Seven Victims In Marseille
by
Michael T. Hertz
© 2009 Michael T. Hertz
All rights reserved
1
June 1944
Near Marseille, France
Alberti and Margot were hidden alone by a pebbly beach, no light except for a sliver of moon and a sprinkling of stars in the black sky, with a decent chance that someone – Wehrmacht, Waffen SS, Gestapo, PPF, or even plain blue gendarmes – might see them. “What if that had happened?” David Carrier often wondered. Would any of them have survived?
While Alberti and Margot waited on the beach, Carrier was being launched into the Mediterranean from a T1 sub — stuffed into a wetsuit, tossed out into the cold water on a rubber life raft along with a sealed box of fuses and high-grade explosive. As the British sub dove away, he paddled vigorously toward what he hoped was the French coastline and a landing in enemy occupied territory. Yet he was returning home, too. He’d spent the first eighteen years of his life in France and was coming back as a U.S. Army major and a trained expert in guerilla warfare. With hardly a clue about who would be there when he arrived, he just hoped it was neither the Germans nor the gendarmes.
Many times later Margot told Carrier the story from her side. She borrowed her grandfather’s Peugeot Cabriolet, although she didn’t tell old Ziglione the truth when he asked why. Just in case they had to run from the gendarmes, she smeared the license plate with mud and masked the lights so they barely showed. Alberti approved her handiwork. He drove, and they headed out well before curfew.
Alberti was a tall, powerful man back then. He seized the wheel with confidence and took the Peugeot east. Their road led from Marseille through Aubagne, where they connected with the back way to Roquefort-la-Bedoule. There were a few farms, some scraggly vineyards, a lot of limestone, umbrella pines, and unkempt orchards of olive trees. There wasn’t much traffic on such a quiet road, and there was even less when they finally turned south down the much narrower one toward La Ciotat.
They’d been warned about the German roadblock near the shipyard, so Alberti skirted the town by taking some byways which were little more than dirt tracks across red earthen fields. The sun dipped behind the hills after they left La Ciotat, leaving them in dusk until finally they reached the lonely beach half an hour later. The Peugeot they stashed in the brush about twenty meters off the road. Their hiding place was a low embankment under a tree on the north end of the beach where no one from the road could see them.
There was supposed to be a small house about two kilometers further toward Cassis. The local Resistance had already made arrangements for them to go there, once they pulled their American out of the water. They waited for hours in the darkness, listening to the murmur of lapping waves. At last the moon came up slowly. Margot asked, “What time is it?” Her voice was almost a whisper, just louder than the wind rising off the Mediterranean.
Alberti pasted the binoculars to his eyes, as he did all night – staring out at the shimmering sea, speckles of light dancing off the water. He muttered, “It’s midnight.” His curt response was typical for him, so asking him a question didn’t make the time pass more quickly. They sat there for another ten minutes, in silence.
Margot again said softly, “I’m glad they’re sending someone at last.”
“Right.” Stolid Alberti, dour as a Scot. Always.
“I mean, “ she continued, “they invaded Normandy. They invaded Italy. They’re sure to come here soon. Maybe this beach, even.”
“Not likely. It’s too small.”
The brief conversation steeled her for another ten minutes of silence. Then she said, “Let me try.”
Alberti handed over the glasses. “Maybe you’ll give us a change of luck?”
“I have that reputation.” Margot took over the binoculars. There wasn’t much to look at. Water. Water. Water. She ranged her examination along the far horizon, which was difficult to see in the sparse moonlight.
Then: a flicker. Not the moon reflecting on a wave, but the moon touching something else. She zeroed in on whatever it was. There was a constant rhythm in the flicker, a dancing on the water unlike the waves, and there was a smudge of darkness, bobbing far away toward the horizon from where the flicker came.
“There,” she said. “I think – “
“You’re lucky?” he said, still with a sour tinge.
“Luck? Skill? Who knows?” She stopped to consider what she thought she saw. “There’s something out there which isn’t a wave.” She handed the glasses to Alberti and guided his search in the proper direction. “I can see it without the glasses, too, so I know it’s there. Do you see it? The flickering?” She started getting excited.
Alberti held the binoculars steady. It seemed to her that he wasn’t even breathing. “Oui. I do see it,” he murmured, and added, “Good for you.”
“Beginner’s luck. Is it he?”
“I think so.”
Margot stood up.
“Non,” Alberti ordered calmly, “sit down.”
She squatted down and asked why.
“Too soon. Anyone goes by on the road, they’ll see you if you prance around out there.”
“Ah. I thought we were here to guide him in. A nice bolero might do it.”
“I’ve done this many times.” She didn’t doubt that he had. Everyone knew that Alberti was the best at undercover work. He kept staring out toward whoever it was. “Anyway, he’s coming right for us.”
So they waited. Eventually, she could see what was coming: an oval-looking boat – probably a life raft. With someone in it, paddling. Finally he was only about two hundred meters away.
“Now we go.” Alberti lay the binoculars down on the gnarled roots of the tree. “But first, look about quickly and see if anyone’s watching.”
They turned back toward the road. It stretched away into the nocturnal gloom. The thick foliage on the other side of the road cached the Peugeot . No one had been by for hours, but still they listened and watched for a few moments.
He touched her hand. They both clambered over the embankment and scrambled across the crunch of pebbles to the water. The breakers were high for the Mediterranean and the whitecaps plainly visible even well out. About fifty meters from the beach, the rubber raft was corkscrewing on the surf. They could see that the paddler was having trouble forcing the cumbersome craft through the waves. Suddenly, he swung out into the water, hung on to the side, and started pulling the boat while trying to get traction on the gravelly bottom. Without even thinking, Margot rushed forward into the sea. Alberti followed.
She got close enough to be heard much more quickly than she thought possible. “Are you all right? Let us help you!”
Carrier was dragging on a rope lashed to the boat and lurched against the waves. Alberti grabbed the line, and Margot grabbed Carrier. Good thing she did, too, because he was exhausted and staggering. He was a big man, even bigger than Alberti, but she managed to prop him up. Together, they floundered toward shore as Alberti hauled on the boat. Finally they stumbled past the waves, down to where the water was only a ripple.
