Free Visions of Isabelle by William Bayer Page B

diamond bauble or so, and tells them to wrap these lavishly as gifts, he will take them with him, they can send over the rest, but he needs these little things at once. Then I step in assuring them, as the grand duke's homme de confiance , which His Highness always pays in gold. Their eyes begin to glitter, and we end up with several thousand francs."
    "Unbelievable!"
    "Wait! There's more!" As anguished as Augustin wants to seem, it is clear to her he relishes the story. "We could only manage that particular trick three times. The stores, of course, had notified the police, and we were afraid to go anywhere near Place de la Fusterie. It was then, around April, that we started with opium."
    "What?"
    "The drug..."
    "Yes, yes, I know. I've tried it with Archivir. But go on–how did you get involved with that?"
    "Vladimir loves gardening–you know that. He's the only one of us who's ever cared a damn about Vava's garden. Well, a few years ago he made friends with an Indochinese boy who cultivated opium in Paris. He got in touch with him, got hold of some seedlings and planted them in the garden late in spring. A few weeks later we had poppies. We set up a little laboratory in town equipped with things we stole from Vava, and Vladimir, who's been working with Vava for years on the perfumes, knew all about distillation and was able to get oil out of the seeds. We tried it. It was good, and we managed to sell quite a bit."
    "I don't believe any of this!"
    "It's true, Isabelle. Those gray plants with purple flowers down near the moat–they were poppies. Vava, of course, didn't know what was going on. As far as he was concerned Vladimir was just experimenting with some new exotics."
    "All right, all right, but what happened next?"
    "Things got difficult. The Russians saw all this money coming in and they got greedy. No matter how much we brought them, they immediately demanded more. So we needed to expand our market, and that meant recruiting smokers. Nicolas and I concentrated on that, visiting the student cafés and selling the stuff wherever we could. It had to end, of course. We ran out of flowers, and then the police got onto us because some of the students talked. These last weeks have been dangerous. We've been afraid to go around Bourg de Four, and meantime the Russians have been clamoring for money. A couple of weeks ago the question came up–what were we going to do?"
    "What could you do?"
    "We decided that Vladimir was safe. The Russians didn't know much about him and he wasn't involved in the selling. But Nicolas and I were cornered–it was clear we'd have to pull out. Nicolas wanted to go to Russia and he came up with a scheme. We'd go directly to Count Prozov–the man at the Russian legation who's been sent here to get rid of the terror rings. We'd give him all the information we had, and in return we'd ask for transport back to Russia and some position there so we could be safe. But for me this was impossible. I didn't give a damn about Russia, and I didn't trust Prozov. He's got his thugs here stalking the terrorists, and he's killed a few of them already. What was to prevent him from killing us, too, after we talked? Then there's something else."
    "What?"
    "Haven't you had enough?"
    "I want to know it all."
    "Well, all right, it concerns a girl. You know her. Madeleine Joliet."
    "Yes, of course I know her. But you're not serious?"
    "Very serious. We're engaged."
    "If Vava ever heard..."
    "But he hasn't. Nobody knows. It's a secret engagement. I didn't want to be thrown out of here just because he doesn't approve of her social position or some nonsense like that."
    ''So..."
    "So I couldn't go to Russia and leave her behind. Nicolas and I argued, and we decided to go our separate ways. The three of us made an agreement. Vladimir would stay on here, working in the garden, never leaving the house. Madeleine and I would slip into France, and then make our way south where I would join the French