Two Crosses (50 page)

As if on cue, M. Hoffmann stepped out of the shadows. He grabbed her arm and yanked her back into a hidden street while the rest of the world teemed by, jostling and hurrying to and from the great port.

Rosie gasped as he swung her around.

“Is he with you? Where have you left him, little lady?” He shook her hard, and Rosie was surprised by the strength in the American’s arms and the anger in his black eyes.

“I-I’m alone,” she stammered.

He shook her again and laughed. “You lie well!” She thought he would strike her, as Jean-Claude had done, but suddenly his grip relaxed. “So?”

Rosie straightened up and looked him in the eye, feeling stronger behind her sunglasses. “So!” she spat. “It won’t do you any good to bully me, M. Hoffmann. I only do as I am told.”

“And who is telling you, Rosie?” he snarled. His grip tightened again. The terrible strength in his hands!

But she didn’t shirk at the pain. “Whoever pays most is who tells me what to do, M. Hoffmann. And right now, you are not the one.” She wiggled up close to him, pressing her curves against his hard chest. “I’m very friendly with those who pay, don’t worry. All is fair.”

The tall American pushed her away, a disgusted look on his face. “You’re lying, Rosie dear.” He pulled out a brown envelope, thick with French bills. “Will this do?”

Quickly she counted nine, ten, eleven, twelve hundred francs. She smiled up at him, her wide lips parting. “This is adequate. Yes, adequate.”

“So?”

“So he stays at the Hotel Poseidon,” she said. “A real trash heap near the Vieux Port. It’s not hard to find.” She eyed him through her sunglasses. “Room 32. I told him you’d have the information for him tomorrow night. He’ll be waiting for you. Eleven thirty.” She smiled again, batting her lashes out of habit, though he could not see them under the glasses. “But in the meantime … since you have been so generous … I have a few hours to spare, if you wish?”

He laughed outright, deep and angry, so that Rosie backed away from him. “No thanks, Rosie. I haven’t got time for such an offer.” He softened his tone. “Get yourself a good meal, and stay away from Jean-Claude for a day.” He reached over and pulled off her glasses, then gently touched the ugly bruise around her eye.

Rosie stared at him defiantly, then took back her glasses and put them on. “I will be going then, M. Hoffmann. Tomorrow night.”

She wheeled around and left him standing in the shadows as she stepped back onto the Canebière, where the whole world watched and shrugged.

Moustafa’s hand trembled as he held the pen above a blank piece of paper.
M. Hoffmann
, he scribbled.

I must stay in Algeria for now. While there is hope. But Anne-Marie has been badly hurt. She is dying here. I can’t send her alone with the orphans. Come get her, M. Hoffmann.

He put the pen down. David Hoffmann was used to getting his notes, Moustafa reflected. He only hoped the American still cared enough about his old lover to respond quickly. Suddenly he knew what to say, even if it broke Anne-Marie’s confidence.

Anne-Marie has a daughter, Ophélie. I’m sure she is there with you. If only Anne-Marie could see her child, I know she would get well.

He hesitated, then carefully penned the address of a store two streets away in Bab el-Oued.

Come to this address. Someone will know where we are. Come soon, please, if you wish for her to see her daughter again. It is the only hope.

He signed the note, rolled it carefully into a cylinder, and taped it shut. Then he wrapped a pile of old newspapers around it.

Hope. What a strange little word. He hoped that David Hoffmann cared enough to save Anne-Marie. But he also hoped that M. Hoffmann didn’t care enough to take her away from him forever. It was a risk Moustafa had to take. Otherwise there would be no Anne-Marie left to love at all.

The store had absolutely nothing to draw attention to it, huddled on the corner of rue Michel and rue Estanov in Bab el-Oued. Moustafa paused outside to touch a potato and finger several onions, picking off their flaking skins.

The broad-shouldered pied-noir who ran the market gave him a wide smile as he entered the store. “Yes? What do you have?”

“Another bit of news to go, Luc,” Moustafa said, lowering his voice. He nodded to the newspapers in his hands. “Is it possible? The mail has stopped.”

Luc let out a soft chuckle. “
Oui.
Do you blame them, when the postmen are murdered one by one? But never mind. The boats are still leaving port. Our boat. Your cargo is still going?”

Moustafa nodded. “Yes. And this. It is urgent. It must go directly, with the cargo.”

