J. Janes - Salamander

Awakened by the stench, Kohler picked up the candle. ‘Louis … Louis …?’

Pale blue and ethereal in a night of frost, a tram-car clanged from the far side of the place Bellecour. Like marionettes in a play of shadows, the dark silhouettes began to run, and St-Cyr knew he could not hope to keep track of Henri Charlebois in the rush.

Some slipped and threw out their arms as they fell. Some cried to God in despair, while others laughed insanely until the clanging became unbearable.

‘Ah no, wait ! Please wait for me,’ cried a girl, only to hit the ice with a fist and add dejectedly, The last car, messieurs. Positively the last! Have you no heart? The curfew! It’s Christmas! Well, it is the day after but why should I have to spend the next months in Montluc among the convicts without a toothbrush?’

Punished by the frost, those who had missed the car stood sentinel or in little clusters, grumbling as such will do. Cursing openly or silently the miserable bastards of the Public Transport, the high wages such imbeciles were paid, the security of their precious pensions …

He had heard it all so many times before. Breathless, he let his gaze search everywhere. Charlebois was taller than most. Charlebois was thin. He had lost his hat, had fallen once. Perhaps he had sprained an ankle or wrist?

As St-Cyr hunted for him, he heard the girl who had fallen say, ‘ Merci , monsieur. It is very kind of you to help me up.’

‘Are you all right? There is nothing broken, I trust?’ asked the helper.

He was tall and his hands, they were without gloves, thought the girl, for she had had her mittens stolen only yesterday and had not been able to get others.

‘No. No, I’m fine,’ she said. ‘It … it is just that … that I live so far away, monsieur. Over in Saint-Jean on the rue des Antonins.’

Almost at the foot of the montee des Chazeaux.

‘Well, that’s good. I’m going that way myself. We’ll walk together.’

He took her by the arm and she was not so sure she liked this. Ah, it was so hard to tell with some these days. The grip of the French Gestapo, monsieur? she wondered apprehensively. He had about him an urgency that made her feel uncomfortable, but perhaps it was just the nearness of the curfew and the need to be indoors.

They walked in silence, blending in with others so that perhaps she would feel more at ease with him, thought St-Cyr. ‘Were you at the cinema?’ asked the man. ‘ La Grande Illusion. Did you enjoy it as much as I did?’

To go alone to the cinema was to admit that one lived alone, she felt. To make up stories about a boyfriend who lived across the Rhone in Part Dieu or La Guillotiere would do no good with this one. ‘Yes … yes, I have enjoyed the film very much, monsieur.’

‘Even though we have had such terrible fires?’

‘I … I have prayed that it would not happen to me, monsieur. Evidently others did the same, for the cinema was packed, was it not?’

The girl should not have said that, thought St-Cyr ruefully. Ah merde , was he to step in now in hopes she would not be killed?

Charlebois’s chuckle was polite. As they crossed the rue de la Barre, he again used the girl as a shield and mingled quickly with others, chiding her gently. ‘Don’t we both wish that had been the case, mademoiselle? There were so few brave souls in that cinema, it did not pay the owners to open the doors.’

Embarrassed to have been caught out so easily, the girl must have sweltered under the rebuke. But then, determined to be certain of him once and for all, she foolishly began to ask specifics. ‘Who played the part of the French officer, de Boeldieu, monsieur?’

Several people now separated St-Cyr from the couple. He dodged round them, only to be blocked by others. Ah damn … Must God do this to him? Must He mock a poor detective on the run? That film had been released in 1937. Hitler had banned it in the Reich and later the Nazis had banned it in Paris …

‘Erich von Stroheim was magnificent as the German von Rauffenstein, mademoiselle. Pierre Fresnay did an excellent job of de Boeldieu. Why not ask me about the British officers in that prisoner-of-war camp of theirs? Why not tell me how they dressed up for the variety night to amuse their French counterparts?’

‘As women,’ she blurted. She would not be able to trip him up with anything. She knew this now, yet still was not certain of him. Ah, it was his grip on her arm. Yes, yes. It was as if he not only would not let her go, but could not. Had he a need of her, but why?

‘Your name, monsieur?’ she asked sharply.

Momentarily St-Cyr lost sight of them again. ‘Christian Matras,’ said the Salamander, a little test of his own.

They had stopped in the middle of the pavement. They were facing each other now but others were still passing them. ‘That … that is the name of the photographer who has made the film,’ she said, trembling, for he had not released his grip on her arm.

‘Jean-Pierre Rouleau at your service, mademoiselle. Shopkeeper and widower, hence my presence at the film.’

‘Forgive me. It’s just that … Ah, one never knows, does one?’

His grip relaxed. They hurried along. When they came to the river, Monsieur ‘Rouleau’ felt it best to use the quais and the footbridge, as these would bring them more quickly to the Palais de Justice and her street.

Reluctantly she agreed. Ah merde , how easily women were taken in, thought St-Cyr. First they are afraid, then not afraid, then suddenly afraid again.

She asked what kind of shop he kept and for a time they were lost in a crowd that quickly vanished. Maudit , where had they gone? The infrequency of dim blue streetlamps gave futile guidance. Against the night sky, St-Cyr made out the stumpy branches of the trees that lined the quai des Celestins on the river side. There would be benches, places to hide-steps down to the water’s edge where the ice had now gathered.

Lovers were caught in frozen embrace. Somewhere across the river, a car started up and he watched, as all others would, for the glow of the headlamps. And when it came along the quai Romain Rolland, he, too, saw that it was a German staff car.

But then it disappeared up the rue de la Bombarde and for a moment, anyway, the city dropped back into its silence and he heard the stirrings of the river as it flowed beneath the ice.

Another couple kissed, and at first he thought he’d found them, but then this girl whispered, ‘Albert, I love you. Albert, I must go home! Until tomorrow, then?’

The boy swore he’d see her at church and they parted, he to hurry one way and the girl another. Teenagers …

Left alone and to the river, St-Cyr searched the half-light and the deeper darkness. Night was seldom so dark things could not be seen. With ice and snow on the ground, it was much lighter still. Out over the river, threatening dark stretches of water lapped razor-thin ice near upwelling pools of sewage. Along the bank, the ice tended to thicken except right at the sewer outlets. In these places gaps were kept open and vapour rose thickly from them.

Had Charlebois already killed the girl? Had he left her body for him to find?

When a shrill scream came, he began to run. When she shrieked and fought and cried, ‘ No! No, please! I cannot swim! ’ he saw her spinning drunkenly out across the ice, throwing her hands this way and that as she tried to stop herself. She went down hard. She went right through but did not cry for help. Ah merde !

He pitched down the frozen steps to the water’s edge. As he raced out over the ice, he tried to fling off his overcoat.

A fleeting glimpse revealed Charlebois etched against the night sky, standing in the middle of the footbridge.