AL07 - Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis

Monday Evening

KRZYSZTOF LINSKI HURRIED past the piano-shaped ice sculpture in the vast salon of the Polish Foundation’s seventeenth-century town house on the Ile Saint-Louis. He’d just make it if . . .

“Where’s your dinner jacket, Krzysztof?” Comte Linski, his uncle, demanded.

Caught! Krzysztof played with the zipper of his hooded sweatshirt. Merde! He’d be imprisoned at the gala the foundation was sponsoring if he didn’t maneuver his way out of it.

“But, Uncle, I’m late. . . .”

“The crown prince of Poland, dressed in Levi’s?” His uncle frowned as if in disapproval of the moisture-beaded magnums of champagne standing in ice buckets, ready to be poured for the assembling guests.

Leaning on his cane, his uncle blocked Krzysztof’s escape from the somber room, which was decorated with bookcases filled with leather-bound volumes whose spines were molting and crackle-surfaced oil paintings of nineteenth-century Warsaw. Everything here reeked of the past.

“Our committee’s donating Chopin’s death mask to the foundation’s collection; we expect you to say a few words to our assembled guests, but not dressed like that.”

Dream on, Krzysztof refrained from saying.

“We’re marching tonight to stop the signing of the oil agreement,” Krzysztof said, hoping to avoid an argument. “If I don’t hurry—”

“Not that silly business again!” In the chandelier’s light, his uncle’s medals gleamed. The ones he trotted out for occasions like this were all pinned to his waistcoat: ribbons earned in the Polish resistance and his French Legion d’Honneur medal, on its red ribbon.

“But I helped organize the protest, it’s vital that I be there. I need to leave now, Uncle.”

“Your duty’s more important, Krzysztof,” his uncle told him.

In Krzysztof’s opinion, preventing global pollution and the poisoning of the seas was more important than paying tribute to a man dead one hundred years.

“Your duty lies here, Krzysztof,” his uncle continued. “This is your culture, your heritage. These are your people. How can some abstract cause compete?”

Strains of a Chopin piano sonata drifted over the white-haired crowd. The old folks came out in force for a gala and free meal. No one here was under seventy. Their formal attire emitted a whiff of mothballs, Krzysztof noted.

The comte grabbed his elbow. “Think of what you owe your ancestors.”

The monarchy had ended in 1945, and their land and castles had been seized. Krzysztof took catering jobs now to supplement his living expenses while he attended the Sorbonne and his uncle, a glorified gofer, organized receptions in return for a free room at the foundation. Yet his uncle insisted that Krzysztof remember that he was descended from a princess, the Infanta Maria Augusta Nepomucena Antonia Franziska Xaveria Aloysia. That and five francs would get him an espresso, Krzysztof knew. His uncle overlooked the fact that the infanta had died in the last century and that Krzysztof was only the offshoot of an illegitimate branch.

Krzysztof knew his stories by heart. The past was like yesterday to hear his uncle and his cronies talk. They were the descendants of Polish emigre nobility who had fled to Paris from nineteenth- century insurrections and, later, tsarist troops. Still they clung to their visions of a noble past and their hopes of a restoration while they dealt in antiques to pay their rent.

Murmurs rose above the piano sonata.

“It’s time.” The old man gripped Krzysztof by the elbow. “Please, stay until the unveiling. For me,” he said, his voice softening.

Krzysztof hated to hear his uncle beg. The last thing he wanted was to disappoint him. Reluctant, he nodded.

“Mesdames et messieurs,” a voice announced from the rear of the salon, “join us for the unveiling of Chopin’s death mask, our tribute to a great musican and son of Poland.”

A bit late, Krzysztof thought. When Chopin, tubercular and estranged from the Polish aristocrats, died, his lover, George Sand, had footed the bills.

“The monarchy lives,” his uncle whispered. “You’re in the line of succession. Be proud.”

Proud? What were obsolete titles compared to toxic oil spills, killing wildlife, and depleting the ocean of oxygen? The lies of Alstrom, the guilty oil company, had to be exposed; the Ministry prevented from signing the proposed agreement.

“Pour me some champagne before it’s gone, young man.”

He turned to see an old woman, wearing a fur stole, too many pearls, and too much makeup for her age. She was feeding the Chihuahua at her side from her plate with a fork. He would humor her and then escape, Krzysztof decided.

“With pleasure.” He executed a small bow, his manners ingrained. On weekends he did this for a living. “Your dog has a good appetite, Madame.” He poured and handed her a Baccarat flute of fizzing champagne.

“Tiresome, this reception fare. Always the same,” she said. “But Bibo loves pommes dauphinoise.”

He repressed a sniff. The old woman hadn’t washed in a while or maybe it was Bibo, a bulging-eyed thing whose teeth were bared at him.

The old woman said in Polish, “You’re the comte’s—”

“I speak French” he interrupted.

“Hardly a trace of an accent either,” she said. “So you’re the troublemaking prince he complains about. Highstrung, a rebel.” She smiled at the little dig she’d managed to inflict.

“My mother taught me French,” Krzysztof said. “And the system of kings and aristocrats is dead.”

To his surprise, she beamed. “Dead? Try telling them that, young man.” She waved her arm in a vague gesture at the crowd. “But I see, you’re like me.”

He doubted that.

“Believe it or not, in my day we were enthralled by the anarchists, idealists with letter bombs, all very romantic and exciting. I raised hell, too.” She patted his arm and left her hand there. “Isn’t that the expression?”

Krzysztof cringed. She still thought of herself as a coquette.

“I’m just a student.” He glanced at the hand of the Sevres clock. “There’s a protest against North Sea pollution . . .”

“Marvellous,” she interrupted, noticing his gaze. “The young always protest, that’s your job. I find those who stir things up fascinating.”

“Stir things up?” She made it sound as if it was a lark. If they didn’t bring the facts to the world’s attention, the Ministry would sign an oil rights agreement with Alstrom the day after tomorrow.

She let out a meaningful sigh. “Boris Bakunin. Now if he’d put as much energy into revolution as he did between the sheets . . . our movement would have succeeded.” There was a wicked grin on her face. “We learned how to build, set, and defuse explosives. It was my idea—that book bomb—not that anyone cares these days.”

He shifted his feet. He wanted to slip out before his uncle noticed.

“I hope you’re involved in something illegal and thrilling.” Her eyes sparkled, amazing green young-looking eyes revealing traces of the beauty she must once have been. “It’s the only way to live, young man.” She fed Bibo a forkful, then leaned forward. “Just watch your back. If Trotsky had paid more attention to what was going on behind him, he wouldn’t have been assassinated in Mexico.”

“Pardon?” He stood, eyeing the door, distracted.

“They hatched the plot here; we knew the saboteur. I warned him myself.”

And then he realized who she was. Jadwiga Radziwill, the once notorious revolutionary, double agent, and rumored lover of a Wehrmacht general. Zut, he’d thought she was dead.

DARKNESS SHADED THE narrow cobblestone surface of the Left Bank street. Fewer than a hundred had gathered for the march; Krzysztof had expected more. And the press? Not a camera crew in sight.

Disappointed, he wiped damp hair from his forehead, passing a candle to the next demonstrator. The march