Chourmo (14 page)

Cûc was waiting for me to react. I didn't. I was waiting. I wanted to understand.

“I'm telling you all this,” she went on, more confident now, not stumbling over the words anymore, “to show you that I care about the things I've achieved. And all the things I've achieved, I've achieved for Mathias. He's the most important thing in my life.”

“Did he ever know his father?” I said.

That threw her. Her hair fell back over her eyes, like a screen. “No . . . Why?”

“Guitou didn't know his either. Until Friday night, they had at least that much in common. And I don't suppose the relationship between Mathias and Adrien is an easy one.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because I heard Guitou's story yesterday and it was very similar. A guy who thinks he's your father. And the father you idolize. The mother you feel close to . . . ”

“I don't follow you.”

“Really? It's quite simple. Your husband didn't know that Mathias was lending his studio to Guitou for the weekend. It wasn't something he usually did. You were the only one who knew. And Hocine Draoui, of course. He was in on the secret. Because he was closer to you than your husband . . . ”

I'd gone a little too far. She stubbed out her cigarette vigorously and stood up. If she could have thrown me out, she'd have done it. But she needed me. She stood there facing me, just as composed as she'd been before. Just as upright. Just as proud.

“You're an oaf. But you're right. Except for one thing. Hocine only agreed to it, not because he was close to me, as you seem to think, but out of friendship for Mathias. He thought the young girl in question, Naïma, who was often here, was Mathias' friend. His . . . girlfriend. He didn't know about the other boy.”

“All right,” I said. She was looking at me intently, and I could feel how tense she was. “You didn't have to tell me your whole life story, just to tell me that.”

“So you don't understand anything.”

“I don't want to understand anything.”

She smiled, for the first time. Which suited her wonderfully.

“‘I don't want to understand anything.' You sound like a Bogart movie!”

“Thanks. But that still doesn't tell me what you're planning to do now.”

“What would you do in my place?”

“Call your husband. Then the police. As I told you earlier. Tell your husband the truth, find a plausible lie for the police.”

“Can you suggest one?”

“Hundreds. But
I'm
not good at lying.”

I didn't see the slap coming. I'd deserved it. Why had I said that? There was too much electricity between her and me, that was for sure. We were going to electrocute each other. And I didn't want that. We had to cut off the current.

“I'm sorry.”

“I'll give you two hours. After that, Chief Inspector Loubet will come knocking at your door.”

And I'd left to meet Loubet. Once outside, away from her field of attraction, I got a grip on myself. Cûc was an enigma. I sensed that there was another story behind the one she'd told me. There are no such things as innocent lies.

 

My eyes met Loubet's. He was looking at me.

“What do you think of this business?”

“Nothing. You're the cop, Loubet. You have all the cards, not me.”

“Don't bullshit me, Montale. You always had a point of view, even when your pockets were empty. And I know the wheels are going around in your head right now.”

“All right, then. As far as I can see, there's no connection between the murder of Hocine Draoui and the murder of Guitou. They weren't killed in the same way. I think Guitou just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. They had to kill him, but it was a mistake on their part.”

“You don't believe it was a burglary that went wrong?”

“There are always exceptions. Can I come back next week, boss?”

He smiled. “That's what I think too.”

Two Rastafarians crossed the terrace, trailing a smell of marijuana. One of them had recently appeared in a movie, but he wasn't making a song and dance about it. They went inside and sat down at the bar. The smell of marijuana tickled my nose. It was years since I'd stopped smoking it. But I missed the smell. Sometimes I smoked Camels to find it again.

“What do you know about Hocine Draoui?”

“Everything we know points to the fundamentalists coming here with the express purpose of liquidating him. First of all, he was a close friend of Azzedine Medjoubi, the dramatist who was recently murdered. Secondly, for years he was a member of the PAGS, the Vanguard Socialist Party. Today, he's mainly involved with the FAIS. The Federation of Algerian Artists, Intellectuals and Scientists. His name is on a list of people planning a meeting of the FAIS in Toulouse next month.

