Cezanne's Quarry

by Barbara Corrado Pope

  Be a man. Martin walked through the columns of the baptistry and retraced his steps to the back of the cathedral. He took a seat. Merckx’s hectoring voice would stay with him for a long time, perhaps for the rest of his life. Martin had always hated his friend’s mocking cynicism, so often directed at him. This time it could work for Martin, as a reprieve rather than punishment. Merckx would not want him to confess. Merckx would not care if Martin called him a sneak or a thief. Merckx would want him to think of the final cause, the end that justified the means. For Martin, that end was justice for Solange Vernet and the boy. After the Proc got back, if Franc knew something about his meeting with Merckx, the inspector could turn him in at any time. Martin leaned back and closed his eyes. In the meantime, he would honor Merckx’s memory by fighting on and not giving up.

  20

  AS THE BURLY GUARD SWUNG OPEN the thick iron door that led to the jail cells, Martin was stricken by the kind of dread that only an accused man might feel. This could be his fate. His only chance was to get Westerbury to tell the truth, before the Proc returned. Then he would prove that he was a real judge. A judge capable of solving a murder. And a judge who was incapable of treason.

  Martin took a deep breath to calm himself. A mistake, for with that breath he imbibed the stale, putrid odor of prison life. Then there was the noise. As soon as the prisoners guessed who he might be, a chorus of complaints and shouts erupted all around him. Some of the prisoners were housed six to a cell. These men rose up as soon as they saw him and began to call out. “Is that a judge?” “Hey, judge, let me out, I’m the innocent one, Pierre!” “No, not that bastard, me, Jacques. I’m not a thief!” “Tell them to feed us real food in here.” “Judge! Judge!”

  Martin and his guard gave no signs of hearing these taunts as they walked to the end of the hall where the dangerous prisoners were held, one to a cell, behind thick windowless doors. The guard stopped at one, chose a large key hanging from a chain on his belt, and unlocked it.

  “Do you want me to stay, sir?”

  “No, wait outside. The prisoner made it clear he wanted to talk to me alone.”

  “You’re right,” Martin’s protector said, as he opened the door and jerked his head contemptuously toward the bed. “I don’t think this one could hurt a fly. Not any more.”

  When Martin stepped inside, the guard closed the iron door behind him with a clang. Westerbury was sitting on the bed, his back against the stone wall. He looked awful. His beard was matted into tangled clumps. His hair hung down in dirty strings. His sagging face had aged ten years, and all the dapperness had gone out of him. And the smell. Martin had managed not to vomit out his pain and fear in front of Franc and Riquel, but he was not sure how long he would last here. He began to breathe through his mouth.

  Taking note of this, Westerbury roused himself enough to smirk, and pointed toward the hole in the floor. “Welcome to a French prison, monsieur le juge.” A bad start, if Westerbury was trying to garner any sympathy, but Martin did not take the bait. He was going to make this as short as possible. All he wanted was to get the Englishman’s confession and get out. He took a small notebook out of his pocket.

  Westerbury stood up. “Would you like a seat?” His arm swept toward the bed in a mock gentlemanly gesture. “I warn you, you might catch some lice. But that would be instructive. Insects are so much more clever than us human beings. They’re millions of years older, and they will outlast us by millions more, I am sure.”

  “I’ll stand.” Obviously, the sight of Martin had brought out what life was left in the Englishman. “You wanted to talk. I’m here. I am eager to hear your confession.” Martin did not want to think about what it would be like spending years, even weeks, in a place like this.

  “Confession? Confession? Did your inspector tell you that?” Westerbury circled around Martin. “That’s what he tried to knock out of me. See this?” He approached and lifted up his grimy shirt. His chest and stomach were colored with purple, black, and yellow blotches. “And this?” He held up his wrists, where ropes had been tightened around them. “But I only gave him one little piece of evidence before I asked him to get you.”

  “What was that?” Martin was determined not to react to Westerbury’s goading. Or to his pain.

  “The note.”

  Despite Martin’s efforts, Westerbury saw that he did not know.

