Solea

by Jean-Claude Izzo

  “I’ve seen blood, too!” she said losing her temper. “I saw Gianni’s body. His mutilated body. So, don’t talk to me about—”

  “But you’re alive, dammit! They aren’t! And I’m alive! And Honorine, and Fonfon, and Félix, too, for the moment! I don’t give a fuck what you’ve seen! Because at the rate you’re going, you’re going to see a lot more. And a lot worse! Your own body being cut up piece by piece . . .”

  “Stop!”

  “Until you tell them where those fucking papers are. I’m sure you’ll crack as soon as they cut off the first finger.”

  “You bastard!” she screamed.

  I wondered where Félix was. Was he drinking a glass of cold beer, reading an issue of Les Pieds Nickelés, and ignoring what he was hearing? Or had he gone out to the harbor so Babette could talk without feeling she was being spied on?

  “Where’s Félix?”

  “In the harbor. Getting the boat ready. He said he’d put to sea around eight.”

  “Good.”

  Silence again.

  The semi-darkness in the bar was doing me good. I felt like lying down on the floor and going to sleep. For a long time. Hoping that while I slept this whole huge mess would disappear and I’d dream of the dawn coming up pure and clear over the sea.

  “Fabio,” Babette said.

  I remembered thinking, at the top of the Cortiou pass, that there’s no truth that doesn’t carry within it its own bitterness. I’d read that somewhere.

  “Babette, I don’t want anything to happen to you. I couldn’t live either if . . . if he killed you. All the people I loved are dead. My friends. And Lole left . . .”

  “Oh!”

  I’d never answered Babette’s letter, the letter Lole had opened and read. The letter that had split us up. I’d been angry at Lole for prying into my secrets. Then at Babette. But neither Babette nor Lole were responsible for what had followed. The letter had arrived just when Lole was having severe doubts about me, and about her. About us, our life together.

  “You know, Fabio,” she’d said to me one night, one of those nights when I was still trying to convince her to wait, to stay. “My mind is made up. It’s been made up a long time. I’ve given myself plenty of time to think. This has nothing to do with that letter from your friend Babette. That just helped me come to a decision . . . I’ve had my doubts for a long time. This isn’t a sudden whim. Which makes it even worse, in a way. I know . . . I know I just have to leave.”

  The only thing I could find to say in reply was that she was stubborn. And too proud to admit she was wrong. Too proud to make a U-turn and come back to me. To us.

  “Stubborn? You’re as stubborn as I am! No . . .”

  What she said next finally closed the door on our relationship.

  “To live with a man I need to love him, and I don’t feel that love for you anymore.”

  Later, on another occasion, Lole had asked me if I’d answered that girl, Babette.

  “No,” I’d said.

  “Why?”

  Because I couldn’t find the words to write back, or even to call her. What could I say to Babette? That I hadn’t known how fragile my relationship with Lole was. That I supposed all genuine relationships were like that. As brittle as glass. That love pushes people to the limit. And that what she, Babette, thought was love was only an illusion.

  I hadn’t found the courage to say those things. Or even to say that, although the prospect of Lole’s going had left me feeling empty inside, I didn’t see any point in our getting together again.

  “Because I don’t love her, you must know that,” I’d replied to Lole.

  “You might be wrong.”

  “Lole, please.”

  “You spend your whole life not wanting to admit things. You don’t want to admit I’m leaving, and you don’t want to admit she’s waiting for you.”

  For the first time, I’d wanted to slap her.

  “I didn’t know,” Babette said.

  “Forget it. The important thing is what’s happening now. These killers on our trail. That’s what we have to talk about tonight. I have a few ideas. For how we can negotiate with them.”

  “We’ll see, Fabio . . . But you know . . . I think the only solution is to have some kind of ‘clean hands’ operation in France. It’s the only way, the only most effective way, to answer people’s skepticism. No one believes in anything anymore. Not in politicians. Not in the political process. Not in the values of this country. It’s . . . it’s the only way to counter the National Front. Bring it all out in the open. Wash our dirty linen in public.”

  “You must be dreaming! What did it change in Italy?”

  “It changed some things.”

  “Oh, sure.”

  She was right, of course. And there were quite a few judges in France who thought the same. They kept going, courageously, case by case. Often working alone. Sometimes risking their lives. Like Hélène Pessayre’s father. I knew all that, of course.

  But I also knew that simply making a fuss in the media wouldn’t give this country back its morality. I didn’t believe journalists were really interested in the truth. The TV news was just a distraction. All those images of genocide, first in Bosnia, then in Rwanda, now in Algeria, hadn’t brought millions of citizens out on the streets, in France or anywhere else. They read about earthquakes, or railroad disasters, and turned over the page. Leaving the truth to those it concerned. And those it concerned were the poor, not people who were happy or thought they were.

  “You said it yourself,” I said. “The fight against the Mafia can only succeed if there’s simultaneous progress in economic and social development.”

  “That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t tell the truth when the moment is right. And this is the moment, Fabio.”

  “Bullshit!”

  “Fuck you, Fabio! Do you want me to hang up?”

  “How many deaths is the truth worth?”

