Anything Considered (25 page)

He came back, wiping earth and cobwebbed dust from his hands. “I don’t want to carry it around Apt, and it’s safer here than in the car. Do you know,” he said, as he started the engine, “in the summer, there’s a car stolen in the Vaucluse about every five minutes. The crooks can’t wait for September, so they can take some time off.”

His mood had changed. Something would turn up, as it always had at the right moment over the past few days. He was feeling lighter, more hopeful, lucky. He rested one hand on Anna’s thigh and squeezed gently. “Right. I’m taking orders for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. What are you having?”

“Croissants,” she said. “Two ham sandwiches, pizza, some of that great greasy roast chicken they do here, french fries, cheese, a bottle of red wine—”

“No sausage?”

“Saving that for lunch.”

They crossed the D232 and dropped down the twisting back road that led into Apt from the south. The outskirts of town were thick with cars and vans and the underpowered, undersilenced, maximum-decibel motorcycles so dear to the hearts of French teenagers. It was Saturday, Bennett realized, Apt’s weekly market day, a good day to get lost in the crowds.

He disputed possession of a parking space with a florid couple in an English car, and heard their squawks of indignation as he nosed in ahead of them.
“Typical!”
said the woman, in a voice like an irate bugle. “Just typical! We saw it first.
Dreadful
little Frenchman, pushing in.” Bennett nodded and smiled at her as he turned off the engine. Another nail in the coffin of the
entente cordiale
.

They made their first stop, on Anna’s suggestion, at a small shop behind the market, which sold espadrilles, baskets, cheap and almost authentic Provençal pottery made in Taiwan, corkscrews with twisted olive-wood handles, and a variety of hats. Anna’s theory was that hats would provide at least some element of disguise, something to distract the eye from the two faces that were displayed so prominently on the front page of newspapers. She chose a modified straw fedora; Bennett, a flat cotton cap of the kind worn by almost every old
boules
player in France. With their new purchases pulled down over their sunglasses, they went in search of nourishment—hand in hand, the young couple enjoying their summer vacation.

The Apt market stretches and sprawls from one side of town to the other, spilling into small
places
and tight streets, offering everything from postcards and souvenirs to lawnmowers and wasp traps. And on stalls, on trestle tables, in tiny aromatic shops, there is food. Anna had never seen anything like it. There were goat cheeses, moist and mild and milky white, or hard and pale yellow from months in an olive oil marinade. There was fresh tuna, cut to order in thick, bloody slices from an entire fish the size
of a young boy’s body. There was bread—
fougasses
,
ficelles
,
boules
,
pompes à l’huile
—made with olives or rosemary or cheese or pork scratchings. There were rainbow displays of fruits and vegetables. There were butchers who specialized in the cow, the pig, or the horse. And, strolling through this pleasant abundance in the Saturday sunshine, grim and alert, there were the police.

Bennett noticed that the local
gendarmes
had been reinforced by men normally reserved for use against rioters and terrorists, men from the CRS: hard faces, silent-soled boots, and dull black guns. He also noticed something that made him stop short, before steering Anna abruptly into a café.

“I’m an idiot,” he said. “I should have thought of it before.” His fingers drummed an excited tattoo on the table as he looked through the café window. “Over there, the other side of the street. See that bus? It’s going to Spain. There’s a regular service in the summer.”

They watched as the bus pulled away from the curb. “Next stop Barcelona,” said Bennett. “No passports required. I knew someone who did it once. The lavatory blocked up outside Perpignan, but otherwise he said it was fine. What do you think?”

Anna looked at the enthusiastic, grinning face under the blue cap, a schoolboy with two days’ stubble. She grinned back. “I’ll pack my castanets.”

Bennett went off to the tourist office, leaving Anna to order. It was strange to think that a week ago she didn’t know him; now she felt they were joined at the hip, a pair.
She asked the waiter for coffee and croissants, and watched the slow swirl of humanity outside. No bustlers there, whatever the guidebooks said. She tried to imagine Bennett in New York, in her small apartment on Wooster Street. Was he house-trained? Probably not. From what she’d seen, he was a domestic disaster. Did it matter? Not a bit.

