“And what will you do, precisely?”
“I will obtain the reports of the police and fire inspectors, will interview the client’s representative, visit the site of the event, then make a determination as to the extent of the damage, and write a report for the central office with my recommendations.”
“Where is that office?”
“22, rue de La Boétie. In the 8th Arrondissement.”
“And your supervisor?”
“Monsieur Labatier.”
“And your address?”
“I live at 8, rue Fortuny.”
As Casson talked, the official made notes with a scratchy pen he dipped in an inkwell. “Please step outside, monsieur,” he said.
Casson did as he was told. The official, in plain view, picked up the telephone on his desk, dialed the operator, requested a number, and waited for the connection. Casson could not hear the conversation, but he guessed that a call to another region probably meant Paris, and almost certainly the préfecture—who else did business on the telephone at that time of the morning? The call went through almost immediately, and the official began reading off information.
He glanced up at Casson, back to the paper, then again.
Behind Casson, in the empty station, a flight of birds took off, he could hear the beating of their wings.
“You will return, monsieur.”
He went back into the little room, closing the door behind him. The official picked up the telephone, and dialed two numbers. “Lieutenant, please station somebody outside my door.” Next, he reread what he’d written, underlining notes he’d taken during his interrogation of Casson and others made during the telephone call. When he was satisfied he had everything he needed, he looked up at Casson, checked the identity card one last time, then tossed it aside.
“Fake,” he said. “The documents don’t check out with the Paris registry.”
Casson looked puzzled. “How can that be?”
“You tell me.”
Casson shrugged, amused by his own confusion. “Well . . .” for a moment, no idea what to say. “I don’t know—the spelling of the name, maybe.”
“There’s a possibility you and I can work this out right here, and you can go wherever you’re going, but you have to tell me everything. If you do, I might,
might,
be able to help you.”
Casson shook his head. “A fault in the records? I don’t have any idea what it could be.”
The official stared at him. Casson waited.
Thirty seconds, an eternity of silence. The official slid the permits inside the folded identity card and pushed it back across the desk. Casson hesitated, unsure of himself, what was going on? Finally he took the card and put it in the inside pocket of his jacket.
“You may go,” the official said, pure hatred in his eyes.
He rose and left the room.
There was, in fact, a soldier stationed by the door. Casson walked across the platform and stood staring at the empty track. Looking around, he saw that the ticket window was shuttered. A baggage porter trudged past, pushing a two-wheeled cart piled with trunks and suitcases.
“The next train for Marseilles?” Casson said.
The man stopped, lowered the cart, pressed his hand against the small of his back. “Marseilles?”
“Yes.”
“At noon, monsieur. If it’s on time.”
“Thank you,” Casson said. “Cold, this morning.”
“Yes. My wife says it will snow.”
The man thrust his weight against the baggage cart until it started moving. Casson sat on a bench and settled down to wait. Suddenly he was grateful for the whole pirate ship of characters his life had stirred up—lawyers, studio executives, actors’ agents.
Forgive me, my friend,
he thought,
but I have been down that road too
many times.
January in Marseilles. Gray cloud scudding in from the sea and a cold rain that dripped from the eucalyptus trees. In the Old Port, oil tankers and fishing boats rose on the swell. Casson took a trolley that swayed and clattered along the Corniche, then he climbed an endless staircase to a nest of winding streets where he found Le Pension Welcome. The old ladies who ran the place fussed over him—a wretched day, so cold, so
triste.
They took him to his room, damp as a dungeon with a view of the sea. Citrine, in these places, would say, “Ah, but cool in summer.” He took off his clothes, washed at the sink, rolled up in a blanket, was glad to be alive.
A day later, a message was delivered to the hotel. He took a taxi for a half-hour ride to the village of Cassis. They worked their way up a winding road into the hills above the town, to a villa called La Rosette—the driver had to get out and ask directions along the way.
Degrave met him at the door, wearing a blazer and flannels and looking very much the country squire. Madame Degrave was waiting for him in the hallway, calling to the maid to get him a
kir vin
blanc.
