The Seven Turns of the Snail's Shell: A Novel (33 page)

“There’s also the nurse.”

Diamanté nodded in agreement. “But she’s married to the bodyguard now. What’s she going to give away? Heh? Just watch yourself, my son. Be alert.” Diamanté put his hand on C-C’s shoulder and gave him a piercing look. “Like a Corsican.”

C-C walked off in the direction of the convent. Ever since he had arrived in Castagniers, he had wondered why Narbon had been involved. Who was he? What was his role anyway? C-C had felt safe in Castagniers, his security assured. He put his hands in his pockets and kicked at a stone. Narbon missing could only mean one thing: that they were all in danger. The old fear that he had felt in Paris suddenly seized him.

CHAPTER 58

T
he book-lined library above the Ajaccio was darkened and cool despite the heat of midday. Anna and Diamanté settled into soft, overstuffed chairs, facing each other.

“I’d like to hear about my father, your son,” she said nervously as she took a photo from her handbag and presented it to him. “I have only this one picture.”

Diamanté switched on a lamp and carefully placed a pair of half-inch-thick reading glasses on the bridge of his nose. “It is Diamanté
fils
all right,” he said as he moved his fingers slowly over the photo.

“My grandfather refused to tell me anything about my father, until the dreadful night of the car accident, that is, when he was dying. Afterwards, I found that photo in an old album in my grandparent’s home. I didn’t even know who the man with my mother was, but I guessed, just looking at them.”

“I can see a resemblance in you to both of them,” he said looking keenly at her. “What happened to your mother?”

“She died when I was very young.” Anna hesitated, then decided to spare the old man the sordid details of her mother’s life. “I was raised by my grandparents.”

“In California?”

“Yes, in Laguna, where I now live. Have you ever been to the United States?”

“No, but I would like very much to visit one day.”

“Guy told me some of your history when I visited him in Obernai.”

“How did you find him?”

“I discovered a card in my grandfather’s personal items. It was sent after the war, postmarked from Strasbourg. A friend of mine helped me locate him through business associates in Strasbourg. I took a chance. I didn’t think he would want to see me.”

“He is a good man, Guy. He has become very fond of you.”

“And I of him.”

Diamanté placed the photo on the coffee table between them. “Did you know he was Charlie’s
grand-père
when you visited him?” She sensed distrust, or was it just Gallic reserve?

“No, I didn’t, not until the end of the visit, that is, when he told his story about the astronomical clock. It was so familiar that I had to ask, but I didn’t tell him that I knew C-C.” She looked down at her hands. “The circumstances were, well…I had my reasons.”

They both fell silent. The only sound in the room came from the faint hum of the ceiling fan slowly whirling above them.

“It is none of an old man’s business,” he said awkwardly as he eased himself from his chair and walked over to stare out the window. After a moment, he said, “It looks like we may have a storm brewing. It will arrive during the night, most likely. They always do. Don’t be surprised at the fury of our storms, Anna. There will be wind, cracks of lightning followed by booming thunder, and torrents of rain. Sometimes we even get hailstones. But it will be all over by morning.”

She was watching him intensely. “Tell me about your son…my father,” she said, repeating her earlier question.

Diamanté stood looking out the window for what seemed to Anna a long time before he cleared his throat and began to speak. Without turning to face her, he said hesitantly, “My son met his death mere days before the cease-fire ended the Algerian war. He was a patient young man, generous,” he chuckled lowly to himself and cocked his head sideways, “a bit stubborn, but so exuberant for life. He was a great storyteller, even as a youth.”

The old man walked slowly to one of the bookshelves against the wall behind where Anna was seated. She noted how quietly he moved.

From a shelf, he pulled a worn, black leather journal. His hand shook with age and emotion as he handed it to Anna.

“I have only this of his from Algeria. It was shipped back to me after his death. So many anecdotes. He must have had a premonition that something was going to happen to him. Read the last entry, written the day he was killed.” He wiped his eyes and blew his nose loudly into his cloth handkerchief as he sat down across from her.

Anna carefully opened the timeworn book and rested her fingers on the yellowed pages, as if she were gently touching the hand of the father she would learn to know through them. The cursive was small, traditional, in the French style, wedge-shaped letters, broad at one end and pointed at the other, but unique all the same. The entirety of it had been written in dark green ink. It was obvious that care had been taken in the beauty of the penmanship as well as the words. She turned to the last entry, dated March 15, 1962, and began reading the French aloud.

La guerre, c’est l’enfer. L’enfer. La guerre.

The atmosphere of Algiers is extremely depressing. The hot, dry sirocco wind blows constantly across the desert.

I have lost my spirit. Some in my unit have committed suicide. The morale is very low.

Today, the “reign of terror” climaxed. There are puddles of blood everywhere. Trucks on the road are riddled with bullets. Every exit is guarded by soldiers with machine guns. We ask everyone to show us their identification cards. Some do not make it past the checkpoints. We search houses. The inhabitants are all scared of us, and we are scared of them.

I have written my father a letter. I told him how much I love him and admire his courage in another war. I ended it with adieu for if I get out of this war alive, I do not intend to return to Corsica. Instead, I shall go straight to California, to my beloved Lily, if she will forgive me.

There was nothing after that. Anna closed the journal with a sigh and looked up at Diamanté.

“He was quite handsome,” Diamanté said. “I identified his body. He was a victim of a drive-by shooting. The insurgents. He died on the street. He had been shot many times, but not once in his face. We buried our son in Corsica, in a cemetery in the village where he was born. His mother passed away the next year. Her heart was broken. She lies next to him. He was our only child.” He shook his head. “I never received that letter he refers to.”

