Time Is a Killer

by Michel Bussi

  As if, from now on, they alone could exist.

  They stayed like that for a long time, kissing, she pressing her breasts against his torso. No longer knowing what to do to hold back time. Her head resting on Natale’s shoulder, Clotilde stared at the Aryon, attached to its mooring. The fisherman’s fingers ran over her back, hasty, tireless, clumsy, like quintuplets learning to walk.

  ‘Let’s get her back on the water again, Natale. Let’s get on board, and come back with the dolphins, let’s shoot the sequel to the film, there were at least five Jaws movies, surely we can come up with a Big Blue 2.’

  He smiled sadly.

  ‘It’s impossible, Clotilde.’

  ‘Why?’

  She kissed him again, until she was breathless. She felt so alive.

  ‘Impossible, impossible to tell you.’

  ‘Why? Why did you chain up the Aryon, Natale? Why did you marry Aurélia? Why are you the one, today, who is scared of ghosts?’

  ‘Because I’ve seen them, it’s as simple as that, Clotilde.’

  ‘Damn it, Natale, ghosts don’t exist. Even at fifteen, even disguised as Lydia, I didn’t believe in them. It was all a game. Ghosts are the opposite of vampires. One kiss and they vanish.’

  She kissed him again.

  ‘I’ve seen her, Clotilde.’

  ‘Who, who have you seen?’

  She brought her lips close to his again, but he turned away, merely resting a hand on the small of her back to press her in towards him.

  ‘You’re going to think I’m crazy.’

  ‘Find something else, I think that already.’

  ‘I’m not joking. I’ve never told anyone, not even Aurélia. But it has haunted me ever since.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘Since 23 August 1989.’

  She clung to his shoulder.

  ‘Tell me, Natale. Tell me.’

  ‘I was at Punta Rossa. At home, alone. I was drinking. Less than I do today but I was already drinking. At least I was that evening. I knew I wouldn’t see Palma that day. You know why, of course, it was the anniversary of your parents’ first meeting. Saint Rose’s Day. Their sacred day. So I was drowning my pathetic jealousy in myrtle liqueur, my eyes turned towards the peak of Capu di a Veta. The ghost appeared at 9.02 p.m. at the top of the hill, I have no doubt about the time, Clotilde, the television was on, that programme Thalassa had just started and the screen was showing the exact time. 9.02 p.m. The ghost was standing about a hundred metres away from the house, on the customs path.

  9.02 … 23 August 1989.

  Clotilde shivered, and huddled against Natale’s burning body; she buried her cheek in the hood of his sweatshirt.

  The Fuego had plunged into the void at exactly 9.02 p.m., all the police and fire service reports were absolutely positive about that.

  ‘I know it’s impossible to believe, Clotilde, I know you’re going to think I’m crazy, but the same second when your parents’ car crashed onto the rocks of Petra Coda, the second when your brother, your father and your mother lost their lives, I saw her appear here through my window, I saw your mother, as clearly as I can see you now. She stared at me as though she wanted to see me one last time before she flew away. She stayed there for a long time, not daring to cross the last few metres that separated her from me. When I understood that she wasn’t going to move, I decided to go out and join her. And in the time that it took me to set down my glass, open the door, and run towards her, she had disappeared.’

  His quintuplet fingers firmly gripped Clotilde’s back.

  ‘I didn’t hear about your parents’ accident until a few hours later,’ Natale went on. ‘That was when I understood. It couldn’t have been your mother. At the moment when she appeared to me, she was four kilometres away, dying. So it could only have been her ghost … And who would believe that?’

  ‘Me.’

  I do, I do believe you! Clotilde hammered away at her brain to admit it. Of course I believe you. Because that ghost has written to me. Because that ghost has looked at me while I stood under the oak tree at Arcanu. Because that ghost has had its breakfast here, has read her paper, because that ghost adopted a dog so it wouldn’t grow bored.

  Clotilde planted a long kiss on Natale’s neck. Then, gently, they pulled away from each other.

  Regretfully.

  ‘I’ve got to go. Franck will be back soon. Everything … everything will be so complicated. Seeing each other again. Really seeing each other.’

