Though they were young, the posture into which they were forced by spending so many hours in front of their computers made them stiff and gave them headaches. They would stretch, complain, crack their knuckles, get up, and walk about. At midnight, Arnaud said, “I’ve got nothing.”
“How many cameras do you have left?” Duvalier asked.
“Something like forty or fifty. You?”
“Seventy or eighty.”
“You spend too much time looking at the girls. You can’t see anything anyway.”
“I can’t help it.”
“You think you’re going to ask them for a date?”
“Some of them I’d like to.”
“Good, keep on looking,” Arnaud said. “I’m going downstairs to get some coffee if it’s open across the street. You want some?”
“No thanks. I don’t drink coffee.”
“Tea? A cookie?”
“I’m fine.”
“Duvalier?”
Duvalier turned to receive the question.
“What kind of Arab doesn’t drink coffee?”
There was a pause. “I’m not really an Arab, Arnaud, I’m a French Muslim.”
“Excuse me then. What kind of French Muslim doesn’t drink coffee?”
“The kind that’s looking at you, a French Protestant who does.”
Arnaud shook his head in contradiction.
“A French Catholic.”
“No.”
“Atheist.”
“I believe in God.”
“Buddhist? Hindu? Jew?”
Arnaud smiled slyly.
“They put a Muslim and a Jew on a case where it appears that a Jew killed two Muslims.”
“They did.”
“On purpose.”
“They didn’t know at the time that the assailant was likely a Jew, but they did know that two Arabs were the victims. They could have chosen others from our divisions, but they didn’t.”
“To be fair to both confessions?”
“Maybe just to keep Christians out of the mix. It would be against the law, but who could prove it. And Houchard, you know, is that kind of asshole.”
“Arnaud, you don’t look Jewish.”
“That’s right, Duvalier, but you do, and I’ll protect you if any Arabs try to beat you up.”
“I have a gun.”
“You would shoot them?”
“I would. You would catch a Jew who murdered two Arabs?”
“For sure.”
“Maybe Houchard is not such an ….”
“I’ll bring you some tea,” Arnaud said.
WHEN ARNAUD RETURNED much later – because of the hour he had had to go farther than he had planned – Duvalier was leaning back in his chair, a contented look on his face.
“Sorry,” Arnaud told him, “the tea must be cold.”
“I think I have something.”
“In the time I was gone?”
“Look at this. I’ve been going down the river from the Pont de Grenelle. Nothing, right?”
“I’ve already done that. The cameras stop before the bend. I saw nothing.”
“Ah, but there’s a traffic camera on the left bank that stares across the road and, therefore, across the river.”
“That’s so far. How could you see anything? Unless someone climbed out on the left bank? Was it lighted there?”
“No. And we don’t have anyone getting out of the river, at least not in the light. The cameras aren’t infrared. The river is cold as hell, so either he got out of the water at night or he’s dead.”
“So what did you get? The camera’s too far away to see anything, and light would be hours later. We should be looking more at the Métro cameras. The stations are always lit.”
“Maybe. But look at this.” They went to Duvalier’s screen. He ran the video, fast forwarding from the time of the crime until light.”
“You can’t see anything, Duvalier. The river is completely dark except for the barges that come through. Not even the bateaux mouches. It was late and cold. Only barges.”
“That’s right. You can see the running lights of the barges high above the water.”
“Not that high.”
“Higher than a rowing shell, the kind in the Olympics.”
“Your point?”
“This building,” Duvalier said, gesturing toward the screen, “is a boathouse. In the day, they take out that kind of boat. The weather was bad, so only a few. Later, at dusk, two boats were out. They put lights on them. It must be a rule.”
“Yes …?”
“And the night of the crime, all night, no lights low on the water, and, then, no boats out at dawn. Then, in the morning, when you can see, no one goes into the boathouse. But someone goes out. And before he goes out, he emerges and does something on the dock.”
“Who is he?”
“How can I know? Here’s him on the dock. Then, a little later, he leaves. You can see if you go to maximum zoom.” He did.
Arnaud said, “It’s a man. I can see that. What’s he wearing?”
“I think it’s a blazer.”
“Just like every other man in Paris. You’d think this was London. But our guy was wearing a rain jacket.”
“Still, did this guy sleep there? If he didn’t, he came out of the river. A little before he left, he comes out and goes back in.”
“Maybe he’s the caretaker, and lives there.”
“Possibly,” said Duvalier. “Let’s find out. Let’s say the killer rows from this place. He would know the river, the currents, and that he would be swept to somewhere where he could get out and find shelter.”
“How likely is that?”
“I would say, not at all. But if he rows he’s got to be strong, like someone who can kill two young men with his hands. We have his DNA. All we have to do ….”
“How many people might have access there? To go through them could take forever. Is it worth it?”
“Of course it is. There can’t be that many, and what else have we got?”
THE NEXT DAY was cold, but at noon several boats were out. Arnaud and Duvalier could see them up- and downriver. There were other boat clubs, too, but these were near La Défense. The likelihood was that the shells they saw had come from and would return to this boathouse, so the two policemen scaled the gate that was supposed to keep people out, and went down the ramp to the barge. The door was unlocked. They went in, calling out, but no one answered.
