A Noël Killing

by M. L. Longworth

  Sorba touched the side of his head. “We’ll charge them higher tuition,” he said. “That’s why we never publish the tuition costs on our website. Besides, they’re not paying taxes, so they can afford it. It all comes out in the wash, Debra, and we’ll even make money in the deal. I have a meeting later this week with Aix’s mayor; I’ll make sure to talk to her about Iter.”

  Debra looked out the window, thinking of the mayor’s office. She imagined, correctly, that it had ceiling frescoes. She thought that Alain Sorba, in his custom-made dark suits, with his handsome face and booming voice, would be a dramatic addition to the mayor’s luxurious office.

  * * *

  Three hours later Alain Sorba was navigating his giant car down the narrow streets of Marseille’s oldest neighborhood. “I can’t believe you haven’t been to the Panier!” he bellowed, charged up on what had been a very successful meeting with the multinational helicopter executives. HeliIndustries was expecting a new slew of engineers from Munich and Texas in the next few months. Along with their families, naturally. Debra was happy, too; she had a feeling that her presentation to HeliIndustries was top-notch, and that she had impressed them.

  “I’ve always been a little shy of Marseille,” Debra said, watching the pastel-colored stone walls come within an inch of her window.

  “Spoken like a true expat! I’m going to take you to lunch at a place that’s known only by the locals. They don’t take reservations; in fact, they don’t even have a telephone.” He miraculously squeezed the car in between two metal poles embedded in front of a derelict centuries-old building. “I never pay for parking,” he said as they got out and he locked the doors. “Waste of money that is.”

  Debra looked up at the building and saw that it wasn’t as neglected as she had thought; there were flower boxes in the windows, and the pale blue shutters looked lovely against the yellow ocher walls.

  “The restaurant owner’s name is Étienne,” Sorba said as they walked up a narrow hill. “He was a buddy of my old man; they used to fish together. And I hope you like pizza and calamari.”

  “I love both.”

  “Good, because that’s the only food on the menu.”

  Debra almost stopped walking. “Seriously?”

  “Yep,” he said. “And there will be a queue outside the door.”

  “Are the calamari prepared in the Marseille style, with only garlic and parsley?”

  Sorba shot her a look. “You know a bit about local food! I’m impressed!”

  Debra’s heart fluttered at the praise.

  As Sorba had predicted, when they arrived at Chez Étienne there were five or six people waiting outside the front door. Debra thought she heard English; so it wasn’t only locals who came here, like Alain had said. Sorba took her by the waist and gently pushed her through the front door.

  “Étienne! Mon ami!” he bellowed.

  “Putain!” an old man wearing a white fishing cap said as he walked up to Sorba and gave him the bises. “And who is this lovely creature?” Étienne asked, giving Debra the bises as well. She blushed, feeling like she was already a regular. Sorba introduced Debra as his executive secretary and Étienne led them to the bar. “We’ll have a table for you in a few minutes,” he said. “In the meantime, have a pastis on me.”

  Debra was thankful that she liked the licorice taste of the aperitif, although she would rather have had a glass of rosé. “Is pastis all right?” Sorba asked, as if reading her mind.

  “Pastis is fine!” Debra replied quickly.

  Sorba smiled and leaned in toward Debra, his shoulder brushing hers. She realized he wasn’t actually very tall, though he carried himself in such a way that his presence certainly felt imposing. They didn’t have much choice but to stand close, as there was already another couple hovering at the tiny bar, and the harried waitresses were running back and forth, annoyed that Étienne kept sending people to the back of the restaurant to wait.

  “Third table to the left, by the window,” Sorba whispered to Debra. “The mayor of Marseille and his entourage.” Debra’s eyes widened and she tried not to stare. It was one thing to have Alain know the mayor of Aix, but to know the mayor of France’s second-largest city was something else. As if on cue the mayor looked up and waved to them. Sorba yelled across the restaurant, “Jean-Charles! Save some calamari for us!”

