Beyond Revanche, page 45
We drank local white wine together in El Café Rosa, by the rocks, lapping up the atmosphere, talking of the new. Paul René Gauguin, the painter’s grandson, was one of our companions. He was from Norway and the first graphic artist I met. He was more than that, too. Paul was young, gifted, with film-star good looks and the kind of smile which spread confidence through a room without his realizing it. He could sculpt, illustrate books, and design the most elaborate stage sets for the theatre. As Pola Gauguin’s son, he might have been daunted by the legacy of fame, but, unlike many others, he did not let his famous grandfather cast a shadow on his own talents. We talked, drank, and smoked through the dark hours, designing, creating, imagining, and dreaming of a better world peopled by like-minded men and women. Outside of our little circle of intelligentsia there were precious few worthy of our time.
Inspired by our artistic mélange, I decided to build a new house which Gauguin and others helped me design. Backed by a wooded knoll, it sat beside the beach, a modern statement of style; a class above the ordinary. Two flat-roofed towers bordered a quasi-Arabic frontage with three arches in between. The basement was extensive because the road sloped steeply down to the left. It’s not completely finished, yet. Perhaps it will never be. But then, that is the nature of art.
I’m well aware that behind my back the locals call me el boig, the madman, but why would I care? I didn’t want to socialize with sweaty fishermen whose stubble could cut clams, or a herdsman whose arrival could be anticipated by the smell of the matted goats which preceded him. Let the fisherwomen sew and leather-faced ancients sit and smoke in the shadow of the church, playing occasion games of boule when their fancy took. If I barked at them it was to keep distance.
I decided to place a solid wooden cross on the hillside behind the house at a height where, from an angle, it might look as though it was attached to one of the towers; that’s the artist in me. But my project backfired when a group of widowed fisher folk congregated around the makeshift cross to say the Rosary. When I found those women kneeling in my garden, I took a stick in my hand and rushed them from the greenery. How dare they? Start that kind of nonsense and the next thing is beggars and peddlers at your door pleading Christianity as a basis for constant handouts.
44
Burying the Truth
Chief Superintendent Bernard Roux was buried in a family plot at Père Lachaise amongst the Great, the unknown, and the once-famous. He had not been a statesman or a decorated general or a titan of industry. He had kowtowed to no man but tried to bring justice to a world that hardly deserved him. The Roux family owned a Romanesque vault with one of the original ancient stone atriums which stood at an angle on the cemetery’s main cobbled thoroughfare. His funeral cortege was simple. Not for him the trappings of grandeur or horse-drawn black carriages. No bands preceded, no symphony orchestra attended. No massive wreaths beloved of the wealthy or mafia families adorned his final resting place. Yet hundreds of Frenchmen trooped behind his mourning family like a regiment of the worthy. Some he knew and liked. Some he knew. Clemenceau was there, head bare and bowed, his trusted friend Mordacq by his side. I caught the general’s roving eye as he swept the landscape and he recognized me immediately. Mordacq pointed beyond the vault and indicated we should talk after the official proceedings. I nodded in agreement. Kind words were spoken by the graveside, whether meant or otherwise.
For most at the Deuxième, Bernard Roux’s death was an untimely reminder of the fallibility of man. His loyal team—Paul, Jacques, Dominic Verlaine, and Mathieu—knew he had been murdered. So, too, did Agnès and Pascal who stood by their side. The assistant commissioner was complicit in some way, which argued that some of Poincaré’s new ministers were also involved. Beyond that lay the Zaharoff’s and Comité des Forges, the international bankers and the industrialists who manipulated continents to their own end. And the Americans, now so powerful that they acted as if they owned the world. The trouble was, they did.
As Mathieu filed past, deep in his own thoughts, he realized what was staring at him and gasped. The Roux family vault was protected by a marbled statue of St. Michael the Archangel, sword in one hand, the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven in the other, with wings outstretched to protect the family tomb. But on each side of the plinth on which St. Michael stood in all his glory, two urns balanced the frame with wooden drawers underneath. Each had a lock. This was the vault. This was Roux’s vault. His secret hiding place. And those were the keys dangling from the statue. Hidden in plain view amongst the dead. His secret files had not been kept at no. 36. Ever.