Suddenly, Carrier sat down on the ground, his eyes shut and his mouth gasping. Water dripped from his dark, shiny hair. Margot quickly knelt and took his head in her hands. “Are you all right?” she asked urgently, trying to read his scrunched up face.
He opened his eyes, which were a startlingly unexpected blue. His full lips smiled, then laughed as he asked,“How about a cup of hot coffee?” To Margot’s surprise, he said it in very good French with a Marseille accent.
Margot’s hands slipped from his head to his hard shoulders. “I thought that you were American.”
“You sound disappointed, Mademoiselle. Sure, I’m American. Canadian, too. But I like a good espresso.”
It was her turn to laugh. “American and Canadian with an accent like pastis?”
Carrier tried to stand but found it hard. “Why not? I was raised in Marseille. Can you give me a hand up?”
Margot braced herself. Despite the wet and cold, his hand felt quite warm, and she almost tingled as she helped him struggle to his feet. He wobbled, leaned over, and panted a bit. Meanwhile, Alberti dragged the boat out of the surf and up on the pebbles, then trotted over. Though his hair was matted, his face was still tough – the sort of face that made one feel safe even in danger. “I apologize, it’s not quite time to rest.”
Carrier breathed deeply a few more times, then stood erect. “D’accord.” He went over to the boat and picked up the box. saying, “These are explosives, so watch it.”
There were clouds, but the moon turned the beach into a blank sheet of yellow paper and the three of them into bugs waiting to be pinned to it. “We need to get rid of the boat,” Alberti said. “It’s too big for the car.”
Carrier shifted the heavy sealed box to his side and held it with his right hand. With his other hand he unstrapped a knife off his left thigh and handed it to Alberti. “Here. Stab a hole in it.”
Alberti took the knife, slashed the boat, and then dragged it toward the car as the air fluttered out. Margot grabbed one of the box handles, and Carrier took the other as they followed Alberti. Margot was a slim woman, but there was muscle there. She was dressed in men’s trousers a size too large, and the shirt she wore had a tear in the sleeve. Still, in the provençal moonlight she seemed to glow.
She smiled at him as she strained at the box. “Welcome to beautiful France.”
“Did I mention that I’m French, too?” Carrier said. “I’m glad to be back.”
Together they hoisted the box into the car, then helped Alberti roll the rubber boat up small and stow it alongside. The three of them, the box, and the boat made the car as tight as a bandbox. With Alberti at the wheel, they rolled toward Cassis.
It was 1:06 a.m. on June 12, 1944.
August 1944
Marseille
Light flashed in the sky and bombs fell. The previous May the American Air Force had dropped 800 bombs on the city. Those had killed 1,976 poor souls and started 20,000 fires. Fortunately, they dropped a lot fewer this time. The Allied troops had landed two weeks before, west of Toulon. Now there was a breakout, and the liberating soldiers were coming here. To Marseille. At last!
By the 21st of August, the Force Française d'Interior and other Resistance groups emerged from hiding and began fighting within the town limits. Two days later, Monsabert and the Third Algerian ignored Toulon and marched down the Canebière.
Back in 1943, one of the oldest parts of the city sat on forty acres behind the Old Port. It was a maze of narrow streets, faceless buildings, alleyways, and sewers. This was the quartier where gangsters and refugees hid out, so the Germans blew it all up with dynamite. The gangsters and refugees went elsewhere. With that experience, everyone in Marseille held their breath. Would les boches blow up the entire city instead of surrendering to Montsabert?
Fortunately, there was no déjà vu. The German commandant surrendered quietly. There were cheers in the streets and from the rooftops, with the tricolor flying out of windows. Not by everyone, though. The man with the scarred lip certainly didn’t cheer.
On August 21 at about 9:55 a.m., a week before the German surrender, he was walking across the street from a factory. The factory had a sign that said, “Etablissements Ziglione.” There were the sounds of small arms firing down near the docks, and two streets over a German convoy of trucks and motorcycles proceeded noisily up a boulevard. Despite the beginnings of street fighting elsewhere, there were still some people working in the factory, although there were few people on the street. The man entered the building across the way.
The building opposite the Ziglione factory was three stories tall with nine apartments. A woman named Catherine lived on the second floor of that building. She was thirty-three, married once, divorced, then married again. Before the war, she and her second husband had lived in Brittany. But at the beginning of the war he was called up for the army, captured in Alsace and packed into a train as a German prisoner, where he died early in a Bavarian prison camp.
Today was the day she’d been planning to go back to Brittany. She was sitting in the apartment, her bags packed, her young daughter asleep on the trundle bed in the corner of the small room. She still didn’t know if her daughter looked like her first husband (what a disappointment that would be!) or her second. She wished she could write a letter about that to her aunt in Brittany. Chère Tata Corinne . . . .. She adored her aunt, writing to her once, even twice, a week before D-Day in Normandy. Tata Corinne stored the letters in a lavender-colored box and wrapped red ribbons she’d saved around the packets. No letter needed now – in a few days, Tata Corinne could see for herself.
Waiting upstairs with nothing better to do, she was looking at her reflection in the apartment window, watching herself as she brushed her luxuriant hair. The sky was blue, the sun was hot and, occasionally and far away, there would be the crack of weaponry. The FFI was starting to get very active against the Germans. Her focus shifted between her ghostly image in the glass and the pockmarks of violence across the city. She was admiring the arch of her long eyebrows when suddenly, down below, a man with a scarred lip burst out of a door and charged across toward the factory.
It was exactly 10:01 a.m. She stopped brushing her hair and took a step back from the window.
Across the street from her, she saw a tall, thin man in his late forties wearing a tie and rumpled jacket walk beside a swaggering, stocky man. They were coming from a side door of the Ziglione factory toward a parked Citroen. In the meantime the man with the scarred lip came hustling toward them.
More or less at the same time the three of them met by the car. Mr. Scarred Lip came up behind Mr. Tie. Mr. Swagger opened the rear door of the Citroen. Mr. Scarred Lip bundled Mr. Tie inside. Mr. Swagger opened the driver’s door, got in, and started the car.
