Marseille Noir (Akashic Noir)

by Cédric Fabre

  * * *

  When I came to, the first thing I noticed was that I was drenched in sweat. I looked around for Phocéa; there was only the wheat-sucker wrapped in a pagne, asleep, with a hand on my belly. We were lying on an old mattress in a container. I shook her and she lurched back before drawing me to her.

  “Where’s Phocéa?” I asked.

  She gave me a sad smile. “You in love with her? What were you thinking? They brought you here, so I tucked you in and watched over you. You might thank me.”

  “By the way, don’t you have a first name?”

  “Aurore. Thanks for finally striking up a conversation with me.”

  “Did we sleep together?”

  “Not yet, no. You weren’t in good shape last night.”

  “There was a pill in the drink Phocéa gave me. I never could stand those things.”

  I got up and pushed the heavy door open. The sun was hardly up, but it was already stiflingly hot. The mistral was blowing, making the cables and container doors clack loudly. Bare-chested kids were coming and going between the alleys, carrying boxes of fruit. Gypsy women were pushing children of six or seven in strollers, asking for change from the old men seated around a folding table drinking coffee; the gypsies took their insults for a while without flinching, then went digging through the heaps of garbage that filled the open trenches in the street. On the other side of the road there was the daily round of teenage girls with empty eyes coming out of the cathedral, candles stashed in their pockets—pockets big enough for the girls themselves to disappear in, bury themselves inside, erase themselves from the surface of the earth. I had a headache; my thoughts were confused and sounds felt as if they were amplified.

  “I really need a cup of coffee, Aurore. Please.”

  She sighed, then went down the alley and disappeared around the corner of a container.

  Small groups had gathered, people who were talking in low voices with clenched jaws. They looked worried.

  Aurore soon reappeared with a tray. Steaming coffee and buttered slices of baguette. She walked into the container and came out with a big straw mat she put down in a spot shielded from the wind. She placed the tray on it and sat down without a word.

  “You look funny. So do those people. What’s going on?”

  “All hell broke loose last night after we left the silo. That’s what the mama who gave me the coffee just told me. Armed men came in and there were shots. Some people were wounded. We don’t know what they wanted. Downtown, there’ve been demonstrations since dawn and they’ve turned into street fights. They destroyed the animal sculptures at the Vieux-Port and looted the cardboard buildings of the artists—you know, what they called the Ephemeral City.” Cell phones were useless; they hadn’t been working for the last few days.

  She lowered her head and blew on her coffee, then looked into my eyes. “And something happened to Phocéa.”

  “How do you know?”

  “This morning at dawn, there was the usual crowd on the waterfront. They were waiting for the screening, the images of the day. But there weren’t any. It’s the first time, in a whole month.”

  She threw her paper cup in front of her, got up, and held out her hand to help me up too. “You’ll find her in J1; she has a hideout at the back of the building. Go there fast, do what you have to do, then meet me at La Joliette and we’ll get the hell out of here. We’ll leave this fucking port, our purgatory, our aborted dreams.”

  The seagulls were sniggering over our heads. I hated those birds; their droppings polluted the drinking water. My mother always told me that the real catastrophe would come the day they closed the huge open-air garbage dumps all around Marseille that the gulls used as a food cupboard. Then they’ll move inland, loot the planted fields, and destroy the hothouses. Like a plague of Egypt.

  I stared at Aurore. Realizing that she was actually quite beautiful. She motioned to me to get moving.

  I ran to the J1. When I reached the cathedral, I heard noises that seemed to be coming from the Vieux-Port; following the gaze of the passersby standing there, frozen on the spot, I saw black smoke rising over the buildings. I heard a mailman who’d just stepped off his scooter say to the people surrounding him: “They stormed the city halls in all the sectors . . .”

