Beyond Revanche, page 9
Left heaving on the floor, I failed to see my brother’s contempt. But I felt it.
“It was you,” I sobbed outside. “Why didn’t you tell him? It’s not fair. It’s not fair.”
“You should not be here,” a voice from behind insisted. It was Conrad, and behind him, Theo. “We cannot afford to have you arrested, Raoul. You know that. Monsieur Charles will be displeased. Come with us. The lads will manage without you this time.” They grabbed my shoulders unceremoniously and pulled me away from the railings.
“It wasn’t my fault. It’s not fair.”
As they hustled me through the ranks of outraged young men, seething for his kind of justice, I felt no reassurance. I wanted instant retribution for Caillaux’s crimes. Instead I was dragged to safety when my first wish was to embrace danger; preserved, though I sought martyrdom. I felt that I was being punished, denied the pleasure of immediate vengeance, while others were free to spill their blood for the honor of France. “Why me? Why do I always end up the victim?”
7
July 28-30, 1914 – Targets
A brooding darkness settled on the center of Paris, like a gathering storm rolling out of the Palais de Justice from which the heavens might or might not open. Heavy clouds sagged through the growing gloom, promising a downpour but delivering only a claustrophobic haze. As every policeman knew, a thunderous rainstorm would have cleared the streets but nature declined to oblige. By eleven o’clock order seemed to have prevailed.
Watching carefully from a vantage point on Boulevard Haussmann, the chief of police voiced his optimism. “I think the worst has…” He hadn’t finished his sentence before a shot rang out and the forces of good and evil squared up to each other with serious intent. It was as if a bugler trumpeted a charge. Street fighters from both sides exploded in justified outrage, and the boulevard was swamped by hate and retribution.
What had been a barrage of insults became a barrage of missiles. Gendarmes clashed with the Action française legion, emboldened by Corsican sailors recruited for the fight. It degenerated into a free-for-all, combatants splitting and reforming, police officers regrouping and arresting as they could. The Prefect knew who would be blamed if the grand boulevard was held hostage to the raving mob. Him. Mounted reinforcements were brought in to clear the streets. Two bloodied young men lay prostrate on the steps of the Figaro office as if frozen in adoration of the martyred editor-in-chief. We watched them fall under the blows of anonymous gendarmes. As the battle ground moved forward, the two inert figures stained the proud doorway from which so much anti-Caillaux propaganda had flowed. The irony did not go unnoticed. The murderess, free to walk away unharmed, the victim’s supporters dragged to the Hotel-Dieu hospital across from Notre Dame for life support. And they called it justice. Would either of those men walk again? Nothing in life is fair.
Next morning there was only one topic in the prefecture. War. Looking back it seemed to Mathieu that someone had finished a novel, returned it to the library shelf, and begun to read another more violent story, without pause. Caillaux was old news. The previous night’s riot hardly mattered, though his colleagues were far from convinced despite the evidence which Roux had disclosed before the verdict declared Caillaux innocent.
“Europe is smoldering. Small grass fires have been set alight. It is happening around us. Austria and Serbia might have gone it alone, but they won’t because the Russians have promised to guarantee the Serbs their freedom. They’ve declared Serbia their Slavic brothers. And who is treaty-bound to Russia?” He looked round the room, not for an answer, but to make his point stick fast. “Us. We are.”
“But treaties only apply if our allies are invaded. If Germany declares war against Russia…” Guy Simon felt the grounds for his certainty beginning to slip. “The kaiser’s not so foolish.”
“Poincaré is.” Mathieu spoke with an authority that wasn’t to be challenged. “Poincaré is.”
The chief interrupted them abruptly. He had been with Celestin Hennion at the central prefecture since 9:00 A.M., assumedly to be congratulated on last night’s success. His face betrayed a different story.
“Shut the door and sit down.” Not a good start. He wandered to the window then reached back to his desk for a compensatory Gauloises. Mathieu couldn’t look him in the eye.
