Two Crosses (31 page)

“You’re too sweet, Gabby. Don’t worry about me. I guarantee you he won’t just wait around thinking you’re dead. He’ll be up to something. This is our chance.”

The phone booth was hidden behind a row of small shops. Gabriella stepped inside, and David followed. He towered over her as she dialed the number with a quivering hand. She listened for a ring and cleared her throat. On the third ring, a voice answered.

“Allô?”

“
Allô?
Jean-Claude, this is Gabriella.” There was a long pause before he responded.

“
Bonsoir,
Mademoiselle
Gabriella.
How nice to hear from you.”

“I’m just calling to let you know that we’ve had good news about Ophélie’s mom. Thank you for your help, but I think they’ll be back together soon.” She let her words soak in.

“Really? That is good news indeed. I’m very happy for you. Could we perhaps see each other? I’d like to take you to dinner.”

“Well, thank you for the offer, but actually I’m already seeing someone. It was nice meeting you anyway, and again, thank you for trying to help.
Au revoir.
”

She hung up the receiver and fell into David’s arms, eyes shining. “I did it! I think he believed me!”

He hugged her lightly, then let her go and stepped out of the booth. “That was great, Gabby. Let’s celebrate. Can I get you a coffee?”

Gabriella hesitated. “A coffee,” she teased. “I’m sure that is not how you normally celebrate.”

David laughed loudly. “I won’t touch that with a ten-foot pole, Miss Madison. No comment.” He brushed his fingers through her hair and said, “There’s only one café open on Sunday night anyway. We’d better at least make an appearance to keep the town gossips happy.”

They entered the café, which was empty except for the barman and two older men huddled at the bar. David chose a table in the back of the small room. He ordered a coffee for himself.

“
Un chocolat, s’il vous plaît
,” Gabriella told the waiter.

A soft love song played in the background, its melody drowned out occasionally by a burst of laughter from the men at the bar. The café smelled of smoke and strong liquor.

David reached out to touch Gabriella’s hand. “So tell me, favorite student, what’s going on inside that red head of yours?”

She blushed and gave him a quick smile, then pulled her hand away from his. “Too much is going on in my head.”

“Tell me.”

She closed her eyes, afraid to meet his gaze. “I feel trapped, David.” She glanced up at him. The music in the background grew louder, and a man’s voice crooned, “Love is the sweetest thing, what else on earth could ever bring, such happiness to ev’rything …”

David didn’t move or speak.

“I’m afraid, David. Mother Griolet said the best way to get past the hurt and anger is to keep living. And to be honest about what I’m feeling. So I tried. But now … now I’m trapped not only in my mind. Now I’m trapped in some awful little war game of yours. I don’t want to know what it is, and yet I wonder … I wonder who you are.” She fumbled with a white cloth napkin. “I wonder what you’re doing.” Her eyes met his. “And I don’t know what I’ll do when I find out.”

The waiter placed the hot drinks on the table. Steam rose and twisted enticingly between them as they held each other’s gaze.

Finally David broke the silence. He lifted his hand to touch the cross around her neck. “The Huguenot cross, Gabby. Such a strange cross.”

Again she felt his power over her and drew back. “That’s what everyone says,” she whispered. The haunting music stopped, and Gabriella shook herself out of her lethargy. “It was this cross that interested Jean-Claude at first, in Aigues-Mortes. At least that’s what he said.”

David smiled. “Of course. That makes perfect sense.”

“What do you mean?”

He unbuttoned a little pocket inside his blazer and pulled out a piece of paper. “You didn’t want to see it yesterday. But this is what was in the bread.” He held it carefully in his hand for Gabriella to inspect. In the center of the paper were written the words
jeudi 21 16h30sncf
. In the top left-hand corner was scribbled the picture of a Huguenot cross.

Gabriella touched her cross as another love song floated across the café. She glanced briefly at David, then down at the paper. “I see,” she mumbled. “I see.”

Moustafa waited until midnight to start back through the slums of Bab el-Oued and pass under the arches that led into the Casbah. His heart raced as he walked briskly through the labyrinth of streets. After a month of nighttime wanderings, he was beginning to feel at home in the Casbah. The thought made him shudder. At home in the neighborhood that plotted his extinction and that of all French loyalists.

Since Rachid’s death, Moustafa had observed Ali’s frantic gait, like that of a captured stallion. He was not as careful as before. The room that had been Moustafa’s prison with Anne-Marie was now used for Ali’s weekly midnight meetings with the few trusted men needed to carry out his plot.