  “Just as I thought. That bastard wants to frame me. Take my word for it. That’s why I will talk to you only if you swear that you will never reveal what I am going to tell you.”

  “I cannot make that promise.” The Englishman must know—or must be made to know—that there were laws and procedures. And then, of course, there was the absolute necessity of keeping Franc on his side. Martin was not about to be fooled by Westerbury again.

  “Well, then.” Westerbury returned to his bed and sat down, arms folded.

  They were at an impasse. Martin felt the desperation rising in his chest. He had to keep Westerbury talking. “You might as well tell me what was in the note, and how you got it. I’ll find out soon enough anyway.”

  “I need your promise. I will lead you to where the letter is if you let me out and tell no one else what is in it.”

  Martin’s heart leapt. The letter! The letter that Solange Vernet had spent hours writing right before her death. It could be the key piece of evidence. Yet how could he get it without making promises that he could not keep? He needed to proceed with caution, take it step by step.

  “What did the note say?” Martin asked again.

  Westerbury stared at him for another long moment, then turned his eyes up to the ceiling. “It said, ‘I love you more than ever. Please meet me at the quarry.’ Signed with a ‘C.’”

  A C for Charles. Or for Cézanne. “In French or English?” Martin asked.

  “French.”

  “Handwritten?”

  “Printed, in block letters. The kind I used in my posters. And, as you know, and I know, from talking to Arlette, my poor, dear Solange thought it was from me.”

  The Englishman looked as if he were about to burst into tears.

  “Where was the note?”

  Westerbury gave a wave of the hand. “Tucked inside the sleeve of Solange’s dress. Arlette retrieved it for me.”

  Just as Franc had suspected. At least this was honest. “And where is it now?”

  “Ask your inspector.”

  Of course he would ask Franc. “I will. We didn’t have time to talk about you this morning. There was another case.” It was humiliating to have to lie to cover up Franc’s insubordination.

  Westerbury let out a snort. “If it was another murder, then you can be sure the killer is still out there, and it isn’t me.”

  Martin ignored this remark, as he tried to remember the sequence of the morning’s events. There was no reason for Franc not to tell him about the note. He certainly had had time to mention it to him during their encounter. Did Franc think that finding Merckx had given him that much power? Despite the heat, Martin felt a chill rising in him, the icy fear that he had been caught, and was doomed.

  “So will you promise?” The Englishman seemed to sense that he had momentarily gained the upper hand.

  “I told you, I cannot—”

  Before Martin got these words out, Westerbury was on his feet and shouting at him.

  “Why can’t you? You told me that you have the authority. Well then, use it. Forget the rules for once. Look what your rules have done to me. Is this fair?” Seeing he was getting no reaction, he lowered his voice. “Listen to me, listen to me just this once. As a man listening to another man. Not as a judge prosecuting some foreign charlatan.” Westerbury paused until Martin looked him in the eye. “I know that’s what you think I am. I know. I don’t care about that. But I don’t deserve to rot in some foreign prison and die for something I didn’t do. What I did, what I deserve to suffer for, I will suffer for all my life. If you have ever loved anyone you will know why I can’t allow
the world to see what I have done.”

  The world! As if the world cared about Charles Westerbury. “If you want to be free, you must tell me about any evidence you have access to,” Martin insisted.

  Westerbury stretched out his arms before Martin. “Please! Please, I beg you! Let me out and I’ll take you to it. Just let me go. We can get there before it is too dark.”

  “Before I release you, I will have to see the evidence myself. If it exonerates you—”

  “At least,” Westerbury kept pleading, “at least don’t tell anyone about what is in it unless you absolutely have to. If that is the price I have to pay for freedom, I will pay it. But if you can keep it from others, I promise you, I will take this letter, wrap it in thorns, and wear it against my heart for the rest of my life.”

