Paris: The Novel Read online

  “I understand, monsieur.”

  “Then comes something rather special. I have to make sure that the platform is absolutely, and perfectly, level. How to do that, young Monsieur Gascon? Give it a shove?”

  “I don’t know, monsieur.”

  “Then I will tell you.” He pointed to one of the tower’s four great feet. “Under each foot is a system of pistons, operated by compressed water, which allows me to make minute and subtle adjustments to the height and angle of each leg in three dimensions. Surveyors will take the most careful measurements.” He gave a broad grin. “Then I’ll go up and check with a spirit level.”

  “Oui, Monsieur Eiffel.”

  “Any other questions?”

  “I have one, monsieur.” Thomas pointed to the great cranes that hoisted the girders up into position. “Those cranes will go only so high. Nowhere near the height to which we’re building. When we get to the height of the cranes, what happens after that?”

  “Bravo, young man! Excellent question.”

  Thomas politely waited.

  “You’ll see,” the great man said.

  It was already growing dark as he crossed the Pont d’Iéna to the Right Bank. Ahead of him, on the slope overlooking the bridge, stood the strange, moorish-looking Trocadéro concert hall, built a decade ago for the last World’s Fair.

  Thomas smiled to himself as he passed this exotic palace. Ten minutes later he was at his lodgings. But he didn’t go in. He was feeling hungry. If he walked for another five minutes up the rue de la Pompe to where it crossed Victor Hugo, there was a little bar where he could get a steak and some haricots verts. He’d earned it.

  Still feeling rather cheerful, he trudged contentedly along. On his right he came to the railings of the Lycée Janson de Sailly, and this made him smile again.

  All Paris knew the story of the grand new school that had recently opened on the rue de la Pompe. The rich lawyer whose name it bore had discovered his wife had a lover. His revenge had been sweet. He had disinherited her, and left his entire fortune, down to the last sou, to build a school—for boys only! Though the lycée had only just opened, it was already fashionable. Thomas wondered cheerfully what had become of the widow.

  There was still a glow of gaslights coming through the windows. No doubt the cleaners were finishing their work. As he watched, he saw the lights starting to go out. He paused.

  Why did he pause? There was no reason at all, really. Just idle curiosity, to see the cleaners come out.

  A moment later they did. Two women, one old, one younger, though he couldn’t see their faces. The older one crossed the street. The younger turned up it. He continued walking. He came level as she reached a lamp outside a doorway. He glanced at her. And stopped dead in his tracks.

  It was the girl from the funeral. It had been so long since their brief encounter that he’d almost put her out of his mind. He’d wondered if he’d even recognize her. Yet now that he saw her, even in the lamplight, he hadn’t the slightest doubt. He’d looked all over Paris for her, and here she was, hardly a mile from where he’d first seen her.

  She was a few paces in front of him now. He drew level again. She looked across sharply.

  “Have you been following me?”

  “No. I was walking up the street when you came out of the lycée.”

  “Keep walking, then.”

  “In that case, you will be following me,” he said cleverly.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I will do as you ask, but first I have to tell you something. We have met before.”

  “No we haven’t.”

  “You were at the funeral of Victor Hugo.”

  She shrugged.

  “And …?”

  “You were in the front row, on the Champs-Élysées. A soldier made you move.” He paused. She gave no reaction. “Do you remember a man hanging out from the railings of the building behind?”

  “No.”

  “That was me.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” But she was thinking. “I remember a crazy man. He was saying vulgar things to a man below him.”

  “That’s right.” He smiled. “That was me.”

  “You’re disgusting. Get away from me.”

  “I went looking for you.”

  “So now you’ve found me. Fuck off.”

  “You don’t understand. I went back to the same place in the Champs-Élysées for weeks. Did you ever go there again?”

  “No.”

  “Then I went from district to district, all over Paris, for over a year, in the hope of finding you. My little brother came with me sometimes. I promise you this is true.”

  She stared at him.

  “I work on Monsieur Eiffel’s tower,” he continued proudly. “He knows me.”

  She continued to stare at him.

  “Do you always piss on people’s heads?” she asked.

  “Never. I swear.”

  She shook her head.

  “I think you must be crazy.”

  “There is a bar over there.” He pointed up the street. “I was going to eat something. I’ll give you supper. It’s a respectable place. You’ll be quite safe. When you want to leave, I won’t follow you.”

  She paused.

  “You really looked for me all over Paris, for a year?”

  “I swear to you.”

  In the bar, he could see she was giving him a thorough inspection, but he pretended not to notice. They sat at a small wooden table.

  He supposed she was two or three years younger than he was. There were even more freckles on her face than he remembered. Her eyes were hazel, but up close he could see different lights in them. A hint of blue or green, he couldn’t decide which. Perhaps both. But it was her mouth that he especially noticed. He’d remembered that it was wide, but there was something potentially sensuous about her lips that excited him. And she had white, even teeth. He hadn’t been able to see that before.

  She was sitting across from him, leaning back slightly, as though to keep him at a distance. He could hardly blame her for that.

  “My name is Thomas Gascon,” he said.

