Malediction

by Sally Spedding

  “You’ve got the wrong person. I don’t understand...”

  “But I think you do.”

  “Consider your soul if nothing else.” Sister Agnès added. Her total detachment making her an eerie stranger.

  “We heard you again during sleep and your accusations remain constant.”

  “Exactly.” The Confessor licked her finger and turned down another page as the candle flames wavered and suddenly died. “Now you will not interrupt until I have reached the end. Then you may explain your evil storytelling.” She stood up, balancing the evidence on her open palm.

  “You have known carnal lust with a man appointed by God and the Holy Father in Rome to lead the sick and depraved towards a purer life. You have allowed yourself to be aroused by his tongue and his hands and your body to be a receptacle for his seed. Not only this, but in your out-pouring of lies you accuse Father Jean-Baptiste of the Église de la Sainte Vierge, Father André of Sainte Trinité and other Godly representatives of planning murder and mayhem. What is your response?”

  The Percheron put down her book and waited, not once deflected by the turbulence in the Heavens nor the lightening that startled the room. The nuns looked at one another, then Agnès got up and heaved the window shut as another deafening strike shook the Refuge.

  “God is disturbed” she said. “And rightly so.” She crossed herself, then whispered to Sister Cecilia. “He sees His Kingdom rent by spells and devilry, and you, Sister are a poor hapless creature caught up in the plans of Satan.”

  “With respect, I don’t agree she is a poor hapless creature.” The Sister Superior’s cheeks were tinged with a vicious blush. “We have before us a knowing and insidious mind. I could tell the moment we met. And of course, this is not her first sin...”

  “What is the other, pray?” Agnès asked.

  “She gave birth to a child out of wedlock. A son.”

  “Well, that puts me in good company, then.” Colette retorted.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The Virgin was no different.”

  Six eyes focussed on her in disbelief, and Sister Agnès tried to leave her seat, but was restrained. There was more conferring while the bells of St. Fiacre overruled the din from the skies with their own agitation.

  Colette swayed to the recurring vision of wide water and fields of reeds stretching back to pasture. That same young man with her colouring and her eyes, still brandishing his arms as if each wave would be his last.

  “With this viewpoint, Sister, by equating your shame with such imaginings, you have placed yourself amongst the lowest orders of human life and we have no Absolution for such defilement.” Sister Cecilia’s voice grew louder. “You are a contagion and therefore, we must think how best to contain you.”

  The pen shrieked on each downward stroke, and the Confessor could barely record quickly enough, the anger in her heart.

  “You are equating your son with Christ, is that it?” asked Sister Agnès in an even more alien tone that Colette could only stare at the transformation. She gripped the chair so hard that its wood and her bones felt as one; her mouth disabled, until those two words “Your son” had finally registered. She, Colette Bataille wasn’t mad after all, despite everything, and now his face grew clear. The boy on the banks of the Meuse was her own flesh and blood. Her Bertrand.

  She took a deep breath, steeled herself inwardly, giving nothing away, but then set her hands for prayer, openly begging for the mercy of the Lord to descend. The Sister Superior – Marie-Ange – sniggered contemptuously, then whispered to Sister Cecilia, who put down her pen.

  “But we digress,” she said. “I agree. Sister Agnès, it is tempting to dwell upon this other matter, but I wish to return our heretic to my first question.” She left her seat and came to stand at Colette’s shoulder. Again a whiff of urine, and this time, cabbage.

  Thibaut – Duvivier, Father André of Sainte Trinité and all the other deceptions of his sordid little life, his sperm on her hand, his loathing in her mouth...

  “You must listen to me,” said Colette. “They are Jew haters. To them, the chosen people are the ones chosen to die. And these priests will do whatever it takes to succeed.”

  The Percheron heaved her towards the door as the clamour outside reached its climax and all the lights went out. Total darkness as they skirted the chapel where Vespers was just ending. The merging of echoes as the other two behind harshly chanted the Confiteor as though it were a plea for damnation.

