The Seven Turns of the Snail's Shell: A Novel

by Mj Roë

  As they went out the front gate, Anna turned to look at the house a last time. Holding back her tears, she said softly, “When he called, he said he had made a decision…about us, I mean. We were going to talk about it this evening. I guess I’ll never know…” She touched the gate. “You know, I was so suspicious of him.”

  Diamanté stopped. “Suspicious?”

  “I couldn’t understand how he was able to afford all this, in this small village, I mean, until I read the letters.”

  Diamanté put the suitcase down and placed a comforting arm around her shoulder. “What letters are you talking about, Anna?”

  “He wrote me letters that he didn’t mail. He gave them to me—my God, was that just four days ago?” Her eyes flooded again. “I read them all last night. The first one was written in January. In it, he explained why he decided to stay here.”

  Diamanté had a concerned look on his face. His eyes narrowed. “How much did he tell you?”

  “You mean about the patient?” She looked at him through her tears. “He told me everything. Well, not her name, but what happened. About you. About the nurse. Even about Le Havre. The letter was several pages in length. I actually thought the story was absurd. I mean, a phantom double? I asked him on the phone this morning if it was true, and he said it was.”

  “Anna,” Diamanté took her by the shoulders, “the story is true, but you must burn that letter, and you must never mention to anyone, ever, anything about its contents. Do you understand?” His black eyes pierced hers. “Charlie was sworn to confidentiality. He took an oath not to divulge anything about any patient. If anyone ever knew he wrote that to you…well,” he hesitated, “you, we…all of us could be in grave danger.”

  “Jacques, too?”

  “He has been kept mostly out of it. He knows very little. Charlie wanted it that way.”

  “Didn’t he have suspicions?”

  “Not that I knew of. Jacques is Corsican. If he had had any suspicions, it would not be in his nature to ask questions, even of his son.”

  “And the nuns? Aren’t there nuns in the convent? Wouldn’t they know something?”

  “It is a large convent. The section where the patient is is presently closed for restoration. Very few are allowed access.” He abruptly picked up her baggage. “Let’s get these to the Ajaccio. I need to make the convent my next visit.”

  “I want to go with you.”

  “You can walk with me, but I won’t allow you to go in. After that, we’ll drive out to where his car was pulled out.” He turned to look at her. “Promise me that you will burn that letter.”

  CHAPTER 68

  The sun was just setting in an eruption of soft peach and pink light when Anna and Diamanté arrived at the scene of the accident. They got out of the car and peered over the precipice to the valley below, where C-C’s car had landed. The air smelled fresh, and the gentle cooing of pigeons mixed with the loud shrilling sound of cicadas in the early summer evening.

  Diamanté removed his beret, massaged the scar on his head, and studied the road carefully for several minutes. Finally, he said, “There are no skid marks. It doesn’t look like he applied his brakes. Look there.” He pointed to the edge of the road where fresh tire tracks had mown down the vegetation. “It’s where he went over the side. He missed the curve entirely.” He pointed further on at some tracks of other vehicles alongside the road where a deep swath had been torn by the tow truck as it raised the car from the ravine. “There’s where the emergency vehicles were parked when I came upon the scene.”

  “How far down do you think it is?”

  “No more than five hundred meters, but the car hit a big boulder.”

  “Do you think someone could have followed him? Forced him off?”

  “It’s hard to tell.” Diamanté walked down the road a few yards and came back several minutes later. “There would be broken glass or parts if another car had been involved. I can’t find anything. We have to assume that the police were correct, that he fell asleep at the wheel.”

  The two of them stood together for a long time, watching the sun set. When it became too dark to see, they climbed back into the car.

  “Anna, I think that you should consider leaving France immediately,” Diamanté said during the drive back.

  “Will there be a funeral?”

  “I doubt it. Not here anyway. Jacques’ words to me were that he would be taking his son back to Rouen. Guy will go with him.”

  “What will you do?”

  “I may close the restaurant indefinitely. With August over, the tourists leave. There won’t be much business anyway.”

  “What about her?”