From her apartment Catherine watched them drive away. She slowly walked to the bed, holding her hairbrush, sat down, and looked at her sleeping daughter. She knew all three men, particularly Mr. Swagger. She wondered what was going on.
She had little time to think about it, because two hours later she took her bag and her daughter to the train station. There were no taxis, no busses. Every second person on the street seemed to be carrying a suitcase. Fortunately it was only about two kilometers to walk. Gunfire volleyed distantly from all over the city, and there were puffs of smoke floating into the sky from everywhere.
When Catherine and her daughter arrived finally at the Gare St. Charles, there was a mob clamoring outside the station with another one inside. Catherine and her child squirmed their way through the two mobs and stood for hours to get a ticket. The train came, and a kindly conductor managed to squeeze them onto the train. This was real luck. It turned out to be the last train from Marseille for nearly two weeks.
It took them four days to get to Brittany. She didn’t go to Marseille again for well over a year. She wasn’t nearly so lucky on that trip because it ended her life shortly after she arrived.
* * * * *
Plenty of people were killed in Marseille during the week of August 21, which fell on a Monday. The German commandant surrendered on the following Monday. In the meantime, Carrier thought hard about trying to join up with an American unit, but that was difficult. There were divisions of Germans between Marseille and the Allied landing beach. Better for him to wait in Marseille and see what he could do there to help the cause. Besides, he had orders: help the French Resistance, as he had in the ten weeks since he’d landed. In addition, and even better, he had Margot.
During those ten weeks he trudged the maquis of Provence, the wild, rocky countryside outside Marseille, coordinating Resistance attacks in preparation for the invading Allied armies. He’d come back to France to make war, but amid the fighting, danger and death was Margot and what had become a crazy, improbable passion.
Nearly all of his memories of those ten weeks before the Allied invasion were of her. She led him into hiding with her on the banks of the Rhone, breathing shallowly when a German convoy inched by, as summer stars lay down a carpet of light across the evening sky. One night shooting stars flared across the horizon, streaking the blackness with white blazes as he gazed, wondering like some primeval pagan about the gods of war. She crawled with him as, knife in hand, he slit the throat of the young German soldier, pouring his blood on the rocky ground. She got him past military patrols, sneaking him down Marseille alleyways to Resistance safe houses.
The flash of her eyes, the smell of her body, the touch of her hand, the kiss of her lips all burned inside him. They made love in strange and wild places: in a stony field near Les Baux; in a safe house in Peynier; in old Ziglione’s Peugeot outside Allauch. Once when they hid in a damp Aix cellar, he made love to her in deadly silence, thrusting body against body on a squalid mattress.
After ten weeks, they acted as if they’d be together for the rest of their lives.
On August 21 Margot was helping in a first aid shelter, and Carrier was with Alberti, guarding his flank up Montée Saint-Esprit. Alberti marched along, examining the roof line as he went. He pointed. “We need to get off the street and up there.” Carrier didn’t question Alberti. Alberti always knew what he was doing.
They walked up rue Kleber. The building with the best vantage point had a slanted, tile roof. Getting to the top of it without sliding off was a trick, though. The best that they could do was have Carrier boost Alberti, who then grasped the top and hauled himself up.
A rifle on his back and binoculars in his hand, Alberti managed to peer over the top just as, down below on the next street, a man stood with his hands clasped behind his head. Next to him was another man, who had a big automatic pistol in his hand. It looked like an execution.
Alberti struggled to bring his rifle to bear. Away in the distance were spatters of gunfire, and smoke curling languidly into the azure sky. “Hey!” Alberti cried out. “Hey! Hey!”
The two men looked up, the one with his hands hidden, the other with the gun in his hand. Alberti saw both faces clearly. The prisoner he didn’t know at all. He knew the face of the man from the Partie Populaire Française all too well.
The PPF collaborator with the gun squeezed two quick rounds into his captive’s head. The captive crumbled to the ground. Blood pooled around his head and reddened the shoulders of his jacket. The gunman opened the rear door of the car and piled in as it squealed off.
Alberti was finally able to aim. He fired three shots. If he hit anything, apparently it didn’t matter. The car sped away, veered right at the first exit it could find, and disappeared.
It was 10:44 a.m. on August 21, 1944.
Down below, a German patrol attacked a group of partisans, and when Carrier went to help them, Alberti lost sight of him. Alberti made it safely off the roof and away. Carrier found Margot at the end of the day, but he didn’t meet up again with Alberti until just before the American brigade he’d joined left for Germany.
2
August 12, 1962
Marseille
Marseille is nearly 2,600 years old. It is the oldest city in France. Of course, during all those years, there’s been many a hole in the road. The German dynamiting of the Panier in 1943 and the American bomb party in 1944 were just two of them. For instance, half the population died in the great plague of 1720. For another instance, Alexander I of Yugoslavia was assassinated in Marseille in 1934. It goes on and on. In brief, Marseille knows the meaning of trouble. So after the April 1961 French army putsch in Algiers, followed by the ugly birth of l’Organisation Armée Secrète, the city braced itself. The Secret Army brought violence soon enough.
There were huge black letters reading “OAS” smeared on the side of a five story building on Rue Poirier. Passerbys paid no attention as they trudged down the street. Why should they? Since April 1961 a third of the buildings in Marseille seemed to sport those letters. “OAS = Organisation Armée Secrète.” Suddenly a bomb exploded inside the butcher shop on the ground floor, smashing windows. Shards of glass blasted into the street, along with two steaks and a clutch of lamb chops. After a moment the butcher, covered in his own blood instead of a cow’s, staggered through the smoke and collapsed on the concrete.
Fifteen minutes later David Carrier, now eighteen years older than during the Liberation, sat in snarled traffic near Rue Poirier. A siren wailed several blocks away. Smoke poured from the shambled front of the butcher shop. A helmeted fireman swinging a sub-machine gun stood in front of a barricade, directing traffic up the hill and away from the bombing.
A taxi driver glared from a taxi at the fireman. “Fuck the OAS! I got a fare on the next block. Lemme through!”
