At last all was ready, and they headed into the baron’s adjoining dining room, where more logs were crackling in the stone fireplace. Reflections of the flickering lights of the candles on the long table of chestnut, darkened with age and decades of polishing, danced on the array of carafes, each with its cork beside it to identify the wine within. Bruno brought in his soup, and the baron took his place at the head of the table. The foot of the table was left empty, reserved for their absent friend. In his place stood a framed photograph of Hercule taken the previous year, standing beside a deer he had shot. The baron gestured J-J to sit at his left and Bruno at his right, and the others arranged themselves along each side.
The table, which the baron claimed had been in the same place since the chartreuse was built three centuries earlier, was more than three feet wide and could easily have sat half a dozen more. At a sign from the baron, Hubert served the first of the wines as they all remained standing, waiting for the customary toast. Hubert poured the last of the carafe of the Chateau Angelus into the glass that stood beside Hercule’s place.
“To our lost friend and companion of many a memorable day, and a devoted son of France,” the baron announced.
“Hercule,” they chorused, raised the glasses to his photograph and drank and settled to their meal of truffle soup made of Hercule’s stock, pate that he had helped to make, roast pigeon that had been one of his favorite dishes and Bruno’s venison stew from a deer that he had shot.
“This meal,” the baron said, “is our friend’s parting gift to us.”
15
The next morning, Bruno was not at his best. He seldom suffered hangovers. He always drank mineral water along with his wine, and after heavy drinking forced himself to swallow a bottle of water before bed. But the morning after the feast for Hercule he felt dreadful. He wasn’t the only one. The baron’s kitchen had been full of morose men, all waiting for the coffee to be ready and gulping down the baron’s sovereign remedy of a raw egg mixed with orange juice and harissa, the red chili paste from Morocco. Bruno took his medicine and left J-J nursing his second cup of coffee and waiting his turn in the baron’s bathroom. Driving home to shower and change and walk his dog, he stopped briefly in his office to send a fax to his contact in the military archives for the details of Hercule’s army record.
And that triggered a memory of perhaps the only other Vietnamese contact that he knew. Tran had been a colleague in the combat engineers unit with which Bruno had served in Bosnia, on what was supposed to have been a peacekeeping mission where there had been no peace to keep. He kept in touch with Tran as with other old comrades-in-arms through Christmas cards and occasional letters to announce a marriage or the birth of a new child. He had Tran’s address in Bordeaux, where he and his French wife ran a Vietnamese restaurant that Bruno kept promising to visit. He tracked down a phone number and called.
“I’ve heard of Vinh, but I don’t know him personally. And I’ve heard about the troubles people have had-we’ve had some here in Bordeaux. It’s a bad time,” Tran had said when Bruno explained his reason for phoning. “I’ll make some calls and get back to you.”
Feeling better after a brisk jog in the morning woods with Gigi, Bruno ironed the uniform shirts he had left drying the previous day and headed for L’Auberge des Verts. Bill Pons had announced what he called a Green Fair, an exhibition of energy-saving products offered by local companies. When Bruno arrived, Pamela was already there, wrapped in a heavy black cloak and wearing a Russian-style fur hat and boots and chatting to Alphonse. It was even colder up here on the ridge than it had been in the shelter of Bruno’s woods, and Bruno could see their breath steaming out in plumes in the chill air as they spoke.
Bruno stopped to observe Pamela from a distance, almost completely draped in black with only her face showing. For a moment he was reminded of an Islamic woman covered by a burka, but the flare of Pamela’s cloak and the shape of her hat made the overall impression enticingly different. Perhaps it was her proud and upright stance, perhaps the animation of her face and gestures, but he felt a distinct erotic charge as he watched. He approached them and felt himself stir as he kissed her deliciously cold cheeks. He held her a moment, savoring her warm breath against his face, before turning to greet Alphonse.
“How was the boys’ night out?” she said, smiling. “You’re in better shape than I expected.” She had been to one of the ladies’ nights at the hunting club with him and knew how they tended to finish.
