Caveau des Innocents oil on canvas 64.8 × 76.3 cm
One of the most notorious bars in Paris near Les Halles and known until the First World War as a haunt for the destitute and desperate. Though the patrons are huddled in the rough clothing of the working poor and seen by the light of smoking oil lamps, there is a sense of life and community in the painting. The focus of attention is the singer seated at the back table with her bright red shawl and the violinist who accompanies her, the handkerchief around his neck echoing the same red. The performance seems to transport her listeners, who lean in towards her just as the viewer is drawn towards her – and away from the surrounding shadows.
Extract from the catalogue notes to the exhibition ‘The Paris Winter: Anonymous Treasures from the de Civray Collection’, Southwark Picture Gallery, London, 2010
When Beauclerc had been hurried, sniffing and unhappy, from the house, Yvette assured the Countess that she could find which of the men on the list had done the work on the tiara if she were given a few days to look for them in the lower haunts of Paris. One of them would have more money than he should, she said, or would have been busy while everyone else was drinking over Christmas and New Year.
Maud lay back on the Countess’s settee while they discussed it and let the talk flow over her. She had expected some relief from coming here. She remembered the middle-class living rooms of her mother’s friends where she had been petted and praised – the glow of self-worth she had felt. She had felt it again when the Countess gave her the portfolio of photographs during those perfect days before Christmas when she was loved and useful. Now, lying back empty and hollow while the others were so full of purpose, she realised she had been hoping to feel that again, had imagined the Countess tearful and grateful, praising and pitying her back into the world. It had not happened.
‘Fine!’ the Countess said at last, holding up her hand to stop the talk of the two other women. ‘Find who did the work and come and tell me. We shall see about the police after that.’
‘You mustn’t do anything that puts Maud in danger,’ Tanya protested. ‘If you do, I shall … I shall…’
‘What? Faint?’ Madame de Civray replied sharply. ‘Do not fret, Miss Koltsova. I’m sure we can persuade whoever did the work to turn in Morel, or Gravot if that is his real name. Such people do not normally keep their mouths shut for their friends.’ She took a breath. ‘I’m sorry, girls. Seeing the dead walk and then finding out about that damned tiara has rattled me.’
Yvette looked up at her, eyes slightly narrowed. ‘It was brave of Maud to come here, Madame.’
The older woman pursed her lips. ‘Yes, it was. I thank her for it and I shan’t forget it.’ But she did not look at Maud. ‘Do you mind if Arthur shows you out of the back door?’
* * *
Tanya let them off at Place Pigalle before being carried off to the Louvre to play the part of the devoted student and Yvette supported Maud on her arm back to Valadon’s.
‘Let me come with you tonight,’ Maud said as she sat down on the bed and began to unbutton her boots.
‘No. No bloody way,’ Yvette said, shocked. ‘It is not the place for you and besides, you are not well enough. I can’t ask the questions I need to with you hanging over my shoulder. You don’t know the language – this is not drawing-room French – and you don’t know how to be.’
‘And where is my place?’ Maud’s disappointment at the Countess’s house was thickening, curdling into something bleak and wretched. ‘I will come if I have to follow you through the streets until I fall in the gutter. I want to see. And I cannot sit here quietly while other people plan and do around me. No more.’
Yvette sat down heavily on the bed beside her, making the springs complain. ‘Where is your place? Who knows? No one does, Maud.’ She pulled her knife from her pocket and flicked it open, then began to pare her short nails. ‘Your place is just where you end up, I suppose.’
‘Tell everyone I am a new model just turned up with a few francs, and you’re using me to buy you drinks.’
Yvette looked at her sideways and spoke softly. ‘Why? Why do you want to come? There’s nothing to see but misery and stink. A month ago, you would have swooned at the very idea of going somewhere like that. Anyone seeing you go into these places will assume you are a whore or a thief, possibly both.’
‘But now I am a ghost, Yvette, I can go anywhere. And I shall. I want to see, and why should I care what strangers think?’
Yvette squeezed the blade shut, slipped the knife back into her pocket then hugged herself. ‘Christ, Maud, I hate it when you talk like that. You’ve always cared what other people think, and you’re not a ghost.’
‘I feel like one. An angry one. I can’t carry on thinking the world can be made into what I want it to be, Yvette. That got me killed. I want to see it as it is.’
Yvette waited for a while then nodded. ‘All right – but say as little as you can. If they think you are not one of them in the Caveau des Innocents, they will kill you. Rest now. I’ll come back for you at midnight.’
* * *
An arched doorway, an entrance into the cellars of what was once a great house in a dim street a stone’s throw from Les Halles. There was a man, hunched against the cold, leaning on the wall outside. His eyes drifted over them and he nodded. Maud wore clothes she’d borrowed from Valadon. A simple skirt and threadbare cotton blouse under a short black coat worn shiny at the elbows. She felt more comfortable than she had in the rose evening gown.
Yvette pushed open the door and led Maud down a narrow stone staircase. The only light was from smoking candles stuck into the tops of bottles on the steps or occasional oil lamps swinging from large metal hooks, and the air was thick with the stench of sweat, sour alcohol and cheap black tobacco. The grey plaster walls were scrawled with names in household paint, a dark vermilion: Panther, Ugly Henry, Fat Emily. Not decoration, but some sort of declaration of existence.
