Madrigal

by J. Robert Janes

  Rivaille hauled himself to a stop.

  ‘But of what, Bishop?’

  ‘Must you write down everything I say?’

  ‘Forgive me. It’s a habit from the old days. It’s in a shorthand few but myself could ever read. My partner constantly complains. Please don’t concern yourself a moment longer.’

  Touché, was that it, eh? Ah! It would be best to give the Sûreté an impatient sigh and admit defeat so that the coup de filet, the knife stroke, could come later when most unexpected. ‘Frau von Mahler is still extremely terrified of fire – in the mind, you understand. She had nothing but praise for Mireille and was deeply concerned that the girl should at last succeed and be allowed to join the singers. Therefore that good lady set aside her own difficulties to put forth Mademoiselle de Sinéty’s case.’

  ‘And the third judge?’

  ‘Both César and I wanted the Kommandant to join us – it would’ve swung things the girl’s way, but von Mahler is a man of principle and claimed rightly that he wasn’t musically qualified.’

  The Sûreté sucked on that pipe of his, seemingly to pass the hours in contemplation, thought Rivaille, a habit Paris had emphasized since it could also be used by the questioned to plan ahead.

  ‘The audition, Bishop. Could it not have been cancelled?’

  Maudit! He was a nuisance. ‘The girl was fully prepared. Everything that she wore, apart from her clothing, had been patiently assembled from a variety of sources. Each piece was authentic and most were of considerable value. To turn the clock back, to deny her the weeks of preparation, would not have been right.’

  One should choose an olive now, thought St-Cyr, to savour its taste as well as that of the Dutch pipe tobacco Hermann had been good enough to find in Paris. ‘The identity, then, of the third judge.’

  ‘Albert Renaud, the notaire public.’

  ‘The rue des Teinturiers …’

  Good for Matthieu. ‘Yes.’

  ‘An old friend of her family. One of Simondi’s and yourself also, I gather.’

  And a fellow Pénitent Noir, was that what this one was thinking? ‘A friend, yes.’ And a believer, then, in the dream of returning the Papacy to Avignon – he could see St-Cyr thinking this.

  ‘Was it usual for the singers to wear scissors, bells, enseignes … irreplaceable rings with a hair from the head of the Virgin?’

  ‘Maudit salaud! How dare you doubt me? No! Such things would only detract from the music and cause jealousy amongst the singers, and since we do not have sufficient nor could we risk their loss or damage.’

  ‘Bon. Then tell me, please, why Mireille de Sinéty insisted on wearing them to this audition?’

  Had she not worn them before? was in the Sûreté’s expression and the bastard gave a satisfied nod to indicate as much. ‘Mireille … to understand her is to understand a commitment second only to that of her belief in God and the Church. The girl had tried everything, Inspector. It was her tenth audition – the eleventh perhaps. I can’t remember but will have it written down. She thought that this time, if she appeared exactly as one from the past, we, her judges, would have no other option but to admit her.’

  ‘Then the audition was unique in this regard?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And did you admit her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘A brief answer, Bishop, for one who had prepared so diligently and had then been murdered. Did she take that to her death?’

  ‘I had nothing to do with her killing.’

  ‘I didn’t say you had.’

  But it’s interesting I should state that I hadn’t, eh? thought Rivaille. Well, listen then! ‘The girl was too nervous. Her voice quavered. One can’t have that, can one? It’s the supreme test. To sing alone in the Grand Tinel or in the Cathedral itself, with only God to guide the voice and strengthen the heart, is not easy. All of us are aware of this. But the test quickly separates those who can overcome their fears and distrust from those who can’t. She also, on hearing the result, abruptly turned her back on us and left the hall which was, I must say, unforgivable of her.’

  ‘“Distrust”, Bishop? Please explain this.’

  ‘Ah! It was nothing. A matter from the past. The Avignon of those days wasn’t the Avignon of today. Young girls … the one she was named after. Recently married, loved dearly – treasured, but desired by another …’

  ‘Ordered to do what, Bishop?’

  ‘Summoned to the Papal Court to take up but a temporary residence. An honour … a great honour.’

  ‘Under duress.’