Ten minutes later, he was back, less happy than when he’d left. There were no more buses today, none on Sunday, and as Monday was devoted to a particularly well-regarded saint and was therefore a public holiday, there were no buses on Monday—not from Apt, not from Avignon, not from Cavaillon. There was nothing to do but hide out in the ruin and wait until Tuesday. They made up a shopping list on the back of a beer coaster, and went to join the rest of the world in the market.

——

Bennett followed Anna up the steep side street to the
place
where they’d parked the car, holding several blue plastic shopping bags that contained enough food and wine for an extended three-day picnic. The delay was a disappointment, but nothing more, and at least they wouldn’t be on the run. As he watched the swell of Anna’s buttocks under their tight skin of denim, he thought of the river that ran along the bottom of the valley below Buoux. Once it was dark, they could go down there and bathe, take the blanket from the car and a bottle of wine, lie naked
under the stars—yes, he thought, there’s something to be said for a weekend in the country. He was humming softly as he quickened his pace to catch up with her.

They put the plastic bags on the roof of the car. Bennett smiled at her as he dug in his pocket for the keys. “You’re doing it again,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“Leering.”

He pulled his sunglasses down his nose and winked at her. “Inspired by your spectacular
derrière
,
”
he said, “I was planning a moonlit swim, naked as nature intended, followed by a midnight picnic. Unless you have a previous engagement.”

Before she had time to answer, the side door of the nondescript, unmarked van parked opposite slid open. They looked around, and found themselves staring at four
gendarmes
.

“THE glasses and hats. Take them off.”

The
gendarmes
, brawny in their summer blues, stood in a loose semicircle in front of the car. The opaque mirror lenses of their sunglasses—motorcycle cop sunglasses, impenetrable and sinister—glinted beneath the peaks of their
képis
. As Anna and Bennett stood bareheaded and blinking against the glare, one of the
gendarmes
took a sheet of paper from his shirt pocket, unfolded it, compared the photographs with the faces, and grunted.

“
Bon
. No doubt about it. Make sure they’re clean.” Probing, suspicious hands, moving slowly and methodically, made their tours of inspection, and came up with nothing more lethal than Bennett’s car keys. The senior officer jerked his head in the direction of the van. “Get in.” He turned to the youngest
gendarme
. “Desfosses—you follow us in their car.”

The van was a Saturday-night-roundup special, with a heavy steel-mesh partition separating the front compartment from the passengers. There were no seats in the rear. A bar ran down the center of the ceiling at head height, to
which anyone considered dangerous or unruly could be handcuffed. As the driver pulled away, Anna stumbled, and caught hold of Bennett’s arm for support. They looked at each other, eyes glazed with shock. It had happened so quickly. Now it was all over. Above the crackle and whine of static, they could hear the driver talking to headquarters. “The Englishman and the girl, we just picked them up. No problems. Get the medals ready, eh? Tell the captain. We’ll be there in ten minutes.”

The van picked up speed as it left Apt and took the N100 heading west. The three
gendarmes
in the front lit cigarettes and started to argue about Marseille’s chances in the next soccer season. Anna and Bennett might have been two sacks of potatoes in the back, bundles of no particular interest to be delivered.

“What are we going to say?”

Bennett shook his head. “I wish I knew. As little as possible, I suppose. Plead ignorance. Demand to see the British consul. I don’t know.”

“How about telling them the truth?” Anna thought for a moment. “All we’ve done is try to recover stolen property and give it back to the owner.”

“Give it?”

“Well, something like that.”

They fell into a dejected silence for the remainder of the journey, and there was nothing cheering about their destination. The
gendarmerie
at Les Beaumettes, despite its window boxes bright with flowers, had the same effect on Bennett as all official institutions. It made him feel guilty. And this time, he was.

They were taken to a windowless room at the back of the building, where they were asked to confirm that their names were Hersh, Anna, American, and Bennett, Luciano, English. Their monosyllabic answers were noted down. They were locked in and left alone to wait. An uneasy hour passed.

