The Tapestry of Time

Chapter 5-2

Baudet now gave a smile, even though he felt sad after hearing this tale and he asked, in a gentle tone: “Has he never returned to your house?”

“He wouldn’t dare. He was a coward as well as a drunk.” Straightening his back, he breathed in sharply. “That’s enough of all that – it’s history now. You’ll find his sort aplenty in and around the Panier, but I’ll leave it up to you to form your own opinion. Let me buy you one more ale then I have to be home to make sure mother is comfortable and asleep.” He raised his tankard, shook Baudet’s hand and departed, a cue for the bearded card player from the next table to sit down beside him.

“Don’t pay him no heed – we don’t.”

At these careless words, Baudet’s knuckles turned white as he struggled to not punch the man in the face. Instead, he slammed down his tankard, rose and hissed through clenched teeth, his contempt palpable,

“I wish you goodnight, M’sieur.” But his friendship with Criou would last for many years.

After breakfast the next day, Baudet came out of the tavern and set off towards the Vieux Port, intent on exploring the Panier after all the anecdotal comments he had heard. The early morning air, crisp and clear, washed refreshingly around his face. “Maybe the Mistral has been blowing, clearing up the atmosphere of dust – at least, that’s what I was told.”

Maybe the Mistral has been blowing, clearing up the atmosphere of dust – at least, that’s what I was told.”As on his previous visit, the port was bustling, with hardly a vacant mooring. The braziers burned white-hot coals. A magistrate’s officer patrolled, swinging his baton like a conductor in front of his orchestra. Cranes lifted goods, boys pushed barrows, horses pulled carts and he could not fail to see frequent beggars although he only recognised one: the blind man with the sign hanging around his neck. When he dropp a coin into the pathetic fellow’s cup, the lonely clinking sound sound said it was empty, so he reached into his purse and dropped in another and carried on walking.

At the Butte Saint Laurent, he chose the less-steep track to the church, as the priest had explained. At the top, he sat once again on the bench affording a view of the port below. His gaze was drawn, inescapably, to the fortress Saint Victor abbey, home of the Benedictine monks. A voice behind him spoke: “Monsieur Baudet, you’re becoming a regular visitor to our church.”

Baudet turned around to see Father Philippe, dressed in his black cassock with silver cross.

“Good morning, Father. I’m gathering my thoughts before going down into the Panier.”

“Ah, yes, I remember you saying. Well, you’ve got a fine day for it.”

“That’s true. Do you have a busy morning?” Baudet asked, politely.

“Yes, a funeral mass for a dear old lady… married a woodcutter, I think. Her coffin is laying open at the altar… there’s a thing.”

“Pardon, Father?”

“I mean she’s resting in a coffin and that is unusual for folk around here. Families normally do their duty and contribute towards a shroud but… a wooden coffin… there’s a thing.”

coffin “Father, even before I set off into the quarter, I’m forming an image in my mind. I trust the funeral will pass well.”

Turning his back on the port and church, he took the Rue Martégales that led from the track down into the belly of the Panier. To call it a street was, at best, an exaggeration. Barely wide enough for the passage of a horse and cart, its granite slabs were worn smooth by the footsteps of a million shuffling Panier citizens, some in boots, others barefoot, occasionally happy, oft-times sad. A frisson of anticipation ran through his body, even before he had encountered a soul. On either side rose dwellings two or three storeys high, with narrow front doors, shutters across their windows, ornate iron balconies where the womenfolk could lean over and almost touch as they exchanged their hopes and their worries. Baudet raised his eyes up and up. The heavens seemed a league above him from where the light struggled, as would the rays of the sun trying to penetrate the canopy of a forest. “They tower forward to each side, in a strange arc… how bizarre… it’s a frightening dark place, for sure.”

street They tower forward to each side, in a strange arc… how bizarre… it’s a frightening dark place, for sure.”A short way down the street, the sound of voices heralded humanity ahead. He had arrived at one of the numerous small squares in the Panier – the Place de Lenche – that were so integral to people’s lives, for chatting, arguing, playing, buying and selling. It was hemmed in on all sides by an incongruous jumble of quaint low cottages and tall perpendicular brick residences rising way above their adjacent neighbours. Wisps of smoke spiralled out of chimneys and he espied flickering lamps within, giving an appearance of satisfied domesticity. That might have been true, but these lowly folk lived cheek by jowl with wealthy residents of other districts and resentment settled like a broody hen upon their discussions.