  ‘It was a foolishness our Mireille wouldn’t leave alone. Repeatedly I counselled compassion. The differences in our ways then, the forgiveness that is necessary if one is ever to come to grips with the past.’

  Six hundred years ago …‘The girl’s husband and the de Sinéty family tried to get her back, didn’t they?’

  ‘And fell into disgrace, their lives in ruins, their properties confiscated even as she threw herself from the battlements of the Bell Tower.’

  ‘Was she murdered, Bishop?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because I must.’

  ‘Then understand that nothing I could say or find in the manuscripts, court documents and letters of the time would satisfy our Mireille but the truth is, this girl from the past of her family simply jumped out of despair.’

  A typical Provençal tale from the age of the troubadours, Hermann would have said, and snorted at the folly of such a waste. ‘Why couldn’t Mademoiselle de Sinéty be convinced, Bishop?’

  Was there something else, then, something far more recent and equally sinister? Ah bon! St-Cyr and his partner hadn’t believed for a moment that Adrienne de Langlade had accidentally drowned. An accabussade… was that what he was thinking, the girl stripped naked and then given repeated dunkings in the river? Her piercing cries for mercy silenced only after Absolution as those who judged stood round with mud on their boots, the rain beating harder on her pale white skin, harder, the dappled light from the lanterns falling over her kneeling frame, the girl terrified and shivering uncontrollably even when in prayer, the cage ready. Her hair … her lovely hair …‘This interview is concluded, Inspector. I have duties I must attend to and unfortunately they cannot wait.’

  Christ walked through lavender wearing clothing from the fourteenth century. Mary stood in the attitude of prayer wearing the same, her straw-coloured hair not the black or dark brown it might well have been. Her eyes were very blue, the plaster ‘sculptures’ garish and unforgivable.

  ‘It’s the Italian influence,’ Louis would have muttered, but was still probably with the bishop or wondering where the hell his partner had got to. ‘Fair hair was prized so much, Hermann, the women who could would spend hours in the sun to bleach it and tried all manner of rinses, even mule’s urine. They bleached their skins too, but covered up when attending to the hair, and wore white lead as a base to their cosmetics but couldn’t change the shade of their eyes.’

  An encyclopaedia of the times, snorted Kohler silently at the thought of his partner. From floor to ceiling, wall to wall, and on table, counter and shelf, the rat hole of Les Fleurs du Petit Enfant was a carnival of objects of piety. Bits of mirror and picture glass threw back the light. Candles burned in these hard times, perfuming the air with ersatz cinnamon behind tightly drawn black-out curtains. But still there was no sign of what he’d come looking for. Portraits of the Christ Child, in violent shades, clashed with those of the Virgin who held Him but was never seen here to suckle her babe like a normal mother. And in a stable, no less!

  Crucifixes of zinc had been painted silver for those foolish enough to part with ten times the price of those that had been dipped in black. Madonna-and-Child medallions were so poorly stamped they echoed the one Louis had found on Mireille de Sinéty’s dressing table.

  Kohler picked up a framed portrait. Did some of them have postcards hidden behind their backings – bare breasts and curls, other things
too, or was the switch made while taking the cash?

  ‘I can’t decide,’ he said, giving a helpless shrug to the patron who was in his late forties, short, rotund, and wearing gold-rimmed specs and a rumpled dark brown business suit. A failed novice, was that it? Life in the seminary too confining? The peach-down covered cheeks were pink and fair and had never seen the touch of a razor. Moles sprouted unclipped dark brown hairs. The greeny brown eyes had begun to water.

  ‘The wife’s very religious,’ said Kohler. ‘I promised to send her a little something.’

  That wife of too many neglected years back home on the farm near Wasserburg had just recently got herself a divorce and had married an indentured farm labourer from France but no matter. This was Avignon where lies counted.

  Dangling a Bakelite rosary in front of the patron, he grinned and asked, ‘How much?’

  ‘Two hundred francs.’

  ‘Hey, it’s a bargain. I’ll take it. Here, I’ve got lots in this canvas sack. I just came into a fortune.’

  There were at least 25,000 francs in the bundle that was taken out. Armand Corbeau furtively looked over the rest of the clientele, all of whom had paused in their infernal pawing to listen as he gave up and sighed, ‘Inspector, one can’t but recognize a policeman no matter his country of origin. What can I do for you?’

