Come, Barbarians

by Todd Babiak

  Annette blushed and stuttered her way through an explanation of what they were: colleagues, friends, acquaintances, hardly more than strangers, in fact. The awkwardness gave Kruse an opportunity to scan the room. There were men in suits, half-hidden by cigarette smoke, but no one who matched the hotelier’s description of the Four Seasons gentleman. Finally, he was able to say what he wanted: a small bottle of sparkling water. When they were alone again, Annette closed her eyes in mock pain.

  “I am sorry for that, for his assumption.”

  “My people are famous for unnecessary apologies, not the French.”

  “As I was saying, Monsieur Kruse, I would understand if you would like someone else.”

  “No.”

  “Thank you.”

  He was not remotely interested in another story in the newspaper, a correction or an elaboration. “Can you find out about this anonymous source?”

  “In our story?”

  “It was the same in every story. How anonymous can it be?”

  “Monsieur, I think not.”

  “It was wrong. She could not have had an affair with Jean-François.”

  For the first time in their conversation, she allowed a silence between them. She looked down at her notebook but didn’t write anything. Café Delmas was wild with conversation and laughter, curiously powered by the wind and the rain outside the sweating windows. Behind the noise, a woman sang sadly over a viola.

  He would not say it again, or think it. The waiter arrived with their drinks and now he wanted a glass of wine. A million husbands and a million wives were sitting in bars, at this moment, telling themselves similar stories.

  “I know for sure that Evelyn is incapable of murder, Madame Laferrière.”

  “Then why doesn’t she present herself to the authorities? If she is innocent?”

  “She was researching the Front National and working with them. It seemed everyone knew everyone, that they protected each other. I think she found this charming, at first, but if Evelyn … men are following me. Someone is threatening me.”

  “Many of them are Nazis. Not real ones but Vichy men, men who seek opportunity above all things. Their humanity. The party has tried, I know, to get rid of them. I wrote about them in Bordeaux. But if a thing is in your culture, does it not just sit and rot and smell forever? It was not so long ago.”

  “What?”

  “The war. The great humiliation. We can still smell it and this has always been the problem for the Front National.”

  “Until Jean-François de Musset.”

  “You know he descends from a very old, very wealthy French family? A family of the last king’s court? This would have been a big deal, if he had run for president.”

  “Evelyn thought she could fix the party.”

  “Who is following you, Monsieur Kruse?”

  “Russians.”

  “Why Russians?”

  He regretted telling her. Tzvi was right. “I don’t know.”

  Annette looked up, at the thick cloud of smoke in the room, and down at her blank paper. “When we consider the murder of Jean-François and …”

  “Pascale.”

  “Pascale de Musset, we can dream up reasons why others would want them killed. But your wife has two motives, or appears to. One, the man has just killed her daughter. Two, forgive me, Monsieur, they have had an affair. It went poorly, one might suspect. An emotional woman, one might suspect, mad with vengeance. She has nothing to lose. If I am an investigator, Monsieur Kruse, this does seem rather simple. Catch the furious woman. Maybe these Russians are working for the police or with the police. If you think your way through it, this is where you arrive. No?”

  “No.”

  “How can you be so sure of her innocence?”

  Faith, he nearly said, but that would not have been precisely true. Oubliez votre femme. Rentrez chez vous immédiatement.

  Annette finished her glass of wine and ordered another.

  Kruse walked her home in the darkness and the rain. On Rue Lacépède they walked down and against the flow of cars, but there was almost no traffic. Parisians were up in their apartments, before their fireplaces and television sets, drinking tea and wine, glancing occasionally at the rain tapping their windows. Annette’s voice echoed down this street and the next, the narrower and older and utterly deserted Rue de la Clef. A fog rose up from somewhere and further obscured the way ahead, a faint decline.

  She was born and raised in the southwest. A lot of her friends, growing up and especially in university, wanted only to be in Paris. Not Annette: she didn’t think she would leave Bordeaux until she was already gone. After university, where she had studied political science, she started her career as a journalist. Her first job was with a newspaper called SudOuest. She became a well-read editorialist at a young age and fell in love with another writer. They married and had a child. Then she was fired for writing the wrong sort of article about Basque terrorists.

