Malediction

by Sally Spedding

  Not so.

  The day was made sullen by thick unbroken cloud that muffled the incoming Bordeaux traffic. Muffled her brain.

  Merde. Is there no justice?

  She knelt down and prayed in her own way to whoever was out there, that she wanted to feel strong and capable for what she had to do. No rosary or crucifix either. She’d thrown that cheap one out with the garbage. Just her words, her hazy eyes and the stuff she’d brought with her.

  One and a half kilometres along the Avenue des Vignes, with traffic nose to tail, huge things and convois exceptionnels. The whole bloody world on the move filling up supermarket shelves for those with the money to pay. She wished she’d persevered with her contact lenses, for in this different, powerful light, everything seemed more blurred than ever; her priority once she’d got Colette to safety.

  Nelly flexed her arms, her fingers. Tightened her calves with each step, and after the Cinq Routes roundabout retied her black scarf, checking her neat little gun was safe in her cleavage. She had reached the Refuge’s lodge.

  Here goes.

  “Nelly Augot,” she said to the cooped-up nun with a huge nose. “The Sister Superior is expecting me.”

  The gatekeeper repeated the name into her mobile.

  “Nine o six. Correct.” Then pointed towards a line of cypresses, whose short shadows were pointing her way. It was a gloomy, nerve-wracking walk past the saintly statuary inlaid amongst the trees – Mary, Anne, Cathérine, Barbara – all vapid. All douleureuse. No bird song either, she noticed as she reached an archway triple-glazed and security grilled at the front of the low building, only last second rehearsals as she pressed the bell and again as the iron door opened inwards.

  Two things she recognised from Paris. The smell, and Sister Marie-Ange herself, although paler if that were possible, and her waist gone to nothing. African violet eyes immediately latched on to the Jesus heart Nelly had pinned to her sober grey pinafore dress.

  Here goes, again...

  “My conscience has been in torment since I was last with the Pauvres Soeurs,” she began.

  “Your conscience or your soul, Mademoiselle?”

  “I mean my soul, pardon.”

  My God she’s quick. Now don’t panic. Just keep to the script. Whatever.

  “Sister Superior, you were kind enough to give me shelter in the Bois de Boulogne, and instead of showing gratitude and making myself useful to your good cause, I deserted...”

  “We didn’t expect you to be useful. Just to be still for a while to prepare for His Holiness and listen to the voice of God.”

  “The truth is, I guessed you were having some kind of trouble with Madame Bataille, but I just wasn’t ready to take on her problems as well.”

  “She has many, that is true. Not least that she persists in her heresies.”

  “Please let me help. I know I can.”

  Not so fast. Don’t mention her again. That was enough. Nor Chloë either, for pity’s sake.

  “You can help more effectively by praying for us, for we have just lost our beloved Sister Cecilia to the wrath of God.”

  “Oh? I am sorry.” With as much feeling as she could muster.

  That’s alright, then. One less evil bitch to deal with. I wonder if this one can tell what I’m thinking. I bet she can. She’s so bloody weird...

  “What happened?”

  “Lightning. Our Creator’s hand works in terrible and mysterious ways. Clearly we’re not working hard enough to make His kingdom the only one. Now, Mademoiselle, would you like something to drink? Paris is hardly the next Département.”

  “Thanks. A coffee.”

  Sister Marie-Ange led the way into a large light room off the vestibule. No chairs, nothing really to hold on to. Just a lectern bearing a thick New Testament by the window and the same desk she’d seen at the Résidence, placed in the centre. One of the triplets brought a tray, curtsied keeping her face down-turned, and left.

  “Victorine, too, is a problem for us,” the Sister Superior stared after her. “She’s been in disgrace.”

  “Oh, dear. Why?”

  I’m forgetting my lines. Jesus Christ, help me. Get a grip. Get a grip.

  “The matter is closed now. She received full Absolution after Matins yesterday and we can only pray her penance has been effective. All three of those poor girls, so young, so, how shall I say, impressionable.”

  Nelly studied her cup inlaid with gold lustre, and the teaspoon weighted at the end by a miniature St. Peter.