“You have to get into your heads the fact that we are sitting on a keg of gunpowder, and the fuse has been lit. We have perhaps one day, or two at the most, to avoid Armageddon.” He dropped his eyes and inhaled sharply. “It may be too late already.” Dubois and the captain visibly stiffened. They wanted to disbelieve him, but said nothing.
“Tomorrow, General Joffre will be permitted to deploy his battalions from Luxembourg to the Vosges. The only stipulation is that he must keep them ten kilometers from the German border so the Germans can’t see our buildup. He’s not at all happy. Joffre wants full mobilization. Now.”
“Merde.”
“Christ,” Girard swore loudly. “So we can’t stop this madness.”
The chief pursed his lips. “Trouble is that half the country wants revenge on Germany. Wants war. The army does, for sure. However, it gets more complicated.” It felt as though there might be a slim sliver of hope, as if there was something they could do, despite what had been said. “Our Intelligence believes that the extremists in Action française have created a hit-list of people who remain a danger to them. Who might yet stop this damned stupidity. Of course the Caillauxs are number one target, Joseph in particular. Stories have been bandied about that he has sold out again to the kaiser and will try to stop our boys going to war. It’s nonsense. He’s locked up at home and politically friendless. Second is the editor-in-chief of L’Humanite, Jean Jaurès, who has been warning for days that unnamed power-brokers are driving all Europe to war for their own ends. Jaurès may be printing rubbish, I don’t know, but the little I do, frightens me. He could be right. Someone is pulling the strings at the Ministry of War and the Foreign Office is out of control. They have their heart set on war. Telegrams flow from Quai d’Orsay to every embassy in Europe on an hourly basis. Jaurès has upset his enemies in a big way. They want him dead.” He paused to draw long on his preferred drug. “And that means they genuinely fear him.”
“He’s just a newspaperman and minor politician. What can he do?” Guy was not impressed.
“He could bring a hundred thousand trade unionists and socialists onto the streets to refuse to fight against their fellow workers in Germany and Austria.”
Guy’s laugh had a hollow ring. “That’s not going to happen.”
“Probably not…if they’ve taken us so far down the road that no one can stop war.” Bernard Roux hadn’t finished. “And to make matters worse, the socialists have a new bogeyman, one Basil Zaharoff.”
“Who?” the name meant nothing to Mathieu.
“He’s a wealthy philanthropist.” Guy Simon knew who they were talking about, but he minimized the mystery man’s importance. “Is he not financing our Olympic team for 1916?”
“He’s the most important arms dealer in the world,” Roux corrected Guy’s trivia. “He’s a Rothschild prodigy. A personal friend of the president. He owns banks and industrial firms. He deals in the cannons and shells, the guns and bullets, France needs for the coming war. No Zaharoff, no point of starting a war.”
“Never heard of him,” said Dubois, as if that diminished Zaharoff’s standing.
“When you have a fortune like his, the papers don’t splash your imperfections across the front page. For a start, he probably owns half the press. Look, we need to think clearly here. Paris is still seething about Henriette Caillaux. Another riot could blow up anywhere in the city, and we don’t have the resources to deal with several outbreaks at once. These named citizens must be protected. From the president’s point of view, they rank in this order: Zaharoff, Caillaux and, at the very end of the queue, Jean Jaurès.”
“But surely this should be left to another department. Our task is to combat organized crime.”
The chief was not to be beaten. “This could be the biggest organized crime in history, believe me.” He had the last word and lit another Gauloises, formally ending the discussion.
* * *
Doubting Dubois was sent off to the exclusive Avenue Hoche, a few hundred meters from the Arc de Triomphe, where Monsieur Zaharoff lived in grand luxury. From street level the chandeliers on the first floors of his villa at number 53 hung like exorbitant Christmas trees, dripping perfectly cut glass and promising even greater excess inside. The captain and two gendarmes announced themselves at the front door to a man who looked like a no-neck Turkish bullfighter resplendent in bespoke livery, his French as flawless as his manners. He identified himself as Monsieur Zaharoff’s valet.
“I shall indeed, Sir, alert Monsieur Zaharoff to your timely concerns. If it is your intention to remain on guard in the avenue, someone from the kitchen will bring you sustenance.”
