Solea (21 page)

I was incapable of saying a word.

“Say it.”

“Yes, you're right.”

“Please.”

“Yes, I want you. I really want you.”

Her eyes lit up.

Everything was possible.

I didn't move.

“So do I,” she said, almost without moving her lips.

The woman could extract any words she wanted from me. If she'd asked me at that moment what time Babette was due in Marseilles, and where I was supposed to be meeting her, I'd have told her.

But she didn't ask me.

“So do I,” she repeated. “I think I wanted it at the same moment. As if I'd been hoping you'd call just then . . . That's what I had in mind when I told you I was coming to see you. Sleeping with you. Spending the night in your arms.”

“And did you change your mind on the way?”

“Yes,” she said, with a smile. “I changed my mind, but the desire's still there.”

Slowly, she held out her hand, and stroked my cheek with her fingers. Very lightly. My cheek started to burn, much more so than after the slap.

“It's late,” she said in a low voice. She smiled. A weary smile. “And I'm tired. But there's no rush, is there?”

“The awful thing,” I said, trying to joke, “is that whatever I say to you, you always turn it against me.”

“That's something you'll have to get used to with me.”

She picked up her purse.

I couldn't keep her. We both had something to do. The same thing, or almost. But we wouldn't take the same path. She knew that, and I got the impression she'd finally admitted it. It wasn't just a question of trust anymore. Trust committed us too much to each other. We each had to go to our own limits. The limits of our solitude and our desires. At the end of it, we might find a truth. Death. Or life. Love. A relationship. Who could tell?

Superstitiously, I touched Didier Perez's ring with my thumb. And I remembered what he'd told me. “If it's written, it's written.”

“I have something to tell you, Montale,” she said, at the door. “It was the head of my squad who ordered your phone to be tapped. But I haven't been able to find out when.”

“I assumed it was something like that. But what does it mean?”

“Just what you thought. In a while, I'm going to have to make a detailed report on those two murders. The motives behind them. The Mafia and all the rest of it . . . It's the pathologist who discovered the two murders were related. I'm not the only one to be interested in the Mafia's techniques. He passed on his findings to my superiors.”

“And what about the disks?”

She was angry at me for asking the question. I could see it in her eyes.

“Hand them in with your report,” I said, very quickly. “There's no reasons to suppose your superior isn't straight, is there?”

“If I didn't hand them in,” she replied, in a monotonous voice, “I'd be finished.”

For a fraction of a second, we stood there looking at each other.

“Sleep well, Hélène.”

“Thanks.”

We couldn't shake hands. We couldn't kiss either. Hélène Pessayre left as she had come. Without the awkwardness.

“Call me, Montale,” she said. “O.K.?”

Because it wasn't so easy to say goodbye. It was as though something was ending before it had even started.

I nodded, and watched her cross the street to her car. For a moment, I thought of how it might have been if we'd kissed. How gentle and tender the kiss would have been. Then I imagined the two Mafiosi and the two cops looking up drowsily as Hélène Pessayre passed, then going back to sleep, wondering if I'd fucked the captain or not. That was enough to drive any erotic thoughts from my head.

I poured myself a drop of Lagavulin and put on the album by Gianmaria Testa.

 

Un po' di là del mare c'è una terra sincera

Come gli occhi di tuo figlio quando ride
 

 

Words that stayed with me for the rest of the night.
Just beyond the sea, there's a land as genuine as the eyes of your son when he smiles.

Sonia, I'll give your son his smile back. I'll do it for us, for what might have been between you and me, the love we might have shared, the life we might have had, the joy, the joys that linger beyond death, for the train going down to the sea, to Turchino, for the days yet to be created, the hours, the pleasure, our bodies, our desires, and again our desires, and for this song I'd have learned for you, this song I'd have sung, for the simple pleasure of saying to you

 

Se vuoi restiamo insieme anche stasera

 

Saying it again and again,
If you like, we can stay together this evening.

