfort all but stroked Mathieu’s hand and smiled his approval with a fawning obsequious gesture which assumed that “his favorite policeman” would sit by his desk. “Coffee?”
“Apologies but I haven’t time today. Had to escort Jean Jaurès to see the prime minister and return him home safely.”
Durfort’s upper lip curled into a scowl like an oily carp which had bitten Mathieu’s hook.
“Ah, poor Rene. He is obliged to meet the riff-raff. I hope that Jaurès doesn’t upset him. He and Raymond came back from St. Petersburg with such high hopes. We are only days away.” He leaned over his desk and lowered his voice lest the furniture hear his scurrilous secret. “The czar has agreed. But keep that to yourself.”
“Of course.” Mathieu remained on his feet, hands braced on the back of the gilded Louis XIV chair, mind racing. So it would be war.
“Jaurès is wasting his time. Man’s a fool and a danger to France. He’ll get his comeuppance.”
“What do you mean, Benoit? Have you heard…rumors?”
“There are always rumors, my friend.” He tapped the side of his right nostril with an over-accentuated flourish, as if he was acting in a Moliere comedy. “But, take my advice. Don’t stand too close to the socialist traitor. That might be safer.”
The taxi back from Quai d’Orsay weaved its way at top speed through crowded Parisian streets crammed with weekend revelers. Jaurès joked about being killed by the driver, but Jean Longuet thought otherwise. “It won’t be the driver, he’s a good trade unionist and a socialist. They all are, taxi drivers.” That was Paris in a nutshell. The people were either all for you or all against. No one held the middle ground.
Mathieu and Pascal reported back to Bernard Roux who was even more alarmed when he heard what Durfort had said. “I hope you haven’t plans for this evening, gentlemen, because we have to be vigilant beyond vigilance.”
* * *
The editorial team at L’Humanitè was back on duty by eight o’clock with Jaurès at the helm conducting a well-tuned and talented ensemble. He had explained in the taxi earlier that he wanted to make a gesture so powerful that politicians across Europe would be forced to rethink their stated positions. In his head, he imagined a special edition like Emile Zola’s famous J’Accuse headline which undid the plot to keep Alfred Dreyfus in prison. But how?
“Who’s for dinner? Eat first; work later. We need a break. Do you wish to join us, Messieurs?” Jaurès had agreed to Roux’s insistence that the police stay close to him for his protection, but insisted that his routine would not be compromised. “I haven’t eaten all day.”
While technically true, everyone knew that Jean Jaurès had snacked his way through the day. More accurately, he hadn’t eaten a proper meal since breakfast. He donned his coat, unnecessary in the heat of the evening, but Jean always dressed properly for dinner. They trooped downstairs to Rue Montmartre and walked two paces into the Café Croissant next door. Allegations that Jaurès had chosen the building to house his newspaper offices because of its proximity to a good restaurant were never fully proven. What did it matter? Mathieu and Pascal stayed out on the humid, heaving street, moving from corner to corner, sometimes together, sometimes on their own, cranking their necks in search of anything suspicious. Unfortunately they had no idea who or what that might be.
Indoors, it was even less comfortable. Though the windows were wide open to any wisp of fresh air, the café’s fans could only recycle the humidity. Jaurès led the way and chose the long marble-surfaced table to the left, calling, “Bonne soir, Jules,” to the waiter with the familiarity of a long-standing client. There were twelve of them in total, and the editor assumed his usual position in the corner, his back to the window on the street. Le Croissant was their local eating place, a home away from home. None of the regulars paid attention to a group they knew well, a familiar crowd that waltzed in and out all day. The menu was appetizing and reasonably priced. The Filet de Daurade, sublime.
Any pretense at bonhomie failed to lighten the somber mood. The gravity of the situation in Europe weighed on them all. On the spirit-stocked wall behind Jules, his pride and joy, a wooden Eruner wall clock with a home-painted image of the Eiffel Tower, ticked ominously towards a point of no return. It was almost 10:40 P.M. Jaurès began to apportion tasks to each listener as they hung on his beautifully deep-carved voice. He threw half-considered ideas across the table.
“Can the English be trusted?”
“No.”
“Was Sir Edward Grey genuinely trying to bring opposing forces to peace talks in London?”
“Kier Hardie thinks it’s a charade.” Jaurès tore at a piece of petit pain, unable to wait for his starter. “I’m beginning to think that our best chance rests with Woodrow Wilson in America.”
“Can we speak to the American Ambassador?” was the logical question.
“They’ve just appointed a new man called Sharp, and the former ambassador is eager to get away. Don’t know how willing he would be to get involved.”
“We have to try every avenue. No pessimism. Not tonight. Contact the ambassador. Ask if I can meet with him tomorrow.”
A man rose from his table and approached Jaurès, his hand reaching into an inside pocket.
“Ah, Citizen Dolie,” the editor interrupted the gathering to greet a long-time acquaintance who brandished a child’s photograph before him. “How perfect. This is a wonderful likeness.” Everyone’s uncle turned to have a better view of his friend’s daughter caught in her red bonnet by one of those new color prints. How proud Monsieur Dolie looked.