  “Who? You mean the woman in the convent?”

  “Yes.”

  He thought for a moment, then cocked his head and said matter-of-factly, “There will always be another convent, another doctor.”

  “I still don’t get it. Where is the real Princess Diana? She couldn’t have vanished, just like that.”

  “That’s just it. I don’t know.”

  “What were you running from that day I saw you in Le Havre, you and that other guy?”

  Diamanté had thought about that moment for some time. “It’s a long story. The deepest regret I have, now more than ever, is that I involved Jacques’ son in the whole tragedy.”

  “He had trouble making commitments,” Anna mused. “Maybe this was after all a true commitment for him. He didn’t seem unhappy.”

  Diamanté parked the car alongside the Ajaccio and put his hand gently on hers. “He seemed the happiest after you arrived, Anna. I am so sorry that you had to lose him so soon after your brief reunion. If he told you about the patient, then he took you into his confidence. I believe he loved you. It was obvious to Elise and me.”

  Anna couldn’t speak; she was sobbing again.

  CHAPTER 69

  The restaurant remained closed all week. Martine was dismissed, and a sign was posted on the door that the Ajaccio would be “FERMÉ JUSQU’AU FIN DE SEPTEMBRE.” After Jacques and Guy departed for Rouen, Diamanté and Elise began making plans for their trip to Corsica, and Anna made plane reservations for her return to California.

  “Both of you have shown me such warmth that I feel as if I truly have grandparents again,” Anna told Diamanté and Elise at dinner the evening before her departure.

  Diamanté smiled at her. “I didn’t trust it, you know. I thought that you were an imposter. I didn’t believe Charlie when he told me. I wanted nothing to do with you…ever.”

  His coal black eyes almost frightened Anna.

  “Then you arrived,” he went on, softening a bit. “I still didn’t believe you, but I was willing to accept that you sincerely thought that you were my granddaughter. Then you said something. Do you remember? You said, ‘Quelle coïncidence!’ that night of the wedding when you and Guy were talking about how you met. It was the way you said it, not the exact words. You looked exactly like my son in that instant, exactly like him. Had he said those words, he would have had the same look. I knew then that you were not a fraud, after all.” He tapped the back of his knuckles on the table.

  Elise wrinkled her nose in a smile.

  Anna said, “I had no idea. I guess we could arrange a DNA test to verify that we are related, if you still have lingering doubts.”

  He shook his head. “Not any more.”

  Anna smiled. “I guess blood is thicker, as they say, after all. I hope I have made him proud.”

  “You have, indeed you have. The Corsican, Anna, creates for those who come after, and that is just what you are doing. I am proud to have you as my granddaughter.”

  Diamanté produced a slim, gold coin from his pocket. “I carry this always. It was given to me by a friend who was in Algérie as an advisor to the French airborne troops. In January 1962, when Diamanté fils had just arrived, the population was hoarding gold coins. A young Muslim boy, whom Diamanté fils saved during a massacre in which his entire family was wiped o
ut, gave him this coin. Diamanté fils was intending to adopt the boy after the war. He writes about that in another part of the journal. Diamanté fils handed the coin to my friend and told him that if he didn’t survive the war, he was to make sure that I…” he lowered his head as he handed the coin to her. “I…I want you to have it…for luck.”

  Anna took the coin into her hands. “I…I don’t know what to say,” she said uncomfortably. “This is all so overwhelming.”

  Later that night, unable to sleep, Anna considered Diamanté’s advice to burn C-C’s letter about the patient in the convent. She drew a shawl around her and descended the back stairway of the Ajaccio. Finding some matches on the kitchen countertop, she went across to the corner of the garden where the old stone barbeque pit stood. In the darkness, she set fire to a corner of the letter and watched it burn before throwing it into the fire pit. One by one, she added C-C’s other letters to the growing pile of ashes, recalling to herself as she did so the substance of each. They were letters written from his heart, and she was glad that she had read them, that he knew before he died that she had read them. Finally, she removed the suture that C-C had tied around the old pile of yellowed letters that had been buried at the bottom of Nathalie’s tin box for a decade. Her letters. The letters of a young woman who thought she was in love.

