by Mj Roë
“Only for a few days, Elise. I came for a book signing,” Anna replied.
The old woman made approving clucks of the tongue. “Ah bon, ah bon. Eh bien, let me take your coat.” She hung Anna’s coat on a rack next to the door, then motioned to her to sit on an antique, brocade-upholstered loveseat. The apartment was quaint, old-fashioned, and spotless, just as Anna had remembered. Like Elise, there wasn’t a thing out of place.
From her handbag, Anna pulled out the wad of hundred-franc bills that C-C had given her in the taxi. “C-C wanted you to have this,” she said, patting Elise’s hand. “It’s to pay his rent while he is away.”
Elise looked puzzled as she took the money, and then her clear blue eyes grew wide. She knew. “It was you, then? You were the woman with him last night?”
“You saw us?” Now Anna’s eyes were wide.
“Oui, oui. Nous…” then she hesitated, not knowing whether she had divulged something she shouldn’t have by using the first-person plural. “We…that is, bon, I mean, I was watching out my window there after I heard the car siren.” She motioned toward the front window of her apartment. “Then I saw Charles-Christian and a woman leave through the back exit, the one I always use as an entrance.”
“Elise, he doesn’t want you to worry.” Anna tried to sound calm and reassuring. “He’ll be all right. He has gone to Africa again…to work.”
Elise cocked her head sideways, squinted her eyes, and wagged a bony finger in Anna’s face.
“In the middle of the night?” Her thoughts turned to the frantic call from Jacques first thing this morning and the hasty departure of Diamanté.
Anna sat in silence. What could she tell her? Yes, in the middle of the night. She diverted her eyes through the arched doorway leading into a small dining room. A mahogany china hutch filled with antique crystal and china sat against the far wall, and a wrought-iron and crystal chandelier hung above an oval table covered with a crocheted table cloth. In the center of the table sat a round crystal bowl filled with fresh fruit.
“I…I really don’t know,” she finally said shaking her head. The event had seemed surreal to her also.
“Ma chère,” Elise said gently. She understood more than Anna could have anticipated she did. “I will let Charlie explain when he returns. Would you like something to drink?” She got up to go into the kitchen. “Some wine, maybe?”
Anna nodded. Some wine would taste good. She spotted a large bouquet of mixed flowers on an oval pedestal table in front of the window.
“Your flowers are beautiful, Elise,” she said.
“Oh…that…well,” Elise smoothed her hair back in a girlish gesture as she disappeared into the kitchen. “I have an admirateur.”
“Did I just hear what I thought I heard? An admirer?” Anna whispered, smiling to herself. These French, she thought. L’amour is not just for the young in this country. She studied the romantic arrangement framed by the lace curtains. There were lots of roses in it. Her “admirateur” is quite serious, I would say.
Elise returned after a few moments, carrying a silver tray with two small, etched crystal goblets half filled with port. She put the tray on a rectangular footed ottoman between them.
“So does your admirateur have a name?” Anna asked as she took a sip of the port.
Elise seemed slightly coquettish. “Oh, I just call him Lobo. It’s my Portuguese pet name for him.”
“Well, Lobo is nice to give you flowers.”
“He brings me a bunch every week.” The old woman’s nose wrinkled up into a smile.
They chatted about the upcoming holiday and Anna’s plans to return to the United States, and they finished their wine without Anna discovering anything more about the admirer named Lobo. She finally got up and put on her coat and scarf.
“Well, I’ve got to go, Elise. I’ll come by again before I leave Paris, if I can.”
The two women embraced, and Anna waved as she walked through the barren courtyard, past the bench under the leafless chestnut tree, and through the heavy wooden door.
Strange, she thought. Elise didn’t ask any more questions about C-C. Concierges always make it their business to know everything about their tenants. She put her hands in her coat pockets and glanced over her shoulder at C-C’s apartment window as she walked down the narrow street, pondering the conversation she had had with Elise. What was the Portuguese pet name Elise said she had given her “admirateur?” Lobo? Anna knew the meaning of the word in Spanish. Was it the same in Portuguese? She made a mental note to remind herself to look it up.
