Nazis in the Metro (6 page)

—Is that some kind of joke? Seems to me it’s difficult to “establish that it was the presumed murder weapon” … If it’s being “established,” that means it’s bogus!

—Precisely … The farm worker languished in the clink for eleven months on the basis of a jurist’s conclusions that were unfounded from start to finish … Luscious Yolanda didn’t die from the spectacular array of knife wounds tattooed on her chest; she had simply been strangled, then stabbed after the fact … 
Post mortem
 …

—And why? Some kind of nut job who finally lost it completely?

—No. According to Sloga, the point was to make it look like a burglary … A year later, the investigation was assigned to a judge from Niort who deigned to make the trip to Bonvix only once. He didn’t want to get his hands dirty. The whole thing was stalled indefinitely, and to this day Yolanda’s real murderer runs free.

The Pakistani man who’d come in while Gabriel was talking had managed to sell his jasmine flowers to three couples seated in the back of the restaurant. Before leaving, he tucked a small, fragrant bouquet into the vase of roses Maria had placed on the end of the counter. Gérard gestured his thanks, then tapped the manuscript.

—It’s a classic story … Rustic setting, stagnant waters, innocent vagabond, impotent justice … I can understand why a writer would be interested, but I don’t see why a squad of commandos would come down from the swamps
of Poitiers to prevent Sloga from writing a novel inspired by poor Yolanda’s murder!

—I had the same reaction, at first … I’m going to read you a bit of text, and you’ll soon change your mind.

Gabriel leafed through the manuscript and stopped on a passage he’d underlined in pencil during his first reading.

—Listen:

Gabriel put the manuscript down.

—What do you think of it?

The owner of the Pied de Porc à la Sainte-Scolasse dunked his lips in the thick foam of the Micheline-Lambic. He clicked his tongue, an expression of pleasure on his lips.

—I think you have a knack for stopping the moment things are getting interesting …

—Give me your opinion instead of joking around. I honestly want to know what it is you find interesting …

—You’re kidding, right? When he turns around and hoists his flag … You don’t find that interesting?

They had known each other for ten years, and Gabriel was very fond of Gérard: he was a faithful friend he knew he could count on in his darkest moments. But he was forced to acknowledge that the quantity of platitudes and inanity that gushed forth on a regular basis from Gérard’s clientele was beginning to clog his neurons.

—I’m sorry to disappoint you, but what struck me about the passage is this: “The alcohol-soaked cotton ball delineated a circle the size of a five-franc coin, in the center of which she injected
THE DEADLY POISON
.”

—That kind of thing, S&M, it just doesn’t sink in with me … In bed, just like at the stove, I’ve still a hopeless
traditionalist … Pig’s feet prepared the classic way; missionary position …

—Have you lost it, or are you not following me on purpose?

Gabriel gathered up the first pages of the manuscript while Gérard went to ask the cook, Vlad, to take over at the bar. Vlad was an imposing, taciturn Romanian originally from Cioranu, a sinister region on the Moldavian border. Gérard only rarely put him behind the bar because he was militantly opposed to the consumption of alcohol, and when serving the customers he would mutter damning words between his teeth, which were as broad as spades. The boss came back to take his place next to his friend.

—I need pedagogical guidance. Go ahead, I’m listening …

—It couldn’t be simpler … André Sloga’s little book opens with the discovery of Yolanda’s body, the arrest of the vagabond by the Bonvix police, and the burial of the victim … It’s written as straight as a die, a provincial drama, a bit in the manner of Maupassant … Here, just a few lines and you’ll understand Sloga’s genius … This is how he describes the arrival of distant cousins to the cemetery. It’s as if you’re right there: “The villagers, too, cast them sidelong glances. The couple had the feeling they were being spied on. The woman wore a loose-fitting jacket with a small synthetic-fur collar and had her hands in her pockets. She was unsteady on her feet, like someone who had been traveling since dawn. Next to her, the man seemed tall, with a clean-shaven face, wide shoulders, a flat stomach, and well-groomed russet-colored hair, slightly rumpled from
the journey.” Four sentences, and you’re part of the family! It’s good, right?

