by Cara Black
She veered away from them at the last minute but a bearlike man obstructed the wet sidewalk. The padlocked newspaper kiosk and the Métro stairs were in front of them.
Aimée scanned the intersection, registering a few cars paused at the red light and Métro entrances on the other corners. Ahead a Crédit Lyonnais bank stood opposite Crédit Agricole, with a gutted café still advertising horseracing and a FNAC Telecom store facing that.
“Anaïs, grab me tighter.”
“No, Aimée!” Anaïs yelled.
“You want to spend the night with these mecsl” Aimée asked. “Or in the Commissariat de Police?”
“On y va,” Anaïs whimpered in answer, digging her fingernails into Aimée’s stomach.
Aimée cornered the kiosk, zigzagged across the narrow street, and headed down the Métro steps, honking and screaming “Out of the way!” It took a minute before the thugs realized that the moped had plunged down the stairs and ran after them.
Exiting passengers yelled and moved to the railing as she and Anaïs bumped and wobbled their way down. Aimée squeezed the brakes.
Thank God Anaïs was a small woman! Even so Aimée’s wrists hurt from braking so hard with the handlebars. At the landing by the ticket window, plastic sheets and barricades for construction blocked their way. A uniformed man in the window shouted at them, shook his head, and pounded on the glass. The burning rubber smell from the moped’s brakes and black exhaust filled the air.
The turnstiles were being repaired at night—just their luck, since the Métro carried fewer passengers than usual. But, Aimée also realized, she and Anaïs would be thug bait unless they could reach a platform, ditch the moped, and get on a train quickly.
Blue-overalled workers, under glaring lights, drilled and hammered. Several of them stopped their work, snickering and catcalling. They grew quiet when they saw the smeared blood on Anaïs and her look of terror.
“Tiens, this section’s closed,” one of the workers said. “Use the other entrance.”
“Her salop of a boyfriend beat her up,” Aimée improvised.
“No mopeds, mesdemoiselles.”
“He’s trailing us—vowing to kill her,” she said. “We need help.”
A large bearded man set down his drill and stood up.
“Can’t you let us through?” she asked. “Please!”
The man stepped forward, pulled the plastic sheets aside with a theatrical gesture, and bowed, “Entrez, mesdemoiselles, courtesy of the RATP. Please be our guests.”
“Gallantry lives. Merci,” Aimée said.
She revved the motor and shot past the construction. Hot air dusty with concrete grit met her. The moped shimmied as she drove through a puddle, the back wheel almost dovetailing. They sped along the tiled tunnel past Canal 2 posters to a fork.
She paused. Two choices lay ahead—direction Chatelet or Mairie des Lilas. Which train would come first?
The late-night Métro ran infrequently. No matter which train they took, Aimée thought, the men would split up and each take a platform. Even if she and Anaïs managed to get on a train, they’d be followed easily. If only Anaïs could walk or navigate!
Either way they wouldn’t get far.
To the right sat a man cross-legged on a sleeping bag. His shaved scalp shined in the overhead light. He watched them with an amused expression, pointing to his begging bowl.
The tiles gleamed in the warm Métro. Blue-and-white signs proclaimed accis aux quais and sortie to avenue Parmentier. Her only solution would be to go up the exit steps on the left. Would the moped have enough juice to mount the stairs? Aimée doubted it.
“Go for it,” Anaïs said, surprising Aimée.
But how could she get Anaïs up the stairs on the moped? Her arms hurt, and with both their weights would the wheels go up?
Shouts came from the ticket area.
“Help us out, and I’ll make it worth your while,” she said to the homeless man.
“How much worth my while?” he asked in a bargaining tone. But he’d stood up and dusted off his worn trousers.
“This moped’s yours,” Aimée said, running her sleeve over her perspiring forehead and thinking fast. “If you help me get her to the top of the stairs. Deal?”
“Why not?” He grinned, quickly gathering his bedroll.
“Come with us to the stairs,” she said. “Quickly.”
He ran toward the exit. Behind them she heard heavy footsteps.
Aimée revved the motor and shot forward. The tunnel curved and she followed his trail. “If we just get halfway up, Anaïs, jump off, we can drag you the rest. Now lean into me and pray,” Aimée yelled. She’d worry about the Twingo if they ever made it to the top.
