AL02 - Murder in Belleville Read online

  “You like it there, don’t you?” Aimée asked, huddling closer.

  “You would too, Aimée,” he said. “The play of light on the dunes, the stillness …” his voice trailed off.

  She poured more champagne into their glass.

  “I’m not very good at relationships,” she said.

  “Makes two of us,” he said. “Let’s drink to that.”

  And they did.

  She stood up, gripping the bottle. “Last one upstairs—”

  “Opens the next bottle,” Yves interrupted, “but first things first.” He leaned against the arch and pulled her close. “I can’t get you out of my mind.”

  They kissed for a long time under the bridge. Not even the toot of a barge or an old chchard straggling by disturbed them. They were laughing together as he gave her a piggyback ride all the way up to her apartment. And they spent an even longer time in a hot bath with the next bottle.

  Wednesday Evening

  BERNARD PACED OUTSIDE MINISTER Guittard’s office, rubbing his eyes and trying to come up with an excuse to decline negotiating. The high, frescoed ceilings, painted murals with cavorting angels, and diamond parquetry flooring were lost on him—so intent was he on his thoughts that he didn’t notice a man emerging from the office until he collided with him.

  “Je m’excuse,” he said and looked into the face of Philippe de Froissart.

  Philippe, his old classmate from Fxole Nationale d’administration, looked older, dissipated, bags under his bloodshot eyes.

  “Ça va, Philippe?” Bernard asked.

  “Rolling with the punches,” Philippe said, his smile forced. He gave Bernard a tepid handshake, then moved on.

  Bernard remembered Philippe back in the 1968 Sorbonne riots, a fiery demonstrator on the front lines, passionate about his ideals. He’d also attracted the female students. After graduation Philippe had cast his lot with the Socialistes. Later, he’d emerged as Secrétaire d’ Etat à la Défense, a governor in the Defense Ministry. He’d done well, ranking high in the food chain of power.

  Where had their youth gone, Bernard wondered, and the feeling that they could make a difference?

  “Minister Guittard expects you, Berge,” Lucien Nedelec said, smoothing his thin moustache. He rose and gestured Bernard forward. “Your plan backfired,” he added. “Miserably, in fact. But we know you can do better.”

  “Nedelec, why me?” Bernard said. “My job belongs with another ministry section.”

  “Mais you’re perfect, Berge,” Nedelec said, buttoning his double-breasted suit jacket and ushering him forward.

  “I don’t understand,” Bernard said, halting at the door.

  “You don’t get it, do you?” Nedelec shook his head. “It’s your background, Berge! The minister’s enamored of how as a pied’noir, born in Algeria, you uphold the law.”

  Bernard saw the reflection in the glass-paned doors and briefly wondered about the old man with the haunted look beside him. With a start, he realized he was staring at himself.

  Wednesday Night

  PHILIPPE PEERED INTO SIMONE’S bedroom. Her soft breathing and dinosaur nightlight greeted him. Philippe’s shoulders relaxed. His baby was asleep. Safe.

  He shuffled downstairs, grabbed the bottle of duty-free Johnny Walker, bucket of ice, and headed to his home office. Inside the room, he pulled down the shades and poured a generous portion into a Baccarat tumbler.

  Philippe unknotted his tie, then sank down on the silk carpet. He leaned his back against his desk and sighed. He stared at the saltwater aquarium wedged among his bookshelves. The only sound came from the tank’s bubbling air filter and the ice cubes tinkling in his glass.

  Ignoring the work on his desk and Sylvie’s folder, which Anaïs had given him, Philippe pulled down his ENA scrapbook. He kept pouring the Johnny Walker, neglecting the ice cubes, and turned the pages.

  On the page Bernard Berge—younger and with a lot more hair—stared back at him. The Woody Allen resemblance had been there even then. He’d always teased Bernard about it, saying they could be identical twins. Even when Bernard was in his twenties, his eyes had held that furtive look. No wonder he’d stayed a fonctionnaire, never risen high in the ministry.

