Fever (22 page)

“Brilliant!” he said. “Bloody brilliant, so it was!”

*

Achmed, the mulatto, smiled. He spread two horse blankets out on the floor, lifted up Studer – the sergeant's fourteen stone was no problem for him – laid him down gently on the warm bed and covered him up. Thus the detective from Bern slept, in a shabby room in some godforsaken place far from the comforts of the Swiss capital, a place that was probably not even on the map. And he slept the best sleep he had ever had; the most vivid, too, brimming over with sounds and scents.

But there was a price to pay, a hangover which made him very grateful for the understanding behaviour of Fridu the mule as he rode back to Bouk-Toub. It placed its tiny hooves as carefully as possible on the frozen ground, as if it were well aware of the dreadful migraine from which its rider was suffering. Yes, there's always a price to pay if you hear the angels playing, “Tum, tum, tum, didahdi . . .”

People talk a lot about the desert, its endlessness, the frisson it gives you. In Colomb-Béchar Studer was seriously disappointed. Yes, there was lots of yellow sand, but growing in it were strange plants: cans that had contained sardines, tuna, corned beef, which, with their jagged lids, suggested improbable cactuses. The horizon was overcast, the date palms with their bilious green leaves recalled garishly coloured postcards – and it was cold, bitterly, outrageously cold. Studer felt cheated. Naturally his room was unheated. They put an uncovered brazier in it, against all health and safety regulations. It's a well-known fact that coal when it burns gives off carbon monoxide, and that's a poisonous gas.

Fortunately the commanding officer in Colomb-Béchar gave
monsieur l'inspecteur
Fouché permission to continue his journey the following day. Or, to be more precise, the following night. Five Saurer trucks were
heading for Midelt via Bou-Denib and Gourama. Then the sergeant asked the commandant – he was a major and just as fat as Major Borotra in Géryville – whether a certain Corporal Collani had reported on his way through.

“He did, Inspector, he did,” the officer said. “Just imagine, he had the cheek to report here. He'd been absent without leave for three months, you know, so I really ought to have locked him up as a deserter. But the man was ill, very ill, and he begged me so insistently to be allowed to travel on to Gourama that eventually I gave him my permission.”

“Was he in uniform?”

“Yes. But after he had left, an Arab told me he had changed beforehand in his house. I demanded to see the civilian clothes, but they had long since been sold.”

“What did the corporal look like?”

“Short, Inspector, shorter than you. Tell me, has he been back in Europe during his absence? Has he committed some crime there? Is that why you're looking for him?”

Studer placed his finger on his lips. It was always the best answer.

They left around midnight. He clung on to the image of Marie; it was the only reality left for him to cling on to as, squashed in between armed legionnaires, he was driven along roads that were really nothing more than rivers of yellow mud. It was a clear night; the moon shone until the first light of morning, then the sun appeared and warmed the air a little. The sergeant sat on a wine barrel, his legs going to sleep alternately, smoked his pipe and said nothing. His companions were wearing those pale green greatcoats, which were not picturesque enough for American films about the Foreign Legion, which dressed them
up in fantasy uniforms. Their rifles were rusty and he wondered whether they could actually shoot with them. Authentic French incompetence! Sergeant Studer thought of the recruits in the far-off training camp and was glad he could feel annoyed, for that at least partly displaced the image of Achmed, the mulatto, who, with a few simple gestures, had demonstrated the pointlessness of all activity.

On either side of the broad plain bare mountains appeared, and villages surrounded by olive groves, with skeletal hens scratching at the dung heaps. Small children with shaven heads picked their noses; their mothers stood beside them and did not shout, “Don't do that!”

Little donkeys trotted past, nothing more than skin and bone. The women driving them were not veiled, so one could see the blue dots on their foreheads arranged in the shape of a cross.

Then came Gourama.

Captain Lartigue

The fort was square, with a wall round it and three lines of barbed wire. At one corner the barrel of a three-inch gun jutted out over the wall. The entrance was free of barbed wire and a man in a crumpled khaki uniform was leaning against the gate pillar. The faded kepi on his head was squint and his trousers were too short, revealing the grey woollen socks inside his open-toed sandals.

“Is Captain Lartigue available?” Studer asked, while the trucks, already far away, fired salvoes from amid clouds of dust.

The man did not move, just raised his eyes from the ground and stared at the sergeant, subjecting him to an intensive examination. He asked, “Why?” and clicked his tongue. A gazelle appeared from behind the wall, peered at them shyly, then trotted over on its delicate hooves and rubbed its nose against the hip of the man in khaki.

Studer cleared his throat. He was appalled at the reception – no discipline! – and the man was beginning to get on his nerves. Fourteen hours in an army truck do not have the same effect as bromide in your tea. The sergeant showed his French police identity badge. “Police!” he snapped.

The man in khaki shrugged his shoulders and stroked the gazelle's head. Studer took out his passport and pointed to the authorization from the War Ministry. The man's lips twisted in an insolent grin.

“Take me to the captain,” Studer barked.

“What if I am the captain?”

“Then you're damn discourteous.”

“And you're going to teach me to be courteous?”

“It wouldn't do any harm. You, sir, are a boor.”

“And you, sir, are a spy.”

“Say that again.”

“You are a spy.”

“And you are a moron.”

“Now that's a word you should only use if you can use your fists as well. Can you box, fatso?”

That touched Studer in a most sensitive spot. His dark overcoat flew through the air. It snagged on the barbed wire, but that didn't bother him in the least. His jacket took the same route. And then Sergeant Studer – alias Inspector Fouché – did something he had not done since he was a boy. He began to roll his sleeves up.

And put up his fists.

He had never done any boxing, he knew, but he had seen off better men than this little French officer, who was not even wearing his insignia of rank.

