The Mammoth Book Best International Crime

by Maxim Jakubowski

  “She always goes to Rosario’s,” Jos said.

  When they got near the houses, they heard Jeltje’s transistor radio blaring at full power.

  “Anche gli angeli si sporcanno,” Dalla and Morandi sang. Even angels dirty their hands. Jos had been in his early twenties when he first heard that song, during a seaside vacation in Alassio. Arie had not shot anyone at the time, and Jos would have laughed out loud at the idea that the two of them would one day take refuge up in the hills of Liguria, for better or for worse.Would he really have laughed out loud? Hadn’t Arie’s political activities already begun to show? His rigorousness?

  Arie cast a glance into Hanna’s ruin before they went on to the Dutchman’s house. It would take a lot of work to give the crazy woman a lodging.

  Hanna was sitting on the steps in front of Jeltje’s kitchen door cleaning salad greens. The leaves of the home-grown romaine lettuce had grown big and tough in the hot July sun.

  “You have to take down the portrait of Padre Pio,” Arie said. Hanna raised her head and looked at him aversely.

  “Or do you want him to put up with a construction site?” Arie asked.

  “Padre Pio. Un uomo cangiante,” Bixio said behind them. Even an old communist soul was inclined to call the priest revered by half the population of the country at least a chatoyant figure. Arie noticed that Bixio’s shopping-bag seemed to be even heavier than usual. Soon Jos would have to drive to Piedmont with Bixio to buy new wine. There, there were still vintners who sold wine in bulk. Hardly anyone could afford Ligurian wines these days.

  The three men pushed by Hanna and entered Jeltje’s house. The Dutchman had been lugging furniture while his wife had been down to Valesa to get grilled chickens. A sideboard stood in the kitchen, an heirloom from Jeltje’s grandmother that, like all their other furniture, had been kept in Arie’s house up to now. The plates stood ready on the sideboard, there was a stack of paper napkins with an anemone design, and there was a glass jug full of a reddish liquid.

  “We’ve got to stop Jeltje,” the Dutchman said, “otherwise she’s going to start hanging up drapes.” Jeltje’s laugh came from the next room. “Try the punch”, she said, “as long as it’s cold.” She entered the kitchen and saw Bixio. “Bevi, Bixio. Oggi è una festa.”

  She took glasses from the draining-board of the stone sink and filled them. “Nothing sinister,” she said, “only white wine with peaches and a bit of brandy.”

  “You’ve been on a shopping spree,” the Dutchman said, “and brought everything home on the Vespa.” He loved Jeltje; he admired her. That’s why he was willing to fulfil her dreams. Dreams that weren’t his own.

  “To our houses,” Arie said, “and to our future. He looked at Jos and raised his glass. Jos smiled, but in the same moment turned towards Jeltje again. “I’ll set the table,” he said.

  He did it carefully. Folded the napkins, placed candles. Then he went outside to cut olive twigs to decorate the table.

  It was a feast, just as Jeltje had promised. Arie was the one who once in a while reminded them that hard work was waiting for them the next day. But he exercised no more moderation in drinking than the others, and finally Bixio’s shopping-bag was empty, and Bixio the most drunk of them all.

  Arie and Jos almost had to carry the small old man when they brought him home. And Bixio hardly felt tired, only his legs would no longer support him.

  Bixio sat at the window of his bedroom for a long time looking at Venus and the Big Dipper, pondering, as he had so often done during all the years, who had been the Judas back then in May of 1944.

  A lot of carrying was done the next day.The roof of Hanna’s ruin had to be cleared, and it was slow work. Their heads and bodies were still heavy with the past night’s alcohol.

  Finally they succeeded in lowering the rotten ridgebeam, but Arie failed in his attempt to load it on his back and carry it off alone.

  “That’s about how Jesus must have felt beneath the cross,” he said and was grateful when Jos came to help him, and they carried the heavy trunk to the shed together, where they would later cut it up.The beam would still render good firewood.

  Hanna kept creeping around the ruin and wasn’t much help.

  But at noon, when they had moved the table on Arie’s terrace into the shade of the old fig tree to have their lunch of bread and cheese and tomatoes, Hanna greatly surprised Arie by laying a bundle of banknotes next to his plate. “For the roof beams,” she said.

