Where the Light Falls(112)
Jean-Luc nodded, eyeing the rows of new inventory.
“You can’t get to it all today. Come on, let me buy you a drink.” Gavreau put a hand on his employee’s shoulder. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
Jean-Luc nodded, his entire frame shivering in this dark basement. “Hundreds, in fact.”
—
Outside the office building the workers still swarmed, carrying armfuls of cloth, stained glass, and prayer books. Jean-Luc paused before a particularly arresting statue. It was an angel, easily twice the size of a tall man, the face wild and windswept as if caught in the current of some great celestial storm. The angel’s arms were thick with muscle, and his hands—giant bearlike paws—were raised aloft. One hand he held out as if in blessing, the other clutched a spear. Whether it was a weapon for battle or a spear of heavenly light was unclear, perhaps intentionally so.
“Michael,” Jean-Luc said, peering into the marble eyes of the angel, their expression severe, savage even, ready to carry out the Lord’s fierce grace.
“Pardon?”
“Michael the archangel,” Jean-Luc explained.
“Which one was Michael?” Gavreau asked.
“Come now, you’ve forgotten your catechism?”
“These days, who hasn’t?”
“Michael was the archangel who led God’s army,” Jean-Luc said.
“That so? So we’ve come to that—even the angel of warfare falls before the mob,” Gavreau muttered. “But this one’s not from Saint-Jacques. All this”—the boss gestured at the nearby cluster of statues—“comes from some noble’s estate nearby. Montnoir. Eh, you’re familiar with that old marquis, aren’t you?”
“Montnoir.” Jean-Luc considered the name a moment before he remembered. “The Montnoir estate. The Widow Poitier! That place?” Jean-Luc looked at his supervisor questioningly.
“Indeed, the very same. That dreadful old lord you had removed from his castle at the same time you got that old widow put back into her cottage on his estate. Seems she’s been petitioning the government ever since—years—for someone to come out and seize the old nobleman’s riches. We finally got out there, and”—Gavreau let out a snort—“seems the old man had an appetite not only for his women, but for holy art as well. I’d guess this one’s an altarpiece, based on the size of it.” Gavreau gestured back toward the massive statue of Michael the archangel. “Anyway, you’ve got that old woman to thank for passing you more work.”
Jean-Luc nodded, and yet he couldn’t pull his eyes away from the statue: that stare, those eyes. The archangel Michael appeared alive—even responsive—conveying a judgment, or perhaps a challenge, to anyone who dared look into his face.
Gavreau fidgeted beside Jean-Luc. “Shame to stick the angel of war in the basement. The Republic might need him yet.” His impatience growing, he gestured to Jean-Luc. “Come now, I need a drink.”
The days were long and the evening sun pierced the curtained windows in gentle spears of light as they sat inside the café, sharing a bottle of wine. “This Bonaparte will name himself supreme commander of the entire army soon enough. From there, it’s an easy step to king. Or emperor, even. It’s the only way I see of bringing some order back to this madness.”
Jean-Luc sat opposite his boss, nodding heavily. Had all of this, all these years of chaos, been for nothing more than to replace a king with an emperor? And yet, thinking about it, he could not entirely disagree with Gavreau. Perhaps the French people had forfeited their right to a democratic government, so base had been their handling of the new nation’s liberties.
“He seems pretty well occupied in the Mediterranean at the moment. First taking Malta, and now sailing for Africa.” Jean-Luc took a sip of wine.
“He’ll take Egypt,” Gavreau agreed. “But when he gets bored of war, he’ll come back to Paris and find himself a crown.”
“Just like Caesar.” Jean-Luc sighed, looking out the window at the steady stream of passersby. It was amazing how, no matter what happened, life in Paris seemed to go on. Students still gathered in the inns for supper. Mothers still chased children through the foot traffic. Lovers still paused at every corner, exchanging kisses and promises for the future—as if they had any control over their own fates. They were willful and obdurate, the Parisians were, to continue to live. To do so as if the future were theirs, even when these past years had taught them that it most certainly was not.
Did they not realize that the future of their country was being decided, at that very moment, by distant actors and unseen events? That, thousands of miles away, the French fleet was sailing the Mediterranean, its sights set on war—the outcome of which would change the fate of not only their nation but also the world?