—I’m with you, Gabriel. In any case, it’s how I like my literature, “slightly rumpled from the journey” …

—Me too. After that, the whole thing, at least what I’ve been able to read of it, is laid out as a succession of flashbacks. They are fairly short scenes, all structured in practically the same manner: Sloga establishes a character and his surroundings, then has Yolanda burst into his life and push him to his limits. She teases him mercilessly and refuses to put out, unless it will serve her better than would prolonging his sexual frustration …

—A genuine bitch!

—That would be too simple. This isn’t Robbe-Grillet. Gérard cast a surreptitious look at his Moldavian cook.

—Don’t dismiss detective novels, Gabriel, I liked
The Erasers
 …

Gabriel responded only with a disdainful shrug.

—As you’ve surely figured out, Yolanda works as an independent nurse in Bonvix. She knows every rear end in the region and can identify them by touch … There are a few among them that she makes full use of: those of the pharmacist, the two doctors, the veterinarian, and a surgeon from Fontenay-le-Comte who comes to spend weekends at his family home. Everyone knows about her amorous tendencies, and throughout the county she has a solid reputation for nymphomania …

—That seems rather unfair. What strikes me is her remarkable faithfulness to the medical corps …

Gabriel ignored the wise crack, amusing as it was, and persevered:

—Fernand, who had you so worked up a moment ago, tried his luck because of the rumors, but Yolanda just patted him sweetly on the tip of his prick before packing up her gear. Basically, she only slept with them if it was useful. In a dozen chapters, we watch her inject the deadly virus into the immune systems of Fernand, the five doctors, and others of their ilk …

Gérard’s eyes opened wide.

—Oh, I see! The virus … I hadn’t realized that she’s giving them AIDS! I see why she’d get herself bumped off! Which one of them figured it out first?

—That’s the whole problem! It could be one of the six, or a plot between them all, like in Agatha Christie’s
Ten Little Indians
 … Or like in Délteil’s
Five Senses
, with Élie-Élie … The Plague … AIDS …

—You’ve lost me now.

The Octopus pursued his train of thought without concern for his friend.

—Unless it came from outside. Only André Sloga has the answer, or rather,
had
the answer … His brain has been soaking in sauerkraut since his
brétonnade
, and now he only says a few words:
Max, loudspeaker, bank
, and
square
! Even Columbo would eat his hat.

—There isn’t anyone named Max in the manuscript?

Gabriel turned the bottle of Clermont upside down. A single auburn drop did him the favor of rolling from its neck.

—You’ve really been reading too much junk, haven’t you? Some hack trots out a bunch of pop psychology and stock characters, and the marketplace claps its hands and asks for more … You don’t think it was the first thing I checked? … I even went deeper into the hypothesis … No Maxime, Masque, Lebanc, Laban, Loew, Speaker … Nothing, not the least mention of any of them!

The cafe owner racked his brains for a way to save face.

—My job is to design dishes and cocktails; to marry flavors, colors; to harmonize for the eyes, the nose, the palate … Not to analyze, dissect, perform autopsies … That’s your job! I’m partial to things invented by nature, not by man … And in your story there are two things that give me pause: First, I honestly wonder why this young girl enjoys killing the medical personnel of the Poitiers swamps in such a ghastly manner. There must be a reason. And second, I cannot understand what would cause the daughter of a good family, whose father’s got half the region under his thumb, to adopt the prosaic profession of independent nursing! It’s the lowliest rank in medicine. Those kids are usually set up as dentists at least: from what I hear, that’s a specialty that requires no more rigorous training than wholesale butchery does.

Gabriel put the manuscript back in its folder and placed the floppy disk on top.

