Anything Considered (20 page)

“You don’t pay any tax?” Bennett asked. “None at all?”

“Good heavens, no. Not a centime.” Father Gilbert frowned with distaste. “What a scandalous invention that is,” he said. “We have nothing to do with it. Dom Perignon never paid tax. Why should we?”

“You don’t make champagne, do you?” Anna said.

“No, my child, we don’t. The conditions here aren’t suitable. But what is champagne, after all? Nothing but grapes breaking wind, although our friends in Reims would doubtless disagree.” And with that, he half filled two goblets with red wine and passed them to Anna and Bennett. “I hope you can join us for dinner. We have a
marcassin
that Brother Louis ran over with his tractor the other day.” He smiled at them. “You see? The Lord provides.”

“We’d love to,” said Bennett. “As a matter of fact, it would be a great help to us if we could stay here for a couple of days. We’ve got a small problem.”

Father Gilbert plucked a bottle of wine from the table and waddled ahead of them to a book-lined alcove off the main room. “Sit down, my dears, and share your troubles with me.”

As the brothers set to work preparing dinner, Anna
and Bennett went through the events that had led them to the monastery, Father Gilbert nodding over his wine, his mouth making an O of surprise at the account of their escape from the
Ragazza
. “How fascinating it all is,” he said after they had finished. “And what exciting lives you young people lead. You’re going to find it very dull here, I’m afraid. But tell me something.” He waved plump fingers in the air, as if the question were of no great significance. “This formula, this magical serum—is it genuine, do you think? Does it work?”

“So I’m told,” said Bennett. “Apparently, it’s had a very high success rate—seventy, eighty percent.”

Father Gilbert filled his glass thoughtfully. “It would be a most valuable addition to our work here at the monastery. The grape and the truffle, side by side. Who could imagine a more pleasing combination?” He looked at Bennett under raised eyebrows. “I suppose there’s no chance of our coming to an arrangement? A partnership of some kind?”

“Well …,” said Bennett.

“Absolutely not,” said Anna.

“You see, Father,” said Bennett, “it’s not officially ours. We’re just sort of looking after it.”

“Just a
pensée
,” said Father Gilbert. “Well, drink up.”

——

The young wild boar, basted until it shone, had been spit-roasted in the kitchen fireplace and was now lying on
a wooden platter in the center of the table, a large baked potato in its mouth. Father Gilbert carved, and served chunks of the dark, gamy flesh onto plates of battered pewter, the sleeves of his habit rolled up above his elbows, his face glowing in the candlelight. Glasses were filled, and the flat, round loaves of country bread were sliced thick. The only indications of the twentieth century were the two visitors, in their modern clothes. Everything else, everyone else, could have come from the Middle Ages.

The conversation was mainly of country matters—the prospects for this year’s vintage, the vagaries of the weather, the threat of mildew on the vines, the productivity of the monastery vegetable garden. There were no arguments, no raised voices to disturb the air of contentment that hung over the table. Anna was intrigued. Where had they come from, these men who seemed happy to live in a medieval time warp?

“We are all fugitives from the world of business,” said Father Gilbert. “I myself used to work for the Banque Nationale de Paris. Others have come from Elf Aquitaine, IBM, the Bourse, Aérospatiale. We hated corporate life. We loved wine. Fifteen years ago, we pooled our resources and bought the monastery, which had been empty since before the war, and we became monks.” He winked at Anna. “Rather informal monks, as you can see.”

She was looking puzzled. “Can I ask you a question? Didn’t any of you have wives?”

Father Gilbert leaned back in his chair and considered the shadows cast by the candlelight on the vaulted ceiling.
“That was another bond we discovered,” he said. “The delights of female companionship are not for us. Remind me—how is that described in your country?”

“Gay?” said Anna.

“Ah, yes. A most inappropriate use of a charming word.” He shook his head. “Gay. How ridiculous. I suppose, then, that one could say we are living in a state of perpetual gaiety. That will be a considerable comfort to us all, I’m sure.” He laughed and raised his glass to Anna. “Here’s to gay days, and many of them.”

The cheese was served, and was ceremoniously unwrapped from its covering of vine leaves. But the combination of too much hospitality and too little sleep had caused Anna and Bennett to fall silent, and then to droop. Fending off Brother Yves and his homemade absinthe, they followed Father Gilbert to the visitors’ cell in the dormitory wing. He left them with a fresh candle, and a cheerful warning that monastery life started shortly after dawn.

