Nelly met him in the hallway. Chrysanthemums made her think of death. After All Soul’s Day the graveyards were full of them, ragged pots leaning up against headstones or planted hopelessly in the hard soil. Hardy winter flowers, tinsel gold and rust, they looked dry and already dead at the peak of bloom. But she could not blame a foreigner, who had acted with good intentions. She complimented his haircut and suggested a cup of tea.
“Madame Reboul,” Piers began, followed by a pause calculated to build anticipation. “Would you be free for dinner Friday night? It’s so long since we’ve visited the Oliveraie.”
“You’ve finished your novel!”
“No, but it’s going well. And the fall menu is up. May I make a reservation for Friday?”
“Well! Of course,” she beamed. Once the pressure of a deadline was over, they usually celebrated with a meal at the brightly lit family restaurant a short walk outside the walls. The owners knew them by name and always enjoyed chatting.
He followed her into the kitchen. The kitten lay curled up in his basket. Hearing their voices, he stretched, green eyes sparkling at the prospect of food and attention. Christened Caesar, after the Roman hero’s untimely birth, he’d quickly grown into his name. Piers watched him lapping warm milk from a bowl as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks. He wondered whether the animal’s existence wasn’t somehow a message. Was Mouloud behind the gory birth? He wanted to think otherwise. He couldn’t bring himself to raise the subject with the only other person who might know.
Magali’s cheery hello rang out from the hallway. She came bounding into the kitchen, tossing her bookbag on the table, and after a hasty greeting, headed straight for Caesar’s basket to stroke his belly. At the sound of scratching on the kitchen door, she leapt up to let in The General, who’d been banished to the windy courtyard. She fed him crackers from her satchel. He licked her hand and wagged his tail. She knew just where to scratch under his chin. Thankful for the affection, he barked approval.
In the presence of Magali’s girlish enthusiasm, Nelly felt her own damp spirits give way. Piers was perched on the kitchen stool, arms folded, his face lit up. There was an easy banter to their conversation. Surely they were friends, she thought, nothing more. Anyway, what did it matter? His concern was genuine, and Magali’s presence lit up the room. The spell of youth was working on them both.
Declining a cup of tea, Magali excused herself, saying she had a term paper to write and needed to work all evening. Piers made no move to go, so Nelly refilled his cup and told him about an invitation she’d received to a reception Friday night at the Petit Palais. She wondered if they might drop in on their way to dinner at their old haunt, the Oliveraie?
A fine idea, he agreed. As they sat discussing plans, Nelly relaxed into anticipation. He was telling her about a museum he’d visited in Rome when Magali burst through the kitchen door, announcing she’d forgotten her bookbag, which was sitting on the counter. Piers leapt up and handed it to her.
As she turned to go, he said, “Your aunt and I are planning to eat in a restaurant Friday night. Would you care to join us?”
Magali glanced at Nelly, then at Piers. Her aunt’s face was unreadable, her posture rigid, but Piers’ half-smile seemed to suggest it was all right.
“I would,” she said. “I’ll have finished my paper by then. Thank you!”
When Magali had gone, Piers sensed the chill and wanted to say something — I hope you don’t mind. But it was obvious Nelly did mind. When he tried to re-open a conversation about the Petit Palais, she answered politely and, turning her back, began rinsing out the cups.
Later he had second thoughts and reserved at table at the Grande Café. It was not part of the old routine, and more Magali’s style.
NINE
GOOD FRIDAY, APRIL THE 6th, 1327.
So, all my misfortunes began in midst of universal woe.
Love found me all disarmed and found the way was clear to reach my heart down to through the eyes which have become the halls and doors of tears.
It seems to me it did love little honour to wound me with his arrow in my state and to you, forearmed, not show his bow at all.
From Petrarch’s third Canzoniere, a bitter lamentation marking the moment he first set eyes on Laura in the chapel of Ste. Claire, a stone’s throw from rue des Griffons. The day he was touched by the blessing and curse of unattainable, unrequited love.