“Fuck the OAS and the FLN, too,” agreed the fireman, “I’ve got orders,” and he pointed up the hill, “so that’s the way you go!”
Carrier followed the enraged taxi driver along Rue Ternes, then turned right and drove his old Citroen up the hill to the Villa Marie. This was old Carlo Ziglione's large, blanched mansion with red-tile roof perched imperiously on the hillside overlooking the Old Port, the Pharo, and the ships at Joliette. Old Carlo had immigrated to Marseille in his youth from Casamaccioli, a small village in Corsica. He’d stayed in Marseille, prospered, founding Etablissements Ziglione and an extended family, including Margot Martin, his stunning granddaughter.
After parking on the street Carrier pulled the worn rope at the villa's gateway until the black, iron bell clanged dully. He waited, smelling the morning heat rise off the white chalky stones. Finally he heard the elderly Portuguese maid coming.
The steel latches protested as Luisa Morena, the only servant the family could still afford, strained to work the bolts. The doors to the villa opened seldom – on some days, not at all – and rust caked the metal. Finally, the hinges squealed, and the maid's brown, lined face peeked around the corner. She smiled slightly when Carrier helped her push back the gate so he could slide through.
Luisa Morena didn't ask why he'd come. He didn't need to tell her. For the first time in three years Margot’s mother, Marie-Claire Martin, had summoned him to the villa. That was reason enough. The maid shoved the rusty gate closed with a screech, a shudder, and a clang. When her small hands struggled with the metal bar, he shot it home to her murmured thanks. Stepping over a broken tile, she shuffled back along the brushed stone steps, leading him to the heavy door to the house.
Outside was brilliant with the white heat of Marseille summer, noisy with the whir of insects and the blizz of cars below. Inside was cool, dark in ancient wood, scented with the deep and musty smell of dormant rooms. Silent except for the heartbeat of the hallway clock. “This way,” whispered Luisa Morena, not daring to disturb the solemnity. They glided down the gray passageway, past shadowy pictures hanging on dusky walls. Light filtered through shutters over long French windows, illuminating the doorway where they entered the great salon.
On important occasions entry to this house always brought him to this room. Eighteen years before he’d come here to claim Margot as his wife. Seventeen years before he’d come here to borrow money to open his bistro down by the Old Port. So it was – as it had been all these years since he'd returned to Marseille. Sometimes he left the salon happy, but more often he departed in bitterness or anger.
The two women of the house waited for him with steel shutters half closed against the mounting brilliance of the day. Enough light chinked through to reveal them silhouetted on the broad couch, their backs to the window, facing him.
“Monsieur Carrier.” The maid breathed his name and then drifted back to the kitchen, stranding him in the dim center of the room. Through the window he could see smoke from the fire below, billowing into the sky.
Marie-Claire, now an imperious sixty, sipped tea. She still dyed her hair like lacquer, matching the black of her eyes, and her face looked as though the skin were stretched tightly over the bones. Meme, her mother, greeted him with a voice shakier than usual. “Nothing changes! First Sabiani, corruption, shootings, then the war and the Boches everywhere. Now, we have OAS bombs!” With a withered arm, she waved vaguely at the smoke smudging the blue sky.
Marie-Claire put down her teacup. “David Carrier is here about Georges, Mother, not the war. And there’s nothing to worry about. You’re safe up here in Father’s house.”
Her hand trembling, Meme picked up a photograph. She showed it: a photograph of a much younger Marie-Claire, beautiful if somewhat distant. Beside her was her skinny husband, bookish and bespectacled. “Your Robert thought he was safe, no? But Sabiani’s gangsters took him right from our factory and shot him.”
Meme began to cough and lowered the picture. Marie-Claire took it from her. “It’s time to get down to family business.”
Carrier sat in the chair by Meme. Meme’s hand advanced toward him, alighting like a butterfly on his knee. “Before the war, Georges was a loving husband. His wife wasn’t Corsican, but still I liked her. Now . . .” She turned to her daughter. “What’s that man’s name, ma coco? The one he lives with?”
Marie-Claire made a hissing noise. “Joseph Serano.”
Tears dribbled down Meme’s cheeks. “Georges was such a happy child.”
Marie-Claire’s lip curled with disgust. “He's fifty-five years old, Mother. Now he lives with a man who wears pink lipstick and flowered dresses.”
Meme bowed her gray head. She seemed even tinier and more frail. Carrier soothed her shaky hand.
“Tell my boy to come home to me before I die.”
“You're not dying, Mother,” her daughter retorted.
Meme's hand strained to hold Carrier’s much larger one. “Eh bé, Coco, we all die a little bit each day, don’t we?” She turned to Carrier with a quaver on her lips again. “I’d live longer if I could go back to Casamaccioli.” She seemed to fight to find the right words. “David, will you ask Georges to come see his mother?”
“Yes. Of course, Meme.”
Then there was silence. Marie-Claire sipped her tea darkly. The seance was at an end. He arose, took leave, headed back toward the front door down a corridor that stretched like a tunnel. He heard Marie-Claire’s footsteps following him down the dark hallway.
Carrier stopped. “Who really needs to see Georges? You?”
“No, the notary. He needs information from Georges. About the past. It’s a family matter.”
“Then telephone Georges. Write him a letter.”
She rubbed one of her hands slowly with the other. “He won’t answer. He hates us all. Henri, maman. Especially me, as you know.”
Carrier started walking again. “Maybe because you treat him the way you treat me.”
She stopped abruptly in the middle of the dark hall. “No! You are Gina’s father.”
He turned in the half light. “Next you’ll say I’m almost Corsican instead of a lunkhead raised in the Quatrième Canton.”
There were old photographs on the wall at shoulder level: a much younger Meme in Corsica with Robert and Marie-Claire. Another one of Meme, Carrier, and Margot, standing by the portico of the villa. Finally, a wrinkled faded one, with Carrier, Margot, and Alberti, dressed in dark, disheveled clothes, and looking as though they’d just crawled out of the maquis. That was a long time ago.
“You’re being unfair,” Marie-Claire said. “Margot . . .”
