Badfellas (10 page)

He let in a tall, rather portly man in threadbare jeans and a bleached sweatshirt, who set off to inspect the kitchen, leaving a trail of plaster dust behind him. Didier Fourcade could always, by a careful calculation of factors, assess the limits of a new client’s technical knowledge.

“The lady said something about a problem with dirty water?”

Fred had to turn on several taps in order to convince him.

“Well, you’re not the only ones round here.”

“What is it?”

“How long’s it been like this?”

“Five or six weeks.”

“Some of the ones I’ve seen, it’s been four or five months.”

“What is it?”

The man turned on the kitchen tap and let the brown water gush out.

“Can I see the cellar?”

Fred had dreaded hearing what he then heard as soon as the man set eyes on the pipes: a low whistle of horror, which said everything that could be said about the gravity of the situation, the amount of work needed, the irresponsibility of the owners, the danger involved in not taking action, the astronomical sums this action would cost and the general disastrousness of the situation. This low sound had been a part of his training, a moaning blood-curdling whistle, repeated if necessary. The client, racked with fear and guilt, would go to any lengths not to hear it again. For Didier Fourcade, this sound represented his monthly paycheque, a better car, his daughter’s education.

The trouble was, Fred didn’t like it when people tried to scare him. If he had one single gift, it was the ability to resist intimidation. Trying to frighten him was like trying to bite a rabid dog, or scratch a mad cat, or hit a fighting bear. And once he had been provoked, he feared neither humiliation, pain or even death.

“So what about this filthy water, then?” he said. His patience was running out.

“What about it, what about it… What can I tell you? It could be lots of things. See the state of these pipes? Completely rusty. You’ve let them go.”

“We only moved in two months ago!”

“Then you’d better complain to the previous owners, they’ve let the pipes get into this state, look at that…”

“What’s got to be done?”

“My poor fellow! It all needs redoing. This plumbing must be more than a hundred years old.”

“Is that why the water’s that colour?”

“Might be. Or it might be coming from outside, but that wouldn’t be my job.”

Fred would have settled for very little, one hopeful word, one sincere smile, even an unkept promise. Anything rather than this abuse of power in the face of a helpless victim. Fred recognized that language all too well.

“So what are you going to do?” he said, in a last appeal to the plumber’s goodwill.

“Well, I can’t do much at the moment. I came because your lady seemed to be in trouble, but you can’t say it’s an emergency. I’ve got two jobs on at the moment, and they’re a bit of a way away. And there’s a flooding at Villers, they’re waiting for me, can’t be everywhere at once. Can’t do everything myself.”

“…”

“Make another appointment. See about it with my wife – she deals with all that. That’ll give you time to decide with yours whether you want to get things done properly here.”

He had done the main part of his job: you create anxiety, and then you walk away. Didier Fourcade planned to leave the unhappy man to himself, expecting any minute to hear those frantic pleas which always came as music to his ears. He started up the stairs, but Fred Blake, or rather Giovanni Manzoni this time, stopped
him by slamming the cellar door, and reached for a hammer from the work bench.

During the ten o’clock break, bunches of children played as children do, full of long-pent-up energy, letting out long-repressed yells, excited by the sun and the prospect of the summer holidays. The little ones played at war, the bolder ones at love; the older ones, busy with their mobile phones, arranged their social lives. The noisy playground teemed with this vibrant mixture, and nobody, not even the teacher on duty, was the slightest bit suspicious about the curious gathering that was taking place in a corner of the playground shelter.

About ten boys of all ages were waiting patiently in front of a bench, sitting in a row along the white games line. Warren sat alone on the bench, his arms stretched along the back, with a rather tired and yet thoughtful expression. The only boy standing was the plaintiff, his arms crossed, gazing at the ground. The others waited their turn, listening to their comrade’s complaints, as he chose his words with a mixture of embarrassment and concentration. He was only thirteen and had not yet learned how to complain, at least not like this.

“I tried to do well at first. I don’t mind maths, and I even had quite good marks at the beginning of the year, but the teacher left, and then the new one came…”

Warren, slightly annoyed by the noise coming from the playground, sighed quietly, still paying attention. He nodded to the boy, encouraging him to continue.

“He hated me straight away. The others will tell you that’s true. I was the punchbag for that creep. He’d put on a special nasty smile when he told me to come up to the blackboard… And scribbles in the margins to humiliate me… He once gave me two out of twenty, and he put:
could do better
, but with a question mark for me, not like for the others. And lots of other stuff like that, just to humiliate me. I’ve got them, I can show you!”

Warren waved off this suggestion.

“Dunno what he’s got against me… I must remind him of someone… I even asked him once; I wanted to sort things out. And he punished me! He gave me twenty exercises to do over the weekend! Twenty! Stinking bastard! My mother even went to see him, so that he could explain, and the creep pretended there was nothing wrong. He twisted my mother round his little finger! And who do you think she’s going to believe, him or me? So I really worked hard, kept my mouth shut, even when he insulted me… And then at the last class meeting he blew me up. You should have seen my mother’s face when she saw the report… ‘We suggest he repeats the year’… I’m not going to start the third year again because of that prick!”

