Corsican Honor

by William Heffernan

  After dinner Piers sat with Alex on his knee, listening to the eclectic series of events that had fascinated the child during the day. Richard was working on a puzzle spread out on the stone floor, agonizing over one small piece, determined to find where it fit among the hundreds scattered before him.

  Cynthia sat on a nearby sofa, flipping through a Paris magazine, her brow wrinkling in disbelief from time to time. “Who wears these clothes?” she said to no one in particular. “They’re so outlandish.”

  “No one wears them,” Piers said. “They’re intended as a statement of the lines fashion should follow. Besides, no one has the money to buy clothing now. Not in Europe anyway.”

  “It seems a shame,” Cynthia said. “About the money, I mean.”

  “They’ll get it back. There are fortunes to be made in the reconstruction that’s already begun.”

  “Yes, but the wrong people always seem to make that money.”

  “It’s because they know how to work,” Piers said. “The aristocrats, and pseudo aristocrats, never had to learn that undervalued art.”

  Cynthia raised an eyebrow. “You’re feeling rather egalitarian, aren’t you?”

  “It comes from hanging about with the Pisani brothers,” he said.

  She gave a mock shudder. “I’m glad no one will ever have to know about that,” she said. “There is some merit, after all, in being a spy.”

  “I’m not a spy,” Piers teased. “I’m a cultural attaché, or military attaché, or whatever type attaché the agency prescribes.”

  “What’s a spy, Daddy?” Alex asked.

  “Someone who sneaks up and watches people when they’re not looking,” he explained.

  “I sneak up on Richbird,” the child said, using his name for his brother.

  “Rich-ard,” Richard said, not taking his eyes off the puzzle.

  “My God, Cyn, the boy’s a spy,” Piers said in mock horror, eliciting giggles from the child. “We’ll have to send you to your room without any supper.”

  “I ate supper,” Alex said.

  “Then we shall have to. …” he paused, drawing the word out. “We shall have to tickle you until you promise not to spy anymore.”

  He ran his fingers over the boy’s ribs, bringing on squirms and giggles and false protestations. He put the child back on the floor, then glanced at his watch.

  “Have to go,” he said.

  “No, Daddy, no,” Alex said, reaching up to hug him, hold him there.

  “Afraid so,” Piers said.

  He ruffled the boy’s hair. He did not believe in kissing little boys.

  Colette was waiting for him when he arrived. She was dressed in sheer lounging pajamas he had bought for her, and the flowing, clinging material accented every line of her body with just enough mystery to provoke erotic fantasies about what lay beneath. They had maintained their relationship for the past three years, the arrival of his family causing only a slight alteration in his routine. But excuses were easy, on all sides. And the nature of his work removed any difficulty.

  He had found her the large, airy apartment in which they now stood, and had decorated it himself, or rather, led her to choose things that would please him. It was somewhat like Pygmalion, he thought, but there were still touches of the gauche—things she had brought with her—that, no matter how much he hinted, she would not part with.

  Colette slipped her arms about his neck and kissed him with heat, and led him immediately to the bedroom. He had made her leave her job at the brothel, claiming he feared disease, and telling himself he simply did not wish to make love to her with the remnants of others still clinging inside her. But he simply did not want to share her, although he often asked her to describe in lurid detail what she had once done to the mecs she had serviced. It greatly aroused him, he found. He particularly liked one story—and often fantasized about it—about a man with an enormous cock, and the difficulty she had had taking it in her mouth, and how much she had hated it. The story seemed to provide him a special comfort.

  She began to undress him now. She liked to undress him, liked him to undress her. It was something Cyn had never done, never thought of doing, he believed. And he knew it was something Colette had never done in the brothel. She had told him so. There, the routine was predetermined. She would be dressed only in a robe when the mec arrived, and as he undressed, she would remove the robe and go to the bidet and wash herself to assure him she was clean from the one before him. Then she would go to him, collect her money, and ask what he wanted. If he wanted her to suck him, she would put the condom she always carried in one hand discreetly in her mouth. She had been taught how to put it on a man with her mouth, without his knowing, and she said she always enjoyed the surprise on the mec’s face when she had finished and he saw the full condom on his cock. She had done it for Piers, at his request, and he had been amazed to find he had never felt a thing.

  He lay on his back and she ran her lips over his body, his chest, his stomach. She was bending over him, kneeling to his side, her legs spread so he could reach out and play with her. She wanted him to touch her, to feel how wet she was for him, and as his fingers excited her clitoris, she lowered herself closer and closer to the bed, until she was almost pressed against it, squirming with pleasure.

  She came against his touch, and took him in her mouth as she did, playing her tongue wildly against the shaft of his penis, then taking it in her hand and, holding it away from her mouth, licking it. She liked the way it became even harder when she did this. “Blue steel,” he had called it, and while she didn’t understand what that meant, she liked the sound of it.

  She loved to give him pleasure, loved the sense of power it gave her to have him so under her control. It was not that she wanted to dominate him, just that she knew when she had him that way he could never bring himself to leave her, could think only of her and what she was doing to him, for him.