  “I am Édith.”

  “You come from this quarter?” he asked.

  “We’ve always been here.” She shrugged. “Since it was a village.”

  “I’m from the Maquis. On Montmartre.”

  “I’ve never been there.”

  “It’s all right. People come up there for the dancing, and the views. But our family name is Gascon, so Monsieur Eiffel says we come from Gascony.”

  “Monsieur Eiffel seems to be important to you.”

  “I worked for him on the Statue of Liberty. Then I got sick, but he let me work on the tower as a favor. He was talking to me this afternoon.”

  “He must think well of you, then.”

  “I’m skilled. That’s why he hires me. It’s important for a man to have a skill. If he can.”

  “My mother and I clean. And I work for my aunt Adeline too. She has a very good situation.” She paused. “Maybe I shall inherit her position one day.”

  “Would you like to do that?”

  “Certainly. She works for Monsieur Ney, the attorney.”

  “Oh.” This meant nothing to him, but in her mind, evidently, he was as significant as Monsieur Eiffel.

  She took a little wine, but she refused to eat, explaining that she was on her way to her aunt, who would be expecting to feed her.

  She asked him some questions about his work and his family, then said that she must leave.

  “I hope I shall see you again,” he said.

  She shrugged.

  “You know where I work in the evenings.”

  “I don’t get off work until late in the summer months,” he said.

  “I don’t get off work until late anytime.”

  “Can I see you safely to your aunt’s?”

  “No.” She seemed about to get up, then paused. “Tell me one thing,” she sai
d. “Why did you waste your time looking for me all over Paris?”

  He considered.

  “I will tell you,” he answered. “But another time.”

  She laughed.

  “Then perhaps I shall never know.”

  But he did see her, a week later, and this time she consented to eat something, but only a crepe. And toward the end of their little meal, she said: “You still have not answered my question.”

  “About why I looked for you?” He considered for a moment. “Because, when I first saw you, I said to myself: ‘That’s the girl I’m going to marry.’ It was therefore necessary to find you.”

  She stared at him in silence for a moment.

  “You tie yourself to a railing and hang there offering to piss on people’s heads, and then you catch sight of a person you’ve never seen before in your life, and you decide to marry her?”

  “That’s it, exactly.”

  “You’re insane. I’m eating with a lunatic.” She shook her head. “No chance, monsieur.”

  “You can’t refuse.”

  “I certainly can.”

  “Impossible. I haven’t asked you yet.”

  “Ah. What an asshole.”

  The next week, however, when she found him waiting for her one evening, she told him that, if he liked, they could meet on the following Sunday afternoon. “Meet me in front of the Trocadéro at two,” she said.

  Sunday was a warm September day. She was wearing a pale striped dress and sash.

  On the slope below the Trocadéro’s Moorish concert hall as it looked across the river to the site of Monsieur Eiffel’s tower, there were some pleasure gardens, which contained two big statues, one of an elephant, the other of a rhinoceros.

  “I remember my father bringing me here to look at these,” Édith told him, “when I was a girl.” She smiled. “So I like to come and see them sometimes.” She shrugged. “It brings back good memories.”

  “Is your father still around?”

  She shook her head.

  “There’s an aquarium,” she said, pointing to a long, low building. “Have you ever been in there?”

  He hadn’t. They spent a pleasant half hour looking at all manner of exotic fish. There was a small deep-water black squid that fascinated him. And exotic jellyfish with poisonous stings. Even more exciting was an electric eel that could kill a man. The power of these sea monsters attracted Thomas, and he pointed them out eagerly to Édith. “They’re even more impressive than the sharks,” he said. She looked, but preferred the brightly colored tropical fish.

  When they had finished, Édith led the way. He noticed that they were going toward the rue de la Pompe.

  “When my mother was my age,” she remarked, “this wasn’t part of Paris at all. It was all the village of Passy.”

  “Same with Montmartre.”

  “Did you know,” she said proudly, “that Ben Franklin, the great American, used to live up the street from here?”

  “Oh.” He’d heard of Ben Franklin, though he couldn’t remember much about him. “I didn’t know that.”

  “On the west side of Passy, there was a small palace where Marie Antoinette used to stay.” She glanced at him. “You can tell I am very proud of Passy.”

  “Yes.”

  “So. I am going to show you something even more important.”

  They kept walking until they came to the lowest section of the rue de la Pompe. Looking up the street, most of the houses were set in gardens. Some were hard-faced granite residences, newly built town houses for rich people. Others, somewhat older, were less formal suburban villas with shutters on the windows, set in leafy gardens where fruit trees suggested a more rural past. But the place where she stopped was the gateway to a courtyard containing some stables, and beyond which he saw a kitchen garden.

  “Do you know who lived here before the Revolution?”

  “No idea.”

  “Charles Fermier, himself.”

  Thomas paused, unwilling to expose his ignorance. She was watching him.

  “Well, who was Charles Fermier?” she prompted.

  “I don’t know,” he confessed.

  “The ancestor of my father.” She smiled. “He was a farmer. This area was mostly farmland then.”

