The First of July(29)

Therzon said “Do you think we’ll have a war?”

“He can’t wait to get into his red trousers,” young Pierre said, but was quelled by a look from the older man.

“Being a soldier is no joke.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“And if there is a war, you’ll all be in red trousers. I’ll be in red trousers myself.”

Pierre Duval looked around, but his eyes fixed on Jean-Baptiste.

“Our leaders need to stand firm. They need to know that the country has no appetite for other nations’ wars,” he said. “Not us working men, who’ll have to face the guns.” Now there was unmistakable anger in his voice. “We might not follow where they lead. They have to know that.”

There was a very long silence. Nobody ever mentioned Pierre’s son, Corporal Duval, Jean-Baptiste thought, but he was there: a ghost of the living if you could have such a thing.

Therzon made a face. “And how are we to tell the president, then? Knock on his door? Trample the carpets of the palace with our Seine mud?”

“We did more than that in the Revolution,” Pierre red-beard said.

“We did a great deal less than that forty years ago,” said Pierre Duval. “What a disaster.”

“Revenge,” mouthed Therzon, nudging young Pierre.

Pierre red-beard said: “Our armies were a disgrace then, and our generals.” He made a throat-cutting motion. “The Prussians ground us into the dirt. They took Alsace. They took Lorraine. They forced good Frenchmen to become Germans.” He shook his head as if denying it.

“Revenge,” said Therzon, looking pleased with himself, while rubbing his tender tattoo.

“Revenge?” Pierre Duval looked at Therzon as if he were a small child. “For what? The French brought the last war on themselves, and it was a catastrophe. As it will be if they do it again. Tonight,” he went on, “there’s a meeting. Informal. With Jaurès. He’s a Deputy, a powerful man. He’s our man. A strong, decent man. Now that Caillaux’s been out for three or four months, he’s our only hope: a man with a zeal for peace. Who speaks for ordinary men. Tonight he’ll speak to us. Jean Jaurès. He’s the only one trying to keep us all alive.”

Young Pierre looked puzzled. “My father says he’s an agitator,” he said.

Therzon muttered, “Politicking isn’t for working people. I don’t want to go and be lectured to by some gentleman in a tailcoat at the end of a hard day’s work. I want a drink.” He belched.

Pierre Duval ignored them both. He looked at Jean-Baptiste. “Jaurès is worth listening to—talks sense. He’s staking his reputation on peace.”

“There might be trouble,” said young Pierre. And then, looking awkward, “My father wouldn’t like it.”

Pierre red-beard’s eyes shone and he rubbed his scarred hands together. “Count me in, brother Pierre,” he said.

Jean-Baptiste was aware of Therzon’s foolish face caught in the beginnings of a sneer. “And me,” he said to Duval. “Could I come with you?”

He set off between Laval and red-beard Pierre: the three men, striding down the Boulevard de Montmartre. It was a warm July night and the cafés were busy. There were bright, noisy girls on street corners and beggars on church steps. A bicycle hurtled by, almost colliding with them, and Pierre red-beard shouted some Breton curse upon the cyclist. The thin notes of a fiddle competed with an accordion supported on the vast bust of a middle-aged woman. Her fat hands could hardly reach the keys, yet her fingers were nimble. Pierre Duval laughed, as he almost never did. “Bravo, Madame.”

Jean-Baptiste knew this was the Paris people dreamed of. Even people at the bottom, like him, were part of it. Yet whom could he tell? Who would be glad for him that he’d made it there at last?

On a street corner, a man was shouting out headlines and several people were trying to read the same paper. “War coming,” shouted the vendor. “Read all about it! Will the British fight for France? Will Italy stay neutral?”

Pierre Duval, who had been laughing just minutes ago, looked grim-faced. “Idiots,” he said.

Pierre red-beard snorted. “If we’re trusting the English to get us out of this, we’re really screwed.”

Suddenly, from up ahead, they heard some distant shouting, followed by screams. Several men came running down the street; one was carrying his cap and waving it, though at whom it was impossible to say.

“Dead. He’s dead. Shot. He’s dead. Blood everywhere. Just eating his dinner. Murder, bloody murder!” he shouted as he went on unsteadily down the street. The music wailed to a stop.