  “You can’t think like that. That’s the way losers think.”

  “We are losers!” I screamed. “We won’t change anything. Not anymore.”

  I thought again about what Hélène Pessayre had said, when we were at the Fort Saint-Jean. About that book on the World Bank. About this enclosed world that was shaping up, and how we’d be excluded from it. How we were already excluded. On one side, the civilized West, on the other the “dangerous classes” of the South, the Third World. And the frontier between them. The limes.

  A new world.

  I knew I had no place in it.

  “I refuse to listen to this bullshit.”

  “All right, then, Babette, go ahead, dammit! Publish your report and die, let’s all die, you, me, Honorine, Fonfon, Félix . . .”

  “You want me to go away, is that it?”

  “Where do you think you can go, you stupid bitch?” And the words slipped out. “This morning, the Mafia took an axe to your friend Bruno and his family . . .”

  Silence. A silence as heavy as the four coffins that would soon be lowered into the ground.

  “I’m sorry, Babette. They thought you were up there.”

  She was crying. I could hear her. Big tears, I imagined. Not sobs, just tears. Tears of panic and fear.

  “I want it to end,” she said softly.

  “It’ll never end, Babette. Because it’s already ended. You just don’t want to admit it. But we can get out of it. We can survive. For a while, a few years. Love each other. Believe in life. In beauty . . . And even put our trust in the law and the police of this country.”

  “You’re a fool,” she said.

  And then the sobs started.

  21.

  IN WHICH IT BECOMES OBVIOUS

  THAT ROTTENNESS IS BLIND

  I sailed my boat into the harbor of the Frioul. It was exactly nine o’clock. The sea was rougher t
han I’d thought when I left Les Goudes. Babette must have been feeling pretty uncomfortable for the last thirty minutes, I thought, as I reduced speed. But I was bringing something to cheer her up. Sausage from Arles, wild boar pâté, six small goat’s cheeses from Banon, and two bottles of Bandol red, from the Cagueloup estate. And my bottle of Lagavulin, for later in the evening. Before putting to sea again. I knew Félix wouldn’t turn up his nose at that.

  I was tense. For the first time, I’d set out to sea with an aim, a specific purpose. And that had started my head spinning with thoughts and questions. At one point, I’d even wondered how I could have reached my age and still had only a vague idea of what I was and what I wanted in life. I didn’t know the answer to that one. There’d been other questions, more specific ones, that I’d tried to dismiss. The last was the simplest. What the hell was I doing here tonight, on my boat, with a gun, a 6.35, in my jacket pocket?

  Because, after some hesitation, I’d brought Manu’s gun with me. Ever since Honorine and Fonfon had left, I’d been feeling helpless. I’d lost my bearings. I was alone. At one point, I’d almost phoned Lole. To hear her voice. But what would I have said to her? The place where she was now was nothing like here. People weren’t being murdered there. Instead, they loved each other. She and her friend, at least.

  I’d started to feel very afraid.

  As I’d gotten my boat out, I’d asked myself: What if you’re wrong, Fabio, and they sense you’re up to something and follow you out to sea? I’d just come back from buying a few packs of cigarettes, during which I’d noticed that the Fiat Punto wasn’t parked anywhere in the vicinity. I’d walked up the road to the end of the village. There wasn’t any white Peugeot 304 either. No killers, no cops. That was when I’d felt my stomach tighten with fear. It was like an alarm bell ringing. This wasn’t normal, they should have been there. The killers, because they hadn’t yet laid their hands on Babette. The cops, because Hélène Pessayre had said she’d see to it. But it was too late. By now, Félix was already at sea.

  I spotted Félix’s boat, over to the right of the sea wall linking the islands of Pomègues and Ratonneau. On the built-up side, where there were a few bars open. The harbor was quiet. Even in summer, the Frioul didn’t attract crowds in the evening. People from Marseilles only came here during the day. Over the years, there’d been lots of construction projects that had come to nothing. The Frioul islands weren’t a place to live, just a place where people came to dive, fish and swim in the cold waters of the open sea.

  “Félix!” I called, moving my boat closer to his.

  He didn’t move. He seemed to be asleep. Bent forward slightly.

  The hull of my boat rubbed gently against his.

  “Félix.”

  I put out my hand to give him a gentle shake. His head lolled to the side, then back, and his dead eyes looked into mine. From his open neck, the blood still gushed.

  They were here.

  Babette, I thought.

  We were cornered. And Félix was dead.

  Where was Babette?

  There was a sudden groundswell, which made my stomach heave, and the acid taste of bile was in my throat. I bent double. To vomit. But there was nothing in my stomach, just the Lagavulin I’d drunk when I was halfway here.

  Félix.

  His dead eyes. Dead forever.

  And the blood was gushing. It would gush in my memory for the rest of my fucking life.

  Félix.

  I couldn’t stay here.

  I quickly leaned on his hull, pushed my boat away, started the motor, and reversed until I was free. I looked around at the harbor, the sea wall, the surrounding area. Nobody. I heard laughter coming from a sailboat. A man and a woman. The woman’s laughter sparkled like champagne. They’d be making love soon. Lying naked on the deck, in the moonlight.

