“No, Maurice, in your honor, and for Isabelle, I have brought the ’99 that you like. Let’s drink a toast to friendship, but first, Isabelle, I should tell you that this is vin de noix, made from our local green walnuts, Bergerac wine and eau-de-vie from my own peaches. You won’t find this in Paris.”
“Delicious,” she said after tasting it. “And what a magnificent view you have, Monsieur Duchêne. But isn’t it cold up here in winter?”
“Cold? Never. The water never freezes and the rocks keep me dry. I have plenty of wood and my stove is all I need, even on the coldest nights when there’s snow on the ground. Now you must try my famous water, my dear. If there were much more of it, I’d call it a source and bottle it and become richer than Monsieur Perrier.”
She took a sip. It was cool, so lightly pétilknt that she could barely taste the bubbles, and without any of the chalky taste of some mountain waters. She took some more, swirling it around her mouth.
“It tastes like freshness itself,” she said, and Duchêne rocked back and forth with glee.
“May I show her the cave, Maurice?” Bruno asked. “I brought two flashlights. And the vin de noix is for you, along with some pâté I made this spring.” He took a large glass jar with a rubber seal from his bag and placed it on the table, and Duchêne handed Bruno an ancient key and poured himself another glass from Bruno’s bottle.
They walked on past the vegetable garden, along an increasingly narrow winding track, where only a flimsy rope fence protected them from the drop, and then around a steep buttress in the cliff. They came to a patch of brilliant green turf that led to an ancient iron-bound door in the rock. Bruno opened it with the key, gave Isabelle a flashlight and told her to watch her footing. He took her arm to guide her in, and they stood for a moment to let their eyes get accustomed to the darkness. Gigi stayed at the entrance, backing away from the cave’s black interior and growling softly. Bruno was very conscious of Isabelle’s closeness as he steered her forward, his feet carefully feeling their way over the rough rock.
“They call this the Cave of the Sorcerer, but hardly anyone knows about it and even fewer come to see it,” he said. “Maurice prefers it that way, so he doesn’t put up any signs and won’t let the tourist board advertise it. But it has something very rare among the cave paintings of this district.”
He stopped and turned her with a gentle touch to her arm. It gave her a small start. Then she leaned slightly toward him as if she expected to be kissed, but he shone his flashlight high and told her to look carefully. As she followed the movement of the beam of light she saw that he was illuminating the outlines of a creature, crouching and heavy and somehow touched with power and menace.
“Is it a bear?” she asked, but the light was moving on. Next to it was another image; Bruno was playing the light up and down along a strange curve that seemed at first to be part of the rock. He let her take in the dark painted shape.
“It’s a mammoth!” she said, marveling. “I see the tusks, and that’s a trunk, and those massive legs.”
“Twenty thousand years old,” said Bruno softly, and directed the beam farther along to a small creature on all fours, its face turned toward them.
“Its face is so human,” Isabelle said. “Is it a monkey, an ape?”
“No tail,” said Bruno, moving the torch to the rump. “This is just about unique, the only identified humanoid face in all the Périgord cave art that is known. Look: the eyes, the curve of the jaw and shape of the head, and the gap that seems to be an open mouth.”
“It’s wonderful, but it looks almost evil.”
“That’s why Maurice calls it the Sorcerer.” He paused, and she shone her own flashlight around the cave, up to the jagged, sloping roof and back to the mammoth. “There’s one more thing I want to show you, something I find very moving,” he said, and steered her around a pillar of rock and into a smaller cave, his flashlight darting back and forth at waist height before he found what he was looking for. Then the beam focused on a tiny hand, the print of a child’s palm and fingers, so clear and precise that it could have been made the day before.
“Oh, Bruno,” she said, clutching at his hand and squeezing it. “A child’s handprint. That’s so touching, it’s marvelous.”
“Can’t you just see the little one at play?” he said. “While his parents are painting mammoths and sorcerers, the child puts a hand in the paint and then makes a mark that lasts forever.”
