J. Janes - Mannequin

‘Specific physical features,’ said Jean-Louis, gravely brushing both hands over the table, ‘that match the girl who was once engaged to the son of the house’s owner.’ He fingered a richly gilded announcement. ‘Le Chateau des belles fleurs bleues near Provins. A Mademoiselle Angelique Desthieux, a mannequin.’

‘Ah no,’ gasped Giselle, clutching the base of her throat and feeling quite sick.

‘A mannequin …?’ managed Oona.

‘Engaged to Captain Gaetan Edouard Verges, 13 April 1916.’

‘And then?’ asked Kohler, hearing the guns of that other war as if only yesterday, feeling the mud, the shit, the shells …

‘A drooler, Hermann.’

Giselle quivered and couldn’t look up but seemed only to shrink into herself. ‘The face …’ she managed. ‘The constant drooling as he paws your naked body and then fucks you. No lips, sometimes half a nose, no jaws … Nothing but noises, mes amis. Noises! ’

‘Verdammt! ’ Kohler grabbed her hand. ‘Did you …? Hey, petite, have you ever had to …? Well, you know.’

‘Me?’ She arched her lovely eyebrows at him, pleased that he should care so much but distressed also, for it was not any business of his! ‘No, Herr Haupsturmfuhrer, one such as that has never slobbered over these breasts you hunger so much to suckle, nor has such a one ever fucked me. But …’ Ah! poor Hermann, he was so mortified and embarrassed … He must really love her a little. ‘But I have heard others talk of it, not at our house. Ah no, Madame Chabot would not allow it. But at other houses.’

‘Les baveux, ’ said Oona, watching the two men closely and asking herself what she really felt about Hermann Kohler. Jealousy after all? Envy that Giselle, who had such a splendid young body and was so very beautiful, gave him such pleasure while she …

‘Madame Lemaire’s maid hasn’t told me everything,’ grumbled St-Cyr. ‘Is it that Nanette saw the drooler on or from the balcony of those houses, or is it that her mistress has so filled the poor girl’s head with stories of the war, the very sound of crying next door is enough to give her nightmares?’

‘The shrapnel, Louis. Clouds of it. The screams, the sounds of those who could no longer scream because their faces had been torn to shreds.’

St-Cyr turned to Giselle. ‘The shells exploded above our positions.’

‘And ours!’ swore Kohler, grabbing his own chin to show what had happened to his face. ‘Brilliant star-bursts and then …’

‘The dark grey snaking tongues of metal,’ sighed Louis.

‘Of pieces,’ said Oona, sadly fingering her cardigan, ‘some no bigger than the buttons of my blouse.’

Hermann had withdrawn his hand from Giselle. He had noticed her reaction and had felt a little something for her.

Again Jean-Louis spoke. ‘Angelique Desthieux refused to marry Gaetan Verges. She was shown his face by the doctors and couldn’t bring herself to carry through, but is it that he harbours such a hatred after all these years, he still seeks out only those with her eyes and hair?’

‘Yes! ’ hissed Giselle with a harlot’s vindictiveness. ‘Those who wished to become like her.’

Kohler calmly ignored the outburst. ‘Verges couldn’t have taken the photos, Louis. None of those girls would willingly have posed for him.’

It had to be said. ‘But did he employ the photographer and the woman? Did he wait upstairs in the attic and come down only at the last? Is that not where Madame Lemaire’s maid saw him and is this not what she’s too afraid to tell me?’

They were each silent at the thought. All around their little group the racket soared with laughter, much applause and foot-stamping both on the stage and beneath the tables.

St-Cyr drew in a breath. Still deep in thought, he said, ‘A cat wanders, a banker’s bank is robbed and right across the garden from his house, a young girl is brutally assaulted. Then … then three days after the robbery and the kidnapping, the house is emptied by four men from the firm of the Dallaire and Sons-why that firm, Hermann? And how, please, could that maid of Madame Lemaire’s have seen the name on those lorries when, at 6.07 in the evening, the street would already have been pitch dark and it’s against the law to show a light?’

‘Did she go outside to look?’ asked Giselle.

‘Perhaps but then … Ah, I must ask her,’ said St-Cyr ruefully. ‘I must ask her so many questions.’

Hermann found a few dregs in his stein and drained them before shoving it aside. ‘Chloroform, Louis. Why not ether?’

A square pad of cotton wool was dragged out and held with trembling fingers as Jean-Louis delved deeply into memory and more sadness came, thought Oona. The sadness of that other war, of things that could never be forgotten.

‘Ether,’ he said. ‘Is our Gaetan Verges an ether-drinker?’

‘Ether, while used as an anaesthetic, can also be taken internally as a narcotic,’ said Hermann, looking steadily at his partner and friend, so much so, one knew absolutely he understood exacdy how Jean-Louis felt.

‘Ether to kill the pain of disfigurement,’ said Giselle earnesdy, ‘or to kill the loss of his lover. And why, please, the kidnapping now? Is it that only under the Occupation he feels secure enough that such horrible things can be done, or have they been going on before the war as well?’

The two men swiftly exchanged glances. Both knew they had best start for Provins immediately, yet should they not look closer first? wondered Oona. ‘That balcony,’ she said, and then, ‘Both chloroform and ether, they … they must be very difficult to obtain these days and would require special papers. Even then, I do not think such an addiction possible any more.’

Medicines of all kinds were exceedingly difficult to come by. Even aspirins were virtually impossible to buy and only one or two were doled out at a time, if available. ‘Boemelburg first, Hermann. We’ll have to have his clearance for this,’ said St-Cyr. ‘We can then take it from there.’

‘Yes, yes,’ grunted Kohler, ‘but the Chief isn’t going to like it, Louis. Ah Christ! why can’t things be easy for once?’

Unnoticed, the floor show had changed two or three times. Now the man with the rabbits in his hat was accusing his buxom assistant of hiding them upon her person and demanding that she search her top and briefs to hoots of laughter as they reappeared.

The tiny dressing-room backstage was beyond a crowded gaundet of all-but-naked chorus girls who, while waiting to go on stage, grinned lewdly at St-Cyr, wet painted lips, gave knowing looks or brushed teasing fingers down his arm or across a cheek, asking, ‘Hey, my fine Inspector, what’s she got that I haven’t?’ and pressing firm, plump breasts, with pasty-covered nipples against him. Old, young, not-so-young, all sizes, all shapes …‘Ah merde, ’ he sighed. ‘Please, it’s no ordinary visit. A young girl is missing.’

‘Missing? ’ teased one with flashing dark hazel eyes and huge lashes. ‘What is missing is that you are the only one with clothes!’

There were pink dots on her throat and breasts … Measles? he wondered apprehensively. Sequins! ‘Please, another time.’

‘All of us?’ asked one. They were laughing now and whispering to each other.

‘Oh, let him go,’ said another.

‘She’s waiting, Inspector!’ hissed another lewdly. ‘But for what, mes enfants? The shag? The release of his little burden?’

‘And hers!’ laughed another. ‘But it will never happen, ah no. Not with them. He’s always too busy; she also, and too beautiful, too sophisticated, too …’

Self-consciously he hurried past them, brushing talcum powder from his jacket and wiping lipstick, face cream and rouge from his cheeks.