  Whoever had helped Colette, had risked their life, that was for sure. This is shite coffee, probably made in a bedpan...

  Suddenly, the Sister Superior bent down and picked up her rucksack.

  Fuck this for a game of soldiers...

  “Follow me, Nelly.” And the student kept her distance. Hearing her first name like that, was unnerving. Several other Pauvres Soeurs were busy polishing skirting boards, and though they kept their faces hidden, she could tell neither Colette nor Chloë was among them.

  On into the Chapel – colder, brighter, decked out in modern stained glass. Abstract stuff. New pews but no hassocks, no comfort, while the body-sized altar was emblazoned by huge red hearts. On top, besides the usual Eucharistic paraphernalia, stood a carving of a Virgin and Child. The only antique there, and painfully out of place. Both expressions lost to dark wood grain scars which, over the centuries had invaded their painted flesh.

  Nelly’s eyes never left her belongings as she knelt alongside the nun and saw the white hand clamped possessively over the opening to her rucksack.

  “Dear Holy Mother, look upon our new friend with your great love and favour all her intentions with your good guidance so that her piety may be increased daily and through the words and prayers of our Order, she may attain everlasting salvation. Amen.”

  As her voice dwindled, Sister Marie-Ange undid the rucksack’s ties.

  No...

  Ten o’clock bells, deafeningly prolonged, filled everywhere, while panic lurched in Nelly’s throat.

  “My punishments, Sister Superior,” as one by one the means of escape were brought out, “flagellation, blood-letting. I don’t deserve any better.”

  With awful precision the nun returned everything to its place, including a robe Nelly had stolen from the Résidence in Paris.

  “We’ll keep these things from you. That’s for the best.” And as Marie-Ange reset her hands for prayer, Nelly felt the first rush of terror through her body. “Sainte Vierge, your daughter here in front of me is too full of self loathing and her spirit is therefore too imprisoned to fully serve you. Grant her freedom from this affliction and make her sound in body and mind for our great purpose on Earth.”

  So that was it. They were going to brand her a nutter. Keep her out of the way, do God knows what, just like poor Victorine and her sisters. Help me, Holy Mother, help me.

  The nun crossed herself and beckoned for Nelly to accompany her into the Confessional. New wood again, but intricately carved into trefoils and curlicues by some local artisan. Inside, however, that same urine smell and a slightly damp cushion which the student of English avoided.

  She could hear the Sister Superior settling herself invisibly behind the screen, but felt her breath the moment it left her mouth. “Nelly Augot, we know you are sincere in your intentions to rejoin our Order, but as with all our novice supplicants, you must immediately seek Absolution for all your thoughts and deeds which render you impure. What is the prima peccata you wish me to hear?”

  Each syllable she spoke gave Nelly precious time. Her escape plan kaput, but there was still a chance...

  “Materially, I am poor, Sister Superior. My mama is a streetwalker and my father died five years ago, but I have in all honesty done my best.”

  “In what way?” the other woman sneered.

  “I got my Bac, paid for myself through University – waitressing, cleaning at Mercure, anything to buy books you understand, and God knows I needed enough of those.”
/>
  “Six Aves for your lapse of respect.”

  “I’m so sorry. Where was I? Oh yes, then I joined the Justice pour les Jeunes. I was actually secretary for a year till I had too many Assignments, stuff like that. But I’m still a member.”

  “Trotskyites? Communists?” The tone changed and Nelly felt a tremor of fear despite warming to her cause.

  “Not at all. That’s just hysteria. The young have a right to either train part- time or at least be offered some kind of security. After all, we are the future.”

  “And what now, Mademoiselle? Why exactly are you seeking us out again? What is your shame, your need for redemption?”

  Nelly had it all ready, and silently slipped off her shoes. With pauses and enough elaborate detail she gave witness to her mama’s life, then her own days on the capital’s streets, and when Sister Marie-Ange finally began the litany of penance, the novice was already past the altar and out into the warm drizzle. She felt inside her pinafore dress below her left breast, where Bellino’s automatic was still safe.