“Twenty thousand years,” she whispered, then impulsively reached up and touched his cheek and kissed him. She let her mouth linger on his as the light from their flashlights darted aimlessly around the cave. Bruno responded, tasting the wine on her lips, until she moved her hand up to stroke his cheek. She drew back, her eyes glinting in the light and smiling questioningly, as if asking herself whether he had brought other women to this cave, and whether it had worked the same magic on them.
They bade farewell to Maurice and his dog, and the sun was still an hour or more from sinking as they returned to the van, hand in hand.
“Now what?” she asked.
“Now for your picnic,” he said. He drove up the narrow, winding road. They came out on a wide plateau formed by the cliff that harbored the cave. He drove on toward a small hillock topped with a ruined building, but the distance was deceptive. The hillock was far larger than it seemed at first sight, and the ruined building was tall and imposing.
“It’s a ruined castle,” Isabelle said with delight.
“Welcome to the castle of Brillamont, seat of the seigneurs of St. Denis, built eight hundred years ago. It was twice taken by the English and twice recaptured and sacked, and ruined over four hundred years ago by fellow Frenchmen in the religious wars. But it’s the best place I know for a picnic. You have a look around with Gigi while I organize things. Just don’t climb the walls or the staircase—it’s not safe.”
Bruno watched as Gigi bounded ahead, occasionally glancing back to see what took this human so long, and Isabelle climbed the hill past the crumbled castle walls to a large sloping expanse of turf dominated by a central tower.
Three of its walls still stood, but the whole of the interior was open to her view. A stone staircase that looked solid enough climbed up the interior of all three walls. Bruno glanced up from the fire he was making as she paced the exterior walls and looked out over the plateau, where the view was even grander than it had been from the cave, with the river Vézère flowing into the Dordogne as it came from an adjoining valley.
Swifts and swallows were darting above Isabelle as she rejoined Bruno. He had built a small fire inside a nest of stones and laid across it a metal grill he had brought with him. Two freshly gutted fish were steaming gently above the coals. He had spread a large rug and some cushions on the ground, and two Champagne glasses stood on a large tray. He’d put a fresh baguette with a hefty wedge of Cantal cheese and a block of pâté on a wooden board. As she knelt on a cushion, he reached into a cooler and pulled out a half bottle of Champagne.
“Now there’s a responsible policeman. Only drinking a half bottle because he has to drive,” she said, sinking to her knees on the rug. “This looks even better than I could possibly have dreamed when I asked for a picnic, Bruno. Where did you get the fish?”
“From my friend the Baron. He caught those trout less than half an hour before I met you at the hotel.”
“What would you have done if he hadn’t caught anything?”
“Some sausages from the pig we killed in February are in the cooler.”
“Can we have one of those as well?” she asked, clapping her hands. “Just so I can try them? I don’t think I have ever had a homemade sausage before.”
“Certainly, anything for the lovely lady of Brillamont,” he said, handing her a glass of Champagne, and then digging out a long skein of sausage which he laid carefully over the coals.
“That’s much too much. I just want a little taste.”
“Yes, but Gigi has to eat, too.” He ra
ised his glass. “I drink a toast to my rescuer, with my deepest appreciation. You saved me from a real beating in the square.”
“My toast is to you and your wonderful imagination. I can’t think of a better evening or a better picnic, and there’s no one I’d rather enjoy it with.” She leaned forward and kissed him briefly, letting her tongue dart out between his lips, then sat back, smiling almost shyly.
“I’m glad,” he said, and poured the rest of the Champagne into their glasses. “Drink up, before the sun goes down and it gets too dark to see what we’re eating.”
“Knowing you, Bruno, you’ll have thought of that, and some elderly retainers will march out from the castle ruins holding flaming torches.”
