“I think you know immediately, when you meet someone, if you just want to get laid, or to start something real. Don’t you?”
“Yes, I think so, too,” she said, without taking her eyes off me. “Are you unhappy, Montale?”
Fuck! Did I have unhappiness written all over my face? Sonia had said the same thing to Honorine the other day. Now Hélène Pessayre was flinging the word at me. Had Lole really drained me of happiness? Had she really taken all my dreams away with her? All my reasons for living? Or was it just that I didn’t know where to find them inside me?
After Pascale left him, Mavros had told me, “You know, it was like she was turning the pages really fast. Five years of laughter, joy, shouting matches sometimes, love, tenderness, nights, mornings, siestas, dreams, journeys . . . Until we got to the words The End. Which she wrote herself, with her own hand. And then she took the book away with her. And I . . .”
He was crying. I listened to him in silence. Helpless, faced with so much pain.
“And now I’ve lost my reason for living. I’d never loved a woman the way I loved Pascale. She was the only one, Fabio, the only one, Goddammit! Now I’m just going through the motions. Because you have to do things. That’s what life is. Doing things. But in my head, there’s nothing left. Or in my heart.” He’d put his finger on his head, then his heart. “Nothing.”
I didn’t know what to say. There was nothing you could say in response to something like that. As I was to find out when Lole left.
That night, I’d taken Mavros home with me. Stopping off along the way at a whole lot of bars in the harbor area. From the Café de la Mairie to the Bar de la Marine. Hassan’s, too, for a while.
I’d laid him on the couch, with my bottle of Lagavulin within easy reach. “Will you be O.K.?”
“I have everything I need,” he’d said, pointing to the bottle.
Then I’d left him and slipped into bed against Lole’s warm, soft body. I lay with my cock against her buttocks and one hand on her breast, holding her the way a child learning to swim holds on to his rubber ring. Clinging on for dear life. It was only Lole’s love that kept my head above water. Otherwise, I’d have sunk. Or been carried away by the current.
“You still haven’t answered,” Hélène Pessayre said.
“I think I need a lawyer.”
She laughed, which did me good.
There was a knock at the door.
“Yes?”
It was Béraud, from her team.
“We’ve finished, captain.” He looked at me. “Can he identify him?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll do it.”
“Give us a few more minutes, Alain.”
He went out and closed the door.
Hélène Pessayre stood up and took a few steps around the cramped office. Then she came and stood in front of me. “If you found this Babette Bellini, would you tell me?”
“Yes,” I replied, without hesitation, looking her straight in the eyes.
I stood up too. We were face to face, the way we’d been before she slapped me. There was a vital question I had to ask her. “And what do we do then? If I find her?”
For the first time, I sensed an uncertainty in her. As if she knew what I was going to say next.
“You’d give her police protection. Is that it? Until you arrested the killers, if you could find them. And then what? What happens when other killers arrive? And then others?”
It was my way of slapping her in the face. Cops didn’t like to hear they were powerless.
“You’ll be transferred before that happens, not to Saint-Brieuc, like Loubet, but to Argenton-sur-Creuse or some other one-horse town!”
She went pale, and I regretted losing my temper with her. It was a mean thing to do in revenge for that slap.
“I’m sorry.”
“Do you have an idea?” she asked me, coldly. “A plan?”
“No, I don’t have a plan. I just want to find the guy who killed Sonia and Georges. And kill him.”
“That’s really stupid.”
“Maybe it is. But it’s the only way a piece of shit like that will get what he deserves.”
“What I meant was, it’s really stupid of you to risk your life.” She rested her dark eyes on me, and there was a gentleness in them. “Unless you really are that unhappy.”
13.
IN WHICH IT’S EASIER TO EXPLAIN THINGS
TO OTHER PEOPLE THAN TO UNDERSTAND
THEM YOURSELF
The fire sirens jolted me awake. The air coming in through the window smelled of burning. Hot, foul air. I learned later that the fire had started in a garbage dump in Septèmes-les-Vallons, a village just north of Marseilles. Not far from here, from George’s apartment.
“They’re tailing me,” I’d said to Hélène Pessayre. “I’m sure of it. Sonia came back with me the other night. She slept in my house. All they had to do was follow her home. I was the one who led them to Mavros. Any time I go see a friend, sooner or later he’s going to end up on their list.”
We were still in Mavros’s office. Trying to figure out a plan. To get me out of the fix I was in. The killer would call again this evening. He was expecting results. He wanted me to tell him where Babette was, or something similar. If I couldn’t give him any assurances, he’d kill someone else. Maybe Fonfon or Honorine, if he didn’t find one of my old party buddies to kill first.
“I’m stuck here,” I’d lied to her. That was less than an hour ago. “I can’t make a move without endangering the life of someone close to me.”
She looked at me. I was starting to know those looks of hers. This one wasn’t a completely trusting look. Her doubts persisted. “Actually, that’s lucky for us.”
“What is?”
“The fact that you can’t make a move,” she replied, with a touch of irony. “I mean, the fact that they have to tail you is their weak point.”