  “Sorba, next time get here by noon!” the mayor called back, tapping his watch. Alain and Debra laughed and Étienne came and told them that their table was ready.

  “Well, I guess there’s no menu,” Debra said as they sat down.

  “Nope. The pizza comes first, then the calamari.” Sorba ordered a pitcher of rosé and a bottle of sparkling water. As he placed the order and said hello to two men at the next table, Debra quickly checked the messages on her cell phone, which was buzzing in her handbag; it could be a work issue, and here she was with the owner of the school. Sure enough, there was an email from the head of Iter’s HR department, asking if their small high school offered the International Baccalaureate.

  Sorba turned to her and poured her a glass of rosé.

  “Do you know everyone here?” Debra asked, laughing and feeling very comfortable.

  “Just about,” Sorba replied, winking. “Either we went to school together, or played soccer together, or our parents were friends.”

  Debra gestured to her cell phone and told Sorba about Iter’s request.

  “Merde,” he said, taking a sip of rosé. “Who arranges that? The Brits?”

  “Yes,” Debra confirmed, although she was just guessing. “I think we have to arrange it through Cambridge University.”

  “Good,” he said, pouring them both more rosé. “You go ahead and arrange all that. Do whatever it takes. I’ll buy the bloody curriculum if I have to. We’ll just—”

  “Charge them more tuition?” Debra asked.

  “You learn fast!” Sorba cried, touching his wineglass to hers.

  The pizza arrived and Alain served them each a piece. Debra was famished—she hadn’t realized how hungry she was. The pizza was fantastic, although the crust was much thinner than American pizzas. Sorba must have seen her huge grin as he said, “If you think Étienne’s pizza is good, wait until you taste the calamari.”

  Debra wanted to pinch herself; if Cheryl could only see her now, fitting right into this typically Marseillais scene, with the mayor just a few tables away. She loved the food, the dry wine, the happy chatter of the patrons, and Étienne, who slowly moved between tables, talking with clients while resting one of his large tanned hands on each person’s shoulder.

  “Try to book an appointment with Iter next week,” Sorba said.

  “No problem,” Debra answered.

  “And do you know what we’ll do before the meeting?”

  “No, what?”

  “I’ll take us clothes shopping,” Sorba said. “A cousin of mine owns Marseille’s best clothing boutique; they do men and women. We’ll both set ourselves up with some fine threads, and Iter won’t know what hit them. You’ve got to look prosperous at these meetings. Not like some poor fisherman’s son, eh?”

  At that moment Étienne came by and invited them on his sailboat the following Sunday. Sorba clapped his hands. “You should see Étienne’s boat, Debra,” he said.

  “Why not?” Debra said. She felt giddy from the wine and the company. “I’d love to come!” Cole could stay at home with the kids. This was a work outing, anyway.

  Chapter Two

  Six Months Later

  France Dubois didn’t like the Place des Cardeurs. Sometime in the nineteenth century dozens of buildings were razed to create the vast square, and it was now too big, almost forlorn, as if a meteor had landed and created a big hole in the center of Aix. But perhaps it was better this way, with the narrow, cramped houses gone, and she shuddered thinking about the medieval conditions
where large families once shared two or three poorly lit rooms. She was lucky, living alone in her spacious apartment in the Mazarin. No, lucky wasn’t the right word. Fortunate. Privileged, even.

  It was mid-December and the Christmas fair was on; the square was full of white tents, most of them selling what France considered uninteresting gifts. She tried to smile as she passed by the tents, as she felt so sorry for the young woman who made brightly colored, too-expensive soaps and the middle-aged man who carved smiling animals out of olive wood. Did they appreciate her smile, or did they care only about making a sale? She hoped that some of her fellow Aixois liked their wares enough to make a purchase or two.