Casson remembered what Hélène had said about her— “mean as a snake,” according to Degrave’s girlfriend—but what a snake. Casson was impressed and she knew it. Golden hair turning coppery as she crossed forty, swept around her ears just above the pearl earrings. A thin, twitchy little nose, and the smile they taught in the rich girls’ academies. She gave him her hand when Degrave introduced them, dry and fragile and cooperative.
They’d had the villa for years, Degrave explained later, and when the Germans occupied the northern part of the country and the office moved to Vichy, they’d found it prudent to leave the house in the Chevreuse, just outside Paris, for the time being. When Vasilis had specified delivery in Marseilles—well, one should profit from coincidence.
Casson agreed. Only, washing his hands in the bathroom, staring into the mirror—mustache, glasses, all the rest of it—he hated playing the shabby little man. Because, for the moment, he was back in the 16th. Not really the same crowd, of course, but an outsider wouldn’t have known the difference.
A dinner party. Monsieur and Madame this, Monsieur and Madame the other. One was the local something, another a former diplomat, somebody else painted divinely. There was a macedoine of vegetables and mayonnaise to start, Bellet to drink—one bottle followed another. To clear his head, Casson excused himself and stepped outside. A small swimming pool, a hedge of evergreen shrubs dripping rain, and, beyond, the dark sea.
He wondered if she would show up. Not that he would do anything, Degrave was his friend. He was just curious. It wasn’t hard to figure out what went on with Degrave and his wife. He had sinned and was not forgiven. What sin? Simply, he had failed to rise. He was not Colonel Degrave and he never would be. Too aloof, too independent for his own good and, in his way, an idealist. His rich wife was disappointed, she made that clear, whenever she felt like it, and Degrave had a girlfriend to make him feel better.
He could see the dining room through the window. Madame, a silhouette in candlelight, got up to do something and glanced out the window. Casson closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Down below somewhere, the sea broke on a rocky beach. He threw the cigarette away and went back inside.
As he sat down at the table, she smiled, omniscient and amused. The woman on his left leaned close to him. “So, Monsieur Marin, what are they talking about, up in Paris?”
Degrave filled his glass from the new bottle. “They’re cold,” Casson said, “and miserable, and tired of waiting for it all to go away.”
A plate appeared in front of him, a slice of veal roast and a square of meat jelly, two potatoes, and a mound of those pale little canned peas the French secretly adored.
From the former diplomat: “Yes? And de Gaulle? What will he do about it?”
“Oh, that man!”
“Pompous ass.”
“How does it go—‘He has the character of a stubborn pig—but at least he
has
character.’ ”
“Well, I agree with the first part.”
“Who said that?”
“Reynaud. Before the
boches
got him.”
“Reynaud!”
“Really.”
“De Gaulle has his friends.”
“Yes, and what friends to have! Poets and professors, philosophers, the whole St.-Germain-des-Près crowd, gossiping in the cafés day and night. Resistance indeed! Resistentialists, somebody called them.”
“Oh Michel, that’s funny!”
“It won’t be so funny when the war ends and they end up running the country.”
“Well, better than the British.”
“My dear husband sees always the bright side.”
“Damn it, Yvonne . . .”
“Conchita, dear? Yoo-hoo! Would you bring Monsieur Marin a little more of the veal?”
When everybody had gone home, Casson and Degrave had a last glass of wine in the living room. “By the way,” Degrave said quietly, “I talked to some people about Hélène. They can get her out in March—she has to see a man called de la Barre. He lives in Paris, in the Seventh. You’ll tell her when we get back to the city.”
Casson said he would.
“I just wish it could be sooner.”
“Only two months. She’ll get through it,” Casson said.
14 JANUARY.
Tuesday morning, the mistral blowing hard, sea ruffled to white-caps. Casson walked down to the little store that sold everything and bought a copy of
La Méditerranée.
The Wehrmacht had retaken Feodosiya, in the Crimea, submarines had torpedoed an oil tanker off the coast of North Carolina, the Japanese advanced toward Singapore. Fighting the wind, Casson managed to turn to the
Petits Annonces.