“I think I’d prefer privacy,” he said, and handed her a tin plate from his picnic box. He moved across to the fire to turn the fish and sausage, and looked back briefly. “Help yourself to the pâté and break me off some bread, please.” He turned back to his cooler, and came out with two fresh glasses and a bottle of rosé. “This is why we only had the half bottle of Champagne.”
The fish were just right, the blackened skin falling away from the flesh and the backbone pulling easily free. She saw thin slivers of garlic that he had placed inside the belly of the trout, and he handed her half a lemon to squeeze onto the pink-white flesh, and a small side plate with potato salad studded with tiny lardons of bacon.
“I couldn’t make a feast like this in a full kitchen, and you produce it in the middle of nowhere,” she said.
“I think they probably had very grand banquets up here in the castle in the old days. That sausage looks about ready, and we still have another hour of twilight after the sun goes down.”
“I wonder what the cave people ate,” she mused, picking up a piece of sausage with her fingers. “This is delicious but I’m getting full.” She put her plate down, and when Gigi came up to sniff it, the dog looked inquiringly at Bruno. He put the plate down in front of his dog and stroked its head, giving Gigi permission to eat.
“They ate reindeer. There were even glaciers up in Paris in those days. It was the Ice Age, and reindeer were plentiful. The archaeologists found some of their rubbish heaps and it was almost all reindeer bones, and some fish. They didn’t live inside the caves—they saved them for painting. Apparently they lived in huts made of skin, probably like the American Indians in their tepees.”
He tossed the fish bones into the fire and put their plates and the cutlery into a plastic bag. This went into his cooler after he’d brought out a small basket of strawberries and placed it beside the cheese.
“This is it, the last course. But no picnic is complete without strawberries.” Then he put some more sticks onto the fire, which blazed up as they lay on their sides on the rug, the strawberries between them, and the sun just about to touch the horizon.
“It’s a lovely sunset,” Isabelle said. “I want to watch it go down.” She pushed the strawberries aside and turned to lie close to him, her back against his chest and her buttocks nestled into him. He pulled her ever so gently toward him. On the far side of the fire, Gigi was discreetly asleep. Bruno put his arm around her waist and she snuggled into him more tightly. As the sun finally sank she took his hand and slipped it inside her blouse and onto her breast.
23
When Bruno woke up at home, he reached across for Isabelle. He was surprised she wasn’t there. Then, with his eyes still closed, he smiled broadly at the memory of the previous evening by the fire before, reluctantly, they had dressed and Bruno had driven Isabelle back to her hotel, stopping the car every few hundred yards to kiss again as if they could never taste each other enough.
He sprang from his bed and into his familiar exercises, his mind fresh and alert and alive with energy as he ducked into the shower, turned on the radio and dressed to go outside and enjoy the new day. He fed himself, his dog and his chickens and stood awhile gazing at the familiar view of his land and the hills that rolled away toward the river, enjoying his happy mood and the freshness of the morning air. He looked over his garden, suddenly noting that it must have rained in the night while he slept. At least the rain had held off for them, he thought, and he felt himself smiling once more.
He felt ready for anything, and turned back to the house to get his cap and briefcase, and noticed the red light of a message flashing on his phone. Thinking only of Isabelle, he must have missed it when he got back last night. It was the young professor at Montpellier, telling him that the list of players for the Oraniens team had been faxed to him at the Mairie.
After deleting the message, he was heading for the door when his phone rang and he leaped toward it, a lover’s intuition persuading him that it was Isabelle.
“I just woke up,” Isabelle said. “And it’s so unfair that you’re not here. I miss you already.”
“And I miss you,” he said, and they exchanged the delightful nothings of lovers, content just to hear the other’s voice in the electronic intimacy of a telephone wire. In the background of her room, another phone rang.
“That’ll be J-J on my cell for the morning report. I think I’ll have to go to Bergerac for the drug case.”
“Can we meet this evening?” he asked.
“I can’t wait, chéri. I should be back later this afternoon. I’ll call when I’m on my way.”
