by León Melín
Lucas liked the grass farther away from the trees and the other campers under them. “No, no, here”, the parallel lines extending, in some imaginary dimension, alongside a young couple and their tent. Lucas dumped the tent at his feet.
“Could I have my ID card back, please ?”
“Yes, certainly. Just ask for it back when you leave,” and with a smile he disappeared into the night.
“Does he work here ?” Eventually, with English and French, Lucas managed to converse with his new Irish neighbours, who had lost their passports, too. He would have to sort it out in the morning.
“If anyone wants to see our ID, we have to show them this piece of paper.” Lucas marvelled at the manuscript and the supposed power of a signature. Eventually, pitching well away from the alcoholic Irish couple who partied, gently, all night, Lucas slumbered off, to dreams of fast cars, blonde women, and high-speed smashes. He woke, sweating, to hear another car start up and head off out of the campsite past his tent, pitched in glorious, morning sunshine.
Chapter 7 - Castle
The huge double iron gates were blocked to above head height, to the height of the wall. The upper storeys of the château had been visible from the car in the street outside but, as Lucas pushed the heavy gate open, he had no idea what he would see. The drive ascended slightly under the large chestnut trees, and three huge dogs descended, barked when they saw Lucas and he, momentarily hesitating, saw them. His outheld arms and hands attracted them as he was escorted up and round towards the front entrance.
In front of the castle were laid out an informal garden lawn and ornamental trees. One of the dogs who had brought a ball deposited it at Lucas’ feet. He kicked it badly and it was immediately returned. He kicked it again, further this time, into the middle of the lawn. The dogs chased after it. Lucas felt a surging pleasure in his right thigh, the brutal action a third time stretching his leg; he grinned to himself as he saw the ball fly in a looping arc into the trees.
The ball was somewhat flat. Being bust, he couldn’t heft it far enough away to advance but a few yards each time before it was returned. Each time, it was the same dog that retrieved it, the stronger of the three, with a muscled neck that snapped the ball dead at his feet.
“So, you’ve met Bobby ?” An old gardener was hiding in one of the flowerbeds that flanked the stairs leading up to the main doors of the house.
“Yes,” and “I’ve come to see Madame Saint-Jean.”
“You’re a police officer, aren’t you ?”
“Yes, sort of.”
“Madame is inside.”
Lucas climbed the five or six steps and turned, waiting for the old man. But he was back to his flowers, cutting off the heads of the wilted ones. Lucas didn’t know whether to ring or push.
Bobby stood, open mouthed, and waited for Lucas to kick the ball, a huge grin on his face. One of the other dogs had mounted Bobby and was attempting to mate. Bobby just smiled and waited for Lucas. The old man had merged into the bushes. Lucas kicked the ball and turned and turned the door handle and walked in.
Lucas barely had time to glance around the hall, all pink and purple marble, busts and statues, before the three dogs clattered in through a doggy-door, barking and milling around. Ahead of him a stairway, and to either side doorways, offered an escape. He went right, knocking “Madame” as he passed through into an elegant, light and airy room; music room, salon.
She stood at the far end, posed, by a buffet, mirrored and backlit, dressed to blend in with the faintly oriental feel of the room. She came slowly forward and they met, shook hands. In the vast room, a little table stood supplied with tea and teacups, Le Figaro propped up in a rack.
“Sit down, please.” And as Lucas sat down, Nicole Saint-Jean began to talk. And as she talked, she walked around the room; and as she walked around the room she reached out for reassurance, at her clocks, her little statues, her furniture, her cushions; real wood, real wool, real stone. She talked as if she hadn’t spoken for a year. She spoke all in a gush, a breathless, pauseless, headlong gush that took Lucas into a dream world, as he sat on the edge of the seat undaring to move, just as he had sat down, knees together like a two-step staircase in a library. She talked, but he didn’t listen.