Widows to marry, a ladder for sale. And, down the column:
To sell—small apartment above garage. Inquire
at Café des Marchands, rue de Rome.
Which meant, your guns have arrived.
Later that morning he went to the address the lawyer had given him, the second floor of a building in the Old Port. Inside a highceilinged room with fans and tall shutters was one of the Frères Caniti, chandlers, dealing in rope, tar, varnish, and brass fittings.
A strange face, from another century. A black line for a mouth, eyes so deep-set they hid in shadow, sharp cheekbones, a monk’s fringe of dark hair. Like a medieval Pardoner in a Book of Hours, Casson thought. A face lit with saintly corruption. “You’re the one come for the shipment?”
“Yes.”
“They’ve had to go back out to sea. Off Cap Ferrat this morning.”
“Why is that?”
“There’s a problem.”
“Our understanding was that there wouldn’t be any problems.”
“Well, even so.”
“What’s gone wrong?”
“The customs service. Our person there has gone away.”
“And?”
“The new person will need to be compensated.”
“How much?”
“Forty thousand francs.”
Once this starts,
he thought,
it doesn’t stop.
“I’ll have to see if it’s possible.”
“That’s up to you. But I wouldn’t waste too much time just now.” He nodded at the shutters, which banged and rattled in the wind. “They can’t stay out there forever, not in this. If they have to come into port, and the customs isn’t taken care of, the cargo goes over the side.”
“A few hours, then.”
“As you like, monsieur. We stand ready to assist you.”
Casson tried the telephones at the central post office, but there were too many detectives—dressed variously as sailors and businessmen—standing around the
cabinets.
He went to a smaller post office. Not perfect, but better.
The lawyer answered immediately.
“What the hell is going on?” Casson said.
“Take it easy, will you? Tell me what happened.”
“We’re being held up for money. ‘Oh yes, one last thing.’ ”
“That’s impossible.”
“No, it just happened.”
“Who’s involved?”
“Someone in the Old Port.”
“Merde.”
“Do something or it’s finished. We’ll send people to get the money back.”
“Let me try to take care of it.”
“Please understand—we don’t have a lot of time.”
“How’s it being put?”
“Somebody who used to help us isn’t helping anymore. Now, a new person has to be taken care of.”
“Hmm. Help in, uh, getting things stamped?”
“Yes.”
“All right. Where can I reach you?”
“I’ll call you. How late are you there, tonight?”
“Seven-thirty. Eight.”
“I’ll call back then. Maybe a little earlier.”
“All right. Don’t worry, I’ll get it taken care of.”
“Let’s hope so. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Good-bye.”
The Paris workshop of Robes Juno was on the second floor of a firetrap factory on the rue de Turenne, in the garment district. Marcel Slevin sat on a stool at his worktable, while up and down the aisles, women worked away at clattering sewing machines.
At twenty, a cutter, an aristocrat of the trade. If he didn’t get the pattern just right, nothing fit, the stores shipped the stuff back, end of season, end of Robes Juno
.
He took a used piece of yellow tracing paper from the wastebasket, tore off a corner. A little note to Comrade Weiss, he needed to see him.
Tough at twenty, he’d been on his own since he was sixteen and his father threw him out. No use for school, ran with the wrong crowd, gambled, drank, screwed—“Out!” That was all right with him. From then on, he did what he liked and made sure he had the
fric
to pay for it. He got a job as a delivery boy at Robes Juno, worked hard, played hard, and joined the garment workers’ local of the CGT, the communist labor union.
The family wasn’t completely gone, he had an uncle he kept in touch with, his mother’s brother, who saw life the same way he did. “We’re two of a kind, you and me,” he’d say. Slevin
père
was a Talmudic scholar, too holy and righteous to soil his hands making a living. Now and then he would buy and sell used office equipment, but mostly they lived on little bits of money that came their way, which Slevin’s mother managed so ferociously that they never quite starved. The evening of the Big Fight, Slevin had spent his savings to buy a Zazou coat, long and narrow,
très gangster,
much in favor among the guys who hung around the Pam-Pam and the Colisée. He wore it home from the store, they told him to take it back, he told them what he thought of them, and out he went.