  Colette tried to keep Bertrand’s image alive in her mind – the only brightness – as they followed wet stone stairs down to the Cave under the Refectory, and pushed the apostate in.

  XXIII

  Cacheux emerged from the Public Urinal fretting about the lack of soap. Vidal could tell from his forehead’s red, plucked skin that he’d had another go at his eyebrows specially for the journey home. They looked more like two sticks of charcoal strangely detached from his face... The priest from Lanvière laughed out loud.

  “What’s the joke, eh?” Cacheux felt a deep blush spread up from his neck.

  “Everything.” Vidal secured his Monoprix bags between his knees, keeping a lookout for Duvivier. “The fact we’re stuck here, for God’s sake.”

  Still in anonymous casuals among the steady flow of late holidaymakers and students looking for a couple of cut-price days in the smoke, his new timepiece with all its intricacies on view showed twelve eighteen. Also diving depths, speeds of currents – micro technology heavier on his wrist than his last watch, but luminously purposeful.

  He watched the day’s brightness desiccate the figures outside on the Concourse into Giacometti-like thins as they neared the station. His eye on them all not just to pick out the fisherman but also the woman he’d lost, and in the purity of that light, that spectral whiteness of her absence, his outlawed soul drifted black as a mote towards Hell.

  “Did you get everything you need?” Duvivier came from nowhere.

  Vidal could tell he’d made time for a couple of cognacs at their expense but didn’t push it. He was on his way back, to where she’d come from, her place in the Rue St. Léger. Empty rooms and cut flowers browning on the sill, the doormat with a green Bienvenue woven into it. His hunger wasn’t important.

  “See you after our scholar Jérôme’s day, then.” Duvivier strolled over to where Mathieu was checking his luggage. The Breton’s mother had insisted on collecting him, but he, Vidal had done the decent thing advising against it, and now the novice was trying to lose him, he could tell. Itching for his other life, the sails in the sunset and a baptism in the morning. Some other woman’s child, he thought.

  This is not a suitable world for the very young.

  He saw him head towards the Metro for Montparnasse, and then Duvivier as an afterthought, detain him with both hands, covering all eventualities. Covering himself. But it was a minute too long, and Mathieu pushed him away.

  Hélas! That one will never learn...

  In thirty six minutes the Frankfurt train would be in. Time enough to see Plagnol stocking up with panini and salami, and watching the way the girl in the deli reached over, her breasts white as eggs in the V of her overall. Duvivier had told him to take one of his mother’s small rooms in the Avenue St. Quentin for the duration, and to make the trip back to Drancy in the Laguna his last. So he was compensating, Vidal could tell.

  The 12.14 for Zurich pulled out with a sigh and disappeared into the haze as Duvivier came over, his mouth open at the ready.

  “That Breton’s fou, and Plagnol’s a pétain.”

  “Not my problem.” Vidal gathered up his things.

  “He won’t be paid unless he takes the Xantia.”

  “His problem.”

  “Before you go, tell him.”

  Vidal stared in surprise.

  For the first time the fucker was asking for help.

  “No man can serve two masters, Father. He despises me even more than you.”

  “Thank you for that l
ittle snippet, my friend.” As Duvivier turned towards The Pigface, he caught a glimpse of his own cheek in the photo-booth glass, let his fingers roam like ramblers over some familiar landscape.

  I look like a citron. Worse, Esrog. Thank God this doesn’t represent my heart...

  “It’s getting worse, don’t you know?”

  “All flesh is corrupt.” Vidal smiled, slicking back his hair. “Why should we be exempt?”

  He saw Cacheux take Plagnol’s hand before leaving. Another disobedience that Duvivier missed as he stared around like a lost traveller. There were still too many unanswered questions, such as: where had he been while they were at the warehouse? Who’d done his typing? And not least, who was paying them? The National Front? The Croix de Feu? Or was it F.A.N.E?

  But Vidal could no more ask again than ignore the sounds of Guillaume de Machaut that seeped from someone’s walkman nearby. Notes from Heaven, lost amongst the arrivals and departures, and in a brief moment of stillness, its beauty tore at his heart.