Her skin was almost red; not freckled or bloody, but high pink, a Norman ruddiness reflected in her wavy blonde-red hair. The tweed jacket and tartan skirt too were warped with red. Inside the bars lay the olive green haven of her breasts, each separately showing as she turned one way or the other. Brown classic shoes she wore and, above, patterned stockings up to her thighs, strongly-muscled from child-bearing or horse-riding perhaps.
She wore no make-up, no jewellery. A simple belt around her waist emphasised her figure and the two green beacon hills topped with bonfires ready to be lit. How long had he been staring at her like this ?
Her skin wasn’t red, it was pale, pale, white, cream; but red was the only colour in it, like a pointillist’s painting. Even as his eyes wandered around the room, focused on objects suspended on the wall, placed atop tables or free-standing, his brain remained locked in the valley of life, of happiness, of safety. When she eventually sat down, cross-legged, across the little table, to pour the tea, Lucas could see that the stockings’ pattern continued well above the knees to the elasticised band. All this time, Lucas had gathered a feeling, through his skin, perhaps, he felt rather than heard, absorbed an idea, that this beautiful woman wanted him to kill her husband.
“Tea ?”
“Thank you.”
“So, you can help me ?”
The two huge green eyes pleaded with him, ‘please, please, do this, for us’, pointed directly towards him, their red-barred cage doors open now, welcoming him, beacons blazing brightly, ‘come here, lay yourself between us, close your eyes, and sleep, sleep, dream, fly’.
Lucas tore his eyes away from the fields of fire, stirred the golden rich tea and swirled down, deep down into the cup, to the bottom of the sea.
“A lot changes with death, loss. More than you can imagine before. Are you really sure ?”
“He’s too old to live; and he’s too young to die. You’ve got to help me.”
“There are many other ways to get what you want, without killing someone. Why death ?”
“I’ve tried everything else. Do you think I haven’t ? I’ve been trying for years. I called you because I was desperate.” Stir, stir. Yet, when he stopped stirring, he would always float back up to the surface, from where he could see, over the lip of the cup, two brown knees, and the crossed-legs line, the dark, direct, arrow-straight line that said ‘cunt – this way’. Stir, stir.
“You can’t get away with killing. Ninety percent of all murders are solved, one hundred percent if the murderer is known to the victim. You can’t hide afterwards. You’ll be a suspect day after day until they find a killer; and if you kill him, they never will.”
“That’s why you must do it. You promised to help me. That’s why I called. That’s why you came, to help me. Help me, please.”
She had somehow moved down in front of him, on her knees, squatting on her heels like a supplicant crushed by the weight of misery who had all but given up hope of mercy. Her twin knees almost touched his big black shoes; her hands drew his down, down towards her womb, pulled his umbilical cord, pulled him back to where he had begun.
“Please help me”
He stood up, strode around the room, following the route his eyes had taken earlier.
“I don’t think killing him will help. You will suffer too.”
“Have you killed many men ?” Eyes.
“Not many, no, but. . .”
“Did you suffer ?”
“Yes, but. . . ”
“I can see that, I can see that you have suffered. Is that why you do this, on your own ?”
“No, I like working with other people. Only now I am working alone. On my own. Just for myself. And if the business is good, I’ll grow, maybe take on staff.”
<
br /> “Will you have to kill a lot of people ?”
“My job is to help people, help them solve their problems. It’s not killing.”
He dug in his heels into the wooden floor, heard the warm echo, as outside the dogs barked off, careering around the garden.
By the little table she sat still, little shoes tidily tucked into her tweed; tousles and tea perfuming the room with vulnerability as he stood massively over and behind her hunched human form.
Any moment she would start to cry. He should leave now. He couldn’t get mixed up with murder. He could watch the husband, follow him, find some mistress, business racket, old secret – nazi sympathiser, embezzlement, love child. But not murder. Eyes, dead eyes, surprised eyes, looked at him; he couldn’t kill again. He couldn’t help her.
