Birdsong (5 page)

Sometimes from the safety of the sitting room he would fix his eyes on the group and on the vital, unspeaking figure of Madame Azaire. He didn’t ask himself if she was beautiful, because the physical effect of her presence made the question insignificant. Perhaps in the harshest judgement of the term she was not. While everything was feminine about her face, her nose was slightly larger than fashion prescribed; her hair had more different shades of brown and gold and red than most women would have wanted. For all the lightness of her face, its obvious strength of character overpowered conventional prettiness. But Stephen made no judgements; he was motivated by compulsion.

Returning one afternoon from work, he found her in the garden, pruning an unchecked group of rose bushes, some of which had grown higher than her head.

“Monsieur.” She greeted him with formality, though not coldly.

Stephen, with no plan of action, merely took the little pruning shears from her hand and said, “Allow me.”

She smiled in a surprised way that forgave his abrupt movement.

He snipped at a few dead flowers before he realized he had no proper sense of what he was trying to do.

“Let me,” she said. Her arm brushed across the front of his suit and her hand touched his as she took the little shears from him. “You do it like this. Beneath each bloom that’s died you cut at a slight angle to the stem, like this. Look.”

The brown petals of a formerly white rose fell away. Stephen moved a little closer to catch the smell of Madame Azaire’s laundered clothes. Her skirt was the colour of baked earth; there was a dogtoothed edging to her blouse that suggested patterns or frippery of an earlier, more elaborate age of dressing. The little waistcoat she wore above it was open to reveal a rosy flush at the
bottom of her throat, brought on by the small exertion of her gardening. Stephen imagined the different eras of fashion and history summoned by her decorative way of dressing: it suggested victory balls from the battles of Wagram and Borodino or nights of the Second Empire. Her still-unlined face seemed to him to hint at intrigue and worldliness beyond her obvious position.

“I haven’t seen your daughter for a day or two,” he said, bringing his reverie to a halt. “Where is she?”

“Lisette is with her grandmother near Rouen for a few days.”

“How old is Lisette?”

“Sixteen.”

Stephen said, “How is it possible for you to have a daughter of that age?”

“She and Grégoire are my stepchildren,” said Madame Azaire. “My husband’s first wife died eight years ago and we were married two years after that.”

“I knew it,” he said. “I knew you couldn’t be old enough to have a child that old.”

Madame Azaire smiled again, a little more self-consciously.

He looked at her face, bent over the thorns and dry blooms of the roses, and imagined her flesh beaten by her withered, corrupt husband. Without thinking, he reached out and grabbed her hand, folding it in both of his own.

She turned swiftly to him, the blood rushing into her face, her eyes filled with alarm.

Stephen held her hand against the thick serge of his jacket. He said nothing. The satisfaction of acting on impulse had lent him calm. He looked into her eyes as though daring her to respond in a way not dictated by their social positions.

“Monsieur. Please let go of my hand.” She tried to laugh it off.

Stephen noticed that there was not much pressure of withdrawal from her hand itself to accompany her words. The fact that her other hand held the pruning shears made it difficult for her to extract herself without pulling in some way that risked making her lose her composure.

Stephen said, “The other night I heard sounds from your room. Isabelle—”

“Monsieur, you—”

“Stephen.”

“You must stop this now. You must not humiliate me.”

“I have no wish to humiliate you. Ever. I merely wanted to reassure you.”

It was a strange choice of words, and Stephen felt its oddness as he spoke, but he let go of her hand.

She looked into his face with more composure than she had managed before. “You must respect my position,” she said.

“I will,” said Stephen. It seemed to him there was some ambiguity in what she had said and that he had capitalized on it by using the future tense in his acquiescence.

Seeing he could not improve on this advance, he dragged himself from her presence.

Madame Azaire watched his tall figure retreat across the grass to the house. She turned back to her roses, shaking her head as though in defiance of some unwanted feeling.

S
ince his flight from the room in the factory where the workers took their meals, Stephen had found a café on the other side of the cathedral to which he went each day for lunch. It was a place frequented by young men, students or apprentices, many of whom sat at the same tables each day. The food was prepared by a sturdy Parisian exile who had once had a café in the Place de l’Odéon. Knowing student appetites, he served only one dish, but in quantity, with bread and wine included in the price. His commonest dish was beef, with custards or fruit tart to follow it.

