Paris: The Novel

laughed.
    “Come on, Thomas,” he cried. “Let’s go.”
    Édith stared in horror. It suddenly occurred to her: If anything were to happen to Thomas, now of all times …
    “Stay here. Thomas,” she begged him. “Don’t go up. You’ve been drinking.”
    “We’re not drunk,” Pepe cried. “They give us wine up the tower every day.”
    “Please, Thomas,” she implored.
    But the two men were already swarming up the huge framework. After a while they got into the stairs. She and Anna could see them running happily up them, laughing as they went. Then, for a short while, they couldn’t be seen.
    “Where do you think they are?” she asked Anna.
    “Perhaps they’re going to the top,” Anna suggested.
    “Oh my God, don’t let them do that,” Édith prayed. She looked up the huge iron network reaching into the sky. The safety barriers were all gone now. There was nothing to protect anyone out there on the girders. She still couldn’t see them. She and Anna moved in closer, almost under the arch.
    Then, somewhere up there, she heard Thomas’s voice calling down.
    “Édith! Can you see me?” And then, just behind the huge arch under the first landing, she saw him balanced on a girder.
    “Yes. But take care,” she cried.
    “It was here exactly. This is where I panicked.”
    “Are you all right?”
    “But of course.” He waved.
    “Where’s Pepe?” called Anna.
    There was a brief silence. Then Pepe’s voice floated down to them.
    “Anna. Look to the left of Thomas.”
    He was on a beam, a little higher, standing very comfortably with his hands on his hips, and staring down at them as if he owned the place.
    Édith called out to them both that they should come down now or someone would see, and they’d all get into trouble. Reluctantly, Thomas moved to one side, and she could see him getting near the stairs. But Pepe hadn’t come in yet. And then, suddenly, he began to sing.
    O dolce Napoli
    O suol beato
    The strains of the Neapolitan song wafted down. He had a pleasing tenor voice. Édith could hear every word. Anna clapped her hands with pleasure. Could the people out on the bridge hear this concert performance emanating from the depths of the huge iron structure? It was possible. His voice was very clear. He came to the chorus.
    Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia
    Anxious that he shouldn’t sing another verse, Édith applauded vigorously. And then, hoping to get him off the tower quickly, she shouted out:
    “Take a bow, Pepe, and come down.”
    Pepe obliged. He made a magnificent, theatrical bow. Then another to the left, and also to the right, and a final, still deeper bow to the center again. And lost his balance.
    It happened so quickly that, apart from a tiny motion with his hand as he reached out for something to hold on to, it was almost as if he had purposely dived. His body fell. How tiny it seemed under the massive iron arch. They heard his voice, a single, fearful “Oh …” And strangely, neither she nor Anna screamed out, but watched, stunned, as the little body plummeted, one, two, three seconds and then, not sixty feet from her, hit the hard ground with a thud so terrible, so final, that she knew instantly that there could not be anything left of the person that, a moment ago, had been Pepe.

    Thomas Gascon never knew he could think so fast. A year ago, on these same girders, he had stood paralyzed in panic. Today, as he clattered down the metal stairs, more than three hundred of them, flight after flight, after flight, taking them almost at a run, he found that he saw everything with a cold clarity that amazed him. By the time he clambered out onto the girders, slid down over the concrete base, and raced across to Édith and Anna, he knew exactly what must be done.
    Anna was crouched on the ground beside Pepe’s body. She was shaking with shock. At least thank God she wasn’t screaming. Édith had her arms around her.
    Thomas quickly inspected poor Pepe. His small body was a crumpled mess. His neck was twisted at a strange angle, a pool of blood already forming in front of his open mouth. He reminded Thomas of a baby birdthat has fallen out of a high nest. Wherever the spirit of his cheerful friend had gone, it was already somewhere far, far away.
    “Édith,” he asked, “does Monsieur Ney have a telephone?” He knew there were only a few thousand people in all Paris who had one, but he thought the lawyer might be one of them.
    “I think so.”
    “Go to him as fast as