Lucas bent down as she started to sob; gripped her shoulders. They agreed to meet that evening, for dinner, in old Le Mans.
On his way out, Lucas was again attacked by the dogs. The burst ball was dropped in front of him; he booted it, and it was returned.
“A lovely garden,” he said to the gardener.
“Yes, isn’t it ?”
“And what a view !”
“Magnificent.”
“So nice to see the water.” They looked out over the low wall that divided the landscape into garden and countryside. The river snaked along the woody valley floor, a hundred feet below. It was a shame that the property was cut off from the river by a rambling footpath below the wall.
“We have a tunnel, you know.”
“What ?”
“A tunnel, to get to the river.”
“No. Really ?”
“Yes,” the old man straightened himself, a pensioner about to receive a medal, and walked into some bushes, down a ditch that curved through the dense growth. The tunnel started amidst honeysuckle and box and rusting prams and garden chairs. Wooden battens and pallets were lightly brushed aside, and the woodlousy, dusty door pushed open.
It had been dark under the fruity bushes, but they descended into total blackness. The tunnel was less than six feet high, and about as broad as Lucas’ shoulders. The rough, broken floor could have been flint stones or cobbles, the walls bricked up and over in an arch which Lucas’ fingers now traced ahead of his chipped forehead.
The descending slope of the tunnel was not regular, and now steepened so that light began to show, eyes reacting, pupils dilating after so much time in strong sunlight, strong emotions. The tunnel was cool, too, a light breeze blew up into his face as he followed the little old man downwards.
Lucas could see better now, the curve of the shoulders, the neck, the back of the head.
“Almost there; don’t use it much, now, with the cars, but in the old days I suppose they did. They say the lady of the house used it to bring her secret lovers into the château.”
The gate at the bottom end was decrepit and propped up by junk, a padlock bolted it shut on the castle side. Lucas felt the wood crumble in his hand.
“It’s not every castle that has a secret tunnel,” the old man said proudly. Lucas, in the dark, imagined him beaming again.
The steep climb exhausted Lucas. Rudely, he left the gardener behind as he shut the top gate, miserably kicked the ball but once and all but stumbled through the heavy iron gate.
Slumped in his car, the car, he found insufficient strength to raise the key, his hand, his arm, to the ignition, his clod-heavy shoes to the pedals. His body sunk uncomfortably in the seat, crushing his suit which in turn strangled his waist, his crotch. The eyes of death looked at him, challenged him.
Lucas sat and stared at the car clock ticking slowly forward as he lay, uprooted, on the ground. He had been in the castle not one hour.
- - -
Much later, at the campsite, as he struggled to change out of his suit, he tried to overcome his lassitude by eating, washing, walking, tidying. But all he found was the obstacle of the husband. To move forward, to tick, to create his new life, his château, he would have to destroy the old one, his old life, the old man, the old château, the only one with a secret tunnel. The old man grinned proudly, challenging him. He would have to kill the gardener, the old man, Monsieur Saint-Jean.
.
Chapter 8 - Dinner
Above the Square of the Jet of Water, Le Mans’ old city extends across two rocky hilltops, separated by a suicide-proof, deep gorge carrying the road that crosses the river Sarthe. Lucas sat in a restaurant waiting for Nicole, and read the day’s news.
The front page of the newspaper covered the historic result – a third win for the same team. And not just a win, but the total destruction of all opposition, a 1-2-3-sort of 4, the Bentley, which hadn’t really tried, hummed to a finish just a few minutes late. Football, too, absorbed pages, the sports section thick with coloured photographs of blue-stockinged or red-stockinged calves stretching across columns.
The local elections had had a resounding success; in all areas someone Lucas didn’t know had been elected. Politicians and racing drivers were unrecognisable heroes. The Presidential defeat of Nazism in modern France was relegated to page 7.