  “Some tart tried to pick me up, would you believe.” Duvivier’s voice destroyed it all, his hand still lingering on his disfigured cheek. “Obviously this didn’t put her off.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Ought to get them off the streets. I equate them with dog shit.”

  “Indeed.” Vidal watched as towns and cities to the east came and went on the huge screen. His Frankfurt train was going to be late. A signals problem near Verdun.

  Merde.

  It was important to be away from the Provençal. He made a move but, like the Breton, was held back.

  “Talking of which,” Duvivier murmured, “see that lot over there?” He pointed to a family huddled near a bookstall. “Yids.”

  The man’s skullcap perched on a sea of thick hair, the fringes of his talith edging the jacket, white against black. His wife’s head was disguised by a fleecy sheitel that reached her shoulders. “You’d think they’d be a bit more discreet, given the history,” Duvivier said loudly, and as though she’d heard, the woman locked her husband’s arm more tightly. But this encouraged him further. “Thou hast chosen us from all peoples; thou hast loved us and found pleasure in us. My God that’s rich isn’t it? – And hast exalted us above all tongues...”

  Duvivier pulled up his collar and turned away as they looked round, their faces out of the light, shadowed by a sudden fear. The woman caught Vidal’s eye thinking it was him. One second of centuries locked in the Ashkenazi’s gaze, and the beautiful man from Lanvière broke away and ran with his bags of mammon knocking against his legs, down over the site of the first comic opera towards the church of St. Laurent.

  ***

  Traffic in the Boulevard de Strasbourg had slowed around a long cortège heading for the west door. Behind the hearse glass, mounds of cream lilies and roses shivered like surreal desserts upon the coffin, untouched by the sun and destined to further sour the acrid cremation smoke hanging above the Père Lachaise.

  Vidal followed, avoiding the two harpies with undesirably thick legs who reached out at him from the railings, past a solitary flower seller and a woman with a coated dog, and when the procession halted he slipped into the darkened nave and fell to his knees.

  XXIV

  In the unisex Toilettes of St. Anne’s hostel, Nelly Augot skimmed her contact lenses off her eyes, splashed her face from the trickle of tap water, and replaced them. Then she cocked her head and grinned, allowing the gap between her teeth to fully show. It was enough to frighten horses. But not the voyou near the Champs de Mars. He’d wanted her alright – the sort who fancy their mothers and touch up little girls, she could tell. He would have bruised her, made her do things when quickies in alleyways and corners were all she wanted. Besides, something about him was scary, and not just his skin problem either.

  She moved closer to the mirror, scrutinising the line of downy hairs above her top lip and the untrimmed slide of both eyebrows towards her hair. No tweezers, in fact nothing to improve things in the merciless beam of sunlight that showed up every preening mark on the speckled glass. She sprayed Dune all over and under her borrowed denim layers.

  “Right, Yveline. Second time lucky,” she told herself, slinging her bag over her shoulder and striding, through the foyer and its dangling Jesus, into the airless afternoon. She was aware of the receptionist’s death stares and was tempted to go and sort her out, but her need of a bed was greater, and the only spare in the whole of the 16ième was hers.

  Perspiration soon weighted her hair as she stood where the hordes had been. An old man in baggy overalls was painstakingly sweeping their leavings into a dustpan. He smiled up at her.

  “Past it, sorry, love.” He pocketed the bigger dimps then offered her one.

  “Thanks.” Rimmed by red lipstick, it reminded her of why she was there at all. On the game in a skirt too short and mules that strained the backs of her knees, and when he wasn’t looking, she dropped it down a drain.

  The American researcher in Room 30, who’d given her name as Romy Kirchner, had been more than generous, and over a bottle of Vittel, the redhead admitted she hadn’t realised the extent of youth poverty in such a glorious country. And that was the invitation for Nelly to begin her life story and talk about the father she barely remembered.

  Funny to think these clothes had started life in Boston, Nelly mused, feeling the coarse rub of seams on her skin as she reconnoitred for the best pitch for the rest of the afternoon.