  She forced herself to smile before going on.

  ‘That must be rule number one in all the “Infidelity for Dummies” books – never take a lover when on a family holiday with your husband and daughter.’

  ‘I’m working tomorrow morning,’ Natale said with a confidence that worried her. ‘But I’m free this afternoon. You can come and join me.’

  ‘It’s impossible, Natale.’ She waved the silver ring in front of his eyes. ‘I won’t be able to find any credible excuse. Franck is already suspicious and he …’

  ‘The Marcone Belvedere,’ the fisherman cut in. ‘One o’clock. Your husband will let you go there on your own.’

  *

  The Marcone Belvedere.

  Natale was right.

  Franck would never suspect her of going there to meet her lover.

  The Marcone Belvedere was famous for its cemetery. For its mausoleums belonging to the wealthiest Corsican dynasties in La Balagne, and the most monumental among them – the one belonging to the Idrissis.

  Her parents’ grave.

  35

  Monday, 21 August 1989, fifteenth day of the holidays

  Smoke-without-fire-blue sky

  I’m not going to write to you this morning. I’m just going to copy something out!

  Honest truth.

  It was in today’s Corse-Matin. More about that company boss from Nice who went straight to the bottom with his pockets full of concrete, or of his gold, can’t remember. A story that’s come at precisely the right time, according to the journalists. That’s why I’d rather copy it out, because I don’t know what to think. There’s a whole file on the acquisitions made by the Coastal and Lakeside Conservation Association, about the endless procedures around zoning maps, about the precise perimeter of protected areas. After reading this morning’s Corse-Matin I don’t know whether I should love my Papé even more, or be a bit afraid of him. I’ll let you make up your own mind.

  Extract from Corse-Matin, 21 August 1989

  The Shepherd’s lucky star. Who is Cassanu Idrissi?

  Interview by Alexandre Palazzo

  ‘Cassanu’ is the oldest word for an oak tree, from the Celtic, from Occitan, from Old Corsican. In 1926 the late Pancrace Idrissi gave this Christian name to his only son, in tribute to the three-hundred-year-old oak that grows in the middle of Arcanu Farm, so that his son could draw on its strength, its longevity, its roots.

  Sixty-three years later, the old patriarch’s wishes have come to pass, probably beyond everything he had dreamed. Cassanu Idrissi has become one of the emblematic figures of the Balagne region, one of the most influential, even though he remains an unclassifiable and atypical character. The Shepherd of Arcanu is not the mayor of any village, there is no regional councillor in his family, no deputy, no chair of an association. Cassanu presents himself as a simple shepherd, a shepherd who rules over eighty hectares of desert, at the gates of Calvi, inhabited only by a campsite and three villas. Cassanu Idrissi is a loner.

  The pensioner, calm and athletically built, welcomes you to Arcanu Farm with the most considerate hospitality. Whilst his discreet wife Lisabetta prepares a hearty snack for you, he takes you off on a guided tour, telling you that as far as the eye can see, or almost, everything belongs to him. And a second later, he tells you that it all amounts to nothing – that none of it really belongs to him, any more than the desert belongs to the Tuaregs or the steppe to the Mongols; that he is only its guardian. He didn’t inherit this land, because inheriting it
would mean that he owned it, that he could secede it, sell it, chop it into pieces; no, Cassanu Idrissi explains to you, pointing out the peak of Capu di a Vita with his stick, this land has been entrusted to him, he simply holds responsibility for it. Then, while Lisabetta brings you a chestnut tea and fiadone and canistrelli with almonds and raisins, Cassanu unfolds some old maps on the table, and deeds of ownership, some dating back to the days of Pascal Paoli, Sampiero Corso or Napoleon Bonaparte, and announces that they barely matter. According to him, the recent planning documents, which the administration enjoys accumulating, have no greater legitimacy. In the end, they only represent boundaries drawn by human beings, lines usually drawn on large sheets of paper, as if men passing through this earth could possess a single grain of sand, drop of water or blade of grass and take it with them to the beyond. As if, in the event that by the greatest of miracles paradise did exist, you could get into it with all your suitcases. As if the earth wasn’t going to go on existing after us. Because if water and fire, the roots of the trees and the winds are capable of bringing down even the greatest walls, of cracking Genoese towers and eating away at the stone bridges over rushing torrents, then what can they do to these lines drawn in pen on a piece of paper? Nature doesn’t care about the heritage we claim to protect in its name.