  “No meaning to anyone now,” she said aloud. She tossed the whole bunch of them into the little fire all at once. The paper, thin and brittle, was reduced to ashes in seconds.

  As she stood staring at the flickering ashes, she had an odd sensation of someone watching her. She turned around. There was only the sound of the croaking of frogs. The light from the full moon cast shadows on the back wall where the tiny white lights had glowed earlier. A cool breeze swirled around her. Anna shivered and pulled her shawl around her shoulders. Then she saw him. At first she thought it was her imagination playing tricks on her, but the shadow moved ever so slightly.

  “Is someone there?” she said aloud. “Max, is that you?” She had not seen the dog since C-C’s death. The shadow didn’t move. If it is Max, she thought, he will come to me. She moved closer to the wall. Suddenly the figure crept away, taking the side garden pathway along the Ajaccio and disappearing. He made no sound as he moved, but it was unmistakably a man, an older man, slight of build, and agile. He wore an oversized beret on his head.

  Alarmed, Anna ran back through the kitchen and up the back stairs. A light shone under Diamanté and Elise’s bedroom door. She rapped lightly. Diamanté opened the door. He had on a long night shirt, and his bare head sprouted wisps of disheveled grayish yellow hair.

  “What is it, Anna?”

  “It’s…I…I’m sorry to bother you. I was down in the back garden just now, burning the letter, as you advised, and there was a figure. I thought at first it was Max, but it was a man in the shadows. He disappeared when I called out. He went along the garden path by the side of the restaurant.”

  “I’ll go down and lock up. I’m sure it’s just some old transient. We get a few of those from time to time. Go on to bed, my dear.” He grabbed his beret and put it on his head.

  Anna thought what a funny figure he made in his nightshirt and beret as he closed the bedroom door. “He moved so silently,” she called after him. “I wasn’t sure it was even a person, but Max would have come to me.”

  The look on Diamanté’s face changed. “He moved silently?”

  She nodded.

  He turned and walked down the hallway. Anna noticed that he too walked noiselessly, and she was suddenly aware of her own loud footsteps as she started toward her room. She had just opened the door when she heard voices coming from the garden, low voices, male voices. She took off her shoes and descended the stairs in her bare feet so as not to make any sound. When she got to the kitchen, Diamanté and another man whose back was to her were standing in the moonlight opposite each other on the back terrace just beyond the open set of French doors. Anna positioned herself inside where she would not be noticed. The man Diamanté was talking to was definitely the same man whom she had seen lurking by the back wall. She shuddered, wondering how long he had been watching her as she burned C-C’s letters. He was around Diamanté’s age but more slight of build and wore thick, square-framed glasses. His voice was raspy, and though she could barely make out what he was saying, he sounded hateful.

  Anna heard Diamanté say, “Why didn’t you do it sooner? In December when we first arrived? Why did you wait?”

  “It was the (inaudible)…” Anna strained to hear the rest. “Besides, I had something to accomplish in Corsica—a little unfinished business, I should say.”

  Anna heard Diamanté ask something, but his voice was so low that she couldn’t make out what he said.

  “I couldn’t risk getting caught here.” The man spat as he raised his voice slightly. “It was done perfectly, too; no one knew who the assassin was. I was (inaudible),” the man lowered his voice again and chuckled beneath his breath, an evil, derisive laugh that sent chills running down Anna’s spine.

  “It’s the game all over again, Diamanté. Toi et moi.”

  Anna closed her eyes and prayed for strength. She somehow knew she had to do something to help Diamanté. She tried to think logically. Then she heard the man mention Charlie, her dead C-C, something about “that pathetic dead doctor.” Tears came to her eyes.

  “Remember the cat?” she heard the man continue. “It will be like that for Elise. She will be the one to discover that you are the prize,” he laughed aloud at his own joke. Then he pulled something shiny from his pocket. His voice became clearly audible as he spoke slowly and deliberately. “Yes you, Diamanté, I thought your death at this time would make a perfect wedding gift for her.” He was holding a gun, and it was pointed directly at Diamanté.

