Bruno, Chief Of Police

would never break the strict Gendarmerie rule against romantic attachments with

junior ranks. Or would he? If the others suspected he was smitten with

Françoise, he was getting into risky territory already. Bruno filed the thought

away as his car climbed the hill to his cottage. Turning the corner, he saw the

faithful Gigi sitting guard at his door.

He took the printout of the thesis with him to bed, turning first to the back

for the chapter headings, and frowning slightly as he saw there was no index.

This could take longer than he thought, but there was an entire chapter on

Marseilles and the Maghreb League, which from its name was presumably composed

of teams and players from North Africa. He lay back and began to read, or at

least he tried to. This was like no prose he had ever read before. The first two

pages were entirely about what previous scholars had written about North African

life in Marseilles and about the theory of sports integration. When he had read

the paragraph three times, he thought he understood it to say that integration

took place when teams of different ethnic groups played one another, but not

when they just played between themselves. That made sense, so why didn’t the man

say so?

He battled on. The Maghreb League had been founded in 1937, the year after Leon

Blum’s Popular Front government came to power with its commitment to social

policy, paid holidays and the forty-hour week. He remembered learning about that

in school. Blum had been Jewish and a Socialist, and his government depended on

Communist votes. There had been a slogan among the rich – ‘Better Hitler than

Blum’.

The Maghreb League was one of several sporting organisations that had been

started by a group of social workers employed by Blum’s Ministry of Youth and

Sport. There was also a Catholic Youth League, a Young Socialists league, a

Ligue des Syndicats for the trade unions, and even an Italian League because

south-east France from Nice to the Italian border had been part of the Italian

kingdom of Savoy until 1860. Then the Emperor Louis Napoleon had taken the land

as his reward for going to war against Austria in support of a unified Italy.

Again, Bruno vaguely remembered that from school. But the Young Catholics, Young

Socialists and young trade union members did not want to play against the North

Africans. Only the Italians agreed to play them and this was encouraged by the

Ministry of Sport as a way to integrate both minorities. Some things haven’t

changed, he thought glumly. But then he caught himself: yes they had. Look at

the French national soccer team that won the World Cup in 1998, captained by

Zidane, a Frenchman from North Africa. And he allowed himself a small glow of

satisfaction at the way the young sportsmen of St Denis had grown out of this

nonsense and played happily with blacks, browns and even young English boys.

The Maghrébins were enthusiastic players but not very skilful, and invariably

lost to the teams of young Italians. So, in the interests of getting better

games the Italians offered to help the North Africans with some coaching. Very

decent of them, thought Bruno. And the main coach for the Italian League was a

player for the Marseilles team called Giulio Villanova.

Bruno sat up in bed. Villanova was the name of the man that Momu had remembered.

This was Momu’s father’s team! Bruno read on avidly. In those days of amateur

teams before football players could dream of commanding the fantastic salaries

they earned these days, Villanova was happy to coach the Maghreb League in

return for a modest wage from Leon Blum’s Ministry of Sport. Sounds like

somebody back then had a good idea, thought Bruno, and it would be very pleasant

if somebody were to pay him even a token stipend for all the training he did

with the tennis and rugby minimes. Dream on, Bruno, and besides, you enjoy it.

Under Villanova’s coaching, the Maghreb teams became better and better, and some

of them began to win matches. The best team of all was the Oraniens, the boys

from Oran, who won their League championship in March 1940, just before the

German invasion that led to France’s defeat in June and the end of organised

sports for the young North Africans. The chapter went on to analyse the

possibility that, had the war not intervened, the success of the Oraniens and

the Maghreb League might have secured them the chance to play the Catholic and

Socialist Youth and thus begin the process of assimilation.

But Villanova, the social workers, and the players over the age of eighteen had

already been conscripted into the Army. The young Arabs that were left began to

play among themselves informally and the Maghreb League collapsed, leaving only

a memory. Bruno thumbed quickly through the rest of the thesis, looking for

photos or lists of the players’ names or more references to the Oraniens or

Villanova, but there was nothing. Still, he had the phone number of the author

of the thesis, and that was a lead to be followed up in the morning. Well fed,

well pleased with finding the name of Hamid’s team, and deeply satisfied at

having evaded Duroc’s trap for motorists, Bruno turned out his lamp.

He rang the author as soon as he got into his office in the morning. The teacher

of sports history at Montpellier University was intrigued by Bruno’s question,

delighted that his thesis had turned out to be useful to someone other than

himself and his teaching career, and declared himself eager to help. Bruno

explained that he was involved in a murder inquiry following the death of an

elderly North African called Hamid al-Bakr, who had kept on his wall a

photograph of a football team dated 1940. The police were very interested to

learn more about this, he said. The victim’s son believed that he had played in

the team and had been coached by Villanova, and since the victim had been

holding the ball when the photo was taken, he was either the captain or the star

of the team. Was there any more information?

‘Well, I think I have a list of team names in my research notes,’ said the

teacher. ‘I wanted to check whether any of the players became famous after the

war, but none of them seemed to make it into the professional teams in France.

They may have done so back in North Africa, but I had no funds to take my

researches over there.’

‘Can you find the team list for the Oraniens in 1940? And do you have any team

photos?’ Bruno asked. ‘Or anything more on Villanova – that seems to be the only

name we have.’

‘I’ll have to check, but it won’t be until I get home this evening. My research

notes are stored there and I have to teach all day. I do have some photos, but

I’m not sure if they’d be relevant. I’ll check. And Villanova seems to have

dropped out of sporting life during the war. He doesn’t reappear on any team

lists that I came across, nor at the Ministry of Sports when it re-opened in

1945. I’ll call you back this evening. Okay?’

Bruno hung up, telling himself he was probably following a false trail. Still,

the disappearance of that photo was one of the only clues they had and he

thought

J-J