Narrow boats were stacked five high on wooden racks that filled three bays. Near the garage door of one of the bays was a counter strewn with lights for the boats, batteries, abandoned personal items, and logbooks. A board on the wall recorded that three boats were out, the time they would return, whether they went east or west, and if they would return in a single loop or would continue past the dock and make a second loop. Looking at trophies displayed on a shelf above the board, the policemen observed that no one had won anything for ten years.
“Hey,” Duvalier said, holding up a thin loose-leaf notebook. “The members, their addresses, and contact information.” He took a moment to count down the page. “Forty-six.”
“That would take forever.”
“Not at all. There are eleven women, which narrows it to thirty-five.”
“Almost forever.”
“But there are two of us. Three a day apiece, six days, maybe less if we go faster. It’s only some questioning and a sample of DNA.”
“The OPJ won’t go that far. It’d be too broad. And no judge would. The theory is too tenuous to get us such an order in regard to thirty-five no doubt upstanding citizens. And what if some of them live outside Paris? There are a lot of places where you can’t row. They might come from all over. We’d need clearance.”
“We’ll go through the OPJ, and if we have to interview someone beyond our jurisdiction we’ll get it cleared. I’ll call the judge and tell him we have people to question, that we’ll just ask them for DNA. If three or four refuse to cooper
ate, we’ll have narrowed it down so we can stick on them until we find something. If we narrow it down enough we’ll be able to get whatever permission we need from above. But before we do this, because admittedly it’s an outside chance, we’ll be good boys, and look into everyone, shall we say, informally?”
“Are we going to steal this list?” Arnaud asked. “Or abide by the law and get a warrant?”
“You see that?” Duvalier pointed to the corner, where a copy machine was partially hidden in the shadows. “Maybe at one time, before email, they had seventy or a hundred members. Clubs always have meetings, notes, notices, fund-raising, dinners, whatever. Let’s hope the machine still works.”
It did, and by the time Duvalier had turned it off, folded the copies, and replaced the originals, a shell glided to the dock and an old man with a ring of white hair around his head such that he looked like a soft-boiled egg in a cup, struggled to debark and take care of his boat and oars. He neither saw them nor heard the click of the gate as they left.
“I like it when it’s like this,” Duvalier said. “No warrants, no questioning, all the information we need on a list, and none of these guys even knows we’re coming. It gives you a sense of accomplishment.”
“Yes,” Arnaud said archly, “like building the Panama Canal.”
“I’ll bet he’s on the list. Millions of people in Paris, and maybe the name of the man who committed the crime is on a piece of paper folded in my pocket. Sometimes being a flic is not bad.”
Cathérine and David, François
FOR A DAY OR two, Jules had little feeling for home. Though far more splendid than the hotels, in comparison the house still seemed worn and improperly decorated even if he would have had it no other way. When he awoke he thought he was in Los Angeles or New York, and for some minutes he wanted to be, in the kind of retrospective yearning that, though it quickly fades, may last a lifetime in dreams.
But soon enough he was his previous self, almost forgetting that he had been away. He went shopping to replenish the kitchen, attended to his mail, went swimming, and ran gently and slowly, as if finally his years had caught up with him. Having an aging body is like living in a big house. Something is always going wrong, and by the time it’s fixed, something else follows. Very old age is when the things that go wrong cause other things to go wrong, until, like sparks racing up a fuse, they finally reach a pack of dynamite.
Soon his nearly truncated teaching schedule would put him in a Cité de la Musique practice room alone for fifty minutes with Élodi. After trying unsuccessfully not to think of her, he rehearsed what he might say. He would keep his distance, but convey – safely from behind the barrier of his experience and age – that the moment he first saw her he fell in love as strongly as at any time in his life. That when he shook her hand, formally, reining in his feelings, he hadn’t wanted to let go. That he could remember and re-create over and over in memory every second they were in contact. That he knew her virtues and her beauty and her ability to excite, but that he loved her, nonetheless, inexplicably, independently of splendor or sex, with neither knowing nor having to know why. And he would convey as well that the tremendous difference in age made it impossible, and nothing could follow or result. When he went through this little speech, intended to clear the air and yet a way for him to move close to her even if just for a moment, he couldn’t see beyond it. Because when he imagined the end of his declaration, he imagined that he did not move, and she did not move. He could never get to the point where they parted.
On Saturday he would have lunch with François. Though the last thing he wanted was to confess to François about Élodi, he knew he would, and that François would smile and say that it was right, that Jules had the obligation to live, that Jacqueline would want him to, and all the other predictable nostrums one might think France’s premier philosophe might surpass, except that, as common as they were, they were true. Jules couldn’t accept them even if they were, just as he couldn’t envision himself walking away from Élodi, as demanded of him both by his ability to see the future and his deeply felt concern for Élodi herself. François was not the proper confessor – far too lenient. It would be like confessing to a heroin dealer that one had had too much to drink. On the other hand, a priest would be severe, inflexible, and inappropriate to say the least. The psychiatrist already knew too much about Jules, and he had to be paid. François, therefore, while not the only confessor available and likely not satisfactory, would be the best.
