The Blood of Lorraine

by Barbara Corrado Pope

Monday, November 26

  AT NINE O’CLOCK ON MONDAY morning, Martin marched into the courthouse, past the guard, past his chambers, straight to Didier’s office. He did not want to deal with his ever-curious clerk. Nor did he have the slightest desire to talk to the esteemed Prosecutor of the Court at Nancy. But, of course, he had no choice. If Didier considered him a fool or an incompetent, all the better, Martin thought as he trudged up the stairs. Let him berate me. Let him try to demote me. Above all, let him reassign the case. For now, for the next few critical days, just let him leave me alone.

  By the time Martin reached the second floor, he was gasping for air. He had spent the night desperately trying to get his tiny son to imbibe drops of water from the glass bottle contraption Dr. Pinot had brought them. Dehydration. Tiny Henri-Joseph was dehydrated. And infected. And jaundiced. Those were the words that Pinot kept repeating as he shook his head in bewilderment. He actually said that Martin’s son could be “failing.” Yet Martin knew this was impossible. Not in this day and age. Not his and Clarie’s baby. They were strong. They were young. It simply could not be.

  Before knocking on Didier’s door, Martin pulled his scarf loose and tossed it, along with his bowler, onto the bench outside the prosecutor’s office. He slowly unbuttoned his coat. His brain and mouth felt fuzzy and dry, as if webbed with cotton. He pressed his lips together, trying to moisten his tongue. To be speechless in front of Didier could spell disaster.

  He tapped sharply, waited for a response, then stepped inside. As soon as he entered the grim green room, he sensed that something was amiss. His neck stiffened, setting his jaw on edge and his tired brain on alert. He had to move his head to look around the room, if only to loosen his taut nerves and to prove to himself that he could meet whatever dangers awaited him. His eyes roved first to Didier, who was standing up and observing him, then to the far side of the office where a fire roared. There, in an armchair across from the humble Roland’s desk, was a heavily veiled woman, all in black. Having heard his entrance, she turned toward him and stood up.

  “Ah, good. Monsieur le juge Martin, how fortunate that you have decided to come in this morning. I need to introduce you to the Widow Ullmann.” After Didier delivered this bombshell in his most annoyingly arch tone, he lifted his long-fingered hand toward the small buxom woman, who bowed her head slightly acknowledging Martin’s presence. His heart sank. So, they had found Victor Ullmann’s body. This is what came from not nipping the libel against the Israelites in the bud. This is what came from Martin’s foolhardiness.

  Even as he absorbed the shock of a violent death and the role he might have played in it, Martin managed to return her bow and say, “Madame Ullmann, I am so sorry that we must meet under these circumstances.” She did not respond. The only visible part of her not covered in black was the white handkerchief she was clutching in her right hand. Martin turned back to Didier, furious that the prosecutor had seen fit to ambush him in this most unseemly way.

  Their eyes locked. “Monsieur le juge Martin,” Didier explained in a loud voice, “will investigate your husband’s tragic murder. And I am sure that he will take into utmost consideration your religious beliefs with regard to your husband’s body and the burial. Won’t you?” The prosecutor kept his piercing blue eyes on Martin’s face while he spoke.

  “Of course.” What else could he say? The bastard Didier was carrying on as if he were in the courtroom, sadistically orchestrating the responses of the accused—in this case, the foolish, incompetent Martin—and enjoying every minute of it.

  “Thank you,” the little woman by the fireplace interjected, in a low raspy voice. When she lifted her veil to dab her eyes, Martin observed her gray hair, her red nose, and her despair. She was no longer the pampered, rich wife who had gone off to Paris to shop. She was a woman in full, sorrowful mourning. “He was such a good man,” she whispered, “so observant. We must follow the laws.” Her face collapsed around the handkerchief as she tried to suppress a whimpering sob.

  Didier stared at Martin, waiting. “You have nothing to say?” he asked quietly.

  Martin shot an angry glare at Didier before walking over to the widow. “I am very sorry about your husband, Madame Ullmann. I will do everything I can to bring his murderer to justice.” Martin’s body was tingling with a desire to flee. He didn’t know which was worse, to be under Didier’s malicious scrutiny, or to try to console a woman whose husband may have been killed because of his own mistakes.