At the first flight of stairs, she jerked up on the handlebars as much as possible and felt the bike respond. The tires churned, climbing several steps, the engine strained. But the moped climbed. Higher and higher. Aimée saw the dark tent of sky through the exit.
The bike had almost reached the last set of steps when she felt the tires buck.
Aimée had the sickening feeling of the bike rearing like a horse. She decelerated.
The homeless man reached over and steadied Anaïs. “Get off; it’s too heavy!” he shouted. “We’ll guide her up.”
Anaïs loosened her grip on Aimée.
“Hold the handlebars, Anaïs,” Aimée said, getting off and putting her arms around Anaïs’s shoulders.
Time slowed as she and the homeless man guided Anaïs on the moped up the Métro steps.
The engine whined, snarled. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the man steady Anaïs so she didn’t topple into him.
But the moped tipped over. Like a felled animal, it whined uselessly on its side.
“Allons-y!” she yelled.
Only a few more steps to the top.
She grabbed Anaïs under the arms and together with the homeless man helped her hobble up the last stairs.
“Merci,” Aimée said. “Tell them we took the Métro toward Chatelet.”
“And they just missed you,” the man said, righting the moped. He took off down the sidewalk. Aimée hoped he’d keep their pursuers busy for a while.
“Attends, Anaïs,” Aimée said lying on her stomach, peering around the cement divider near the Crédit Lyonnais.
She saw the Twingo, parked illegally on the opposite curb, and a dark-suited man watching in all directions. If she and Anaïs could join passersby and cross to the taxi stop on rue du Faubourg du Temple, they’d escape. Traffic idled at the intersection. Tree-bordered Canal Saint Martin lay in the distance.
Aimée’s hopes fell as Anaïs moaned again. No way could she get her up and across to the taxi stop. A couple emerged from an apartment building, laughing and kissing each other, as they walked to the Métro.
Aimée crawled around the divider, then helped navigate Anaïs behind some bushes. Cardboard was piled next to the kiosk, hiding them from view.
“Keep low. I’ll get a taxi,” she said taking off her sweater and covering Anaïs. Aimée shivered in her damp silk shirt and spread a piece of cardboard across a major puddle. She crawled across to the curb, then crouched behind a plane tree. When another couple walked by she stood up, kept her head turned and crossed the street abreast of them.
By the time the taxi driver, to whom she’d promised a good tip, pulled up on the sidewalk to pick up Anaïs, the driver of the Twingo had noticed them. He jumped in the car and started his engine.
“Lose that car,” Aimée said to the taxi driver.
Anaïs reached in her purse and pulled out a wad of franc notes. “Here, use this.” She shoved them in Aimée’s hand.
“Here’s a hundred francs,” Aimée said. “There’s more if we make it out of the has quartier without our friend.”
“Quinze Villa Georgina,” Anaïs managed, then collapsed on the seat. Aimée loosened the tourniquet, glad to see the bleeding had stopped, and elevated Anaïs’s leg.
As they sped up the B
elleville streets toward Pare des Buttes Chaumont, Aimée slouched down. The streetlights flickered through the taxi windows. Cafés and bistros held lively crowds despite the cold, wet April night. Aimée paused, remembering the mailbox with “E. Grandet” on it.
“Why did you meet Sylvie?” Aimée asked.
“I’d like to forget about it,” Anaïs said, holding back her sobs.
“Anaïs, of course it’s painful, but if you don’t talk to me,” Aimée said, “how can I help?”
Poor Anaïs. Maybe she felt guilty. Didn’t wives harbor thoughts of killing their husband’s mistress no matter how civilized the arrangement?
“Sylvie arranged to meet me,” Anaïs said, rubbing her eyes. “Said she didn’t trust telephones.”
“What happened?”
“The entry door was open,” she said. Anaïs licked her knuckles, rubbed red raw in the dirt. “I went upstairs. The landing was spattered with pigeon droppings.”
“The building looked ready to demolish,” Aimée said. “Did Sylvie live there?” Why would a woman who drove a Mercedes live in a dump like that?