  XXXVII

  Wednesday October 1st

  “Your portrait, sir?” The beur squinted up at Duvivier as he flicked desultorily through a sheaf of Montmartre watercolours outside the Atelier Louis Lamet. The priest ignored him, and because a party of Japanese were closing in, anticipating the outcome, Mathieu offered himself instead.

  “Very good, sir. Thank you,” said the man. “You have a strong jaw. Nice eyes.”

  “Idiot,” whispered Vidal, trying to pull him away, but already the swift charcoal had begun its journey, and the practised thumb blended in the tones. “Voilà.” Then came a buzz of fixative, turning the paper a temporary yellow.

  “Truly amazing.” Mathieu skewed himself round to look, and a ripple of applause leaked from the onlookers clustered in the shadow of the Sacré Coeur.

  “How much?”

  The native of Beni-Messous smiled. “Nothing, sir. You seem a good person.”

  “Oh, come on. We’re all brothers. I don’t need favours.”

  “With two massacres in my country in one month, my family and I at last feel safe here. This is my gift.”

  “It’s his party trick, can’t you see?” Vidal hissed, and for a second the noir caught his eye.

  Mathieu unpeeled a fifty. A blurred St. Éxupery, and pressed it into the artist’s pink palm.

  “Please. My mother’ll really like it,” he said. “I’ll get it framed for her.”

  My lies are slipping from me like a haemorrhage. Help me.

  A tap on his shoulder made him turn. Vidal was scowling.

  “Bin it. You heard. Could get into the wrong hands.” But Plagnol, who’d watched the Algerian roll it up with great care and insert it into a cardboard tube, got there first and knocked Mathieu playfully on the head.

  His laughter made him too conspicuous.

  “For the first time, I’ve got something he wants.” Plagnol roared anew beneath his baseball cap, and people began to edge away. Despite the Basilica’s shade, it was too hot for a fight, but Mathieu took him on. Got his thumb and locked it back against his wrist until the drawing fell to the ground.

  Vidal looked for Duvivier, but he was still browsing. Modigliani, Cassat, Sisley... the colours of the Seine furred and feathered, and skies the same blue of the south. The very last things on his mind...

  The Kommandant’s losing it, too.

  Vidal stared at his every move.

  Dangerous.

  Then he squeezed Plagnol’s arm.

  “Don’t you know the one about the crazy man who laughs too much?”

  Plagnol turned from pink to red.

  “What d’you mean?”

  “Loufouque. He’s always the next to die. Watch out.”

  Cacheux sidled up to show off a leather wallet he’d just bought, embossed with a camel. He sniffed it and passed it over.

  “What does that smell remind you of, Father Jean-Baptiste?”

  “That noir’s arsehole.”

  “How droll we are.” But all the same, he was wary, seeing his small advances rebuffed with increasing brusqueness. Cruelty even, which was not a little intoxicating. “I have a terrible need,” he’d confessed to his mother before leaving the Chȃteau de Fourcat. “And my soul won’t rest until it has drunk from his. Robert Vidal is my light and my life. What life I have.”

  Now he watched as the object of his desire checked his Rolex and tried to distract Duvivier away from yet more souvenirs.

  XXXVIII

  The eve of Rosh Hashanah had become a sultry combination of sweat and diesel emissions as an Indian Summer sun lay over Paris. Tourists still visiting the French capital to see where one month ago, the late Princess of Wales and her lover had crashed in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel, moved in slow motion, too enervated to bargain for things made in hide and cheap glass that dangled amongst cruising wasps and flies. Dogs lay comatose in doorways. Preparation indeed for the Solemn Days, Mathieu murmured his own private prayer, fingering the rosary inside his pocket.

  Suddenly a bellicose roar added to the Savoyard’s eleven peals. Plagnol was twisting a new umbrella over his head, standing legs apart, singing.

  “Je cherche fortune

  Autour du Chat Noir

  Au clair de la lune

  A Montmartre le soir,

  Et je sais qui a visité Le Bébé...”

  Vidal came up close. “You’re dead meat if you let that one out again. Understand?” He pushed him towards the steps down to the Square Willette and stayed as they processed in the direction of the Palais Royal on the Rue Seveste. Duvivier kept his distance, in that same solitary world as when he’d met them at the Opéra, and when Vidal drew alongside and tried to discuss The Pigface’s bizarre behaviour, he was ignored.