That would be Saturday, an ordeal but also for Jules the pleasure of describing a beautiful young girl and his love for her. Confined to description, he was safe. And tonight, Friday, he would have Sabbath dinner with Cathérine, David, and Luc – another kind of love, and another kind of suffering.
WHEN HE WALKED from the RER to the little house with the terra-cotta roof so inappropriate to the North, the streets were cold and dark. The wind cut through his clothes, but still he hesitated before he went in, staring at the yellow light of the windows. Yellow was the old Jewish color: dim light from shtetl windows of parchment or imperfect glass, weakly shining in yellow; the color of chicken fat and chicken soup; the candle flame; the yellow Star of David. Yellow was the color of weakness, resignation, defeat, and feeling. It was also the color of gold and the sun.
Cathérine had been gone for more than two decades. When she was a baby the family had seemed to be as unbreakable as the nucleus of the atom. Jacqueline, Cathérine, et Jules. The ones he loved the most were always there, the ones for whom he would do his best and, if necessary, die. He knew at the time that it could not last, but was unable to imagine its end, perhaps because when it was over his purpose would have been served and nothing truly important would be left to him.
Their daughter was central to both of them. She was as nothing else had ever been or would be, just as Luc was now central to her after her own parents had, of necessity, receded. Her own identity and new life demanded it. But, secretly, they still had the same devotion and were ready to sacrifice themselves for her if required, on the instant and without the slightest hesitation. This she never knew and they never said, for not having been in the world long enough to have been taught, she thought such things entirely imaginary, at least in the France of this century, so safe, modern, and just.
Jules was suddenly startled when, from behind, in the dark, David put a hand on his shoulder. “You scared me,” he told his son-in-law.
“That’s impossible. I’m an accountant.”
“True.”
“What were you doing?”
“It’s not quite six.”
“So? In fact,” David said, after looking at his watch, “it’s six-fifteen.” His tone was affectionate, his unspoken language stating that whatever it was that Jules had done, it had something of the unpredictability of age.
“Anyway,” Jules said, “we missed sunset by a lot. Is that allowed?”
“No, but we need the money for Luc, the firm is secular, they’re laying people off, and I can’t risk my position. If necessary for Luc, we would light the candles at midnight or not at all. If God wouldn’t forgive me then He’d be wrong and I would tell Him so.”
“We never lit candles. But if we had, I would have to agree.”
ALMOST FORTY, CATHÉRINE had no idea how her father valued her even for her imperfections, which had come mainly from him, which he could trace to the charm of her face when she was a baby, and which now and always would fill him with love. She didn’t know the terrors and humiliations he faced, nor should she have. It was not her role. She had to be distant now, as he had never had the chance to be distant with his parents – who were forever vulnerable, and who had to be cared for in perpetuity and protected in retrospect, if only in the imagination. And, whatever she did and however she acted, he had to do for her and for Luc whatever he could.
She had wanted to greet him with love, but when she saw that he held a wrapped present she said, angrily, “Not again. You’ll spoil him.”
>
Recovering from this dart, he looked at her as if to say, “So?” It meant, of course, that he recognized that Luc might die, something of which she was aware more than anyone, but to which she fiercely would not allow anyone, including her father, to allude even subtly.
“Shall I put it in the closet?” Jules asked.
She sighed. “No, put it by his bed so he sees it in the morning. You can give him a kiss, but don’t wake him. He had a bad day, lots of crying. The fever is back and he hardly ate. It’s okay to put it by the bed.”
Jules went into Luc’s room to leave the present. A dim light came from a night-table lamp in the shape of two sheep lying next to a tree, the crown of which formed a lampshade printed with glowing green leaves. When Jules saw how hard the child was breathing he had to fight back tears.
Faithful husband, good father, and flawless auditor, David pulled a yarmulke from a pocket and put it on. This was an excellent excuse to change the subject.
“You don’t wear that on the street?”
“No.”
“Since when?”
“A lot of people don’t, and it’s been that way for a long time. I kept on wearing it despite the risk. But while you were in America I went to Lyon to do the accounts at a parts supplier for Airbus: they were padding. On my way back to my hotel after dinner, in the center of town, I was attacked. I wouldn’t have been terrified had there been one, or even two” – David was as big as a bear – “but there were about a dozen.”
“A dozen! What happened?”
“It started with words. They got more and more excited and started to kick and punch me. Of course, I ran, but I couldn’t have outrun them, as they were quite young. A truck driver saw me, stopped his truck, and told me to get on the running board. The truck had huge mirrors, so I held on to the mirror bars, and he drove through centre-ville at fifty kilometers an hour, right through a red. Then I got in the cab, he circled around, and dropped me at my hotel.”
“Did you tell the police?”
“No point. It was a crowd. They weren’t out for it, and weren’t together in the first place. They collected spontaneously.”