CHAPTER 45
Diamanté and Charles-Christian arrived midafternoon in the handsome little village surrounded by hills. Diamanté parked the car in front of his still signless café and woke Charles-Christian with a slap on the shoulder.
“On arrive, mon ami. Voilà Castagniers.” Diamanté motioned with his upturned hand. “Et voilà le resto. I call it Ajaccio, but it doesn’t have a sign yet.”
Charles-Christian studied the small, weathered stone and brick building. A dark green awning extended from beneath the red-tiled roof. Clear plastic had been hung along the sides and front of it to protect café diners from the winter rains. Wrought-iron tables and chairs spilled from the front out onto the square, but no one was seated at them and the umbrellas remained unopened. He looked around the deserted square. Barren trees lined the perimeter. In the center sat a lone, artichoke-crowned fountain that had been drained for the winter. Directly across from them stood the mairie or town hall, its tricolore flag thrashing in the wind above the entrance.
Diamanté and Charles-Christian walked into the restaurant. With the exception of a handful of old locals playing cards at a corner table in the bar, it was empty of customers. The place smelled of olive oil and herbs. Lively Corsican dance music played in the background. In the kitchen, they could see and hear Jacques noisily chopping vegetables with a huge kitchen knife.
The café dog, a mixed breed with long, floppy ears and soulful eyes, came from behind a well-worn, galvanized bar. The dog stretched, recognized Diamanté, and loped over to greet him, his bushy tail making windmill circles in the air.
“Salut, Max.” Diamanté bent down to rub the dog’s ears and was awarded multiple wet, sloppy licks on the face. “Go ahead. I want to inspect the wine cellar,” he said to Charles-Christian, nodding his head in the direction of the kitchen. Then he whistled to the dog to follow him, and the two of them disappeared through a heavy, wooden door behind the bar.
Charles-Christian paused a moment at the doorway to the kitchen and watched his father deftly chopping vegetables into perfectly thin, julienne-sized pieces. He had not seen him in two years, but he was surprised at how dramatically his appearance had changed. At age seventy, Jacques Gérard appeared at least a decade older. He seemed shorter and more stooped. His face, like an old piece of weathered wood, contained deep furrows and wrinkles on his forehead and around his mouth. The curve under the brow ridge between his coal-black eyes had deepened, and the upper eyelids sagged. His bulbous nose seemed to have grown larger, the crook in it more pronounced. His graying hair, though still quite thick, had begun to recede, and his eyebrows had become more unruly.
“Shuh vous aid-ah, Monsieur?”
The accent was unmistakably provençal. Charles-Christian turned to face a young woman standing behind him. She appeared to be in her early twenties, dressed in skin-tight blue jeans, high-heeled black leather boots, and a bright lime-green, snug-fitting, low-cut sweater. Her brassy red hair was pulled back in a high ponytail, and her emerald eyes were heavily outlined and accented with sea green eye shadow. Multiple silver pierced earrings of various sized hoops protruded from her ears. She carried at shoulder height a tray filled with bar glasses.
The sound of the young woman’s voice drew Jacques’ attention. It was then that he caught sight of his son standing in the doorway. He put down the kitchen knife and wiped his hands on a towel.
“Martine, this is Charlie,
my son.”
Martine smiled at Charles-Christian and extended her right hand while balancing the tray of bar glasses with her left. “Martine Dubonnet.” She shook his hand with one firm shake.
“Enchanté, Mademoiselle.” He smiled.
Jacques was now standing next to Charles-Christian, his hands on his hips, his black eyes studying the son he had not seen since his wife’s death.
“Salut, Papa.”
The two men stood motionless for an awkward moment, and then they embraced and held each other in the way only a father and son can when they have previously been alienated by conflict and grief.
In the wine cellar below, Diamanté poured two glasses of marc, set them on a small wooden table, and awaited a visitor.