  I stepped up my pace. Once in front of the building, I climbed over the fence and went up the metal stairs. I almost slipped on the wet footbridge. The sea was lashing the dikes, but I was no longer afraid of that mass of water spilling all over, with its dips, its waves, its wounds. The glass door was closed. Behind it, I saw someone point to a guy who then lifted the metal bar barricading the entrance. Someone pulled me inside. I rushed toward the big hall and slowed down when I discovered dozens of photos pinned up on panels that created a guided path. I knew I would find her not far from there: all I had to do was follow the exhibit, go around the panels covered with vacation snapshots and family portraits donated by anonymous people in Marseille—children with shrimping nets on a rock, a woman in a black dress fishing from a small boat, a bunch of brothers and sisters all wearing ribboned straw hats standing in front of a Citroën Ami 8 . . .

  She was lying there between the last panel and the window that looked over the Arenc basin, stretched out on a mattress on the floor. A woman with a serious face and a tense mouth was kneeling over her, doing something; bloody cloths were scattered around Phocéa. I squatted down, noticed a wound on her chest, and turned my eyes away immediately.

  “They got me. They took their tape back . . . Your employers must be furious. I don’t work for anyone, I hope you understood that, right? I only show true images, pictures we need to make sense. That’s all.” Her face tightened. “I’m ready now. I’m not afraid.”

  I thought of Louis Brauquier’s line: Marseille, tragic and always consenting. “Did you call an ambulance?”

  “They say they’re coming but they’re overwhelmed, it’s a real mess downtown.” Phocéa closed her eyes. “I won’t make it, anyway . . . Do you hear the shouts outside, you see the smoke? It’s started . . . chaos. We deserved it. We, the artists, abandoned our city. Culture capitulated. The video was posted on the Internet at five this morning. An hour later, it had been viewed a hundred thousand times and men started going out into the streets with flags in the city’s colors, wearing Olympique de Marseille T-shirts, sometimes with their wives and children. First they forced open the doors of the city hall of the third sector and then all the others. People say they smashed the emblem of the Republic: the busts of Marianne were replaced by replicas of the 1993 European Cup. They built barricades in the streets, they’re surrounding the police stations; some of them have weapons.”

  “The video? You mean the clip with Zidane and Cantona? How can that be responsible for what’s happening in the streets?”

  “They’re calling on fans to drive out the politicians and occupy the city halls of all the sectors. They say the citizens have become cowards. They’re asking the fans what they’re waiting for to take everything over by force, since in reality they already have: they’re the ones who made Marseille a city that wins, in the eyes of the world. They’re telling them to go out into the streets and they’re promising to become the new coaches of the Olympique de Marseille. And lift the city out of its depression . . .”

  I was stupefied. Local identity was sometimes summed up by the soccer slogan Proud to be Marseillais. The Olympique de Marseille was a whole economic system founded on the revenge of the working classes, in addition to being a commercial enterprise with its suppliers, its customers, and occasional strikes by its fans.

  “That’s the only thing people want here. The future of the city was sabotaged by the politicians, but when Marseille stops being a blighted city and the capital of delinquency, if only for the duration of one game, it will be thanks to the Olympique de Marseille. It’s not just an outlet, it’s the collective unconscious of Marseille, its share of light. Only soccer can ward off the failure of a whole city and its inha
bitants.”

  “And because two soccer stars incite them to do it, they destroy the city?”

  “Apparently, you don’t really understand this place.”

  I’d screwed up my mission and my employers were going to demand an explanation; I had to split. The image of my mother appeared at the back of my mind. “It doesn’t matter. I’m going to leave. Goodbye, Phocéa.”

  I kissed her on the forehead. She winked back at me and then had a coughing fit that brought up blood. I took the opportunity to walk away.

  On the port, cars were flooding in to board the ferry, creating a mammoth traffic jam. Columns of people were walking in, loaded with luggage. Some of them were running around shouting.

  Aurore called out to me: “Are you ready? This ferry’s leaving in an hour.”

  “I have to go back to my hotel first.”

  I charged ahead and she followed closely behind. At the reception desk, the concierge was busy stuffing clothes and books in a bag on the counter. He stopped, searched his desk, and gave me a piece of paper.

  “There were two calls for you. I’m sorry. One came from the director of an old people’s home and he said your mother died this morning. A heart attack. She didn’t suffer. And the other one . . . said the same thing. But the person who called didn’t tell me who he was.”

  I felt nauseous. I took Aurore by the arm and pulled her outside. “Let’s split, they’ll probably show up here soon.”

