Cédric Fabre - Marseille Noir

“What happened?” I asked, pointing to his wheelchair.

He told me disdainfully that when he was twenty-five and still living with his parents near La Pointe-Rouge, he wanted to show off for a few pals and especially a few girls — among them, one he really liked despite her excessive blondness and her unfortunate tendency to chew gum with her mouth open. On a July day, before the whole little group, he dived off the rocky peak of the Saména inlet. But he’d misjudged the depth of the water and crashed on the rocks that were sticking out of the water a few inches. He’d been stuck in a wheelchair ever since.

“No luck,” he concluded. “But what can you do? Two years later I married the blonde with the chewing gum. I taught her to keep her mouth shut and made her go back to her natural hair color. In fact, her hair is as dark as mine. Well, like mine used to be,” he smiled, stroking his bald pate.

I didn’t know what to say. “And. your sisters, they’re okay?”

He gave me another dark, implacable look and remained silent for a few seconds. I withstood his gaze without blinking. We were right in the middle of the final scene of a spaghetti western; all you needed was the harmonica. Finally, he spat out: “Two committed suicide, one’s locked up.”

I pretended to think about this. “Oh God, no. But. there’s one left, right?”

He nodded slowly. “You got it. Yours.”

“Excuse me?”

“Josiane.”

I shook my head and knitted my brows. I didn’t understand at all. “What do you mean, Josiane? And why ‘mine’? What’re you talking about?”

He sighed. “You want to hang it up, right? Let’s say that’s a go. But under certain conditions. Okay,” he added, “I’m thirsty. Pastis?” He rolled his wheelchair over to a low piece of furniture and opened its door, revealing about a dozen bottles. “Ricard, Casanis, 51? I even have some Pec, if you like.”

“51, thanks. Ange, I don’t understand a thing you’re saying.”

“Ice?”

“Sure. Ange, could you be more explicit, please?”

He filled up the glasses and motioned to me to help myself. We clinked glasses. The ice cubes gave off their delightful little crystalline noise.

“It’s been a long time, right?” he said, smiling. “How long? Twenty-five years?”

“Around that, yeah. Here’s to you.”

“How’s your mother?”

“Died ten years ago. Cancer. How about you, your parents?”

“Same thing. One year apart. Cancer too. I know you never left the street. René Fabrizio’s still there?”

“Yeah, he sells cars. Predictable. I think his dream is to run for city council.” We began to laugh. “But how about you?” I went on. “How did you end up working for the Damiani-Altieris?”

“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you about it some other time. Anyway, I’m here. And I’m the one who decides whether you retire or not,” he declared in a harsh tone.

I didn’t answer. The conversation was taking a different turn.

“I don’t want you to leave the business,” he said, more gently. “We need reliable, discreet personnel. You’re the perfect fit. But if that’s what you really want, I’ll see what I can do. Let’s say it’s in memory of the little street we grew up on. I trust you, I know you won’t go blabbing your head off if you retire. But there’s a price to pay.”

I could see where he was heading. “And that price is.?”

“I told you: Josiane.”

I pretended not to understand.

“I know,” he sighed, “you never could tell my sisters apart. Not you or anyone else, for that matter — not even my mother, sometimes. And as for my father, forget it. Everybody called them the Four Joes. When I heard that, I used to think of the four Daltons in Lucky Luke, and since one of them is called Joe, I couldn’t hear anyone talk about them without instantly having the image of Joe Dalton in front of my eyes, the little nasty, nervous guy. And I felt for them. But anyway. I was the only one who could tell them apart. For me, they didn’t look all that much alike.”

He sighed again.

“Okay, that’s all past. Jocelyne and Josette committed suicide, one by throwing herself off the Fausse-Monnaie Bridge, the other when she managed to escape from her room during one of her many stays at La Timone. She climbed up to the roof through the service stairway and jumped off. One three weeks after the other, after our mother died. Since then, Josephine’s been hospitalized full time with no chance of getting out. Seems she’s incurable. Sometimes they put her in a straitjacket.”

He stopped talking abruptly, as if he were short of breath.

“Jesus, a straitjacket, you hear that?” he said in a dull voice. “My sister in a straitjacket!” He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his eyes.

I let a few seconds of silence go by out of decency, then said: “And. Josiane?”

“Josiane? Let’s say her condition is a little less worrisome. All four of them went downhill as they got older, but her a little less than the others. Sure, she’s losing her marbles, but it’s not too serious yet. In any case, she’s the only sister I’ve got left, and I want to do anything I can to prevent her from being locked up in a mental hospital, but I can’t take care of her full time. And that’s what she needs. I don’t want a home nurse either. I’d hate to have someone I don’t know snooping around my place, you just never know. So you see, I’m kind of stuck.” He refilled our glasses. “You know, she still talks about you sometimes.”

“About me?”

“Actually, she doesn’t say your name because she certainly forgot it, but sometimes she talks about my buddy from the dead end, the one who lived across the street. Other than my parents, me, and my three other sisters, you’re the only one she mentions from time to time. But by the way,” he narrowed his eyes, “you see which one of the four we’re talking about, right?”

“Uhh. yeah, I think so.”

“You think so?” he snapped. “For chrissake, she gave you a blowjob in my house! You son of a bitch. She was the most gentle of the four, the most sensitive. She’s pure, she’s fragile. Very fragile! I swear, when I saw you getting a blowjob in our own living room, I almost killed you. If I’d been ten years older, I don’t think you’d be here today!”

I shrank back. “But Ange. come on, I was a kid, just like you. It didn’t mean anything, I. I was caught off guard — I was only nine, I mean—”

“Bullshit! You dishonored my sister. Basta!”

The last word cracked like a wet whip. That’s when I fully realized how Sicilian he was. They don’t kid around with things like that in those families.

“I kept that inside myself for twenty-five years, can you imagine? Never talked about it with her, ever. Anyway, she might’ve forgotten it the very next day, but you, I could never make you pay for it. Not that I didn’t want to — believe me, I did! But I remembered our games in the street. And then after my accident, I became a little more sentimental too. If I hadn’t crashed on those fucking rocks, who knows, you might not be here today. You’d have gotten a bullet in your head one day without knowing why.”

I breathed in deeply. “Ange, what’re you driving at?”

He stared at me again with his Sicilian-eagle look, a look that came from far away, a look heavy with tens of centuries of shepherds, of sailors, of wiry, dark, austere peasants for whom honor was the cement of life, whose curses and revenge never stopped, passed from one generation to the next, until the debt nobody really remembered anymore was finally paid, usually in blood and tears.

“You have to take care of Josiane,” he said. “You owe her that much, at least. That’s the deal if you want to leave the business with my blessing. The only one I’m offering. Otherwise, it’s simple: you’re gonna get it.”