The Snow Kimono (5 page)

At midnight, the fireworks start without warning. Five or six booming explosions,
like mortar fire, echo around the square. For one frightening, chaotic moment—it
is as though a trapdoor has suddenly opened beneath him—he is back on the streets
of Algiers, in a police car, hurtling through the labyrinthine darkness, his arm
outstretched against the dashboard. He can see figures running. Cars overturned.
Buildings on fire. A man reaches out to them as they pass; his face is imprinted
on Jovert’s brain. Beseeching them to stop. His splayed hands burst up in front of
the car like two white pigeons. Thibaud swerves to avoid him. All around them, there
is artillery fire.

Thibaud is saying: What if she’s not there? What if she’s already left?

He strikes the steering wheel with the palm of his hand.

This is crazy, crazy.
Merde
.

Then he is back in the café, listening to the last thunderous report dying away.
This, he knows, is just the prelude. Four or five eerily quiet seconds pass. He can
see the crowd gathered on the pavement. The rain has cleared. Suddenly, the curved
darkness above them explodes. Dozens of splintering spheres of light burst silently
overhead. A moment later, like an afterthought, a muted, antiphonal boom, boom-boom
echoes across the square. He can feel the reverberations through the floor, see the
minute tremblings of the window pane.

With each burst of light, a vast sea of upturned faces is lit up. It is like something
primitive, he thinks. This primeval noise, these sky-shattering eruptions of light,
the transfixed human
mass beneath. The building façades on the opposite side of the
square flicker on and off, as insubstantial as opera sets.

As he turns away from the window, someone bumps his table. A small red archipelago
of wine spills from his glass. He looks up. A young woman is leaning across his table,
her hand pressed flat against the window. She is wearing a close-fitting black dress
and dark glasses.

I’m sorry, she says.

She barely glances at him. But then she turns back, takes her glasses off.

Don’t I know you? she says.

I don’t think so, he replies.

She frowns down at him, as if she is searching her memory, trying to place where
she might know him from. He begins to feel uncomfortable. Perhaps she does know him.
It
is
possible. He had been an Inspector of Police for thirty years. He had met thousands
of people. He’s sixty-three. She looks back over her shoulder.

Merde
, she says.
Ne-poussez-pas
. Don’t push. There’s a table here.

She turns back to him.

Maybe you’re right, she says.

Then she leans across his table again. Perhaps it is the effect of the wine, or the
combination of her black dress and the darkness of the café, but with her suspended
above him like this, it is difficult to tell where her body ends and the night sky
begins. It is as though he is looking through her into the
star-clustered heavens
above. It is only intermittently, when the sky lights up outside, that he can see
this odd inverted horizon for what it is—an outstretched arm and a body clad in black.

He found himself wondering about this young woman, what her life was like. Was she
a student? Did she work? Where did she live? Did she have a lover? What was
he
like?
Or she. And why was she here alone? He thought about the photograph. Mathilde. Not
that they were the same: they weren’t. This girl was younger. Still, he thought,
change a few details, a time, a location, and this young woman could easily have
been her—the daughter he had never known.

He watched her raise her hand to shade her eyes. She seemed to be searching the fugitive
shapes of the buildings opposite, moving intently from one to another. He followed
her gaze. Through the plane trees he could see the packed balconies. On one, a group
of young people were singing, boys and girls with their arms around each other. He
could see their mouths moving, the cans of beer in their hands. A good-looking boy—someone
he could imagine a girl like her with—was keeping time with a bottle of champagne.

But there were so many balconies it was impossible to tell where exactly she was
looking. His gaze fell distractedly to the crowded street, and to the moment which,
in retrospect, seemed inevitably to be there, waiting for him. Standing on the pavement,
standing so close that he could almost have reached through the glass to touch him,
was Omura. He was wearing the same suit, the same spectacles, as the evening before.
His umbrella hung from his arm. He was staring into the momentary darkness above
him, his head tilted so far back that his hat was balancing precariously on the edge
of his collar. At any moment Jovert half-expected it to fall end over end to the
ground.

He leaned back into the shadows, watched as Omura took off his glasses and wiped
them clean. He saw him retrieve a small notebook from his coat pocket and begin to
write something into it. Another constellation of light lit up the square. Two old
women as thin as circus dogs stepped unsteadily back, their handbags raised above
their heads. One of them half-stumbled into Omura. He barely seemed to notice, merely
stepped aside, continued writing. Then he glanced down at the pavement, looked around,
folded his notebook and put it back inside his coat pocket.

As Jovert reached out to pick up his glass, the young woman who had been leaning
over his table pushed herself away from the window. Their eyes met once again. She
smiled.

Au revoir, Monsieur
, she said.

Au revoir, Mademoiselle
. He raised his glass.

When he looked back into the street, Omura was no longer there.

Half an hour after the fireworks had finished, Jovert reached for his crutches, stood.
Daudet was busy polishing glasses behind the bar. He nodded to him over the remaining
crowd, and left.