  “What does that mean? The wrong sort of article?”

  Her heels echoed in the corridor and she hugged herself in the wind. Kruse offered his jacket and she took it, wrapped it around her shoulders. “Families are connected by history, by marriage, by secret alliance. The president of the publishing group was somehow insulted or exposed.”

  “You never learned how?”

  “Our own lawyers deemed it libelous and worked out a compensation package for a man I had named, a terrorist. Part of that compensation package was my dismissal. It doesn’t normally work that way, in a nation with freedom of the press.”

  Annette admitted, after a few quiet steps down foggy Rue de la Clef, past a bakery and a flower shop, she did not take it well. There were emotional and psychological stresses. Her husband, her ex-husband, a man so withdrawn she never once heard him pee, was now the editor-in-chief of the newspaper. He had remarried a dancer in the ballet company attached to the Opéra National de Bordeaux.

  Over 55 million people lived in France in 1992, but the community of journalists was small and intimate. Once a major newspaper fires a journalist for what it might falsely call libel, it is nearly impossible to find another job. As a writer, at least. This is why they treated her like trash at Le Monde.

  Three blocks from her apartment on Rue Santeuil, Kruse felt it. Someone was following them. He held out his hand and abruptly stopped her. It was not one footstep, back in the fog, but several.

  They continued along.

  “What?” she said.

  “Nothing. Tell me about your daughter.”

  “Anouk is her name. She is four. The same age, more or less, as—”

  “Yes, Madame.”

  He carried a small knife in a holster around his ankle, a gift from Tzvi. He bent down and pretended to tie his shoe, unsheathed the knife. In the early days of the school, young men would come in and, though they did not say it aloud, he knew they wanted to fight because it was impressive. Impressive to women, presumably. Sexy, maybe. Kruse, who had been doing it since he was fourteen, knew it was something else. It was grotesque, when it really happened. It turned you into a monster at the gate of the village, an enemy of quiet nights in the warm apartment, in the rain, proof. Evelyn was right to worry about what her sophisticated friends might think. In the movies it’s one punch and they’re out. In real life it’s ten and they’re lying on the sidewalk, looking like steak tartare pecked by pigeons. They were still two blocks from her apartment. She had continued talking about Anouk, a serious and studious girl, a watcher, like all only children. Annette seemed on the verge of asking about his only child. Was she like that?

  There were five of them, at least. Between five and seven. Heavy and inelegant steps. They were amateurs. Rue Santeuil was not lively at this hour, in the mist and the fog. He closed his umbrella. It would be in the way. At her door Kruse was relieved; the men remained at a distance. So far he could only see the outlines of them, their slick jackets. They too had closed their umbrellas.

  “Monsieur, I
will use my free moments to research this. First, to discover the identity of the anonymous source. I shall go where that leads me.”

  “Thank you.”

  “If I find nothing, please know …”

  “I know. It’s very kind, Madame Laferrière.”

  She returned his jacket and kissed him once on each cheek, lingering a moment on each side. The two glasses of wine had opened one of the windows between a strange man and a strange woman in France. With a good night, she was through both sets of doors and gone. He remained with his back to them, watched her wait for the elevator. Her ankles were bare, below her dress and her jacket. The elevator arrived and she turned to him again and waved and stepped inside.

  It smelled faintly of fish on the street, a maritime rather than a restaurant smell. The men were on the Sorbonne side, still in a group. Their steps were even heavier now, cavalier; they knew he knew. He walked northeast, toward Jardin des Plantes. They crossed the street, in behind him, and he turned and walked backwards for a moment as they sped up, as they began the transition from a walk to a run. The ugly Russian with the knife was among them, walking with a cigarette in his mouth.