  “I’ve told Mme Ullmann,” Didier said, with less obvious sarcasm in his voice, “that you will consult with Singer about appropriate Jewish burial practices and that the two of you will do everything you can to release the body as soon as possible. Therefore, if it seems like the most compassionate thing to do, perhaps you could plan to question Mme Ullmann in her home, later this morning, after things are arranged.”

  “Yes, of course,” Martin answered as he helped the widow back into the chair. This is exactly what he would have done, with or without Didier breathing down his neck. Then again, Martin would have agreed to anything to get the torturous charade over with. At least he was beginning to understand the game. In front of the widow, in front of the world, everything should proceed in a normal fashion, with no hint that Martin might have let a killer out of jail, or had failed to get a full confession from a scheming, lying woman, or had never managed to uncover the reasons why her doltish husband would believe her in the first place. Above all, the courthouse must appear to be unified, efficient, and just. That was political. That was normal. But nothing felt normal. Not with Victor Ullmann dead, and Martin’s own son “failing.”

  Didier shot a contemptuous glance at Martin as he walked past him to the widow. His long torso bent almost in half as he reached down to the little woman. “Mme Ullmann, if it is all right with you, I’ll have my clerk take you to a police officer who will accompany you home.”

  “I have to send telegrams to my children.” Mme Ullmann sniffled, trying hard to compose herself. “They must come immediately”

  “Of course,” Didier responded. Martin saw that, very much against his nature, the prosecutor was trying to be gentle. “Our officer will take you to the post office,” Didier continued, “and to your home. And Monsieur le juge Martin will come to see you later this morning, if it is convenient.”

  “If it must be.” She looked at Martin full in the face, scrutinizing him. Her cheeks were damp with tears, her mouth set against her grief with the innate dignity of a woman of status and breeding. A long marriage, grown children, even a family business: Martin could well imagine how many bonds between man and wife the killer had torn asunder.

  Given the nod from Didier, the stooped white-haired Roland walked over to Mme Ullmann and helped her up. For just a moment her arms held on to his, as if she would fall back. Then, holding her head high and steady, she walked out of the room with Roland trailing behind her.

  As soon as the door closed, Didier strode back to his chair, sat down and began drumming his finger against the desktop, waiting. Martin followed him at a pace which he hoped signaled neither fearful reluctance nor hurried obsequiousness, ending up in his usual position, at the front of the desk.

  Didier leaned forward. “Now to you,” he began quietly. “Why did you release Pierre Thomas?”

  Hands clasped behind his back, chin jutting forward, Martin answered, “I did not think he was capable of violence.” Then he added, mounting the only possible defense which might redeem his folly. “I presume that he has not confessed.”

  “No, not yet.”

  “And Jacquette—”

  “Yes, he’s been ‘cooking’ him, I can assure you. Yet Thomas keeps claiming his innocence, keeps repeating ‘I did what the judge told me to do.’” Didier paused before asking, “Which was?”

  “To keep to himself, not to repeat the lie about his son, not to get drunk, not to speak out against the Jews.” Martin made sure his sigh was audible. Let’s get this over with.

&nb
sp; “Hmmmm.” Didier leaned back in his chair. “And where have you been exactly?”

  “I had no urgent business here. I had left Antoinette Thomas in the tender care of Jacquette, assuming that he would get her to confess. My wife delivered our son on Wednesday morning.”

  “Oh yes, of course,” Didier pursed his lips, eager to dispense with the obligatory niceties. “Congratulations. I assume that Mme Martin and the child are doing well?”

  “My son is very ill.” As soon as the words came out of his mouth, Martin wanted to snatch them out of the air and bury them in secret place where no one would ever hear them again. To say them aloud made it real. My son is very ill, echoed in Martin’s brain. He bowed his head to hide a grimace.

  Didier took in a long breath. “I’m sorry to hear that. Usually these things pass, you know, with newborns. I am sure that Mme Martin has a maid or a relative, someone who can take care of this women’s business.”

