Chourmo (21 page)

“Did your father stay in Vietnam?”

“He was supposed to join us. That's what he said. I don't know what he really wanted. He was arrested. We found out he'd been interned in a camp called Lolg-Giao, about forty miles from Saigon. That was the last we heard of him. Any more questions?” she said, finishing her glass.

“You might find them indiscreet.”

She smiled. Again, she made the gesture of pushing her hair back behind her ears. Every time she did that, my defenses crumbled. I was at the mercy of that gesture. I waited for it, hoped for it.

“I've never loved Adrien, if that's what you want to know. But I owe him everything. When I met him, he was full of enthusiasm, full of love. He gave me a chance to escape. He gave me security and helped me to finish my studies. Suddenly, thanks to him, I was able to hope again. For me, and for Mathias. I had a future.”

“A future that included Mathias' father?”

There was a lightning flash of anger in her eyes. But the thunder didn't follow. She was silent for a few moments, and when she resumed it was in a more solemn voice.

“Mathias' father was a friend of my mother's. A French teacher. He gave me Hugo, Balzac and Céline to read. I got along well with him. Better than with the girls at school, who didn't think about anything but boys. I was fifteen and a half. I was quite wild, and bold too . . .

“One evening, I provoked him. I'd drunk some champagne. Maybe two glasses. We were celebrating his thirty-fifth birthday. I asked him if he was my mother's lover. He slapped me. The first time in my life anyone had hit me. I threw myself on him. He took me in his arms . . . He was my first love. The only man I've ever loved. The only man who ever possessed me. Can you understand that?” she said, leaning toward me. “He took my virginity, and put a child inside me. His name was Mathias.”

“Was?”

“He was supposed to stay in Saigon until the end of the school year. He was stabbed on the street, as he was on his way to the embassy to see if there was any news of us. That's what the principal of the school told us later.”

Cûc had trapped my knee between hers, and I felt her warmth flow into me. Her electricity. Heavy with emotion and regret. And desire. Her eyes were fixed on mine.

I refilled our glasses and raised mine in front of her. I had another question to ask her. A question I couldn't avoid.

“Why did your husband have Hocine killed? Why was he there that night? Who were the killers? Where did he meet them?”

I knew that, or something like it, was the truth. I'd turned it over and over in my head all evening. Drinking one whisky after another. And everything fitted. I didn't know how it had happened that Naïma had seen Adrien Fabre that night. But she had seen him. She knew him, because she'd been at the Fabres' house several times. To see Mathias, her ex-boyfriend. And she'd told Mathias all about the terrible thing that had happened. Mathias who didn't love this “father” that even his mother didn't love.

“Shall we talk about this at your place?”

“Just one thing, Cûc.”

“Yes,” she said, without hesitation. “Yes, I already knew when you came to the house. Mathias had called me.” She placed her hand on mine. “Right now, the two of them are in a safe place. Really. Believe me.”

I had no choice but to believe her. And hope it was true.

 

She'd come in a taxi, so I took her in my old car. She made no comment about the state of the vehicle, inside or out. It was full of old smells: stale tobacco, sweat and fish, I think. I opened a window and put on a cassette by my favorite blues singer, Lightnin' Hopkins.
Your Own Fault, Baby, to Treat Me the Way You Do.
And we were off. Like in 14. Like in 40. Like all the stupid things men are capable of.

I went via the Corniche. Just to get an eyeful of the bay of Marseilles, strung out like a Christmas garland. I needed to convince myself that it existed. And to convince myself that Marseilles is a destiny. My destiny and the destiny of all those who live there and never leave it. It wasn't a question of history or traditions, geography or roots, memory or beliefs. No, that's just the way it was.

You belonged
here
, as if everything had been decided in advance. And because, in spite of everything, we can't be sure it isn't worse elsewhere.

“What are you thinking?”

“That it must be worse elsewhere. I'm not even sure the sea is more beautiful.”

Her hand, which had been moving along my thigh since I'd started the car, paused when it reached my crotch. Her fingers were burning hot.