I saw what she was getting at, and I didn’t like it. “I don’t follow you.”
“Stop treating me like an idiot, Montale! You know perfectly well what I mean. They follow you, we’ll be right behind them.”
“And pounce on them at the first red light, is that it?”
I immediately regretted saying that. There was a veil of sadness over her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Hélène.”
“Give me a cigarette.”
I held out my pack. “Don’t you ever buy any?”
“You always have some. And . . . we seem to be seeing a lot of each other, don’t we?”
She said it without smiling, and her voice was weary.
“Montale,” she continued softly, “we’ll never get anywhere if you don’t”—she took a long drag on her cigarette as she searched for the words—“if you don’t believe in me. Not as a cop. As a woman. I thought you’d have understood that, after our conversation by the sea.”
“What should I have understood?”
The words had slipped out. No sooner had I said them than they started echoing cruelly in my head. I’d said exactly the same thing to Lole, that terrible night when she’d told me it was all over. The years were passing, and I was still asking the same question. I still understood nothing about life. “The reason we keep coming back to the same place,” I’d said to Mavros one night, after Pascale had left, “is because we’re going around in circles. Because we’re lost . . .” He’d nodded. He was going around in circles. He was lost. It’s easier to explain these things to other people, I thought, than to understand them yourself.
Hélène Pessayre smiled just the way Lole had. Her answer was a little different. “Why don’t you trust women? What have they done to you? Haven’t they given you enough? Have they disappointed you? They’ve made you suffer, is that it?”
Once again, she’d thrown me completely. “Maybe. Yes.”
“Men
have disappointed me too. They’ve made me suffer. Does that mean I have to hate all men?”
“I don’t hate women.”
“Let me tell you something, Montale. Sometimes, when you look at me, I feel as if I’ve been turned upside down. I feel all this emotion welling up in me.”
“Hélène,” I tried to interrupt her.
“Shut up, dammit! When you look at a woman, me or any woman, you go straight to the crux of things. But you also bring along your fears, your doubts, your anxieties, all the crap that’s got your heart in a vise, all the things that make you say, ‘It won’t work, it’ll never work.’ Never the certainty that happiness is possible.”
“What about you, do you believe in happiness?”
“I believe in genuine relationships between people. Between men and women. Without fear, which means without lies.”
“Right. And where does that get us?”
“It gets us to this. Why are you so determined to kill that guy, that hitman?”
“Because of Sonia. And now because of Mavros.”
“Mavros, I can understand. He was your friend. But Sonia? I already asked you if you loved her. Is that what you felt that night? That you loved her? You didn’t answer. You just said you wanted to see her again.”
“Yes, I wanted to see her. And . . .”
“And then maybe . . . perhaps . . . who knows? The usual things, right? And you set off to see her again, with part of you incapable of hearing what it was she wanted, what she was expecting of you. Have you ever really been able to give? To give everything to a woman?”
“Yes,” I said, thinking how much I’d loved Lole.
Hélène Pessayre gave me a tender look. Like the other day on the terrace at Ange’s, when she’d put her hand on mine. But she wasn’t about to say, “I love you” any more than she had the last time. Or come and snuggle in my arms. I was sure of that.
“You may believe that, Montale. But I don’t believe you. And that woman didn’t believe it either. You didn’t give her your trust. You didn’t tell her you believed in her. You didn’t show it either. Not enough, anyway.”
“Why should I trust you?” I said. “Because that’s what you’re getting at, isn’t it? That’s what you’re asking me. To trust you.”
“Yes. For once in your life, Montale. Trust a woman. Trust me. And then I can trust you. If the two of us can figure out a plan, I want to be sure of you. I want to be sure of your reasons for killing that guy.”
“You’d let me kill him?” I said, surprised. “Would you?”
“Yes, if what’s driving you isn’t hate, or despair, but love. The love you were starting to feel for Sonia. You know, I have very clear-cut views about things. And a strong sense of morality. But . . . Do you know how many years they gave Giovanni Brusca, the bloodiest of all Mafia hitmen?”
“I didn’t even know he’d been arrested.”
“A year ago. At home. He was eating spaghetti with his family. Twenty-six years. He’s the man who blew up Judge Falcone.”
“And murdered an eleven-year-old boy.”
“Just twenty-six years. I wouldn’t feel any remorse if that hitman of yours died, instead of having to stand trial. But . . . we’re not there yet.”
No, we weren’t there yet. I got up. I could still hear the fire sirens, coming from all directions. The air was acrid, sickening. I closed the window. I’d been sleeping on Mavros’s bed for the past half-hour. Hélène Pessayre and her team had left. And, with her agreement, I’d gone upstairs to Mavros’s apartment, above the gym. I was supposed to wait there. Until another team arrived to see if it could spot the car of the guys who were following me. We were both sure they were there, right outside the door, or somewhere nearby.
“Do you have enough manpower to do that?”
“I’m dealing with two murders here.”
“Have you mentioned the Mafia in your reports?”
“No, of course not.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m pretty sure I’d be taken off the case.”
“You’re taking a big risk.”
“No. I know exactly what I’m getting into.”