  ***

  The Palais Royal, purveyor of ‘Chinese and Thai Cuisine’ was seriously empty. The five priests took a table near the window hung with a silk dragon that moved on their breath. The one candle smelt of tom cats and Cacheux nipped its flame between his thumb and finger and smiled at Vidal as its rancid aftermath hung in the air.

  It had been Vidal’s idea to book the place, working on the principle that the Landsturm needed calories but nothing which might slow down reflexes. Three-weeks’ instruction with Gulf war veteran Dan Ayache at his diving school in the Rue Bunüel, had given him a new impetus, while drills in the Forêt de Fontainebleau had streamlined his body into a sleek machine. He was in control, and not just of himself. Of Colette? Fat chance. He’d been forbidden to make contact with her at Lanvière. Forbidden most things except water and steel.

  He gazed at Duvivier. The man looked pale, paying no attention to the Asian who dispensed the huge, tasselled menus with an overdone decorum. Nor did he want to eat.

  “Come on squire. A few prawn balls will set you up,” Plagnol joked.

  Duvivier glared. The holes in his cheek dark against the rest.

  “OK. Please yourself.” Running a fat finger down the wine list.

  “No alcohol. No apéros.” Vidal snapped it shut, and when the waiter returned, summarised the order and asked for Evian instead.

  ***

  12.08 hours.

  He drummed his nails on the tablecloth until the meal arrived.

  “Our boat leaves at 15.00, but we’re seeing Jalibert first at 14.00. Mangez.” He raised his glass, effervescent against Duvivier’s douleur. ”To a good show.”

  Mathieu kept his eyes lowered as he forced the food down his throat, until a sudden cough showered Cacheux with rice.

  “Thanks, you.” The priest from St. Honoré stood up, moved nearer Vidal and brushed down his fresh, white suit, paying particular attention to his flies.

  Keep away from me, cocksucker.

  Vidal elbowed him away. Again, nothing from Father André which made the next rung of the ladder feel even safer under his feet.

  After the unsatisfactory meal, they took a short walk to Abbesses, the nearest metro, where fresh n
otices of guaranteed seats for pregnant women, the infirm and those soldiers mutilated in the war, covered the walls.

  “Save some for us, then,” Plagnol laughed, the first to sit down. Sweating in the heat, his lips set in what was to be a lasting smile.

  “You on something or what?” Cacheux still fixed his gaze on Vidal.

  “Let’s just say, the Lord’s been good to me.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Plagnol leant closer. Cacheux recoiled at his breath. “On September 8th last, two blessings.”

  “So?”

  “The birth of Our Blessed Virgin and...” he paused, his piggy eyes alight. “the sudden and unforeseen departure of my beloved mamie. In her sleep, it was. Peaceful and beautiful to behold. My name was the last word she uttered…”

  Cacheux stared, seeing a saliva line eke from the man’s mouth.

  “So I am to be rich. Can’t you see? Mother already fancies a Maison de Maître in Aubervilliers. Less than one kilometre from my Notre-Dame. Liliane Argent had the right name, that’s for sure.” He laughed to himself as the vineyard owner’s son fell silent. The thick, used air of the city not so different from that day before last week‘s storm. So dense, he’d had to snort like a horse to clear his lungs, and when the black sky came, it was as though the Devil himself rode the wind and hurled down hailstones the size of boules, razing all the vines, scarring the soil so nothing remained. Nothing for the only son, who was sending home his new money, only a hopeless yearning for the man two seats away.

  “A lovely interment, I have to say,” Plagnol continued, grinning. “Though it meant a lot of extra work I could have done without.”

  Cacheux saw those knees, trembling fat muscle under his trousers.

  Cochon fou.

  ***

  As their train drew away from Trinité, six Moroccans arranged themselves opposite. Vidal got up and came over to sit next to Cacheux, giving them a berating glance as he did so. Cacheux wanted to touch the new suede of his coat, let his hands roam, but this wasn’t the time or the place. The diver meant business.