He interrupted. “Listen, I loved Margot the minute I saw her on that beach. I still love her – more than you’ll ever know. But she’s dead sixteen years. There’s no one except Gina and me. And I raised Gina with no one’s help except for Mme. Pisani when she was alive.”
Beside Marie-Claire was a photograph of Carrier, Margot, and a baby. “God killed part of me when he took my Margot.” Then she quickly added, “And I love Gina.”
Carrier said nothing for several seconds. Finally he said, “Leave Gina and Margot out of it. If Meme wants Georges, I’ll get him for her.” He strode to the front door and pulled it open. The sun came bursting in through the smoky haze. He stepped out into the court yard, while Marie-Claire stayed in the shadow of the doorway.
He walked to the iron gate, as her final words flowed bitterly after him. “Life is too complex. Wouldn’t it be so much easier if Georges were dead?”
3
Monday, August 13, 1962
Marseille
In the pitch black his feet sink into boggy ground. Stinking grasses whip at his legs. Up above, along the road, truck lights crisscross. His eyes search everywhere for a way out. Only, he's trapped. He huddles into the marshy earth.
“Halt!”
The road lights halo the soldier clambering down the embankment. The rifle swings around, and –
He jumps, knife in hand, feet scabbling, arm flailing out. Knife slices flesh, black blood spurts from the German's throat, the soldier's legs buckle, helmet tips off his head, clattering on a rock, body sagging into the bog, and –
He drops to his stomach, starts the endless crawl through wet grasses, back to the womb of the river. Somewhere, somehow, Margot is there, crawling with him. A rifle shot cracks, a bullet smacks mud, he smells cordite in the wind. They see him and he can't hide. “Run!” he cries. He hauls himself up and runs madly, grasses clutching at his legs, mud sucking at him. He hears Margot panting behind him.
The German officer's face rises with a Luger, pointing its black death hole. Behind him stares the PPF man's twisted face. The German officer says, Die. The PPF man says, Die.
Margot screams her anguish. She will lose him.
Carrier knows. He will die.
* * * * *
The orange sun crept past the shutter slats into the bedroom and splattered on the wall. He woke shivering, sweating, sheets strewn on the floor, feeling the heat of those tiger stripes splashed in his face and shuddering at the last nightmare seconds in his brain. Steeling himself against the memory of bogs and guns, he stretched and swung his legs over the side of the bed.
He squatted on the floor. Slowly, rhythmically, as he did every morning since his first day in boot camp twenty-two years before, he pushed his body into calisthenics. Up, down, up, down, back, forth, back, forth until his blood surged, his muscles bucked, and the sweat sluiced off him.
Even this fierce regime couldn't completely chase those evil spirits: the German officer and the French informant with the twisted lip. He’d seen the German just once, the French PPF man twice. The second time was in the moonlight by the Rhone. The first was on the Canebière in the summer of 1944. The man with the twisted lip was talking intensely to a German gauleiter when Carrier walked past. Suddenly, the collaborator shot him a look that said, I know what you are. Carrier slipped into an alleyway and was gone. Weeks later the PPF informant trapped him and Margot at the Rhone in nearly a perfect ambush. Perfect, but Alberti seized the German officer, breaking his neck with two big hands. The German's death let the twisted lip escape into tall grasses and live forever in Carrier’s nightmares.
After the Liberation, he searched for that face. He walked down the long lines of prisoners, sure that the twisted lip was trapped among the traitors, stoolies, and black marketeers the Resistance caught and stashed behind barbed wire, shaved heads waiting for justice. But his search was far too brief. In less than ten days, the American army marched him north toward Germany. His search for the man with the twisted lip ended. Eight months later, he returned to Marseille – to Margot and baby Gina. His quarry had vanished.
He finished his exercises with a final push that lifted him erect. Legs trembling but head clear, he stumbled to the shower. Water thundered over him to wash away the night fear. He rubbed himself down, pulled on his underwear, and padded downstairs.
Gina was gone already, off to the market early to buy produce and meat for the La Bonne Sauce. Carrier made himself coffee with his old press and sat half-naked at the kitchen table pondering. He looked at his watch, then finished his coffee down to the dregs. He went upstairs and dressed. His bistro was a block from the Old Port. No. 34, Cours Pierre Puget, was near the bistro. Back before the Sarajevo assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and his spouse touched off the First World War, some enterprising architect pirated the Parisian art deco style, toted it to Marseille, and transformed it into four stories of pinkish-gray stone. Before two wars and fifty years took their toll, No. 34 was a high-class building with top clientele, a mosaic lobby, and a uniformed concierge. Now it was more like a grand courtesan reduced to alleyway hooking. The lobby floor was pitted, the royal blue walls dingy, and the mufti-clad concierge spent his days guzzling hooch in the basement.
By the banister a tarnished brass sign announced Maître de la Barre's offices on the third floor. Carrier jammed himself into the tiny elevator and immediately regretted his decision. The contraption began to rumble and shake so much he feared it was planning a dive into the cellar. Finally, the elevator crept to the third floor. He unlatched the double doors and stepped onto the safety of the landing.
Across the hall, faded letters on frosted glass said:
Maitre JACQUES DE LA BARRE
NOTAIRE
Inside sat a tiny old woman wearing an antiquated, high-collar blouse, her fingers typing with measured clacks on an old manual typewriter. When he came through the door, the fingers poised at the keys as she peered over the rims of her glasses. “Yes, please? Yes, please?” she said. Sharp and staccato, like her typewriter.
He carefully shut the door, approached the desk, gave his name. Her finger answered by pointing down at a bound book, opened to a page in meticulous handwriting. “You have no appointment with the Maître.” Her lips stern, she tapped the book as though it were filled with inscrutable mysteries.
He leaned forward and nearly whispered. “I came to discuss a private matter with him.”
She withdrew her hand from the book. “Everything discussed with the Maître remains a private matter.”
“Mme. Marie-Claire Martin asked me to discuss it with him privately.”
The Martin name braced her to attention. She took a deep breath, sprang from her seat and bustled about her desk and across the room to another door. “Wait just a moment, M'sieu.” She seized the knob and vanished into hallway.