  Philippe saw a photo of himself posed on a rooftop terrace, the Seine behind him. His arms were around a long-haired girl. They both wore headbands, tie-dyed scarves, and not much else. He remembered that afternoon in 1968 but not the girl. Demonstrating at the Sorbonne, he’d thrown paves at the flics. All hell had broken loose. His group took over the Arts Building, proclaiming free love, free wine, and freedom of the mind. They’d formulated a new bill of human rights. The only one he remembered was, “Let it hereby be proclaimed that all humanity listen to their heart and sing.” They thought, in their arrogance and naivete, they were changing the world. And he’d never felt better in his life.

  Philippe’s flat stomach and sense of freedom were gone. What had happened to him? Did he look like Bernard Berge—an old man before his time? Was he as dead as he sometimes felt? No, that couldn’t be. He struggled with the vineyard, but he’d make it work. Joy flooded him when he saw the wonder sparkle in Simone’s eyes, heard her laughter. He’d fallen in love again with his glowing wife when she’d nursed Simone.

  He called to check on Anaïs. The nurse told him Madame slept. Philippe thanked her and sighed as he hung up the phone. He poured more Johnny Walker into his tumbler.

  If only he had stayed in the commune in Normandy, joined his brother’s pop group, or traveled to India and lived on an ashram.

  The phone interrupted his thoughts.

  “Allô,” Philippe said.

  “You are elusive, Philippe,” Kaseem Nwar said. “Talk to me, please, I must give the investors hope.”

  Tired of Kaseem’s continued persistence, Philippe wanted to hang up.

  “What more can I say, Kaseem?” Philippe said, annoyed. “My committee passed on the funding reins. We have no more control.”

  The less Kaseem knew the better. The less anyone knew the better. Look at what happened to Sylvie.

  “Can’t you reconsider, Philippe?” Kaseem said. “My investments weigh heavily on the project.”

  “Kaseem, we’re subject to the whims of the Elysee Palace,” he said. “Like I’ve always told you, I do what I can. Now it looks impossible.”

  “Philippe, this isn’t just for me,” Kaseem said, his tone lower and more insistent. “Others rely on the project, the funding of the mission. They’re depending on you for this!”

  Philippe heard the quiet desperation in Kaseem’s voice.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” he lied.

  Anything to get Kaseem off his back.

  Thursday Morning

  “MERCI, GASTON,” AIMÉE SAID, accepting the espresso from him at the counter in Café Tlemcen. The café, with its worn linoleum and lace-covered windows, felt familiar, almost comfortable to her. Rai, a fusion of Western pop with Algerian regional music, pounded from an open window across the narrow street.

  “Wasn’t RaT outlawed?”

  Gaston nodded. “The fundamentalists banned Rai as degenerate Western music. But I like it.”

  “Me too,” Aimée said, tapping her foot as she sipped from the steaming cup. She reached for another lump of brown sugar. The odd look on Gaston’s face alerted her.

  “Where can I wash my hands?” she asked, making her voice louder than usual.

  “Follow me,” he said.

  He nodded to the rear. Past the zinc bar were the toilet stalls and a passage to the back.

  Old men dealt poker at the wooden tables. Several young men in tracksuits and rasta types with dreads played the pinball machines.

  Aimée kept up with Gaston, who grabbed a mop en route. At a door opening to a back courtyard, Gaston motioned her to the right. Outside in the courtyard stood a wire-and-glass-roofed structure. Aimée figured it had once functioned as an iron forge or a blacksmith’s, and retained its Belle Epoque charm.
The double wood doors lay half open despite the chill drizzle.

  “We can talk chez moi” he said, indicating for her to follow him inside.

  They tramped through sawdust, around exposed iron beams, and a sawhorse straddled by a semifinished oak cabinet. Bits of stucco clung to her heeled boots. Above her, skylights rendered opaque with age filtered weak light across Gaston’s spartan live-and-work space. She shivered and wondered how he stayed warm in this place.

  An old curved alcove was set into what had been the brick oven used for heating and smelting iron or smithing horseshoes. Inside was an iron bedstead covered by a khaki-colored duvet, with a white Persian cat sleeping at the end.

  Below the grimy window she saw a double-ringed cooktop connected to a blue Butagaz cylinder on the floor. The aroma of old grease underlay fragrant clay pots of fresh mint and oregano perched on the sill. The only heat source she saw was a small portable heater. In the middle of the room was a chipped Formica table, cluttered with notebooks and yellowed newspaper clippings in clear cellophane. The Persian cat blinked several times, sniffed, then resumed its nap.

