The Blood of Lorraine (24 page)

“Maman, Maman.” The altar became a blur as tears filled Clarie’s eyes. Could it be possible that her mother was in heaven watching over her, praying for her, sheltering her son? Clarie swiped her hand across her nose and cheeks, and began to search frantically for a coin in the little sack hanging on her wrist. When she found it, she dropped it into the vertical slot of the tin box beneath three rows of candles flickering in their blood-red glasses. Madeleine steadied her hand as she took a straw and transferred the flame from one burning candle to a fresh wick. Still sobbing, Clarie fell to her knees in front of Bernadette and the Blessed Virgin, and Madeleine Froment knelt beside her.

Friday, December 7

E
ARLY
F
RIDAY MORNING
, J
ACQUETTE ARRIVED
bearing two gifts. The first was expected. Still, Martin received the good news with a sigh of gratitude. The rabbi had been wrong: Thursday had passed, and no one had been murdered or even threatened with violence.

“And what else?” Martin asked, impatient. His sense of relief had evaporated before he could sustain even the slightest pleasure from it, leaving a hard, leaden taste in his mouth. The reality was that Martin did expect that, sooner or later, on Thursday or Monday or any other day, unless they caught the murderer, there would be more killings. They desperately needed a break in the case.

“I believe we have an informer.”

“Here? Now? A witness?” Martin got out of his chair, as if ready to go to the door himself.

Jacquette held up his hand. “Not exactly.”

“Well, then?” Martin stopped short. “Who?” It wasn’t like Jacquette to be coy.

“I just want to prepare you to meet him before we think about how we can use him.”

“I’m perfectly capable of deciding how to use a witness.” Martin threw himself into his seat, thoroughly annoyed.

“They call him Shlomo the Red Dwarf.”

Martin slumped back.
A dwarf? A red dwarf
? His frustrations would have gotten the better of him if he hadn’t noted how eagerness, triumph and anxiety were vying for dominance in Jacquette’s usually placid face. Obviously the man thought he had found a treasure, and he was groping for a way to convince Martin of its worth. The police, of course, relied on any number of degenerates and small-time crooks to help them solve the tawdry crimes that were their stock in trade. But to use one of them to solve the murder of two prominent men? “Sit,” Martin commanded, giving in. He’d hear Jacquette out.

Jacquette reached into his pocket for the comfort of a Blue Jockey as he bent into the seat. He held the cigarette suspended between two fingers as he began. “I wanted to prepare you because at first sight you might think I picked him up at the circus or off the street for begging.” With the deft thumbnail of his left hand, Jacquette struck a match and lit up. “In fact, one of my men caught him trying to filch a pen and paper from the Papeterie by the railroad. Our dwarf claimed that he needed supplies for the ‘translations’ he does for his community. ‘His community.’ Those words caught me, I’ll tell you. And the reason that François thought I would be interested in the first place was that this little fellow speaks French as well as German, and apparently all the other languages of the Israelites. And, what is better, he loves to talk, willing to tell you everything he knows. He’s the kind of guy who for a few sous or a little ‘consideration’ can keep us informed about certain ‘types’ for years.” Having rammed through his argument, Jacquette took a well-deserved pull from his cigarette.

“What makes you think he knows anything about Ullmann or Erlanger?”

“I’m not sure he does,” Jacquette conceded as he emitted a line of smoke from the side of his mouth. “But you know, sir, I think it’s time to look the other way. To see if there is some reason that the Israelites might have for killing their own.”

And go against the wishes of Didier and Singer. And deny the righteous anger of the rabbi and the Widow Ullmann.

“He told me—I swear this fellow cannot keep from talking—that he would be our guide to the ‘other half ’ of the Israelite community. He says unless you know these Jews, you don’t know what a Jew is. Maybe we can pick up something from him. Some hate. Some resentment. Maybe, for a little ‘consideration,’ he can help us hire a few other sets of eyes to be on the alert as they go out on the street with their carts, selling and begging.”

How ironic, Martin thought. The mad priest Hémonet accused the poor Jews of spying for their rich co-religionists. Now Jacquette wanted to turn them into police informers. Martin ran his fingers through his hair, wondering, not for the first time, if it had not grown thinner and grayer in the last few weeks, if this case and his own suffocating sadness had not aged him and made him dull when he needed to be sharp. Jacquette wanted to do some real police work, the kind he and his men thrived on. The inspector didn’t give a jot for the politics of the courthouse. Neither had Martin, before this case. What if this case was no different from any other? Envy, greed, humiliation: Isn’t that why people usually killed?

