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Part Two
Early the next morning, Clopin knocked at the kitchen door of the Goose and Grapes. It opened just wide enough to allow a blue eye to peep out, then little Anne's voice said, "Oh! Good morning, Clopin," and she let him in.
"Good morning, Anne. Well, well!" he smiled at the sight of her. "Is that a new cap I see?"
The girl was, indeed, sporting a dainty white cap edged with crisp, delicate lace, and ornamented with ribbon-bows and tiny silk flowers of pink, blue and green. She blushed prettily at Clopin's attentions. "It's a birthday present from Madame Darbois."
"Is today your birthday, Anne?"
"I don't know," she admitted, "but Madame says I have to have one. I told her I was found on Christmas, but she says Christmas birthdays are 'patently unfair' so she chose today."
"I see. Of course, I would never be so impolite as to ask a lady her age, but..." he hinted.
"I'm ten," said Anne. "I think. Madame asked some questions and did the figures, and she says I'm ten."
"Well, many happy returns of the day, Anne," Clopin bowed to her and kissed her small hand. "And may I say you look very pretty in your new cap. Is Madame Darbois at home this morning?"
"Oh, no," said Anne, "she's gone to the market."
He laughed at this. "A-ha! Gone to do battle with the merchants of Paris, has she? I hear she's the terror of the marketplace, and woe to the man whose fish is not fresh enough, whose geese are not plump enough, or whose bacon is not lean enough." Clopin began to march briskly around the kitchen, doing a fair imitation of Madame despite his lack of resemblance to her. "Look at the color of that lettuce! Did you grow it in the garbage? You call that cheese? I wouldn't put that in a mouse trap! The last time I had a chicken from you, it was nothing but feathers! In a city the size of Paris, you'd think someone could make a decent pound of butter!"
Anne was giggling helplessly at this performance, "Oh! Oh! That's just like her! But, she's right, you know. That's why everyone likes her cooking so much, she puts such good things into it."
"She is indeed a most excellent cook," Clopin nodded. "And a fine woman besides."
Anne, with a gleam in her eye and a tinge of pink in her cheek, whispered, "She likes you, too."
"Does she?" Amused by this confidence, Clopin raised an eyebrow.
"But don't tell her I said so!" Anne begged. "She doesn't think anyone knows, and she'd be cross if she found out."
"Is she often cross with you, Anne?" Clopin asked. He knew that, after the cruelty she had received from her previous mistress, whatever treatment Anne had from Madame Darbois could only be an improvement, but he still concerned himself about the girl.
"Oh, never!" Anne answered him earnestly. "She's always been very kind to me. Did you know, the first time I broke a dish here, I started crying, I was so frightened that she'd be angry and beat me and turn me out, but do you know what she did?"
Clopin, who had never heard this story before, shook his head.
"She said, 'Goodness, Anne, it's only a dish, and not even a good one,' and then she hugged me and let me cry a little, and then we cleaned it up together." Anne was getting sniffly just recounting this. "But she wouldn't want me to tell you about that, either."
"Of course not," he assured her. Recalling what had brought him there in the first place, Clopin asked, "Do you expect her back soon?"
"I don't know, but you're welcome to wait for her." Wiping her hands on her apron in what struck Clopin as an amusingly Theresian manner, Anne went back to her tasks in the kitchen. Clopin offered his assistance, and the two of them were chopping turnips and chatting about nothing in particular when the kitchen door banged open and two huge baskets came in, followed by the tavern-keeper, herself.
"Well, we can forget the mutton chops for today. Monsieur Albert had nothing that was fit to feed a dog." She hefted the baskets onto the table and finally noticed Clopin. "What are you doing here?"
"Waiting for you," he laid down his knife. "I was wondering if you'd seen my brother this morning."
"René? No, should I have?"
"Probably not. I think they must have gone back to their caravan last night," Clopin frowned.
"Speaking of last night," Madame Darbois began unpacking her purchases, "where did you run off to in such a hurry? And what was that business with Mademoiselle Nerine L'Oiseau? An old sweetheart of yours, I suppose," she hinted.
Clopin answered this with a disdainful snort. "Hardly, Madame. I would not have been good enough for Nerine L'Oiseau. Frankly, I was surprised to find her in the company of my little brother, and I can't say I like it."
"Why, what's wrong with her? She seemed pleasant enough to me. And she has a beautiful voice."
"A matter of opinion," he dismissed this. "As for what's wrong with her -- " His eye lit on Anne, and he said, "well, that's a story for another time. Let's just say it alarms me to see René fawning over her, and I intend to have a little talk with him about it."
"You don't think he's in love with her, do you?" Therese scoffed at this notion.
