Chourmo (11 page)

I was just like her. And what I was becoming was nothing, or almost. With fewer illusions and more of a smile, maybe. I was sure I'd never really understood anything that had happened in my life. And anyhow, the Planier no longer lighted the way for ships. It was disused. But it was my only belief, that there was something out there, beyond the sea. I remembered a line by Louis Brauquier, my favorite Marseilles poet.

 

I shall return to run aground in the midst of the ships.

 

Yes, I told myself, when I'm dead, I'll embark on a freighter and set sail for my childhood dreams. Finally at peace. I finished my coffee and went out to see Fonfon.

 

Nobody had been waiting for me by my car, when I'd left Chez Félix at one in the morning. Nobody had followed me either. I don't scare easily but, once past the Madrague de Montredon, in the far south east of Marseilles, the road that leads to Les Goudes can be quite hair-raising at night. The landscape is as empty as the surface of the moon. The houses stop near the
calanque
of Samena. After that, there's nothing. The road is narrow, twisting and turning alongside the sea just a few dozen feet above the rocks. Those two miles had never seemed so long. I was anxious to get home.

Gélou was asleep, with the bedside lamp still on. She must have waited for me. She was rolled in a ball, her right hand clutching the pillow like a life preserver. In her sleep, I imagined, she was shipwrecked. I switched off the lamp. That was all I could do for her right now.

I'd poured myself a glass of Lagavulin and had settled down for a night on the couch with Conrad's
Within the Tides
. A book I constantly reread at night. It calms me down and helps me get to sleep. Just as the poems of Brauquier help me live. But my mind was elsewhere. In the land of men. I had to find Guitou and bring him back to Gélou. As simple as that. Then I'd have to have a talk with her, even though I was sure she'd already realized the most important thing. If you have a child, you should go all the way with him, because he deserves it. No woman had ever given me the opportunity to be a father, but I was convinced of that. I didn't suppose it was ever easy to raise a child. There was always pain involved. But it was worth it. If love had a future.

I'd fallen asleep and woken again almost immediately. My anxiety went deeper. I was thinking about Serge's death. And all the things it had brought back to the surface. Like Arno, and Pavie, lost somewhere in the night. All the things it had set in motion too. Why had two mobsters been tailing me? It had to be because of that. Because of what Serge had been up to. I couldn't see what connection there was between fanatical Islamists and the Var underworld. But on this coast, from Marseilles to Nice, anything was possible. You wouldn't believe the things that had happened. And it was always easy to imagine the worst.

It seemed strange to me that I hadn't come across an address book, a notebook, anything like that. Or even just a sheet of paper. Maybe, I'd told myself, Balducci and his pal had gotten there before me. I'd arrived too late. But I couldn't remember seeing or passing a Safrane on my way to the old mill. All that literature about the Islamists must mean something.

I'd poured myself a second glass of Lagavulin and started reading the newspapers and press cuttings I'd brought with me. The gist of what I read was that there were several paths that Islam could take these days in its relationship with Europe. The first was the Dar al-Suhl, literally, the “land of contract,” in which Muslims had to conform to the laws of the country. The second was the Dar al-Islam, in which Islam had to become the majority religion. This was the theme of an article by Habib Mokni, an activist of the Tunisian Islamist movement who'd sought refuge in France. That was in 1988.

Since then, the fundamentalists had rejected the Dar al-Suhl. Europe, and especially France, had become a base from which they could launch actions intended to destabilize their countries of origin. The terrorist attack on the hotel Atlas Asni in Marrakesh in August 1994 had been planned in a housing project in La Courneuve. This conjunction of aims had led us, the Europeans, and them, the fundamentalists, to a third path, that of the Dar al-Harb, “the land of war,” as the Koran put it.

Since the wave of attacks in Paris in the summer of '95, it had become impossible to hide our heads in the sand anymore. A war had started on our soil. A dirty war. The heroes of which, like Khaled Kelkal, had grown up in the suburbs of Paris or Lyons. Could North Marseilles also be a breeding ground for “holy warriors”? Was that the question Serge had been trying to answer? But why? And on whose behalf?