After a few minutes, she returned in a fluster. “The Maître would very much like to see you, please, come right this way.”
As they descended a narrow passageway, she thrust open a third door, admitting him to a large room stuffed floor to ceiling with dusty books. Papers, loose and in folders, stacked the shelves, the tables, even the floor; books covered the walls; diplomas in ornate frames hid the few otherwise bare spots. At the far end near dirt-coated windows was an opulent Louis XV desk, piled high with stacks of legal documents in cloth-tied folders. The only empty space on the desk was a tunnel between the stacks, where Maître de la Barre, head bowed, wrote industriously in his crabbed hand.
The door creaked. He glanced up, brushing bushy white hair away from his eyes. He sneezed once, blowing dust about the room, and whipped a large, white handkerchief to his nose. Finished, he pocketed the cloth in his silvery suit and rose behind the desk. Standing, however, made him only slightly taller than sitting.
He extended well-manicured nails to Carrier. “Monsieur. I do believe that we met – years ago, was it not?”
“Yes.” Carrier advanced to the desk. He dutifully took the elder's small hand and pressed it gently.
“Please be seated. Please.” Maître de la Barre waved vaguely at a chair – the only empty one in a room. Documents occupied all the others. He took his own chair again, smoothed the tangled hairs of his large mustache into place, and tented his hands before him.
“When did we last meet, M. Carrier?” The notary had a thin, reedy voice. He smiled, flexing his furry brows in the process.
“When I married Margot Martin.”
Nodding to himself, the old notary appeared to be measuring the temporal distance from today to the day almost nineteen years before. “Ah! A number of years ago. Yes, indeed, it was. I was very saddened at her death, M. Carrier,” he added, treating the event as more contemporaneous than historical. He paused. “So, you have information to discuss with me?”
“I came to discuss Georges Ziglione.”
“Georges Ziglione?”
“Mme. Martin's brother. You were trying to reach him.”
The notary pondered. “Well, yes, that's true. Let me see if I can orient myself.” He poked carefully through a stack of papers on his desk and eventually retrieved a thin, gray folder, belted closed with a cloth strap. He unbuckled the strap and lay the contents flat on his desk. He adjusted his glasses and bowed his shaggy head over a letter in the file.
“Yes, here I have my letter to M. Georges Ziglione, addressed to him at Rue d'Andouille, No. 21, asking that he call me concerning a pressing matter. A letter dated last April, I might add.” He turned the letter over and ponderously examined its back, as though he might have missed something essential, before proceeding to the next one in his file.
“He failed to reply, and therefore I wrote to him again at the end of May. Again, no reply. And – let me see – I have a note here that my secretary tried unsuccessfully to contact him by telephone in June, leaving word with a person called (here he peered quizzically through his glasses) Zezette.”
“Mme. Martin asked that I try to get Georges Ziglione to speak with you.”
“Um. Um. An excellent idea, I'm sure. And did you contact M. Ziglione?”
“Not yet. I wanted to speak with you first. To understand the issues to be discussed.”
The notary nodded slowly. “Did Mme. Martin explain why I needed to speak with Georges Ziglione?”
“She was rather vague. She only said it involved family matters. I didn’t ask her for details because I preferred to get them directly from you.”
The old man smiled wanly. “It does involve family matters, although legally speaking . . . . Let me see . . . .” When he stood, his shaggy head barely reached the top of the tallest stack on his desk. He fumbled through his piles of papers, mumbling to himself, digging here and there in the paper mounds without finding what he wanted. His mutters became darker and more cantankerous. Visibly annoyed, he tapped several times on an electric button on the side of his desk and waited.
Seconds later the secretary appeared, face bright from perspiration. “Oui, Maître?”
“Mlle. Villier,” the notary said severely. “I seem to be missing a file.”
“Oh, ma foi! Which one?”
“The one concerning the lady with the Polish name. Why did you move that file from the stack on my desk?”
“Oh, I am terribly sorry, Maître.” In a flurry she darted to a shelf. “I had to file some papers in it and I . . . .” She plucked another belted file from a stack. “It's right here, Maître,” she quavered, laying it like an offering before him.
He examined the folder carefully, as though to be certain she'd told the truth. “Well, please remember to replace things when you move them. Organization is absolutely essential. How can I find anything when you get things out of order?”
“Oh, of course, Maître . . . .” She almost curtsied and scraped as she slipped out the door again.
With her safely gone, the notary ruefully shook his head. “Good help would be such a comfort to find.” Then he unbound the file and shuffled through a number of legal papers inside, reviewing them laboriously until finally he squared them into a neat pile in front of him.
“Now we can talk about Annie Wozajkny, M. Carrier,” he announced. “Have you heard her name before?”
“Only just now.”
The notary cleared his throat noisily as a prelude to his recitation. “Annie Wozajkny's mother was the former Mlle. Fermier, born in the year 1914 to the west of Marseille.” He turned over another paper and consulted it. “In 1933 Mlle. Fermier became the spouse of Georges Ziglione in Marseille. In 1937 she divorced Georges Ziglione and shortly thereafter married one Wozajkny, Chretien, who worked in Carlo Ziglione's factory. Of course, he could no longer work for Georges’ father, so they decided to move away to Caen, in Brittany.” He moved to a third paper. “This Annie Wozajkny, her daughter, was born after the divorce and just before the second marriage. The daughter's parentage is thus unclear. That is, it is certainly possible that her father was Chretien Wozajkny, although that would mean that he and her mother had been carrying on an affair while she was married to Georges Ziglione. On the other hand, it is equally possible that her father was the first husband, Georges Ziglione.”
“What,” asked Carrier, “did Chretien Wozajkny say?”
The notary read the next paper for several silent moments. “Apparently, he treated the child as his daughter. However, he died in the early days of the last war, and Mme. Wozajkny raised her daughter alone.” The notary rubbed his nose briefly and separated several papers from the stack before he continued.
“In 1952, when Carlo Ziglione died, it was my duty – which I carried out – to contact all of his potential heirs. At that time, someone informed me about Mme. Wozajkny née Fermier, but no one told me about offspring. In any event, my file shows that Mme. Wozajkny never responded to my official letter and made no claim against Carlo Ziglione's estate.” The notary's head came up for air.