—Congratulations, I arrived at the same conclusions. For the first question, I’m leaning heavily toward the theory of vengeance. I have a hunch that young Yolanda is picking off Bonvix’s health professionals according to a meticulously developed plan. Fernand has his ass pricked for a nervous
problem; the pharmacist is subject to spasms, one of the doctors to asthma, the other to allergies; the vet has a bad case of psoriasis, and the surgeon is addicted to morphine … The why of the thing completely escapes me. But if it turns out she chose the profession of nursing from the start just so she could execute her plan, I’ll leave you to imagine the weight she’d be carrying on her shoulders! The men who killed her were hell-bent on keeping their secret from being revealed … The fact that Sloga is now a vegetable at the Pitié-Salpêtrière can only mean that he ferreted it out.

—If I know you, you’ll be going to take a look around the marshes.

Gabriel stood up, the manuscript under his arm.

—I’m going to stop by Weston’s, buy myself a good pair of waders, and I’m off!

Gabriel exited the Aquitaine highway just as the nine o’clock news began to air on France-Inter. He stopped at the public telephones across from a tollbooth. The apprentice with the Yorkie picked up, holding a blow dryer in her other hand. She told him, her sharp voice piercing through the din, that Cheryl had left an hour early to do the grocery shopping. The little beast yapped at her feet, as if signaled by a sixth sense that the object of his desire was on the line.

—Can you tell her I had to leave town, and that I won’t be back until tomorrow or the next day?

He heard a small cry from the receiver and thought for a minute that she’d burned herself by putting the hairdryer to her ear instead of the telephone, but it was only a protestation from the Wig whose fate she held in her hands.

He followed the Sèvre Niortaise river for about ten kilometers, crossing sleepy villages dotted with houses, low-lying as if crushed by the weight of the past and tradition. Stocky peasants traveling on foot turned to look at the Peugeot as it passed, scanning the numbers and letters on the license plate for an explanation of the evening intrusion.

Bonvix distributed its dullness equally on both sides of the river. The church, the town hall, and the Agricultural
Credit Union occupied the heart of the large village, and at its base, the main street was interrupted by a narrow stone bridge that meant a long wait for cars coming from downriver. Copper plaques engraved with the names of attorneys, notaries public, and doctors gleamed in the electric glow of faux gas lamps, while the neon alternative of the pharmacy’s sign cast a cold light on the charmless facades. Gabriel drew nearer to the edge of the village. The houses became more spaced out, shorter, and sadder, until they resembled Fernand’s hovel as Sloga had described it in his manuscript. The water level was low; the wooden fishing boats sat half-exposed on the sludgy riverbed. An odor of stale dirt, spongy grasses, and fish rose from the trench, wafting into the car through the open window. He thought he made out the shadow of a giant rat on the road, just as the sign for the River Rat Inn came into view.

The parking lot, carved out of a field bordered by gorse bushes, abutted a cluster of small outcroppings used by anglers. He entered the inn. The main room seemed to have been hollowed out from the earth, and he had to stoop while descending the three massive steps to avoid smacking his head on the oak joists. The fifteen or twenty people, mostly men, who were seated at a bar constructed from logs fell silent and watched him for a long moment while, bowing slightly, he crossed the room to the small reception desk. It was distinguished only by the required list of room rates and a pegboard hung with keys.

The proprietor herself was a swamp thing: the honeycombed nose of an amphibian, thick skin and mustache, globular eyes, heavy breath, stubby limbs … She brusquely
described a room that looked out over the coppice, and he accepted it sight unseen before sitting down, without enthusiasm, to a grey slab of freshwater fish pâté. He ordered a local beer, a pale Angle, which was served plain, without the detestable slice of poorly-rinsed lemon or moldy olive Parisian waiters habitually tossed in. The sad appearance of the pâté turned out to be misleading; the blandness of the tench, roach, and pike was fortuitously countered by a delicate balance of aromatic herbs, and he valiantly attacked the chanterelle omelet that followed. When he went upstairs to his room an hour later, the customers were still leaning their elbows on the logs. He bid them goodnight, but none of them responded.