  “Where have you got the money from?” Arie asked. For him, Hanna had always been the poor saint to whom he gave shelter.

  Hanna shrugged. “I brought it from home,” she said, seemingly unwilling to tell more.

  “If you want to live with us, you must tell us about yourself,” Arie replied.

  “Do you tell everything?” Hanna asked.

  Arie broke himself a piece of bread and reached for the olive oil. “Do as you like,” he said. “After lunch, we’ll drive over to Acqui Terme to buy the wood.You’re coming along, Hanna.You might want to chose something better than pine.” He looked at the bundle of money. “Oak,” he said, “you could afford it.”

  Now also Jeltje and her husband looked at Hanna curiously.

  Arie turned to Jos. “Is the Fiat running?” he asked.

  Jos had become the wagon master for the old vehicle that was parked beyond the bend in the road because it had trouble making the last hundred metres of the steep stony grade up to the houses.

  “It’ll start or it won’t start,” Jos said.

  “See to it that it starts,” Arie said.

  “Maybe we ought to buy a small truck,” the Dutchman said. Arie and he knew that nothing would become of that. Buying the land had depleted their resources. Both of them were short on cash.

  But the Fiat did start up, and Jos drove it to Acqui Terme without mishap. Hanna chose expensive oak and placed the banknotes into the timber merchant’s hand.

  It was Jos who then paid for a couple of cartons of wine.

  “Have you seen Bixio yet today?” Arie asked.

  “No,” Jos said, succeeding at starting the Fiat at his fourth try, “but now it occurs to me that his shutters were still closed when we left.”

  “Porca Madonna,” Arie said. It was the worst Italian oath he knew. He was surprised that Hanna didn’t react to it.

  They already saw from far away that Bixio’s door stood open. Was that a good sign? Arie and Jos were out of breath when they entered the house. In the bedroom they found Jeltje sitting on Bixio’s bed stroking his hand.

  “Sto gia meglio,” Bixio said.

  Was he really doing better already?

  “He was feeling slightly feeble,” Jeltje said. “He’s a bit too old for binges like yesterday’s.”

  Bixio smiled. What a godsend that had brought him these children. Jeltje. Wonderful Jeltje. Arie and Jos. Who would have dreamed that in his old days he would have a deep friendship with two Germans? Hadn’t it been the triumph of his life having fought against them? The men in the field-grey uniforms of the Wehrmacht, in the black dress of the SS? Bixio still saw them, coming up the hill, back in 1944. He would not die before he knew who had betrayed the partisans of Testa di Lucio. Was it Albo, the truck driver? Silvio, the sixteen-year old boy born here in Testa? Besides himself they had been the only survivors. Bixio shook his head. No.

  Jeltje looked at him full of concern. Maybe Bixio’s crisis wasn’t over yet.

  “Shall we call a doctor?” Jos asked, having seen Jeltje’s worried look.

  “Niente medico,” Bixio said, “sto gia meglio.” He was sure of himself.

  Jeltje left to cook some soup. Jos went to get the wine from the car to store it in Bixio’s cool cellar. Arie stayed, and Bixio told him why they needn’t worry about him. Death would only come for him when he had learned the name of the traitor.

  Jos heard about this, as he and Arie were on their way to the small ruin. “How would that come about? Learning the name of the trai
tor?” he asked. “After more than sixty years?”

  “Perhaps it will no longer be that important to Bixio during his last days, and Bixio will find peace without knowing the name.”

  They had arrived at Hanna’s house and looked up at the sky, and Arie thought about the roof truss he was going to start building the next morning.

  “To find peace,” Jos said.

  “I wish you’d do that too,” Arie said.

  Jos kicked at the small stones that covered the floor. Remnants of the rubble.

  “Everything I’m doing here makes no sense if I have to think of you as a murderer,” Jos said.

  “You knew about it from the beginning. Three people dead. I killed them, and at least two of them were innocent.”

  “Brenner wasn’t.” It was the first time he pronounced the name. “If a tyrant won’t step down, he has to be removed by force.”

  Arie looked at him sadly. Could it be that Arie was now beginning to get entangled in the old ideas?

  “Sometimes I dream they’re coming up the mountain to get you. In my dreams I feel relieved then.”

  “It’s up to you. Go to the Carabinieri. They’ll still find my name in their lists.”

  Jos shook his head. “No,” he said.

