by Cara Black
“Café?”
“Non, merci,” she said.
“But it’s ready. No trouble, a custom for greeting guests, please.” He set down a small cup of steaming thick Turkish coffee, spoon on the side. He gestured, opening his arms wide. “My home, it’s your home . . . chez vous.”
“Very kind of you. I’m hoping you can help me. I didn’t know who else to ask.”
“Parfait.” He smiled and several gold teeth showed. “I know many things. Things I don’t know, I find out. I’m a good concierge. Ask Michel, he trust me.”
She nodded not sure of what he meant, and sipped the sweet coffee, which was so strong she thought she might grow the proverbial chest hairs. Grounds caught in her teeth. If she drank any more, she’d stay awake half the night. Dimpled lemons and oozing amber dates sat in a bowl on the small table.
“Fifteen years in the quartier, oui, you come to right person. First I worked in the sewing factory, then my own sewing-machine business.”
“This paper, Monsieur—”
“Now I’m a concierge.” He beamed, gesturing toward a well-used Pfaff sewing machine in the corner. He leaned forward, as if to speak in confidence. “But I contract to set zippers for a couture house. A sideline.”
The coffee made him voluble; she had to work to get a word in edgewise.
She smiled. “Could you translate this for me?”
The smile still on his face, he moved his hands around the table, located his glasses, and put them on. “Let me see. Parrots?”
“The other side.”
He stared at the sugar wrapper, his smile fading. “Mademoiselle, where you find this?”
If he knew the quartier, as he boasted, he would have heard. A chance he’d know the little Turk. . . .
“Why?”
“Important you tell me, Mademoiselle.”
He pushed his glasses up on his wavy black hair. “Not only you in danger.”
She clutched the glass. “What do you mean?”
He crumpled up the scrap, took a kitchen match, and was about to light it.
“Non. Tell me—”
“You’re a nice lady. I take your work to Michel.” He lit the match. “This not your business.”
“Wait.” She grabbed his hand, blew out the match. “It’s the only evidence. You can’t burn it. Please, you have to explain.”
“Bad people. Kurds.”
“The Kurds may be bad . . . but. . . .”
“I live here a long time; I’m not your usual narrow-minded Turk. I know good Kurds.”
What in the world did he mean? She felt stupid, handicapped by language and a culture she didn’t understand.
“Please. . . .”
He smoothed the paper out. Readjusted his glasses. “One time I read this. Then destroy.” He pointed a grease-rimmed fingernail at the letters. “Not in Kurdish language, the government ban Kurdish in schools and on the télé. This says ‘Institut Kurd, 9 rue Lafayette, Jelenka Malat, Wednesday 4:00 p.m.”
He stopped.
“That’s nearby. Who’s she?”
“Woman elected to Turkish parliament. A Kurd, the first.”
“What else does it say?”
His finger picked up his worry beads and he stared at her.
“Give you more danger.”
“Me?”
She wasn’t in danger. Not yet. Then she remembered the second message from Yves’s phone. The one without words.
“It say hedef suíkast.”
“What does that mean?”
“Target assassinate.”
Her shoulders tensed. “You mean this Jalenka’s a target . . . of who?”
He leaned forward, whispered. “Kurds always targets. Even in Paris.”
“Targets of who?”
He looked away.
And Yves had had this in his wallet. “So she’s in danger of assassination?”
He rubbed his eyes. “You, too.”
If they had killed Yves . . . Aimée willed her fear down. “You remember the man who met me here last night?” she said, gesturing to the courtyard.
“Your boyfriend?”
She nodded. “I found this in his wallet.”
His eyes widened. “So he know Turkish? But he didn’t talk to me.”
“They found him at dawn on rue de Paradis, his throat slit.”
“Mademoiselle, I’m very sorry,” he said, his eyes narrowing in understanding. “Better you forget this.”
But she couldn’t. He knew something, she could see it in his red-rimmed eyes. The silence was broken by a scratch of nails on the wooden door. He stood, opened the door, and a gray tabby, topaz eyes glittering, entered. The cat padded by her on his way toward the stove, his fur rubbing her bare legs.
