M
ARTIN 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 walked 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?”
Singer slowly, patiently built a portrait of Victor Ullmann and why he was a leader of the Israelite community. It was not only the man’s wealth, but also his philanthropy and his service. Ullmann had been elected twice to the Nancy Consistory, the body which administered Jewish affairs in the region and carried out the directives of the Central Consistory in Paris. Martin knew that these boards had been created by Napoleon at the beginning of the century to replace the traditional self-governance of Jewish communities and to tie Jewish citizens to the state, to make them French. That’s all he knew. Singer seemed to admire the way the consistories had modernized religious education and made Jewish rites more dignified, all in line with Enlightenment principles.
Singer knew Ullmann only by his deeds and his attendance at the Temple, where he sat in the front row with the richest and most pious members of the community. Ullmann would expect and deserved that all the traditional religious laws be carried out: the washing by the burial society, being wrapped in a white shroud and his own prayer shawl, interment in a plain pine box as soon as possible; in Ullmann’s case, as soon as his sons could be notified and reach the city.
“Evidently, Fauvet has completed his report,” Singer concluded. “You could sign an order to release the body right away. That would demonstrate your respect of our laws, which might be helpful if you need to talk to more members of our community.”
By the unemotional way in which Singer delivered this report, Martin suspected that he was not a very pious Jew. And yet he spoke as a member of his “community,” whatever that was, and whomever it included. Singer said he had voted to elect Ullmann and he, at least occasionally, attended services. Martin could not even begin to fathom what being a Jew meant to his friend. Yet he was getting the sense that the colleague to whom he felt closest actually lived in a slightly hidden, different kind of France, a world apart, one he was about to enter.
I
T WAS CRAZY
. P
URE SUPERSTITION
. He had to interview Mme Ullmann as soon as possible, to fulfill his promise to her, and to sustain, at least for a short time, the hope that he would uncover another motive for the murder of the Jewish factory owner besides the vengeful hatred of Pierre Thomas. Yet, despite all this, Martin felt an even more urgent compulsion to go out of his way in order to pass through the rue des Dom. Once he reached his block, he pushed through a crowd of happy, chattering shoppers to the wall of the stationer’s store across from his apartment and pressed himself against it. He stood there, staring up at the windows on the third floor, searching for a sign, any sign, of hope or disaster.
The dark green wooden shutters had been flung open and securely hooked onto the white stucco wall. That was good, normal. Clarie always insisted that they should try to capture every precious ray of morning light. Martin clutched his coat across his shivering chest as he scanned the windows to detect any fluttering of the heavy string lace curtains, any shadows moving behind them. But the glassed-in curtains hung resolutely still and mute, and Martin’s longing to be with his wife and son overtook him with such keen force that for one insane instant he envisioned a spectral version of himself, crossing the street, unlocking the door and climbing the stairs. He blinked hard. He could not go home. If he did, he might never leave.
Holding down his bowler to protect his face from the swirling wind, Martin prodded himself onward toward the rue Saint-Georges, which cut across the width of the city and led past the canals to the river Meurthe. He jumped on the first horse tram that rolled by. Fortunately, since only three old women, hugging shopping bags from the market, sat on the one-car train, Martin did not have to worry about whether his appearance was appropriately professional or judicious. He could well imagine how haggard and scared he looked, caught as he was between two destinations each with its own surfeit of despair and desperation: his apartment, where Clarie lay with the tiny sick Henri-Joseph in her arms; and the Ullmann mansion, where the grieving widow awaited him. Standing by a pole, making sure his face was not on display to the sitting women, he watched impassively as the tram passed the mammoth eighteenth-century cathedral and the Saint Georges gate. Only the sight of the factories, workshops and abattoirs that lay beyond the dignified older sections of Nancy roused him from the blank grayness befogging his mind. Huddled near these big, stout buildings with their belching smokestacks were rows of dwellings, two and three stories high, leaning on each other for support. Houses inhabited by the likes of the wet nurse, the weaver, and the tanner. Homes crammed with the kind of people that Martin had always thought he would help.
Where had those ideals gone? Had they died with his youth? Or with Merckx, who had taught Martin hard lessons about injustice and exploitation? Merckx the anarchist, the army deserter, the closest friend who had always managed to get him in some kind of trouble until the final trouble, Merckx shot in the woods because…because Martin had not been decisive enough. Martin gripped the cold metal pole. Never again. He needed to be strong. For himself, for Singer, even for Clarie and little Henri-Joseph.
