Pyrexia ~ Chapter 14
Jean Prouvaire arranged the meeting on a gray afternoon in January. If he resented being thrust abruptly in the role of Enjolras' messenger and valet, he did not complain. In fact, he seemed to relish the task in a way that bordered upon indecorous, but this was something Enjolras did not think on excessively. He much preferred to be obeyed.
The restaurant he had chosen was called Lapérouse, and it was one of innumerable unmarked bistros in the Latin Quarter. It was known mostly for the secrecy of its staff, and as such was a favorite of well-to-do students and their mistresses. It was suitable, too, for secret meetings of a different kind. Though he had never been given to any such dalliances, Enjolras knew the restaurant's reputation, and as he waited alone in one of the private salons, he was suddenly, violently uncomfortable.
Not so long had passed since the days when he would have been able to sit in a place like this and not think of what had transpired before his arrival. But now, the luxurious divan seemed to hold the memories of a thousand deeply personal moments. He imagined he could still hear murmurs hung in the air like so many crepe ribbons, that he could still smell the sweat of lovemaking sunk into the cushions.
He was plagued by thoughts of Montparnasse. They troubled him during his lectures, and they tormented him while he gave instruction to his lieutenants. One moment he would be conducting his life in a way proper and befitting, the next he would be consumed completely by a memory of the last moment before he has slid out of bed that morning: Montparnasse's arm tightening around him, a silent entreaty for him to stay, which Enjolras had stubbornly ignored.
There was a word for what he was feeling, but, even for all his innocence, Enjolras knew that word was not love. Infatuation was more accurate, or lust, but he had always considered that a horrid term.
Though he knew he could never bring Montparnasse here, regardless of its reputation for discretion, Enjolras found himself wondering what he would make of a place like this. He had found that he took a certain enjoyment from presenting Montparnasse with gifts. Small things, carefully chosen, like a little hand mirror or a pair of gloves, which he knew would appeal to the young man's vanity. He was careful not to let on how long he had spent choosing them, how it gratified him to show off his own good taste. How it pleased him to know he could give Montparnasse things he would never have been able to buy on his own.
He would always watch Montparnasse's expression very closely, cataloguing each shift from surprised, to flattered, to pleased. Enjolras would think them over later, run them through his mind like slides, and feel intensely satisfied with himself and his capacity for good works.
There was a tap on the outer door that separated his room from the rest of the restaurant. Enjolras pushed to his feet, but once there he swayed a little, feeling awkward. Of late, he had found himself being arrested by such feelings with some frequency, and he knew that his wandering thoughts were to blame. No one could possibly have known how Montparnasse consumed his private moments – no, one such as he would never be suspected of such sordidness – but he could not shake the feeling that the truth was clear to anyone who looked closely enough.
They would all find out: this was his fear. They would know, and then he would not be unimpeachable any longer.
The door opened, and a waiter with a subtle and deliberate manner showed Razumov in. The Russian did not seem at all as Jean Prouvaire had described him, and in a moment of initial confusion, Enjolras raised his eyes to ask if there hadn't been some mistake. But the waiter had already withdrawn, and closed the door behind him with almost no sound at all.
Razumov came forward, looking as sturdy and assured as a man half his age. He extended a hand. "M. Enjolras. What a pleasure to put a face to that name."
"Indeed," Enjolras replied. Razumov's grip was firm, the roughness of his hand impossible to gauge for the heavy gloves he wore. "You are Razumov, then?"
He made no reply save for a slight curl of his lips, and when he moved as though to come further into the room, Enjolras found himself stepping aside to let him through. He was struck by Razumov's eccentric appearance, the flourish in his movements. From the way Jean Prouvaire had told it, he had expected a shabby, sickly old man, toothless and sallow and yellow about the eyes. Razumov was clearly advanced in years, but if he seemed hardly worse for the wear. He had the spring in his step of a young man, the roving eyes of a rake, the long hair of a dandy.
Razumov did not speak again until he had poured himself a glass from the decanter left out on the table. He settled himself on the long divan, his coat draped carelessly over the arm beside him. He set his hat beside it, and leaned his stick at a rakish angle, but he did not remove his gloves. Enjolras found this most curious, though they did not seem to impede Razumov in the least. One hand slipped with easy grace into the inside pocket of his coat, and he drew out a silver case. He retrieved a cigarette, small and black, and lit it from the box of matches on the table. Having been, until now, acquainted only with cigars, Enjolras watched him draw the smoke into his mouth. It disappeared for what seemed an inordinately long time, and then reappeared again at his nostrils.
Only then did Razumov speak. "I understand that we share certain interests, you and I. It flatters me, to think that someone so young might have some use for my humble services. But I suppose everything old is new again, as they say. If the young, smart set wants bloodshed, then far be it for an old man like me to deny them that pleasure."