  “Yes.” Martin’s mother had put off her return to Lille. Rose had arrived early in the morning, and Madeleine would come right after school. If they were lucky, Dr. Pinot would be sending a healthy, healing, strong wet nurse. Martin’s chest was quivering. This was not a conversation he wanted to have with the cold, cynical Didier, yet at the same time he longed for some indication that his colleague had an inkling of what he was going through.

  “Well, then. Now to our business. You understand why I cannot hand this case over to Rocher.”

  Martin nodded. The moment had passed. Didier had already overspent his ration of sympathy.

  “Or Singer,” Didier added.

  “No, I don’t understand.” Still stinging with the anger aroused by Didier’s little ambush, Martin was in no mood to give in so easily. He desperately wanted to get back to Clarie and the baby. “Why not Singer? If I’ve already made such a mess of—”

  “No, no, no.” Didier waved one of his narrow fingers at Martin. “No. What would that say about our attitude toward the Israelites in our midst?”

  “Singer’s a good judge. He understands—”

  “No!” Didier shouted. “I will tell you what that would say. That we, who are not of the Israelite race, do not care about the Jews. That the murder of a Jew is somehow their problem, not ours, not the Republic’s. While we, you and I and Singer, believe that in France everyone deserves equal justice.”

  A lovely speech, made less lovely by Didier’s addendum: “There are many important Israelite families in our fair city. We do not want to alienate them. Nor do we want to encourage those who, because of their lack of republican values, scorn them. You and I know that there are red-hot embers, right below the surface, ready to burst into flames because of what is going on in Paris. We do not want to stoke them.”

  Dreyfus again. His mouth set in a grim line, Martin folded his arms and stared out the window behind Didier’s desk. It was almost impossible to argue against a man who had a unique talent for wedding high principle to political calculation. Still, Martin was about to put up more of a resistance when Didier delivered the lowest blow of all.

  “And surely you must see this as a way of saving your own skin. And perhaps, if you are lucky and Pierre Thomas is not guilty, making amends.”

  Martin blanched. Although at that very moment, he did not give a damn about his career, he knew that he might tomorrow, or the next day, or even the moment he left Didier’s office. Silent acquiescence, as hard as that was to swallow, remained the only reasonable course of action.

  “I’ve asked Singer to help you to understand the important community you will be dealing with,” Didier said as picked up his pince-nez from atop a stack of papers and mounted it on his nose. He opened a file. “I expect a report by the end of the day tomorrow.”

  That was it! Dismissal. Oh no! He was not about to be treated like a servant or a child. Martin clamped both of his hands on the front edge of Didier’s desk and leaned toward his tormentor. “Can you at least tell me what we know so far?”

  With a sigh, Didier laid the papers aside. “Victor Ullmann’s body was found late yesterday afternoon by a game warden in the woods just across the Meurthe.”

  By the river. A hot sweat burst over Martin’s forehead. How close to Tomblaine? he wondered. But he did not ask. He was not about to invite another round of Didier’s sarcastic recriminations. They both knew that if Ullmann had been killed near where the unfortunate little Marc-Antoine had been discarded, it made Pierre Thomas an even more likely suspect.

  “Ullmann’s horse was tethered to a pine tree several kilometers from his estate,” Didier continued dryly. “That’s what instigated the game warden’s search. It seems Ullmann liked to ride for an hour after his daily visits to his office to look over the books. Last seen, therefore, Thursday at the factory, around four P.M. Cause of death, several blows to the head, the first of which probably threw him off the horse. Fauvet surmises that the weapon was a large tree branch, since he picked some splinters out of Ullmann’s skull. Ground hardened by the cold, no signs of animal tracks, so we assume that he was attacked by someone on foot. I’m sure the details are in his report.” Didier paused. “Anything else?”

  By this time, their mutual desire to be rid of each other was so palpable that Martin was tempted to leave Didier’s office without saying a word. Instead, he conceded: “I’ll go to Singer immediately.”