At the bottom of the stairs, the two women reached the first of a series of low, vaulted rooms. There was a bar of sorts, with smeared glasses and unlabelled bottles. Yvette pointed at one then waited, leaning her folded arms on the bar, for Maud to pay. Against the walls were wooden benches and tables. Yvette picked up the bottle and a pair of glasses and took Maud to a spot in the corner of a second vault that led off from the first, poured the drinks and emptied the first glass immediately down her throat. Maud did the same. The wine scorched her throat, but after the first sting she felt it warm her, drive some of the noxious stink out of her blood.
She began to pick out the details of the room. A man at the far end of the room was playing a violin, and seated at the table next to him, another was singing. The patrons nearest to them swayed with the music and joined in with the chorus. Maud could only make out a few of the words. He was lamenting his girl, shut away in Saint-Lazare, complaining that he had no comfort in life while she was gone. It seemed the song was addressed to the girl’s little sister. He was asking her to take up her elder’s duties. Each verse seemed to end with a joke or a pun that sent the crowd into fits of laughter before they sang out the chorus.
The bar was beginning to fill and the reek of unwashed bodies, warmed by their closeness, soured the thin air. Yvette held her tumbler close to her face, observing the distorted crowd through the dirty glass. The song ended and another began, a woman singing this time in a low growl. Maud looked at the faces, mournful or intent, the way the men and women watched each other as much with their bodies as their eyes. Yvette slid out of her place and went to lean on the bar again; after a few minutes Maud realised she was talking to the man next to her. Yvette was nodding at him now, her eyes flickering to right and left while he spoke, making sure she was not overheard.
While Maud watched, another man, his hair greased back from his forehead, took Yvette’s place beside her and said something to her she didn’t understand. She shrugged then felt his arm slide around her waist. His skin smelled of stale bread and onion and she could feel the warmth of his body through her clothes. He was whispering into her ear a mixture of compliments and obscenities, his fingers pressing into the flesh of her hip, his breath on her neck. Suddenly she was yanked to her feet. Yvette had pulled her up and was now leaning into her face in a rage, shaking her arm, talking fast and loud. The man who had been embracing her laughed, said something and grabbed his crotch. The others near to him hooted and applauded. Looking as submissive as she could, Maud took hold of Yvette’s hand and kissed her knuckles. She saw the slight flicker of surprise and amusement cross Yvette’s face before the girl remembered to be angry again. She delivered one last insult to the man, then wrapped her arm around Maud’s waist and carried her off.
Her act of furious indignation lasted until they turned the corner into Rue Berger when she dropped her grip on Maud, leaned against the wall and began to laugh so hard the tears ran down her face. The street was quiet, the shop-fronts and pitches around Les Halles closed away for the night and the doors to the warehouses locked. A dog barked from behind one of the gates and Yvette pulled herself straight.
‘Oh Lord, oh I thought I would die when you kissed my hand! Did you understand what I was saying to you?’
Maud put her head on one side. ‘Something about being a faithless bitch, I think. What did you find out about the names on the list?’
Yvette waited to see some spark of amusement in Maud’s face, some acknowledgement of the adventure, but none came. She wiped her eyes on her cuff.
‘According to Freddy, one is dead. Another left Paris last year to try his luck in the provinces. Two of the others have been seen out and drinking most nights since Christmas. But there are two that no one has seen around for a while. The man I spoke to said the bloke who was the pick of Beauclerc’s list was Henri Bouchard, and he’s one of the ones not seen since before the holidays. Apparently he’d been trying to go straight, working out of a shop in the Palais Royal – but he’s not turned up there since then either.’
Maud nodded shortly and Yvette felt a chill in her bones that had nothing to do with the coldness of the evening or damp in the air. ‘How did you get him to tell you these things?’
Yvette pulled her shawl over her shoulders and turned north back towards Montmartre, walking briskly. ‘I told him I had a fellow interested in getting into the game of swapping real stones for fakes in the shops. Freddy used to do that too – before he got his face cut. Everyone could spot him after that so now he sweats in Les Halles butchering meat.’ She could hear Maud following her.
‘Are you angry with me, Yvette?’ Her voice was calm.
‘No,’ Yvette took her arm. ‘Just a little frightened for you. What would your lawyer brother say if he knew that you had been in that bar? With that man?’
Maud considered it a while and as they passed through the pool of light from a gas-lamp, Yvette saw the suggestion of a smile cross her friend’s gaunt face. ‘He would have me committed, I think, and what’s more, if I had heard the story told about another woman from our town, of our class, I might have agreed with him. Isn’t it strange? A place you can go every day if you wish to, yet my brother would probably lock me away forever if he knew I’d let that man put his arm around my waist. Let us go and see the Countess.’
* * *
Despite the lateness of the hour, it was still a little while before Madame de Civray returned from her evening engagements. The two women were summoned to her dressing room. The Countess sat in front of the three-part mirror taking the powder from her face with cold cream and brushing out her hair while Yvette told her what she had learned. After consulting her diary, she gave them a date.