  I took my boat far out to the east side of the island, which wasn’t lit. I peered into the darkness. The white rock. Then I saw them. There were three of them. Bruscati and the driver. And the son of a bitch with the knife. They were quickly climbing the narrow path that leads up through the rocky ground to a multitude of small creeks.

  They must be following Babette.

  “Montale!”

  I froze. The voice was familiar. A figure emerged from the shadow of a rock. It was Béraud, Alain Béraud, from Hélène Pessayre’s team.

  “I saw you arrive,” he said, jumping nimbly into my boat. “But I don’t think they did.”

  “What the hell are you doing here? Is she here too?”

  “No.”

  I saw the three men disappear over the brow of the hill.

  “How did those bastards find out?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know, for fuck’s sake?” I cried. I felt like shaking him. Strangling him. “So what are you doing here?”

  “I was at Vallon-des-Auffes earlier.”

  “Why?”

  “Fuck it, Montale! Didn’t she tell you? We knew your girl friend was going to see that guy. I was there when you went to see him the other day.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Hélène figured it out. That you’d use the boat . . . Clever.”

  “Don’t fuck me around, dammit!”

  “She didn’t like the idea of you being here without protection.”

  “But they whacked Félix. Where were you when that happened?”

  “On my way. In fact, I only just got here.” For a brief moment, he paused for thought. “I was the last to leave. That’s the stupid part. I should have come here directly. And waited. But I . . . We weren’t sure this was where you were meeting. It could have been the Château d’If. Or Planier . . . It could have been anywhere . . .”

  “Right.”

  I didn’t understand any of it anymore, but it didn’t matter. We had to hurry up and find Babette. She had one advantage over the killers: she knew the island like the back of her hand. Every creek. Every rocky path. She’d been coming here for years, to dive.

  “We’d better get going,” I said. I thought for a moment. “I’ll sail along the coast. Try to pick her up from one of the creeks. I can’t see any other way.”

  “I’ll go on foot,” he said. “Along the path. Keeping behind them. O.K.?”

  “O.K.”

  I started the motor. “Béraud,” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Why are you on your own?”

  “It’s my day off,” he replied. He wasn’t joking.

  “What do you mean?” I cried.

  “That’s the thing, Montale. We’ve been booted out. They took her off the case after she handed in her report.”

  We looked at each other, and in his eyes I thought I saw some of Hélène’s rage and disgust.

  “They really hauled her over the coals.”

  “Who’s taken over the case?”

  “It’s with the Fraud Squad. But I don’t know who’s in charge yet.”

  I was overcome with anger. “Don’t tell me she told them about your stakeout!”

  “No.”

  I grabbed him by his shirt collar. “So how come they’re here? Don’t you know?”

  “Yes . . . I think I do.” His voice was calm.

  “Who was it?”

  “The driver. Our driver. It had to be him.”

  “Shit!” I said, letting him go. “And where’s Hélène now?”

  “At Septèmes-les-Vallons. Investigating the possibility the fires were started deliberately . . . Apparently, all hell’s broken loose . . . She asked me not to let you out of my sight.” He jumped out of the boat. “Montale,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I bound and gagged the guy who was driving their speedboat. And I called the cops. They should be here soon.”

  As he set off
along the path, he took out his gun. It was a big one. I took out mine. Manu’s gun. I inserted a cartridge clip and put on the safety.

  I sailed slowly around the outside of the island, trying to spot either Babette or the killers. The white moonlight made the rocky ground look like a lunar landscape. These islands had never looked so grim.

  I thought again about what Hélène Pessayre had said this morning on the phone. “Each of us playing our own game.” She’d played hers and lost. I was playing mine, and I was losing too. “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” Had I screwed up again? Would we even be here if . . .

  I saw Babette. She was climbing down a narrow, rocky gully.

  I took the boat in closer. Keeping to the middle of the creek.

  Call her, now. No, not yet. Let her come down. Let her get to the bottom of the creek.

  I moved in a little closer, then cut the motor and glided slowly over the water, which was still quite deep. I picked up the oars and moved even closer.

  Babette appeared on the narrow sandbank.

  “Babette!” I called.

  But she didn’t hear me. She was looking up at the rocks. I thought I could hear her panting in fear. Panic. But it wasn’t her, it was only my heart, pounding. Like a time bomb. Calm down, dammit! I told myself. You’re going to explode!

  Calm down! Calm down.

  “Babette!” I cried.

  She turned and saw me at last. And understood. At the same moment, the guy appeared. What he was holding wasn’t just a pistol.

  “Hide!” I yelled.

  There was a volley of shots, covering my voice. Then more volleys. Babette got up, as if about to dive, then fell again. Into the water. The shooting stopped abruptly and I saw the killer turn and run. His submachine gun tumbled down onto the loose stones. Then, suddenly, there was silence. A moment later, his body crashed onto the rocks below. The impact of his skull on the rocks echoed through the creek.

  Beraud’s aim had been good.

  I rowed like crazy until I felt the hull hit the rocks. I jumped out of the boat. Babette’s body was still in the water. Motionless. I tried to lift it. It felt like lead.