He glanced up as they passed the canals, built with great fanfare in the middle of century, links in a chain that extended for three hundred kilometers, connecting the river Marne to the Rhine. Built to encourage industry and commerce. Built for progress. Built, Martin also knew, to fill the pockets of the rich. But who were these wealthy men? And how many of them were Israelites? And who were the poor who were flooding the city, seeking work in the mills and factories? If Martin had been paying more attention, if he had been truer to his ideals, perhaps he would have understood the hatreds and resentments that could drive a man like Pierre Thomas to murder. If….
A jolt brought Martin back to the present and the unhappy duty of confronting the Widow Ullmann. They had crossed a narrow branch of the Meurthe and were at the last stop, on a river island that formed the eastern boundary of the city. Martin stepped down, offered a helping hand to the remaining old woman, and then jumped out of the way while the conductor unbridled the broad-backed horse and walked it to the other side of the tram. Martin stood there for a moment, getting his bearings. Except for a large glass factory on his side of the tracks, most of the island was still thickly wooded. Across the way he spied the mansion, standing beyond a tree-lined path, on a rise above the narrow channel. Victor Ullmann had chosen to live in splendid isolation, yet near enough and high enough to watch over his factory. Near enough to see, but also to be seen. How many mill hands, Martin wondered as he began his ascent, would have resented the lordly pretensions of the Israelite’s estate?
Martin panted as he walked up, using more effort than he should have, gulping air in his tense, taut chest. By the time he reached the house, Martin was out of breath and sweating, despite the cold. He paused at the door to pull himself together. No matter what was going on in his life, at least he knew how to do his job, what questions to ask, what tone of voice to take, how to make a compassionate, proper and expeditious exit. Fortified by these banal self-assurances, Martin took hold of the shiny brass handle in the middle of the thick polished mahogany door and knocked hard several times.
The first person who greeted him was a maid, wearing the kind of uniform—the black dress, white apron and white cap—that befitted a wealthy, confident household. She invited him in and took his hat. The second person Martin encountered as he entered the great hallway came as a surprise.
At first glance, Martin would have sworn that the portly middle-aged man was a well-fed priest. He had on a long heavy black cassock with small cloth-covered buttons running down the center, a wide black silk belt, and a small rectangle of white linen running from his circular collar to the midpoint of his chest. Behind him, near the staircase, on an end table where the maid had put Martin’s bowler, lay a black felt oblong hat, a style nicknamed “the boat,” the kind usually worn only by Catholic clergymen. But this could not be a priest, not in the Ullmann household.
The man held out his hand. “I am Isaac Bloch, the Grand Rabbi of Nancy.”
Still confused, Martin shook the man’s hand and introduced himself as “Monsieur le juge Martin.”
The rabbi stepped back and scrutinized Martin. “You are surprised? You expected someone with a top hat and a long beard?”
“No, of course not.” Martin also retreated a step. The truth, of which the rabbi seemed fully aware, was that Martin had had no idea what to expect. The pince-nez, the thick mustache and the goatee gave the rabbi a modern, almost rakish look. But he exuded an authority, a learning, a sense of his own worth that was far beyond that of an ordinary clergyman. He spoke to Martin, a judge, as an equal.
“I am here to comfort Mme Ullmann. I assume you will allow me to stand by her while you talk. Then we must arrange for the burial. Victor Ullmann was an important member of our community.”
That word again. Community. Although it was certainly not his preference, Martin realized that he’d have to give in to the presence of the Grand Rabbi during his interview with the widow. Perhaps, in turn, he could get something out of him. “May I ask,” Martin said, “what community you’re speaking of?”
The rabbi paused as if weighing the question—and the questioner—as well as his answer. Finally, he spread out his hands and explained, “As a great industrialist Victor Ullmann was important to all of Nancy, of course. But I was thinking of our religious community. The rites we must carry out, the funeral procession. For us, he was a truly righteous man, a leader who served our people.”
“You served with him on the Consistory?” Martin confirmed, hoping that the rabbi would reveal something about the way Victor Ullmann had dealt with his peers.
“Yes, yes. For four years. Fine man. Devoted.”
This told Martin nothing. Before he could probe more deeply, the double doors leading to a salon burst open, and the maid and another woman hurried in carrying big blocks of black cloth. Without saying a word, they began to cover the portraits and mirrors that decorated the hallway.
“You see, it has begun,” said the rabbi in a solemn voice, “the mourning. It is imperative that you settle your business with Mme Ullmann as soon as possible. Then she will enter into a period of seven days when she will see no outsiders.”
“No one?” Was the poor woman going to be totally left on her own?
“No one but family and the members of our
community
,” Bloch said, with the slightest glimmer of amusement in his gray eyes. As the chief representative of the Israelites in Nancy, he was undoubtedly accustomed to dealing with the ignorance of outsiders. “Come.” The rabbi placed his hand on Martin’s shoulders. “Let’s get this over with.”