Martin relaxed back into his seat and crossed his arms. “What have you asked him so far?”

“Nothing about the murders. I thought I’d let you put a scare into him. That might guarantee that he’s not just telling us stories, once we get him talking.”

Martin liked that. That he would “put a scare” into someone. Evidently he was not so far off his game that his subordinates would notice. And, if Jacquette was so sure that his find could be of value, why not? “Let’s take a look at this Shlomo.”

While Jacquette bounded out of his chambers, Martin straightened out his desk and asked Charpentier to be ready to take notes. Martin wanted to leave no doubt that he was in command, official, and quite possibly threatening.

When the door opened again, Martin understood why Jacquette had prepared him. Barely a meter tall, Shlomo the Red Dwarf rolled in slowly, swaying from side to side, with the aid of a cane that looked like someone had sawed it in half to accommodate the man’s shrunken legs. At least he was not really red, for his skin, or what little Martin could see of it, bore merely the yellowish pallor of the poor and the sickly. Clearly it was the hair that endowed him with his strange nickname. The unkempt frizzy beard that covered most of his face was blazing orange. Once the man had limped halfway into the room, he planted his cane to give him momentary balance and used his free hand to swoop off his dented, broad-brimmed black felt hat. He moved this oversized dilapidated headgear to his heart as he bowed. “Monsieur le juge, I am honored to be in your presence.” The hair that jutted out in all directions from the top of his head looked like it had caught on fire.

Martin glanced at Jacquette, who towered behind the witness. The inspector could not suppress a mischievous grin. Martin could well imagine what Charpentier was thinking behind him. He hoped he wasn’t smirking.

“Monsieur—” Martin remained seated. This was not the kind of witness that one rose to greet.

“Shlomo, Simon Shlomo at your service.” The man’s outsized head and hands seemed to dominate his diminutive body. His face was so broad, it was as if it, like his shrunken legs, had been compressed by some terrible accident of birth. Across this wide expanse, his mouth stretched into a perpetual smile. Martin knew the expression well. It was the smile of the ugly and the deformed, whose very existence depended upon their ability to please and keep on pleasing. The pleasers were not always the most dependable witnesses. Anything this man said would require corroboration.

“Monsieur Shlomo,” Martin said evenly, “would you like to take a seat?”

The dwarf advanced a few steps, eyed the chair, and shook his head. Martin saw then that for the dwarf getting up on the chair might be a difficult, even humiliating venture. But, like so many of the world’s unfortunates, who suffered more than their due of humbling experiences, Shlomo had the wit to disguise his embarrassment.

“In front of Your Eminence, I prefer to stand,” he said with another bow. The high singsong voice, like the man, was not fully grown. It emanated from somewhere behind his large, hooked nose, and floated out through his yellow-toothed grin. Martin could well imagine the dwarf speaking in rhythms and tongues, telling jokes, or performing tricks before a crowd, and then laying the dented hat on the ground, like a wishing well, waiting for the coins to fall.

Martin had every reason to be wary. “May I see your identity card?”

“Of course, Monsieur le juge, of course. At your service.” The man hobbled a little closer. Leaning against the desk, he reached into his patched brown wool coat and pulled out a tattered leather wallet, thick with documents. He laid it on Martin’s desk and nudged it forward, as if aware that His Eminence, the judge, would not actually want to touch him.

Martin stood up and flipped through it, amazed by what it contained. The man had crossed the borders of the Ottoman and the Russian Empires, he had sojourned in Austria-Hungary and Germany, Belgium and Holland. And somehow they had let him into France.

“
Lebn vi Got in Frankraykh
,” Shlomo declared, as if explaining his impressive travels.

“What?” Martin looked up sharply.

“Lebn vi Got in Frankraykh. It is one of our sayings in Russia. Live like God in France. I feel I have come to the end of my journeys at last.”

“You do?” Martin could not imagine why.

“Here, in the land of liberty, equality and fraternity, we hope to be free, to gain an honest living.”

“And yet that does not seem to be what you have been doing.” Martin wanted to make it clear that he was not the kind of man to be charmed by flattery or cleverness.