“I felt a lot better after my run with Gigi,” he said. “Another coffee and I’ll be as good as new. Is the restaurant open, or is it just the Green exhibition?”
“They have coffee and hot chocolate inside, and they’re serving plates of toast topped with my cheese and honey,” said Alphonse. “But it’s full of schoolkids at the moment. Let’s look around first. Here, I picked up a guide that Bill printed.”
Armed with the map, they strolled through the gardens looking at the windmills, the arrays of solar panels and the drip-irrigation system Bill had installed to save water. Alphonse read out some figures from the guide on how much electricity the panels produced from light alone, even on a day as cloudy as this.
“I’m impressed, but all this must have cost a fortune,” Pamela said. “I couldn’t begin to afford to do this for my gites.”
“Bill claims that it added about fifteen percent to his building costs, and he’ll recoup that in energy savings in about five or six years,” Alphonse said. He led them around to the rear of the restaurant to an open field that was half covered in campers and trailers displaying solar panels, double and triple glazing, woodstoves, and systems to heat swimming pools.
“What Alphonse didn’t say was that you helped pay for this,” Bruno told Pamela. “We all did. There are lots of grants and subsidies available for energy saving, and Bill used them all. I reckon he paid about half of the real cost, and taxpayers forked out the rest.”
“But those grants would be available to me as well,” Pamela replied. “Or anybody else with the wit to apply for them.”
“Not for the rest of the financial year,” said Bruno. “The money has run out, and there’s already a long list of applications for next year’s money.”
They stopped at a trailer with a large tent attached, its plastic door closed but with a sign saying it was open and to come in. They pushed through into sudden heat from a blower. The tent was almost full of people enjoying the warmth and listening to a salesman talking about the merits of roof insulation.
“Forty percent of all the energy used in Europe is used in our buildings,” he was saying. “If we adopted the current Swedish standards of roof insulation across Europe we’d save half of that, which means we’d save almost as much energy as we use in transport.”
“Hear that?” whispered Alphonse. “That’s the message we have to get across to the voters.”
Pamela took some brochures, and they moved on, pausing at a strange-looking windmill. It was a central shaft that held at its top what looked like a hollow barrel, but instead of the wooden staves there were three thin spirals of metal acting as propeller blades that turned steadily and quietly in the light breeze.
“This is the future of wind power,” said Alphonse, his voice eager. “This kind of vertical windmill is quieter and more efficient than traditional propellers. It works much better in lighter winds and in stronger ones. You can attach this to chimneys and roofs in towns, and you can’t do that with the usual windmill. And it’s from your country, Pamela. I’m saving to get one for our commune.”
Alphonse greeted the salesman, whom he evidently knew, and Pamela began asking about prices and installation costs. As it looked like it would be a long conversation, Bruno excused himself, saying he’d better check in with the schoolteachers who were escorting the children.
He headed back toward the restaurant, but branched off to take a look at a large barn, newly restored, presumably where Bill and the staff lived. He could have kicked himself f
or forgetting about getting those nieces into school. He’d have to talk to Pons. The house had its own parking lot, and all the shutters were closed except for one set at a side window. Bruno looked in. A large sitting room was dimly lit by table lamps with heavy shades and decorated in an old-fashioned way that surprised him. He’d never have thought Bill would go for chaise longues in gilt and red plush and those overstuffed cushions. The room looked as if it had been designed as a whole, rather than filled haphazardly with furniture picked up at auctions.
There was a tap on his shoulder, and he turned to see Minxin, the chef. He looked cross. “Private here, you go now,” he said, with none of the affability he’d shown in the restaurant.
“Ah, Minxin. I’m glad to see you,” Bruno said. “I wanted to talk to you about your nieces. They have to be registered for school.”
“No school. Chinese teacher,” said Minxin, shaking his head. “You go now.”