The air outside was thick with the smell of exploded fireworks. Jovert stood on the
curb for a second or two, adjusting his grip on his crutches, then levered himself
cautiously across the intersection. Ahead of him, thickets of people lingered on
the pavement. Talking, laughing, negotiating the remains of the night. Here and there
they spilled out onto the roadway. Jovert was forced to step off the curbside from
time to time to get around them.

Outside Le Soleil Noir another group. All young. Some drunk. A young man in jeans
and studded jacket was looking at him with a kind of cool detachment as he approached,
as though he were some kind of exotic insect. The young man turned back to his friends.
Jovert was close enough to hear him say: No, no, you’re wrong. It was at Serge’s.

A young woman at his side grasped his sleeve.

Frédéric? she said. She leaned into him, tugged at his arm. Frédéric, there’s someone
here, someone who wants to get by.

But instead of moving aside, the young man brushed her hand away.

Wait, he said sharply. Can’t you see, Solange, I’m talking here.

He glanced at Jovert.

You’re wrong, he said again. I am absolutely sure it was at Serge’s.

The young woman looked at her companion, her mouth open, her dismissed hand still
raised.

Merde
, she said. She cuffed his shoulder. Why are you
such
a jerk, Frédéric? She
looked at Jovert, shrugged her shoulders.

It’s okay, he mouthed.

He looked across the road to the dark archway of rue de Lesdiguières. He would be
better off taking the long way home, he thought, walking through the deserted back
streets, where he did not have to contend with arseholes like this.

Twenty minutes later, when he turned the corner of rue St Paul and stepped out into
rue St Antoine, Omura was standing in front of their building. He had his notebook
out. He was flipping through its pages. Jovert saw him peer at the notebook, then
at the keypad; watched him plug in his security code. The door opened and Omura disappeared
inside.

Then Jovert was standing outside the same door, punching in his own security code.
He listened for the familiar click. Pushed the door open. The light over the lift
was on. The door was ajar. He stepped in and pushed the button. As the lift began
to ascend, it half-crossed his mind that Omura might be waiting for him outside his
apartment. But when he arrived at his floor and stepped out into the corridor, the
hallway was empty.

Chapter 4

THREE days later, there
was
a knock at his door.

Ah, Inspector, Omura said when he opened it.

Professor Omura.

Omura. Just Omura, please, Omura said.

Omura.

Would you care to join me for dinner, Inspector?

Professor Omura, Jovert said, that is very kind. Thank you. But I am exhausted. He
looked down at his leg, held out one of his crutches. Perhaps anoth—

I have booked a table for us, Omura said. You would be my guest. I would be honoured
by your presence.

Jovert looked at Omura’s smiling face. In a way he could not quite explain, he was
aware that the decision whether to go or not had already been made for him, that
the present moment contained the next, the moment in which he would reach for his
coat and step out into the corridor to follow Omura down
the hallway to the waiting
lift. He was surprised, however, by how simply he had been caught.

My coat, he said.

He reached behind the door, handed his crutches to Omura, and stood on one leg pulling
his coat on. He gestured with his hand for Omura to lead the way.

Please, he said.

Outside, it was raining again. A cool wind had sprung up. Jovert stood in the lee
of the building adjusting his collar. Omura opened his umbrella, held it above Jovert’s
head. The remnants of the evening rush hour, heads bowed, brushed past them.

It’s supposed to be summer, Jovert said. Look at this weather.

Omura nodded, looked about.

There were tiny specks of rain on Omura’s glasses. He was holding his hat against
his head with his left hand. Jovert could see two nicotine-stained fingers and the
speckled skin on the back of Omura’s hand. His skin was so translucent he could see
through it to the white bones and the fine network of veins beneath.

This way, Inspector, Omura said.

Twenty-five minutes later they stepped up out of the Metro onto the twilit streets
of Belleville. This was an area Jovert knew well. It was the Algerian part of town.
The rain had ceased, but the roadways were still glassy. They had barely crossed
the
intersection when Omura retrieved a small blue guidebook from his coat pocket.
They were standing at the entrance to a narrow elbow-kinked street. At its far end,
where it disappeared, a series of neon lights were blinking on and off. Their reflection
spilled down the roadway to where the two of them stood. Above their heads, a familiar
sinuous melody wound its way into the night.

One moment, Professor Omura, he said. Where, exactly, are we going?

Not far, Inspector. Just a few steps. Omura pointed to the row of neon lights.

Yes, yes, Jovert said. He could hear the irritation in his voice. But which restaurant
are we going to?

Le Sétif, Omura said.

Le Sétif! Jovert almost shouted. A man and a young woman walking in the opposite
direction on the other side of the street looked across at them. He saw the man’s
arm come up to the woman’s shoulder, registered the soft collision of their bodies
as he pulled her closer.

Why Le Sétif? he said. Why there?

It was the one recommended, Omura said.

Recommended? Recommended by whom?

Not by whom, Inspector.

He reached into his inside pocket again and pulled out the guidebook. He flipped
through its pages until he came to an entry which had been asterisked in red.

See, he said, tapping the page. Le Sétif—best Algerian food. Best service. Best value.
Four stars.

Jovert took the book from him. He read the entry.