“Ah, Monsieur le juge.” The little man shrugged his arms and his shoulders in a wide gesture before deftly replanting his cane on the floor. “As one of your priests might say, a mere venial sin, and all for the greater good. I spend my days helping my countrymen become your countrymen. Helping them find jobs, get into schools, learn a trade. I feel every man must use the talents he has to fulfill God’s purpose. My talents are my tongue and my pen.” Martin noticed the dwarf ’s blue-flecked gray eyes for the first time, as they grew large with the need to explain away his crime. “Someone stole the instruments of my trade. So I had to find more.” He simpered as he added, “I do not live in a mansion.”

There was little doubt of that. Nor did Martin believe that Shlomo the Red Dwarf ’s purposes had much to do with God.

“And how is it that your tongue and your pen became so talented?” The dwarf ’s French was remarkable if he had, indeed, only recently arrived in the country. He was obviously a sharp-witted, slippery creature.

“As God wills it, as God wills it. I killed my mother when she bore me. I broke my father’s heart with my ugliness. And yet the good man, my father, believed God has His reasons, and somehow I would become a blessing to him. And so he carried me on his shoulders, everywhere. Borders in the east are not so important when all our people speak the same mother tongue. My dear father hoped they would pay to hear a little genie tell stories and do tricks. But other villagers came to watch me too. Having ears and eyes, I learned their tongues, many of them, until finally the Lord willed that I would come here, to help my people become your people.” Another bow.

“In doing God’s work,” Martin asked, wondering if the dwarf was capable of giving an answer without embellishment, “did you ever come across a Monsieur Ullmann or Erlanger?”

“No, no, although I am sure they are very fine gentlemen.” The fiery head shook a denial, while the man’s giant hands gripped the cane and his hat.

This answer had been quick, too quick and definite. “Be careful.” Martin held up a finger. “If you do not tell the truth about this, you will pay for more than the ‘venial sin’ of a petty theft. We are talking about two murders.”

The dwarf stumbled a few steps backward, almost bumping into Jacquette, who had stayed behind him, silently observing. He reared his head up to look at the inspector. Martin read shock and betrayal on the little man’s face. But the trickster recovered almost immediately. “What I meant to say, Your Eminence, is that I know the names. I attended the funerals. A good place for…collections. One has to make a living, of course. And I will admit, from time to time, I’ve sent women to Monsieur Ullmann with letters explaining that in Russia they had worked in the mills, that although they speak only the old common language of our people, they know how to weave and operate the machines. He even hired one of them, a poor widow with children. This shows his kindness.” Shlomo paused. “That is what I know.”

“Then why didn’t you say that in the first place?” Martin kept his voice loud and severe to indicate that he expected straight answers.

“Because,” the dwarf bowed his head so low it almost touched his rounded chest, “I know that they were murdered. Shlomo and his friends know nothing about murders. Jews do not kill other Jews.”

“Is that so? You mean to say that you don’t know anyone that might envy or hate these men?”

“Oh no, sir, no.” For the first time fear crept into Simon Shlomo’s eyes. He had come here as a petty thief, and all of a sudden the judge, this powerful man, was talking about murder.

In the silence that followed, Martin made a show of examining the dwarf from head to toe. He ended by focusing on the preternaturally large hands, which well might be capable of becoming a weapon. Deep down, Martin doubted that this rascal had violence in his blood, but he had to keep the pressure on if he were to wring any valuable information out of him. He kept staring until Shlomo put his hat behind his back, as if rescuing his fingers from being scorched by the judge’s scrutiny. Then Martin added, “Would
you
resent or envy these men?”

“No, no, no. I am sure they were good men.” The dwarf swayed a bit as if he were about to lose his balance.

“That’s what you said. How can you be so sure?”

“They were good Jews. Good Jews are good men.” Shlomo thrust his foreshortened chest forward to demonstrate that whatever else he might have been embarrassed by, it was not by his race. Although the little man held his breath and his stance with admirable self-control, Martin did note a certain quivering in his chest. He had him.

Martin swung around his desk and approached the dwarf, forcing Shlomo to twist his neck upward in order to see his face. Once again, the dwarf almost fell against Jacquette’s strong, sturdy legs.

“Your rabbi tells me that you Israelites have a tradition of disagreeing with each other. Doesn’t that cause problems?”

“Your rabbi, my rabbi, whose rabbi? They argue, we argue.” The dwarf sidled away from Martin and the inspector, grinning widely in an attempt to make light of his fears.