  The Great Mosque of Paris was across the street, a white wall designed with castle ramparts, a minaret. He had been in there once; a client had said the best tagines on the continent were served inside—chicken and prunes and nuts over rice, he remembered well. His stomach stirred. Annette had already eaten something with her daughter, Anouk—a new name for him, Anouk—so she had not been hungry. Eating in front of her had not seemed correct and he was hungry now, walking briskly through the smell of slow-cooked meat. Tzvi would remind him to focus: every fight is a fight to the death.

  He turned right, under a stone arch and into Jardin des Plantes. Now they ran. The gardens were lit up by flat yellow lanterns. “Voleur!” one of them called out behind him, with that accent.

  The park was nearly deserted but not quite.

  A bearded man in a sweatsuit, a vigilante jogger, stood waiting for Kruse in a splash of yellow light as he sprinted over the crushed gravel. Kruse dodged him and turned left, past the tulip field empty of tulips, and into the menagerie, which was closed for the night. Two men in suits stood in a clearing ahead, guards of some sort, so he stopped running and ducked into a grove of trees. The five who had been chasing him ran past and split up, turning around and cursing him. He was among the noisy animals now and the trees.

  The ugly Russian who had stepped out of the car with the knife said nothing. One of the others spoke to the guards, who shrugged and did that thing with their lips that Frenchmen do before they say something other than yes. “Mais non, Monsieur.”

  Kruse moved through the trees, watching them and then watching him. Others had moved east, deeper into the park, toward the Seine. The ugly Russian lit a cigarette and walked past the orangutan enclosure. It smelled of wet cedar, an unplaceable scent from his childhood. When they were far enough from the guards and the others, Kruse stepped out of the cedars.

  The last time he was in Paris he woke up early each morning and ran through either Luxembourg Gardens or Jardin des Plantes. He sprinted in a direction he knew well, to the modest labyrinth of shrubbery leading to the gazebo at the top of the hill—the garden’s small, open-air observatory—and hid in a bush. Cache-cache. There is no translation for “ready or not, here I come.” Lily would say, “J’arrive!” The Russian ran up the circular path toward him, alone. By the time he reached the top of the little hill the Russian was breathing heavily, a cigarette still in his hand.

  In one motion Kruse jumped out and kicked him in the stomach. The Russian bent and stumbled and fell backwards, heaving. The path and the gazebo up top were clear of observers. Kruse checked him for weapons and found two knives, the one he had been twirling on the street and another in his waistband. Kruse pocketed them.

  “No gun, Monsieur?”

  The Russian flailed for air like an overturned beetle. Kruse put his knee on the man’s neck and torqued his arm. No matter how far he turned it, the Russian did not cry out.

  “Who is paying you?”

  Nothing.

  “Who do you work for? The Front National?” He switched to Russian. “Why are you doing this?”

  Kruse lifted his knee, to let him respond. The Russian dragged up some phlegm and spit at him.

  Tzvi had a theory: to torture a good man is pointless. It will suck the humanity out of you, if you try anyway, and haunt your nights and turn you grey. But a man without honour will always talk. He had trained Kruse in the strategies and techniques, thoughts to think as your man screams and writhes, lies first and then tells the truth. The Russian seemed bewildered not by the substance of the questions but that they had been asked at all. Kruse did not break his arm or put a blade in his spleen or threaten to dig his eye out with a dirty index finger. There was only one thing to do but he had never done it. In the distance there were footsteps, a soft conversation. Kruse stood up off him, released him.

  The Russian wiped the mud from his jeans. “Lâche,” he said, and fixed his tiny blue eyes on Kruse.

  Coward.

  It was a one-storey drop to the street.

  He walked up into the fifth arrondissement. When had it started to rain again? Where had he left his umbrella? The Great Mosque was open for dinner. If he had run for her or if they had left Villedieu at six o’clock, six thirty at the latest, they would be eating here some night before Christmas. Kruse would ask for a booster seat, though Lily now insisted she was too big for that.

  He could not sleep at the Champ de Mars so he walked north across the river and stopped at a dark and smelly brasserie near Gare de Lyon, and ordered soup. A mother and father ate with a toddler at the next table over. There was some commotion, a squeal and a laugh, so the mother pulled down the boy’s pants and the father had him piss into one and then another empty wine glass as though it were the most delightful thing that had ever happened.