  “Someone said a car bomb exploded in has Belleville on rue Jean Moinon …” Gaston began, his tone hesitant. “Did something happen to Anaïs?”

  “Not Anaïs. Her husband’s mistress,” Aimée said. “I think the woman assumed another identity in Belleville.”

  “But why?” Gaston asked, smoothing strands of hair down over his bald patch.

  She told him an edited version of what happened.

  “Ever heard of Eugénie?”

  Gaston shook his head. “But Aimée, after you called I searched my files. I recognized Hamid. There’s something about him you should know,” Gaston said. He pointed to a clipped newspaper photo, captioned “Souk-Ahras 1958,” from Le Soir d’Algérie. In it a group of turbaned unsmiling men, clutching rifles, stood outside a bombed-out building.

  “Mustafa Hamid’s a mahgour” Gaston said pointing to a lean-faced teenager.

  Curious, Aimée leaned forward. Hamid seemed to be the youngest among them. “This is a mahgour?”

  “Mahgour means a ‘defenseless one,’ ” Gaston said. He opened a small refrigerator and took out a jar. “In traditional Islamic society, the family is ruled by the Koran and shari’a, a code interpreted by legal scholars, regulating everything from male inheritance to what a woman can do in her own home.”

  Gaston managed quite well with his one hand, emptying scraps from the jar into the cat’s bowl on the floor.

  “Hamid’s family was massacred during an early battle in the mountainous Kabylie region. He grew up on the streets—a mahgour without connection, family, or group that could provide security and protection in a society where individuals without such connections are defenseless.”

  “But he’s part of this group,” she said, looking at the photo.

  “That’s true,” Gaston agreed. “And now Hamid speaks for the AFL, as a leader. His group embraces all ‘African brethren,’as he says.”

  “He’s accepted, then, isn’t he?” Aimée asked. She figured Gaston had a reason for telling her all this.

  “A mahgour who forges complex loyalties and connections survives, can even thrive. But he remains a mahgour.” Gaston nodded. “Anciens combattants, like me, fought with many. They joined us because their people didn’t trust them. Some became Harkis—paramilitaries who fought with the French.”

  “Seems rooted in tribalism,” she said.

  “Most Algerians descend from the Kabylie or Berber tribes,” he said. “But if you understand this concept you understand the country.”

  She felt glad that Gaston was on her side.

  “Who’s this?” she said, pointing to the young man beside Hamid. Their arms laced around each other’s shoulders.

  Gaston scanned the names under the photo. “His brother.”

  “But you said Hamid was orphaned.”

  “Orphaned brothers, once close,” Gaston scratched his head. “We had files on all the insurgents. A high percentage came from mahgours. Hamid’s brother lived in Paris but returned to Algeria, I think.”

  “Djeloul Sidi—is that his name?” Aimée said, peering closer.

  Gaston nodded.

  “Did Hamid change his name?”

  “Lots of mahgours do,” he said. “People often do that if they’re hiding.”

  “Or putting the past behind and starting a new life,” she said. “Any idea what his brother’s up to now?”

  “I concentrate on anticolonial struggles from nineteen fifty-four to nineteen sixty-one,” he said, “and friendly-fire situations.”

  “What do you hope to achieve with your memoirs, Gaston?” she asked.

  “The truth,” he said. “No one likes to talk about that time. But friendly fire happened to my troop. More than once.”

  “You’re writing the history?”

  “Internecine struggles between Algerian factions could fill volumes,” Gaston said, pointing to the papers. “In here, too,” he pointed to his gray temple. “Canal Saint Martin, where you called me from last night,” he said, “was a notorious reckoning spot in 1960. With hideous regularity, bodies were found floating.” Gaston shook his head. “The OAS hunted the Algerian underground, and the FLN militants policed their own.”

  “So you mean the French killed their own, and the Algerians did too?” Aimée thought of the quiet flowing canal and Philippe’s threat.

  Gaston nodded. “Ugly things happened.”