CHAPTER 46
A quarter of an hour after Diamanté and Charles-Christian arrived in Castagniers, André Narbon joined Diamanté in the wine cellar of the Ajaccio. From behind Diamanté’s wooden stool, Max expressed his discontent with an uncharacteristic onslaught of low, menacing growls. Diamanté grabbed the dog by the collar and ordered him to stay.
“I was expecting you,” he said, staring at the man whom he had seen descend from the rear of the train in Nice. “What are you up to, André? What are you doing here?” The man’s sudden appearance in Castagniers was unsettling to Diamanté. “So it was you then, following Charlie in Paris all this time. Who are you working for?”
André Narbon swirled the thick liquid in his glass and took a sip. His mouth curled in a twisted, mocking grin. “Will he stay in Castagniers?” he asked.
Diamanté studied the man’s eyes, magnified to at least twice their size by bottle-thick lenses. He thought how they never changed; they always looked malicious.
“I don’t know. What he does with his life is his business. He is a grown man. He will have to assess the situation for himself, and then make his decision. A lot will depend on his relationship with his father.”
“And with the woman in the convent.”
Diamanté was taken by surprise at that comment. No one, except himself, he had thought, knew about her.
“I am told that she is still very ill,” Narbon went on.
“André, how do you know all this?”
Narbon’s eyes were hard; he showed no emotion. “The nurse should have been killed; she could finger us all,” he said.
Diamanté removed his beret and scratched his forehead. It was a reaction one could expect from André Narbon. He was the one among them who could kill.
“She won’t trouble any of us.” Diamanté downed the rest of his marc.
“When do we deliver him?”
“We? Non, André, I will take him by myself. Tomorrow morning will be soon enough. Your role is finished.”
The two men’s black eyes locked like angry bulls setting up for a fight.
With both hands, André Narbon slowly removed his glasses. His eyes narrowed. He had waited a long time for the day when he and Diamanté would meet again.
“I heard that you moved in with Elise in Paris.” His tone was hateful. “Félicitations. You finally got in the door with her, you old fool.”
“Look, André, she didn’t choose either one of us originally. We had that ridiculous fight over her, but she chose Ferdinand in the end.” Diamanté refilled their glasses. “And then Ferdinand was killed. He was the strongest and the bravest of us all. He took the hit that saved the rest of us.”
He stopped talking and swallowed hard as he recalled the scene so long ago when members of the maquis were setting dynamite charges on railway tracks under a bridge. The German soldiers had discovered them and opened fire. His older brother, Ferdinand, was the closest. He held them at bay with his rifle, motioning to Diamanté and Narbon to escape. When he thought it was clear to run himself, a lone shot rang out. Diamanté had gone back for his brother only to discover him lying in a pool of blood, the back of his head blown away. He had died instantly.
“Putain de merde!” he said. “Goddamn it. Shit. She made a life for herself without either one of us…or Ferdinand, for that matter. It’s all water under the Pont Neuf now.” He spat into a copper bucket that was used for wine tasting.
“To Ferdinand.” André held up his glass in mock toast. “He loved her. That was obvious.” He paused. “She sure was a pretty lady.”
Diamanté met his toast. “Still is, mon frère. Still is. Petite, delicate hands, eyes blue as periwinkles. She’s a live wire, too. She has such vitality.” His eyes sparkled despite his efforts to conceal his emotions.
The two men stared at each other for several minutes until Diamanté put down his glass and folded his knotty hands between his knees, rubbing them to relieve the arthritic pain. “I’m going to ask her to marry me, André,” he said. “I’m not sure that she’ll have me, but I’m going to ask. Once things settle down here. I have fallen in love all over again.”
Narbon studied his eyeglasses, then snatched a handkerchief from his pocket and began to wipe them. He took his time, not looking at Diamanté. Finally, he slowly placed the spectacles back on the bridge of his nose. His thick eyebrows rose slightly. “Eh bien, I wish you well,” he sniffed as he carefully folded the white cotton square and returned it to his pocket, still not looking at Diamanté.
“I don’t suppose you are going to tell me why you’re here, André.”
Narbon gave Diamanté a hard, cold stare.