“Charming. Is she…”
Raoul’s Story
The Assassin’s Creed
Patience is not my virtue. It never was. I wanted to go immediately and slay the dragon, but I had to wait. They said so.
When I returned to my room I resented the poverty into which I had fallen. A champion should not dwell in the poorer quarter of Rue Leon above a poster-stained tabac. The proprietor was loud and offensive, so I timed my return to avoid his obnoxious ranting that I was behind with the rent. Yes, I had money in my pocket but I was ill-disposed to part with it. Let foul-mouthed Henri Boucher wait. Of course I would pay, as all gentlemen should, but in my own good time.
The room was sparsely furnished. An uncomfortable bed which must have seen service with one of the survivors of Napoleon’s Old Guard was propped up against the window. A rudely varnished wardrobe whose front hung open displayed a shirt I washed some days ago and a jacket with threadbare cuffs. The rag on the floor once posed as a rug. Worst of all, the smell from the nearby tannery was overpowering in the heat. Foul, as if a rat had crawled into the skirting boards and died, festering the very air which choked me. I hated that room. How good it would be to leave, never to return. To walk away from the dreary shabbiness of a life worth forgetting and be reborn as a national hero.
I reached for the revolvers. Maurice and Theo had instructed me never to carry guns in the street in daylight. I must wait till later. But there, in the solitary confinement of my cell-like poverty, I retrieved them from behind the wardrobe and stroked the precious cold steel. My proficiency in loading and unloading a revolver is the one skill I learned in my short military career. I took a silver-coated knife, stolen from a kitchen two years ago, and began, mindlessly, to scratch initials on the butt.
I was inspired and started to sing La Marseillaise, softly at first but the power and sense of euphoria I drew from the pistols took control. I became the great tenor Leon Escalais, with the orchestra and choir from L’Opera. Magnificent. Harmonies blended with triumphant horns and vibrant strings. The chorus implored “Marchez, Marchez, Qu’un sang impure.” By the glorious third verse, as the anthem peaked, the drum rolls urging the brave legions to die for France, tears burst from my glazing eyes. Heart pumping furiously, I found new meaning in “Tremblez vos projects parricides.” Feel fear, you who have murdered our people. Cymbals crashed, feet stamped in time to the military beat. Trumpets burst in clarion call as the entire orchestra pounded with national pride. Eyes closed, I could see the vast tricolor blowing over the Arc de Triumph beckoning me. The bass reverberated, so loud, the room began to shake.
I will do this. I want to do this. For France. For my people. Herr Jaurès must die tonight. Clever, don’t you think; Herr Jaurès. Boches-lover? I wanted to do it there and then. I was ready. But I had to wait. The thumping grew louder. The harmonies were interrupted by a dissonance which had no place in my score. The rhythm broke and I found myself standing in the midst of my shabby room. Henri Boucher was thumping on the ceiling of the tabac below, yelling insults at my patriotism.
“Stop that racket, you cretin. Stop it. Stop.”
I would have liked to see Boucher’s face in the morning. But what if he stormed up the stairs and caused a scene? A gun in each pocket, I scurried from the tabac, never to return.
I caught the metro. I was early, but time had ceased to matter. Everything paled bar the immediacy of now. Now was the time. I changed lines at Villiers, as instructed, but in my haste stood on the wrong platform and travelled north. Merde. I feared I would be late. Miss my opportunity. Back to Villiers. Changed lines again. It was all too much. Confusing, exhilarating, I knew they would be waiting for me. Worried. They should not have worried. I would never let them down. Ah, Sentier. The flat-roofed electric underground train pulled into my destination and I clambered up the stairs to street level. A maimed veteran offered some flowers, cloth cap drawn over tired face. The cardboard sign by his side claimed that he was a victim of the Boxer Revolt in China, but he looked too young. Industrial accident more likely. I looked back to check if the would-be-vendor had lost both legs and slipped on the edge of the gravel area marked out for pétanque. Quick dust-down. No one saw me, surely. Checked my pockets. Guns intact, I picked up the pace. Don’t run. Don’t attract attention. I remembered.
Rue Montmartre was crowded. Visitors mingled effortlessly with local tradesmen. Though I was warned not to make eye contact with anyone, I had to ensure that I wasn’t walking into a trap. Surely not. It was already well after nine o’clock in the evening, I could see that lights were burning at number 142, inside L’Humanitè. I stood for some moments in the refuge of a shop doorway, feeling tension in the atmosphere. Little did these people know that they were by-passers on the edge of history. “I was there,” many would claim proudly, as if they had paid for front row seats at L’Opera, not wandered through Montmartre on a Friday night, ignorant of everything that would come to pass.
A face in the crowd turned toward me, eyes sweeping the thoroughfare like a spotlight at sea. I thought I recognized him…but from where? Uncertain, I pressed against the door, not daring to move. That face again? Was it one of the policeman at the Palais de Justice? A detective? No. Couldn’t be. I was surely imagining shadows. Even so, I waited fully five minutes and crossed the street into L’Humanitè’s offices without raising my head. Madam Pernaud, the concierge, was brushing the stairs. She made no move to let me past.