“Sylvie told me to meet her there. That’s all I know,” Anaïs said, her eyes downcast. “We argued right away.”
“You argued?” Aimée said.
The lights of Belleville blinked as they wound up the hilly streets. Aimée poked her head up, but saw no Twingo behind them;
“My fault. I got angry,” Anaïs said, shaking her head. “All those years of lying … I couldn’t calm down. Sylvie kept going to the window. She made me nervous. I got mad and ran out the door.”
Aimée wondered what Sylvie had been trying to tell Anaïs. Sylvie could have gone to the window to see if she’d been followed or was afraid Anaïs had.
“Was Philippe aware you were meeting her?” she asked.
“Why should he be? Philippe told me he finished with her months ago,” Anaïs said. “Things between us were getting better.”
Aimée stared at Anaïs. Had she gone to make sure he’d kept his word?
“Why did you want my help?”
“Call me a coward,” Anaïs said, biting her lip. “I’m ashamed I thought she wanted money. But she asked me to forgive her.”
“You mean forgive her for the past?”
“Told me how sorry she felt over things escalating,” Anaïs said, breathing quickly.
“Escalating?”
“That’s the term the pute used. Can you believe it?” Anaïs shook her head. She leaned back and took more deep breaths.
By the time they’d reached the angle where the streets met at Jourdain, the driver had definitely lost the Twingo. But he circled the winding streets around Saint Jean Baptiste Church several times to be safe.
The taxi followed the terraced streets intersected by lantern-lined wide stone stairs. Nineteenth-century rooflines faded below them. At rue de la Duee, they turned into narrow, cobblestoned Villa Georgina. This little-known area, she realized, was one of the most exclusive and expensive pockets of Belleville.
“I’m hiring you,” Anaïs said, “to tell me what this means.”
She reached in her bag, pulling out the Fat’ma and another wad of francs. “Consider this a retainer.”
“The Fat’ma?” Aimée said, as Anaïs put the bronze, blue-beaded talisman in her hand.
Anaïs stuffed the francs in Aimée’s pocket.
“Maybe this means nothing, but I want to know who killed her,” Anaïs said. “Find out.” Her eyes shuttered.
“Anaïs, talk to Philippe. You’re in deep water,” Aimée said, exasperated by her reaction. “If they blew up Sylvie’s car and saw her pass something to you …”
“That’s why you need to keep it,” Anaïs said, her eyes black and serious.
Too bad this hadn’t helped Sylvie, Aimée thought.
“My little Simone will think I’ve forgotten her,” Anaïs said, worry in her voice. “I always put her to bed.”
Lights blazed brightly from the upstairs windows as the taxi pulled up.
“Qnelle catastrophe—Philippe’s hosting a reception for the Algerian Trade Delegation!”
“Worry about that later,” Aimée said. “Look, Anaïs, we’ve broken a chunk of the penal code tonight, I want to stop while I’m still free on the street.”
“You’re in this with me,” Anaïs said, her voice cracking. “I’m sorry I dragged you in, but you can’t stop.”
True. But Aimée wanted to run into the dark wet night and not look back.
“Right now,” Aimée said, “we’ve got to get you inside.”
She turned to the taxi driver and slipped him another of An-ais’s hundred-franc notes. “Please wait for me.”
She helped Anaïs to a cobalt blue side door, set back along a narrow passage. After several knocks a buxom woman opened the door, silhouetted against the light. Aimée couldn’t see her face but heard her gasp.
“Madame … ça va?”
“Vivienne, don’t let Simone see me,” Anaïs said, as though accustomed to giving orders. “Or anyone. Get me something to put over this.”
Vivienne stood rooted to the spot. “Monsieur le Ministre …
“Vite, Vivienne!” Anaïs barked. “Let us in.”
Mobilized into action, Vivienne opened the door and shepherded them inside. She thrust an apron at Anaïs.
“Help me get my jacket off,” Anaïs said.
Vivienne gingerly removed the blood-stained jacket and dropped it on the kitchen floor.
Anaïs staggered and clutched the counter, where trays of hors d’oeuvres were lined up. Vivienne’s lips parted in fear, and she clutched her starched maid’s uniform.