“This is not a problem,” Luc insisted as Moustafa handed him the bundle of old papers. He stuffed a fish inside the newspapers and smiled. “Don’t worry so. It will leave tomorrow night. Have I ever been late for you yet?”

Moustafa tossed a handful of change on the counter and nodded. The young shopkeeper placed the papers in a small box behind him. Moustafa watched the street from the shop window. He didn’t like to be out in the day. Someone could see. Someone had seen before.

But today no one was about. Hanging in the shadows of the yellowed buildings, he slipped out onto the sidewalks stained with dog urine and bird droppings and even, Moustafa thought sadly, yes, even the blood of humans.

Hussein crouched in the alleyway between two larger streets of Bab el-Oued. Here he had seen the woman disappear with the Arab the last time. That was almost six weeks ago, and he had not seen them since. But he hung out in the alleyway nonetheless, at least an hour a day. There was always the possibility.

He crept in the shadows toward rue Estanov. The sun was blinking down on the smelly road, but it had not peeped into the alley. Someone walked by. Hussein’s heart skipped a beat as he peered around the corner. Yes! There, on the other side of the street, in the shadows of the sidewalk. Walking briskly. A young Arab man with tightly curled black hair.

Hussein didn’t need to look again at the photograph Ali had given him. It was the same man.

Hussein stepped into the street cautiously, blinking in the sunlight. Not a sound, he reprimanded himself, as his shoe scuffed on the pavement. The young man, walking so swiftly ahead, didn’t turn around. Hussein started to cross the street to the side with the shadows, but he was afraid. Calmly he tiptoed, yes, tiptoed fifty feet behind the young man. Now he was turning up another street and disappearing from view.

In a flash Hussein was safely in the shadows of the sidewalk of rue Estanov. He ran hard to the corner and peered around, but no one was there.

Impossible. His eyes scanned the street. No movement, no sound. No one. He whispered an oath, then regretted it. The man must be nearby. He was perhaps the one spying now.

Hussein kicked at the pavement and turned his head down. He milled in the streets for several minutes. He walked up rue Cambriole. Nothing. Hussein decided that he could wait too. He could outwait the Arab. He slipped into another alleyway with a view of rue Cambriole. The sun blinked and flickered, but Hussein stood perfectly still.

It was a whim, and David was not used to acting on whims. But he could not get the thought of her out of his mind. Today Gabriella would sit down in class and take the exam. She would wonder why he was not there, and then she would read the first question. He smiled at the thought. He wanted to be there to see, to hold her, to at last say, “Yes!”

Only that one word, and then he would race back to Marseille. Then he would sneak through the putrid backstreets of the Vieux Port and to the room of Jean-Claude Gachon. Then … he didn’t think any further.
What then, God? What then?
He started to curse, stopped himself, and smiled. Gabriella.

It was barely dawn. Two hours on the train, two hours in Castelnau, two hours back to Marseille. It was all the time in the world. He grabbed his jacket and briefcase and locked the door behind him.

St. Charles station was only a ten-minute walk away, and the first train left for Montpellier at seven fifteen.

When David Hoffmann stepped into the street in the predawn gray, Rosie Lecharde laughed out loud. She shivered, standing up and shaking the crumbs of a croissant from her shawl.
I did right to be here early
, she congratulated herself. The long hours yesterday, hiding and following him to his hotel, would pay off today. M. Hoffmann was in a hurry to get somewhere.

The streets were vacant and calm, and even the noises at the Old Port were dulled in the early morn. The Canebière lay long and wide, like a silent river, its cafés closed, its banks and shops locked behind a jail of bars. David Hoffmann darted across the street. The stream of cars was thin and fast. Rosie followed.

Five minutes later the train station, massive and glimmering as the first streaks of sun touched its dome, came into view, perched high on a hill. A long row of steps led up to the station. Rosie hurriedly climbed them, pausing only as David Hoffmann entered the doors and walked toward a
guichet
. He waited impatiently behind a wild-looking student at the only open window. The train station had long since awakened, and the lobby was brimming with well-dressed businessmen waiting behind their copies of
Le Monde
. A train screeched on the quay.

Rosie watched, breathless, as he purchased a ticket and moved quickly toward quay number 3. Where was he going? She glanced at the large tumbling billboard as it rattled forth, changing trains and destinations.
Avignon 6:43; Aix-en-Provence 7:05; Nîmes 7:15.
Nîmes! Then on to Montpellier. Yes, that must be it! He lived in Montpellier. Jean-Claude had said so.