J. Janes - Kaleidoscope

Caught among the reflections were the window and then … why, yes, the door and the coat.

And in between, a small throw rug and a rush-backed rocking chair. The rug reminded him of the villa near Chamonix, and he took to staring at the shawl he wore and to fussing with it. Could the weaver have been the same? Ah Mon Dieu , this case. Old wounds that had never closed; new ones rapidly coming on.

When he eased open one of the top drawers of the bureau, he let out a little cry. Facing him on the neatly folded lingerie of silk and lace, pale blues and creams, pinks and whites, were two masks, the faces done with water-colours. Over the white plaster mould, the artist or artists had placed a pale wash of flesh and then had dabbed or touched in the accents. The eyebrows, the lips – the expressions, ah damn it!

The twins, he asked, but as young adults? Thin of face but not so thin as Josianne-Michele, who would have known absolutely that he would have searched and found them.

That girl … what was she hiding? If she had lied about her relationship to her sister then why, if these were they, had she left them here for him to find?

Beautifully done. First the object of the artist’s eye, the touch, the Vaseline and afterwards, the carefully applied layers of gauze and thin plaster. The fingers delicately tracing each feature – straws in the nostrils to allow the patient – patient ? why had he said that? – the subject to breathe.

In orange, in yellow, in red, blue, black and shadings of green from deep to pale, the expression of the one was so stark and filled with dark thoughts, the soul found them difficult to probe. Lust, hatred, vengeance, jealousy – ah, so many tortured emotions.

The mask on the right was open and kind – vivacious, intelligent, quick-witted, high-spirited, warm and outgoing. No secrets there, the kind heart exposed for all to see and yet … and yet …

Both of them would have been no more than what? Twenty or twenty-two at the time of the mask-making? Or twenty-four?

On a shelf beside the bed, among a litter of yet more pottery shards and bits of Roman glass, he found the espadrille of a child of ten or twelve, the left foot, and with it, a small, cheap porcelain figure of the Christ at Galilee and a cross that had been fashioned by the village blacksmith out of horseshoe nails.

Determined, he went over to the suitcases and opened them but found only that they were empty.

Kohler stared at the flat box of dead rats that had been built into the floor of the hearse. The copper pipe from the wood-gas tank on the roof passed down and through the box before reaching the engine in front of the driver’s seat.

‘It is a good invention, is it not?’ asked Dedou Fratani, his look so full of doubt and fear that the Gestapo’s detective had to laugh.

‘I like it,’ breathed Kohler. Always the ingenuity of the French tickled his fancy. The rats gave the smell when the back door was opened for the inspections. ‘How do you find the Italians?’ he asked, still looking at those fuzzy little bodies with their maggots.

‘Lazy. Timid and sticking together. You have seen it yourself, monsieur, at the last control, only the other day. Eight Greaseballs armed to the teeth and, on this side of the Zone Coastal, two German corporals with the single carbine.’

‘We shoot better. Besides, it’s less mouths to feed and we tend to ask fewer and far better questions.’ Oh-oh, eh? Is that it, my fine? he asked himself.

Mist had collected in Fratani’s dark eyes behind the rimless specs. The garde champetre , who had not exactly been doing his duty, swallowed tightly. ‘Of course, Inspector, the questions, they are much better. That is why the Germans, they have let us pass so easily.’

‘Not because of my badge?’ snorted Kohler. ‘My Gestapo shield that I thrust into their Wurtemberg mugs though the bastards swore they were Austrians?’

When no answer came, Kohler grinned and let him have it. ‘They were in on the fiddle, right?’

Who could have known the detectives would sleep in the hearse and question the smell? ‘Yes … yes, the German corporals are in on it. Aren’t all your countrymen this way? The good ones, monsieur? The normal ones who are so far from home?’

‘Two rounds of goat cheese, a metre and a half of that sausage and three bottles of your best rose for my partner.’

The shit! ‘Done.’ They shook hands. The Gestapo had been bought but for how long?

‘Now start talking, my fine and keep it coming steadily, eh? First the water rights.’

‘The water …?’ Ah no!

Kohler helped himself to the last of Fratani’s cigarettes and tucked the empty packet back into the bastard’s pocket. ‘We wouldn’t want to litter the hillside with rubbish, would we?’

‘Madame, she …’

‘Madame Buemondi?’

‘Yes … yes.’ Fratani tore his gaze away to search the hill-slope and the mas , the farmhouse then the village and lastly the ruins of the citadel on high.

No one was in sight but that could well mean they were being watched and the Gestapo, he … he knew of this, had seen it all before and was grinning like a wolf!

‘Madame Buemondi owns this land and leases it to both the Perettis and the Borels but only lets the Perettis draw water from her pond when needed.’

‘In return for looking after the daughter?’

‘Yes. That and the cottage she … she uses when she and …’ Again the village cop was forced to swallow tightly. ‘Pardon,’ he said. ‘The catch in the throat. The influenza perhaps.’

Kohler wasn’t impressed.

‘She used to come to visit us,’ confessed Fratani.

‘When she came to barter for a little of what you bastards were flogging on the black markets of Nice and Grasse, eh, and Cannes?’

Among other places – this was all too clear in the Gestapo’s expression.

‘What else are we to do, monsieur, given that our village is so remote and we lack for many things?’

‘How many times a week do you run the hearse to market and how many caskets do you fill?’

‘In summer, two; in winter, one or none. It all depends on each harvest, on the time they change the controls, on so many little things. Too many bodies, too many funerals … Always there are questions.’

Kohler got the picture. It was fair enough and Fratani knew only too well that to even barter an old bicycle inner tube for a chunk of bread these days was illegal and subject not just to a fine and imprisonment, but to transport into forced labour or worse.

‘When did the victim catch on to things?’

‘Right from the start, right from when the shortages first began in Cannes. The grey bread, the sudden absence of asparagus, monsieur, a thing we used to grow in quantity in the valleys. Four, five, six crops sometimes. Ah, nothing like some others but … It was her idea that we do this, monsieur. Madame Buemondi, she was the mastermind of our little business.’

She probably was, thought Kohler, but let it pass. ‘Tell me why she would deny the Borels the right to water but give it to the Perettis?’

Nom de Dieu , this one had the eyes of a priest! ‘Alain Borel, he …’

‘The herbalist’s son?’

‘Yes, yes, damn you! He …’

‘Is in the hills,’ sighed Kohler. ‘Was he the one who left this for the girl, and was it really left for her?’

Fratani stared at the carving. Startled, he asked where the Gestapo had found it and when told, gripped his stubbled cheeks, deep in thought and despair. The others would never forgive him if he told the truth.

‘Ludo Borel’s eldest son gathers the herbs for his father in the mountains, monsieur, and dries them there.’