Malediction

by Sally Spedding

  Mensonge...

  “He’s lying,” he said. “Lose him before it’s too late.”

  “I disagree.” Cacheux straightened his cuffs. “Our new friend’s quite delightful.”

  But before Vidal could respond, Duvivier had leant forward and nodded to Plagnol. “Fill him up again. I’m fascinated.”

  The young Breton drank again and wiped his mouth with his hand.

  “I have never knowingly lied in my life.” He crossed himself inaccurately and Vidal sneered derision. Undeterred, Mathieu went on. “The Black Death will come again. I have seen it in dreams...” His glass was refilled a third and fourth time, from the last bottle, to loosen his brain and his tongue still further, to bring to life things that the less naïve would have drowned at birth. “I also think,” he slurred, “the whole notion of roasting a sheep’s head, as opposed to the rest of it, is just to promote the illusion that they are superior. That they are the head of things.... and the rest of us are aresholes...”

  Plagnol clapped, his pink face glazed with sweat.

  “Better and better.” Duvivier leant over and dragged his holdall up on to his knees. “And for your peace of mind, Father Xavier-Marie, I can assure you that what you’ve just said so succinctly is now on record.” The rewind on his recorder made the voice lighter, more frantic, a zizanie of evil, and Mathieu leapt to his feet, tried to run. But a wink from Duvivier sent Vidal and Plagnol to work.

  They threw him on the bed, pinned him down.

  “You’re one of us, now. The Armée Contre Juifs. Never ever forget,” the Kommandant’s finger scythed a line round his own throat, “or it will be Nacht und Nebel for you as well.”

  Mathieu burbled a whole chaplet from the rosary until the black blood from his nose, filled his mouth.

  “Fetch him something!” Duvivier snapped and Cacheux who’d escaped to the bathroom to wash his cuffs, threw over a towel.

  “Now then. Jobs for the boys.” Duvivier nudged the pages of his filofax with his small thumb, till he found what he wanted. “Pont de L’Alma. Bridge of the soul. How apt,” he smiled. “Except our punters won’t have one between them. It’s to be a luncheon, you understand. One o’clock...” He paused to let corridor footsteps pass by. “A celebration of the sea, no less. Fins and scales only, naturellement. Eight hundred francs per head.”

  Plagnol whistled, but Mathieu despite his pain, tried to concentrate on every syllable as Duvivier continued. “My contact, Jalibert, tells me the boat is cleaned out at six every morning. Fresh linen first – God what a waste – then comestibles for refrigeration. The only personnel on board is the night watchman Hermans, who leaves at seven.”

  “Any dogs?” Vidal asked, tossing the bloodied towel back to Cacheux who let it drop.

  “I like dogs.” Plagnol made a playful barking sound, thinking more of bitches weighted by rows of soft pink teats...

  “Only us. Get it? And no to your question. The security beam comes round every thirty seconds. Remember all external doors are alarmed.”

  “Who exactly are the floaters?” Cacheux had repositioned himself on the bed and was running his thumb and forefinger up and down each trouser crease.

  “Mostly in furnishings, textiles. Top brass. What Vidal senior aspired to be, if my memory serves me.” He glanced at Robert and saw his expression harden. “But these are the upper, upper echelons.” His finger under his nose. “Sheep’s heads as you so rightly say, Father Xavier-Marie. Thirty-eight of them.”

  “Baaaa.”

  “Orthodox, Religious or Secular?”

  “Immaterial. They’re all greedy.” The Drancy man clamped the wine bottle to his mouth but Duvivier snatched it away.

  “You have thirty-six days to dry out, Monsieur. I’m only sorry I can’t lay on a wilderness for you.”

  Plagnol let his fat, moist tongue rest a moment between his teeth, not quite bold enough to go all the way, while Vidal eased his leather jacket over his shoulders and went to the window. “This Jalibert, can we trust him?”

  “I take that as an affront, Father.”

  “How many others know our plan? I mean, why don’t we just give France Musique the full works and let them slot it between Fauré and Brahms?”

  “Requiems.” Mathieu murmured to himself.

  “Exactly.” Plagnol roared then belched. Vidal’s boot got his shin.