Once in his office, where the fax from Montpellier awaited him, Bruno read through the list of names—and assumed there had to be some error. How else to explain why the final list of the Oraniens championship team contained no Hamid al-Bakr, when the young man had pride of place in the official photograph? He called the professor in Montpellier again, and double-checked the spelling of every name. Still no Hamid. He looked at the name that was listed as the team captain: Hocine Boudiaf. Beside the word “Hocine,” Bruno had written in brackets “Hussein,” which the Montpellier lecturer said was an alternative spelling and which looked more familiar. He had not been able to come up with a team photograph, but he had faxed Bruno another photo that included Boudiaf. That might help solve the puzzle. He checked his watch. Momu would not yet have left for school. He called him at home.
“Bruno, I want to apologize again, to apologize for my words and actions and to thank you,” Momu began.
“Forget it, Momu, it’s all right. Listen, I have a question. It comes from trying to track down your father’s missing photograph. Have you ever heard the name Boudiaf, Hussein Boudiaf? Could he have been a friend of your father?”
“The Boudiaf family were cousins, back in Algeria,” Momu replied. “They were the only family my father stayed in touch with, but not closely. I think there might have been some letters in the stuff I went through at his house, just family news, deaths, weddings and children being born. I suppose I should write and tell them of Hamid’s death and of Karim’s child, but I haven’t kept in touch. My father felt he could never go back to Algeria after the war.”
“Did you know any of his friends from his youth, soccer friends or teammates? Do you remember any names?”
“Not really, but try me.”
Bruno read down the list of the Oraniens team. He put a small cross beside two of the names that Momu said sounded vaguely familiar. After he hung up he called Isabelle again.
“I knew it was you,” she said, laughing happily. “I am just out of the shower and thinking of you.”
“I wish I were there with you, but I have a business question. That helpful man you spoke to in the military archives.
If you have his number, would he speak to me? I have the list of the Oraniens team and the mystery is that Hamid’s name is not on it. I want to see if we can trace any of the other team members. One or two might still be alive.”
She gave him the number. “If you don’t get very far, I can try him. I think he was an old man who liked talking to a young woman.”
“Who could blame him, Isabelle? I’ll call your cell if I need help. Until tonight.”
The photo that had been faxed with the
list was grainy and not too clear. It had come from an unidentified newspaper and showed three men in soccer gear. In the center was Villanova with his arms around two young North Africans. One of them was identified as Hussein Boudiaf and the other as Massili Barakine, which was one of the names that Momu had half remembered. Bruno felt he was getting somewhere. He dialed the military archives number that Isabelle had given him, and a quavering voice answered.
“This is Chief of Police Courrèges from St. Denis in Dordogne, monsieur. I need your help with regard to an inquiry in which you’ve already been very helpful to my colleague Inspector Isabelle Perrault.”
“Are you the policeman I saw on TV, young man, in that riot?”
“Yes, that probably was me.”
“Chapeau, monsieur. You have the admiration of sous-officer Arnaud Marignan, of the seventy-second of the line. What can I do for you?”
Bruno explained the situation, gave the names and reminded Marignan of the connection with the Commandos d’Afrique who had landed near Toulon in 1944. Did the archives have a photograph of the young Hamid al-Bakr?
“We should have an identity photo on the copy of his pay book, if not for the Commandos d’Afrique then certainly after his transfer. Give me your phone number and I’ll call back, and a fax so I can send a copy of the pay-book photo. I’m afraid we can’t send the original. And please convey my regards to your charming colleague.”
Bruno smiled at the effect Isabelle seemed to have on the telephone. He was anxious to get the fax but he had another task in mind, and began thinking what other lines to pursue. He took a piece of notepaper from his desk and wrote a brief letter of thanks for his English dinner. Then he called Pamela, exchanged amiable courtesies and asked for Christine. He gave her the new names to be researched in Bordeaux and made sure they had one another’s cell-phone numbers. The second he hung up the phone rang again. It was J-J.
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