  “The ferry. Follow me.”

  We ran right past the line of cars. At the ticket checkpoint Aurore talked to a guy in a white shirt and tie. She pulled a wad of bills out of her pocket and the guy stuffed it in his; then he gave Aurore two boarding tickets and let us through.

  We rushed onto the open mouth of the ferry, climbed narrow stairs, and found ourselves on the deck, where we dashed to the front of the boat.

  I sat down on a metal bench facing the horizon and grabbed the armrests. The mistral and spray were slapping at me and I realized to my surprise that I wasn’t feeling at all seasick. Aurore was grasping the railing and her eyes were closed. She had a smile on her lips and seemed to be drinking in the salt air.

  A young man walked by in front of me. The back of his Olympique de Marseille T-shirt read, Marseille Too Powerful. He approached a group of passengers who seemed to be in the middle of an argument. Because of the wind whistling through the rigging, I only caught fragments of the conversation. One of them seemed to be explaining that the two former soccer players had been taken hostage and made this clip under duress. Then they all went back inside the boat.

  I tried to accept the absurdity of what was happening to me, what was happening to all of us. That this was the way the world worked, with guys who came out of nowhere ordering us to do things that seemed meaningless, and we obeyed from fear of punishment or through simple habit. I felt a little ashamed not to be in mourning for my mother. I was almost relieved. It’s when I thought of Phocéa that I felt sad.

  Aurore came over to sit next to me and took my hand. “I was a whore for years, and that was in a port. I held up sailors who started staggering as soon as they set foot on the ground. So there are things I can feel. This is my time. To raise anchor. And for you too, it’s time.”

  The ship bellowed and started moving. When it went past the last dike, I saw them on the open sea: dozens of kiteboarders shooting across the crests of the waves with cries of victory, while columns of smoke rose from every corner of Marseille. As if it were their last ride.

  For me, it was a first crossing. Everything could begin at last.

  ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

  David and Nicole Ball have translated six novels and one book-length essay together, stories in Akashic’s Paris Noir and Haiti Noir, and many poems and stories elsewhere. Their work has twice been awarded grants from the French Cultural Service in New York. David’s translation of Jean Guéhenno’s Diary of the Dark Years, 1940–1944 won the French-American Foundation’s Translation Prize for nonfiction in 2015. David and Nicole divide their time between Northampton, Massachusetts and Paris.

  François Beaune was born in Clermont-Ferrand in 1978. He is the author of Un homme louche and Un ange noir, and the founder of the art journal Louche, the cabaret show Le Majestic Louche Palace, and the website Loucheactu. In partnership with Marseille-Provence 2013, he spent a year searching for “true stories from the Mediterranean” in a voyage that led him to twelve ports. The collection of these stories, La Lune dans le puits, was published in 2013. Beaune currently lives in Marseille.

  Philippe Carrese was born in Marseille in 1956. Immersed in Mediterranean culture, he has written fifteen colorful novels and directed a number of well-received films for television and cinema. His most recent work, Virtuoso Ostinato, was published in 2014. In addition to his activities as a writer and director, Carrese is a music composer and sometimes indulges in creating political cartoons for newspapers.

  Patrick Coulomb was born in Marseille in 1958. Trained as a geographer, he is the author of several novels and short story volumes including, most recently, L’inventeur de villes. He is also the cofounder of the publishing house L’Écailler, and currently works as a journalist for the newspaper La Provence.

  Cédric Fabre lives and works in Marseille. He is a freelance journalist who also runs writing workshops. A lover of pop and rock cultures and of literary “subgenres,” he has written novels that flirt with the fantastic (La commune des minots) and crime novels, the last of which, Marseille’s Burning, came out in 2013, the year the city was named the European Capital of Culture.

  René Frégni was born in Marseille in 1947. He deserted from the army at the age of nineteen and lived in Turkey under a false identity doing odd jobs. He was eventually found and spent six months in prison, where he began his career as a writer. He ran workshops in Baumettes prison, and has written close to a dozen novels, including his most recent publication, Sous la ville rouge. Currently working as a psychiatric nurse, he divides his time between Marseille and Manosque.