  “Fat crétin.”

  “Mes enfants, attendez...” Duvivier pulled out a pristine sheet of professional indents and margins. Their mission’s title in bold at the top. “Now you were all, except our Breton friend here, sent one of these on June 22nd. Your very own personal invitations.”

  “Who typed it up for you?” Vidal asked as Duvivier pinned it proudly to his chest. “Is it still on file somewhere?”

  The blemished half of the Provençal’s face coloured in the silence seasoned by the smell of men. Mathieu grabbed Vidal’s leg as he lunged at Duvivier’s bed.

  “Leave it,” he whispered.

  “More to the point, who is Kommandant here?” Duvivier snarled. “Who is it will give us glory, not just here on earth, but in the hereafter?” The orator was back once more in his Church of Ste Trinité, letting his words touch the vaulted sky and its ancient, faded stars.

  “Count me out till I know who else knows.” Vidal held on.

  “Well, if we must split hairs, let’s talk about your tart. Your Magdalena...”

  Cacheux and Plagnol edged away to free the area for a fight. Mathieu held his breath, but Vidal stood motionless, except for his jaw pulsing below each ear.

  “Say that again,” he said as the siren outside returned

  “D’you want an overview or details?” Duvivier smirked. “Like I touched her cunt out there tonight and she brought me off?”

  Vidal landed on target while the others huddled by the door, listening to the corridor as new blood speckled the wall. Afterwards, the music lover from Lanvière crossed himself and rinsed his hands. Then, with Mathieu in tow, left the Kommandant to finish his confession.

  XII

  Outside, neon and sodium mingled against the night sky. The stark uncompromising moon had chilled the air and people camping along the Cavalière des Bouleaux were anticipating an early frost, with extra hats and blankets. Around the tents, cooking smells dispersed in the aura of music and laughter, excluding the two priests who strode without purpose nearby.

  Dominique Mathieu loped alongside Robert Vidal, his hands slotted into his jeans, most of his thoughts too rapid to muster. “St. Thérèse is praying for us,” he said finally.

  “Stuff it.”

  But Mathieu clung like an eager puppy to its master.

  “She knew not all priests were good holy men.”

  “Well that’s alright then.”

  “And that her vocation in life was to pray for them.”

  “She was fourteen with a moustache. Look chum, haven’t you got anything more intellectually rigorous to say?”

  “I adore her. She’s my life.”

  If she’ll still have me.

  Vidal stopped. Overhead lights slung between the trees honed his nose, sharp as a file. Both hands heavy on the other man’s shoulders like a gymnast poised to spring on to his leather horse.

  “To me, the Carmelite Reform is irrelevant and unfocussed. Our dear late sister should have done her worldly homework, then she’d have known it’s the Cabbalists, running amok on our planet, that are the primary cancers. Lymphatic stuff. Subtle destruction. I agree with Barshakov. They divided two great Aryan peoples: Russians and Germans. The War was their idea.”

  “But the Protocols of Zion was a complete fabrication, everybody knows that. The Czarist police made it up and look who got hold of it. My God. The power of the word...”

  “And the Word was made God.” Vidal smiled to himself as Mathieu’s true feelings deserted him. But Thérèse’s radiant eyes stayed constant.

  “Still, a Sainthood’s not bad.” He kicked a pile of leaves into a
sudden spray.

  “They got a quickie through to shut the women up.” Vidal chuckled without mirth. “So don’t be hoodwinked.”

  “That’s just how you see me, isn’t it? Naïve and gullible?”

  “Is it important what I think?”

  “Of course.”

  “I still say you’re a dissembler. Duvivier’s the simpleton.”

  Mathieu tried to break the awkward silence that followed. To keep things light with the man he couldn’t fathom. A man with the Devil singing in his heart. “Anyhow, Thérèse will be made a Doctor of the Church next month,” he said, grinning.

  “Marvellous.”

  “You wait. There’ll be a woman Pontiff one day. Ask old Balasuriya.” Mathieu pulled down a branch and let it sigh back into place, bringing down a veil of beech leaves. Then he stopped. “There’s no escape, is there?”

  “No.”

