Where the Light Falls(56)
Nobody spoke as the man entered the study. Merignac gestured toward the empty chair, offering a wordless, reverential bow as he did so. Pausing before the table, his pale hands resting on the back of the wooden chair, the old man smiled broadly. Jean-Luc noted that his teeth appeared slightly yellow against the stark whiteness of his skin. “Citizens.”
“Citizen Lazare,” the men around Jean-Luc answered in unison. Lazare’s pale eyes landed on the visitor.
“A new face,” he said, his voice soft, even silky. “You must be Citizen St. Clair.”
Jean-Luc inhaled to answer, but Merignac beat him to it: “Indeed, Citizen Lazare. May I introduce to you Citizen Jean-Luc St. Clair, a legal counselor for our government and a very capable—”
Lazare lifted a hand and Merignac fell silent. His eyes still fixed on Jean-Luc, the older man asked: “Did I hear that you are from the south?”
Jean-Luc cleared his throat and replied, “Indeed I am, from a village just outside of Marseille.”
With that, Lazare lifted a hand like a conductor leading a symphony and began to sing in a soft, barely audible voice the chorus of the “Marseillaise,” the new anthem of the French Revolution. “You must be proud of your city for providing us with our nation’s rallying cry.”
“Yes, Citizen Lazare.”
“I, too, come from the south. Near Toulon.”
Jean-Luc nodded.
“But of course,” Lazare sighed, “nothing of import happens in Toulon. If one wishes to be at the heart of our Revolution, or anything else, really, one must come to Paris.”
“Yes.” Jean-Luc nodded again, crossing and then uncrossing his hands in front of his waist. Then they had something in common, this esteemed man and himself. Jean-Luc suppressed the urge to smile.
“Shall we sit?” Lazare looked around the table, and without a word, the group assented, lowering themselves back into their chairs. No one looked at the papers now. Merignac retrieved another bottle and refilled several of the men’s cups of wine, including Jean-Luc’s, and yet Lazare took none himself. Jean-Luc looked at the large chandelier looming over the center of the hall, then turned back toward the cluttered table, which seemed dimly lit with only a few candles.
“I see your confusion, citizen, as to why we do not conduct our affairs directly under the chandelier.”
Jean-Luc felt unnerved by Lazare’s shrewd observation, but the old man continued: “Just some days ago, the Committee of General Security removed their meeting chambers into the salon down the hall, that way.” Jean-Luc peered down the hallway Lazare indicated and saw only creeping shadows from the windows that looked out onto Rue Saint-Honoré.
“Citizen Robespierre likes to keep them in his sights. As do I.”
Lazare, still clutching the apple in his left hand, raised the fruit to his lips and took a bite, his teeth sinking into it with a crunch that seemed to reverberate off the bare walls around them. He chewed slowly—the noises of his jaw audible. After what seemed like an interminable silence, Lazare spoke. “You work for our new government, Citizen St. Clair.”
“I do.”
“Then we are brothers.” Lazare lifted his hands as if in an embrace of all at the table.
“Indeed,” Jean-Luc agreed.
“I hope you don’t mind if I cut through some of the silly pleasantries and bare my most honest thoughts to you. Our time is precious, you see. Will that be agreeable to you?”
“St. Clair always speaks frankly with me on politics,” Merignac interjected, but Lazare did not divert his gaze from Jean-Luc.
“Is that agreeable?” Lazare repeated the question, and Jean-Luc nodded.
“Good.” Lazare smiled, a soft smile of papery white skin and yellow teeth. He took another bite of apple. “How about a riddle?”
Jean-Luc nodded. “All…all right.”
“Can you tell me…what is the one force most powerful on earth? The only force capable of driving a people, a people bound by millennia of servitude and piety, to rise out of their dark slumber and slaughter their own sovereign?” Lazare paused to chew his apple. “What storm of madness could possibly drive a people to perform this great and terrible deed?”
Jean-Luc considered the question. After a moment, he ventured: “Hope.”
Lazare pressed the apple to his pale lips, smiling behind the round shape of the fruit. “Come now, citizen. The unfortunate multitudes of any nation care little for such lofty ideals. Hope is a luxury. I’m talking about a much more base, primordial thing. There is one force that will lead a man to kill, even murder to survive. Do you know what that is?”