"I don't know what else you would make of all that hand-kissing, and cheek-kissing," Clopin winced.
Hands on hips, Therese fired him a sudden look. "You've kissed my hand, and my cheek, more times than I care to count. I certainly hope you're not foolish enough to think yourself in love with me!"
"That's different!" Clopin protested. "You and I are -- well, we're friends. And I kiss all the women, you should know that by now. I even kissed Anne's hand this morning."
"Then perhaps René and Nerine are just friends, and perhaps he kisses all the women, too," Therese suggested. "After all, he is your brother."
"No, no, no, it's different. Just look at him! You can tell!"
"You're imagining things, Clopin. Good heavens, a fine couple they'd make! She's got a lovely voice, and she's charming in a coarse sort of way, but she's hardly a beauty. And I can't even guess how old she is. Younger than I am, I suppose, but not by much. Look at your little brother, and look at all the pretty young things in Paris, and tell me he wouldn't rather have one of them than this woman you're so afraid of. Trust me, at his age, a pretty face is all that matters."
"You don't know René. He's -- " Clopin searched for a word, "poetic. He's a musician!"
"Now, that's another thing," Therese paused in what she was doing. "How on earth did he become a musician? I thought all Trouillefous were acrobats. I thought it was some Law of the Gypsies, or something."
"Every law has it's exception."
"Is this a story?" Therese asked.
Clopin could not resist the suggestion. "Would you like it to be? How about you, Anne? Would you like to hear a story?"
"Yes, please, Clopin," she nodded.
"Very well. Hand me another turnip, and I will tell you the tale of my brother, the musician."
"Never in France, never in Europe, was there ever an infant as perfect as René Trouillefou. I was nine years old when he was born, and I can still remember my grandfather lifting him up for our approval and proclaiming to the world, 'This one will be the King of Tumblers, the Emperor of Acrobats, the greatest ever to wear the colors of the Flying Trouillefous!' And we, because my grandfather was always right in these matters, believed him.
"We Trouillefous are natural acrobats, you know," Clopin informed them. "My family has always found backflips and handstands as easy as walking. By the time René was ready to begin training for the act, I was old enough to help with instructing the younger children, and I made him a pet pupil. I was convinced that such a fine child must make a most excellent acrobat. After all, if I were so good, gangly bundle of arms and legs that I was, how much better would my perfect little brother be?
"The truth astonished us all. René was the most hapless fledgling acrobat I had ever seen. His attempts at a simple headstand made him look like a broken-down windmill, legs flailing about till they pulled him over. I tried holding his feet to keep him steady, and received a healthy kick in the stomach for my trouble. He could not turn a somersault without toppling onto his side. He could not turn a cartwheel without flopping onto his face. He could not take a flying leap without landing on anything but his feet. At first I thought we were expecting too much, too soon; after all, he was still quite young. But, by his fourth birthday, the sad truth could no longer be denied. René simply could not tumble."
"What did you do?" asked Anne.
"What could we do? Tumbling was all we knew, and no one could understand why René was so hopeless. He was a handsome child, healthy and well-formed, intelligent and not otherwise clumsy. He wasn't afraid, he was quite fearless, in fact, and a model of diligence as he tried and tried again to master the simplest gymnastics. My mother was always alarmed by all the bumps and bruises he was constantly sporting, but they didn't trouble René; they only made him try all the harder.
"He was four and a half years old when my parents finally decided to allow him to join the act.
"We were in Paris, as usual, for the Feast of Fools, and were drawing quite a crowd, if I may say so. René's whole purpose in our performance was to be lifted to the top of a human pyramid and dropped into the waiting arms of his father, below. All he had to do was fall, and that was the one skill we knew he possessed. The time came for his debut. Swiftly, we constructed our pyramid. I was at the top, and pulled him up into position. His bright, black eyes looked proudly into mine, and I smiled at him. 'Ready?' I whispered. 'Ready!' he smiled back. I flipped him around into position, stole a quick glance at Papa, and let him go.
"All he had to do was hold still and fall straight down. But, I suppose even that was asking too much. By the time he reached my father, he was flopping about like a freshly-caught fish. For once in his life, René landed on his feet, somewhere in the vicinity of Papa's ear, and shot head first off the front of the stage. His velocity was such that he had turned end over end and kicked two teeth out of a man in the front row before anyone could get out of his way. He bounced off a few more spectators, and hit the cobblestones with a thud!"
Anne gasped out loud in alarm.