For the captain of the
gendarmerie
, it had been an hour of triumph, an hour to be savored. Moreau, over in Cannes, had been most generous with his compliments about the diligence and alertness of the men from Les Beaumettes. The captain had done his best to be modest. Part of it was always luck, he’d said, but he allowed himself to admit that he’d trained his lads well: check, check, and check again. There was no substitute for dogged, routine police work. And young Desfosses, barely dry behind the ears, had proved it. After examining the plates of every white Peugeot 205 he could find, more than thirty of them, he’d hit the jackpot.

Best of all, from the captain’s point of view, a helicopter was on the way from Cannes to pick up the two suspects and relieve him of any further responsibility. An uncomfortable thing, responsibility, particularly if foreigners were involved in what seemed to be an important case. One never knew. He looked at his watch, glad that he’d tipped off the boys in Cavaillon. The photographer and the reporter should have arrived by now, ready to record a dramatic moment in the fight against crime.

The captain was well aware of the stimulating effect of publicity on a police officer’s career, and this, no doubt about it, would be front-page stuff. Pity it was going to be
too late for the Sunday edition. He went over to the small mirror hanging on the back of his office door. Should he wear his uniform jacket? Perhaps not—best to be seen as the working cop, indifferent to appearances. He made some minor adjustments to his mustache, and went outside to add his authority to the controlled chaos taking place on the N100.

The problem had been finding somewhere for the helicopter to land. The hill behind the
gendarmerie
was impossible, the vineyard on the opposite side of the road being sacred and untouchable. And so the decision had been made to block off the road in both directions so that the helicopter could touch down within twenty yards of the building. The N100 being an important trunk road, and Saturday being a market day, the ensuing dislocation of traffic was, as the captain noted approvingly,
impressionant
.

Lines of cars and trucks and mobile homes stretched away in both directions under a wavering cloud of fumes. Several drivers had left their cars and walked up to the cordon of bright-orange cones that blocked the road, hopeful of seeing the remains of a spectacular accident. On finding the tarmac disappointingly free of bloodstains and wreckage, they demanded information from the
gendarmes
, who took considerable officious satisfaction in telling them nothing. There was much gesticulating. Shoulders, hands, and voices were raised. Tempers frayed audibly.

All of which was recorded by the reporter and photographer, who, acting under instructions from the captain, had installed themselves on the roof of the building,
the better to appreciate the
vue panoramique
of the great clog of vehicles that extended as far as the eye could see. And now, right on time, thrashing its way in from the east, came the helicopter.

It hovered, dropped, and settled itself gingerly, as if it were testing the temperature of the tarmac. With a nod in the direction of the photographer—it would be tragic if he missed the moment—the captain gave orders for the suspects to be brought out. He personally led the escort group, giving the camera a long, tough, crime-fighting glare
en passant
.

Anna and Bennett felt as though they had stumbled into a war zone. Surrounded by armed and uniformed men, they walked to the squat military helicopter, its olive-drab paintwork flat and dull in the sunlight. Inside, more armed and uniformed men directed them to two steel-framed seats in the back and strapped them in. The helicopter lifted off, and tilted back toward the east. Below them, they could see the diminishing figures of
gendarmes
removing the road cones and beginning to wave the traffic through. Nobody had spoken to them. They had barely spoken to each other. There was nothing much to say.

——

The front page of Saturday’s edition of
Le Provençal
had attracted greater interest than usual among certain of its readers in the Vaucluse. The entire village of Saint-Martin
was in a stew of speculation about the activities of its English resident. The table of old men in the café had clubbed together and, for the first time in Léon’s memory, actually paid for a newspaper. They huddled over it like buzzards around dead meat, shaking their heads and sucking what remained of their teeth.
Foreigners
. An unpredictable bunch, foreigners, more than likely up to no good. What had he stolen, this Bennett?

Papin at the post office, the one-man intelligence bureau, had his theories, which he was more than happy to share with his clientele, who were more than happy to listen. Drugs, he said, with the conviction that comes from total ignorance. A quiet enough fellow, the Englishman, but appearances were often deceptive. Still waters ran deep.
Beh oui
. It was undoubtedly an affair of narcotics. Ordinary, everyday burglary, of the kind that flourished in that sink of iniquity, that cesspit of depravity on the coast, would never have made the front page.