Sensationalist reporting, he thought. Heated up to sell papers. Forty-two percent believed things weren’t as grave, Monsieur Editor. He stuffed the papers back into his case. He might read them later if he had time. He had his piles of Little Miseries to worry about.
The metro jerked to a stop. The doors to his left hissed open. Three gendarmes and an elderly couple stepped on board. But no accordionists, puppeteers, or chanteuses. Since the bombings, passengers, he could tell, had become surly and tightfisted with those performers. The doors slid shut. The metro lurched away from the quay. The heavy boots of the police clumped on the floor as they shuffled aside for the couple, who took seats in front of him.
The eyes of a curious few flicked toward the gendarmes and dropped away. A pre