  “Salaud, bastard,” Diamanté yelled.

  Anna put her hands to her lips, stifling a scream. From just behind her in the dark kitchen, a dog growled. Anna’s heart jumped into her throat as she turned and saw Max, his fangs bared in a snarl, barking frantically.

  “Oh, God,” she screamed, horrified, as the dog launched himself through the air. The man swung around at her scream, pointing the gun in the direction of the dark kitchen. At that moment, he saw her behind the French door. Their eyes met as Max charged and sank his teeth into the man’s thigh. The dog held on as the man frantically tried to beat if off. Anna heard a muffled “pop” as she spun around and ran into the kitchen to look for a knife. Another “pop” and the dog let go and staggered backward. His legs trembled, his head drooped, and he fell into a whimpering heap. Diamanté grabbed the man’s hand at the same instant and tried to wrestle the gun away from him.

  “Oh God, oh God,” Anna was screaming as she frantically searched for Jacques’ cleaver in the pitch-dark room. Then she stopped in cold terror as a muffled shot echoed from the garden. Her mouth went dry as she saw the man with whom Diamanté was wrestling fall forward against him, then slump to the ground.

  At the edge of the garden, Elise stood motionless, holding a small, derringer-style pocket pistol.

  “Are you okay, my Lobo?” she said in a low voice, still pointing the pistol at the fallen figure.

  Diamanté tossed the man’s gun into the barbeque pit and bent down to check the lifeless body. After a moment he said, “André’s dead. You put a bullet hole right through his temple.”

  Elise let her pistol fall to the ground and rushed to Diamanté. He put his arms around her shoulders.

  Anna stood over Max, crying and trembling. She dropped to her knees and touched the mutt’s quivering paws. His brown eyes looked up at her pleadingly, and his tongue hung out. He was bleeding badly and panting heavily.

  “It’s so unfair,” she said, tears spilling from her eyes. “Max shouldn’t have to die because of that evil, evil man.”

  “He saved my Lobo’s life,” Elise said as she looked lovingly at her husband and patted his cheeks with both her hands.

  “I cou
ld barely hear the conversation,” Anna said to Diamanté. “Who was he?”

  “André Narbon, my half brother. He was a killer.”

  “Oh là,” added Elise with a heavy sigh. “I’m glad it’s finally over. This has gone on for too long.”

  “Where did you ever learn to shoot like that?” Anna asked.

  “When you live through a war, my dear, you have to be prepared for anything.” Elise walked over and picked up the small, jeweled derringer. “Many years ago, my husband Ferdinand taught me to use a pistol. This pistol was given to me by my Russian tenant. It has come in handy, once or twice.”

  “It saved all our lives tonight,” Diamanté said. “I have no doubt that André intended to kill.”

  “I saw him before,” Anna said. “It was during your wedding, at the evening festivities. He was standing over there.” She pointed toward the kitchen garden in back of the barbeque pit. “In the shadows. I thought he was creepy with those thick, square glasses.”

  Diamanté and Elise looked at each other. Diamanté shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t see him.”

  “Nor did I,” Elise said.

  “I mentioned it to C-C, but I couldn’t read his reaction.”

  Diamanté took off his beret and rubbed his scar. “I told Charlie to be careful.” He shook his head. “I told him to watch himself. André intended to get rid of him, too. He said so just now. He was following Charlie when he went over the cliff. Said he didn’t even have to do a thing and laughed as if he were delighted that Charlie had done his job for him.”

  “It’s not your fault, my Lobo.” Elise patted his arm.

  Anna walked to Diamanté and put an arm around his shoulders. “Why would anyone want to kill you?”

  Just then came the throaty voice of an old woman from the other side of the fence. “Ah, Diamanté, I heard something. Still after the critters stealing your tomatoes, hein?”

  Diamanté responded in a nonchalant voice, “Ah oui, Madame Boulot. I think I got the culprit this time. Go back to sleep. Sorry to disturb you.”