Carrier said, “I don’t understand the problem.”
The notary descended into the file again, his white hands riffling among the papers until they emerged with one. “There is a large piece of property, around eight hectares, by the Corniche. Carlo Ziglione purchased it just after the last war. He held it along with all of his many investments in the northern and eastern parts of the city. Now, so far as the other investments were concerned, some did well, and some not. But I believe that they’ve all been sold.”
“Thanks to Marie-Claire, yes.”
The notary’s eyes flickered. “I wouldn’t disagree with you that she might have had a strong hand in the result. But, no matter; they’re gone. Carlo’s widow still has her home, and she still has this Corniche property.
“Now, at the time this Corniche property came cheap and until recently it continued to have little value, but the city's expansion to the east and the announced plans of the Ministry of Housing boosted land prices there significantly. Ah, yes, quite spectacularly.” Savoring his own words, he wiped the sides of his mustache. “One might even term the increase extravagant.”
He unfolded the long document, smoothing it many times with his knobbly hands until it lay flat. “Here . . . is what I have been told is the title document – about which, I might add, I was not consulted.” His face clouded. “Carlo Ziglione conferred with the late Maître Poirier – I believe I was ill at the time – and the latter . . . well, suffice it to say that this is a very strange document.” Disdain flashed in his eyes like distant lightning. “Not a form I would have recommended.”
Carrier peered over to examine the paper and asked. “What’s wrong with it?”
The notary removed his glasses, screwing his eyes shut as he groped to explain. “The title is complex – so complex that I have my doubts whether Maître Poirier really understood M. Ziglione's intent.”
“Are you saying that the document is invalid?”
The eyes popped open. “No, no, the language is certainly clear and unassailable, in my judgment. Even assuming Maître Poirier made an error in drafting. You understand, I merely suggest that it is unusual, hein? For a start, it is more like a testament than a title document. The document vests title in Mme. Carlo Ziglione for her life. That is, she cannot sell it. Then it goes to certain of the children, so long as they themselves had children alive at the death of Carlo Ziglione.”
Carrier thought about this for a moment. “Which children?” he asked.
“Well, here I have a list of the children and grandchildren of Carlo Ziglione.” The notary found yet another paper for minute examination. He took a long time looking at it. Finished, he said, “Actually, under the primary clause, none of them appear to have rights in the property.”
“None? But all of Carlo Ziglione's three children are still alive.”
“No, no, I haven't made myself clear. Under that particular clause, ownership eventually goes to the Ziglione siblings – Marie-Claire, Georges, and Henri – who had children living at the time of Carlo Ziglione’s death. To put it another way, the child’s child must have been alive when Carlo died. Then the rights would vest in that child’s parent. But, when Carlo Ziglione died ten years ago, there were no grandchildren alive, so far as I know.”
Carrier said, “Carlo and Meme only had one grandchild.”
“Your late wife, I believe,” the other replied, with a touch of sadness. “And . . .” He stopped.
“Margot died before Carlo did.” Carrier looked at the old notary’s dolorous eyes. Maître de la Barre knew everything. He had known Old Carlo for more than fifty years. He knew how Margot had died in the car wreck. He had been consulted even while Carrier was far away in Canada.
Carrier went on. “So, in that case who will get the property when Meme dies?”
“It would pass in accordance with Carlo Ziglione’s will.”
“Which says?”
The notary lifted a few papers and then stopped. “I have no copy here. The original document is in my vault at the Banc National de Paris for safekeeping, but my recollection is that all of Carlo's children – Marie-Claire, Georges and Henri – share equally, regardless of their success as parents.” The notary picked up the title document. “We are speaking, M. Carrier, of a property which is conservatively worth nine hundred million old francs.”
Carrier sat bolt upright in his chair. “For only eight hectares, that seems like an awful lot of money.”
Maître de la Barre raised his hands slowly and then let them drop. “As I said, the escalation of real estate values in that sector of the city, M'sieu, has been considerable. Remembering as I do land prices from before the great 1914-18 war, I am as surprised as anyone. Yet I have no doubt about the present property value.”
“Now, just a minute. What about this Annie Wozajkny? Does she have a claim to the property?”
The old man’s hand bobbed several times as he considered the question. “If she were a grandchild of Carlo Ziglione's, then since she was alive when he died her father – Georges Ziglione – could claim the Corniche property. And if he were to die in the meantime, it would still go to Georges’ heirs. Which might mean Mlle. Wozajkny.” He held up the document of title by one corner. “Thanks to Maître Poirier's peculiar document.”
“So Georges would inherit the property alone?”
“Technically, this is not an inheritance; it is a succession in accordance with deed. But we understand one another, Monsieur – and my congratulations, you have a knack for the law. As you and I have seen, no other grandchild qualifies; therefore, Mlle. Wozajkny may alone fit – if it were proven Georges Ziglione is her father.” The notary's eyes moved rapidly from his papers to Carrier’s face and then back.
“So,” Carrier asked, “because she claimed to be a grandchild of Carlo's, you needed to talk to Georges?”
“Precisely. It was my duty toward my clients as well as to the law. Mlle. Wozajkny contacted me and mailed me papers. After I reviewed them, I could see plainly that she had at least a colorable claim to being Georges Ziglione's child, affecting title to the Corniche property. The one person living who was capable of shedding real light on the matter was Georges Ziglione. If he affirmed that she was his daughter, then he would have a strong claim to the property.”
“But look,” Carrier asked, “didn't Georges Ziglione know about his own daughter? Why wouldn't he have said something about this property a long time ago?”
“I have little doubt that he knew of her. Whether or not he were actually the father, I am moderately certain he was informed that his ex-spouse gave birth to a child shortly after their divorce.” The notary tapped the long title form spread in front of him. “On the other hand, I do not think that he knew about the particular conditions of succession to this piece of property. In fact, the first time I saw this deed was last year, when the unfortunate Maître Poirier died, Mme. Martin found this title document and turned it over to me.” He leaned forward and almost whispered. “He died of acute liver failure, which I would charitably term cirrhosis of the pastis.” He sighed. “I was asked to review this paper. Naturally, I told Mme. Martin and her brother Henri about the peculiar provisions in the deed to the property.”