Stephen was halfway through lunch at a seat in the window when he saw a familiar figure bustle past, her head lowered, with a basket on her arm. Her face was concealed by a scarf but he recognized her by her walk and the tartan sash at her waist.

He left some coins spinning on the table as he pushed back his chair and went out into the street. He saw her disappear from the corner of the square and go down a narrow side street. He ran to catch her up. He drew level just as she was pulling the bell handle outside a double door with flaking green paint.

Madame Azaire was flustered when he accosted her. “Monsieur … I, I wasn’t expecting you. I am delivering something to a friend.”

“I saw you go past the café I was in. I thought I would come and see if I could help carry anything for you.”

She looked doubtfully at her basket. “No. No, thank you.”

The door was opened by a young man with brown wavy hair and an alert expression. His face showed recognition and urgency.

“Come in,” he said and laid his hand on Madame Azaire’s shoulder as he ushered her into a courtyard.

“This is a friend,” she said uncertainly, indicating Stephen, who was lingering in the doorway.

“Come in, come in,” said the man and closed the door behind them.

He led the way across the courtyard and up some stairs to a small apartment. He told them to wait in a cramped sitting room in which the shutters were closed and piles of papers and leaflets lay on the surface of every table and chair.

He returned and pulled back a curtain, letting in some light on the cramped and squalid room.

He waved his hand at it and apologized. “There are five of us living in this little place at the moment.” He held out his hand to Stephen. “My name is Lucien Lebrun.”

They shook hands and Lucien turned to Madame Azaire. “Have you heard the news? They have agreed to take back the ten men they sacked last week. They won’t back down on the question of pay, but still, it’s a start.”

Feeling Stephen’s quizzical eyes on her, Madame Azaire said, “You must wonder what I’m doing here, Monsieur. I bring food to Monsieur Lebrun from time to time and he gives it to one of the dyers’ families. Some of them have five or six children—even more in some cases—and they find it hard to live.”

“I see. And your husband doesn’t know.”

“He doesn’t know. I couldn’t involve myself with his workers one way or another but the dyers are a separate group of people, as you know.”

“Don’t be apologetic!” said Lucien. “A gift of food is just an act of Christian charity. And in any case, the injustice done to my people is outrageous. Last week at the local meeting of the syndicate—”

“Don’t start on that again.” Madame Azaire laughed.

Lucien smiled. “I despair of you, Madame.”

Stephen felt an acid worry at the familiar way in which Lucien addressed Madame Azaire. He did not feel particularly concerned with the politics of the strike or the ethical nicety of Madame Azaire’s position. He only wanted to know how she had come to be on such easy terms with this forceful young man.

He said, “I think it’s time I went back to the factory. Your husband is going to show me the finishing process.”

“You work with Azaire?” Lucien was dumbfounded.

“I work for an English company who have sent me here for a short time.”

“You speak very good French for an Englishman.”

“I learned it in Paris.”

“And what has he told you about the dyers’ strike?”

Stephen remembered Azaire’s remark about “little Lucien.”

“Not very much. I think he will be more worried when it begins to affect his own factory.”

Lucien gave a short, animal laugh. “That won’t be long, I can assure you. Madame, will you have something to drink?”

“That’s very kind. Perhaps a glass of water.”

Lucien disappeared and Stephen lingered, unwilling to leave Madame Azaire.

“You mustn’t think badly of me, Monsieur,” she said.

“Of course not,” said Stephen, pleased that she should care what he thought of her.

“I am loyal to my husband.”

Stephen said nothing. He heard Lucien’s footsteps approaching. He reached forward, laid his hand on Madame Azaire’s arm, and kissed her cheek. He left at once, before he could see the blood he had raised, calling, “Good-bye,” as though his kiss might have been merely a polite farewell.

I
sabelle Azaire, born Fourmentier, came from a family that lived near Rouen. She was the youngest of five sisters and had disappointed her father by not being the son he had wanted.