  She’d seen her mama do that, from ten floors up – no more than a coloured spindle and its shadow, like one of her little Guatemalan ’trouble dolls’ testing out a length of pavement, getting the punters focussed before the final pull. Nelly never saw the men in close up. Once they’d reached the lift, she had to exit sharpish down the fire stairs. Every time, whatever the weather. Those were the terms if she wanted to eat, and on August 16th, she’d decided she preferred hunger.

  She removed her waistcoat, keeping an eye on the kerb all the while, just like mama. Nonchalant and come-hitherish, except that no-one paid her any attention. Five hundred francs a go. Three hundred for hand relief although God knew she’d never even seen let alone touched one in her entire life, and eight hundred for a blow job. The going rate in the Avenue Renaud, and what was good enough for Micheline Augot was good enough for her virgin daughter. And what was His Holiness going to do about that?

  Mental arithmetic promised a good whack for a week’s work. Besides, there were more punters here than in Libourne. The reason she’d stayed. She’d have the return fare for herself and Colette within twenty-four hours. Nelly studied the party of Italians stranded by the lights, but not one reciprocated. Not even a glance.

  “Gentlemen do not prefer pubes,” she said wrily, primping her dark crinkly hair behind her ears, so she left the foreigners and teetered along the Boulevard des Forges in search of a chemist.

  An hour and a half later, with thatch the colour of old brass and not quite dry, Nelly checked her purse. She was hot and confused, melting into her borrowed clothes with just twenty-five francs left to her name. Enough to take her down to Évry, to the Avenue Clemenceau and what was left of Chloë Doumiez’s family.

  XXV

  Duvivier arrived back in the scented South in a bad humour. After Lyon, the hike in temperature had played havoc with his face and, even with the railway carriage’s blind down, the sun had found him out.

  As he struggled from the train, the quivering mirage along the track also seemed to reach him, stealing his sight. Almost blind, he moved with late holidaymakers towards the exit and the last bus to Cavalaire.

  “My dear friend, how are you?”

  Suddenly a warm hand was on his arm, guiding him out into the chequerboard patterns of light and shadow; and beyond, the bristling masts of pleasure vessels berthed for the night. “Have no fear, Father André, I’ve made all the arrangements.”

  “What arrangements?” Duvivier stopped, his eyes little more than pinpricks.

 
The Bishop of Beauregard, hatless in a grey suit, opened the boot of his Mercedes expectantly.

  “I’ve written your sermon for the Family Eucharist at Ste Trinité tomorrow, and taken six charming children for the Confirmation class this morning.” He slammed the boot shut when Duvivier didn’t oblige, but instead clung to his holdall as though it was the Holy Grail. “That’s six more souls from Les Pradels that we can save, but as for the other parishes, not good news.”

  “Why?”

  “We’ve run out of priests. Simple as that.”

  The seventy-year-old bishop settled the bifocals further up his nose and started the engine, before turning his gaze to his companion. “So it’s Deacons and sub-Deacons for the moment, but as you know, their duties are already burdensome. Your flock will be lucky to get one Solemn Mass a week.”

  “I’m sorry, your Lordship, but the condition of my liver is urgent.”

  “I’m sure it is. Docteur Brébisson has written, about your face as well. He confirms that a sojourn in the Pyrenees might also alleviate that problem.”

  Thank you, Doctor. Nine thousand francs from Déchaux’s pocket can work miracles, n’est-ce-pas?

  The bishop coughed, unsure how to continue. He could sense the big man’s tension and needed to lighten things quickly.

  “I must say, Father, we were all very taken with your performance at the Mass yesterday.” A sly smile revealed just two teeth, and Duvivier thought of his father’s dog Arsène, a half breed fattened up on fish oil, whose nose knew nothing else.

  “I’m not St. Genesius you know.”

  “And I’m not laughing.”

  A tanned girl in a sarong crossed in front of the car, quickening away when she caught sight of them both.

  “It seems that well over a million of our young people took part.” The bishop’s eyes narrowed, following her until she disappeared into a Bar Tabac. “Indeed a very moving experience, especially in such hard times.”