Mordacq waited patiently under a cypress tree, a pipe pouting at his lips, his black heavy coat wrapped loosely round him. He bowed his bare head to Agnès and took Mathieu by the elbow.
“This is wrong, Mathieu,” he acknowledged. “A heart attack brought on by ruined lungs and clotted arteries, I’m told.”
Mathieu Bertrand looked directly into his eyes and flashed a scowl of pure scorn. “And vicious murdering bastards.”
“We know, Mathieu. We know. Clemenceau thinks that the Americans did not mean to kill Roux.”
“So you would single out the Americans?” Agnès asked.
“Pure conjecture, Mademoiselle,” he said very softly, “you will understand.”
Even tombstones might have ears.
“We also know that they didn’t get hold of the Hoover file. All good. But we cannot protect our own as we always have. For the moment, everything changes. Pendulums swing so far and then retrace their path. In the meantime, we want you to consider a new career. Outside Paris.”
A top-hat and dress coat broke away from a passing group of dignitaries and extended a gloved hand.
“You know Ambassador Jean-Jules Jusserand, Mathieu. He would like to speak to you. Good day, mes amis.”
Top-hats were tilted.
“Captain Bertrand, I am pleased to meet you again, though the circumstances are devastatingly sad.”
Mathieu tried to clear his throat but failed. The ambassador extended his formal greeting to Agnès in a manner which suggested that he knew of their relationship.
“I would like you to consider a post as special assistant in our embassy in Indo-China, working directly from there. For three or four years. You are well considered at the Foreign Office, with the probable exception of Benoit Durfort, but that stands in your favor, and Clemenceau believes in you, as he believed in Roux. The current president will not have you in a senior post at the Deuxième. Certainly not as Roux’s replacement. We believe that your appointment abroad will be in France’s best interest. Your knowledge, some would say unique knowledge, of many aspects of the diplomatic world is invaluable. Would you please consider this offer? I need to know by the weekend.”
They nodded respectfully and parted.
Mathieu looked at Agnès and shrugged. “We can talk about this later.” She shook her head and smiled. “You see, my beloved, that is your great weakness. You are so determined to be fair that you have to consider both sides of the equation even when the answer is staring you in the face. Of course we will go. Both of us. I’ve longed to see Hanoi since I was a child.”
And that, he had to admit, was her great strength. Decision-making. You don’t spend years at the front making instant decisions on who might live and for whom it was already too late, without developing an instinct for such matters.
* * *
Moutie was standing by the imperial entrance to the cemetery, more mock-Roman in style than French. The Latin inscription predicted that the true believers were guaranteed immortality. It struck Mathieu that Roux would have preferred a Gauloises. Moutie played his part well. He was such a skilled mourner; pained features, deep sighs, his eyes cast down to exclude personal contact.
Mathieu bowed his head slightly and spoke into Moutie’s left ear. “Café du Cimiere. Twenty minutes. I have a job for you.” He bowed and left immediately.
45
Unless You Are In Danger
Mathieu disappeared. Indeed, Mathieu and Agnès disappeared overnight nine days after Moutie had completed his task in the cemetery. It was hardly a difficult task. The keys opened the lock on Roux’s family vault and the files lay untouched in the top drawer—-just as he said they would. Their conversation had been brief and entirely one-sided. Moutie wasn’t sure that he fully understood what it meant but it seemed that Mathieu would be transferred to another post for a couple of years and he was not to worry. It would not be forever. He was to leave the Villain business as it was and on no account was Moutie to try to find him. It wasn’t safe. It could be that the Corsicans might try to kill him, so it was far safer for everyone if he couldn’t be contacted.
“Unless” and Mathieu spoke softly, “you are in danger … or chance upon something extremely odd that I should know. In that case leave a message for me with the manager of the Cafe Cluny. He will see that it gets to a third party who in turn may or may not send it to me.”