The cell was small and plain: a slit of a window, a table with a jug of water and a bowl, and two narrow bunks placed against opposite walls. Anna stretched out, moaning softly. “I think I may have had too much wine.” She sat up and studied her feet. “Do me a favor?”

“A glass of absinthe?”

Anna flinched at the thought. “Pull my boots off. I’ll never make it.”

Bennett tugged unsuccessfully at one close-fitting boot. “I’m going to have to do this the old-fashioned way,” he said. “Excuse the view.”

He turned his back to her, straddled her legs, bent over, and eased off the first boot.

“Bennett?” Anna’s voice was drowsy. “What you did today, what you’re doing … I appreciate it.”

“All part of the service.” He struggled with the other boot.

A soft, sleepy giggle. “And you have a pretty nice butt, for an Englishman.”

By the time he had lifted her feet onto the bunk, she was asleep. He reached down and stroked the hair from her forehead, and she smiled, rubbing her head against his hand like a cat, before turning on her side. He blew out the candle. In the warm darkness, he could hear the sound of her breathing. His last conscious thought was to remind himself to ask Father Gilbert if the monastery possessed such an amenity as a double bunk.

POLLUCE counted out the five-hundred-franc notes and watched the girl count them again, scarlet nails scratching against the paper, before folding them carefully and putting them in her bag. She had worked hard on him during the night. It had been a pleasant business transaction, at the end of a highly successful business day.

The girl let herself out of the suite, and Polluce picked up the phone to order breakfast. From his window, he could see the Vieux Port and the dark-blue sweep of the Mediterranean beyond. It would be hot again, perfect weather for lunch in the garden at Passédat before flying back to Corsica. Polluce had always liked Marseille.

He showered and shaved and dressed, taking pleasure in the featherweight pale-blue voile of his shirt and the discreet sheen of his linen suit. A man should dress appropriately for his age, he believed. Not like that buffoon Tuzzi, with his absurd caftans and shirts open to his hairy navel. He made a final adjustment to the show of his shirt cuffs, and went to answer the waiter’s knock on the door.

Over breakfast, Polluce allowed himself to speculate
on the opportunities for mischief and money that the formula would present to him and his colleagues in the Union Corse. Like their fathers and grandfathers before them, they had no great love for their neighbors on the French mainland. Good Corsicans, true Corsicans, wanted independence. If the French wouldn’t grant it, then it would have to be taken.

Polluce, who seldom showed any emotion, smiled at the thought of manipulating the French truffle market and extracting millions from French pockets. No doubt the Union would see fit to contribute some of these profits to the Corsican nationalist movement and cause more trouble for the French, trouble funded by their own money. Polluce very nearly laughed, for the first time since his shrew of a mother-in-law had been overcome by too many glasses of Porto, fallen off a barstool in Bastía, and passed away, many years before.

He looked at his watch. In half an hour, he would have the results of the analysis he had ordered the previous afternoon. There was just time for a cigar. Normally, he would never permit himself such a luxury before lunch, but this was a special day, a day of celebration and indulgence. He took a Montecristo from a case of buffed leather and squeezed it gently: fat, almost juicy. Clipping off the end, he lit it carefully and drew in the first mouthful of heavy, fragrant smoke.

The ash was getting close to the chocolate-colored band with the simple white letters that Polluce found so plain and pleasing, and he was taking in a final mouth-filling
puff, when his visitors arrived: Bruno, his young cousin and personal bodyguard, and Arrighi, the analytical chemist, a gaunt, long-faced man wearing somber clothes and a lugubrious air.

After the pleasantries, Arrighi put the case down, looked at Polluce, and shook his head slowly from side to side. “I regret to tell you that this”—he waved a contemptuous hand at the case—“is not what we were expecting it to be. The documents are meaningless. A collection of statistics that one could obtain for a hundred francs from the Société Agricole.”

There was no change in Polluce’s expression as he laid his cigar to rest. “And the serum?”

“Water, mixed with ordinary herbicide. All it would do is kill a few weeds.” He spread his hands wide and raised his bony shoulders. “I am desolated.”

