Chourmo (13 page)

What really wore me down was death itself. I'd been too young when my mother left us. Now, for the first time, when my father died, death had started eating away at me, like a rodent. At my head, my bones. My heart. The rodent had continued on its way, inexorably. Ever since Leila had died so horribly, my heart had been an open wound, a wound that would never heal.

I concentrated my attention on a big African woman who was mopping the floor. She looked up and I smiled at her. After all, you needed guts to work in a place like this.

“No. 747,” Loubet said, showing his police ID.

There was a metallic click and the door opened. The morgue was in the basement. That unmistakable hospital smell grabbed me by the throat. Daylight filtered in, as yellow as the water in the bucket where the cleaning woman was dipping her mop.

“Are you OK?” Loubet asked.

“I'll be fine,” I replied.

Guitou arrived on a chrome gurney, pushed by a small bald man with a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth.

“Is this yours?”

Loubet nodded. The guy parked the gurney in front of us and left without saying another word. Loubet slowly lifted the sheet and moved it down to the neck. I'd closed my eyes. I breathed in, opened them again and finally looked down at the body of Gélou's precious son Guitou.

He looked the same as he had in the photo. But now he was clean, bloodless, frozen. He was like an angel who'd fallen from heaven to earth. Had he and Naïma had time to make love? Cûc had told me they'd arrived on Friday evening. She'd phoned Hocine around eight. My head buzzed with questions. Where could Naïma have been when Guitou was killed? Had she already gone? Or was she with him? What had she seen? I'd have to wait until five to get some answers, maybe. Mourad was supposed to be taking me to see his grandfather.

The first thing I'd done after calling Loubet was to visit Naïma's mother. She hadn't been pleased that I'd come, especially so early. Redouane might have been there, and she was determined to keep him out of this. “Life is already complicated enough without that,” she'd said. I'd taken the risk because I didn't have much time. I was determined to get a head start over Loubet. It was stupid, but I wanted to
know
before he did.

She was a good woman, worried about her children. That was what persuaded me to give her a scare.

“Naïma may be involved in something bad. Because of the boy.”

“The French boy?”

“My cousin's son.”

She'd sat down slowly on the edge of the couch, and put her face in her hands. “What has she done?”

“Nothing. To be honest, I don't really know. She was the last person to see the boy.”

“Why don't you leave us alone? I have enough worries with the children right now.” She turned to look at me. “The young man may be home by now. Or else he'll be back soon. Redouane also ran away. We didn't hear from him for three months. Then he came back. He's here for good now. He's a serious boy.”

I crouched in front of her. “I believe you, Madame. But Guitou will never come back. He's dead. He was killed. And Naïma was with him that night.”

I saw panic in her eyes. “Dead? And Naïma . . . ”

“They were together. Both of them, in the same . . . the same house. I need to talk to her. If she was still there when it happened, she must have seen something.”

“My poor girl.”

“I'm the only person who knows all this. If she wasn't there, nobody needs to know. There's no way the police will find out about her. They don't even know she exists. You understand? That's why I can't wait any longer.”

“Her grandfather doesn't have a phone. It's true, you must believe me, monsieur. He says people use the phone these days as an excuse not to see each other anymore. I was planning to go there, as I promised you. He lives a long way from here, in Saint-Henri. You have to go by bus. It isn't easy.”

“I'll take you, if you like.”

“It's not possible, monsieur. Me in your car. People would know. People know everything here. And Redouane would make a fuss again.”

“Give me the address.”

“No!” she said, categorically. “Mourad finishes his classes at three o'clock this afternoon. He'll go with you. Wait for him at the bus station on Cours Joseph Thierry at four.”

“Thanks,” I'd said.

I jumped. Loubet had taken hold of my arm. He wanted me to take a closer look at Guitou's body. He'd moved the sheet down to the stomach.

“He was shot with a .38 special. A single bullet. At point blank range. No way he could have survived. With a good silencer on a gun like that, it's as quiet as a fly. The guy was a pro.”