“You saw, didn’t you?”
“I saw nothing.” He clutched his worry beads.
“But you heard about the murder. You know everything that happens in the quartier you said.”
He fingered his worry beads, clicking them faster now. “I say that?”
“What time do you let your cat out in the morning?”
He blinked, caught unaware. “When the newspaper truck comes.”
“Seven o’clock or so?”
He nodded, glad to change the subject. “Seven fifteen. I take the newspapers, let the cat on the street, then sort them into the mailboxes.”
“Then you remember a little man running out of Cité Paradis this morning. A Turk who works at Gare de l’Est or Gare du Nord.”
The man’s eyes widened in terror. “I never say that.”
“He must have passed right by here . . . by the foyer door.” She took a chance. “Did he ask to hide here until the flics left?”
The man shook his head, his lips quivering.
“Of course, you heard the sirens, saw the patrol cars,” she continued. “A fellow Turk and he asked for help. You saw he’d been crying, was in some kind of trouble. Why not help? You felt sorry for him and you hid him here.”
“I didn’t hide him,” he said, his voice raised. “I lose my job.”
“So you told him to run the other way. You know the passages between the buildings like the palm of your hand. You told him to take a shortcut to the other street—”
“You want me lose my job? My family go hungry . . . sit in jail cell in Istanbul?”
So that was it? He was afraid, and it wasn’t of the flics.
“It’s to do with the Turkish Member of Parliament. And you’re witholding information. Information about an assassination attempt.”
“They take my carte de séjour, deport me.”
Perspiration dampened her brow. “You want this on your conscience . . . an assassination you could stop?” She rooted in her purse, pulled out the amulet, and put it in his palm.
Recognition shone in his eyes. “Where you get this?”
“A Sufi gave it to Yves, for me. A betrothal symbol . . . But . . .” She shrugged, blinked away the tears in the corners of her eyes. “Yves was an investigative reporter.” She took a guess. “This man was his contact.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Maybe I don’t.” She took the amulet back, pulled out her cell phone. “Then you can explain to the flics. Right now.”
He clicked the worry beads faster, his mouth pursed.
“Or I will,” she said. “Up to you. But if you tell me, we can keep it between ourselves.”
He swallowed hard. He scanned the room, then stood and went to the door. He looked outside, then returned and sat.
“You promise?”
“You have my word.”
“The newspaper truck,” he said, so softly she almost didn’t hear it.
“You mean he hopped on the truck and got away?”
“The truck driver’s my friend.” He stood, setting her cup in the small sink. “I don’t know any more.” Arab hospitality forbade him to ask a guest to leave, but she knew he wanted her to.
She rose, too, and pushed in her
chair. “But you can find out, you said so yourself. Things you don’t know in the quartier, you can find out. Michel trusts you. Please, find the little man.” She pulled out her card. “Tell him to call me. I’ll be waiting.”
AIMÉE ’ SHEELS , CLICKING on the cobblestones, echoed off the buildings as she walked back to the car. The strains of a cello drifted on the night air. She recognized a sonata by Haydn. And then a bulbous shadow loomed on the wall ahead. It was disembodied, as though it was floating. The hairs on her neck rose. She clutched the car keys in her hand, the tips pointing out between her fingers. The cello notes soared as footsteps beat a staccato rhythm ahead.
She’d been stupid to shrug off the concierge’s insistence that she was in danger. The cello’s notes drifted and lingered. She’d almost made it to René’s Citroën when someone rounded the corner. She turned and thrust her fist out.
But it was an old woman, clutching a bunch of red balloons, a trace of wine on her breath. Rouged cheeks, rhinestone earrings, and diamonté paste brooch on her off-the-shoulder ’50s–era turquoise cocktail dress. “It’s my birthday, Mademoiselle,” she said, giving Aimée a cockeyed, semi-lucid glance.
“Felicitations,” Aimée said with a pang of sadness as she noted the old woman’s scuffed house slippers.