  France walked on, knowing that no one really saw her in the maze of shoppers. She was a single woman of thirty-five years, short and thin, with mousy midlength brown hair. She had no interest in fashion (she was too careful with her money), and so she could not stand out by wearing outrageous colorful clothes, as other plain-looking women sometimes did. Her neighbors on the rue Cardinale politely said Bonjour, Mlle Dubois when they saw France, but she was quite sure they didn’t know her first name. They appreciated that she lived alone—no rowdy parties with loud music, no little children running up and down the halls over their heads—and had no further interest in her. France was the perfect neighbor.

  She stopped at a tent lined with wheels of cheese on display, each one poked with a little red, white, and green flag. “Buongiorno!” a tall, wide-shouldered man called out to her from behind his makeshift counter, in this case a folding table draped in a red tablecloth. He asked if she’d like to try the cheese.

  “Si, grazie!” she replied. The Italian winked as he passed her two thin pieces of Parmesan on a sheet of waxed paper. She smiled and nodded as she nibbled at the nutty cheese, wishing she had a little white wine to wash it down with. “I love Perugia,” she said in accented Italian.

  “Oh, you’ve been to our city?” he asked.

  “Twice,” she replied. “With my parents.” She didn’t add when they were alive. She attempted a joke about all of the law offices she had seen in Perugia’s old town, each one with a heavy carved wooden door and bronze plaques. “Perhaps that’s why Perugia is Aix’s sister city in Italy,” she said. “Our law school here is one of the oldest in France, so we’ve always been a town of lawyers . . .”

  “Yes, who knows?” the Italian said, laughing. He gave her a chocolate from Perugia and she thanked him, giving him her business card. He tried not to grimace as he read her employer’s name, Église Protestante d’Aix, and she quickly reassured him that she was not trying to convert him. “Our Christmas carol sing-along at the cathedral is on Sunday evening,” France said. “Each year we invite Aix’s sister cities to participate and bring along food that we all share at an early dinner after the service.” Again, at the mention of a service, the Italian winced. “Not really a service as such,” France explained. “More like a concert, with Anglo-Saxon Christmas carols.”

  He nodded, smiling. “English Christmas songs? We will be there, with our food!”

  France thanked him and was about to give him the address when she caught herself, laughed, and pointed to the cathedral’s octagonal steeple, visible over the red tiled roofs. “That’s it, over there,” she said. “If you could be at the hall, which is around the corner to the right of the front door, at five o’clock, that would be great. The service . . . concert . . . is at five-thirty, and we’ll all have dinner together after that.”

  “The other sister cities,” he said, winking again, “they will be bringing their food, too?”

  “Oh, yes,” France answered. “I’m just about to go and confirm with the others. Some of them have been coming to Aix for years.”

  “Food from Bath!” he said, slapping his thigh. “And Philadelphia!” He bent over, laughing.

  “The English desserts are really quite good,” France tried to explain, but she was drowned out by his laughter. “What’s important is that we’re all together, sharing,” she went on, but gave up as a woman he seemed to know came into the tent and he addressed her in Italian, still laughing. France whispered a thank-you and moved on, embarrassed. She hoped he wouldn’t make the same kind of scene on Sunday.

  She took a piece of paper out of her purse and put a checkmark next to “Perugia.” “Carthage, Tunisia” was next on the list, and she spotted the tent, swathed in earth-colored cotton fabrics and white-and-blue pottery.

  The Tunisian man waved; he remembered France Dubois from last year, as she had bought an expensive olive wood salad bowl and commented on how much she loved its marbled contours. He remembered the concert, too, and how his eyes had welled up with tears at hearing the songs and voices fill the cathedral.

  They reintroduced themselves, and spoke about this year’s concert. He shook her hand and promised to bring food.

  “I remember your cookies made with rosewater,” France said. “They were my favorites, M Abdelhak.”

  “Please call me Mehdi. Did you not like the pistachio ones?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes! They were my second favorite.”

  “More than the baklava?”

  France laughed, sensing that he was teasing. “I loved the baklava, too.” Although, if she remembered, Mehdi’s baklava was drier than the kind she had eaten in Greece. She preferred it the Greek way, oozing with honey.