  Martin stepped back until he felt the cool iron door behind him. He was disgusted by Westerbury’s extravagant supplications. Yet hadn’t Martin spent much of the morning seeking expiation for his own failings? If Westerbury was a lesser man than he, it was only by degrees. They were both cowards. And both likely to be condemned. Martin wanted to shout at Westerbury to stop begging. Instead he kept his voice low. “You don’t have to beg like that.” At least Martin had kept his anguish to himself.

  Westerbury stepped back. “You’re right. You’re right. It’s not you that I should be on my knees to. It’s her. Solange, my dear, sweet Solange. You’re right. But I can’t. She’s gone. He murdered her. She’s gone. And I can never ask her forgiveness. I can never make her happy again. Or see her smile. Or—”

  “Please.” This was getting nowhere.

  “Oh, you don’t want to hear this? Well, monsieur le juge, it is crucial to your case to know something about what went on between us. And between her and,” he practically spit out the name, “Paul Cézanne. This is life, my boy.”

  Martin did not respond. If he had not desperately needed the Englishman’s help, he would not have stood for the insulting insinuation that he was callow, not as much of a man as Westerbury.

  “And if you want to understand anything about the letter, you have to feel,” the Englishman continued. “You have to imagine how beautiful Solange was at sixteen. And how vulnerable. How good. How curious. How ready to make something of herself. You have to understand that, and then you will know the depths of what I have done. And what he did. You have to understand the mystery of her.”

  “Then tell me about it,” Martin said quietly. He stood motionless, hardly breathing, willing the suspect to keep on going. “Tell me about her.” Her mystery.

  Westerbury sat down again on the filthy bed and stared at the floor. “She came to one of my lectures. That’s how I met her. Intelligent, but unschooled. Assured, but humble. And so unaware of her beauty. So completely unaware. She was a mature woman, but strangely virginal. When she came up to me after my lecture, she told me that she had never done anything like this before. Never asked a question at a lecture. Her hands were trembling ever so slightly, and she spoke almost in a whisper. Yet she had walked up to the lectern with a proud carriage, as would befit a woman of independence and means. I could not take my eyes off her. I used every trick in the book to make her keep talking. I assured her that her questions were quite appropriate. I proclaimed that she was my favorite kind of pupil, a neophyte. I told her, not in so many words but in everything else I did, in the way I ignored everyone else, that she was worth more than all the educated literati in the room. I found out who she was, and I determined that I would see her again in her world, a place where she would be more comfortable.

  “I thought, you see, that she was embarrassed only because she was surrounded by men and women of a different class. More educated. I was such a fool. I had no idea. . . .” He paused to wipe his nose and cheeks with his dirty sleeve before going on. “I became her teacher, a teacher thoroughly enthralled with his student. I improved her writing, taught her a bit of English, and, of course, the lovemaking. I thought I was her Pygmalion, she my Galatea brought to life by Aphrodite, who looked down on us with unwarranted favor. I was a fool! I thought I was creating her, when she had really created herself. And yet she let me act the teacher. The great man. She did everything I asked. She learned to express herself with more confidence. To offer tea. To sit among the rich and learned. She became a wonderful lover, full of innocence and abandon all at once. Except—” Westerbury looked up at Martin and stopped. “I’m not sure I can do this.”

  “What is it you want?” Martin prodded as gently as he could, although his whole body was taut, bound by a fierce amalgam of tension and hope.

  “If you promise that you won’t tell anyone what is in the letter, I’ll tell you where it is. And when you find Solange’s gloves and see that they are covered with Cézanne’s paint, you’ll know that he killed her.” Westerbury’s laid back against the stone wall, waiting.

  The Englishman had lied before. So in return for something Martin would give almost anything to have, he offered the prisoner only conditional hope. “Let us understand what we can and cannot do.” Martin drew himself up and spoke in the calm, authoritative voice of a magistrate of the Third Republic of France. “I cannot release you until I see the evidence. I will, since it is so important to you, keep the contents of the letter to myself unless it is absolutely necessary to reveal them. If the letter exonerates you, I will let you go on the condition that you will not leave Aix.”

  This promise might upset Franc. However, Martin reasoned, the fact that his inspector had not told him about the recovered note gave him the right to find this crucial piece of evidence on his own.