  “What’ll he do to you now?”

  “Who?”

  “Duvivier.”

  “Oh, it won’t be the first time. At Villerscourt he tried...”

  “Villerscourt? That place?”

  “Three weeks hard labour my friend. But he was there first. Put one of his flock in an oxygen mask, so the story goes...”

  Mathieu gasped, fear tingeing the blood in his veins.

  “My God, he really is irredeemable.”

  Beads of traffic threaded along the Allée de la Reine Marguerite, and although a clear run lay ahead, both men slowed as if their respective thoughts had fused into a single yoke across their shoulders. Mathieu needed to know what had taken his elegant companion to that final outpost of disgrace, and asked as delicately as he could.

  “I loved a woman. Once,” Vidal said simply.

  “The one at the hotel? Colette?”

  The newcomer had remembered, and Vidal felt a fleeting shame.

  “That’s it.”

  “Funny thing. She reminds me so much of my mother. The way she speaks, the way she dresses even. You couldn’t have been more cruel.” He was all too aware of the other man’s eyes. Burgundy still on his breath.

  “Cruel to be kind, mon ami. I’ve got to keep her away for the time being.”

  “But she brought you here, the poor woman.”

  “Another of Duvivier’s teases. She can know a little, but then he decides it’s too much. That makes her an enemy. That’s his addiction.”

  “I can’t see someone like her being anybody’s enemy.” Mathieu could barely say the word.

  “She’s in the same boat as you, but at least I’m giving her the chance to swim.”

  “What about me, then?”

  A shrug.

  “I can’t say.”

  Mathieu stared up into the leafless sky, pierced by faraway headlights. A plane winked its way north to de Gaulle as an empty fear gripped his insides. God was out there somewhere, waiting for his prayer, so he touched his Jesus and mouthed Colette’s name.

  “At the Marionnette, if I’d known about her son, I’d have told her.”

  “You’d have been a stiff in ten seconds.”

  Mathieu fell silent, then when he’d recovered, tried a different tack.

  “What’s he like?”

  “OK. I suppose. Trouble was though, she kept trying to push him on to me. Said he needed a role model, a father figure. For God’s sake...” Vidal swept a hand through his hair. “She wanted him in the choir. That was her thing. Every Saturday she’d send him over to me with a begging letter.”

  “A maman’s love, no less.”

  “I told her she was more like a Jewish mother. She didn’t like that at all. Just kept saying it would do him good, build up his confidence. But that’s something he was never short of. Cocky little shit if you must know. He could never leave it alone.”

  “What exactly?” Mathieu startled by the change in tone.

  “The fact we were seeing each other. He used to hang around the flat, always bloody there like mould on a cheese – once when we thought he was out, he was hiding. Actually caught us at it...”

  “Oh, Lord.”

  “Can’t prove it, but I think he let old Toussirot know.”

  “The Bishop of Ramonville?”

  “Correct. And the rest is history, including Villerscourt.”

  Spasms of shouting from one of the encampments ended the brief silence.

  “He must be about my age.”

  “Near enough but old enough to know better.” Vidal’s face had changed. He’d said too much already and Mathieu knew it.

  “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

  Robert Vidal spun round, and lengthening his stride soon reached the bridle path back to the Avenue Goncourt. Then once on firmer ground, began to run.

  Mathieu willed the angels to lift his own reluctant legs. He ignored the welcoming litter of camp lights, instead kept his sights on the shape in front and his ears tuned to the shift of leaves. They were suddenly past the pavilion, the hubbub of the Porte Dauphine and down into the slime and wetness of another season. Both men close, leaping like hurdlers over the beggars and drunks ranged along the wall.

  Mathieu reached out, got a grip of Vidal’s jacket and kept it. The other trod air for a few strides then slumped to a standstill as two shirt-sleeved gendarmes strutted from the Metro end. One was swearing into his receiver. Four eyes fixed on Mathieu who immediately let go.

  “Problem?” The taller officer asked, while the other flicked in the aerial.

  “Lover’s tiff, is it? Or do we check for héro...?”

  “I can explain.” Mathieu went for his crucifix again, but Vidal took his hand and fondled it until the police drew back, smiling.