  So, the shepherd continues, growing heated and waving his arms around, while his wife protects the glasses and cups, you can draw zones, perimeters and boundaries as much as you like, divide up the oceans and the ice floes, the heavens and the stars, the mountains and the rivers, decide who each pebble belongs to, each olive stone and each columbine petal if that’s what takes your fancy, what makes you feel important and gives meaning to your life, but you won’t change this truth one whit: the land is only entrusted to us. My land is entrusted to me. And no human law will ever make me give up my duty to return it in the condition I found it in.

  Corse-Matin: Precisely, Monsieur Idrissi, since you have mentioned human laws. The newspapers have talked a great deal lately about the murder of Drago Bianchi, the businessman from Nice who planned to build a luxury hotel on the top of the Revellata Peninsula, and who boasted in the pages of this very newspaper less than a month ago that he had obtained the support of the local authority Prefect, the Region and the Regional Tourist Board. What does this murder mean to you?

  — Nothing more than it does to most Corsicans around here. I didn’t weep at the news of his death, I didn’t send a wreath to his funeral, but I don’t remember his friends the Prefect, the Regional President, or the Chairman of the Regional Tourist Board having been moved to do any of those things either. You have to be careful about what you read in the newspapers and the protection you think you might have. That’s my answer, but perhaps your question contained some kind of innuendo? If that is the case, I’m sorry, it was put in the wrong way. And is pointless. (He smiles.) You can’t possibly imagine that I would confess, over tea and while enjoying canistrelli prepared by my wife, that I was the one who murdered him?

  Corse-Matin: Of course not. Of course, Monsieur Idrissi. Let us forget about that affair and stick to principles and values. How far would you go to protect your land? Would you go so far as, and I’m going to be a little bit brutal here, as far as killing someone?

  — Why would I find that brutal? You’re asking the same question as before, aren’t you? (Another smile.) And without wishing to vex you, it is equally badly put. Obviously I do not wish anyone dead. How could I wish for someone to be crushed at sea by the five hundred tons of a ferry, or to be shot on a café terrace in front of his fiancée, or for a bomb to explode under his car straight after he’s dropped off his children at school? Who could wish, approve or order such misfortune? Certainly not an old man who wishes only to live in peace. Do not seek evil on my part. Seek it in men who are pursuing a different agenda, a strange need for power, for money, for women. Here in Corsica, power, money and women often depend upon the goods that you possess, real estate, land and stone. So if those men, rather than contenting themselves with what life has entrusted to them, prefer to covet or seize or speculate, what can I do about it? What can I do if they only find their lives interesting when they’re in danger, like those lunatics who enjoy high-risk sports? As if they could defy the natural order of things. Do we accuse the wave of killing the foolhardy surfer? The crumbling rock of betraying the incautious climber? The hairpin bend of killing the impatient driver?

  Corse-Matin: Thank you, Monsieur Idrissi, I think I can read between the lines of what you’re saying. Given such covetousness, are you not concerned – since you own, I’m sorry, since you have been entrusted with, so much property – that someone might wish to dispossess you of it? Put more prosaically, that they might want to kill you?

  — No, Monsieur Palazzo. No. (A brief silence.) I might legitimately be worried if I possessed something that I might lose. But since I am only a guardian, if I should fall, then another man would take my place, and another after that, or a woman for that matter, a friend, a relative, any man or any woman who shared the same values, the same code of honour as myself. Members of my family, and in my family I include people who are not of my own blood, who would know what to do should some misfortune one day befall me. (A long silence this time.) Just as I would should misfortune one day befall them.

  Corse-Matin: Vendettas. Do you agree with them? Can I sum up your reply using that word?

