Andrew Miller - Pure

For almost an hour, having rediscovered their old intensity of speaking, the thrust and parry of the Valenciana days, the two of them discuss the preparations they must make. The transportation of the men, their lodging in Paris. Hygiene, discipline, pay. All imaginable difficulties, from inclement weather to a terror of ghosts.

‘And this place,’ asks Lecoeur, ‘where the remains will be taken. .?’

‘An old quarry.’

‘The arrangements are complete?’

‘They will be soon enough.’

‘And it is dry? We have been using a new pump here after the English model. Much faster than anything we have used before.’

‘My responsibility is the cemetery. Once the carts have left les Innocents. .’

‘How deep must we go?’

‘They say some of the common graves are thirty metres.’

‘So deep?’

‘Most, hopefully, are less so, but for the men, it will not be very pretty work.’

‘It cannot,’ says Lecoeur, ‘be any worse than slithering into the earth with a pick and not knowing when you might crawl into choke-damp or when the tunnel behind you will fall. We lost three this last week. Buried alive. They will not shore up the tunnels properly, for they know they will not be paid for it. Only for coal.’

Beyond the window, the day does not seem to be getting any lighter. Thin gusts of snow are striking the glass again. Jean-Baptiste bestirs himself. He does not intend to be trapped here.

‘I will leave you money. Use what you need. And you may use the minister’s name where it is necessary. But everything must be done without delay. If we drag our feet, I am assured that none of us will be needed. They have been most particular on that point.’

‘ Amicus certus in re incerta cernitur ,’ says Lecoeur, grinning and rubbing his palms together. ‘Now, will you take a mouthful of food? A few slices of the head perhaps?’ He reaches it down from the meat safe on the wall, holds it like a darling. The poor, hacked-about head.

There is snow in Paris too. Snow churned with ash, soot, mud, dung. On the better streets, outside the better houses, it has been swept into grey pyramids. Elsewhere, cartwheels, hooves, sabots have cleared their own paths. In the cemetery, the snow lies along the arms of the preaching cross, sits discreetly on the stone heads of the lanternes des morts , lines the tops of the walls, the sloping roofs of the charnels.

With a spade borrowed from the sexton’s house, Jean-Baptiste prods at the ground, feels its resistance, hears it, the dull ringing, as if he had struck iron. At least the stink of the place is much reduced. He feels no nausea. No active disgust.

Armand appears from the church, ducking under the low door, then crossing the cemetery, his hair like the one thing of vivid colour left in the world.

‘I see,’ he says, nodding to the spade, ‘you are staying true to your name, Monsieur Bêche.’

‘On ground like this,’ says Jean-Baptiste, ‘I would do better with an axe.’

‘You know it could stay frozen for months,’ says Armand, cheerfully.

‘It will not.’

‘Because the minister won’t permit it? Very well. But I do not think you will be digging up any bones this side of Christmas. You should go home. Remind yourself of who you are.’

Jean-Baptiste nods, taps around his toes with the edge of the spade. Home. He would like nothing better. He aches for it.

‘And you?’ he asks.

‘Christmas? I shall stay drunk for three days. Lisa will berate me for the dog I am. Then I will grow sober, make love to her for hours, go with her and the children to Saint-Eustache for mass. Have ungodly thoughts about the young wife in the pew ahead of me. Perhaps find a way to press against her at the communion rail.’

‘And your friends? Renard? Fleur, de Bergerac?’

‘Ah, you did not like them much, did you? In fact, there is not much to like about them. By the way, that paint on your cheek will wash off eventually. In the meantime, you can pretend they are beauty spots. Now, talking of beauty. .’

The girl Jeanne, a heavy shawl over her shoulders, is walking towards them from the sexton’s house. She raises a pink hand in greeting.

‘You are back,’ she says.

‘Yes,’ says Jean-Baptiste.

‘I wondered where you had gone.’

‘I had some business,’ he says, ‘in another place. I travelled.’

‘That’s nice,’ she says. ‘Was it nice?’

‘It served its purpose,’ says Jean-Baptiste.

‘And does she know,’ asks Armand, ‘what its purpose was? Does she know what you have in mind for us?’

Jeanne looks at Armand, then at Jean-Baptiste. ‘You have something in mind for us?’ she asks.

‘Others do,’ says Jean-Baptiste. ‘Important people.’

‘Oh,’ she says.

‘Oh, indeed,’ says Armand.

‘You must have wondered, Jeanne, what I was doing here. When you were helping me, you must have wondered.’

‘I enjoyed helping you,’ she says. ‘I will help you today if you wish.’

‘I will not need it today,’ he says.

‘The cemetery,’ says Armand, ‘for I shall tell her if you won’t. The cemetery is to be got rid of, Jeanne. The cemetery and the church.’

‘The matter was settled long ago,’ says Jean-Baptiste. ‘The place is to be made new. Pure. It is what the king himself wishes.’

‘The king?’

‘You have nothing to fear. The remains, the bones, will all be taken to a place, a consecrated place, where they may be kept safely.’

‘All of them?’ she asks.

‘Yes.’

‘And you can do this?’ She looks at the spade.

‘I will have others to help me,’ he says.

She nods several times. ‘If it is what you want,’ she says quietly.

‘You and your grandfather, you will be provided for. You have my word on it.’

‘You want to be careful what you promise,’ says Armand.

‘The cemetery,’ says Jean-Baptiste, ignoring him, ‘cannot just be forgotten about, can it?’

‘Oh, no,’ she says, ‘it cannot.’

‘And you know how the people complain of it.’

She frowns. ‘Grandfather says they used to be proud to live by such a famous place. They boasted of it.’

‘People’s noses,’ says Armand, ‘have grown more delicate.’

She nods again, more emphatically, as if the matter was entirely proved.

‘And the house?’ she asks.

‘You will have a new one. Perhaps even here when the land has been cleared.’

‘Here?’

‘Yes.’

‘Grandfather will be well if I am with him,’ she says.

‘Of course. You must be with him.’

For a quarter-minute they stand without speaking. They look about themselves. They can see nothing to suggest that anything will ever be other than the way it is now.

An hour later, warming themselves with brandy and hot water in a mirrored booth at the Café de Foy, Armand says, ‘She agrees only because it is you. You have used some Norman enchantment on her. But have you not misled her? Once your miners get to work, they will fling the bones around like firewood. And this house you have promised her. Did you not invent it on the spot? You have no more power to give her a house than you have to give me the organ at Saint-Eustache.’

‘I will do what I can,’ says Jean-Baptiste.

‘You will do what you are told,’ says Armand. ‘Isn’t that more like it?’

‘The minister. .’

‘Your great friend the minister.’

‘I do not believe he is. . unfeeling.’

‘And you think he will feel something for Jeanne? Or is it you who feels something for her? I can see that it might be nice to curl up with a girl like that on a cold night.’