“So we’ll never know what he meant by that last comment,” Anna said sadly. It was a clue, though, that she would always wonder about. Perhaps something that had happened between them had been the cause of her mother’s problems.

Diamanté looked at her kindly. The tension between the two of them had eased.

“He would have been proud of you, being a storyteller, too.” For the first time since she had met him, he used the familiar “
tu”
with her.

A sudden gust of wind came through the open window.

“Ah,” he said. “It is announcing its intention, our weather.”

C-C entered the convent’s hospital corridor. When he turned the corner by the statue of Saint Bernard, he came upon the nurse and her new husband in a passionate embrace.

“Oh,
pardon
,” he said.

The newlywed couple, still holding each other tightly, simply turned their heads and smiled at him with their cheeks touching.

“Hello, Doc.”

“Hello, Geoffrey.
Bonjour
, Florence. I seem to have appeared at the wrong moment.”

Geoffrey winked at him. “We were just taking a bit of a break.”

“Mind if I talk to you in private, Geoffrey? I’ve a concern I need to discuss with you.”

The British security guard nodded. Florence smiled at her new husband, gave him a quick love pat on the behind, and went inside to tend to her patient. Geoffrey and C-C walked along the corridor toward the courtyard.

“What’s your concern, Doc? We’ve tightened it up pretty well around here.”

“I’ve just learned that someone who was involved in all this—his name is André Narbon—is missing. According to Diamanté, it’s been about two weeks since anyone has heard from him. He’s apparently completely disappeared.”

Geoffrey’s eyebrows knit together, and he scratched the back of his neck. “Diamanté mentioned something about being wary recently, but I thought he was just reminding me of my duties. You know, since Flo and I have been a bit distracted.” He chuckled. “I thanked him for his concern, and I didn’t think much more about it. Is this Narbon a possible victim or a security threat?”

“Don’t know. Diamanté seems to think that we’re in danger, nevertheless. He was concerned enough to warn me.”

“If you want, I’ll run it by headquarters. They might know something of the bloke’s whereabouts. Probably nothing to worry about.”

“Diamanté’s wedding is tomorrow, as you know.”

“Right. We’ve got it covered. You won’t even know we’re there.”

“
Bon
. There’s one more bit of information I’d like,” C-C hesitated. “Keep this confidential, for now, if you wouldn’t mind. I’d like to know more about Narbon’s background. All Diamanté told me was that he was dangerous and that they had had ‘some differences’ over the years, as he put it. There’s still something that bothers me about him. I’d like to know if he’s on our side.”

“Sure, Doc. I’ll see what I can dig up through Interpol.”

CHAPTER 59

T
he storm awakened Anna and C-C just after midnight. As Diamanté had predicted, it was fierce. First there was the wind, then the rain came in sheets, pounding the windows.

“It will be all right,” C-C insisted. “The storms in Provence always seem violent.” Just then, a lightning strike hit a nearby tree, and they heard the crash of a branch falling against the side of the house.

Anna screamed and then cried, “Oh, C-C, what about Max? He’s outside. We have to find him.” She flew down the stairs and opened the front door. The drenched and terrified dog ran into the foyer and immediately shook himself off.

The three of them waited out the storm in the hall under the stairwell. When it was over, they left Max to sleep in the foyer for the rest of the night, and then they returned to bed, energized and unable to resist yet another opportunity to make love before they fell asleep, exhausted in each others’ arms.

The next morning, the air was pure and fresh and smelled of ozone. From the bedroom window, Anna, in C-C-’s terry robe, observed the caretaker in the garden picking up debris from the storm. He appeared to be in his early fifties and walked with a cane.

“What’s wrong with Clo? Why is he limping?”

“He lost his leg in Southeast Asia. A land mine. I met him when he came to me with a problem. He couldn’t wear his prosthesis any longer, and he had sores which were badly infected. I arranged to get him a new one. At the same time, I offered him the cottage to live in, and he took me up on it.”

“Was he homeless?”

“You might say that. He lived very meagerly.”

“You are kind to have given him a home, C-C.”

“I’m not kind. I’m very selfish. You know that. He is helpful to me in return.” C-C came up behind her. He was fresh out of the shower, naked, smelling faintly of almond soap. Pulling her against him, he untied the tie of the robe and wrapped her in his arms. “What do you want to do today? We have a few hours until it’s time for the wedding.”

“If you are implying that we should spend the day in bed, that’s out.” She rumpled his still-damp hair. “How about a drive? You keep mentioning how picturesque the neighboring villages are. I’d like to take some photos.”

“Good idea.” He grinned. “Second best, but good. We can have lunch somewhere other than the Ajaccio for a change.”

“But we have to be back in plenty of time to get dressed for the wedding.”

“And for a little siesta. Remember?” The twinkle in his eyes gave away his thoughts.

“Oh, you. I’ll wager that the wedding couple isn’t doing it as often as we are.”

“They don’t have ten years to make up for.”

Anna laughed. “Maybe they do. How did they get together, anyway?”

“It’s a fairy tale, really. Once upon a time…during the great war, Diamanté and this guy Narbon were both in love with Elise. They fought viciously over her and hated each other for years afterward. What I don’t know is how Ferdinand, Diamanté’s older brother, won out, but he did. Elise married him, and then a short while later she became a widow. Why Diamanté waited so long after his own wife’s death to seek Elise out is also a mystery. He must have never stopped loving her. But now, all is well. They live happily ever after.”

“Did he ever make up with the Narbon guy?”

“Not that I am aware of.” C-C shrugged, making a mental note to check with Geoffrey on the Interpol search.

CHAPTER 60