Suddenly the man laughed. It was a pleasant laugh. “You must excuse me, Inspector, I'm in a bad mood today. You showed me your passport. Inspector Fouché, wasn't it? Of the Sûreté in Lyons? I'm from Lyons myself. I remember the name very well, it was often mentioned during my time there. But you're supposed to be dead, aren't you? Weren't you shot during a police raid? Apparently not, since you're here, alive and kicking. Come on, come on, put your jacket back on. Your coat, too, otherwise you'll catch pneumonia and I've got enough men in the sickbay already. Let's go and have a drink instead.”

The effect was like what the French called a Scotch shower: the blood froze in his veins when the man said
he was from Lyons, then he went hot all over when he was invited to have a drink. But the expression on his face did not change. “Oh yes?” he said. “From Lyons? I was told you came from the Jura, that you were a fell— er, half Swiss. From Lyons. Aha.”

“A bit of both,” said Captain Lartigue. “My parents came from St Imier, but my father set up a watch factory in Lyons. I did go to Switzerland quite often, though. And now I'm here . . . But you'll be hungry. Come along.”

Barracks squares surrounded by huts . . . Corrugated iron roofs that were so smooth they reflected the sun's rays like gigantic mirrors. Men in blue linen uniforms crept round, casually raising their hands to their foreheads – you didn't know whether it was a military salute or a friendly wave.

One of these men came over, stood in their way and said, without standing to attention, “I've got a fever.”

Studer's companion stopped, took hold of the man's wrist, let go after a while, thought for a moment and then patted him on the shoulder. “Go and have a lie down,
mon petit
, I'll send the nurse.”

At the word “nurse” Sergeant Studer gave a start. Could . . . could . . . but he brushed the thought aside with a characteristic gesture, as if he were trying to drive away invisible midges from his face.

Captain Lartigue walked on. Studer stared at him from the side. What kind of a man was he? His voice could be gentle, like a mother's voice.

“We have a lot of marsh fever in the fort,” the captain said, a note of sadness in his voice. “The area is unhealthy. Sometimes half the company's laid up with it. It's not the usual form of malaria, quinine hardly has any effect. It's heartbreaking. If we didn't have the Red Cross nurse the Resident in Fez sent us . . .”

Studer relaxed. Marie was not a nurse, she was a shorthand typist. But – there was always a “but”. If a detective sergeant from Bern could assume the character of a French police inspector, why should Marie not be able to transform herself into a Red Cross nurse?

“Is this nurse,” Studer asked, and he could not keep a slight quaver out of his voice, “is this nurse you have engaged competent, Captain?”

The captain looked at Studer – and the look he gave him was discomforting.

“Very competent,” he said, his voice devoid of expression. “But tell me,
monsieur l'inspecteur
Fouché, what is it that brings you to this godforsaken outpost?”

“It's a long story,” said the sergeant.

“They're not always the best,” said the captain. “I prefer short stories.”

They walked on in silence. In the middle of the fort was a building that looked like a squat tower. Stuck against the wall was a chicken ladder.

“I'll show you the way,
monsieur l'inspecteur
Fouché.
Monsieur l'inspecteur
Jakob Fouché, isn't it?”

“No. Joseph, Joseph Fouché.”

“Of course, Joseph. A little mistake. I'll lead the way,
monsieur l'inspecteur
Joseph Fouché. That's the correct name, isn't it?”

“Yes, that's correct.” Quick, while this awkward man's got his back turned, quick, quick, your handkerchief. The leather inside his beret was soaking wet. And his handkerchief! That's what you got for having a good wife, a wife who insisted on sewing in your monogram herself. Clear to see in one corner: J. S. – Jakob Studer . . . One couldn't think of everything.

The steps had no rail, so they made a nasty little climb. At the top they entered a very high, very bright
room. Square. Whitewashed. Like that room on Spalenberg in Basel . . . Opposite the entrance was a huge glass door, giving onto a balcony with no railings. The glass door was open and the sunlight flooded into the room. Hung on the walls were Moroccan carpets, red, black, white. And, above the carpets, shelves full of books.

“Do sit down,
monsieur l'inspecteur
Joseph – that is correct, isn't it? –
monsieur l'inspecteur
Joseph Fouché. I'm delighted to welcome a fellow Lyonnais to my apartment. How is Locard?”

Now Dr Locard from Lyons is a leading light of criminology, so Studer was able to answer the captain's question. He had spoken to Locard only a year ago.

“Fine, thank you, very well, the same as ever . . .” and he started to tell a story he had from Locard.

“You don't have a Lyons accent at all,” said Lartigue, without looking up, as he filled two glasses to the brim.

“No, no,” the sergeant stammered. “I was posted to Lyons. I come from Bellegarde originally. Yes . . .”

“Aha, so you're from the Swiss border too?”

“Yes, of course . . .” Studer's agreement came too quickly.

“Good, good. And what is it His Excellency the Minister of War wants to know? You must realize I've a very bad record, which is why I've been sent out here. But of course, if I can be of some service . . .”

“It's about . . .” said Studer, then broke off. The silence that followed was long. Finally Captain Lartigue took pity on his guest. “You must be tired, Inspector,” he said, dropping the ironic tone. “I think the best thing would be if you had a little lie-down. My bed is at your service, just until we've found one for you. I have things to do, so you'll be undisturbed. Have a good sleep.”

This was a pretty pickle he'd landed himself in and no mistake. He hated the whole business. It went against the grain to have to go under an assumed name; he felt oppressed, constrained, inhibited in all his movements. And he hated having to lie to this Captain Lartigue, who was obviously a decent fellow. Studer's judgement of character was not something he'd learnt from books, it was not based on physical appearance, handwriting analysis, psychological typologies or phrenology. He just allowed people to be themselves and relied on his instinct.