Murder in the Sentier (15 page)

“You look so much like her … the resemblance is amazing!”

A cold shiver ran through Aimée.

“What do you mean?”

Frédo joined them. “You’re her daughter,
non
?”

“Who?” Her hand shook, she couldn’t help it.

“
Tiens!
You’re Sydney’s daughter!” Surprised, she noticed that their looks were welcoming instead of accusing. Finally, she’d found a connection to her mother. A positive one!

“Amazing!” Frédo stood, beaming at her. “That look. So innocent and wild … you have it. But of course, I should know, eh? We were intimate.”

Wednesday Night

A
IMÉE TOOK A LONG
swallow, then passed the green bottle of Pernod to Frédo beside her on the couch. The licorice smell didn’t even bother her anymore. Normally, it shriveled her taste buds.

Had she arrived on another planet? Finally she sat with people who’d known her mother, loved her, and talked about her.

“What luck our paths crossed, Marie!” Frédo said. “So you coordinate magazine photo shoots, eh?”

Aimée hoped her wince didn’t show. “Crazy job. These art directors … so fickle, they changed their mind. Found another site on Boulevard de Sébastopol.”

“But we found you!” Georges said, leaning forward from his perch on the cheap desk. He had a plastic bag of ice on his swollen nose. “Uncanny! Such a resemblance to your mother!”

Why had no one ever told her that?

Aimée put her hand out for another swig. Her trembling was controlled now. She took several deep gulps. On the wall was a framed yellowed notice from December 1981 titled “Our Sentier Initiative”:

‘Action-Réaction will organize the occupation of numerous secret ateliers or sweatshops in addition to helping rehouse a hundred or more foreigners: Turkish families, Senegalese, and refugees fleeing U.S. imperialism.

“Such an inspiration, you know,” Georges said. “She surprised us. We thought she was soft, but she took action. So dedicated to the cause in her own way.”

Dying to find out more, she figured she’d better not appear too eager.

“We’ve been out of contact,” she said. “I’m trying to find her.”

“Let’s see, she went to Spain….”

“No, Greece with Jules,” Georges interrupted. “But that was in the seventies.”

Aimée’s heart slowed. These men were out of date. Years out of date.

“Jules?”

“Jules Bourdon.”

In the background, a radio played a plaintive Mozart aria Aimée recognized from
The Magic Flute
. Pamina’s mother’s voice trilled and vibrated, mourning the disappearance of her daughter, the daughter whom she’d tried to coerce to kill the rival king.

Aimée’s grandfather had played the vinyl record on Saturday mornings. She’d heard the strains when she returned from her piano lesson and waited on the steps with the bag of warm
brioches
in her arms, until the aria had ended. As she didn’t understand German, she’d only learned the story years later. And figured out why her grandfather changed the record when she returned. The evil mother sacrifices her daughter … maybe that came too close to home.

“You’re off there, Georges,” Frédo said. “She did time in Frésnes.” His mouth tapered into a thin line. “We all did. Wasn’t she involved in the squats we organized in the eighties?”

“You’re asking me?” Georges didn’t wait for an answer. “We were in Frésnes together in the eighties, Frédo!”

Bickering like an old married couple, she thought.

“Sydney flitted like a butterfly … from thing to thing,” Frédo said. “Charming and elusive. One never knew her reality.”

“But I heard she was involved with Haader-Rofmein,” Aimée said.

“Didn’t you know, Marie?”

“Know what?” Had Liane lied to her?

Silence. Georges took a big drink.

Frédo looked down. “What difference does it make now?”

Her heart hammered at his ominous tone.

“Tell me … she died?”

“Rumor had it she went to find Jules. He became a mercenary
en Afrique.
”

“
Afrique?
”

“Old revolutionaries never die,” Frédo said. “They just fade away. Though some change colors.”

The room’s atmosphere, close and stale, the glare from the hanging bulb, the tang of the Pernod and the whining violin made her claustrophobic.

She got off the sagging sofa. People changed, moved on, evolved. Most of the former radicals probably had mortgages paid off and grandchildren. Not these men. They seemed stuck in a time warp.

“Look at the former Maoists and anarchists in the Green Party or even in ministry positions,” Aimée said. “Even Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Danny the Red, he’s a European Parliament minister!”

Frédo stood up. “We’ve got to get these ready for the
congrès
in Strasbourg,” he said, piling lists of signed petitions inside boxes.

