Jean-Baptiste takes a stool at the table. He is facing the fire, the little girl. Her brother, scratching his backside, watches her from behind Armand’s shoulder, her envious work by the food.
‘So what of the Monnards?’ asks the woman, busy with her knife.
‘I believe they are quite well,’ says Jean-Baptiste, aware that is not really what he has been asked.
‘We shall need to find him somewhere else,’ says Armand, ‘if he’s planning to stick around.’
‘And is he?’ asks the woman.
‘Who knows,’ says Armand. ‘He doesn’t say much.’
Jean-Baptiste studies his pistachio cuffs, wonders if the table is quite clean, if it would be wise to take off his coat.
‘I shall stay for a time,’ he says. ‘I cannot tell yet how long.’
‘I could not live on a cemetery like that,’ says the woman. ‘I cannot think what kind of people do it, year after year. Bad enough having Armand coming back with the smell of the place on him.’
‘She washes me with lemons,’ says Armand. ‘With a soap made of sage leaves and ashes. Smokes me with rosemary. .’
‘Would it not be good,’ says Jean-Baptiste, ‘if the place was removed?’
‘Removed?’ The woman snorts. ‘And how do you remove a cemetery like les Innocents? You might as easily remove the river.’
‘It could be done,’ says Jean-Baptiste quietly. ‘Either could be done.’
Armand, who has been examining the boy’s scalp, parting the brown curls in search of vermin, pauses and looks across.
‘Is that what you are up to? The cemetery?’
‘It will not be easy, of course,’ says Jean-Baptiste. ‘It will take many months.’
‘He’s like the rest of your friends,’ says Lisa. ‘Tell you the moon’s a bowl of soup if they think anyone could be made to believe it.’
‘Yet to me,’ says Armand slowly, ‘he looks perfectly serious.’
‘It can be done,’ says Jean-Baptiste. ‘It will be done.’
‘The whole cemetery?’ asks Armand.
‘The cemetery. The church.’
‘The church?’
‘It will not be touched for a while yet. Perhaps for as long as a year.’
‘So,’ says Armand softly, ‘the moment has come.’
‘I would have preferred to tell you sooner. I was instructed to keep the matter to myself.’
The woman has stopped her work now. ‘And his position?’ she asks. ‘Is that to be removed?’
‘I have. . spoken of it,’ says Jean-Baptiste.
‘To the minister?’ asks Armand.
‘To one who represents him.’
‘And may I hope for something?’
‘I will speak of it again.’
There is a silence between them, broken at last by a sharp word from Lisa to her daughter, who, caught up in this interesting business between the adults, has stopped rotating the chicken.
‘I think,’ says Armand, ‘I think that I should thank you.’
‘Thank him?’ asks the woman. ‘For what?’
‘The church, my gentle one, has been shut for five years. I cannot continue indefinitely playing Bach to bats.’
‘It’s all wind anyway,’ says the woman, snatching up her knife again. ‘You must have stopped at Djeco’s place on the way here.’
‘If it was not me,’ says Jean-Baptiste, ‘they would have sent another. Though I cannot blame you for. . resenting it.’
‘Who said anything about resenting?’ asks Armand, stretching for the bottle. ‘One does not resent the future. Nor its agents.’ He fills their glasses. ‘Come now, we will drink to that shadowy country we are all travelling towards, some on their feet, some on their backsides, squealing.’
The little girl laughs. A moment later, the boy joins her. Lisa ignores them.
They eat. The food is indeed the best Jean-Baptiste has tasted since coming to the city, though his enjoyment of it would be greater still if he could find some way of winning over the woman, who served him his chicken as if she would rather have chased him through the door with the spit. The subject of the cemetery does not come up again. Armand is thoughtful, somewhat distant, somewhat distracted, but good-humoured.
When they have finished eating, Armand teaches the children a song, which they sing back to him, sweetly. He asked Jean-Baptiste to teach them something, a little arithmetic perhaps, and for half an hour he endeavours to do so. They listen; they understand nothing. He draws geometries for them on a slate, triangles within circles, circles within squares. These are immediately admired. The children stand either side of him, watching to see what new cleverness will appear from under his fingers. The girl rests her hand comfortably on his shoulder.
The spell is broken by the tap of some small thing thrown up at the window. Lisa — whose manner towards the guest has been slowly thawing — gets up with a tut of irritation. She takes one of the candles and goes with the children into a back room. Armand exits through the other door and returns a minute later with three men. They look like students, though all are much too old to be students. One has a tattered silk rose pinned to his lapel, the next has his thin neck wrapped in a collar of ginger fur, while the last wears a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles on a nose intended for comedy.
‘Messieurs Fleur, Renard and de Bergerac,’ says Armand. The men bow, mockingly. ‘I am now Monsieur Orgue and you. . well, let’s see. You are. . hmm. Monsieur Triangle? Monsieur Normand? Or Bêche? Yes. Bêche is better. You shall be named after one of the spades you will use to dig up the dead.’
‘I see you sent him to Charvet,’ says Monsieur Fleur.
‘Naturally,’ says Armand, returning the other’s grin.
Their conversation is not easy to follow. It appears to consist of gossip about men and women who also possess names like characters in a farce. When the wine is gone, something stronger is found. No one seems quite sure of what it is. It tastes faintly of almonds and burns agreeably in the chest. There is some giggling. De Bergerac dabs at his nose; Renard fingers a hole in the bottom of his shoe, tenderly, as though fingering a hole in his foot.
Has Lisa Saget gone to bed with the children? Jean-Baptiste has been waiting for her in the hope he might then be able to excuse himself and find his way back to his lodgings. It is pleasant enough to sit by the fire sipping liquor, the taste of chicken grease on his lips, but he has done what he set out to do and tomorrow he must begin his journey to Valenciennes. He does not want to travel with a thick head.
Catching him peering round at the door, Armand settles a hand on his arm. ‘Do not think you can escape us, Monsieur Bêche. We have not finished yet.’
They drain the last drops of the liquor and fall silent, staring into the embers of the fire. The room is growing colder. Nothing happens. Is it midnight? Later? Then, with no warning, Armand gets to his feet. He goes out but comes back almost immediately with two large glass pots wrapped in plaited straw.
‘I assume, gentlemen,’ he whispers, ‘you are all armed?’
From the depths of their coats, Renard, Fleur and de Bergerac, produce paintbrushes. They show them, then quickly stow them again.
They descend to the street. It’s raw now. Raw and damp, a true winter’s night, no romance to it. Jean-Baptiste has his horsecoat buttoned to the chin but wishes, once again, he had his old suit below it.
Following Armand, they pass into the small streets behind the rue Saint-Antoine. The city is theirs — they see no one, hear no one. It is that brief hour, the turning of the city’s tide, when the last of the wine shops have thrown out their rabble but before the market carts appear, the big six-wheelers with their lanterns swinging from their sides, or the strings of packhorses, miserable beasts that have walked all night from farms and country gardens, their panniers creaking.