Le Temps des Cerises by Zillah Bethel Page B

job.’
    Platform One was a spectacle. Trestle tables ran up and down the length of it, covered in bolts and bolts of cloth that were being stitched together by a score of women, some with machines, some by hand. The work produced a steady hum like the spinning of old spinning wheels or a hive of industrious bees stitching a magnificent trousseau for their queen. Orange-shaped segments of cloth were hanging from the iron-columned aisles and swayed in the breeze like banners in a cathedral.
    â€˜Is it true,’ Eveline whispered to Jacques, ‘that society women have given up their silk and taffetta dresses for the enterprise?’ She rather liked the idea of a bunch of society women’s dresses flying through the air like witches on broomsticks.
    â€˜No,’ Jacques replied. ‘That is a myth. They are made with cotton then varnished.’
    Partially inflated balloons lay stretched out on the rusted rails between the platforms, tethered to old gas lamps. Everyone gasped at the sight of them, peering over the platform edge. Eveline thought they looked like a bunch of giant mushrooms; Alphonse said no, more like a row of whales and Laurie was moved to declaim a verse from Victor Hugo:

    Human audacity…
    To tame the wind, tornado, sea-foam, avalanche?
    In the sky a canvas, and over the sea a shelf!

    â€˜Each balloon has a capacity of seventy-thousand cubic feet,’ Jacques informed them sternly. ‘And consumes the equivalent of seven tons of gas.’
    â€˜No wonder we don’t have any street lighting left!’ grinned Alphonse.
    Jacques hustled them on; though they were held up on the way out by a commotion going on in what appeared to be a broom cupboard.
    â€˜The Professor is writing in the air again,’ shouted a sailor, carrying a sandbag of ballast.
    â€˜The Professor is trying to design a steerable balloon,’ Jacques explained. ‘It causes him great aggravation.’
    They joined the crowd, eager to catch a glimpse of the Professor. They saw a large man in an ill-fitting frock coat, surrounded by boxes and a hat-like contraption on his head. He was writing in the air with a stub of pencil.
    â€˜Oh dear,’ sighed Jacques. ‘He writes in the air when he is angry or out of paper.’
    â€˜They say he has a great mind yet he lives in a ménage à trois,’ a seamstress chipped in with an edge of malevolence.
    â€˜He has been to Zanzibar,’ another piped up.
    â€˜I don’t know about all that but he is exceedingly tiresome,’ said another.
    Oh?
    â€˜He is English.’
    Ah! They needed no other explanation. They beat a silent and hasty retreat but not silent or hasty enough for the Professor suddenly burst out of his broom cupboard.
    â€˜Balloons!’ he thundered after them. ‘Just like women. Fickle and full of gas. They soar above you all high and mighty, radiant with beauty but when you climb aboard and they’ve got you in their clutches that’s a different story. You see their true colours then alright. They burp and fart just like the rest of us. Not to mention temperament! Up and down, up and down, round and round till you’re giddy as a ruddy kipper. Design a decent woman and in my opinion you’ve got yourself a decent balloon!’
    â€˜I’m inclined to agree,’ laughed Alphonse as they staggered down the corridor. ‘Fickle and full of gas!’ He eyed Eveline wickedly and she smiled back gratefully. Thank goodness he’d come along. It would have been unbearable without him. She and Laurie had hardly exchanged a word all afternoon; he’d just sent her the occasional sidelong glance full of self-pity and despair. Sometimes she wanted to shake him and she enquired now in a challenging voice: ‘What do you think Laurie? Are we all fickle?’
    He coloured up to the roots of his fair hair. ‘I suppose I must defend womanhood from the professors and the…