  A wise man. ‘A few small words into the shell of your ear, mon fin. Nothing difficult, I assure you.’

  The shop emptied. In one minute, two nuns, a priest, three soldier boys with their girlfriends and a couple of ordinary citizens looking as if they were after other things had fled.

  ‘Papiere bitte. Schnell! I haven’t got all night.’

  The residence listed on the carte d’identité was the shop, but where did he eat and sleep?

  Kohler tapped the identity card with evident uncertainty before pocketing it only to hear the expected gasp of, ‘Monsieur …?’

  The Kripo’s representative leaned on the counter, pushing trash aside. ‘Hey, you’d already decided it was Inspector. Use some respect. It’s Herr Kohler, Gestapo Paris-Central.’

  The fleshy lips quivered. Pudgy fingers hesitated but moved secretively along the back of the cash counter to a hidden push-bell.

  ‘Don’t! It wouldn’t be wise, now would it?’

  The Gestapo … Corbeau sucked in a breath and fought with himself not to let his eyes stray from the detective’s empty gaze but the temptation was too great.

  He darted a glance to the back of the shop, then waited.

  ‘So, we understand each other,’ breathed Kohler, enjoying getting the jump on such leeches. ‘Now you’re not to lock the front door and hang up the fermé sign. That wouldn’t be fair. You’re to leave that door open to all comers while we have ourselves a little chat.’

  Darkness had come quickly. The bishop’s courtyard was pitch black, the mistral fierce and icy.

  Hermann had departed with the car.

  ‘Ah mon Dieu …’ muttered St-Cyr uneasily to himself. No stranger to the dark, he had to admit he was afraid. Adrienne de Langlade must have been murdered – he was all but certain of this now but as yet had no final proof.

  Mireille de Sinéty must have been about to confront Rivaille and the other judges with the girl’s murder or perhaps had done so.

  ‘And this is Avignon,’ he softly breathed. ‘An Avignon which still hungers for and exudes its past.’

  He started out. It could have been six hundred years ago. The smell and sound of the dogs were there on the air. Had Hermann found Nino dead? Had Xavier taken that dog up river a piece to make certain it wouldn’t be found? Was that why Hermann had left his partner all alone?

  The branches of the bishop’s plane trees were in torment. The scent of burning olive logs and coal mingled with those of sage and thyme and ah! so many things that grew wild on Mount Ventoux and elsewhere to the north. The smell of the river was there too, that of decay, of cold black mud and dead reeds, and why had that girl been drowned?

  Oh bien sûr, the singers were a closed group and very protective of their positions and Adrienne had been the newcomer. And, perhaps, even last autumn Xavier’s voice would have shown signs of changing and the boy would have become increasingly desperate at the thought of losing everything.

  But to kill her over something like that didn’t make sense, did it?

  Reaching the courtyard gates at last, he clung to them to steady himself. By continuing to the left up the rue Sainte Catherine, he could then keep to the right and hopefully reach the Palais. Once in its shadow, there would be some relief from this infernal wind.

  And from there he could strike south along the rue de Mons to that religious shop, if he could find it.

  The sound of steps behind him didn’t come easily and it was some time before he realized he was being followed. Brother Matthieu, he wondered, or had the bishop or Alain de Passe sent someone else? A hired assassin?

  Hermann, as keeper of their guns, had this Sûreté’s treasured Lebel hidden under the driver’s seat of the Renault. It was Hermann’s responsibility to look after the weapon and to assign it to his partner only when needed.

  There were no lights. God had even seen fit to shut out the stars and moon, perhaps to emphasize that at any moment an alerte aérienne could sound and drive everyone underground.

  Everyone.

  The steps had ceased. He was certain of it but their sound had come so tenderly on the wind he had to wait a little longer. Reaching deeply into his overcoat pocket, St-Cyr found and held the pomander. He thought of that other Mireille. Rivaille had said she’d thrown herself from the Bell Tower but had that been the truth? Had there not, perhaps, been far more to it and sufficient, yes, for the present Mireille to insist on appearing before her judges dressed exactly as this first Mireille might well have been?