“Oh, three coffees would be much appreciated,” Dubois responded immediately.
“Would that be Turkish, Persian, North African, Yemeni, East African, or Columbian, perhaps, Sir?” A distasteful inflection rested on the word Columbian. Dubois’s instinct was to avoid that choice. “Roasted, roasted and ground, pounded or roller ground?”
“What?” Dubois struggled to keep up.
“And would you like your coffee boiled, steeped, or filtered? The three policemen looked blankly at each other.
“Cream, milk, iced, or plain?”
“Can we have three normal coffees? Just ordinary. Whatever that tastes like here.” Dubois did not want to appear ungrateful, but enough was enough.
“Very good, Sir.”
“Actually,” came a voice from behind, “could my coffee be iced?”
“Certainly, Sir. Any sugar? We can offer—”
“Just as it comes would be fine.” Dubois closed the conversation and turned back, glowering at the iced coffee. Now they all knew what real wealth meant.
Guy Simon was sent to liaise with the Caillauxs. Clearly Mathieu would not be welcome. As a former prime minister and finance minister, Joseph was a target for any right-wing critic, but the anger generated by Henriette’s acquittal had driven reason and fairness from any sentence which included their surname. Death threats swirled around. Their private residence was surrounded with cars and charabancs like a circle of wagons in a Wild West circus show. Policemen from different branches of the constabulary were in clear evidence. Ugly crowds chanting hostile slogans and promising vile retribution on both Joseph and Henriette had been driven away. A trickle of friends and colleagues constantly came and went, but their reassurances were empty. Caillaux was seen as a threat to the unity of a France which stood strong against the hated Boches. The air had been poisoned by a very potent nerve gas.
Back at the prefecture Guy Simon gave a short report. “They should get away from Paris while they can.” He was adamant. “It’s crazy to live here in full view of the lunatics. It’s a red rag to a bull.”
Roux nodded his agreement. “For as long as they stay, they’ll attract the mob.” He picked up the telephone and called the minister of the interior.
Mathieu and the captain made their way to Rue Montmartre through the crowded boulevards and side streets, the colors and smells of Paris wafting before them in the sunshine. An urchin in a tattered shirt cycled past, in front of him a converted pannier laden with fresh baguettes. They could taste the smell of freshly baked bread reach out to tempt them. Hastily pasted advertisements for this week’s performances at the Moulin Rouge promised alluring half-dressed cabaret dancers. Old posters from the Folies Bergere hung limply from the local pissoir, poised on the corner to relieve the troubled. The bold promise of a jolly weekend in London adorned an advertising board, advising the cheapest route from the Gare St. Lazare. Cars shared the broad streets with horse drawn carts, though they parked at any angle without thought for animals or humans. Such beauty and elegance. Such promise and passion. Would it survive the war to come?
Pascal Girard explained that L’Humanite was a left-wing daily newspaper, owned and controlled by the socialist Jean Jaurès, a depute in the National Assembly and accomplished pacifist. Its circulation was widespread and crossed international borders. According to the old captain, Jaurès was an acquired taste. If your politics veered to the right, he was the devil incarnate. He had championed the Jewish army officer Alphonse Dreyfus when he was wrongly convicted of selling secrets to the Germans some twenty years before. Little else fired the anger of Action française than anything they could damn as Jewish. Shameless in their prejudice, they continued to claim that Dreyfus was a spy and the left-wing press, his patsy. Jaurès thus bore the badge of Jew-lover; it was a badge he cherished. No matter what was eventually proved in court, the Action française held on to their myth as an act of faith. Girard found the inconspicuous entrance to the newspaper at 142 Rue Montmartre, crushed between a café-bar and a shoe shop.
Inside was a hive of concentration with a deep intensity of purpose. Deadlines approached and could not be bypassed. The captain looked around for the famous and fearless editor but no one seemed more important than any other. Jaurès himself was not on this floor.
“Jean Jaurès?” His question hung in the air briefly and was lost in a clamor of industry. No one answered. “Can we speak to Monsieur Jaurès, please?” Girard bellowed. “We must speak with him. We’re from the prefecture.”
