‘You know that the Church has now advised everyone that it is perfectly within the will of God to deal on the black market,’ chided Father Michel. ‘It’s no longer to be considered a sin, Georgette.’
Like some? she wondered, sickened by the thought.
St-Cyr had been assigned to the pussy patrol in his early days as a policeman, recalled Father Michel, satisfied that the Chief Inspector had finally gauged the drift of things. ‘Neither Georgette nor Josiane would ever have anything to do with underage clients, Inspector. Now would you both?’ he asked, and saw another moment of panic rush through them.
‘No, Father,’ came Georgette’s hushed answer, she still concentrating on her game of solitaire.
‘Just one,’ confessed Josiane. ‘I swear I didn’t realize it, Father. Madame put him out of Le Chat before … before anyone else had noticed him.’
‘Then the matter is settled,’ said the priest, calling for another carafe of the red to soothe the sore throats of his two guests who had obviously, thought St-Cyr, been up to things with more than one of the local teenagers.
They settled down, each of the sisters no doubt silently cursing their parish priest for having exacted a promise from them by using a confrontation with a Sûreté over the unfortunate death of a former client!
Warming to the interview, for it was so much of Belleville and Charonne, St-Cyr took out his pipe and prepared to stay for as long as it took to get what he could from these two. Both were heavily made-up. Still in their fur-trimmed overcoats, thin scarves and hats, only their gloves had been removed. Both had the same broad faces, wide lips, double chins and carefully tweezed eyebrows. But whereas Josiane had dark brown, cataract-clouded eyes, Georgette’s were sea-green and clear, but with a pronounced cast in the left one. Hence the cards and the endless games of solitaire, though even here one of those nuances of character had caused her to taunt the good father and tempt him into distraction, just for the fun of it and to have something to recount to the other girls!
‘Now tell the Inspector a little about Alexandre and your dealings with him,’ grunted Father Michel. ‘Go on. You can speak freely. God knows everything and will understand.’
Trust a priest to say such a thing! thought Josiane. ‘God would have shut His eyes, Father. Besides, it’s a private matter. The rules of the house, isn’t that so?’
‘Private,’ echoed her sister.
One by one the greasy, well-thumbed playing cards, each with a full-length portrait of a naked girl in an awkward pose, were placed face up.
‘He liked to take you both, didn’t he?’ prompted Father Michel, helping himself to more pastis and another Gauloise Bleue from the packet of cigarettes they had brought.
‘Sometimes,’ said Josiane a little stiffly, ‘Alexandre would …’
‘Father, details of his sex life with these two really are of little interest. I want to question …’
‘Then they should be, my son. Please don’t be so impatient.’
‘Oh là, là, Josiane, will you look at that!’
The younger one had lost her game.
‘He … he liked to call us names,’ she confessed and began to gather the cards.
‘What sort of names?’ prodded the priest, exhaling cigarette smoke and fastidiously picking a shred of tobacco from his sleeve.
‘Father, you know very well what sort of names.’
‘Angele-Marie,’ whispered Georgette darkly, again concentrating on the game before her.
Merde alors, why had he had to ask? cursed Josiane. ‘And Suzette, and Élène or Michèle. Pouf! Father, it meant nothing. Just a whim of the moment.’
Retreating behind his little cloud of cigarette smoke, the priest waited.
Finally the dark eyes of the older sister ducked away.
‘Angèle-Marie …?’ hazarded St-Cyr. The cards had stopped.
‘Alexandre’s sister, Inspector,’ sighed Father Michel. ‘I rather thought you might be interested, especially since he went to see her last Thursday. Teased as a child by an older brother who loved bees and knew all about virgin queens; raped repeatedly on a summer’s evening in 1912, and so violently at the age of fifteen, by some animal or animals in the Père Lachaise — we never did get the story of it in full; the custodians had forgotten about the poor child and had locked her in for the night — she has long since become a permanent resident of the Salpêtrière.’
Almost the size of a small town, the Paris asylum for women held more than six thousand inmates and had a staff of over a thousand.
‘Alexandre was very worried about her safety, Inspector,’ said Father Michel. ‘Given the willingness of our German friends to destroy all such signs of mental or physical weakness, he had, I should think, cause for alarm.’
‘It was only play,’ hazarded Josiane, picking at her handbag. ‘Georgette would take her name, I would watch and when … why, when his little moment was over, we would sit and talk for old times’ sake.’
Jésus, merde alors, these village quartiers and their priests! ‘And how old, please, was Georgette when Monsieur de Bonnevies first visited Le Chat?’
‘Fifteen,’ grunted Father Michel. ‘Alexandre would have been … Now, let me see …’
‘Twenty-seven, Father,’ said the older sister.
‘And two years later he went off to war and we saw him only twice in all those years,’ confessed Georgette, moisture coming readily to her eyes. ‘These …’ She indicated the playing cards. ‘Are the deck I gave him. You can still smell the mustard gas — I swear you can.’
Gathering the cards, she held them out, the cut-glass rings on her pudgy fingers, with their red-lacquered nails, flashing in the thin light.
‘He loved them,’ she said. ‘He used to say they reminded him constantly of me.’
‘Of me, too, Georgette.’
‘Yes, of you, too, chérie.’
At a nod from the priest, another carafe of the red was brought — the third, or was it the fourth? wondered St-Cyr. People had come and gone. Left alone in their little cocoon, the four of them had lost all sense of time.
‘The hives,’ prompted Father Michel.
‘Ah, oui,’ said Josiane. ‘“A field lying fallow is a portion of France dying.”’
It was one of the Maréchal Pétain’s many sayings, just as was Travail, Famille et Patrie, but not the Liberté, Egalité et Fraternité of prewar days.
‘I take it the field was leased from the city for the apiary,’ sighed St-Cyr, ‘but the neighbours felt it would be best to grow vegetables there.’
‘And Alexandre would have no part of such a thing, Inspector. You see, to remain content and productive, bees need peace and quiet,’ acknowledged the priest.
‘There was lots of room,’ countered Josiane. ‘He could have freed up half the land. We … we told him this.’
‘We did,’ insisted Georgette. ‘And now the hives are in ruins and what the neighbours wished will soon be possible.’
‘Who stole the honey?’ asked St-Cyr.
Both of the sisters shrugged. Josiane glanced at the priest and then dropped her gaze to her wine.
‘The neighbours,’ sighed Father Michel. ‘Which of them, and how many, will, I’m afraid, be all but impossible to ascertain and take much time.’
‘A fait accompli, is that it, Father?’
‘“Life is not neutral,” Inspector,’ grunted Father Michel, giving him another of the Maréchal’s sayings. ‘“It consists of taking sides boldly.” AJexandre was very much a Pétainiste, but not when it came to giving up his precious apiary.’
‘He could be so very stubborn,’ offered Georgette. ‘Mon Dieu, if I didn’t submit exactly the way he wanted, he would get angry. I was to stretch out my arms above my head so as to grasp the little black iron bars of the fence around the tombstone while … while knocking the flowers over as I smothered my cries in them. They … they tickled my nose. That stone … it was so shaky sometimes, so heavy I was afraid it would fall and … and crush my head!’