Sonia.

I'll do it. For Enzo's smile.

 

By morning, the mistral had died down completely.

I listened to the news as I made my first coffee of the day. The fire had gained more ground, but the tanker planes had been able to go on the offensive at daybreak. There was renewed hope that the fires could quickly be brought under control.

My cup of coffee in one hand, a cigarette in the other, I walked to the end of my terrace. The sea, calmer now, was again a deep blue. This sea, I told myself, this sea that lapped both Marseilles and Algiers, promised nothing, forecast nothing. All it did was give, but it gave in abundance. Maybe what attracted Hélène and me to each other, I thought, wasn't love after all. Just this shared feeling of being able to see things clearly, which made us both inconsolable.

And tonight, I'd be seeing Babette.

M
y heart skipped a beat. The shutters of Honorine's house were closed. We never closed our shutters in summer. We simply pulled them together, keeping the windows open, to benefit from a little cool air at night and in the early morning. I put down my cup and walked over to her terrace. The door was closed too. Locked. Even when she “went into town,” Honorine never took so many precautions.

I quickly pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, didn't bother to comb my hair, and ran to Fonfon's. He was behind the bar counter, absently leafing through
La Marseillaise
.

“Where is she?” I asked.

“Can I make you a coffee?”

“Fonfon!”

“Fuck it!” he said, putting a saucer in front of me. His eyes were redder than usual, and full of sadness. “I took her away.”

“What?”

“This morning. Alex drove us. I have a cousin in Les Caillols. That's where I took her. She'll be fine there . . . I thought maybe a few days . . .”

He'd had the same idea I'd had for Mavros, then for Bruno and his family. All at once, I felt angry at myself for not suggesting it to Honorine, or to Fonfon. After the conversation he and I had had, it should have been obvious. The fear that something might happen to Honorine. Fonfon had managed to convince her. She'd agreed to go. They'd decided it between them, and hadn't said a word about it to me. Because it was none of my business now, it was their business, just the two of them. Hélène Pessayre's slap in the face was nothing compared to this.

“You could have said something,” I said harshly. “You could have come and woken me up, given me a chance to say goodbye!”

“That's how it is, Fabio. No need to get upset. I did what I thought was best.”

“I'm not upset.”

No, upset wasn't the word. But I couldn't find the right words. My life was going to hell, and even Fonfon didn't trust me anymore. That's what it came down to.

“Didn't it occur to you those scumbags outside could have followed you?”

“Of course it occurred to me!” he cried, putting the cup of coffee on the saucer. “What do you think I am? Stupid or something? Senile?”

“Give me a cognac.”

Nervously, he got the bottle and a glass, and served me. We didn't take our eyes off each other.

“Fifi had to keep an eye on the road. If any car we didn't know had started after us, he'd have called Alex on his cellphone in the taxi, and we'd have come back.”

The old bastard! I thought.

I knocked the cognac back in one go. I immediately felt the warmth of it spread to the pit of my stomach. Sweat broke out all over my back. “And you're sure no one followed you?”

“The guys in the Fiat Punto weren't there this morning. Just the cops. And they didn't move.”

“How can you be sure they were cops?”

“You just have to look at them to know that.”

I drank some of the coffee. “And you say the Fiat Punto wasn't there?”

“It still isn't.”

What was going on? Two days, the killer had said. I couldn't believe he'd swallowed everything I'd told him. I knew he thought of me as just a poor shmuck, but even so!

I had a sudden vision of horror. The killers driving up to Le Castellas to corner Babette. I shook my head, dismissing the idea. Convincing myself that my phone had only been tapped since last night, that the links between the cops and the Mafia weren't as strong as all that. No, I thought, trying to put my mind at rest, it couldn't have been the head of Hélène's squad. But it could have been one of his men. Any one of them. It only took one. One who took the plunge. Just one, Goddammit!

“Can you pass me the phone?”