“What I know about elsewhere makes me want to throw up. I heard last week about an uprising of four thousand Vietnamese boat people in a refugee camp in Sungai Besi, in Malaysia. I don't know how many people died . . . But what does it matter, eh?”

She took her hand away. She lit two cigarettes and handed me one.

“Thanks.”

“Collectively, death doesn't exist. The more dead there are, the less it matters. Too many dead, it's like elsewhere. It's too far away. It isn't real. Only the death of individuals has any reality. When it touches us personally. Directly. When you see it with your own eyes, or in someone else's eyes.”

She fell silent. She was right. That was why there was no question of letting Guitou's death pass. I couldn't. Nor could Gélou. Or Cûc. I understood what she was feeling. She'd seen Guitou. When she came home. His angel face. Beautiful, as Mathias must be. As all boys of that age were. Whoever they were, of whatever race. Everywhere.

Cûc had seen death in his eyes. So had I, at the morgue. The world's corruption had caught us by the throat. One death, as unjust and senseless as this one, and all the atrocities on this earth screamed too. No, I couldn't abandon Guitou to the profit and loss account of this rotten world. And leave these mothers to weep forever.

Chourmo
! Whether I liked it or not.

When we reached the Pointe-Rouge, I turned right onto Avenue d'Odessa, alongside the new marina. Then I turned left onto Boulevard Amphitrite, and left again onto Avenue de Montredon. Toward the center of town.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Just checking,” I replied, glancing in the rear view mirror.

But nobody seemed to be tailing us. All the same, I kept my eyes open as far as Avenue des Goumiers, dodged into the warren of little streets in Vieille-Chapelle, then drove back onto Avenue de la Madrague de Montredon.

“You live in the middle of nowhere,” she said, when I turned onto the little road that leads to Les Goudes.

“That's my home. The middle of nowhere.”

She put her head on my shoulder. I'd never been to Vietnam, but all its smells greeted me. As soon as there is desire, I thought, there are different smells. Always pleasant ones. That was my way of justifying whatever might be about to happen.

And I needed to justify it. I hadn't called Gélou. I'd even forgotten that I was driving with a gun in my glove compartment.

 

By the time I returned with the two glasses and the bottle of Lagavulin, Cûc was standing there naked in the dim light of the little blue lamp I'd lit when we came in.

She had a perfect body. She took a few steps toward me. She seemed marked for a destiny of love. There was a contained sensuality, subdued and intense, in every move she made. I could hardly bear to look at her.

I put the glasses down but didn't let go of the bottle. I really needed a drink. She was less than two feet from me. I couldn't take my eyes off her. I was spellbound. There was a look of absolute indifference in her eyes. Not a muscle moved in her face. The mask of a goddess. Dull and smooth. Like her skin, its texture so even, so delicate, that it cried out, I told myself, to be both caressed and bitten.

I took a swig of whisky, straight from the bottle. A long swig. Then I tried to look beyond her. Behind her, toward the sea. The open sea. The horizon. Searching for the Planier, as if it could show me which direction to take.

But I was alone with myself.

And with Cûc at my feet.

She had kneeled, and her hand followed the outline of my cock. She moved a single finger along its length. Then she undid the buttons, one by one, unhurriedly. The tip of my cock burst out of my underwear. My pants slid down my legs. I felt Cûc's hair on my thighs, then her tongue. She grabbed hold of my buttocks, digging her nails into them, hard.

I wanted to cry out.

I took another long swig of whisky. I was feeling dizzy. The alcohol was burning the pit of my stomach. A dribble of sperm appeared on the tip of my cock. She was about to take it in her mouth, which was hot and moist, like her tongue, and her tongue . . .

“And with Hocine . . . ”

The nails moved away from my buttocks. Cûc's whole body went limp. Mine started to shake. From the effort of stammering those words. I drank again. Two short swigs. Then I moved my leg. Cûc laid her now flaccid body on the tiled floor. I pulled up my pants.

I heard her crying, weakly. I walked around her and picked up her things. Her weeping increased in intensity when I crouched next to her. She was shaken with sobs. She was like a dying caterpillar.

“Here, get dressed, please.”

I said it tenderly.