  She knew he liked to come in her mouth on occasion—though it was partly because she had never let the mecs do that, having always used a condom—and though she didn’t particularly like doing it—didn’t particularly like the taste of it—she liked doing it for him.

  But this time she wanted him inside her, wanted to come again with him thrusting and groaning beneath her, and she climbed onto him and carefully guided him inside.

  It was pure pleasure, and she came again almost immediately, as did he, and she leaned down, letting her hair fall to each side of his face, and began kissing and licking his lips. They would make love again, she knew. But this first time was always the best, the most rewarding. She missed him when he was not with her, and when he returned, it was as though he had never been away. And that was the way she wanted it.

  “When will you have to leave?” she whispered, barely able to get the words out.

  “I’ll be staying the night,” he said.

  She smiled against his shoulder. And already she began to want him again.

  CHAPTER

  26

  The picket line stretched along the entire front of the Joliette Ship Basin, the striking dockworkers moving slowly, almost lethargically, only a few of the men even bothering to speak or joke among themselves. Word had come down from the union that the worst was to be expected, that the government planned to have troops brought across the line and that they would be brought across with violence if necessary.

  Already, Pisani “workers,” numbering over three hundred, were loading ships in defiance of the strike, filling their holds with war supplies that had been allowed to pile up on the docks. If the picket lines were breached and more “workers” and troops, and more supplies, were allowed to cross, the strike would effectively come to an end. But the strikers would fight that, and their reticence and the absence of humor reflected their determination and also the fear that they would fail. They were tough men, durs to the last man. But they were no match for the Corsican gangsters and their weapons.

  The Corsicans arrived on the backs of seven flat
bed trucks, armed with an assortment of weapons ranging from clubs to shotguns and pistols. There were two hundred of them, and the trucks that carried them stretched across the full length of the line.

  When the trucks stopped, a volley of shots was fired at the legs of the strikers, and the Corsicans followed, jumping from the truck beds, already swinging their clubs, offering no chance of retreat or surrender. The strikers fought bravely with hands and feet and clubs of their own, and for several minutes they seemed to be holding off the better-armed Pisani thugs.

  Then the attack came from the rear, unexpected by the strikers. The three hundred Pisani “workers” rushed in from the docks, each man as well armed as those from the trucks, and they caught the strikers between them and mercilessly beat them into the ground.

  When the French troops arrived a half hour later, their trucks moved past the bleeding and battered remnants of the picket line, whose remaining members were being loaded into ambulances called in by police. The line had been located only two blocks from police headquarters, but not surprisingly, not a single police officer had been present to witness the violence. Miraculously, not one of the strikers had been killed. But several had been maimed for life.

  Meme and Antoine were supervising the final details of their new club, The Parakeet, with the help of Colette, who had been called in to advise them. The brothers had sought the former poule’s help because they greatly admired the decoration of her new apartment, which they believed she had undertaken completely by herself. It would never have occurred to them that Piers—or any man, for that matter—would have wasted his time seeing to such domestic concerns. And Colette had not said anything to change that belief. She liked the attention and respect she was finally—she thought—receiving.

  The Pisanis had men stationed outside along the street, as was their custom, and additional men inside, all of whom were armed. Whenever violence was in the wind they took added precautions. One never knew where, or how, violence would spread.

  “I think you should have them paint the trim gold,” Colette said. She was dressed in a suit Piers had picked out for her, and looked more like the young wife of an aristocrat than the poule they had known for five years, Meme thought. She was twenty-two now, and she had grown more beautiful with the years, he also decided.

  “What good would the paint do?” Antoine asked. “The club is only open at night, and it is kept dark. Who will see it?”

  Colette gave him a look that said he was a barbarian without saying it, and Antoine grew sullen, then shouted at the workers, ordering them to paint the trim gold.

  Colette smiled, then walked over to the bar, where new glasses were being unpacked. She picked one up and held it to the light.

  “These are very cheap, very ordinary,” she said.

  “They break,” Antoine growled. “They break all the fucking time. You think the donkeys who work for us should be handling crystal?”

  She shrugged, put the glass down, and walked away. Each gesture spoke of the uselessness of speaking about such things with such a man.

  Meme watched his brother grow more sullen by the moment. He smiled to himself. He was beginning to understand what was happening, beginning to realize that Colette was playing out a fantasy of being the great lady. He liked her for it. She had balls.

  “So, what else?” Antoine demanded.

  Colette placed one hand on one hip and surveyed the room. “I think you should put down carpet,” she said. “Everywhere but the dance floor. It will add some class.”

  Meme watched Antoine redden. “It is a good idea,” he said. “I think we should have carpet. What color?” he asked.

  “Something neutral and patterned,” Colette said. “So it won’t show the dirt.” She smiled at Meme. “I’ll help you pick it out, if you wish.”

  If I wish, Meme thought. Two years ago she was still working in the whorehouse, dropping dripping condoms into a wastepaper basket that was half full by the end of the day. Now it is If I wish. I could love this woman, he thought. Her balls are as big as my own.