Mavros’s apartment was exceptionally tidy. There was something almost morbid about it. Everything was the way it had been before Pascale left. She hadn’t taken much with her when she’d gone. Just a few trifles. Some trinkets, things Mavros had given her. A few dishes. A few CDs, a few books. The TV. The new vacuum cleaner they’d just bought.
For a modest rent, some mutual friends of theirs, Jean and Bella, had let Pascale move into their little fully furnished house in a quiet corner of Marseilles, on Rue Villa-Paradis, at the top of Rue Breteuil. They’d just had their third child, and the house, which was on two floors but narrow, had become too small for them.
Pascale had immediately fallen in love with the house. The street still looked like a village street, and was likely to stay that way for many more years to come. Mavros didn’t understand. “I’m not leaving you because of Benoît,” she’d told him. “I’m leaving because of me. I need to rethink my life. Not ours. Mine. Maybe one day, I’ll be able to think of you again the way I should, the way I used to.”
Mavros had made this apartment a tomb for his memories. Even the bed, on which I’d collapsed in a state of total exhaustion, didn’t seem to have been touched since Pascale had left. Now I understood why he’d been in such a hurry to find a girlfriend. It was so that he wouldn’t have to sleep here.
The saddest thing in the apartment was in the toilet: a collage, behind glass, of all the best photos from their years together. I imagined Mavros watching his own failure parade in front of his eyes every time he took a leak. He should at least have taken that down, I thought.
I removed the glass and placed it carefully on the floor. There was one photo I was particularly fond of. Lole had taken it one summer, at the house of some friends in La Ciotat. Georges and Pascale were sleeping on a bench in the garden, with George’s head resting on Pascale’s shoulder. They exuded peace and happiness. Carefully, I peeled the photo loose and slipped it into my wallet.
The phone rang. It was Hélène Pessayre.
“It’s done, Montale. My men are in place. They’ve spotted them. They’re parked outside number 148. A blue Fiat Punto. There are two of them.”
“Good,” I said. I felt as if I were suffocating.
“So, are we sticking to what we said?”
“Yes.”
I should have said more. But I’d just figured out a risk-free way to see Babette, without anyone else knowing. Even Hélène Pessayre.
“Montale?”
“Yes.”
“Are you O.K.?”
“Sure. What’s up with the firefighters?”
“A big forest fire. It started in Septèmes, but it seems to be spreading. They say another one’s started near Plan-de-Cuques, but I don’t know any more about that. The worst of it is that the tanker planes can’t take off, because of the mistral.”
“Shit,” I said. I took a deep breath. “Hélène?”
“What?”
“Before I go home, the way we agreed, I . . . I need to drop in on an old friend.”
“Who?” The doubt had crept back into her voice.
“This isn’t a trick, Hélène. His name is Félix. He used to run a restaurant on Rue Caisserie. I promised I’d go see him. We often go fishing together. He lives in Vallon-des-Auffes. I have to go there before I go home.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“I only just remembered.”
“Call him.”
“He doesn’t have a phone. Since his wife died and he retired, he’s preferred to be left alone. The only way to call him is to leave a message with the pizzeria next door.” That much was true. “And he doesn’t need to hear me, he needs
to see me.”
“Right.” I seemed to hear her weighing the pros and the cons. “So what do we do?”
“I park in the garage of the Bourse Center. I go up to the mall, walk back out and grab a taxi. It’ll take me an hour at the most.”
“And what if they follow you?”
“I’ll see.”
“O.K.”
“So long.”
“Montale, if you find out anything about Babette Bellini’s whereabouts, you won’t forget me, will you?”
“I won’t forget you, captain.”
A thick column of black smoke rose above North Marseilles. The hot air was seeping into my lungs. If the mistral didn’t die down, I thought, this could last for several days. Several nerve-racking days. So much forest and vegetation and even scrub burning was a tragedy for the region. People still had vivid memories of the terrible fire in August 1989, which had devastated eight thousand six hundred acres on the slopes of the Montagne Sainte-Victoire.
I went into the nearest bar and asked for a beer. The owner was listening intently to Radio France Provence, and so were all the customers. The fire was spreading. It had reached the area around the little village of Plan-de-Cuques, and they were starting to evacuate people from the more isolated villas.
I thought again about my plan to get Babette to a safe place. It was still feasible, on one condition: that the mistral die down. But the mistral could blow for a day, or three days, or six, or nine.
I finished my beer and asked for another. The die is cast, I thought. We’d soon see if I still had a future. If not, there was surely a place under the ground where Manu, Ugo, Mavros and I could have a nice quiet game of belote.
14.
IN WHICH WE LEARN THE EXACT MEANING
OF THE EXPRESSION “A DEATHLY SILENCE”
I started my car. I knew they’d be following me. First the Mafia guys. Then the cops. In other circumstances, I might have found it amusing to be tailed. But I wasn’t in the mood to be amused. I wasn’t in the mood for anything. Just doing what I’d made up my mind to do. Without any scruples. Knowing me, the fewer scruples I had, the more chance I had of seeing my plan through.
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