April 1918
Day was descending toward eveningwhen Laura left Whiting and went out to Mary’s motorcycle. She ought to get on, kick the thing into gear, and return to Couthove for the night. But she hesitated. Mary would be cross if she was late. But she had a last errand in view. Not for herself, or for Freddie. For Pim.
Laura left the motorcycle and the main square and stopped about midway down Priesterstraat, at a house with a long queue of men leading up to it. A lamp burned scarlet beside the door. Heads turned among the men in the queue, but Laura didn’t look at them.
Madame Maertens was the best-known businesswoman in the sector, and her business was prostitution, fueled by the twin influxes of Edwardian virgins in uniform and Belgian women without recourse. She had grown into affluence, over the course of the war. Madame wouldn’t know anything about a dead soldier named Wilfred Iven. Battlefield deaths, in her world, weren’t interesting. But she traded in rumors and scandals. Her girls collected them diligently in their little booths. Madame might know the stories of a man nicknamed the fiddler. She might have heard stories of a hotel, and a person called Faland. She might know enough to ease Pim’smind. Madame’s grown son was at the door, keeping order. Laura said, “I’m here to see her, Gerald.”
Gerald knew Laura. She’d dosed half the girls for syphilis, and delivered more than one infant for them. “Heard you’d gone home. Some were saying you’d died.”
“Not yet,” said Laura.
Gerald nodded and Laura slipped inside.
Madame’s office had been a pantry before the war. She was muttering over her books when Laura knocked. Her eyes flew up. “Mademoiselle Iven!” she cried, with surprised pleasure. “We heard you’d lost your leg.”
“A bit the worse for wear, is all,” said Laura.
“Sit down then, shut the door.” She fixed Laura with a very shrewd eye. “What brought you here? Something particular, I don’t doubt.”
Niceties didn’t interest Madame. Laura said, “I am looking for a man called the fiddler.”
Something hardened behind her eyes. “Ah,” she said. “Everyone is asking, aren’t they? Never mind that men come back like ghosts. They’re all still looking.”
“Why?” said Laura.
Madame shrugged expressively. “Who knows? They say he takes their souls and pays in wine.” Laura couldn’t tell if she was joking. “But,” Madame added, “the ones who have been out long enough, they’ve lost their souls anyway. So who knows?”
Superstition was unlike Madame. Impatient, Laura said, “But who is he? My friend met him, and she’s desperate to meet him again. She has uncovered—strange stories about this man. For her sake, I want to know. Where does he come from? What is he doing here?”
Madame crossed herself. “No one knows. If I were you, I’d—”
Then she hesitated, eyes on Laura’s face. “You’re in earnest, petite?”
“If I was trying to joke, I am certain I could come up with something better.”
Madame watched her a moment more. Then she bent to her desk, rummaged. Emerged with, of all things, a copy ofThe Wipers Times.The joke paper printed by soldiers on their crumbling press. “This is all the answer I have,” she said. Madame folded the issue back, pointed to a page.
TheTimeswas the printed equivalent of whistling past a graveyard, and every issue was a frantic mishmash of pitch-black humor. There were fake letters to the editor. There were fake answers to correspondents. But Madame had pointed at a page of false advertisements.DANCING!!!!one of them said.
Prof. Porky’s weekly classes
The professor will give a pas seul exposition of the
TRENCH TANGO
ADMISSION: THE USUAL PRICES WILL BE CHARGED INCLUDING WAR TAX
It was absurd. Laura found herself smiling. But beside the first advertisement was another.MUSIC!!!!!!!it said.
M. FALAND
The CELEBRATED VIOLINIST, Purveyor of LIQUID COURAGE, ILLUSIONIST
COME FOR THE INIMITABLE BACCHANALIAN REVEL
STAY FOR THE SELF-KNOWLEDGE, SOUL-RENDING TUNES
COULD BE ANYWHERE