Moutie sat in shock, not fully understanding what he had heard. Mathieu grasped his hand, shook it, smiled, and said, “Adieu.” And he was gone.
Letter from Paris, April 1926
My friend, this letter was dictated to me by my uncle, an unnecessarily clean fellow on whom you have had a most worthy influence. It should arrive through a channel which you trust. His story is as follows.
I was doing nothing in particular other than watching the world go by from a cafe on the corner of rue Croix-des-Petits-Champs, you know, across from the great iron gates of the Banque de France, when they sprang open and a figure from the past strode through as if he was the governor himself. He’s slightly older than I remembered him, his eyes still sharp and menacing. He signaled down the rue with the self-important impatience of the doorman at the Ritz. I shrank into my newspaper—well, it wasn’t exactly mine, but someone left it on the cafe table so I thought I’d borrow it for a while, and I didn’t want him to see me.
He was dressed in an expensive suit, dark in tone but not black; almost formal, but not too formal…bespoke. He had a badge of some kind on his left lapel and held real leather gloves which he began to slip onto his large hands. I remember those hands for they were unkind and unforgiving, yet the gloves made them appear refined. A limousine glided into the reserved space immediately in front of the Banque and our friend spoke sharply to the chauffeur. Couldn’t hear what was said, but the driver nodded seriously and turned his head to face the front as if he had been forbidden to cast an eye in the direction of a living God. Perhaps he was. Then, like a circus clown, the man drew out a huge umbrella which appeared to open on command and moved back inside the forbidding portal. Surely it was…but how? Why?
Barely two seconds later and he reappeared in the company of Governor Moreau, shielding him from the elements, though the rain was hardly in evidence. They appeared to be sharing a confidence, perhaps it was a joke, as the governor settled into his limousine, and with one shake of his powerful hand Toussaint closed the door and the umbrella, and took a seat beside the driver who continued to stare into the future as if no one was there. Toussaint. It was him, it was Toussaint. He sat, preened like a prize short-toed eagle, ready to strike any assailant. I was so taken aback I left without paying. I thought he had been dismissed from the Deuxième because of his unprofessional conduct on the night Bernard Roux was murdered. Am I wrong?
Everything that week was a blur. Nothing made complete sense. Not even having to recover those files from Père Lachaise. The pain you’ve put me through, my friend. But forget that. Toussaint? After those dreadful days I never heard of him again. Never even in cafes around the old haunts. Just gone. Disappeared. And now it appears that he is the personal bodyguard to the governor of the bank. How did he manage that?
I made it my business to find out. Hung around in a couple of different cafés until the limousine returned and drank in as much as I could. Toussaint got out of the car first and spoke into a machine whereupon the iron door began to open. He returned to fetch Governor Moreau and without much hesitation they both disappeared inside the fortification that is the Banque de France.
This time I paid greater attention to the limousine’s driver. He had a story to tell, of that I was certain. I traced him through the garage where the splendid car was housed. Lives in rue Marc Seguin between the railway junctions, and drinks in the ill-named Café des Roses which stinks of old soot and fresh ash. Our man—I’ll not give his name—was naturally reluctant to talk about his work but after a month of casual head nods and one-word greetings, we emptied a bottle of vin ordinaire to celebrate my alleged winnings at Longchamp, and I chanced to drop the name Toussaint into the conversation. I confessed that I knew he was a pure bastard, bully, and cheat who I had once had dealings with. Cut a long story short, he unburdened his pent up venom.
Yes monsieur, he hates said Toussaint with a vengeance.
The facts are as follows. Four or five years back Toussaint appeared at the Banque as the new depute chief of security. Word was that he had retired from the highest level of policing and had been recommended to the Banque by one of President Poincaré’s senior advisors. Toussaint built his own inner circle of former policemen and literally ran the internal security. He has a talent for brutality and has dismissed anyone who disregards his instructions. He cultivated the governor’s approval and presents this image of a trusted confidant. In truth he is a trusted confidant. When the chief of security retired, hey presto, Toussaint was the automatic choice.