My head was spinning. It wasn't what I was seeing. It was what I was imagining. Guitou naked, and the other guy with a gun in his hands. Had he looked at the boy before shooting him? Because he hadn't fired blindly while escaping. No, they'd been face to face. I hadn't met that many guys in my life capable of doing something like that. A few in Djibouti. Legionnaires, paras. Survivors of Indochina and Algeria. Even on the nights when they got drunk, they didn't talk about it. They'd saved their skins, that was all. I could understand that. You could kill in a fit of jealousy, in a sudden rage, out of despair. I could understand that too. But this, no.

I was overcome with hate.

“The arch of the eyebrows,” Loubet went on, pointing to it. “He lost that when he fell.” Then he moved his finger down to the neck. “Now this is interesting. They tore off the chain he was wearing.”

“Why? Because it was valuable? You think they needed a gold chain?”

He shrugged. “Maybe the chain could have helped to identify him?”

“Why should that bother these guys?”

“They wanted to gain time.”

“You'll have to explain that. I don't get it.”

“It's just a guess. Maybe the murderer knew Guitou. Hocine Draoui had a superb gold chain bracelet on his wrist. It's still there.”

“Where does that lead us?”

“Nowhere. I know. I'm just making an observation, Montale. It's a hypothesis. I have a hundred of them. They don't lead anywhere either. Which means they're all as good as each other.” He pointed at Guitou's shoulder. “Look at this bruise. It's not all that recent. About two or three weeks old, I'd say. A big bruise. That's as much of a distinguishing feature as a chain, and it still doesn't lead us anywhere.”

Loubet covered Guitou's body, then looked at me. I knew I'd have to sign the register on the way out. That wasn't the difficult part.

I
n the middle of Rue Sainte-Françoise, outside the Treize-Coins, a man named José was washing his car, a Renault 21 painted in the Olympique Marseilles colors. Blue at the bottom, white on top. With a matching pennant, attached to the rear view mirror, and a supporters' scarf on the back shelf. Music in the background. The best of the Gypsy Kings.
Bamboleo
,
Djobi Djoba
,
Amor, Amor
. . .

Sicard the roadmender had opened the gutter water point for him. José had as much water as he wanted, all to himself. From time to time, he'd walk over to Sicard's table, sit down and have a
pastis
, without taking his eyes off his car. As if it was a collector's item. But maybe he was dreaming about the bimbo he was planning to take for a spin to Cassis. It was clear, at any rate, from his contented smile, that he wasn't thinking about the tax man. And he was taking his time.

That was the way the things happened in the neighborhood, when you wanted to wash your car. The years passed, but there was always a Sicard who'd let you use the water if you bought him a
pastis
. Only an asshole from Saint-Giniez would go to the car wash.

If another car came along, it would have to wait until José had finished. Until he'd slowly polished the bodywork with a shammy. Hoping that a pigeon wouldn't come and shit on it at that moment.

If the driver was from the Panier, he'd calmly have an aperitif with José and Sicard and talk about the soccer championships, making the usual sarcastic remarks about how badly Paris Saint-Germain were playing. The remarks had to be sarcastic, even though the Parisians were riding high at the top of the league. If the driver was a tourist, he might sound his horn a few times. They might even come to blows. But that was rare. If you aren't from the Panier you don't make trouble when you're here. You keep quiet and wait patiently. But there weren't any cars, and Loubet and I were able to eat in peace. Personally, I had nothing against the Gypsy Kings.

Ange had seated us on the terrace, with a bottle of Puy-Sainte-Reparade rosé. On the menu, little
farcis
filled with tomatoes, potatoes, courgettes and onions. I was hungry and they were delicious. I love to eat. Especially when I'm in trouble, or when I'm rubbing shoulders with death. I need to get as much food down me as I can: vegetables, meat, fish, dessert or candy. To let the tastes overwhelm me. It was the best way I knew to refute death. To protect myself from it. Good food and good wine. It was a survival skill. It hadn't worked too badly so far.

