The First of July(11)

“Who was going to betray him? General Bonaparte?”

“Oh, I shouldn’t think it was Bonaparte, would you? Bonaparte could just have had him locked up if he wanted rid of him, or sent him off to Russia. The real betrayals are usually much closer to home.”

Since he had started work at the blacksmith’s, Jean-Baptiste saw less of the doctor. Sometimes he spotted him at a distance, hurrying down the street with his black bag or drinking a pastis outside the Café Desmoulins on a fine day, but he missed rowing him around and he missed the stories. At first, he checked Vignon’s boat from time to time to make sure it was still sound. No one else owned a small boat that was in such good condition. What if Vignon sold it? Monsieur de Potiers was home from Paris now, so Jean-Baptiste doubted his wife was free to float about as she wished. Jean-Baptiste tried to fight his growing loyalty to the blacksmith and his pleasure in his work. He tried to hold on to the certainty of the journey he would make, but weeks passed when he didn’t get around to walking along the riverbank to check that the boat was still tucked under its overhanging willow.

So when, after a few months, he turned around to find Dr. Vignon just inside the archway to the forge, he had been surprised and relieved. Vignon held out a rowlock, the pin sheared off from the arms. It was a Thursday. Vignon’s immaculate appearance was at odds with the heat and fiery grime of the forge, and Jean-Baptiste, his trousers belted tightly, the hems tucked into his father’s boots, his chest bare and glistening, felt suddenly naked. He stopped, put his arm up to mop his brow, and smelled his damp armpit as he did so.

Vignon looked awkward. “Was just off fishing when I snapped this off,” he said, adding “I’ve missed your company. But you’re a grown lad now; other duties, other sirens call, no doubt? Den Schiffer im kleinen Schiffe, Ergreift es mit wildem Weh?”

There was an awkward pause. “Is that English?” Jean-Baptiste asked. He had written down the few English words Vignon had told him early on, but they seemed inadequate for a possible new life in a new country.

“No.”

“It’s German,” said Godet, appearing from behind Jean-Baptiste, with an expression that Jean-Baptiste thought of as his spitting face. But he did not spit this time.

“Heinrich Heine,” Vignon said. “A great Romantic poet. A great lover of France.”

“German,” said Godet.

“Art transcends borders,” said Vignon, and Jean-Baptiste thought he had never seen a man so close to spitting, yet not letting fly, as Godet at this second. He didn’t know what “transcends” meant, and he was pretty sure Godet didn’t either. Godet stretched out his hand and took the rowlock from Jean-Baptiste, running a finger over the broken end.

Vignon nodded to Jean-Baptiste. “Good to see you looking so well. Perhaps … the boat, some time … ? Fishing?”

When the doctor had gone, Godet finally let fly. The globule landed in the embers with a brief and angry hiss.

“Fishing,” he said. “Fishing. Of course he is. With a long line. But not in M’sieur de P’s waters, now.” It was said with a passion of loathing that the blacksmith normally reserved for the Church.

A few minutes later, Godet went on, “I don’t trust the man. Who knows who he is, where he comes from with his pernickety accent? What’s a man like him doing here—apart from fishing? Or poaching, I should say?” He grunted three times and turned to his workbench, putting down the rowlock and picking up a scythe with a bite out of the blade. Felt it with his hand. Grunted again.

Jean-Baptiste jiggled the coins in his pocket. He was paid every week for the journey upriver. He didn’t know what to say.

A rather dirty boy was hovering in the yard, holding a piece of paper. The child had a pale, narrow face and hair cropped so closely that his white scalp showed through.

Godet walked over to him, took the note, nodded. “Tell Sister Marie-Joseph that we’ll be up in the morning,” he said. The boy, with his large, startled eyes and big feet, looked like nothing so much as a young hare, Jean-Baptiste thought. He was already turning away when Godet said, “Do you like pears, boy?”

The child looked wary, as if this might be a test.

“Come on,” Godet said. “Let’s get you some pears. Jean-Baptiste here can look after the business.”

Godet was gone only ten minutes, and when he returned the child was nowhere to be seen.

“Starving hungry and fearing for his life in case he was late back,” Godet said, with real anger in his voice. “And they call them holy sisters. More like a coven of witches.”