  But that night he dreamt exactly that. Arie woke Jos because he couldn’t stop sobbing in his sleep. He held him like one holds a child who has had a nightmare. Hadn’t Jos always been like a kid brother to him, and wouldn’t he remain that as long as they both lived? Jos was sleeping more calmly again, and Arie covered him carefully and got up to go to the window.

  What had Jos said that evening? Sometimes I dream that they’re coming up the hill to get you. Maybe he himself would be relieved, too. Then, it would be accomplished. Why were images from the bible always coming to his mind these days? Perhaps it was Hanna’s holy nearness, Arie thought.

  Before going to bed he had come past the room downstairs in which she slept. Hanna hadn’t been there. For a moment he had hesitated on the doorstep, constraining himself not to go in. But he had looked around the sparsely furnished room. There was a small suitcase underneath the old iron bed Hanna had dragged from the rubble in the cellars. But Hanna’s other baggage was in the cellar. He was sure about that. Could it be the small suitcase was full of bundles of money?

  The thought made Arie grin, and he left.

  “Arie,” Jos said.

  Arie turned. Jos had awakened and sat up. “Come here,” he said.

  Arie sat down on the edge of the bed. “You were dreaming pretty heavily,” he said. Jos nodded.

  “Thank you,” Jos said and then did what he hadn’t done often in the life of Arie and himself. He kissed him.

  “Tomorrow we’ll tackle the roof truss,”Arie said.The kiss had embarrassed him. “I don’t want to have Hanna here in the house much longer. I don’t trust her.”

  “The bundle of money?”

  “Would you bundle your money?”

  “It wouldn’t be worth the trouble.” Jos smiled. “Hanna is harmless,” he said. “All that might happen is that you and I join the order of the Capuchins and get Holy Wounds on our Hands. Like Padre Pio. I guess we’re both susceptible to any kind of madness.”

  Arie got up and let himself fall on to his own cot.

  “Let’s forget the past,” he said.

  It took a while before Arie got an answer.

  “I’m so damned fond of you,” Jos said softly.

  Never before had Arie erected a roof truss as quickly as that of Hanna’s house. Even taking into account that it was the smallest, it was a record, having been completed within a single day.

  That he wanted to have Hanna out of his house wasn’t the only reason. The good wood that had been delivered in the morning had a stimulating smell.Yes, it had been a joy, building that truss into the sky.

  Only in the evening, when they were sitting around his table, did Arie feel what he had accomplished. Already the first glass of wine made him feel heavy as a stone, and he thought he would never manage to get up from his chair again. Bixio appeared juvenile by comparison. Dusk set over the land in front of them, enshrouding the olive trees whose small hard fruit would be picked in November.

  A dog barked further down in the valley. Otherwise it was quiet, except for the clinking of the glasses when the wine bottle touched them when wine was poured. Except for the breaking of the bread that had become too hard. Except for an occasional word.

  Then they heard the sirens. Hurried sounds tumbling over another. The sirens were coming up the hill, towards Valesa. But not stopping there. Continuing up the hill on bumpy trails. Negotiating the last bend and the final hundred metres up to the hamlet. The police cars’ headlights bathed the houses of the village in blinding light.

  Arie was surprised that the Carabinieri were armed with Berettas. Carrying pistols to capture a wanted terrorist, not machine guns.

  Jos got up. “There he is,” he said and went towards Arie.

  He thought he was in his own dream.

  “Ecco lui,” Jos said. He couldn’t help it.

  Hanna stood frozen as the handcuffs clicked around her wrists. “Assalto ad una banca’’ is what the other five thought they heard. Hanna, a bank robber who had paid the timber merchant with registered banknotes.

  Maybe it was because Arie had to laugh so loudly and violently that he was almost shaking. Maybe it was because one of the Carabinieri was so young and inexperienced and excitedly brandished his Beretta when Arie got his attack of laughter.

  The shot just went off. By mistake. An accident.

  The Carabinieri had had no idea who he was.They only found it out later. By then, Arie had already been dead for six days.

  Bixio lived another ten years and died without learning who had been the Judas, back in 1944.