  “I see we have some liberal Catholics here, Micha. Well try to keep that little pleasure to yourselves, guys. We’ve got half of bloody Europe out there to deal with.”

  The men from the north and the east watched as those other shadows like daggers, ever lengthening, followed them along the tunnel until they were just another part of the lurking night.

  “Fascist pricks.” Vidal squinted at his watch and readjusted his jacket. “Did you know at least twenty percent of them are in the FN?”

  “My father’s an ex-flic. Do you mind?” To Mathieu it seemed as good a time as any to say this, but nothing prepared him for the look on Vidal’s face. “You can trust me,” the Breton said sweetly, his heart pumping overtime.

  “I bloody hope so.”

  Duvivier’s not done his homework again, obviously. Merde.

  “I meant it.”

  “Words, words...”

  Still that madness. To Mathieu it was frightening and he was quite alone, like he’d been so many times before in the worst of weather on the N12 caught in a crossfire of Atlantic and Channel storms. Was Vidal armed? He wondered. He wasn’t sure.

  He made a move and Vidal came up behind. Closer than he’d planned and close enough for the running breath to catch his neck.

  “Wait.”

  Mathieu obeyed. For his life. Saw his mother’s eyes close as soon his would be closed. A one-second prayer...

  “Amen.”

  Vidal closed his arms around him, neither in love nor desire, but to save something of his soul. “I’ve got something to tell you. Very, very private. Understand?”

  Mathieu stared.

  “They’ve taken Bertrand,” he said it as if the very name felt a burden in his mouth, “to The Pigface’s flat in Drancy.”

  XIII

  The temporary night quarters for the Pauvres Soeurs des Souffrances were spacious but dark, lit not warmed by small flame-shaped bulbs at each room corner. Light enough for bodily functions, sombre enough for prayer, and on her oblong of tatted rag, Colette prayed with all her heart.

  The midnight Benediction had just ended and traffic tearing past in the Boulevard de Neuilly drowned her murmurs. She was asking too much, but He had to know she was bereft, and needing a sign, any sign, that Bertrand was alright. After twice through the rosary and a minute
of intense supplication, her propped-up crucifix suddenly fell to the floor.

  “I’ll get it,” a young girl’s voice, followed by a perfume half-recognised. She set it straight and crossed herself. “There. Jesus says thank you. I’m Nelly, by the way. Nelly Augot.”

  Colette saw a stocky girl in tee shirt and jeans, thick black hair and spectacle frames to match. “Your perfume,” she said. “I’m trying to remember...”

  “Doesn’t matter.” A plump, warm hand touched hers. “It’s only Dune. I never feel dressed without it.”

  “I’m just the same.” But it was as though she was referring to a stranger.

  “My mama’s favourite is Je Reviens.”

  “That’s nice.”

  It’s mine as well, isn’t it?

  Nelly knelt alongside and squeezed her eyes shut, like a child at bedtime.

  “Did Agnès bring you here?”

  “Yes, she’s been really kind...”

  “I hadn’t eaten for nearly a week when she found me.”

  “Goodness. But – what about your mama?”

  Nelly pulled a face. “I can’t go back there. It’s not a home any more.”

  Colette sat back on her heels, trying to recall her own apartment, but all she could see was Dolina Levy’s old frightened face.

  “Mine’s not much better.”

  “Where’s that, then?”

  She had to think for a moment.

  “Near Stenay. On the Meuse.”

  “Got a job?”

  “Probably not any more.”

  Nelly stared, as if surprised by her apparent lack of regret.

  “I did English at the Sorbonne. Been hoping to get translation work. Anything really.”

  “And...?”

  “Bloody nothing. Whoops! That’s got to be three Hail Marys.” But behind the smile lay a familiar bleakness, the same Colette had seen in Bertrand and the other jobless young on the streets of Lanvière.

  “It’s harder for you than it ever was for us.”

  “But my mate Chloë’s even worse off. Least I didn’t get pregnant.”

  “Is she here as well?”

  “Yes. Somewhere, poor cow. I’ve sort of been trying to find her, but I’m not that bothered. Honestly.”