The roman walls, medieval churches and cathedral, renaissance buildings, the birthplace of Henry Plantagenet and streets of restaurants, cosy cafés and quaint brocanteries they discovered together over the next few days.
On Midsummer Day, the streets were filled with locals picnicking and playing music and singing songs. Lucas held Nicole’s hand as they ambled aimlessly through the streets happy in each other’s company. Lucas wondered whether they were lovers. He loved her.
He called her every day to arrange a meeting. She acquiesced, but never followed up, never called him or suggested a next meeting. But when he called, she always responded positively. Lucas dodged the subject of her husband, avoided commenting on it when it was brought up. And yet, his presence, his absence, his influence, dominated their relationship.
M. Saint-Jean had married late, and after two children had been left a widower. He married again, even older now, but had wisely chosen a young girl, Nicole, of similar, aristocratic background. The children had grown, had left home, and now, still young, Nicole hoped for children of her own. Her husband could not provide, and yet in other areas his health was good. But, in his Catholicism and stoicism, he refused to consider any form of separation.
“You could still leave him, go to Paris, get a job.”
“Doing what ?”
But when they stuck to music, or art, or architecture, or food, they were in agreement. They were of an age, though of different backgrounds and experiences.
After 3 days, Lucas still didn’t know how to kiss her - acquaintance, lover or the polite police handshake he had met her with on the first day. So he didn’t.
But always, the imploring demand.
“Help me, please help me.”
Maybe she had seen his gun, maybe she remembered him from the newspapers, maybe he had said something. She seemed to expect it, she expected him to kill her husband.
What had the old man done to deserve
that ? Marry a young woman. Maybe he could be a bit more sensitive, understanding. Maybe he could let her free. Maybe he shouldn’t expect her to submit. But had he really behaved so terribly, so abominably as to deserve to die ?
“I don’t love him any more.”
And she never would, again. The act of love had become rape; how could you love a rapist, your rapist ?
Lucas was saddened, but however much she hated her husband, Lucas couldn’t bring himself to hate him. He couldn’t imagine killing anyone he didn’t hate – he sounded a reasonable chap.
Her desperation rubbed off in other ways: her longing, deep, dark eyes; her closeness; the silence she used to encourage him; the conversation she used to bring him into her world, her life, her affairs. She talked of everyone, so that Lucas could half imagine himself immersed in the life of châtelain in a world populated by her friends. Her husband played no part in the dreams.
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br /> - - -
“Couldn’t you run away ?”
“I could probably run away, but then what would I have ? Nothing. I couldn’t even get married again, have legal children. The Church would spurn me. I would have nothing from 10 years – I haven’t worked, I’d have to start from zero. Less than zero.”
“Does he beat you ? He’s a violent man ?” sure that he wasn’t, that she would be forced to admit it, that he could somehow bring her back from where she was, her crazy, fatal point of view.
“Violence ? Why do you men only think of physical things ? Do you really believe that ? That hurt only comes from a fist ? Of course, I am scared of him. He’s bigger than I am, he’s stronger, even though he’s older, too. If we argue, he raises his voice, he gets aggressive, then I am scared.”
“He hits you ?”
“There you go again. No, he doesn’t hit me. He doesn’t need to. He’s not breaking any law. Even if he did, a little slap, a belt, just normal things between couples. What are the police going to do ?”
“Lawyers could do something – divorce is easier, no presumption of innocence.”
“He could never divorce. He is a Catholic family.”
“The State is secular now; I didn’t think the Catholics had much power.”
“The Catholics are power. The richest organisation in the world – money is power, breeds power, you can’t have power without money. And the family keeps it all together. Every day, they get together somewhere, talk to each other, agree marriages for their children, send them to Catholic schools, to jobs in Catholic banks, to tour the world visiting relatives, . . .”
“I didn’t know there were Catholic banks.”
“There are Jewish banks, and Catholic banks and business banks; we use Catholic banks.”