Carrier said, “They must have been outraged at knowing what Carlo had done, weren’t they?”
The Maître gazed up at the ceiling and then rubbed one eye carefully. “Yes. The first thing they did was question the document’s authenticity. Or its meaning. Naturally. But Poirier – all faults aside, and we mustn’t speak ill of the dead – was a meticulous craftsman in general. As I said before, the terms are a bit odd, but on the other hand, they are precise and legally clear. Whether the child in question is male, female, legitimate or illegitimate, the document says what it says. I couldn’t tell you why it would be done that way, but that’s not my affair, is it?”
“But you’re saying that you think there was a mistake?” Carrier asked.
“I suspect that there was a mistake.” The old man shrugged. “Could I prove it? Very, very doubtful.”
“That’s what you told Marie-Claire?”
“Precisely. Precisely.”
Carrier thought this over. Then he asked, “When did Annie Wozajkny contact you?”
Maître de la Barre consulted his file. “In the early part of this year. When I received her letter, I got in touch with Mme. Martin and tried to reach Georges Ziglione. Of course, the matter wasn't pressing, as Mme. Carlo Ziglione remains alive. Outside of a few unusual features, this remained a routine matter.
“Then last week, Mlle. Wozajkny unexpectedly appeared at my office. She announced she was on a holiday to the Cote d'Azur. She was close by, she decided to visit me. That was – um – last Wednesday.”
“Did she come to see you about the property?”
“No. She appeared to know little about it, its value, or that her parentage might affect rights in it.”
“Then why did she contact you?”
The notary fussed with his file. “She said that she was trying to find Georges Ziglione.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Because she believed he was her father.”
“You didn't tell her anything about Georges Ziglione?”
“What could I tell her? I haven't seen him since he was twenty-five.”
“Then why did she suddenly contact you?”
The old man thought a moment. “I believe her late great-aunt saved some of the papers from the administration of Carlo Ziglione's estate. Mlle. Wozajkny said it was through those papers that she found me. She tried locating Georges by herself without much luck. As you surely know, the Zigliones – and Georges in particular – know how to maintain their privacy. I was the closest contact to them of whom she knew.”
“What did you tell her about the Corniche property?”
“I was noncommittal when I wrote to her. When I saw her, I told her more, although she wasn’t that interested. I think her main interest was seeing Georges Ziglione.”
“What does this Mlle. Wozajkny look like?”
The notary's fingers fluttered nervously. “I am not a very visually observant person, I'm afraid, M. Carrier. Papers and writing are more my forte, you understand.”
“But you remember something about her, no?”
“Oh, of course. That is, a little.”
“Her height?”
The notary placed his fingers to his temples. “She seemed fairly tall. But I am quite short, as you must have observed, and many people appear tall to me.”
“Weight?”
“Slim.”
“How old?”
He sighed. “At my age, any young woman seems young indeed. But let us say -- more than twenty-four and less than twenty-eight. But knowing when Catherine Fermier divorced George Ziglione, I assume she must have been born around 1937 or 1938, which would make her twenty-five or so today.”
“Anything else?”
“Pretty.” He blinked rapidly. “I am not so old that I do not appreciate beauty in a woman. And . . . . “ He seemed to hesitate.
Carrier prompted him to go on.
The notary nodded slowly. “Remember, I knew Carlo Ziglione a long time. I can remember when he was much younger. And I would say – hmm – there’s a strong resemblance of this Annie Wozajkny to him. The eyes, in particular. Of course, this is just from recollection.”
“You told Mme. Martin this?”
“I did. Oh, and the mouth. All his children have it. The way the lips curl – much like his, too. Mme. Martin was troubled.”
“I can believe that,” Carrier said. “She hates her brother Georges. She’d want that property for herself.”
The notary stroked his whiskers thoughtfully. “I am an old man, Monsieur, and you're talking about youthful passions. Still, I know something about the Zigliones, too. Would you believe it, but I’m still administering some funds for old Carlo, and he’s been gone more than ten years, now. Yes, a fine family, you understand, so it makes me sad to think to think you might be right. Oh, well, it's not my affair to get involved, you know. A professional keeps his professional distance.” He clapped his hands together lightly as though dusting the matter away and then lifted a scrap of paper from his file. “Would you like to speak with Mlle. Wozajkny, perhaps? Maybe that would that help ease your mind?”
“It might be an idea.”
“I have her address here. Both the one in Caen and the one locally, while she's here on her holiday. Look, I'll copy them down for you.”
The notary wrote in minuscule letters on the tiny piece of paper and tendered it to him.
“Avenue Foch, 45, Caen,” Carrier read, holding the paper close.
“Her home address.”
“Hotel Druot,” Carrier continued.
“That's where she's living while on her holiday down here.”
Carrier tried to decipher a word. “What's the city?”
“I'm sorry. My handwriting is very poor,” the notary apologized. “Cassis. The hotel is not far from here, in Cassis.”
4
Monday, August 13, 1962
Marseille
The boy named Roger jogged through the long shadows, his leather sandals slapping on the sidewalk. Garlic and basil – supper smells – taunted him. He was late. Clack, clack, clack, late, late, late, and Father was going to be very angry. Father would yell – maybe even hit him. Fear spurred his skinny legs up the cobblestoned street, past the dead rat in the gutter. Ahead lay the sparkling sea; behind, majestic on its hill above the city, the great cathedral's golden dome glistened in the sunset. In hot August the deserted street was so quiet he could hear the whir of pigeons on the roof tops and the distant hoot of taxis below along the quay.
Abruptly, a flowerpot clanged overhead against a wrought iron balcony.
Pottery shards rattled down. A shower of dirt splattered the sidewalk. Roger spun about, his hair whipping. Clay chips scraped his bare legs. Terrified, he crouched, puny arms locked over his head to block the raining debris.
Splat! With a sickening thud, something fleshy smashed to the pavement. The street seemed to hold its breath in eerie silence.
A pigeon fluttered above.