“But you must go to I’hopital, Madame,” she said.
“Vinegar,” Anaïs whispered, exhausted by her efforts.
“What, Madame?”
“Soak the bloody jacket in vinegar,” Anaïs muttered.
Aimée knew Anaïs was fading fast.
“Vivienne, tell le Ministre she’s had a sudden attack of food poisoning,” Aimée said. Aimée surveyed the plates. “Those,” she pointed. “Tainted mussels. Apologize profusely to the guests.”
“Of course,” Vivenne said, backing into kitchen drawers.
“I’ll get her upstairs,” Aimée said, worried. “Bring some bandages. Towels if you have to; she’s bleeding again.”
Aimée grabbed the nearest kitchen towel and tied it tightly around Anaïs’s leg.
Vivienne picked up a tray of crudites and bustled out of the kitchen.
They made it upstairs and down a dimly lit hall, the wood floor creaking at every hobbling step.
“Maman!” said a small voice from behind a partially open bedroom door. “Where’s my bisou?”
The child’s tone, so confident yet tinged with longing, rose at the end. Aimée melted at the little voice.
“Un moment, mon coeur,” Anaïs said, pausing to regain her breath. “Special treat—you can come to my room in a minute.”
Had she ever asked her mother for a goodnight kiss? Had her mother even listened? All Aimée remembered was the flat American accent saying, “Take care of yourself, Amy. No one else will.”
In the high-ceilinged bedroom, with pale yellow walls and periwinkle blue curtains, Aimée helped Anaïs out of her clothes.
She wiped the blood from Anaïs’s legs, helped her into a nightgown, then got her into bed. Aimée set several pillows beneath her leg. Again, after she applied direct pressure, the leg stopped bleeding. Thank God.
Aimée tied her own damp sweater around her waist.
A great weariness showed in Anaïs’s sunken face. But when a carrot-haired child, in flannel pajamas dotted with stars, peered around the door, her face brightened.
“Maman, what’s the matter?” asked the child, her brows knit together in worry. She padded in bare feet to her mother’s side.
“Simone, I’m a little tired.”
“I couldn’t wait to see you, Maman,” said the child.
&nb
sp; “Me neither,” Anaïs said, opening her arms and hugging her daughter. “Merri, Aimée. I’m fine now.”
Aimée slipped out of the room, passing Vivienne who cast a large shadow, carrying antiseptic and towels.
“Please call Anaïs’s doctor,” she said. “The bleeding’s stopped for now, but she should be checked for internal injuries.”
Vivienne nodded.
“Keep checking on her, please,” Aimée said. “I’ll call later.”
Down at the kitchen doorway Aimée paused and peered at the reception in progress. A mosque fashioned out of sugarcubes, with details painted in turquoise and embellished with a gold dome, stood near chilled Algerian wine and fruit juice. Knots of men, some in djellabas, others in suits, clustered under the de Froissarts’eighteenth-century chandeliers. Conversation buzzed in Arabic and French.
She hadn’t seen Philippe de Froissart since the wedding, but she recognized him huddled among uniformed military men. He’d aged; his beaklike nose was more prominent, his mottled pink cheeks lined, and his black moustache graying. His thick black hair, white around the temples, curled over his collar. A member of the aristocracy, he’d once been a card-carrying Communist. Now he’d become a watered-down socialist, she thought, like everyone else.
She didn’t want to crash the reception, smeared with mud and blood—his mistress’s blood. But she had to get his attention and tell him what happened. She waved at him, standing partly behind the door.
Finally Philippe saw her. He reluctantly excused himself, causing several of the men in his group to turn and stare in her direction.
“Why, Aimée, it’s been a long time, the food poisoning—is Anaïs all right?” Philippe said, surprised.
“Vivienne’s calling the doctor,” she said as she pulled out a stool by the counter and closed the kitchen door with her foot.
He noticed her outfit, and his eyes narrowed. “Of course food poisoning is serious, but how are you involved?”
“Sit down, Philippe.” She leaned on the glasslike granite counter, her mouth dry. She chewed her lip.
“The minister’s here—what’s the matter?” he asked, watching her intently.