“Here you go,” Fonfon said, putting it on the counter. “You want to eat something?”

I shrugged, and dialed the number of Le Castellas. At the other end, the phone rang six, seven, eight times. The sweat was pouring off me. Nine times.

At last someone answered, in an authoritative-sounding voice. “Lieutenant Brémond.”

My body went hot and cold, and my legs started shaking. They'd been there. They knew about my phone calls. I started shaking from head to foot.

“Hello?”

Slowly, I put down the receiver.

“Grilled
fegatelli
, that O.K.?” Fonfon called from the kitchen.

“Fine.”

I dialed Hélène Pessayre's number.

“Hélène,” I said, when she answered.

“Is everything O.K.?”

“No. It's not O.K. I think they've been up to Le Castellas, where Babette was staying. I think something's happened. No, I don't think it, I'm sure of it! I called, and a cop answered. Lieutenant Brémond.”

“Where is that?”

“The Saint-Jean-du-Gard district.”

“I'll call you back.” But she didn't hang up. “Was Babette up there?”

“No, in Nîmes. She's in Nîmes.”

It was a lie. Babette must have taken the train by now. At least, I hoped so.

“Oh,” was all Hélène Pessayre said.

She hung up.

The smell of
fegatelli
was starting to spread through the bar. I wasn't hungry, but it smelled great. I had to eat. Drink less. Eat. Smoke less.

Eat.

“You'll have some, won't you?” Fonfon asked, coming out of the kitchen.

He put plates, glasses, knives and forks on a table facing the sea. Then he opened a bottle of Saint-Cannat rosé, a nice little wine from a cooperative, ideal for morning snacks.

“Why didn't you stay with her?”

He went back into the kitchen. I heard him turning the
fegatelli
over on the grill. I went in to him.

“Why, Fonfon?”

“What?”

“Why didn't you stay with your cousin too?”

He looked at me, and I couldn't tell what was in his eyes. “I'll tell you . . .” I saw his anger rising. “Where would Félix have called you, huh?” he exploded. “To tell you when he was taking Babette out in his boat? You asked him to call here, in my bar.”

“He was the one who suggested it and—”

“Right. So I guess he's not stupid or senile either.”

“Is that all you stayed for? I could have—”

“Could have what? Hung around here, waiting for the phone to ring? Like now.” He turned the
fegatelli
over again. “Nearly ready.” He slid all of it onto a dish, took some bread, and went out to the table.

I followed him. “Did Félix call you?”

“No, I called him. Yesterday. Before our little conversation. I wanted to know something.”

“What did you want to know?”

“How serious this thing really is. So I asked him if you'd been to see him to get . . . you know, to get Manu's gun. He told me you had. He told me everything.”

“You already knew everything last night?”

“Yeah.”

“And you didn't say anything.”

“I needed to hear it from you. I needed to hear you tell me. Me, Fonfon!”

“Fuck it!”

“And you know something, Fabio? I don't think you told us everything. Neither does Félix. But he doesn't give a damn. He told me. He may pretend, but he doesn't care much about life anymore. You see . . . No, you don't see. Sometimes you don't see anything. You just pass by . . .”

Fonfon lowered his head over the plate and started eating. I couldn't eat. After three mouthfuls, and a lot of silence, he looked up. His eyes were misty with tears. “Eat, dammit! It'll get cold.”

“Fonfon . . .”

“Let me tell you this. I'm here to . . . to be with you. But I don't know why, Fabio. I really don't know why! It was Honorine who asked me to stay. She wouldn't have gone otherwise. That was her one condition. Do you hear what I'm saying?” He stood up abruptly, put his hands flat on the table, and leaned toward me. “Because if she hadn't asked me, I don't know if I'd have stayed.”

He went to the kitchen. I stood up and went to join him. He was standing with his head against the freezer, crying. I put my arms around his shoulders. “Fonfon,” I said.

He turned slowly, and I hugged him. He was still crying, like a little boy.