Rain turned the cobblestones as sleek as snails. Mouloud was late for work and had no good excuse. He’d slept through the whining alarm clock and stayed in bed, rising only at the last minute before there was no hope. As he made his way toward the Sunday-morning market inside the walls at Porte de la République, he shoved a hand into his empty jacket pocket, anxieties focused on the present. He needed the job. The pay was a pittance but there were other compensations. He’d made important contacts. By the time he got to Abdelkarim’s fruit and vegetable stand, the tables were already set up. The old man was nowhere to be seen. A subordinate barked at him. He started unloading crates of fruit from the back of the van. It reminded him of the grape harvest at Les Hirondelles, which had come and gone without him. Hard work, though it always felt like a holiday. Distinctions disappeared and everybody was friendly regardless of age or where they were from. All that counted was hefting grapes and getting the wagons down to the co-op before they began to ferment. He loved the rhythm of the days, rising early to pick from dawn to noon, taking lunch under the trees or, if it was too hot, in a stone cabanon at the side of the field. They ate well and slept till it was time to begin again. He thought of a hand on his shoulder, his mother shaking him awake. She wasn’t there this year either. She wouldn’t be, ever again, so just as well he’d missed this year’s vendange.
His mind far away, he didn’t see a juicy scorpion climb out of a box of figs and land on his ankle. He shook it off and slammed it hard with his heel, reducing the carcass to a grey smear. Even in a useless insect, the moment of death was fascinating. Now alive, now dead. He thought of Fatiha caught in the headlights of a car, thrown onto the rocks. She died instantly, or so they said. The driver was drunk and didn’t even stop. He heard something but thought it was a stone. There was blood on his fender, her blood. Someone else came along and saw her purse lying in the middle of the road. The details made Mouloud sick, but he’d insisted on knowing. Now her death played through his mind on a loop. Over and over he saw the headlights approach, his mother close her eyes and fall forward into darkness. He was sure she had closed her eyes before the hit. Why was she walking in the dark? She’d gone to visit a neighbour, she could have phoned for a lift. Why didn’t she call? If only she’d called. A thousand ifs beat against his brain but he could turn them off at will, close his eyes and drift into the glare of headlights, waiting for the thud. He was not afraid to die. He knew she was waiting on the other side. Thinking of death made him strong. “Mourabed!”
Behind his back, a shout. Then a hard-toed boot slammed against his ass. As he shot forward, knocking over a crate of oranges, he heard roars of laughter, the boss and his cronies slapping their knees in delight, and Abdelkarim’s growl, “Get back to work. Clean up the mess.” More laughter.
He picked himself up from the pile of scattered oranges. His forehead throbbed. In a flash he saw a piece of the splintered crate fly through the air in a graceful arc and sink deep into Abdelkarim’s white bulging eye, and suddenly the blue day was splattered red, like blood on a windshield. Then the flash was gone.
He ducked behind the tent flap that separated one seller from the next, and spat into a puddle of rain. An ugly bruise was rising over his eye, where he’d hit the crate. It throbbed. He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned around. It was Selim, one of the old man’s gang, but he had his fingers in many pies. He knew where to find quick money, good dope and pretty well whatever else a stranger might need. Most importantly, he was independent, not part of the knot of old A
rabs that led straight to Ahmed Mourabed.
“I found what you’re looking for,” he said. Still dazed by the fall, Mouloud stood staring at the gold chain around Selim’s neck. He was tall and muscular, with hard brown eyes and confidence to spare. Everything about Selim was exactly the way it should be. He reached down, took hold of Mouloud’s hand and drew it toward his chest, to a spot near the heart. A weird sensation. He wanted to pull away, until he felt the hard barrel and curve of the handle. Touching the gun through Selim’s jean jacket was thrilling. He swore softly.
Selim’s eyes glowed. “Who are you going to do with this?”
“Nobody, I just need it. You know, in case.”
Selim shrugged. He wasn’t one to press for information.
As they stood in the Sunday-morning drizzle, Mouloud was uneasy about the next move. This was a major favour, and it hardly made sense, it was all so easy.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ll get you the cash.” They set off down a crooked street toward the bank machine at St. Didier Square. The transaction could tip off the old man, he thought, if he had the brains to call the bank. As each day passed and he wasn’t in Toulouse, the chances of being found out grew. So did the inevitable cost. Someday soon, there would be no point in going home. Abdelkarim’s boot was nothing compared to the beating his father would deliver when all his reasons for rage joined hands.