  Claude’s fishlike eyes still bothered her. “Based on Philippe’s reaction, I think somehow Eugénie/Sylvie had contact with Ha-mid,” Aimée said. “But as a wealthy minister’s mistress, I doubt she supported Hamid’s cause. She had another identity; she had secrets.”

  “Everyone has secrets,” Gaston said.

  But not everyone has a double life, Aimée thought. She had to find out more.

  “What do you hear about the sans’papiersl”

  “Last night I broke up a fight,” Gaston said, “between a fundamentalist and a pimp’s brother.” He rolled his eyes. “Both claimed that Hamid is a figurehead. One said the mullahi Walid would take power. The other said his brother, the pimp Zdanine, had plans to divert the attention his way.” Gaston shook his head. “Meanwhile Hamid’s wasting away on a hunger strike, the focus of media attention. He’s trying to keep his AFL united with all the sans-papiers, not just the ones from Algeria.”

  “So if an AFL faction splits from Hamid, they could rationalize that because he’s a mahgourl”

  “Depends,” he said. “But I’d say that’s a good guess. We used to say, ‘Muck floats downstream, the good and bad, often together.’“

  “What do you mean, Gaston?”

  “Hamid’s got a church full of people. Some are just there for the ride.”

  “Aren’t the police going to evict them again?”

  “There’s another candlelight protest vigil tonight,” Gaston said. “Hamid’s granting interviews.”

  “Then I’ll get one too,” she said.

  But before that she had to get into Sylvie/Eugénie’s apartment on rue Jean Moinon.

  Thursday Morning

  YOUSSEFA HUDDLED IN THE back of the church, trying to make herself small. Hamid—she had to talk to Hamid. Eugénie had told her she could trust him. The problem was reaching him.

  Ahead of her the hunger strikers who sprawled on the pews rested with their eyes closed. To her they looked like the dead.

  Youssefa squeezed her eyes shut under the chador. But the images were burned into her memory. The surprised looks and the raw fear on the victims as the rifles pointed their way. How the bodies shuddered at the impact, then crumpled into the pits they’d been forced to dig. The flies, the heat magnified and radiating off the corrugated-iron Quonset huts.

  She pinched her legs until she couldn’t stand the pain, almost screamed out. The images faded. Youssefa forced herself to gain control.

  So far she’d buried the terror
when it seemed ready to engulf her. She kept her story to herself. No reason to endanger the women where she worked. They asked no questions, and she gave no answers. An unspoken agreement; life stayed safe that way.

  She overheard that Hamid’s strength had ebbed, only a few AFL members were allowed access to him. And they were all men. She didn’t want to bring attention to herself and was afraid the mullahs would refuse her. Especially the one called Walid, with his officious air.

  “Zdanine, do me a favor,” said a voice near her. “Eat your pistachios somewhere else.”

  “Je m’excuse,” Zdanine said and stood, brushing the shells from his tracksuit. Charcoal-eyed and handsome, his gaze reminded her of an undertaker estimating the length of a person’s coffin and shroud. One who lived by taking quick stock of future merchandise. Zdanine appeared sharper than the young hittistes in her village, unemployed for lack of jobs. Many made ends meet by the odd scam or lived off their girlfriends. But, like her cousins, Zdanine seemed to share a worldview limited to himself.

  She watched Zdanine stroll over to Walid, hold a short conversation, then head toward the back of the church.

  But Youssefa realized that if Zdanine had Walid’s ear, then maybe he could help her.

  Thursday Afternoon

  TONIGHT WAS THE TIME to break into the apartment, Aimée thought. Time to check those blue plastic trash bags for clues in Sylvie’s courtyard. Garbage was collected every day in Paris, but had the éboueurs hit Belleville yet? She called her cousin Sébastien. He was good at dirty jobs. But she’d have to sweeten the pot. Entice him. Invite him to dinner. And she was hungry.

  “How about L’Estaminet or Café de Charbon?” Sébastien suggested. “Let’s try a hot rue Oberkampf restaurant.”

  Aimée was wary of the studied chic of these restaurants, old shops gutted, then refurbished to look old again in a nineties way, crowded with those wanting to see and be seen.

  “Favela Chic is better,” she answered, comfortable with the childlike elegance of Brazilian saints and icons studding the walls, not to mention the steaming manioc, beans, and crusty fried Bahiana shrimp cakes.