“When did you last see my mother?”

Instead of answering, Georges motioned her outside. The dark courtyard held a welcome coolness. Water plopped from a mossy tap into a grooved marble urn. Probably the original water source, Aimée thought.

“He was more than a little in love with her,” Georges said. “We all were.”

Jealousy stabbed her. What right had these old radicals, these losers, to say that … had they ever really known her? Aimée’s words caught in her throat. Pangs of bitterness hit her. Even though she was Sydney’s daughter, she didn’t know her.

“I’m sorry, Georges, I just want to learn everything I can,” Aimée said. “She left us when I was young.”

“Some women have the equipment but they’re not made to mother,” he said. He turned away.

She couldn’t see his face.

“You’re better off if you realize that.”

Aimée tried to catch his expression.

“Was she a drug mule?”

“We’re talking about the seventies. Who wasn’t into drugs, eh?” Georges said, throwing up his arms. “People were politicized in prison, their awareness heightened. Focused on the movement’s issues. Right now, two Action-Réaction members have been kept in solitary since 1987. They got married last year.
Alors
, the governor gave them a whole half hour!”

Georges snorted, then squinted as he moved the ice pack up his nose. “It’s a blatant violation of the most basic human rights. We’re protesting outside Strasbourg prison, presenting a petition to the World Court in The Hague.”

Maybe they weren’t the losers she’d thought. They’d stayed committed and dedicated to social change for more than twenty years.

“What about the protests against the World Trade Organization at the Palais des Congrès?”

“Tell me about it, eh!” Georges pointed to his nose. “This shiner’s courtesy of the CRS
^*
riot squad,” he said readjusting the ice. “I’m getting too old for this.”

She remembered the newspaper headline about the nerve gas Sarin. “What about that rumor of a copycat attack on the Metro, like that Japanese cult.”

“Not Action-Réaction,” Georges said. “We’re for political change, not terrorism; that faction split off in the eighties.” Georges pointed to the buildings surrounding the courtyard. “But it’s a tradition in my family. Socialists for generations. Even an anarchist or two. During the Occupation, the Resistance had a stronghold here, courtesy of my uncle’s printing press. Funny thing is, a German headquarters was at the other end of the courtyard.”

^*
Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité

He stood straighter and grinned. “Before the war, the Sentier was home to newspapers and honeycombed with small presses, my uncle once told me. During power cutoffs, they’d print
Combat
, the clandestine Resistance newspaper, and counterfeit identification papers, by pedaling bicycles hooked up to the presses. In the eighties we squatted in the derelict buildings peppering the Sentier, agitating to rehouse the
sans-papiers
.”

Aimée touched the cold, worn stone and wondered why her mother had gotten involved.

“Some of the old machines were left in the basement,” Georges said. He rubbed his tired eyes. “We still use them. Same struggle against tyranny and oppression.”

He made a
pfft
sound, shrugged. “
Alors
, it’s a tradition in this blue-collar
quartier
. Revolution has been fomented here since the Bastille. In central Paris one works hard to stay afloat: shop owners, printing presses, the rag and shag trade, right next to couture houses and the Bourse. But now that the dot-coms have moved in, things may change.”

She’d seen the nonstop activity in the streets, felt the pulse. The people who lived here worked here, a remnant of old Paris.

All true but none of this got her closer to her mother or her ties to Jutta. Then a thought occurred to her. Romain Figeac was an old radical, he’d lived a few blocks away, and his wife was rumored to have been pregnant with a terrorist’s child.

“But you must have known Romain Figeac … wasn’t he involved in Action-Réaction?”

Georges frowned. “Figeac held a grudge against us after his wife left him. Blamed us. Never got over it,” he said. “Like me, he’s a grown-up
titi
from the
quartier
. He supported the movement at first. When it was fashionable, he housed us all.”

Now she was getting somewhere.

“Did Figeac know my mother? I heard she helped Sartre with Haader’s interview about agit888. Do you know about it?”

“An article?” He shrugged. “There were parties at Figeac’s apartment. Everyone went. But your mother and Jana, Figeac’s wife, never got along.”

“What do you mean?”

“She thought Jana was too hard-core, too irrational, and took too many drugs,” he said. “But that’s all I remember.”

“Georges, did you know Jutta Hald?”

Sadness crossed his face. “Radicals pass through here all the time. But I’m not into violence. Our group never was … like I said, we split from the terrorists.”