  The bomb crashed through the window and exploded three seconds later. It had been thrown from a passing car, and the Pisani men outside had immediately opened fire, killing the two men inside. But they had had no chance of keeping the bomb from being thrown. Nor had the men inside, two of whom would die in the blast.

  The three-second delay did give the brothers time to dive for cover. With them it was instinctive, a natural will for survival, and the bomb did little more than soil their clothing and leave them slightly bruised and shaken.

  But Colette had no instincts for survival save the coyness of her smile, her beautiful body, and her abilities at using it. She just stood there, confused, uncertain, and the blast picked her up and threw her back amid a shower of deadly debris. When Meme and Antoine reached her, she was unconscious but alive. The left side of her face was little more than pulp.

  Piers found Meme and Antoine waiting at the hospital when he arrived. He had been called and told what had happened, and he had come immediately.

  “How bad is it?” he asked when they had secreted themselves in a small office made available by a nurse who had grown up in the Pisanis’ village in Corsica.

  “She will live,” Meme said. “But she will be disfigured.” There was a rage growing in him, simmering like a caldron ready to spit forth pain and fury, and it unnerved Piers just seeing it brew.

  “But certainly, with plastic surgery …” Piers began, never finishing the sentence as what Meme had said sunk in.

  Meme turned away, turning his eyes and his rage toward the window.

  Antoine shook his head. “He blames himself,” he said of his brother. “He asked her to come there to help us with the decoration of the new club.” Antoine drew a breath and took Piers’s upper arm in one hand. His grip was like a vice. “The doctors,” he began, stopping, then starting again. “They say they can fix some of the damage.” He gestured helplessly with his free hand. It seemed odd to see Antoine appear helpless, Piers thought. “They can fix some of the bone in her cheek that was blown away, but only some. They can replace the skin, and see to it there is only a little scarring. But they say nerves were destroyed. And there is nothing they can do for that. And her left arm. The nerves were destroyed there too. It will be useless to her. They say …” He gestured helplessly again, then dropped his gaze. “She will never be beautiful again.”

  “My God,” Piers said. They had been standing, and he sat in a chair, as though uncertain his legs would continue to hold him up. He seemed to stare at his own thoughts, then surrender to them. He drew a long breath, as if gathering himself again. “Well, we must do what we can for her,” he said. “She was a delightful young woman. And to have this …” Again he let the sentence die. He ended it by shaking his head.

  There was a distance in the tone of his voice, and it caused Meme to turn and stare at him. His eyes were hard, accusing.

  “She was only a poule,” he said. “That is the way the newspapers will describe her. And tomorrow, when people read of it over their croissants and coffee, they will shrug and fill their mouths, and they will forget it.” Meme’s eyes were black now, a glowing black, but, oddly, his voice had grown softer, terrifyingly so, Piers thought. “But she was our poule,” he continued. “And we will take care of her.”

  “We have a house in Corsica,” Antoine said. “And she can go there. She will have work, and she will have comfort.”

  Meme had continued talking as Antoine spoke, but his voice was so soft Piers had not heard the words.

  “What did you say?” he asked him.

  But Meme was silent now.

  “He said, we will also take care of the people who hurt her,” Antoine said.

  “But I was told the men who did this were killed.” Piers was staring at Meme as he spoke, almost as though he were afraid to take his eyes from him.

  Meme stared back. “It is not enough,” he said.

  Piers began t
o object, then thought better of it.

  “Do you want to see her?” Antoine asked.

  “Oh, yes. Yes, of course.” He stood, looking uncertain of where to go or what to do.

  “I will show you,” Antoine said.

  Colette lay on her back, the left side of her face heavily bandaged, the right side so badly bruised and swollen Piers barely recognized her.

  There were tubes coming from her nose and mouth and right arm, and a catheter bag hung from the bed. She seemed barely alive, but the monitors above her head indicated a strong heartbeat, and the doctor he had spoken with in the hall had assured him she was stable and would survive. He thought that perhaps that was the worst that had happened to her.

  He seemed uncertain again. Colette’s right eye, the only one he could see, was closed, and Piers didn’t know if he should disturb her.

  “Meme seems very upset,” he whispered to Antoine, as a way of marking time. “I hope—”

  “It is a business matter,” Antoine said, cutting him off.

  But Piers thought it was personal too.

  He went to the bed and gently took Colette’s right hand in his. Her eye flickered, opened. She seemed to have trouble focusing on him. Then the eye became more steady, and her lips moved slightly, as though she were trying to speak.

  He made a hushing sound and stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. “You’ll be all right,” he said. “You’ll be fine. Everything is being done for you.”

  The words sounded foolish, banal to him, but he struggled on. He could barely stand to look at her, to see her this way, and to know it would never really change.

  “You must rest now.” Foolish again. “It’s best that you rest.”

  A tear formed in Colette’s right eye, then rolled down her cheek, and he could not tell if it came from pain or from what she saw in his face.

  Two Pisani men smashed open the door of Rene Gault’s house, and Meme and Antoine entered, leaving the men outside. Gault was the new leader of the Communist union. He was the youngest member of the ruling committee, and had taken over when Jules Millau had resigned after being thrown into the harbor. No one else had wanted the job.