And that was how I spent my last night with her: in a room full of dead flowers, feeling as if I was already worlds away. Next morning they drove me to Paddington station. Geoff took himself off again to allow Tanya and me a last few minutes alone. It’s you I should be with, I blurted, but she just laughed and said I didn’t know what I wanted. It would be three years before I saw her again.
TWENTY-THREE
The sound of laughter again. Only this time it was Marisa. She was hauling me to my feet, wobbling as her skates shifted about on the ice.
I managed to find my footing. Marisa was bundled up in a black outfit with furlined collars and cuffs. She looked like the young heroine from a Hollywood version of a Tolstoyan epic, her hair tucked under a domed hat.
Both of us were breathing hard, puffing vapour. A few other skaters were in action on the ice, most of them staying close to the tumbled remains of the stone bridge that jutted out from the bank. They were all military personnel, young men and woman enjoying a brief liberation from their duties. The boundaries of the “rink” had been demarcated with striped yellow-and-black hazard tape pinned to the ice with chunks of masonry.
The frozen Seine was dusted with fresh snow that had fallen overnight, its whiteness etched with the lines and arcs of the other skaters. On its far side a fire had been lit under the bridge’s broken overhang. A ragtag group of dark figures was gathered around it, roasting small carcasses on skewers, thin smoke rising slowly and forming a hazy blue layer in the windless air.
Marisa’s face was so close to mine that I could feel the heat of her breath on my cheek. I became conscious that it was Owain, not me. He and Marisa held one another at the waist, still unsteady on their feet, Marisa laughing. Neither of them were practised skaters and both had taken several tumbles.
It was a moment when it would have been easy for Owain to kiss her, though of course he did not. Gingerly they made their way back to the bank, where an ice mobile was parked on the shoreline. Marisa had picked him up in it at their rendezvous earlier that morning, a vintage Skoda she’d temporarily requisitioned from a refitting shop. She’d never driven one before but somehow they’d managed to survive a hair-raising trip along the river, dodging ice-locked boats and refuse spills that would lie there until the spring thaw. Owain could still taste the craft’s sooty exhaust.
They surrendered their skates to an old woman huddled in a booth and climbed the embankment steps to a prefabricated building that housed a restaurant. It was one of the few independent establishments that still served a three-course meal, run by an enterprising Laotian family who specialised in seafood but would rustle up a steak for those customers who wouldn’t question the meat’s provenance.
The restaurant was deserted, and they were given a window table on the balcony overlooking the river. The balcony was enclosed but there was no heating, and Marisa used a serviette to swab the condensation from the window. They watched the refugees and homeless around the fire on the opposite shore. Uniformly clad in clothing blackened by grime and smoke, wearing wraparound hats of every description, the men, women and children waited in turn for their portions. Another company of the army of the dispossessed.
“What do you think they’re cooking?” Marisa said to Owain.
“I’d rather not know.”
“It feels obscene to be dining here when they’re scavenging for scraps.”
“It’s not our doing. And we have to eat, just as they do.”
She still looked troubled, though it surprised him. It was a common enough sight.
“We can always leave,” he said.
She shook her head. “What difference would it make?”
They ordered a fish soup. Marisa said something in French to the waiter that Owain didn’t catch. She handed over a hundred euromark note and told him she didn’t want change.
“Very generous,” Owain remarked.
She tucked her purse away. “Carl gives me plenty. I always have more than I can spend.”
“So where is he at the moment?”
She sighed. “Another meeting. We leave tomorrow morning.”
She’d rung to tell him that today would be their last chance to meet.
“Any idea where he’s taking you?” Owain asked.
“Carl would not go anywhere without importance, even for leisure. He said it would be somewhere warm, though I think it will turn out to be another working holiday. I’ll have to fence for myself.”
“Fend.”
“Fence. Nowhere is safe when you are a woman on your own.”
She said this without self-pity.
“Perhaps he’ll lend you his Radom.”
Legister’s Polish handgun: a twenty-centimetre combat pistol that he had used to shoot a feral mastiff when he and Marisa were walking around Versailles. Owain was one of the first to reach them and see the corpse. A single 9mm shot, just below one eye, the dog lying in the snow with its head in a comma of blood. According to Marisa the creature had loped out from behind a tree as they were passing. Legister pulled the pistol from his overcoat and despatched it with a single shot.
A big tureen arrived, brimming with dumplings and flakes of greyish fish. Wedges of coarse brown bread accompanied it, still warm from the oven. It was far more than the two of them could eat. They filled their bowls and ate in silence, Marisa sipping rose from a half bottle, Owain with an untouched glass of Vichy water.
The stew was heavily spiced, the fish indeterminate but tasty enough. An odd air of solemnity had descended over the table, in marked contrast to their earlier frivolity. There was a sense that they had somehow reached a climax to their gaiety too early. Both of them stared out the window. The skaters were all gone but the people under the bridge remained, now huddled around the guttering fire.
Marisa didn’t finish her bowl, and Owain had no appetite for a refill. She asked him if he had had enough. When he nodded, she took a napkin and lifted the tureen off the table. It was still three-quarters full.
“Marisa—” he began, knowing what she intended.
She shook her head, shutting off any objection, and began to manoeuvre the tureen towards the fire escape. Owain had no alternative but to take one of the handles and help her carry it down. They set it down on one of the bridge’s fallen stones.
Marisa began calling to the people across the river in French, telling them that there was a portion of free stew for anyone who could find a container for it.
Within no time a crowd had formed, thrusting plastic bowls, broken cups and tobacco tins at her. Their eyes looked large and white and infinitely needy. They stank of sewage, smoke and pulverised masonry. Their filthy condition blurred all distinctions of nationality, though pleading voices were raised in a variety of languages. Some were obviously diseased but Marisa showed no qualms in serving them. They ranged in age from the elderly who could barely stand upright to children too young to walk who clung to the necks of adults—adults who disregarded their very presence as they jostled forward and begged for their portions.
And more of them were coming. Figures were appearing from the ruins on the far bank, surmounting crests of rubble, scrambling down the embankment, slithering across the ice in their haste to join the throng. Marisa was heroically doling out portions, one ladleful per person, but she couldn’t keep up. The growing crowd pressed in more strongly, more vehemently, squabbles breaking out as the etiquette of the queue fragmented in the face of inishing reserves.
Despite their desperation, not a single person in the crowd attempted to manhandle Marisa; they were afraid to touch her, afraid to risk rejection. Nevertheless, it was obvious to Owain that the situation was swiftly becoming unmanageable. In French, he shouted to the crowd to get back, form an orderly line. But it was far too late for this and no one would budge.