Where the Light Falls(55)

Or perhaps their eerie appearance was due to the chalky whiteness of several of their faces; they wore la poudre, the same white powder once beloved by the noble courtiers of the old Versailles and the ancien régime, those same people whom they had now condemned to the guillotine.

None of them spoke a word, either to Jean-Luc or among themselves, but they turned in unison at the sound of the door shutting behind him, closing him into the room. The footman was gone. Jean-Luc, alone, hovered on the threshold, fidgeting under the blank stares of twelve sets of eyes.

“Citizen St. Clair.” Merignac was one of their number, and he alone rose at the entrance of the newcomer. “Good evening.” Merignac strode across the study, reaching Jean-Luc and extending a hand in greeting.

“Won’t you come sit with us at the table?” Merignac, too, had his face masked in white makeup, giving him an appearance somewhat foreign from that to which Jean-Luc was accustomed. “We are just waiting for Citizen Lazare. He is resting now, but soon he will join us.” And then, expectantly, Merignac reopened the door that the footman had just closed.

Jean-Luc followed his friend to the table, where the Committee members sat. On top of the glossy oaken surface, a candelabra held four nearly expired wicks, the spent wax dripping down onto the table in molten dollops. A half-finished bottle of red wine stood uncorked amid piles of papers, news journals, and opened books. A couple of the seated men wore the red cap of the revolutionaries on their heads. The Committee members to whom Jean-Luc was introduced greeted him with hushed voices and stolid stares, and he could not help but feel as though they were studying him with a restrained but intense inquisitiveness.

Merignac leaned forward and retrieved an empty wineglass, which he now placed before Jean-Luc. “Citizen St. Clair is a brilliant young legal mind. He came to Paris from outside of Marseille during the early days of our Revolution and has been working for our new Republic for over a year.”

Several of the men nodded; others had turned back to their papers. Jean-Luc shifted in his chair, wondering why Merignac was speaking so softly. “You are too kind, Maurice,” he said. “But the work I do is humble compared to the tasks you all have before you—ensuring the liberty of the people and facilitating the many tasks of the Republic.” Humble indeed. Cataloging the confiscated furniture and artwork of imprisoned noblemen, defending penniless widows. In truth, he had little right to be at this table, in this study on the Rue Saint-Honoré, and he lowered his eyes, noticing a rip in the side seam of his pants.

“Wine, citizen?” To his left, a gray-haired man wearing a red cap tipped the bottle toward Jean-Luc. The man was seated in a wheeled chair, the likes of which Jean-Luc had only seen in journals or drawings. The man faced Jean-Luc with a blank look, turning a lever on his chair to move slightly forward.

“Please,” Jean-Luc said and nodded, his voice sounding brutishly loud in the dim, quiet study. His neighbor filled the glass with the burgundy drink. “To the Republic,” he offered, lifting his glass and looking around the table at his companions.

“To the Revolution,” several of them offered in reply, raising their own glasses to pale, expressionless lips. Merignac drained his cup. Jean-Luc wished in that moment that he might ask them the meaning of their chalky white makeup—why would members of the democratic Committee be dressing in the fashion of the Bourbon court? But their eyes had turned from him back to the papers on the table, and so Jean-Luc sat, mimicking their wordlessness.

After a prolonged period of silence Merignac rose, and the others at the table followed him in doing so. Jean-Luc looked up, startled by the sudden movement, and noticed a new figure. There, two rooms away and framed through the opened doorways that separated them, a small man stood atop the red-carpeted staircase.

The Jacobins around Jean-Luc snapped to, standing in stony silence as the man took hold of the railing and slowly descended.

The man looked older than the rest, his frame built of narrow, birdlike bones. He was not attractive, Jean-Luc acknowledged to himself, with limp yellow hair pulled back in a ponytail, its mass insufficient to cover the entirety of his pale, balding head. His skin was an ashen shade approaching utter colorlessness, with an almost papery quality, and his light eyes were tucked back, deep-set, under a wide brow. In the hand that didn’t clutch the banister he held something round and red: an apple, Jean-Luc saw. The man continued his slow, steady descent, his eyes not yet fixing on the twelve men plus Jean-Luc who watched him from two rooms away.

His heels clicked on the stone floor as he crossed the final step, and now he turned toward the study. The apple in his hand appeared unnaturally red and bright in his grip, his fingers drumming the fruit’s glossy surface. How had he found such a perfect apple in Paris in December? Jean-Luc wondered, realizing that he could not remember the last time he’d had the luxury of eating such a fine piece of fruit.