“Children in France go to school. It’s the law,” said Bruno firmly, but recognizing he’d get nowhere with the tall chef. He nodded in a friendly fashion, and as he turned to head back to the Green Fair, he added, “I’ll have to talk to Pons about this.”
Juliette, a plump and divorced primary-school teacher who always flirted with Bruno, waved as she saw him approach. Bill Pons, bare-headed and dressed as if for skiing at a fashionable resort, was standing beside a distinctly pungent hole in the ground. It was covered in thick black plastic with pipes leading into a small hut alongside. Pons was frowning as he tried to explain to the ten-year-olds the way in which cow manure could be turned into methane that could then produce hydrogen for fuel cells. Groans of disgust and much holding of noses greeted his efforts. Bill seemed irritated and impatient at this reaction. Had Bill never been ten years old? Bruno wondered. He deliberately walked into the boys’ sight line and watched them take notice and stop their clowning. They all knew him from tennis and rugby lessons, and some saluted him cheerfully, which seemed to irritate Bill even more.
“As I was saying,” Bill said crisply, “the methane gets turned into hydrogen…”
Bruno strolled off, leaving Bill to his explanations. Just then his mobile phone began to trill the “Marseillaise.”
It was his old acquaintance at the army archives, calling to say he’d faxed Hercule’s army records to Bruno’s office. He explained that he’d known Hercule in Algeria and sat through a course he’d run on counterinsurgency operations. So he took Hercule’s murder personally.
“I thought I’d tell you some detail you won’t find in the official records,” the man said. “He wrote a pamphlet on counterinsurgency, and I’ve still got a copy that I’ll send you. He went back to Vietnam in sixty-seven and sixty-eight when the Americans were fighting there. They had asked him to come and give some lectures on the French experience. There was a big fuss behind the scenes when de Gaulle found out. And he was very opposed to the use of torture, said it did far more harm than good. I thought you might like to know.”
“I didn’t know that. Thanks.”
“By the way, make a note of this number. It’s my mobile and I’m calling you from a cafe outside the Invalides. If I can be of further help, use this phone rather than the official line.”
Bruno thanked him and hung up. That was interesting, and he was looking forward to reading Hercule’s pamphlet. From his own experience in Bosnia he’d learned that every counterinsurgency campaign was above all a political war, and every military action had to be weighed with regard to its political effects and vice versa.
Suddenly he stopped short. There was something else that he remembered that struck him as directly relevant to the campaign of intimidation being waged against the Vietnamese in the markets right here. People would end up supporting whichever side gave the best protection, whichever side threatened the most, and which of the two was seen as most likely to win.
Bruno looked around at the wintry scene, at the schoolchildren darting around the campers and trailers. He heard the sound of laughter as people came out from the restaurant full of food and hot drinks. It was a peaceful, happy landscape. But there was menace lurking on Bruno’s turf, a threat of violence and subtle terror against hardworking and law-abiding people that Bruno knew and liked. Bizarre as it might seem to be thinking of counterinsurgency theory in the middle of the French countryside, Bruno knew it was his duty to defend the victims, to allay their fears and to bring the intimidators to justice. Another thought struck him, the irony that Hercule’s war had started in Vietnam, and these Vietnamese were now French citizens and Bruno’s neighbors. He had been to their homes, eaten their food, and their safety was his responsibility.
“Bruno!” he heard. There was urgency and alarm in the call. Jolted out of his thoughts he turned to see Juliette waving at him frantically and a small knot of children gathered around the plastic-covered manure pit. He jogged across.
“It’s young Mathieu,” Juliette cried. “He’s fallen in.”
As he approached, Bruno could see a corner of the black plastic sheeting had been loosened from its restraining pegs, and one whole side had sunk down into the reeking pit. He looked over the edge and saw a pitiful young face, the boy’s body half submerged in the great pool of cow dung.
“I can’t feel the bottom, Bruno,” the boy wailed. He was clinging to a fold of plastic, but his grip was visibly slipping.