Moustafa perched himself on the roof of the adjoining building, concealed in the pitch of night, and peered through the small window. The men were there, as they were every Sunday night.

Ali was pacing the floor, talking in hushed tones. The men nodded and focused their attention on the screen at the front of the room. Straining to hear through the open window, Moustafa watched as a picture of a woman with long red hair appeared on the screen.

“We have received more slides from Jean-Claude. You remember this lovely woman that he has bumped into several times. He has found her again. A student in Montpellier.” Another slide flashed before them, a crowded square with the back of the red-haired woman to the camera. Another slide showed her closer up. “Notice the small girl at her side!” Ali cried triumphantly. “None other than Ophélie Duchemin.”

Only the murmurs of approval from the men in the room covered Moustafa’s gasp.

Ali was crooning on. “Jean-Claude met them in Montpellier. The child of course remembered him as a dear friend of her mother’s. She didn’t know of Jean-Claude’s way of convincing Anne-Marie to talk.” He laughed cruelly. “The child begged this woman, Gabriella she is called, to have drinks with Jean-Claude to see if he could help them find her mother.

“Of course, Jean-Claude was happy to comply. This Gabriella has contacted him once, and Jean-Claude has planned to meet her not far from Marseille. In fact, I believe the appointment was for yesterday. We are confident that this woman, Gabriella, is behind the operation. She is the one they call Hugo. We will get rid of her and take the child. The rest of the information will come quickly. In the meantime, there are still three pied-noir families here in Algiers who must be done away with. On with you now.”

Moustafa scrambled up the roof and hid himself behind the arch of the two adjoining buildings. Six men filed out of the basement and slipped silently down the streets of the Casbah. He waited for fifteen minutes before springing to the ground like a cat and tracing his way back through the night to the apartment of Marcus Cirou.

The nightmare woke her with a start. Anne-Marie’s nightshirt was covered with sweat as she sat straight up in bed, breathing heavily. It was only a dream, a vivid picture of another haunted night. She had seen him before her, laughing as he reached out to her with the red-hot iron.

The hazel eyes she had thought so warm and inviting during their last night’s passion now gleamed with a wild power. Somewhere Ophélie cried out for her mother.

“I don’t know anything else. What can I know? I was his daughter, not his officer.”

Enraged, Jean-Claude touched the hot iron to her right arm. Her screams filled the night. Twice more he burned her, laughing as he watched her writhe with pain. Then he grabbed her long hair and jerked back her neck. “You will find the list of names, Anne-Marie. Thirty-seven names. You will find them before next Friday when I come back. The next time, it will be your daughter screaming.”

Anne-Marie looked at the black skies. Moustafa wasn’t back yet. She switched on a lamp that sat on the floor by her mattress and picked up the crumpled piece of paper that lay beside it. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she studied the page. At the top she had written in capital letters SCOUT PLATOON OF THE THIRTEENTH BATTALION. Underneath she had printed the name of her father and the words
murdered along with his wife by Ali
. Beneath that were many other names followed either by
killed in battle
or
murdered by Ali Boudani
, with details about the members of each soldier’s family.

She closed her eyes and tried to picture the list she had copied so carefully and placed in the blue bag so many months ago. But she could not remember another name.

The door to the room opened then, and Anne-Marie saw Moustafa bathed in the light of the moon, standing before her. His eyes glowed as he rushed to her and picked her up in his arms.

“It was all lies, Anne-Marie! Ali does not have Ophélie. She’s in the south of France with a young woman. Jean-Claude has seen her, but she’s not with him.”

Anne-Marie pulled herself out of Moustafa’s embrace. “You are sure?” She touched her forehead, suddenly feeling dizzy.

Moustafa caught her again, swinging her around. “Yes, I am sure! I saw the slides of her with this woman. A woman named Gabriella who wears a Huguenot cross. They say she is Hugo. Unbelievable! Do you know her?”

“No, I’ve never heard of her. She is Hugo? She has Ophélie? And how do we know that she won’t harm her?”

“In their voices, I could tell. They know Ophélie is safe with this woman.”

Anne-Marie wrung her hands together. “If this woman is working for us, then she will help. She’ll protect Ophélie.”

“Yes, of course. Now sleep, dear one. Go to sleep. I’ll join you later.” Moustafa slipped out of the room.

Anne-Marie lay awake for a long time, staring into the blackness of the room. “If this woman is Hugo,” she whispered to herself, “then where are you, David Hoffmann? Are you there too? And do you know that Ophélie is your child? Do you even care?”

Her eyes were closed, but she was still wide awake when Moustafa entered the room and lay down on the mattress beside her.