  At the station he bought a first-class ticket south, and the moment after the train departed he walked from one end of it to the other, car to car, looking for Russians and aristocrats and Vichy men and Evelyn. When he found none of them he reclined his chair and closed his eyes. He did not sleep for long, a little more than an hour, with a knife in his hand. He dreamed: he is splashing in the Ouvèze river with Lily and Evelyn on some hot day, and then the flood comes. He swims as hard as he can, but they twirl helplessly away from him and into the night water. All he can do is float.

  PART TWO

  SEVEN

  Rue Trogue-Pompée, Vaison-la-Romaine

  THE FRONT DOOR OF THE HORSE STABLE WAS OPEN. KRUSE CREPT IN and knew immediately that whoever had been inside had gone. Every drawer was emptied onto the floor. Paper and utensils and broken tchotchkes were on the tile, with cushions and pillows and the linens from the daybed. The remaining pieces from Lily’s tea set were broken. He knew it was pointless, but he ran out and around the corner to the commercial route, Avenue Jules Ferry. The shops were open and pedestrians were about in their sunglasses, but none of them had just broken into his house.

  Kruse inspected upstairs, the master bedroom and Lily’s room. The intruders had gone through the folder of paperwork but had not taken anything, no bank or insurance documents, criminal record checks, social insurance numbers or customs declarations. Nothing was missing, not even her least favourite scarf sprayed with perfume.

  Lieutenant Huard came alone. “They often find you, people like you, by your rental cars. It’s in the licence plate numbers.”

  “They didn’t break into the car.”

  He shrugged. “Money?”

  “None.”

  “Liquor?”

  “The de Mussets had some bottles of pastis in the cupboard.”

  “Not taken?”

  “And we had no exciting painkillers. They might have stolen the television set, or the old stereo system, but they didn’t bother.”

  “You were right not to leave
any money lying around.”

  “They weren’t looking for money, Monsieur Huard.”

  The lieutenant crossed his arms. He hadn’t taken out his notepad.

  “What were they looking for?”

  Instead of answering, Kruse tidied the room.

  “What are you reporting missing?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What are you reporting?”

  “I wanted you and Madame Boutet to see this, to know. Evelyn’s innocent. They’re after her.”

  “They.”

  “Yes.”

  “Perhaps it was your wife who did this. Have you received correspondence?”

  “No.”

  “Not even a phone call?”

  “No.”

  “C’est des conneries.”

  “If she had phoned, Monsieur Huard, would I be here? Or would I be with her? Protecting her?”

  “Can you imagine why someone would break into your house and steal … nothing?”

  “I’m not a policeman.”

  “What were they looking for?”

  “Monsieur Huard, if you were to break into this house, today, you, the gendarme …”

  “Yes.”

  “What would you look for?”

  “I’m a special case.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I have an interest in finding your wife.”

  “And so …”

  “So I might seek traces of her. Postcards, a phone number lying on or in a desk.”

  Kruse tucked the covers around the daybed and replaced the pillows. He picked up the papers and brochures, all of them designed to help de Musset tenants find markets, routes, and pretty things in Northern Provence. He picked up the pieces of his daughter’s tea set and just held them, light and cool.

  Monsieur Huard watched him and then he looked away. “Did you have a postcard in here? A phone number?”

  “No.”

  Monsieur Huard grasped Kruse by the arm and pulled him out of the horse stable and onto Rue Trogue-Pompée. It was a cool morning but the Atlantic storm had not followed him south. The sky was blue and clear and the dewy town smelled of cypress. A travel group of retired Brits in safari colours and hats were making their way along the black fence. The lieutenant waited until they approached the fence, smiled at each one and said, in his heavy accent, either “Hello” or “Welcome to Vaison-la-Romaine” in English. A guide spoke to them of Emperor Hadrian, who had been here in the Vaucluse. There were bigger towns in the area, like Arles and Orange, but this is where the super rich had lived. Some of the most luxurious houses in the Roman world were here. Why here? No one could say.