Whatever it is, Diamanté thought, it can’t be honorable. He knew from experience that André Narbon was a dangerous man. He just hoped that it didn’t involve a dead body somewhere.
CHAPTER 47
The morning after their arrival in Castagniers, Diamanté, Charles-Christian, and André Narbon sat eating brioches in silence at the breakfast table in Diamanté’s apartment above the Ajaccio. In the kitchen below, Jacques was already at work preparing the day’s menu.
Charles-Christian studied the large room, envisioning guests enjoying the warmth of the small bed and breakfast in Provence, in winter. A striking crystal and gold chandelier hung from the high ceiling. Two overstuffed chairs with ottomans and two large sofas were arranged around low, square coffee tables on an outsized Persian rug. Conversational groupings of smaller, similarly upholstered chairs and mahogany game tables with various types of antique lamps lined the wall near the windows.
“Do you intend to run a chambre d’hôtes eventually?” he asked Diamanté.
“Non, non, not at all,” Diamanté responded. “I only wanted the bar and restaurant. The inn was very small. Just these few guest rooms, as you can see. I converted the largest bedroom suite into this apartment by combining it with the central salon and the library.” He pointed through a doorway to a room lined with shelves of books and more overstuffed chairs with reading lamps. “The previous owner passed away and had no one to leave his furniture and books to, so I got it all with the purchase price.” He cocked his head to the side. “Pas mal as real estate deals go. I have closed off the rest of the guest rooms for now.”
At the chime of his pocket watch, Diamanté stood and put on his beret. “Bon. Get your medical bag, mon ami,” he said to Charles-Christian. “We are going to pay a visit to someone who is in need of your attention.”
Charles-Christian was taken by surprise and somewhat mystified. Why would someone suddenly need his medical assistance the day after his arrival? Who could even know he was here?
“Isn’t there a doctor in Castagniers?”
“Not presently. The nearest clinic is in a neighboring village five kilometers away.”
Still wondering why he was being asked to tend to a medical emergency, Charles-Christian dutifully donned his overcoat, picked up his bag, and followed Diamanté through the restaurant and out into the square. André Narbon, who had said nothing to either of them at breakfast, trailed a few feet behind. A strong wind was blowing. White lights that had been strung for the holidays in the barren trees around the place de la Mairie danced in the wind.
“Anothe
r mistral is brewing,” Diamanté said as he anchored his beret lower on his forehead and pulled his jacket collar over his ears to shield his face from the cold gale. “It blows for a hundred days a year here.”
The stone fountain in the center of the square had been newly filled with fresh evergreen branches. The three men paused a moment to admire a large crèche nestled amongst the evergreens and paid their compliments to two women from the village who were populating the nativity scene with giant versions of hand-painted terracotta santons.
Surrounded by hills, the small village stretched out along one long, paved street. Christmas trees were stacked in bundles on the corners, and the few shops along the rue advertised with handwritten signs their specialties for the traditional Christmas Eve meal, le réveillon.
Diamanté stopped suddenly, turned abruptly in Narbon’s direction, and said, nodding harshly, “Here is where we separate, André.”
Narbon acted as if he had not understood.
“As we discussed, André.” Diamanté stood firm. He glanced in the direction of a stone walking bridge. The entrance was framed by two sandstone pillars crowned by ornate wrought-iron crosses. Behind, on the hill overlooking the entire valley below, stood an imposing complex of large, pink stucco buildings with tile roofs surrounded by tall Italian cypress trees swaying in the wind. Above the buildings rose a slim, two-story-high carillon tower with arched openings and a cross on top.
“The convent where we are going,” he said in a low voice to Charles-Christian, nodding in the direction of the buildings. “Cistercian.”
The three men remained motionless, frozen in place. Charles-Christian could detect that there was considerable animosity between the two old-timers, who were staring at each other. Finally, André Narbon turned on his heel, deliberately not shaking hands with either of them, and walked back to the Ajaccio with a scowl on his face.
“What was that about?” Charles-Christian asked Diamanté.