Venturing into the square, he could not fail to admire an attractive stone fountain with a circular stone wall. In its centre stood a carved cherub with a jet of clear water spouting from its mouth. The wall provided an ideal seat for women to meet and gossip about the latest scandal they had heard about. In between the plane trees were wooden benches, occupied mainly by toothless old men with wizened faces, nodding then speaking and nodding then speaking, looking not dissimilar to marionettes dangling from a puppet-master’s strings. Children scampered around, playing their games of tag, chase, mock-fighting, their screams rending the morning air. “They are happy enough,” he thought, “but what’s unusual about them?” Observing them at close quarters, the answer became obvious – the mates he remembered from his own childhood in Vordan were well-fed, as he was, and it showed in their podgy faces and hefty thighs. But these youngsters, he could see, were skinny – boys and girls with spindly legs and unhealthily thin arms.

They are happy enoughbut what’s unusual about them?” His journey through the Panier continued. He walked across the square and chose an alleyway, dark and narrow and flanked as before with tall houses that blocked any natural sunlight. As he made his way into this passage, an unpleasant smell caused him to twitch his nostrils and sniff. It was, undoubtedly, the stench of human faeces. His eyes strained in the half-light as he tried to scrutinize the ground ahead, repulsed by the thought of treading in it. So, it was with some relief when the alleyway broadened into another square. No fountain in this one, but the same gaggles of gossiping women and young urchins scampering around, playing their games. The morning was chilly and, whereas children do not feel the cold, the elderly do and it was normal for these senior citizens to have their threadbare shawls pulled around their shoulders. However, when he looked again, he realised they were not all aged, as their clothing and drawn features suggested, but fairly young.

In one corner stood a small squat church, of wooden, not brick, construction. In front of the doorway, a rotund avuncular priest sat in an armchair – comical in itself, Baudet thought, chuckling, and he had a blanket covering his knees. “Let’s see what he has to say about life here,” he thought, approaching the church.

“Let’s see what he has to say about life here,” “Good morning, Father.”

“Good morning to you, brother.”

“Brother?”

“Sorry, I meant to say my son – brother is a habit from my days in the abbey.”

my son – brother They were both strangers but the cleric spoke freely and Baudet went along with the flow of the conversation. His ears had pricked up at the mention of the abbey.

“Do not monks live in that place?”

“Yes, of course they do but, as a novice priest, my bishop sent me to Saint Victor to ‘learn the scriptures from holy men’, as he put it. He snorted derisively. “I soon found out they are not all holy men, far from it.”

“That’s fascinating, Father.”

“It certainly is. However, your name, young man?”

“Baudet.” He explained why he found himself in Marseilles and what he sought.

“Employment, you say?” The priest’s brow furrowed.

“Ay, any honest work will suit.”

“Honest work,” the priest repeated, a wry smile on his face. Next, with a flourish, he reached under his blanket and brought out a green glass bottle and two glasses, rather like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat.

“I always keep this little tipple handy in case of visitors, you see. Will you join me?”

“Never one to turn down a glass of brandy,” Baudet replied.

“It’s not brandy… it’s better than that, it’s from my private supply of laudanum.” He yanked out the cork, filled the glasses with the rich brown liquid, and passed one to Baudet. Both men took a sip and smacked their lips, in unison. The priest resumed: “There is not much work here in the Panier, as you will find, so you will have to look further afield in the city. Let me explain but bring that stool over here and sit down. Now, even those men who are workers are poor and they often present themselves for alms and food. Humble artisans, apprentices and the rest, they live in overcrowded dwellings – some better described as hovels – and they are, simply, hungry and end up in a miserable quarter like the Panier, without land, without their own houses, with hardly any furniture, without suitable clothes. Their wages are uncertain and, many times, collected in advance, making them perpetual debtors. All I can do, Baudet, is to listen to their pleas for help and distribute charity as best I can.”

