Where the Light Falls(97)
Jean-Luc’s workload had become insurmountable lately, so backed up he’d gotten in the months and weeks preparing for André’s trial. “Say, who do you suppose he is—this Citizen Persephone writer?” Jean-Luc asked his supervisor.
“Not sure. Some reference to Greek,” Gavreau said, eyeing the pamphlet. “I know it was actually a she, the daughter of Zeus.”
“Oh?” Jean-Luc looked from the pamphlet to Gavreau.
“Come now…is it really the case that I know something that the esteemed Jean-Luc St. Clair does not?” Gavreau gloated, his ruddy face teasing. “Don’t remember your classics? Persephone, the poor gal, gets dragged off to the underworld by some dark devil who fancies her. She reemerges each spring, bringing life, but then descends again each winter, leaving death and decay. The ultimate symbol of life and death. Hope and despair, the light and the dark. The fragile balance of this cocked-up world in which we live.”
Jean-Luc nodded, vaguely recalling the lessons of his boyhood. “Well, Gavreau, I have to admit: I’m impressed.”
“I’m not completely useless, after all. But come now, St. Clair. It’s one o’clock in the afternoon.” Gavreau, rather than showing signs of leaving his employee’s desk, now perched himself on its edge. “Have you eaten anything all day?”
“No, actually, I haven’t,” Jean-Luc answered, realizing for the first time how hungry he was.
“I’ll buy you lunch. It’s the least I can do for the…what are they calling you now? Oh yes, ‘the most promising young lawyer in Paris.’ ”
—
The day was a pleasant one, with golden sunlight bathing the square in a gentle warmth. They walked west along the river to the Saint-Jacques neighborhood and chose a table on the terrace of the Café du Progrés for lunch.
Gavreau ordered two thin stews, a loaf of bread with something advertised as liver pâté, and a carafe of watered-down wine. “So have you heard from the poor bastard?”
“Which bastard are we talking about?” Jean-Luc asked.
“The captain. Valière, or de Valière, whatever his name is.”
“Not since he left for the coast. But I saw him off just a few weeks ago.”
Gavreau leaned back as the waiter delivered the basket of bread, its crust a dark, flaky brown. “How’d he feel about everything? True, exile is not death, but it is still exile.”
Jean-Luc thought about the question. “I’m not certain. He was very distracted whenever we spoke. Perhaps a bit nervous. This war…” Jean-Luc paused, glanced over his shoulder, and decided against continuing on. Not that he even knew how to express his own troubled thoughts on this Revolution and what had become of it.
“What’s he got to be nervous about? He gets to keep his head.” Gavreau tucked his linen napkin into his collar the way Marie arranged Mathieu’s bib and scooped himself a generous portion of the pâté. “And from everything I’ve heard about his family, I’m sure his relations have a hoard of treasure hidden away somewhere.”
“Not nervous for himself. Nervous because his brother and his fiancée have gone missing.”
Gavreau raised his eyebrows, holding his knife to hover above his pâté. “Are they dead?”
“I don’t know,” Jean-Luc said, lost in thought. He picked up a knife and sliced himself a thin piece of bread. “Her uncle is the general. Murat. The one who brought the charges against André.”
“Well now, perhaps he’s in more trouble than I thought.”
Jean-Luc nodded.
Gavreau, having gobbled up his half of the pâté, served himself more. “Now the young man’s fate rests in hands that are not your own, my friend. So you should stop your worrying. I’ve never known a man to talk himself into trouble and court misery the way you do.”
Jean-Luc thought about this, realizing that, for once, he agreed with his superior.
“He’s alive,” Jean-Luc reasoned. “That counts for something. And I’d take my chances among the Italians or Austrians over the—” Jean-Luc stopped short and surveyed his surroundings once more. Convinced no one within earshot was eavesdropping, he continued, “I’d sooner face war with those people than stand before that godforsaken tribunal. After facing down Murat, Lazare, and the wrath of the Committee, I think Valière might welcome the sight of a foreign land.”
Gavreau wiped his lips with the back of his palm. “Have you soured on our Revolution?”
Jean-Luc leaned his head to the side, looking out over the crowded square. He sighed. “Perhaps it’s simply human nature on which I have soured.”