  Translation by Peter C. Hubschmid

  Ethnic Cleansing

  Dominique Manotti

  Day 1

  “Twenty thousand now,” says the fat, greasy-haired man in a cheap brown suit, his forehead and upper lip covered in perspiration. He repeats: “Twenty thousand now,” as if to convince himself of the amount, and taps his desk drawer. “Cash. And twenty thousand when the job’s done, if it all goes well, no discussion. Again, cash.” Breaks out into a fresh sweat. I’m handing over forty thousand euros to a guy whose name I don’t even know. He mops his forehead with the cuff of his brown suit jacket, which is nice and absorbent, as if he does it all the time. It’s come to this . . .This or fleeing abroad.This and fleeing abroad?

  The guy standing in front of him – athletic body, well-groomed, shaved head, smooth, tanned, tight black T-shirt, black jeans, black leather boots, not far off forty, from the slight slackening of the skin and the stomach – wordlessly extends an open hand across the desk. The fat man hesitates for a moment, opens the drawer and tosses an envelope onto the desk. The other guy picks it up, counts the notes in no hurry, and slips them into his underpants, under his jeans, pulling in his stomach.

  “How long?”

  “A week, max.”

  “Fine.”

  He automatically hitches up his jeans and leaves. Does his sums as he goes down the stairs (avoid lifts, potential hazard). Forty thousand, not exactly a fortune. But I’m not getting any younger . . . Besides, it’s not the riskiest job.That’s why it’s worth it, don’t want to stick my neck out, or share. Not bad. He’s back in the street. Little wink at the copper plate by the entrance to the building. Alfred Poupon Property Agent, Staircase A, 3rd floor, left. Old Poupon was sweating, he reeked of fear. Not used to this type of operation. Is that a good thing for me or dangerous?

  Hidden behind a third-floor window, Alfred Poupon watches the man walk off down the street with the wad of notes in his underpants. He turns the corner, calm and assured.That’s it, he’s gone.

  End of a suffocatingly muggy August day. Zé leaves Paris at the wheel of his white, five-year-old, all-purpose Clio. He turns off the périphrique onto a v
ery wide main road alongside a chaotic sprawl of showy office blocks. This new business district is the big city’s latest growth spurt. At this hour, and in the middle of August, it’s completely deserted, quite sinister. Zé cruises slowly. He’s approaching the A86 motorway which is becoming the second Paris orbital, spots the slip road, turns onto it, goes even slower. The target’s there, set back from the road below him, a few metres from the security barrier. Zé’s on the alert, eyes sharp, neurons buzzing: take it all in at a glance, clock everything, don’t risk a second drive-by. An isolated five-storey building of dirty, greyish brick, with a long crack running diagonally from window to window. All the openings, which must have been bricked up once, are now gaping. Behind the building, a huge overgrown waste ground dotted with loose stones, apparently empty, sloping down to a canal where there’s little activity.

  But the building in the middle of this wilderness is teeming with life. At ground level, on the strip of beaten earth between the façade and the motorway slip road, there’s a whole crowd of black men in jellabas or brightly coloured shirts coming and going amid the dust – squatting, sitting on wooden packing cases, standing around, chatting, playing cards and doing business. An old man in a long, immaculately white robe sitting motionless on a chair against the wall, face upturned, eyes closed, seems to be drinking in the light of the orange sunset which makes his face glow.

  Through the cracks in the wall, glimpses of a central wooden staircase, women in flowing boubous busy around makeshift fires surrounded by hordes of children jostling and running.The upper floors look very animated too. Zé thinks he catches a whiff of the familiar smell of groundnuts and spices simmering.That’s the real thrill of the chase, when the hunter feels this close to his prey. Get a grip. Professional. Loads of squatters, all looking alike. No hope of passing unnoticed with your white mug, even with a deep tan. He pulls out onto the motorway and accelerates.

  Day 2

  In a midnight-blue tracksuit, Zé jogs along the former towpath beside the canal. A few warehouses, silos and barges line the quay. Not a soul. He draws level with the Africans’ squat. A fence, broken in several places. Still nobody about. He pulls his tracksuit hood over his shaved head and slips through to the waste ground. A series of stony humps and dips overgrown with brambles, like a field of ruins dominated by the grey brick building, obscured at the bottom by brambles. From this side, everything looks dead. The ground- and first-floor windows are still bricked up with concrete breeze blocks and on the upper floors only a few small holes have been made here and there. Clearly the squatters are wary of the waste ground and are trying to keep it out.