  Though partially covered under opened manuscripts and letters from the past in the bishop’s study, there’d been recent newspapers. L’Oeuvre, the mouthpiece of Marcel Déat’s pro-Nazi party, L’Oeuvre rassemblement national populaire, also the weekly, Je suis partout, that of L’Action Française since 1930. Monarchist, violently anti-Semitic, anti-Communist and profascist, Je suis had promoted outright hatred and fear of the foreigners who had increasingly sought refuge in France.

  A new and far brighter Renaissance, Rivaille had called life under the Nazis. Fascist and ultrafascist sentiments had always been present, a little stronger in the south perhaps, but one had to be fair. Equally there were, and had been in the past, strongly opposing views.

  But what of La Cagoule, he asked himself. The ‘action’ squads of the Comité secret d’action révolutionnaire – were the bishop and the others leaders of Avignon’s branch of that organization?

  In the thirties there’d been so many far-right splinter parties. The Croix de feu (the Cross of Fire), the Camelots du Roi, and the Voluntaires nationaux. All in some manner had looked forward to the downfall of the Third Republic and the rise of a new era.

  A new Renaissance.

  When the steps started up again, he moved into the deeper darkness of a nearby house and waited.

  Les Fleurs du Petit Enfant was full of surprises, thought Kohler. Right at the back of the shop, and hidden completely from all but the closest scrutiny, was a curtained doorway to a tiny alcove.

  Knitting needles stopped. A woollen scarf began to settle into a copious lap. Dark brown, narrowly spaced eyes under heavily kohled lids looked up at him and blinked in alarm.

  In row after row, and on thin shelves that climbed on either side of the alcove and ran to the sheet-iron comfort of an oil-drum sawdust burner, were postcards of naked breasts.

  Other things too.

  Curls of female hair – black, brown, blonde, reddish blonde and red – male erections, scrotums, small clutches of pubic hair, peephole views of unmentionable female parts. Close-ups of copulating couples, of bare asses, of girls on their hands and knees and grinning as they looked over a shoulder, the fellows to
o, and often not with the girls. ‘Hey, I think I get the picture,’ he quipped. ‘If there is no sin, what is there to confess?’

  ‘It’s all quite legal,’ shot the woman fiercely.

  ‘Inspector, Dénise and I share the duties of the shop.’

  ‘And the profits?’

  Her expression emptied. ‘I am my brother’s keeper, Inspector. As for these,’ she indicated the merchandise. ‘Even God must make a living in such hard times.’

  Sainte Mère! They were a pair, thought Kohler. Corbeau was sweating; the sister, as cold as ice.

  He took out the postcard of Adrienne de Langlade’s breasts and said flatly, ‘Who sold this photo to you?’

  Dénise Corbeau didn’t even bother to throw a warning glance at her brother. She just started up, all gestures and spittle. ‘Quelle folie! How could we possibly know? Who shouts the name for the few sous that are paid? We buy from those who sell and no names are given.’

  ‘What a pity,’ he breathed. ‘You see, the Kommandant isn’t aware of this little service his soldier boys have been frequenting along with your other customers. Oh bien sûr, the man who has needs must go to where they can be satisfied best, the woman also, but—’

  ‘Armand, pay him off and get the fucker out of here. You people. You cows. You think you can constantly put the squeeze on us? Pour I’amour du del, we pay off the préfet, idiot! Now fous-moi la paix!’ Bugger off! She tossed a hand.

  Her ample bosom heaved. A knitting needle fell and as it hit the floor, the bell above the shop entrance rang.

  ‘Mort aux vaches, eh?’ breathed Kohler. Death to cows, the cops.

  ‘Dénise, he’s Gestapo,’ blurted the brother.

  ‘Couillon, ferme-la?’ Asshole, shut your trap!

  They listened to the shop, these two. ‘Hey, it’s probably my partner,’ said Kohler. ‘Now there’s more than one of us and he’s the religious one. A fanatic. His sisters are both Mother Superiors.’ Louis had been an only child, but what the hell.

  ‘Armand, go and see who it is. Don’t stand there looking as if I had caught you with your trousers down. Do it!