“In my opinion, he was a really brave guy, this Draoui. He came to France for the first time in 1990. He was here for a year, though he went back and forth a lot. He came back at the end of 1994, after being stabbed in a police station in Algiers. For a while his name had been at the top of the hit list. His house is under surveillance by the army twenty-four hours a day. When he arrived in France, he lived for a while in Lille, then in Paris, on tourist visas. Then his case was taken up by various committees supporting Algerian intellectuals in Marseilles.”

“And that's where he met Adrien Fabre.”

“They'd already met in 1990, at a conference about Marseilles.”

“That's right. He mentioned it in the newspaper.”

“They got along well. Fabre has been a human rights activist for years. That must have helped.”

“I didn't know he was an activist.”

“Only in the human rights field. He's not known to have any other political activities. He never has. Except in 1968. He was in the March 22 movement. He must have thrown a few paving stones at the police. Like any good student at the time.”

I looked at him. Loubet had taken a master's in law. He'd dreamed of being a lawyer. He'd become a cop. “I took the best paid job in the public sector,” he'd joked one day. But of course I hadn't believed him.

“Were you on the barricades?”

He smiled. “I spent most of my time getting laid. How about you?”

“I was never a student.”

“Where were you in '68?”

“In Djibouti. In the Colonial Army . . . Anyway, that kind of thing wasn't for us.”

“You mean, you, Ugo and Manu?”

“I mean there's no revolution in the world you can point to as an example. We didn't know a lot, but that much we knew. Beneath the paving stones there was never a beach. There was only power. The real fanatics always end up in the government, and they get a taste for it. The only people power corrupts are idealists. We were just punks. We liked easy money, girls, cars. We listened to John Coltrane. We read poetry. And we swam across the harbor. Having fun and showing off. That was all we asked out of life. We didn't hurt anyone, and we enjoyed it.”

“And then you became a cop.”

“I didn't exactly have many choices in my life. I believed in it. And I don't regret it. But you know . . . I didn't have the right mindset.”

We remained silent until Ange brought our coffees. The two Rastafarians had sat down on the terrace and were watching as José finished washing his car. As if he were a Martian, but with a touch of admiration, all the same. The roadmender looked at his watch.

“Hey! José! I'm finished here,” he said, emptying his glass. “I have to turn off the water.”

“I like it here,” Loubet said, stretching his legs.

He lit a cigarillo and breathed in the smoke slowly. I liked Loubet. He wasn't easy to get along with, but you knew you could trust him. In addition, he loved good food, which to me was essential. I don't trust people who don't eat a lot, or don't care what they eat. I was dying to question him about Cûc. To find out what he knew. But I didn't. Asking Loubet a question was like a boomerang, it always came back in your face.

“You hadn't finished telling me about Fabre.”

“Let's see . . . Middle class family. Started young. Now he's one of the most prominent architects, not only in Marseilles but all along the coast. Especially in the Var. A big practice. He specializes in major projects. Private and public. A lot of town councils call on his services.”

He went on to talk about Cûc, but what he said didn't tell me much. What more would I have liked to know? Details, basically. Just enough to get a clearer idea. An objective picture. Without any emotional baggage. I hadn't stopped thinking about her during the meal. I didn't like being under anyone's spell.

“She's a beautiful woman,” Loubet said, and looked at me with a smile that wasn't at all innocent. Did he somehow know I'd already met her?

“Really?” I replied, evasively.

He smiled again, looked at his watch, stubbed out his cigarillo, and leaned toward me.

“I have a favor to ask you, Montale.”

“Go ahead.”

“Let's keep Guitou's identity to ourselves. For a few days.”

That didn't surprise me. Guitou, because he was a “mistake” on the part of the killers, was a key element in the investigation. As soon as he was officially identified, things would change. The bastards who'd done it were bound to make a move.

“And what shall I tell my cousin?”

“It's your family. You'll know.”

“Easy for you to say.”