As the youngest child, she lived life unregarded by her parents, who by the time their fifth daughter was born no longer found much to charm them in the noises and changes of childhood. Two of her elder sisters, Béatrice and Delphine, had early in their lives formed an alliance against the remote tyranny of their father and Madame Fourmentier’s manipulative indolence. They were both lively, quick-witted girls with various talents that went unnoticed and unencouraged by their parents. They developed a shared selfishness that prevented them from venturing far from their own mutual reassurance.

The eldest sister, Mathilde, was given to outbursts of temper and to sulks that could last for days. She had dark hair and a cold eye that sometimes made even her father think twice before crossing her. When she was eighteen she developed a passion for an architect who worked near the cathedral in Rouen. He was a small, shifty-looking man with a certain weasel quickness in his movements. He had been married for ten years and was himself the father of two girls. Rumours of a growing friendship between them reached the ears of Monsieur Fourmentier, and there was a noisy confrontation. From her attic bedroom the five-year-old Isabelle heard the first sound of adult passion as her father’s pleading turned to anger and her sister’s well-known temper became something more wailing and elemental. She felt the house tremble as Mathilde slammed the front door behind her.

Isabelle was a child of exceptionally sweet nature. She did not question her parents’ indifference. The closest thing she had to a confidante was her sister Jeanne, who was two years older. Jeanne was the most resourceful of the girls. She had not had to make the first moves into the world, like Mathilde, nor was she included in Béatrice and Delphine’s alliance. When blood came one day to
Isabelle, unexplained and unpredicted, it was Jeanne who explained what their mother, through idleness or prudishness, had failed to do. This blood, Jeanne said, was supposed to be shameful, but she had never thought of it that way. She valued it because it spoke of some greater rhythm of life that would lead them away from the narrow boredom of childhood. Isabelle, who was still shocked by what had happened, was suggestible enough to share Jeanne’s private pleasure, though not without a qualm. She could never quite reconcile herself to the fact that this secret thing that promised new life and liberation should manifest itself in the colour of pain.

Isabelle’s father was a lawyer who had political ambitions but lacked the ability to realize them or the charm that might have made connections where talent had failed. He became bored by his houseful of women and spent mealtimes reading Parisian newspapers with their accounts of political intrigues. He was unaware of the complexity or passion of the lives led by his family. He would rebuke the girls for bad behaviour and occasionally punish them severely, but he had no other interest in their development. Madame Fourmentier was driven by his indifference into an excessive concern with fashion and appearance. She assumed her husband had a mistress in Rouen and that this was the reason he no longer showed any interest in her. To compensate for this presumed slight she devoted her time to making herself look attractive to men.

A year after her failed affair with the married architect, Mathilde was married off to a local doctor, to the relief of her parents and the envy of her sisters. It was assumed that when the other girls had also left home Isabelle would stay and look after her parents.

“Is that what I’m supposed to do, Jeanne?” she asked her sister. “Stay here forever while they grow old?”

“I think they’d like it, but they have no right to expect it. You must find your own life. That’s what I’m going to do. If no one marries me I’m going to live in Paris and open a shop.”

“I thought you were going to be a missionary in the jungle.”

“That’s only if the shop fails and my lover rejects me.”

Jeanne had a greater sense of humour and detachment than Isabelle’s
other sisters, and their conversations together gave Isabelle the feeling that the things she had read about in books and newspapers were not just the ingredients of other people’s lives, as she had once believed, but were open to some extent to her too. She loved Jeanne as she loved no one else.

At the age of eighteen Isabelle was a self-reliant but gentle girl who had no proper outlet either for her natural instincts or for the exuberant energy that was frustrated by the routine and torpor of her parents’ house. At her sister Béatrice’s wedding she met a young infantry officer called Jean Destournel. He spoke to her kindly and seemed to value her for some quality of her own. Isabelle, who had only ever been made to feel a shadowy version of a child who should in any case have been a boy, was confused to find that someone could think she was unique and worth knowing for herself. Jean was not just anyone, either; he was attentive and handsome in a conventional way. He wrote to her and sent small presents.