He handed over the money and was about to go when Selim slipped a piece of paper into his shirt pocket.
“Hey, my good friend, I want you to pick up something and deliver it to my place tomorrow night, after midnight.”
Mouloud looked at the paper. The address was on the outskirts of the city. “I don’t have a car,” he said.
“You don’t need a car. It’s very, very small. Take a rucksack.”
Back in his room, he lay on the bed wearing headphones, playing tapes of his mother’s music until the too-familiar sounds made his heart slow down. Sweet rhythms of al-ala, the rich Andalusian tunes he’d heard forever. The malhoun, a wild overture and then the eerie sound of his mother’s voice singing ancient poems, immortalized on celluloid. He closed his eyes, sank into the pool of sound and floated over the landscape they had known together. Desert and vines, but always the scorching sun gave way to chilly dusk and with darkness came the glare of the headlights, a light so real it kept him awake at night. Nothing settled him down for long anymore; the drug of music was no escape. Fatiha’s wails reached a crescendo. He slid his hand under the pillow, looking for the gun, which was wrapped in a cloth. Fumbling through the folds, he found the steel barrel and held on tight. For the first time in months, he was safe.
Spiteful Madonnas made Piers queasy. Following Nelly’s pilgrimage through the Petit Palais’ permanent collection of Gothic art, the weight of holy eyes bore down on him from the walls. The accusing gaze of Mary, mother of God, holding the infant to her breast; little Jesus, looking wise and wizened, like a midget cardinal, two fingers united in a beneficent blessing; their matching halos tilted inward, two pairs of eyes fixed on the spectator. He wondered who they saw, staring out from the canvas. Generations of the faithless? Or the artist? Were they scowling on behalf of some wronged deity? Or blaming the painter for some personal slight? He pitied the painters, hired hands compelled to draw inspiration from a ready pool of furious wives, neglected children and grieving mothers in their life. Judged by the icons of religious art, women bore the fruits of divine intervention grudgingly: abandoned Madonna, betrayed Madonna, clairvoyant Madonna mourning the pain to come. So it was not enough to be impregnated by the Holy Ghost, rewarded with sainthood and a lifetime of fidelity from the cuckolded carpenter? The female presence in pious art was a spider crawling up his spine.
Nelly’s pace was steady, respectful but nothing more. He kept up a few steps behind, slowing only when she stopped to point out a detail. Though she claimed to dread museums with their artificial lighting and resemblance to cemeteries, she took an avid interest in receptions. Ste. Anne’s chief librarian made sure she was on the official guest list. This one celebrated the museum’s acquisition of a tapestry dating from the time of Giuliano Della Rovere. As the Vatican’s representative in Avignon after the papal court had reverted to Rome, legate Rovere spurned the draughty Papal Palace for apartments in a proto-Renaissance cardinal’s palace, which he decorated with a flourish foreshadowing his future as Pope Julius II. A benefactor of Raphael, it was Rovere as pope who set Michelangelo to work on the Sistine Chapel.
Having paid the walls their due, they arrived at a crowded reception room dominated by a finely laid table and buzzing with talk. Nelly disappeared. Piers plucked a glass of wine from a passing tray and turned his attention to the crowd. Of the fifty or so guests, three-quarters were female; he estimated well over half deserved scrutiny. In keeping with the exhibition, he restricted his musings to the field of aesthetics, specifically the ironic contrast between divine and secular art. He had given the matter serious consideration and developed a theory: religious art encourages atheism, whereas nudes arouse piety. He could stand for ages before Ingres’ Odalisque, soothed by the mystery of a curved torso, all material cares and licentious fantasies quelled by an unclothed lady in a turban. Womankind rendered in her divine state of undress revealed a higher power, a master craftsperson at work in the world. Female beauty in art made him want to weep and sing, conflicting urges that could only be reconciled in the act of prayer. While meditating on Botticelli’s Venus he’d been overwhelmed by an urge to join the priesthood, whereas touring the The Last Supper had aroused a fierce need to curse. The Muslims have it right, he thought. Earthly depictions of the Unknowable are sacrilegious. He envied Nelly’s casual French attitude to religion, her painless agnosticism, neither hostile nor enthusiastic, part of her European heritage. She seemed indifferent to the sour Madonnas. They were simply art, beyond reaction.