One of the older compositors looked up, sweat glistening from a rugged face which wanted to concentrate on the precision of its art. He wiped his stained hands and grimaced, reluctant to change his focus. “ He’s on his way to Brussels. Back tomorrow.” The two men were forced to shout against the prevailing gale of technology.
“He needs to know we are very concerned about his safety.”
“Monsieur, we all are. Today is no different from any other day.”
Raoul’s Story
A Task of Honor
Of course I was not afraid. Concerned? Yes, but not afraid.
I was frogmarched once before, a memory I had kept behind tightly closed vaults. And then it began to seep through a keyhole in my mind and grease forgotten dread. What unlocks these buried thoughts? I wanted them obliterated, but they have the power to unleash themselves into the uncontrollable night.
I remembered a hood placed over my head so that I could not see my assailants, but as they banged me through the barracks, out behind the hateful gymnasium, I knew who they were. I was not deaf. I was none of the names they chose. Warmth streamed from my bladder despite my best intention to appear strong.
“Dirty bastard’s peed himself,” was followed by a whack to my head.
“Let me be.” My semi-confident appeal to their better natures proved a waste and had no effect. “I didn’t mean to.”
I trembled involuntarily. “I didn’t mean to tell the sergeant about the wine. He made me. He tricked me.”
“Yeah, you didn’t mean to, you lying shit. Just as you didn’t mean to fail in the route march last week. Every fucking time you let us down, we all pay. Now it’s your turn.”
The first kick struck my leg from behind, just under the knee, and I collapsed into the hard gravel. Furious fists pummeled my prostrate body. Tears and snot almost choked me, writhing in pain, arms blindly flailing to protect me from the unseen enemy.
“Remember this you fucking coward. Remember. The boys won’t forget. You’d be better off away from here. We’ll be back…when you least expect us.”
They left me in the silent chill growing ever colder under a clouded moon. Knuckles, scraped and bloodied by the boots that had stamped their authority, slowly untwisted so that I could use my hands to remove the filthy hood. Crawling, wounded like a back-broken cockroach, I hauled myself into the barracks. Ah, my bed was warm, but wet. I slept in their urine, willing myself to accept and forget. I accepted, but could never forget. They are probably all dead now, but in the sweat of a lonely night, I do remember them.
But this was different. The strongmen protected me. Maurice, Conrad, and Theo. Their grasp, though over firm, held me safely. And still I recognized fear. Did they think I was a fraud? Did they think I don’t mean it when I say I’m going to kill Caillaux and Jaurès?
“I will kill them. I will.”
“Silence, Raoul. Not another word!”
I hadn’t meant to speak out loud.
“Where are we going?”
“Raoul! No questions. What you don’t know cannot be beaten from you.”
The unfortunate phrasing punctured my sense of wellbeing and darker doors reopened. Not far north of the station, we came to a cul-de-sac, Passage Ruelle, so close to the track it might have been a siding. Maurice pushed open a featureless faded blue door and we climbed up narrow stairs to a third floor apartment. Yet again, I found myself confronted by Charles, in whose presence they all assumed the lower rung.
“Matters have become critical.”
No one sought elucidation.
“We are almost there. The army is in place, our plans have been well considered. Mobilization is on hold and the Russians have begun to move towards the German border.” You could sense Charles’s hesitation. He was about to say, “but.”
“But one last obstruction will have to be removed. Permanently.”
“Caillaux?” I heard myself ask.
“Not Caillaux, no. He is a spent force.”
“Jaurès? Jean Jaurès, the Jew-lover?”
Charles turned to Raoul, his eyelids narrowing, like a raptor whose attention had been drawn to a minor morsel. “The same,” he said, opening a thin dossier which lay on the table. “I see you were well considered by your superiors in military service. Good. You are a confident marksman, it says here. Very good.” Charles leaned his obvious approval in my direction. I couldn’t remember any positive feedback from my miserable military service, but nodded dutifully. Praise from Charles was not to be questioned.