  She lingered, running her hands over a pale blue cotton bedcover. It would be perfect in early summer, when sometimes a sheet wasn’t enough. France always had cold feet. “Hand woven,” Mehdi told her, holding up a section for her to examine.

  “I’ll think about it,” France replied, smiling. “I’ll see you on Sunday.”

  She walked along, smiling now. The sun was shining, and the Aixois had come out in full force as it was lunchtime. Voices and laughter filled the square, along with the occasional friendly bark of someone trying to sell something. Her stomach growled, and her hunger pangs increased as she approached the tent for Philadelphia, where a queue had already formed. Now would not be the time to talk to the Americans about the carol service, as they, a sister and brother, if she remembered correctly, were busy serving up their hot steak sandwiches. She hadn’t had the nerve to try them last year. “Philly cheesesteaks!” the American man called out. “World-famous Philly cheesesteaks right here in Aix-en-Provence!”

  Across the way from the Philadelphia tent sat the British tent, from Bath, tended by two elderly women who looked bored. France could easily see why Bath had been chosen to be a sister city to Aix: They both had been Roman spa towns. “Why, hello,” one of the women said, the smaller and rounder of the two, when she saw France. “We remember you from last year, don’t we, Eunice, dear?”

  “Of course we do,” Eunice said, setting aside her knitting. “Your name is France. Easy enough name to remember, isn’t it, Sally?”

  France smiled, touched that they remembered her, and thankful that they had just reminded her of their names. She thought the name Eunice was perfect for an elderly British woman who knitted, but thought the name Sally belonged to a teenage girl, and not to a tiny, plump woman with white wispy hair. Eunice, on the other hand, was tall and wide shouldered, with black hair that France decided must be dyed.

  “Have you come to cheer us up, dearie?” Sally asked. “We’ve been dreadfully quiet this morning. We don’t serve hot sandwiches and beer like the Americans and Germans.”

  “But your desserts are so delicious,” France said truthfully. “You’ll be busy this afternoon, I’m sure.”

  “Have an Eccles cake,” Eunice said.

  “Oh, thank you.” France took it and bit into the flaky pastry. The filling oozed into her mouth, a caramel-like richness of light brown sugar, egg, raisins, and lots of butter.

  “Is the cathedral hosting the carol sing again?” Sally asked. “We so enjoyed it last year.”

  “Yes,” France said, ho
lding her hand under her chin to catch the bits of pastry that had not quite made it into her mouth. “We’d love it if Bath could participate again.”

  “Oh, we certainly will,” Sally said, clasping her hands together.

  “Your English is really very good,” Eunice said.

  “Thank you,” France replied. “I speak it every day, at the Protestant church here in Aix, and studied it at university.”

  “Is it Anglican, your church?” Sally asked. She could not hide the hope in her voice.

  “No, it’s multidenominational,” France answered.

  “You’d need High Anglican, Sally, dear,” Eunice said, shaking her head.

  “Oh, I suppose you’re right.” Sally sighed. “It’s why I quite like the Catholic masses here in France. That, and the new pope.”

  France saw Eunice’s eyes widen in dismay at the mention of Pope Francis and she tried to hide her grin. “I’ll see you on Sunday, then, at five o’clock in the reception hall, just like last year.”

  “Oh, we wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Sally said.

  “It’s going to be a momentous occasion,” Eunice said, almost sternly.

  France thanked them and left, wondering what Eunice could have meant by “momentous.” It didn’t seem like the appropriate word to use when describing a Christmas carol service. She rubbed her tongue along the back of her teeth, realizing that she had missed other flavors from the tart, including allspice and lemon. Or was it orange?

  * * *

  Marine Bonnet hopped up and down, trying to stay warm.

  “I really do wish he’d stop announcing his cheesesteaks,” her mother, Florence, said, a little too loudly. “It’s obvious that’s why we are all standing in this line.”

  “Well, Sylvie promised me they were worth the wait,” Marine answered.

  “Sylvie!” Florence huffed. “I didn’t know that Sylvie Grassi is an epicurean!”