  13

  MARTIN GRABBED HIS HAT AND scarf and headed down the hall to Singer’s office. At least with David Singer he would be dealing with a human being. Oversensitive, perhaps; stiff, always; but human. Besides, Martin needed Singer’s help. When he reached Singer’s chambers and put up his hand to knock, he realized that it was shaking. He was shaking. He could not remember ever being so angry. He let his hand drop and took a few breaths, then he slowly turned the knob and opened the door. “David?” he inquired.

  As soon as Singer saw him, he stood up at his desk and peered with concern into Martin’s eyes. Singer knew, Martin was sure of it. Singer’s wife had told him. There was something wrong with Martin’s son.

  Singer cleared his throat. “Monsieur Nisard,” he said to his clerk, “Monsieur le juge Martin and I need to discuss something in private.”

  The tall, gray-bearded Nisard, whose age and professional demeanor lay somewhere between the old-style meekness of Didier’s elderly Roland and the youthful presumptuousness of Martin’s Charpentier, set aside the papers he was copying, nodded to both judges, and left.

  “How is he?” Singer asked.

  Martin shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “Sit, please.”

  There were three chairs lined up against the plain white wall across from Singer’s desk. Martin sank into one of them. Singer came and sat beside him. He gently took Martin’s scarf and hat away from him and set them on the empty chair. Martin stared into space. Singer’s sympathy was harder to bear than Didier’s indifference.

  “I’m sorry. But we must hope for the best.”

  Martin hung his head and sighed. How ironic. Only moments ago, he had spoken words of consolation to the widow Ullmann. For her, all hope was gone. He squeezed his eyes closed. If only it would be different for little Henri-Joseph.

  “And you just came from Didier.”

  Martin nodded.

  “I’m sorry about that, too.”

  “You should be.” The words slipped out before Martin could stop them. He turned to see how Singer was reacting to the involuntary rebuke.

  One corner of Singer’s mouth stretched into a bitter smile. “We’ve all been stung by him more than once.”

  This was firmer ground. A complicity of interest and principle between two like-minded judges. They didn’t have to talk about Henri-Joseph. They could stick to “men’s business.” The courthouse, the case.

  “You know,” Singer said as he leaned forward and lifted himself out of the seat, “Didier is a good man. He’s on our side. He wants to do the right thing. It’s just that,” Singer shook his head as he walke
d around his desk, “he can’t stop being the prosecutor. It’s in his blood.”

  “I thought you were angry at him for handing you the Thomas case.”

  “Yes. But when we talked last week, he admitted that he had made a mistake in originally giving it to Rocher. And then, this morning, he called me in to tell me about Ullmann and asked me to help you.”

  “You didn’t want to take over?” Martin was stunned. He got up to face Singer. How much had been going on behind his back, while he was dealing with the birth of his son? He didn’t know whether to feel betrayed or relieved.

  “I agreed with him that you should keep the case,” Singer said. “I can help behind the scenes, but it is better that in public we have a non-Israelite handling this. I trust you. And, for your sake, I hope to hell that Thomas didn’t do it. But if he didn’t, I know, in some ways, your job will be harder. Finding out who is inciting the anti-Israelites. Who….” Singer paused. Martin could see his friend’s mouth clamp shut in protest against uttering the words. Finally Singer continued. “Who would do this? Murder an innocent man just because he is a Jew. How is this possible in our day and age?”

  As he listened and watched his friend, a wave of nausea overtook Martin. His mind and body protested against the turbulent sway of contradictory demands: Clarie, the baby, the courthouse, the idea that he, Bernard Martin, was to head an investigation with potentially explosive political consequences. Martin retreated a few steps and edged back into the chair, gripping its arms. What could he do? About Henri-Joseph, very little. About irrational, stupid hatred, probably even less. About a murder case—he looked up to see Singer waiting for a response—about friendship, at least something. Martin let go of the chair’s arms. The only way to set himself aright was to move forward by doing what he did best: bring a killer to justice.

  “We don’t know yet, do we, how and why this happened?” Martin said. “But we’ll find out.” He sighed like a man facing an uphill journey without any notion of where and how high he would have to climb. He took the first, dutiful steps. “What can you tell me about Ullmann? And what do I need to know before talking to his widow?”