Polluce stared out the window, his face tight with the effort of concealing his anger. That Italian clod and his tame aristocrat, they must have known. They had deceived him. Controlling the outrage that only a crook can feel when swindled by other crooks, he dismissed Arrighi and told Bruno to wait downstairs with the car.

He placed a call to Tuzzi’s office in Cannes and was patched through to the
Ragazza
.

“Tuzzi? Polluce.”

“Eh, my friend, how are you? Missing life at sea?” Tuzzi put his hand over the mouthpiece and told a deckhand to fetch Lord Glebe.

“I think you know why I’m calling.”

Tuzzi did his best to sound puzzled. “Did you leave something on the boat?”

“No games, Tuzzi. I had the formula analyzed. It’s
merde
. It’s weedkiller.”

There was an explosion of bogus surprise from Tuzzi. “This I cannot believe!
Non è possibile!
Wait—here is coming Glebe.” Taking care to speak loud enough to be heard on the other end of the line, he launched into a torrent of explanation. “My friend Polluce, he says the formula is no good, there has been a trick. He has been bimboozled! He is in shock. I am in shock. What can we do? I swore on the head of my mother. My good name has been dragged in the pavement—”

“Gutter, old boy,” said Glebe. “Here, let me speak to him.”

Tuzzi passed over the phone and leaned forward attentively as Glebe began the story that they had agreed on the night before.

“Glebe here, Mr. Polluce. This is all most unfortunate, I must say.
Most
unfortunate. But it explains certain events that have occurred here on the
Ragazza
, events that have been puzzling us since last night. Do you remember the Englishman Bennett, and the girl?”

“Of course.”

“When I returned from our little meeting in Marseille yesterday, they had disappeared—secretly, and in a hurry. Nobody saw them go, and they left everything in their cabins. We believe they must have swum ashore. Are you with me, Mr. Polluce?”

Polluce was going to have to report this to his Union colleagues. He began to take notes. “Continue.”

“Now it makes sense, d’you see? They must have taken the contents of the case—the real formula—and replaced them with counterfeit material.” Glebe’s voice became indignant. “Mr. Polluce, we have all been deceived. All of us,” he repeated solemnly. “They must be brought to justice. They must suffer consequences.” Glebe frowned at Tuzzi, who was pumping a fist in the air and smiling broadly. Damned excitable Italians.

“They will suffer,” said Polluce. “But we have to find them.”

“I don’t think they’ll have gone too far. They were in such a hurry they left their passports behind. We found them in their cabins.”

“They may be forgeries.”

“Impossible,” said Glebe. “One of them is British.”

Polluce scrawled a name on his notepad. “Get them to me. I have associates in the police. With the passports, they will have something to work with.”

“The police?” said Glebe. “Don’t know about that, old boy. Do you really think we ought to involve them?” Tuzzi was shaking his head violently, an expression of horror on his face.

“Monsieur Glebe, half the police in Cannes are Corsican, some true Corsicans among them. We have collaborated in the past.”

Glebe looked at Tuzzi and nodded. “Splendid, splendid. That’s settled, then. Marching shoulder-to-shoulder
with the boys in blue. We’ll put in to the nearest port immediately, and you shall have the passports by tonight. Where are you staying?”

Polluce gave the address and phone number of his hotel. “By tonight, yes?”

“An Englishman’s word is his bond, my dear Polluce.”

“Does that apply to Bennett?”

“Afraid he’s a bounder. Probably got smacked by his nanny, or went to the wrong school.”

“Merde.”
Polluce replaced the phone in disgust and went downstairs to his car. On a matter of this importance, it would be best to speak to the captain face-to-face. He told Bruno to turn up the air-conditioning and head for Cannes.

——

Tuzzi leaned over and pinched Lord Glebe on the cheek, a mark of approval that his lordship found thoroughly distasteful. “Bravo, my friend, bravo. What a performance! I think I call you Machiavelli.”

Glebe wiped his cheek and lit a cheroot. “It did seem to go rather well, I must say. We’ll leave it for twenty-four hours, and then call Polluce and tell him that we’ve found out Bennett’s working for Poe. That should put the cat among the pigeons.”

“Pigeons?”

“Never mind, Enzo, never mind. Figure of speech.” Glebe blew a plume of smoke into the still air and smiled.
“I dare say, in all the excitement, you’ve overlooked the most important thing.”