On the last page of Habib Mokni's article, Serge had written in the margin: “Its most visible victims are those killed in terrorist attacks. Others fall without any apparent connection.” He had also underlined with a yellow marker a quotation from the Koran: “Until you can clearly distinguish the white thread from the black thread.” That was all.

Exhausted, I'd closed my eyes. And was immediately swallowed by a vast web of black and white threads. Next, I was lost in the craziest maze you could imagine. A real hall of mirrors. But it wasn't my own image that the mirrors reflected back to me. It was images of friends I'd lost, women I'd loved. I was pushed from one to the other. There was a blackboard covered with names and faces. I was moving forward like a ball in a pinball game. I was inside a pinball machine. I'd woken up in a sweat. I was being shaken energetically.

I came to.

Gélou was standing there in front of me, with sleepy eyes.

“Are you all right?” she'd asked anxiously. “You were shouting.”

“I'm all right. I was having a nightmare. It always happens when I sleep on this damn couch.”

She'd looked at the bottle of whisky and my empty glass. “And when you've had a few too many.”

I'd shrugged and sat up. My head felt heavy. I was returning to earth. It was four in the morning.

“I'm sorry.”

“Come and sleep with me. It'll be better for you.”

She'd pulled me by the hand. As gentle and warm as when she was eighteen. Sensual and maternal. Guitou must have learned gentleness from those hands touching his cheeks, those lips kissing him on the forehead. Why had those two grown apart? Why, dammit?

In bed, Gélou had turned away and immediately fallen asleep again. I hadn't dared move, for fear of waking her again.

I must have been twelve the last time we'd slept together. It often happened, when we were children. Almost every Saturday night in summer, the whole family gathered here in Les Goudes. We children were put to sleep on the floor, on mattresses. Gélou and I were the first to go to bed. We'd fall asleep holding hands, listening to our parents laughing and singing
Maruzzella
,
Guaglione
and other Neapolitan songs made popular by Renato Carosone.

Later, when my mother fell ill, Gélou started coming to the house two or three times a week. She'd do the washing and ironing and make dinner. She was almost sixteen. As soon as we were in bed, she'd huddle against me and we'd tell each other horror stories and scare each other to death. Then she'd slide her leg between mine, and we'd hug each other even tighter. I'd feel her breasts, already well developed, the hard nipples against my chest. It got me really aroused, and she knew it. But of course we never talked about it, because these were things that still belonged to the adult world. And we'd fall asleep like that, feeling tender and confident.

I'd turned gently, to dismiss these memories, which were as fragile as crystal. To repress the desire to place my hand on her shoulder and take her in my arms. Like before. Just to chase away our fears.

I should have.

Fonfon said I looked terrible.

“Yeah,” I said, “you don't always choose the way you look.”

“Oh, I see monsieur slept badly too.”

I smiled, and sat down on the terrace. In my usual place. Facing the sea. Fonfon returned with a coffee and
Le Provençal
.

“Here! I made it strong. I don't know if it'll wake you up, but at least it may make you more civil.”

I opened the newspaper and looked to see if there was anything about Serge's murder. There was only a small item, which didn't go into detail and didn't make any comment. There wasn't even any mention of the fact that Serge had been a youth worker in the projects for several years. He was described as “unemployed” and the item ended with the laconic words: “The police are inclined to the theory of a gang slaying.” Pertin's report must have been extremely brief. If this was a gang-related murder, it meant there wouldn't be an investigation. And that Pertin was keeping the case for himself, like a dog chewing a bone. The bone in question could well be me.

As I stood up to fetch
La Marseillaise
, I automatically turned the page. The headline at the top of page 5 rooted me to the spot. “Double Murder in the Panier: The Half-Naked Body of an Unidentified Young Man.” In the center of the article, in a box, was a picture of the owner of the house: “The architect Adrien Fabre, deeply distressed.”

