Murder Below Montparnasse - By Cara Black Page 0,33

he can to flex brain muscles, prevent mental stagnation. For therapy.”

“Like a chronicle of his life?”

“Russians tell stories. That generation, like my great-grand-mère, that’s how they teach us about the past.” Marevna sighed. “Wars, siege of Stalingrad, all those things.”

“Piotr was born in 1898,” Aimée said. “How far back in his childhood does he go?”

“First he write about coming to Paris. Hungry, his own father looking for work. His father dying. That kind of thing you want to hear?”

The story was probably fascinating, but she didn’t have time. Aimée thought back to Natasha’s words. “Look for mentions of Lenin. Paintings.” For the first time, she noticed pages had been folded back. “What about here?”

“Lenin?” Marevna shook her head. “Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov Lenin?”

“That one, oui.”

Marevna flipped through the journal pages, scanning for the name. Aimée, suddenly irritated, wanted to snap at her to be careful with the thin paper.

“Piotr says he the second wave of Russes immigrants. I’m the fifth or sixth, depending how you count.”

“That doesn’t seem important,” Aimée said.

“Important you understand background.” Marevna’s face flushed. “Must understand Russian psychology to do with French. Make more sense for you to know.”

Aimée gave a quick, impatient nod. “Et alors?”

“Russian aristocrats at tsar’s court learned French, spoke it to each other instead of Russian,” Marevna said. “The elite had a love affair with French culture. French reciprocate—you know bistrot is a Russian word?”

Aimée didn’t much care.

“Tsar’s troops occupied Paris in 1871, but nobody served meal fast enough. ‘Bisto, bisto,’ meaning ‘faster, faster,’ they shouted in Russian. It became bistro—you know, for fast food.”

It was too much. “Look, can you just check if there’s anything about—”

Marevna huffed. “I try to tell you about why are Russians in Paris. You don’t know this, maybe his stories here don’t make any sense.”

Aimée sighed and nodded. The withered caviar was starting to look delicious.

“This Piotr.” Marevna tapped the pages. “He was poor in Russia. But you know even before the Revolution so many Russian aristocrats come to Paris. In 1900, the Exposition, they settle in little palais and give parties for French nobility. Later, Lenin and Trotsky, the revolutionaries, they come to Paris, and the tsar’s Okhrana, his secret service, also comes, to watch them.”

“Okhrana?” The ones Natasha feared. “How do you know all this?”

“Mandatory revolutionary teaching, before the fall of Soviet Union. Everyone my age learned history of our country and yours. We know white Russes aristos fled Revolution of 1917—dukes, counts leave everything. Now penniless. Drive taxis—you know about white Russians who drove taxis. Lana, the owner here, her uncle drove a taxi.”

Marevna pointed to a wall photo of a middle-aged woman and older man posing self-consciously in front of the restaurant.

“Then Jews before the Great War. After Great War, POWs and more Jews, who escaped Stalin’s stalag. Stalin say all POWs are traitors. After that, a wave of dissidents in the eighties, and like me, after the Wall tumbled, we came here.” Marevna shrugged. “The old white Russians look at us like trash. Soviet trash.”

Aimée had no idea.

“But essential you understand importance of Lenin in Paris.” Marevna’s voice rose, growing passionate. “This is where he … how do you say? Where he formulate his ideology. Like idealist. All his writings, he did in Paris. Cradle of Revolution, we learned. Right here.”

Enough of the Revolution. “Of course, but getting back to Piotr and Yuri. Does he mention Lenin?”

“Da. You see.” She pointed to the slanted Cyrillic letters, meaningless to Aimée. “That’s why I’m telling you. After his father died, Piotr and his mother lived on rue Marie Rose.”

“How’s that important?” Aimée wanted to explode.

“Piotr lived below Lenin’s apartment,” Marevna said. “He writes how Lenin bounced him on his knee.”

Aimée nodded. Natasha had quoted that almost verbatim.

“Lenin’s wife, Krupskaya, made Piotr borscht,” Marevna continued. “Lenin helped Piotr’s mother get work as a cook. His father had died, the mother was so poor. Da, here he mentions Lenin,” Marevna said, pointing to a sheet. “He’s writing now how Lenin never had children. Piotr writes about him with affection, saw a human side.”

Aimée watched as Marevna read more, jotted notes. Laughed. “Piotr’s describing his first taste of absinthe, when he’s eighteen. ‘Green like firewater,’ he write. At la Rotonde in Montparnasse, Modigliani buy him drink. Modigliani would sketch in the café for five francs. Then buy drink for everyone.”

Aimée blinked. The ravings of Alzheimer’s or …?

Drink, drugs, women, the legends and myths of Modigliani in Montparnasse. Or Modi, as they called him, rhyming it with maudit, cursed.