From disgraced front-doorman of the Deuxième, sacked for dereliction of duty…to head of internal security of the Banque of France? How did that happen? Who did he bribe? Whose dirty-work did he cover-up? I know it means something, but I don’t know what that is. You will. That’s why I asked my niece to write this down clearly. Take care, my friend, and trust me when I say, I have your back covered here in Paris. Well, in certain quarters of lesser known Paris.
I’m sorry about the ramblings, but uncle is extremely agitated about this discovery. I say, once a cop, always a cop, and there’s nothing new about that. My uncle had some other stories which don’t add up to much. Apparently Toussaint keeps mouthwash and eaux de cologne in the car so that he can have a sly Gitane when he is waiting for his boss, clean his breath, and disinfect his jacket. The governor hates cigarettes. Ah, the folly of the rich.
The former Captain from the Deuxième sat in the sultry Hanoi heat and began to absorb the news from Paris. Toussaint? Was it possible that he was the mole who stole files, leaked plans, diverted their attention, and murdered Bernard Roux? Had the team convinced itself that everything was the fault of the Americans and ignored the man literally standing in front of them? Or was it a combination? He had to go back to Paris. This was unfinished business and very personal.
Agnès read the letter slowly. Then she re-read it, taking in as much of the subtext as she could. She placed her hand on his shoulder and tightened her grip.
“The answer is NO. We can’t uproot the family and go back to Paris without further evidence. This could be a trap, a hoax to lure you to your death. No. We don’t even know for sure that it’s from Moutie.”
Agnès the wise.
Raoul’s Story
Reflections 3
You know civil war broke out on mainland Spain with surprising intensity in mid-summer 1936. No, no of course you do, my friend. I presume so much of you.
Thank God we were isolated from the murder and chaos in the great cities from where there were regular reports of shameful atrocities. On the island, arguments raged on both sides with the short-lived intensity of a petty quarrel. It had nothing to do with me, but General Francisco Franco was hailed as the protector of decency and moral strength. I hoped he would crush the socialists and republicans, the anarchists and the revolutionaries who always spoiled the natural order. Envy, you see. That’s what motivates them. They won’t do a day’s honest work, but want something for nothing. Wastrels. But worst of all, they were anti-clerics and murdered priests and nuns. Unforgivable. Murdering men and women of the cloth. It was no surprise that both the military garrison and the civil guard supported Franco.
I thought little of it. It seemed to me that the Spanish were set on tearing themselves apart, but we were safe in Cala, given that there was barely a track into the village. The locals had a saying: “Out of this world and into Cala.” I made that mistake, you see. That’s me at my best. Trusting and hopeful, expecting the best from everyone. The bastard Republicans in Barcelona sent an invasion squadron of two destroyers to take possession of the islands and vented their bile on an unsuspecting prey. They landed on Ibiza and a month later were followed by a column of nearly five hundred anarchists under a banner of Culture and Action. Culture mon cul. Their contribution to culture was to enforce a reign of terror in which nearly half of the parish priests were slaughtered. Bishop Cardona and his associates took to the hills and lived for a time in the caves around the coast. Almost every church was looted and burned. It was disgusting, but it did not go unnoticed.
Since I was French and clearly had no involvement in the troubles, I decided to visit my lady-friend Katerina in Santa Eulària, which I did from time to time to our mutual benefit. In truth, I wanted to see for myself what was going on, and she offered additional comfort. Taking a late lunch on the balcony of her rooms by the port, we were praising the bravery of the Sant Antoni townsfolk who rescued many of the ancient church relics from the pillaging Republicans, when a strange noise drew our attention to the skies.
“What’s that?” Katerina asked, coffee cup in hand, eyes and ample breasts uplifted to the drone above our rooftop. Three airplanes appeared high above us, in slow methodical order, lining up to sweep over Ibiza town. As the noise from their engines faded a more ominous sound reverberated through the island.