I sat down, stunned. Maybe it was just coincidence, I told myself. That was the only way I could read the article without shaking. I'd have given anything not to see those lines spread out in front of me. Because I knew what I was going to find. A shiver went down my spine. The Algerian historian Hocine Draoui, an expert on the ancient Mediterranean, had been staying for the past three months in the house of the well-known architect Adrien Fabre. Threatened with death by the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), Draoui, like a large number of Algerian intellectuals, had fled his country. He had recently asked for political asylum.

Naturally, suspicion had initially fallen on the FIS. But the investigators now thought this unlikely. So far, the FIS had only claimed responsibility—officially, at any rate—for one murder, that of Imam Sahraoui, in Paris on July 11 1995. Dozens of people like Hocine Draoui lived in France. Why him and not someone else? Besides, as Adrien Fabre stated, Draoui had never mentioned to him any immediate threat. He had only been worried about the fate of his wife, who had stayed behind in Algeria, and who was due to join him as soon as his status was decided.

Adrien Fabre talked about his friendship with Hocine Draoui. They had met for the first time in 1990, at a major conference on the theme of “Greek Marseilles and Gaul.” Draoui's work on the location of the port—first Phoenician, then Roman—was, according to Fabre, a major contribution to our knowledge of the city's history, and would help it to at last recover its memory. Under the title “In the Beginning Was the Sea,” the newspaper published extracts from Hocine Draoui's speech at the conference.

For the moment, the police were working on the theory that this was a burglary that had gone wrong. Burglaries were common in the Panier. Clearly a major obstacle to the policy of redeveloping the neighborhood. The newcomers, the majority of them middle class, were targeted by criminals, mostly young Arabs. Some houses had even been burglarized two or three times, at regular intervals, forcing the new owners to leave the Panier in disgust.

This was the first time the Fabres' house had been burglarized. Were they going to move? He and his wife and son were still too shocked to think about that.

There was still the mystery of the second body.

The Fabres did not know the young man, aged about sixteen, who had been found dead on the first floor, outside the door of their son's studio apartment, dressed only in his underwear. The investigators had searched the whole house and had found his clothes—a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, a jacket—and a small rucksack with toiletries and a change of clothes, but no wallet, not even any identity papers. His neck bore the marks of a chain that had been violently torn off.

According to Adrien Fabre, Hocine Draoui would never have brought someone into the house without telling them. Even a relative passing through, or a friend. If he'd had to do so, for whatever reason, he'd have phoned to Sanary first. He was very respectful of his hosts.

Who was the young man? Where was he from? What was he doing there? According to Chief Inspector Loubet, who was in charge of the investigation, the answers to these questions would be a great help in solving this tragic case.

I had those answers.

“Fonfon!”

Fonfon appeared with two cups of coffee on a tray.

“No need to shout, the coffee's ready! Look, I told myself you could probably use another coffee, a strong one. Here.” He put the tray down on the table. Then he looked at me. “Are you feeling all right? You've gone white!”

“Did you read the paper?”

“Haven't had time yet.”

I slid the newspaper toward him.

“Read this.”

He read it, slowly. I didn't touch my coffee. I couldn't move. Every inch of my body, down to my fingertips, was shaking.

“So?” he said, looking up.

I told him the story. Gélou. Guitou. Naïma.

“Shit!”

He looked at me, then went back to the article. As if reading it a second time could cancel out the awful truth.

“Give me a cognac.”

“There are lots of Fabres—” he began.

“In the phone book, I know. Just get me a cognac!”

I needed to melt the ice in my veins.

He came back with the bottle. I drank two glasses, straight down. With my eyes closed, holding on to the table with one hand. The world's corruption was moving faster than us. You could forget it, deny it, it always caught up with you in the end.

I drank a third cognac, and retched. I ran to the end of the terrace and threw up over the rocks. It was the world I was vomiting. Its inhumanity, and its pointless violence. A wave broke on the rocks, swallowing my vomit. I watched the white foam lick the crevices of the rocks and then withdraw. My stomach hurt. I wanted to vomit all my bitterness. But there was nothing left in me. Just an immense sadness.