Loubet and I were silent. We'd exchanged small talk over our starter of cold meats. He was brooding over his hypotheses. And I had plenty to brood over too. Cûc had offered me tea, black tea. “I think I can trust you,” she'd started by saying. I'd replied that, for the moment, it wasn't a question of trust, but of truth. The truth they had to tell the cop in charge of the investigation. Guitou's identity.

“I'm not going to tell you my whole life story,” she said. “But there are a few things that will help you understand. I came to France in 1977, when I was seventeen. Mathias had just been born. My mother had decided it was time to leave. The fact that I'd just had a baby may have influenced her decision. I can't remember.”

She threw me a furtive glance, then picked up a pack of Craven A and lit one nervously. She stared into the distance through a wreath of smoke. As she spoke, her sentences sometimes trailed off into long silences. Her voice grew thinner. Some of her words hung in the air and she seemed to dismiss them with the back of her hand as she brushed away the cigarette smoke. She didn't move her body, but from time to time she bent her head as if searching for a forgotten detail, and when she did so, her long hair swung.

I listened carefully. I didn't dare suppose that I was the first person she'd told the story of her life. I knew that when she finished she'd want something from me in return. This sudden intimacy was a way of seducing me. And that was fine by me.

“My mother, my grandmother, my three younger sisters and the child and I all returned to France. My mother was a brave woman. We were what they called repatriates. My family had been naturalized since 1930. In fact, I have double nationality. We were considered French. But there was nothing romantic about our arrival in France. From Roissy, we were taken to a workers' hostel in Sarcelles. Then we were told we had to leave, and we ended up in Le Havre.

“We lived there for four years, in a little two-room apartment. My mother took care of us until we could fend for ourselves. It was in Le Havre that I met Adrien. By chance. Without him . . . I'm in fashion. I create clothes and fabrics inspired by the Far East. My workshop and boutique are on Cours Julien. And I've just opened a boutique in Paris, on Rue de la Roquette. There'll be another one opening soon in London.”

She'd sat up to say that.

Fashion was the big new thing in Marseilles. The previous administration had put a huge amount of money into the Mode-Méditerranée Center on the Canebière. In what had previously been the Thierry department store. The “Pompidou Center of haute couture,” the newspapers had called it. I'd once set foot in there out of curiosity. Because I wasn't sure what was going on. In fact, nothing was going on. But, as someone had said to me, “It gives them a different image of us in Paris.”

What a laugh! I was one of those people in Marseilles who don't give a damn what image they have of us in Paris or anywhere else. The image makes no difference. To Europe, we were still the first city of the Third World. The most favored, to those who have some feeling for Marseilles.

For me, the important thing was that something should be done for Marseilles. Not to impress Paris. Everything we've ever gained, we've gained in spite of Paris. That was the attitude of the old Marseilles bourgeoisie: the Fraissinets, the Touaches, the Paquets. The bourgeoisie that in 1870, as Ange had told me, had financed Garibaldi's expedition to Marseilles, to repel the Prussian invasion. But today we no longer had an active, vocal bourgeoisie. It was slowly dying in its sumptuous villas in the Roucas Blanc. Unconcerned about what Europe had in store for the city.

“Ah,” I replied, evasively.

Cûc the businesswoman. That broke the spell, brought us down to earth.

“I'm just starting. It's only been two years. I got off to a good start, but I'm not yet as well-known as Zazza of Marseilles.”

I'd heard of Zazza. She too had started a fashion business. Her small ready-to-wear label was becoming known around the world. Her photo was in all the magazines that sell Marseilles to the good people of France, as an example of success. The symbol of Mediterranean creativity. Maybe I wasn't objective about things like that, I'll admit. But the fact was, in Les Goudes today, there were only six professional fishermen left, not many more than that in L'Estaque. There were fewer and fewer freighters using La Joliette. The waterfront was practically deserted. Whereas La Spezia in Italy and Algeciras in Spain had seen their goods traffic increase fourfold. Given all that, I often wondered, why was a port not being used first and foremost as a port, and developed as a port? That was my idea of a cultural revolution for Marseilles. We had to keep our feet in the water, before anything else.