Enjolras was struck dumb. Though he had come to accept that he was still naive in certain ways, he was no less embarrassed that he could find nothing to say to the man before him now. Razumov seemed to know this, and was not bothered by it. With the wineglass cupped in one hand, and the cigarette pinched in the other, he had the air of a man who had been away from pleasure for some time, but hardly long enough to forget it.
"It is weary work," Razumov continued after some time. "Never forget that it is weary, weary work…"
Enjolras started as if the words had pricked him.
"I am not afraid," he said quickly. "If you are truly our comrade, then you already know that."
"Comrade? No. I'll stick with 'fellow traveler' if it's all the same. My fighting days are long past. But the world you want is not so far away as you might think. A clear mind will help you get there, but a strong arm does so much more."
"What are you saying?" Enjolras said.
"Don't you know?" Razumov smiled coolly, as if savoring some private joke. "Perhaps I was mistaken in coming here. Maybe you are not the young man I thought you were."
Though he made no move to rise from his seat, Enjolras started forward as if to detain him. "No. No, I understand. You mean that it's all well and good for us to speak our ideals, and write them in the press, and teach them to our children. But for anything significant to change, we must apply brute force. We must bend the world to our will…"
"That's really what you think?" Razumov mused, as if speaking to himself. He watched Enjolras with benevolent expectation, like a tutor waiting for an answer from his student. Had it been anyone else looking at him so, Enjolras would have thrown himself into the rhetoric with all his soul. He would have embraced the idea wholeheartedly. But something Razumov's eyes checked his tongue, and Enjolras looked away as if embarrassed.
"I don't know," he said.
"Yes," Razumov said. "Yes, because all your life you have been told you are an enlightened man. You are good, and just. And so how could it be that you are called to kill men, to send them into that great cipher which is death? You, who never even hunted in his youth, who has never killed anything larger than a house spider. You would have to murder men."
Enjolras was shaken. The things Razumov has said would have struck him as absurd and melodramatic, had they not been so utterly correct. A sudden fear arrested him: Razumov knew still more about him. This old man knew all his secrets, all the things he had worked so hard to keep hidden.
"To kill in wartime is not murder," he managed to say. His mind was drifting, a single word from Razumov had been enough to start it down a dangerous path. He was thinking of Montparnasse. Alone, kept, in that apartment Enjolras had once thought was barely big enough for one. For a moment, he could see it all as if for the first time, and it seemed an absurd situation.
Razumov was watching him still, his eyes making an unblinking catalogue of Enjolras' expression. He did not speak for what seemed a long while.
"Forgive me," he said at last. "It has been a long time since I have wrestled with such questions within myself. I remember their nature, but not their effect on the soul. But, pardon my directness, you must be even more sensitive than I was back in those days. You look thoroughly spooked."
"Meeting you is like starting out on a long journey, and meeting on the road a specter of yourself returning from the same."
"You flatter me, young man." Razumov made a motion with his smoking hand. The cigarette between his fingers had burned down to a long column of ash. It seemed ready to disintegrate at any moment, but somehow it held fast.
"Have a drink," Razumov said. "It will calm your nerves. You know, Jehan speaks very highly of you, and I can see why."
Grateful for the excuse to lower his eyes, Enjolras poured himself a glass of wine. "Do you?" he said bitterly. "I feel quite the fool."
"Such is the curse of youth," Razumov said. "You boys care too much what other people think. You all have a touchy kind of pride. And yet there is no reason to be ashamed. Fiercer men than you, with far more reason to fight, have hesitated when the time came to strike a decisive blow."
"But that's not the only reason…"
Enjolras winced, regretting his words the moment they were out. They had slipped from him while he was distracted. Though they were cryptic, Razumov was nothing if not observant. He would see them for what they were, Enjolras was sure of that, and he would lose the support of this most valuable of men.
"Then what?" Razumov said gently. Enjolras could feel him trying to draw the truth out with his eyes. It should have worried him, but instead he felt soothed, like a man going under ether. Razumov had a trustworthy face, after all, and an aura that hinted this was not the first secret he would be told, or the first he would keep. He would have liked someone else to know about Montparnasse, if only so he could have a chance say the whole affair aloud and maybe make some sense of it in his own mind.
But he tore his eyes away. "You say that you sympathize with our cause, and yet you have done nothing to prove it, sir. Have you anything for me? Or have I simply bought you lunch out of Christian charity?"
Razumov smiled, a smile that did not reach his eyes, and stretched an arm out lazily to stab his cigarette into an ashtray. "I know some men. Fine men. I know them from a different life. But I shall see how they react to the mention of your name, M. Enjolras."