  “He owned the land?”

  “Oh no. Most of Passy was owned by a few big landowners. He rented his land. But he kept a lot of cows. We’ve been here ever since. Well, except my father. We don’t know where he went.” She shrugged a little sadly.

  “Your family didn’t continue to farm?”

  “My grandfather looked after the horses at a château on the far side of Passy. Then my father worked in a merchant’s house until he left.”

  They walked up the street. Just past a handsome horse chestnut tree they came to the house where Thomas lodged.

  “I rent a place in there,” he said.

  “It looks nice.”

  He thought of his tiny room where he had just space to lie down.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “I’m afraid the owner won’t allow me to bring any women into the house.”

  “I’m a respectable girl. I wouldn’t go in if you asked me.”

  They walked on.

  I make good money working for Monsieur Eiffel, he thought. I could rent a nicer place if I didn’t give my spare money to my mother. It was a moral conflict he hadn’t thought of before.

  “Where do you live?” he asked.

  “My mother lives over by the Porte de la Muette,” she said a little vaguely, “and my aunt Adeline in the other direction. I go between the two.”

  Before they reached the Lycée Janson de Sailly, they turned right and soon came into a street of small stores, where they found a little place to sit down, and Édith ordered tea and a pastry.

  “I have enjoyed my afternoon,” she said. “But I have to go to my aunt now.”

  “The one who works for the lawyer.”

  “For Monsieur Ney.” Her tone was respectful.

  “I should be curious to see such an important gentleman.”

  “I must go,” she said suddenly.

  “When shall we next meet?”

  “Wednesday is a good evening,” she answered. Then she was gone.

  And so their meetings continued for several weeks. On Wednesdays she would come out of work with her mother as usual, and then continue alone to her aunt Adeline’s. Thomas would meet her. They would sit and talk for a while. She would let him accompany her some of the way toward her aunt’s, but never the whole way. Some Sundays he would go to his family in Montmartre, on others she would agree to meet him, and they’d wander about together quite happily. It was clear that, for the time being at least, Édith was keeping him at a distance, and he was content to be patient. He supposed that it was only natural caution on her part.

  But he also had a sense that there were aspects of her life that had not been fully revealed to him yet.

  In the month of October Thomas made two discoveries on Monsieur Eiffel’s tower. Both of them took him by surprise.

  He had arrived as usual one morning when he saw a knot of people gathered by one of the tower’s four feet. As he approached, he saw both Jean Compagnon and Monsieur Eiffel watching closely while a gang of workmen that he’d never seen before were assembling a large piece of machinery.

  Thomas had been working on this leg the day before, but Compagnon directed him to join another crew. By the lunchtime break, however, the new piece of machinery was fully assembled, and Thomas eagerly went to inspect it.

  Eiffel saw him and gave a nod as he addressed the men who had gathered around.

  “Well, my friends, I was asked a little while ago how we should raise the girder sections into place when the tower grew higher than the cranes. Here is the answer. It is a creeper crane. It will run on rails inside each leg of the tower. And when the tower is completed, those same rails will carry the elevators that the public will use—unless they choose to take the stairs. Since the
tower’s legs are at an angle, the crane and later the elevators will also run at an angle. Just like a funicular railway.” He smiled. “As we build up, they will accompany us. The arm of the crane will extend and allow each section to be raised, with the crane, so to speak, creeping along just behind. The cranes can also swivel, if desired, three hundred and sixty degrees.”

  From that day, Thomas worked his way up the tower’s huge iron leg with the creeper crane for company.

  He made the second discovery in the last week of October.

  One feature of the building site was the care that Eiffel had expended on the safety precautions. By its nature, work on iron structures like this was dangerous. It was a lucky builder who could complete a great iron bridge without at least one worker badly injured. And in the case of the tower, its height dictated that any fall would surely be fatal.

  So Eiffel had designed an elaborate system of movable barriers and safety nets. His aim was to do the near-impossible, and complete the project without losing a single man. After all, his workers were all used to operating on high structures. With care and attention, he believed his ambitious safety record could be achieved.

  Until then, Thomas had worked with the same crew. They got on well together, and evidently Jean Compagnon had been satisfied with their work. He’d have let them know soon enough if he wasn’t.

  One morning, there was a man short on a crew who worked near them, and Compagnon told him: “I’m putting you on the crew that’s short today.” So Thomas had gone up with them. He wasn’t concerned. His own crew had worked on the outside edge of the building, while the crew he was joining worked on the inside edge, only yards away. Indeed, it crossed his mind that they might even have asked for him. The work, naturally, was identical. As they went to their workstation, he looked back at his old crew and waved.

  When he got to his position on the inner edge of the tower, he glanced down.

  And froze.

  A second later, his left hand was gripping the edge of a girder just above his shoulder; his right had found a metal strut just behind him, and was clenched around it so tightly that he could feel the metal edge biting painfully into the flesh. But he could do nothing about it. He couldn’t loosen his grip. A cold panic seized him, as though all his strength were suddenly draining away through his feet. He stood there, unable to go forward or back, his breath coming short.