To be honest, it suited me too. Since this morning, I'd decided to put off as long as possible the day when I'd have to confront Gélou. I could guess how she'd react. It wouldn't be pleasant to see. Or to live through. She'd have to identify the body. There'd be formalities to deal with. The funeral. I knew that, the moment I told her, she'd be plunged into another world. A world of grief. A world where you grow old, for good. My beautiful cousin Gélou.

Loubet stood up and put his hand on my shoulder. His grip was firm.

“One more thing, Montale. Don't make this personal. Because of Guitou. I know what you're feeling. And I know you. So don't forget, this is my case. I'm a cop, you aren't. If you find out anything, call me. I'm picking up the tab. Ciao.”

I watched as he walked back along Rue du Petit-Puits. He strode resolutely, with his head held high and his shoulders thrown back. He was the living image of this city.

I lit a cigarette and closed my eyes. I immediately felt the gentle warmth of the sun on my face. It felt good. That was all I believed in. These moments of happiness. These crumbs from the world's plenty. All we had was what we could glean here and there. There were no more dreams left in this world. No more hope. And kids of sixteen could be killed for one reason or another. In the projects, coming out of a dance hall. Even in someone's house. Kids who'll never know the fleeting beauty of the world. Or the beauty of women.

No, I wasn't making this personal, because of Guitou. It was more than that. It was like a rush of blood to the head. I felt like weeping. “When you feel tears coming,” my mother had said once, stroking my head, “stop just in time, and everyone else will cry.” I must have been eleven or twelve. She was in bed, unable to move. She knew she was going to die soon. I guess I did too. But I hadn't understood what she meant. I was too young. Death, suffering, had no reality. I'd spent half my life crying, the other half refusing to cry. And I'd been screwed all down the line. By pain and suffering. By death.

Chourmo
by birth, I'd learned about friendship and loyalty on the streets of the Panier, on the wharves of La Joliette. And about pride on the Digue du Large, watching a freighter move out to sea and making vows. These were basic values. Things that couldn't be explained. When someone was in the shit, you helped them as if they were your own family. It was as simple as that. There were too many anxious, suffering mothers in this affair. Too many sad, lost, bewildered kids. And Guitou was dead.

Loubet would understand. I couldn't stay on the outside. Besides, he hadn't made me promise. He'd simply given me a piece of advice. He must have known I wouldn't take it. He must have expected I'd stick my nose where he couldn't put his. At least it suited me to think so, because that was precisely what I was planning to do. I had to get involved. I had to be loyal to my youth. Before growing old, for good. We all grow old, through our indifference, our abdication of responsibility, our cowardice. And our despair at being aware of it.

“We all grow old,” I said to Ange as I stood up.

He made no comment.

I
had two hours to spare before meeting Mourad. I knew what I had to do. Try to find Pavie. The words she'd written Serge worried me. It was clear that her life was still hell. The risk, now that Serge was dead, was that she would hook on to me. But I couldn't abandon her. Pavie and Arno: that was something I'd believed in.

I decided to try my luck at the last address I had for her. Rue des Mauvestis, on the other side of the Panier. Maybe, I told myself, she'll be able to tell me what Serge had been up to. The fact that she'd known where to reach him must have meant they were still seeing each other.

The Panier was like one gigantic construction site. The redevelopment was in full swing. Anybody could buy a house here for next to nothing and then get it all back again in special loans from City Hall. Houses were being demolished, even parts of whole streets, to create pretty little squares, and to bring light to a neighborhood that has always been a warren of dark, narrow alleys.

Yellow and ocher were starting to be the dominant colors. Italian Marseilles. With the same smells, the same laughter, the same sounds of voices you'd find on the streets of Naples, Palermo or Rome. The same fatalistic attitude toward life too. The Panier would stay the Panier. You couldn't change its history, any more than you could change the history of the city. Throughout the centuries people had been landing here without a penny in their pockets. It was a neighborhood of exiles. Of immigrants and sailors, the persecuted and the homeless. A neighborhood of the poor. Like the Grands-Carmes, behind Place d'Aix. Or Cours Belzunce, and the alleys that climb gently toward Saint-Charles Station.