“Join me,” the woman said, a glint in her eye. She held out a bottle, handing it to Aimée. “Not a Pouilly Foussé, but a good year.”
“A bit late for me, Madame.”
“Think you’re too good to celebrate with me? You with your chic outfit and firm skin?” She tottered toward the car, her tone turning belligerent. “Me, too, I was young once. Had them all on a string, one would take me to dinner, another to a boîte de nuit. Better make the most of it.” She leaned forward, tottering. “I’ll tell you a secret, there’s only one way we leave the planet. Alone. And you, chic one, are alone, hein!”
She felt pity for this woman in her cocktail dress and worn house slippers. “May I help you home, Madame?”
The woman gave a short laugh. “No one gets out of here alive, why should I?” She handed Aimée the string of one of the balloons. Before Aimée could grab it, the balloon floated up, caught on an air current, and bobbed over the rooftops. Transfixed, Aimée watched it. And then it disappeared. Here one moment, gone the next. Gone. Like Yves. Leaving behind questions but no answers. The old woman’s footsteps faded into the darkness, leaving Aimée more alone than ever.
IN HER BEDROOM, Aimée searched her drawer and found the cords to several rechargers. The third one fit Yves’s phone and she plugged it in. She lay down on the duvet, too tired to undress. René’s caution to change her cell phone number was uppermost in her mind; yet if the Brigade had cloned it, as she suspected, she doubted if it was worth the effort.
Her open windows let in a breeze and night sounds: lapping waves hitting the stone bank bordering the river in the wake of a barge, the song of a lone nightingale in the distance.
She set Yves’s photo and the amulet on the duvet. She was bone-tired; her body craved sleep. But sleep eluded her.
She was alone, like the old woman, but she had no balloons.
She wondered for the millionth time why Yves had kept his secrets from her and why he had ended up in the morgue. He had been so full of promise, with his whole life before him. A life that could have been spent with her.
Together. A baby. . . .
Or maybe not.
Who knew if it would have worked out, but at least they could have tried. Her shoulders heaved thinking of his warm legs wrapped around hers, the way his tongue tickled her ears. She buried her head in the pillow.
But she couldn’t wallow in grief. It wouldn’t help Yves. Nothing could.
With shaking hands, she opened the file Langois had given her. Inside, she found several pages with red pencil marks and crossed-out words. The title read: Kurds Little Davids Hurling Stones Against Goliath-like Turkish Military, bylined Mas, Anatolia, Turkey by Yves Robert:
The Kurdish freedom fighter pointed to Mas on the map, the page whipping in the mountaintop winds. “My village, gone,” he said. Mas, one of 4,500 Kurdish villages, now just scattered stones or submerged by the floodwaters of the Anatolian dam, courtesy of the Turkish military. Few Kurds are left to tell, only an outlaw band of weary, hungry freedom fighters in the Anatolian mountains. Half the time they move, hiding deeper in the valleys, scaling ravines to avoid the scouts of Colonel Ehret, leader of the Turkish forces in charge of “resettling Kurds.” They are the few who haven’t managed to flee Turkey for Iraq. “We’re always on the move,” the leader says. The Kurds are a tribal mix of Sunni Muslims and adherents of the banned Alevi sect who trace their beliefs to the ancient Zoroastrians and Sufis. These wandering tribes from Turkey, Kurdistan, Iraq, and even Syria have been seeking a homeland since the twelfth century. They thrived during the Ottoman rule of Turkey. The Treaty of Sèvres proposed by Allied powers after WWI was to provide an autonomous Kurdish region in Turkey. Then Atatürk gained power and united the disparate sects and Muslim groups, proclaiming Turkey a secular republic. There were to be no Kurds, no Alevis or Sunnis, anymore; all were Turks. Like France, in Monsieur Chirac’s words: “We are not Algerian, Tongolaise, or Libanais, we are united as French.” “Turkey will never join the EU,” insists the freedom fighter, “as long as Kurds can stand up to the military and tell the world what’s happened here.” Yet world opinion has hedged its support for the Kurds and the radical iKK party after evidence surfaced of their brutal killings of fellow Kurds suspected of informing to the Turkish military. . . .