"What happened then -- " said Clopin. "Well, I recall hearing Mama scream, in the same instant that I felt the pyramid falling away beneath me. As I plunged toward the stage, I caught a glimpse of her diving into the sea of people to rescue her child, who was in immediate danger of being trampled. By the time she came wading back to the stage, with René clutched in her arms, the crowd was on the verge of riot. It was the only time in my entire career with the troupe that I can remember making an exit before we had taken our bows."
"Was he all right? Was he hurt?" fretted tender-hearted Anne. Clopin had grown very fond of the child if only because she was such an attentive listener to his stories.
"He was fine! Oh, a few scrapes, a few tears shed, but nothing serious. Nonetheless, as soon as we had collected ourselves, the first thing my mother said was, 'Never again!' And that was the end of the acrobatic career of René Trouillefou."
Satisfied, Anne sat back in her chair, but Therese said, "You still haven't told us how he became a musician."
"Oh, that!" Clopin said. "Well, he was so sad at being turned out of the act, Papa decided to give him a little horn to toot on and let him introduce us -- it made René happy, and the audiences thought he was adorable. Before we knew it, he was actually playing melodies on his horn, then he picked up a trumpet somewhere, someone carved him a flute, someone lent him a lute, then an old woman gave him a broken-down fiddle -- every single one of these instruments René picked up and played as if he had been born knowing how! We couldn't believe it! Then," Clopin laughed, "oh, he'll never forgive me for not letting him tell this story himself! René was eight or so. We were all together in Paris for the Feast of Fools, and the Court of Miracles was, of course, full of gypsies from all over Europe. René was just sitting there, minding his own business, sawing away on his little fiddle, when, out of nowhere, a man came up to him and began talking to him, in broken French, asking about his instrument, and how he learned to play, and so forth. He and René had a nice little chat, and the man went away, and then the very next day, the man came looking for René again. He had an instrument like nothing we had ever seen. It was a large viol, that stood on a spike and was held between the legs, and it was played with a bow. The man asked René if he thought he could play that grand viol, and René said, yes, he thought he could, and, of course he did. The man said to René, you play that so beautifully, I make a present of it to you! And do you know who the man was?" Clopin asked. Anne shook her head. "It was Paolo Zoppicare, himself!"
Anne nodded, a slow, thoughtful nod, then softly asked, "Clopin?"
"Yes?"
"Who is Paolo Zoppicare?"
"Ah! Forgive me! There is no reason you should know. He is a great gypsy musician and viol-maker, from Napoli. The greatest court musicians of Europe have fought duels with each other to possess his instruments. He used to come to the Feast of Fools every year, but it has been many years since I've seen him. That grand viol was a little experiment of his; he never made another one exactly like it. René still has it, and it is his most treasured possession." Clopin considered this a moment, then frowned. "That is, I assume he still has it. It's been five years since I last saw him, and I've traded hardly two words with him."
"Well, it's your own fault if you haven't," Therese reminded him, "bolting out of here in a huff like that. If you want my advice -- and don't answer that -- " she warned him, "you'll go find René and have a nice, pleasant talk with him, and stop worrying about all this nonsense."
Clopin did place more value on Madame Darbois' advice than he would have admitted, and a few inquiries around the Court of Miracles pointed him in the direction of his brother's caravan. Therese was probably right. René and Nerine... In the light of day, he began to laugh at the notion. They were musicians; obviously, they respected each other as such. No doubt, it was nothing more than that. And, he had to admit, there was something pleasantly ironic in seeing the great Nerine L'Oiseau reduced to singing for coins in a tavern. What goes around, comes around, my Gypsy Nightingale, thought Clopin.
Clopin found the caravan with no trouble. There was nowhere above ground in Paris as safe as the Court of Miracles, but there were still certain neighborhoods in Paris where the gypsies were left relatively undisturbed, especially during the Feast of Fools, when their sheer numbers made them impossible to suppress. The two wagons were huddled together in a muddy courtyard, but Clopin saw no one nearby. He walked up to the larger and more ornate of the two, and knocked at the latticed door. When he received no answer, he hesitantly opened the door and peered inside. The wagon was empty. They had probably gone into the city to rehearse, he reasoned, but he walked around to the smaller wagon, anyway. It had no door, just a drape, hung unevenly over the entrance. Sincerely expecting to find no one -- at least, that was what he told himself afterwards -- Clopin brushed back the curtain with one hand.
The picture before him struck him all at once and stamped itself clearly into his mind, even as he let go of the curtain and hastily retreated from the door: His brother and that woman, sitting snuggled together, her hands rubbing his shoulders, his arms around her waist, René all smiles, dropping a succession of gentle, teasing kisses on her lips while she giggled softly at his attentions... Clopin supposed Therese would have called this some scene in rehearsal for their performance tomorrow, but as far as he was concerned, his worst fears were now entirely justified.