  — A vendetta? My God, who’ve you been talking to? (He sighs.) Who still talks about vendettas apart from journalists? The murders publicised in your pages have been committed by bandits, thugs, and Mafiosi, for a few banknotes, a few grammes of drugs, a few stolen cars. What would I have to do with all of that? What would an isolated pensioner living on his farm have to do with that, a man who couldn’t even recognise a piece of cannabis, a Yugoslavian prostitute or a box of Minitel terminals fallen off the back of a lorry in Ajaccio harbour? A vendetta, my God, that’s for tourists who have read Mérimée’s Colomba. (The smile returns.) Everything is much simpler than that. Don’t touch my land. Don’t touch my family. And then I will be the most peaceful, the most harmless shepherd in the world.

  Corse-Matin: And otherwise? If someone does touch your land or your family?

  — Otherwise? Otherwise what? Your question is badly expressed once more, Monsieur Palazzo. (He laughs.) It’s like asking an army general if, in the case of an attack, he would press the red button that sets off the nuclear bomb and destroys the planet. He won’t answer you, because it won’t happen. You must understand, I don’t think that anyone wants to touch my land, even less touch my family, and if your newspaper can be of any use at all, it’s in reminding your readers of that. Here, have some more canistrelli, my wife made them especially for you.

  Corse-Matin (with mouth full): Many thanksh, Monshieur Idrishi.

  The ending, the final reply, and the line before that, were added on by me. It would have been funny, would it not, if the journalist had actually dared to write that? But I think that, once he had asked his last question, the journalist was keen to get out of there as quickly as his legs would carry him, rather than enjoy one of Mamy’s cakes.

  *

  * *

  He closed the notebook.

  A harmless pensioner …

  How funny was that?

  36

  20 August 2016, 11 a.m.

  Franck hadn’t said a word since Clotilde had returned to the bungalow. Hard to guess how long he had been there – he had already had his shower, cast aside his jogging shorts, and had a coffee.

  ‘I found it,’ was all Clotilde said, showing him the silver hoop.

  His ironic smile was also hard to interpret.

  Clotilde only did what every wife in the world does when her husband creeps into his shell, refusing to communicate, when he gets stuck like a weary vacuum cleaner that needs to be given a short rest: she furnished the silence, she talked about everything, about nothing, as if everything were normal, as if everything
were fine, she talked about Valentine, she even talked about cooking.

  ‘A marinade? Does that sound good? I’ll pop to the market and make that at lunchtime. It’ll make a change from chips.’

  It was all Franck was waiting for, in fact. For everything to return to normal. For her to be a normal wife again. For them to lead a normal life. For today, for today at least, she could play the part.

  ‘Are you coming with me? Valou? Franck?’

  No reply. She was off to get the shopping on her own.

  Mission accomplished. A normal life.

  ~

  Even though her shopping bag weighed a ton, Clotilde was particularly proud of what she had found: peppers and olive oil for a piperade, marinated ribs of beef stifatu style, mangoes and pineapple to make a fruit salad. She would ask Franck to light the barbecue, so that everyone could play their part to the hilt in this sunny stage-play – the Baron family holiday. Waiting at the till of the Intermarché supermarket in Calvi, which must have made 80 per cent of its takings during the two summer months, thus justifying the interminable queue, she had scribbled a list of questions on the back of her shopping list. With no answers.

  Who had written her that letter signed P.?

  Who had stolen her wallet?

  Who had named the Arcanu dog Pacha?

  Who had laid the breakfast table yesterday?

  Who had taught Orsu the way to use the mop?

  Who had sabotaged the steering of her parents’ Fuego?

  Who had sabotaged the clasp on Valentine’s harness?

  Who was the ghost that Natale had seen, at 9.02 p.m. on 23 August 1989, at Punta Rossa?

  It couldn’t be the same person. It couldn’t be her mother.

  It couldn’t not be her mother, for at least half of the answers to her questions.

  Franck was probably right, if you wanted to be happy you were better off making a shopping list than a list of questions, concentrating on insignificant ingredients rather than the blank page on the other side.

  Only reading the recto of life.