Looking around, he saw Nelly had wandered to the other side of the room and was standing beside an elfin man whose head bobbed gratefully as she talked. She was wearing a deep blue Chanel suit, impeccably cut, with a double strand of pearls, her hair swept up in an elegant swirl with a few strands allowed to stray. Even in a crowd containing a few real beauties, she drew attention, exuded the magnetism of celebrity. Closer to royalty than fame, he mused. An air of patient dignity leavened by madness.
Watching Nelly from a distance dissolved the gloom brought on by sacred art, and he began to think as he sometimes did when they were together in a crowd: if only she were younger. The thought embarrassed him, the cruelty of judgement based on age. He acknowledged she was an attractive woman, yet his imagination stopped against the hard taboo of time. Or maybe she did it herself, spun a halo of dignity to keep him away. Who was this little man beside her? What did he see when he looked at Nelly Reboul? Fortified by a second glass of wine, he wandered over to inspect the stranger at close range.
Hervé Brunet’s handshake was limp and damp. Nelly introduced him as the prison librarian and presented Piers as The Author. Brunet claimed he knew the name.
“What are your books about?” he asked. Rocking back on his heels, Piers delivered his stock answer, “My books are studies of man’s elemental flaws, his highest worldly aspirations and his inevitable failure. I’m afraid most of my characters end up in prison, or dead.”
Nelly’s eyes narrowed, as if this description did not fit the impression she held of the leather-bound tomes sitting on her mantle. Brunet nodded enthusiastically and promised to order copies for the library the moment they appeared in French. “Have you by chance read or heard of The Perfumed Garden?”
“I have, though only in translation,” Piers replied. “I’m afraid my classical Arabic is weak.”
Obviously impressed, Brunet’s eyes widened. “Which translation?”
“Sir Richard Burton.”
The librarian’s knobbish head bobbed deliriously. “A sixteenth-century ma
sterpiece penned by Sheikh Mohammed Nefzaoui. Do you know the story?”(He did, but thought it best to feign surprise.) “Well,” the little man began, rubbing his hands together. “You see, the Bey of Tunis was determined to employ Sheikh Nefzaoui in some tedious administrative post. A great honour but a terrible labour just the same. Being someone who cherished freedom more than honour, the Sheikh devised a masterful escape: he said he would accept the post as soon as his workin-progress was complete. The Bey agreed. So he wrote The Perfumed Garden, a roaring success — the first known manual of sexual practice! Naturally, the infamous author’s credibility as a servant of the state was ruined. He effectively disqualified himself for the post. The Bey had to rescind his invitation. And Nefzaoui remained free!”
He burst into laughter, a Rabelaisian torrent that drew stares all around. Then he leaned in close, and murmured, “The original translation appeared in 1850, by a certain Baron R—, a Capitaine d’ÉtatMajor in the foreign army. Your man Burton worked from the French.”
Piers nodded gravely, as if agreeing to take the blame.
“I’ve given Madame Reboul a collector’s edition, yet she finds so little time to read.”
Nelly sighed. “Such a lovely title. I’m saving it for last.”
“Madame, is it too soon to ask what you think of the bequest, in general? A provisional judgement?”
After a hasty explanation of the bequest to Piers, she added, “I see little reason for censorship. Surely the mind cannot be imprisoned.”
Brunet’s face lit up. “Excellent! I’ll start on my letter to Paris. In the case of Anaïs Nin—”
“I’m afraid we’ll have to leave you, Hervé,” Nelly said, catching Piers’ eye. “It’s nearly eight o’clock and we’ve another engagement.”
He nodded and taking a quick breath, kissed her delicately on both cheeks. “We must order your books immediately, Monsieur Le Gris. Even if they’re only in English. As an exercise! Some of our men may be interested in foreign languages. Why not? After all, they don’t have much to do.”
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