Bruno pulled off his greatcoat and jacket. Looking quickly around, he saw no other adult in sight. Filling his lungs he used his parade-ground voice.
“ Au secours. Alphonse, Bill,” he roared and turned to the aghast children, looking for the most sensible of the boys he knew.
“Laurent, run to the nearest tents and bring back the salesman and any other men in there. Tell them it’s me, and it’s urgent. Michel, you run to the restaurant and do the same. Tell people I need rope, rope and men.”
He turned back to Juliette and gave her his greatcoat.
“Here, hold the collar of the coat tight and dig your feet hard into the ground,” he told her. “Keep shouting for help.”
He tugged off his shoes and with one hand on the hem of his coat he slid himself over the edge toward the boy.
“Mathieu, can you touch my foot?” he called. He turned, trying to see the boy, but he was out of his vision.
“It’s too far,” came the piping voice. “I’m sinking.”
Bruno edged down farther, trying to get a grip with his stockinged feet on the side of the pit but slipping on the plastic.
“Lie down full length, Juliette,” he called. “I need more length from the coat. Tell the children to hold on to you.”
“I’m here, Bruno,” came Alphonse’s voice. “I’ll hold the coat with Juliette.”
Bruno let himself slide down to the limit of the coat’s length and felt a small hand clutch at his ankle.
“I’ve got you, Bruno,” called Mathieu.
“Hold on with both hands, Mathieu,” Bruno told him. “Just hold tight, and we’ll have you out in a moment.” He looked up to the faces of Alphonse and Juliette peering over the rim. “Can you start to pull me up?”
“You’re too heavy,” said Alphonse. “We can hardly hold you as it is. But there are more people coming.”
Bruno began lifting his right leg and Mathieu with it, feeling the strain in his knee and thigh. Gingerly, he took one hand from his coat and lowered it until he could feel the boy’s hand on his ankle and then felt the sleeve of the boy’s jacket. Despite the fumes, he took a deep breath, gripped and hauled the dripping boy up with a great heave until the two little arms were around his neck, the stinking slime smearing on his chin and collar.
“Climb up me, Mathieu, until you can stand on my shoulders, and they’ll lift you out.”
He felt Mathieu’s shoes digging into his hip and his waist and then into his ribs as the boy clambered up Bruno’s body. A dirty hand slid into his mouth, trying to get some leverage, and Bruno set his jaw firm to help the boy. Bruno felt his greatc
oat collar start to tear, and he slid down a few inches. His feet and lower legs were now in the slime, and he was surprised by its warmth. Then a knee was on his shoulder, the hand left his mouth and was in his hair, and the weight suddenly lifted as Mathieu was scooped out of the pit by eager hands.
“We’ve got him,” called a woman’s voice. Pamela’s voice.
“Hold on, Bruno,” called Alphonse. “Bill has a rope.”
The collar of his greatcoat tore some more, and Bruno slid down up to his waist into the slime that was releasing an even worse stench as he broke more and more of the surface crust. But a rope was dangling beside his face, and he took hold of it.
“Take the strain on that rope,” he shouted. “I’m about to put my weight on it.”
“There’s three of us on it,” Bill called.
They hauled him out, black and reeking up to his waist, manure smeared all across his face, neck and hair. Mathieu was being bundled off toward the restaurant by Juliette. Bruno looked down to see his greatcoat floating on the black pool. Someone patted him on the back, despite the manure. He looked around and saw Pamela. As he smiled at her, a camera flashed twice in a row. Philippe Delaron was taking pictures for Sud Ouest. He had come to take photos of the schoolchildren at the Green Fair, but now he had a real news story, to be accompanied by another unflattering picture of the chief of police of St. Denis. Bruno grimaced and gestured into the pit.
“I’ll need a hook to get my coat out. There are things in the pockets that I want to save,” he said to Bill. “Then I’ll need to go into your house for a shower, and I would be grateful for some spare clothes.”
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