I didn't touch her. Even though all the desire I'd felt for her was still there. It hadn't let go of me.

D
ay was breaking as I drove Cûc back to the nearest taxi stand, which wasn't as near as all that. We had to go all the way to Vieille-Chapelle to find one.

We'd driven in silence, smoking. I liked that dark hour before the break of day. It was a moment of purity, a moment that no one person could lay claim to, that no one person could use.

Cûc turned to face me. Her eyes still had that jade brilliance that had attracted me from the start, though slightly tarnished by fatigue and sadness. The most important thing, though, was that, free now of lies, they were no longer indifferent. They'd become human. Full of pain, but also full of hope.

We'd talked for a good two hours, and in all that time I hadn't stopped drinking. The bottle of Lagavulin was gone. Cûc had broken off in the middle of a sentence and asked, “Why do you drink so much?”

“I'm afraid,” I replied, without any further explanation.

“I'm afraid too.”

“It's not the same fear. The older you get, you see, the greater the number of irreparable acts you can commit. I avoid them, as I just did with you. But those aren't the worst ones. There are others that you can't get around. If you do get around them, in the morning you can't look at yourself in the mirror.”

“And that wears you down?”

“That's right. A little more every day.”

She'd fallen silent, lost in thought. Then she'd said, “Is avenging Guitou one of them?”

“Killing someone is an irreparable act. But killing the piece of shit who killed Guitou seems to me one of those things I can't get around.”

I'd said those words wearily. Cûc had placed her hand on mine. To share that weariness.

I parked behind the only taxi in the stand. The driver was just starting his day. Cûc gave me a fleeting kiss. The last one. The only one. We both knew that what hadn't happened would never happen. Regrets were also part of happiness.

I saw her get in the taxi, without looking back. Like Mourad. The taxi moved out and drove off, and when I lost sight of its sidelights I turned and went back home.

To sleep, at last.

 

I was being shaken gently, by the shoulders. “Fabio . . . Fabio . . . Hey, hey! . . . ” I knew that voice. It sounded familiar. It was my father's voice. But I didn't want to get up to go to school. No. Besides, I was ill. I had a fever. That's it, yes. At least a hundred. My body was burning. What I wanted was breakfast in bed. And then to read Tarzan. I was sure it was Wednesday. The new issue of
The Adventures of Tarzan
must be out. My mother would go out and buy it for me. She couldn't refuse, because I was sick.

“Fabio.”

It wasn't my father's voice. But the intonation was the same. Gentle. I felt a hand on my skull. God, it felt good! I tried to move. One arm. The right one, I think. It was heavy. Like a tree trunk. Shit! I was trapped under a tree. No. I'd had an accident. My mind was clearing. A motor accident. On the way home. That was it. I'd lost my arms. Maybe my legs too.

“No!” I yelled, turning.

“There's no point in screaming like a maniac, dammit!” Fonfon said. “I hardly even touched you!”

I felt myself all over. I seemed to be intact. Completely intact. And fully dressed. I opened my eyes.

Fonfon. Honorine. My bedroom. I smiled.

“You really scared us, you know. I thought something had happened to you. I thought you'd had some kind of attack. Or whatever. That's why I fetched Fonfon.”

“If I have to die, I'll leave you a note the day before. On the table. So as not to scare you.”

“He's just woken up,” Fonfon said to Honorine, “and already he's making jokes! I'm wasting my time with this nonsense. I'm too old for this!”

“Take it easy, Fonfon, please! It feels like Easter Sunday in my head! Did you bring me any coffee?”

“What else? A croissant? A brioche? Would monsieur like it on a tray?”

“Well, you know, that would have been really nice.”

“Go fuck yourself!”

“The coffee'll be ready in a minute,” Honorine said. “It's on the stove.”

“I'm getting up.”

It was an exceptional day. No clouds. No wind. Ideal weather for fishing, if you have the time. I looked at my boat. It was as sad as I was, because it wouldn't get the chance to go to sea today either.

Fonfon had followed the direction of my eyes. “Hey, will you have time to catch the fish before Sunday? Or will I have to order it?”