Yves’s article continued chronicling the destruction and struggles of the tribal Kurds. Yves balanced the piece by citing the Kurds’ often-violent retaliation. His draft ended with the fact that Ankara might finally be forced to deal with the Kurdish movement since a woman, a Kurd, had been elected to parliament. A small step, but a huge one for the previously un-represented Kurds.
This woman was a target. From what she’d found in Yves’s wallet, if Mehmet the concierge had translated it right, she was going to be assassinated.
Right now Aimée was just guessing. Yet her conscience wouldn’t let her ignore her guess.
She owed it to Yves.
Bordereau, a contact in the DST—Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire—the elite intelligence unit, manned the night desk. She hated dealing with the DST; they traced calls in seconds. But reluctantly, she punched in his number.
“Unit 22,” answered a voice on the first ring. Clipped and businesslike.
“Bordereau, please.”
“Unavailable.”
She hesitated. He was the only one she trusted.
“You have a message?”
“For Bordereau only.”
“I’ll make sure he gets it.”
Right now she had no choice.
“Tell Bordereau, Aimée’s got him a present.”
Less than thirty seconds had passed. She hung up. Bordereau knew how to reach her. Her cell phone rang two minutes later. He usually called back sooner.
“Allô?”
“You’ve got a present for me, Aimée?” Bordereau asked, a wavering echo-like quality to his voice.
“A little one.”
“I always like your presents.” She heard a slight delay. “But we’re away for diving exercises so I can’t receive this one in person.”
A champion swimmer, no doubt he was performing some amphibious exercise somewhere in the Indian Ocean or Celebes Islands and was using a satellite phone.
“You’re calling on Telsat?”
“You string the beads, Aimée.” She heard a sharp intake of breath. “Damn sharp coral. Give me a verbal.”
“Jalenka Malat, the first woman Kurd in the Turkish parliament.”
Silence except for a wavering static relay click.
“That’s it?”
“It’s significant, Bordereau.”
“Not if I don’t know the context. Give me details.”
>
As she did so, she realized how far-fetched it sounded. What else did she have beside the sugar wrapper? But she related Mehmet’s translation and Yves’s article.
“And from that, you surmise an assassination attempt?” Bordereau said.
“Yves is . . . was an investigative journalist writing exposés of the Turkish military regime’s repression of the Kurds. A Turkish member of parliament may be a target on French soil. I’d think that would be more than embarrassing to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”
“Not my arena now,” he said.
“You’ve been kicked upstairs?
“Let’s just say I’m operational in another way.”
She drew a breath. Her one trusted contact in the DST was out of day-to-day operations.
“But you’ll pass this on?”
“It doesn’t even amount to a rumor, Aimée. Every branch’s stretched tight now with three quarters of our forces patrolling the Metro. You know they’re concentrating on the GIA . . . especially after Marseilles.”
She’d seen the front-page headlines of Le Monde. AIR FRANCE FLIGHT 322 SHOT DOWN OUTSIDE MARSEILLES.
But Yves might have died for this information. She couldn’t let go. “At least pass the info down the pipe to Rouffillac in the Brigade. He’s not my biggest fan.”
Bordereau owed her big-time for information she’d given him on a bomb plot in Montmartre. There was a pause filled with mounting static.
“No promises, but I’ll try—”
“Sharks hungry this time of year, Bordereau?” The rest of her words were cut off.
The Doliprane took effect, her lids lowered, but her thoughts whirled. Like nagging bits of grit in the corner of her mind . . . A phrase, “Couldn’t penetrate the world behind the veil” came from somewhere, but she couldn’t place it. Yet she’d glimpsed the flash of red and whiff of perfume beneath the chador worn by the little girl’s sister, a modernity that surprised her. Did these women dress fashionably at home but cover themselves out on the street according to custom . . . or had she worn a chador to hide an outfit for a later date? She wished Miles Davis were here, but tonight he slept off the effects of his minor surgery at the vet’s. His least favorite visit. She couldn’t sleep.