“Jutta just got out of prison, did you see her?”

“My grandson said she came by, but I was at the
manif
demonstration.”

“Did she leave you a message?”

Georges shook his head. “Why would someone kill her?”

Before she could say she’d found Jutta, he spoke.

“Why don’t you help us?” he asked. “Like your mother.”

Startled, she leaned against the dank wall for support. “What do you mean?”

“Provide places to stay for those who’ve gone underground,” he said. “In the seventies we had a goal. We still do.”

“But I don’t …”

“There’s someone now. If you want to know about Jules, he’s the one to ask,” Georges interrupted.

“Who?”

“No names.”

He was right. It was better not to know.

“And my mother …?” She felt Georges had deliberately left things out, withheld information.

“Her life was revolution and art,” he said. “So you’ll help?”

She looked down and nodded. She had to find out about Jules. “Call me,” she said and gave him her cell phone number.

“Is your name Marie?”

“Non.”

“I didn’t think so,” he said, his mouth in a lopsided grin. “Like mother, like daughter.”

S
HE CHECKED
her messages. Only one from Etienne, to meet at Rouge.

The bouncer, a massive, bald, ebony-skinned man with an earring and leather vest, stood guard at the door. A line of fashionable people waiting to enter the members-only club trailed around the corner.

“Your name?” The bouncer gripped her by the shoulder.

“Aimée, Etienne Mabry’s guest.”

“Let me check,” he said. He spoke into a walkie-talkie.

Outside the club, the faded blue letters of an old hotel sign trailed across lichen-covered stone.

“Just left on his ’arley,” he said in a broad Guadeloupe accent.

“Alone?”

His eyes shuttered.

“Masculine or feminine, that’s all I want to know,” Aimée said, wondering if he’d met up with Christian. “Several of us were meeting.”

“Very feminine.”

“For your help,
merci
.” Aimée smiled. Of course, he’d attract women like Velcro. She’d had her chance, sort of, but the timing had been off.

The bouncer winked, then turned to open the door of a Mercedes limo that had just pulled up.

* * *

A
IMÉE WANTED
to go home and research Jules but something nagged at her. On her way back, she stopped at Romain Figeac’s apartment on rue de Clery. Despite the darkness, she’d try once more to discover tapes, or anything she might have overlooked.

She stepped over the police tape. Using her penlight and the one remaining lamp that shone, she pulled latex gloves from her bag and shuffled through the charred debris. Wet ash, muck, and smokiness pervaded the gutted rooms. Romain Figeac’s leather chair was turned upside down. She pulled out her Swiss Army knife, righted the chair, and checked the seams. But someone else had beaten her to it. A clean slice round the leather. She reached in, felt only soggy ticking and wire springs.

What a waste, she thought. Figeac’s work, gone or destroyed. Everything floated midair, aloft. Out of her reach. She wasn’t even sure of what she searched for.

This fire made no sense to her … if someone was seeking valuables in the apartment, why burn it up?

She turned the chair upside down again, leaned against its wooden legs, and thought over what Georges had said. His conversation reinforced feelings she’d kept buried. Or tried to.

Her mother had risen above a mundane life of domestic worries and child care, devoting her time to fighting injustice. Imbibing new-found excitement in the heady seventies radical existence. Taking lovers, living in a commune, making art.

Her mother was no innocent. She’d been a drug mule, according to Jutta. A terrorist.

An addict?

Jutta had probably touched only the tip of the iceberg. Too bad her brains had been splattered on the stones of the Tour Jean-Sans-Peur before Aimée could find out what she’d known.

No answers. Only thoughts of a skinny woman with a faint, lingering scent of
muguets
, who at this moment could be roaming the backstreets of Africa.

She found a broom in a closet. With slow strokes, she swept the muck into a pile, then sifted it through her gloved hands.

All she found were blackened rattan and burnt jacquard drapery pieces. Mildewed, and home to a mouse nest.

But what if the arsonist hadn’t found Romain Figeac’s work either?

She tried to think as if she were Figeac … tried to relate to a washed-up writer, once a radical, who’d nursed thoughts of revenge upon those who ruined his wife. For the next hour, she raked through every crackled drawer, charred closet, and blistered wallpaper seam, even climbing on piled-up chairs to unscrew the faux ceiling plate from which the blackened and dust-covered chandelier hung.