The words choked in his throat, with the cracked voice of innocence brought down by cruel injustice.

“I can see you’re telling the truth,” Warren said. “But I don’t see what I can do for you. What exactly do you want?”

“If I have to stay down, I’m going to kill myself. I’ll never get over it. It’s just too unfair. I want him to change his mind, and agree to let me go into fourth, that’s all I ask. Just for him to change his mind, that’s all.”

Warren raised his arms helplessly.

“Do you realize what you’re asking? He’s a teacher!”

“I know. And I’m ready to make some sacrifices. I demand justice, do you understand?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Help me, Warren.”

And he bowed his head in allegiance.

After a moment’s thought, Warren said:

“We’re quite far into the term, but I’ll see what I can do. Don’t go out for the next few days, except to come to school, spend your spare time with your family. I’ll deal with the rest.”

The boy clenched his fists, holding back a gesture of triumph, beaming.

“Next!” shouted Warren.

A little boy with glasses got up and stood at the exact same spot as the previous one.

“What’s your name?”

“Kevin, 2B.”

“You wanted to see me?”

“Someone’s stolen the money my mother puts aside in the cupboard. I know who it was – it was my best friend. My parents think it’s me. He says it wasn’t him. My dad doesn’t want to quarrel with his family, he says I’m a coward and I made it up. But I know it’s true. I can’t leave it like that.”

The writer’s wife
. Maggie might have acquired a taste for the title if she hadn’t for so long been known as the gangster’s wife, married to the head of a family, a mafioso – Giovanni Manzoni, that snitch Giovanni Manzoni. After being married to all that, there was no
way she could embark on a new role, especially that of a writer’s wife. What made her incandescent with fury was the odious way Fred thought that he could somehow redeem himself by listing his crimes in black and white. Could there be any more perverse method of clearing one’s conscience? Nor could she understand the relish with which he shut himself away on that stinking veranda, when, unlike the rest of his gang of thugs, he had never previously had any interests beyond his own position in the hierarchy at the heart of the Cosa Nostra. Some of the others liked fishing or sport, others bred dogs or tried to lose weight at the Turkish baths. Not him. His only hobby was finding new business ventures, new schemes to enable him to fleece new victims, who would only realize what had happened once it was too late. Why now, so many years later, did he have to feel this urge to shut himself away for eight hours at a time in front of a rotten old typewriter? Was he trying to give a new and cynical definition to the whole concept of confession? Or did he just want to relive his old battles, and make some claim to immortality? It was as though he was experiencing some sort of nostalgia for evil. He was dipping his pen into the darkness of his soul – and that ink would surely never run dry. The neighbourhood might have accepted this imposture without a murmur, but Maggie was not taken in.

She was ten minutes early, and parked the car in Rue Jules Guesde in Evreux. She lit a cigarette to pass the time, and tried to imagine how her husband would have jeered at her if she hadn’t lied to him about where she was going.

“What are you trying to prove, my dear Maggie? You want to salve your conscience? Redeem your sins? Well,
take it from me, I don’t regret anything, and if things had gone differently we’d still be back there, with the family and all my team, and we’d be living just the same life, the life we were born to, instead of mouldering here, so let me tell you, it’s a real hoot to see you playing the holy saint.”

The Eure branch of Secours Populaire is looking for a volunteer for administrative work
. A small ad in
Le Clairon de Cholong
. All that was needed was a bit of time, a bit of practical ability and plenty of motivation. Maggie felt she had been chosen. It couldn’t have been the hand of God – she had turned her face away from him, and no longer believed in his mercy any more than in his anger. The ways of the Lord remained impenetrable, and the cruel pleasure He seemed to take in muddying the issues no longer fascinated her, it just left her weary. To have to always remain a mystery to human eyes must inevitably affect your motives. So much gravity, transcendence, excessiveness, eternity, and all in the most profound silence – well, Maggie just gave up. The truth was, and she could hardly bring herself to confess it, God simply didn’t move her the way he used to – the crown of thorns, the Sistine Chapel, the White Lady, the great church organs, none of them had the effect on her that they had in the past. Nowadays the only real miracle which touched her heart could be summed up in one word, a word which covered so many others: solidarity. The phenomenon, for her, had made itself felt in the most mundane of circumstances, walking past a television set, or coming out of a film, or turning on the radio for some background noise. The first time had been seeing a television ad for an insurance company, which fearlessly proclaimed its high moral
status and its mission to help others to a crescendo of violins; Maggie had felt tears welling up, idiotic real tears in front of the screen; she felt a fool for having been so taken in, but every time the ad came on, the same thing happened. And then there was the Hollywood film where the young man finds his true love thanks to the benevolence of an anonymous crowd; there, too, obvious strings were being pulled, and she wasn’t proud of her reaction, but all the same it did make her heart beat faster. Every time she heard something on the news about groups of individuals uniting to help another, she felt a personal call. Gradually she began to analyse these feelings, identifying their components, until they mingled together: team spirit, appeals to public generosity, defence against injustice, empathy for one’s fellow man, the list could go on for ever – it didn’t matter, the most important thing was to serve the high ideal of solidarity, in so far as one could. It would be a way of showing God that men could do the job for themselves.