  Realizing that he had driven the best bargain possible, Westerbury wearily beckoned Martin to him. Then, in a low voice, he told him where to find the letter.

  Tuesday, August 25

  Between 1871 and 1940, a Frenchman charged with a felony crime “against property” was, by a large margin, likely to have committed grand larceny. If charged with a felony crime “against persons,” he was, again by a large margin, likely to have molested a girl fifteen years or younger. . . . Statistics for so-called “sex crimes” are believed to be understated because of the embarrassment involved in contacting the police. Even with this caveat, girl molestation accounted for 32.21 percent of the felonies against persons. . . .

  Benjamin Martin, Crime and Criminal

  Justice under the Third Republic8

  21

  GO OUT OF THE CITY TOWARD the mountain. Not the road to Vauvenargues, but the road to the south, below the Cours, the road to Le Tholonet. Start out early and take a hat. The sun will be merciless. There is an inn at Le Tholonet at the side of the road. If you have no way to carry water with you, drink what you can there before going on, for you will have to walk at least another hour before reaching the village of St. Antonin. You do this by continuing on the same road. After a while, it zigzags upward until you reach a high plateau. The village is at the top of your climb. Go to the café, it is the only one, and tell Mme Calin that you are a student of mine and you need to borrow her spade. You won’t be far away. As you leave the village, you will enter a meadow. The sheer face of the mountain will be rising to your left. Walk about half a kilometer. If you take the time to explore the meadow, you may find a sea shell, proof that the mountain began as a coral reef rising from an ancient sea, a primeval sea as pure as her soul and green as her eyes. Westerbury stopped. His grandiloquence had plunged him into dangerous territory, catching him off guard. He composed himself, before continuing. Look to the right for two solitary pines intertwining their branches like lovers. I wrapped the letter in a cloth sack and buried it under their arch. I suppose I hoped that one day I would take Solange on this walk. That one day we would resurrect our love together, embrace under the pines, and forgive everything that had gone on before. Again Westerbury had to fight back tears. His last words were spoken mostly to himself, almost beyond Martin’s hearing. I don’t know what I hoped for, or why I buried the letter, except I could not bear t
o destroy it, and I was filled with shame.

  The unrelenting sun was not the only reason to set out early. Martin needed to avoid detection, and he hoped for solitude, some escape from the ghosts inhabiting his attic room. He wove his way through back streets, watching at every corner for Franc or one of his men. Once he reached the outskirts of Aix, he walked with more purpose. Toward the letter. Toward a piece of evidence that might save him and explain everything.

  The stony white road to Le Tholonet cut through a tall forest. Martin knew that the quarry where Solange Vernet had been murdered lay somewhere deep in the woods to his left. If he scoured them, would he find the place where Merckx had been shot? Would he see his friend’s blood or some evidence of his own paltry belongings? These questions kept pestering Martin. It was depressing to realize that the unfamiliar road was every bit as haunted as Aix.

  The pallid face of the mountain came into view before Martin reached the inn at Le Tholonet. He made a hurried stop, then continued on. It was only as he walked up the slow incline leading out of the town that he discovered that Mont Sainte-Victoire was not the single peak one observed from Aix, but a great wall of limestone rising to three peaks, reaching far to the east. The wall shone white under the burning sun, and closed in on him as he climbed toward St. Antonin. There was no wind. Not even a breeze. His only companions were the cicadas, screeching at him from their hiding places.

  By the time Martin reached St. Antonin, his shirt was heavy with sweat, but his spirits had lifted. So far everything Westerbury had told him was true. He found the café without any trouble, and drained two glasses of water before telling Mme Calin that he had been sent by Westerbury. It was easy to persuade her to lend him her spade. As she told him, she had done this often for the English geologist, who did not like to carry everything from the city. The professor was a good customer and a charming man, she said. What was Martin looking for? He hesitated. Proof of the world’s origins, he told her. This seemed plausible, and he hoped that this would not offend her. She patted his hand and told him he was just like his teacher.