Baudet sipped his laudanum, not looking up at the priest, a sense of unfairness swelling in his breast.

“What’s more, and with difficulty feeding their families with bread, if unforeseen expenses come up – sickness or a new-born child in the house – their money is thrown off balance and they have to resort to donations from the church to survive. If you add to this a bad harvest and an increase in the price of wheat, our people are faced with a terribly harsh reality that devastates and frustrates their kin. More sustenance, Baudet?”

He held out his glass for the cleric to replenish. “Good Lord!” the newcomer pondered, “this is a different world from that of Vordan.” He drained his glass, thanked the priest for his time, and continued walking around the Panier. Street after street, square after square, he saw for himself how ill-clad against the elements were these wretched hopeless people: abandoned by the wealthy powers that be and oppressed by the social and economic domination of the merchant bourgeoisie of Marseilles.

“Good Lord!” this is a different world from that of Vordan.” Shortly, he came across an open-fronted workshop emitting the unmistakable sound of metal striking stone. Curious, he stepped and, adjusting his sight to the dim, lit only by a single oil lamp, announced his presence: “Hello, Monsieur.”

A thin man with gapped teeth and protruding eyes looked up from his bench, a chisel in one hand, a lump hammer in the other. Dusting down his leather apron, he approached Baudet, squinting for a better view of the stranger: “Yes! What do you want? I’ve paid my rent, be told that.”

“Sir, I’ve not come to collect your rent. I was passing and heard the noise of you working. You’re the first stonemason I’ve met.”

“Is that so? Well, most of my work nowadays is spent on headstones – sign of the times, I suppose.”

Baudet leaned over the polished memorial, propped up on his sturdy wooden bench, and ran a hand, lightly, over its surface.

“It’s fine work, monsieur. Where did you learn to read and write?”

The stonemason clapped his hands and let out a guffaw, saying: “I can’t read nor write! Perish the thought, that I should be so lucky!”

Touching the letters of a half-completed name, the younger man asked: “You’re carving this name…”

“Ay, but can I tell you, I know born, died and numbers for the date… that’s all I need. The relatives bring me the parchment sheet showing the name and date and I copy it, do you see?”

borndied “Yes, what you say makes good sense. Well, I wish you good morning.” Almost before he had left the workshop, the clanging noise began again. “Seems like he’s got plenty of work – for headstones.”

“Seems like he’s got plenty of work – for headstones.”He next happened on a street market with no more than six or seven stalls mainly selling subsistence vegetables – potatoes, leeks, carrots and turnips but with little evidence of fruits, apart from one displaying apples. He observed the stark difference between ragged women with near-empty baskets and others in bonnets and embroidered shawls with the means to buy whatever they saw or, more often, pass through on their way to a part of the city that matched their status and money.

If more proof were needed for him to conclude that the Panier was a deprived district, beggars and scrounging vagabonds assailed passers-by, rattling their cups, and they were everywhere. One old man caught his attention when the townsfolk parted company to give him a wide berth, walking past him as rapidly as they could. Although he had not before seen such a body, he knew by the head and limbs swathed in grubby bandages that this person was one they called a “leper”. A shiver ran down his spine but he did not have the courage to go close up to the sick man and drop a coin in his bowl – he passed him by, as they all did, and heard one particular comment: “He’ll get more coin in a morning than I can earn in a month!”

“He’ll get more coin in a morning than I can earn in a month!”“Ay, but I wonder whether he’d exchange places with him,” Baudet reflected.

“Ay, but I wonder whether he’d exchange places with him”The rest of the day, until dark, he wandered hither and thither before finally making his way back to the tavern. He had seen for himself the chasm between the rich and the poor of the Panier and it troubled him greatly, though he knew not why.

After supper and several tankards of ale that evening, he lay in his bed mulling over the day’s events and, before drifting off to sleep, he decided: “One day, I will learn more about letters than merely copying their shapes with no understanding of their meaning… letters make up words… words… You will achieve great things.”

“One day, I will learn more about letters than merely copying their shapes with no understanding of their meaning… letters make up words… words… You will achieve great things.”Everything he had seen, this short day, would prove formative for the rest of his life in Marseilles, his newly adopted home, the Queen of the Mediterranean.