  Christian Garcin lives near Marseille, where he was born in 1959. His novels, short stories, poems, travel writing, and essays about literature and paintings have been published by Gallimard, Verdier, l’Escampette, and Stock. His most recent novel, Selon Vincent, takes place in France, Russia, and south Patagonia between the nineteenth century and the present day.

  Salim Hatubou (1972–2015) was born in the Comoros. He arrived in Marseille at the age of ten and grew up in the Solidarité housing project in the North End. A novelist and storyteller, he was influenced by his second home as well as his native archipelago. He is one of the most prominent authors of Comorian literature in French. His last book was Que sont nos cités devenues? in collaboration with the photographer Jean-Pierre Vallorani.

  Rebecca Lighieri, a.k.a. Emmanuelle Bayamack-Tam, was born in Marseille and has lived there for twenty-three years. She is a founding member of the organization Autres et Pareils and codirector of the publishing company Contre-Pied. Lighieri is the author of two plays and eight novels, all published by P.O.L. Her latest novel, Husbands, came out in 2013.

  After being a Red Guard in the 1970s, Emmanuel Loi went bad and began a life of literary crime. He is notorious for twenty-odd books, got mixed up in the world of theater, and did time on the radio. His punishment is now recognition, something he no longer flees like the plague. His most recent book, a despairing love song, is Marseille amor.

  Marie Neuser was born in Marseille in 1970. She acquired a passion for writing very early on, while studying Italian in Aix-en-Provence. Her first novel, Je tue les enfants français dans les jardins, was published by l’Écailler in 2011; it was followed by Un petit jouet mecanique in 2012, which won the Prix de la Ville de Mauves-sur-Loire and the Prix Marseillais du Polar (the Marseille prize for a crime novel) in 2013.

  Pia Petersen was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. She came to France when she was young, and learned the language while doing odd jobs and studying philosophy at th
e Sorbonne. Peterson is the author of more than ten novels, all written in French; her most recent publication is Mon nom est Dieu. She also contributes to the literary journals l’Atelier du roman and La revue littéraire, and splits her time between Marseille, Paris, and Los Angeles.

  Serge Scotto is a novelist, lyricist, graphic artist, illustrator, and journalist. His literature often alternates between humor and horror. His dog Saucisse became famous as a candidate in the 2001 Marseille municipal elections.

  Minna Sif was born in Corsica to a family from the south of Morocco. She lives in Marseille, where she writes and runs writing workshops. She has published two novels, Massalia Blues and Méchamment Berbère, and her short fiction has appeared in the anthologies Scandale, Une enfance corse, and Le pays natal.

  François Thomazeau was born in Lille in 1961 and grew up in Marseille. With Jean-Claude Izzo and Philippe Carrese, he was one of the pioneers of Marseille crime fiction. He published La faute à Dégun in 1995, followed by the justiciers RMistes series. As a publisher he cofounded L’Écailler, and as a sportswriter he has written several books on tennis, bicycle racing, and rugby. A bookseller in Paris and restaurateur in Marseille, he is also a musician.

  BONUS MATERIAL

  Excerpt from USA Noir: Best of the Akashic Noir Series

  Also available in the Akashic Noir Series

  Akashic Noir Series Awards & Recognition

  INTRODUCTION

  WRITERS ON THE RUN

  From USA NOIR: Best of the Akashic Noir Series, edited by Johnny Temple

  In my early years as a book publisher, I got a call one Saturday from one of our authors asking me to drop by his place for “a smoke.” I politely declined as I had a full day planned. “But Johnny,” the author persisted, “I have some really good smoke.” My curiosity piqued, I swung by, but was a bit perplexed to be greeted with suspicion at the author’s door by an unhinged whore and her near-nude john. The author rumbled over and ushered me in, promptly sitting me down on a smelly couch and assuring the others I wasn’t a problem. Moments later, the john produced a crack pipe to resume the party I had evidently interrupted. This wasn’t quite the smoke I’d envisaged, so I gracefully excused myself after a few (sober) minutes. I scurried home pondering the author’s notion that it was somehow appropriate to invite his publisher to a crack party.