Bloch guided Martin into the salon where the Widow Ullmann sat almost lost in a large armchair. As soon as she noticed the two of them, she put her hands on the arms of the chair and struggled to her feet.
“Monsieur le juge.” She no longer wore the veil. Yet her eyes and nose were so swollen and red that Martin could not tell whether she was, or ever had been, pretty or sprightly or charming. He only knew she was middle-aged and grief-stricken. And that she was very wealthy.
“Please.” The rabbi went over to her. “Sit for now.” He gently lowered her into the chair.
Martin slumped toward the sofa and sat down. He hated what he had to do. If Didier and the widow hadn’t insisted that he come immediately, he would have put it off. In the face of her raw emotions, taking a notebook out of his pocket to record her answers felt like a insult.
The very best thing you can do for everyone involved
, he goaded himself,
is to get it over with and get out
. “This won’t take long,” he murmured. “Just a few questions.”
She folded her hands, staring at him, waiting. Rabbi Bloch did not move from her side.
“Can you tell me,” he said softly, “everything you know about your husband’s disappearance?”
A grim line worked its way across Mme Ullmann’s mouth. “I’ve already told everything to Monsieur Didier.”
“Is this necessary?” Just as Martin had feared, the rabbi was interfering, protecting her.
“I must,” he insisted, feeling more and more like an intruder.
So she repeated the tale that Didier had told him. She had left for Paris early on Thursday. Ullmann always spent part of the day going over the books at the mill. He liked to ride in the late afternoon. She stayed in Paris Friday night to spend shabbat with her cousins. They urged her to stay a second day, which is why she waited until Sunday afternoon to take the train home. “I should have been here,” she cried before sobbing into a white lace handkerchief.
“There was nothing you could have done,” Martin said, trying to soothe her pain.
This brought a nod from Rabbi Bloch. Approval. Approval that Martin was demonstrating the appropriate degree of delicacy and compassion.
“No one wired me,” she continued after wiping her face and blowing her nose. “My housekeeper told me she had gone to the police when Victor did not come home on Saturday night. She always comes in the morning. At first she had assumed that he was away on business Friday and had taken shabbat dinner with friends. Sometimes he stays on if he goes out of town. But when he did not come home by Saturday night and his horse was not in the stable…. She said she didn’t want to worry me. After all,” Mme Ullmann’s voice cracked again, “what could I have done?”
“Yes, of course,” Martin said encouragingly and waited for her to go on.
“I was frantic. I couldn’t imagine what had happened. I wanted to go to the police. Mme Franc—my housekeeper—persuaded me to wait until morning. And by that time they had found my dear Victor, left to die in the cold and wet.” The widow closed her eyes and breathed in hard. “I saw the body and called Rabbi Bloch, so that he could send the men to the morgue.”
“It is our custom,” the rabbi intervened, “to prepare the body for burial and dress it according to our faith. We have certain men from the synagogue who do this.”
“Were these men intimate friends of Monsieur Ullmann?” Martin asked, ready to take down their names.
“No,” again it was the rabbi, “they are always the same men who dress the dead, members of a
Hevra
, formed for this very purpose, that one get the proper Jewish burial.”
Martin usually found any interference irritating. Not this time. He was fully aware that the rabbi was not only protecting the grieving widow from having to answer useless questions, he was also protecting Martin from asking them.
Martin rubbed a trembling hand across his moistened beard. The worst was coming. “Madame Ullmann,” he began, “can you imagine anyone in your acquaintance who bore a grudge against your husband, enough to want to do him harm?”
Her body went stiff and her black eyes burned with fury. “No!”
“Perhaps,” Martin prodded, “there was trouble in the business, or at the mill. Relationships with the workers.”
“No!”
As her resolve hardened, Martin felt his hope fading that he would soon identify a suspect other than the tanner Thomas. Still, Martin went on. “Your husband was an important man, a rich man. Such men are often envied, even hated.” He was thinking of his own walk up the hill to the crest and how the Ullmann house must look from the factory across the Meurthe.
“No!” This time she rose to her feet without faltering. “No, I say. What are
you
trying to say?”
“This is a murder investigation.” How many times had Martin said this in his career, always attempting to calibrate the timbre of his voice to the needs of the moment, the sex of the witness, her status, and her emotional state? He immediately feared he had sounded too docile, for the tiny, angry woman approached him with fists clenched.
“My husband was a good man, a kind man. Because of the Germans he had to build his fortune twice. His grandfather and father traded horses and cattle, but when he was growing up the rabbis told him that trading was not ‘useful,’ that we Israelites must learn to be French, to speak French, to
produce
something. So he did. He became a Frenchman, a citizen, a philanthropist, and you say he had enemies?”