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.Some wore windbreakers or tracksuits.Dark, hollow eyed, the kind of men who hung around Pigalle Metro station, picking up odd jobs, helping movers or unloading trucks.Not legal, but better than begging.Some did that, too.A sinking feeling came over her as she realized that all the money they earned ended up in Zette’s machines.Annoyance shone in Zette’s eyes.Good.If she badgered him enough he’d give her something to get her to leave.She put her bag on the counter, careful to avoid the wet spots, to show Zette she wouldn’t budge until he talked.“Who might have killed him, Zette?”He didn’t like that, she could tell.Silently, he glanced at his watch, then looked out the fogged-up window.“I’ve got time for a nice long conversation,” she said.“I can wait.”Zette leaned forward.“You’ve heard of the vendetta?” he said, his voice lowered.Surprised, Aimée nodded.“Vendetta?” she repeated, in a loud voice.That bothered Zette and she felt the eyes of the men on her back.“Jacques wasn’t Corsican—”“His mother was.That’s why I helped him.Now, if you don’t mind, Mademoiselle, I’ll escort you to the door.”OUT IN windswept Place Pigalle, she stared at the dry fountain.All but the Saint Sulpice and Jardin du Luxembourg fountains were kept dry in winter to avoid freezing.Gambling, a vendetta? She knew a large percentage of the police force was Corsican.Still in the dark but full of new questions, she headed to the Metro.Tuesday AfternoonLUCIEN PAUSED BY THE industrial stove.Steam rose from copper pans, the high blue flame licking the blackened edges.He stepped over gunnysacks of red potatoes and cardboard boxes half-filled with carrots lining the clapboard-sided kitchen of Strago.Above them hung Lenin’s stern-jawed photo and thirties Moscow State Theatre posters with their bold Constructivist geometric designs.Anna had run this Communist Corsican restaurant for years, letting him sleep in the back room when times were rough, as they had been recently.She read manifestos to him while she fried onions or cured prisuttu ham.“Lucien, some mecs were nosing around here.” Anna, stout and with graying hair, stirred the pot of ziminu spicy fish stew on the iron stove as she spoke.“Good thing I’d sent Bruno next door to the marché for eggplant.”Lucien’s hand clenched in his pocket.His eyes rested on his cetera, the sixteen-string lute-like instrument in his open bag next to the compact sound mixer he’d packed for DJing later.Should he grab it and run, forget his clothes stored in the pantry?“Looking for anyone in particular?” he asked.“You tell me,” Anna said, tasting from a wooden spoon.She grabbed a handful of chopped garlic, tossed it in.Calm down, he had to calm down.Not overreact.“Some detective asked the vegetable seller about you,” Anna said.“Those capitalist lackeys always harass those who protest!”The flics, now a detective!“What do you mean? Who’s looking for me?”“Stay somewhere else for a few days,” Anna said, her mouth turned down in a disapproving frown.“I don’t want to know where, don’t want to hear about it.At my age, I have all the excitement I need.”It was a frigid evening and Lucien had counted on waiting tables, on earning some tips and a bowl of that hot stew.“Mecs? Who?”Anna ladled out a heaping bowlful of fish stew and handed it to him.“Looked like rent-a-thugs.Zut alors, I don’t want to know what you do.”“Merci, I play music, that’s what I do,” he said, running his hand over his worn cetera case.“Far as I’m concerned, you’re as political as an ant,” she said.“But I never give up hope that soon Corsica will be free and run by true Socialists.Egalitarian.No more medieval fiefdoms, but an agriculture system that works.”His people, a proud people, were driven by the fierce love of their land and a stubborn desire to live as they had since time immemorial.The Genovese and French had erected columns and towers and thought they ruled the island.But the real Corsica, then as now, was governed by familial clans, bound by tribal ties and by obligations granted and repaid.That had never changed.Anna had been away from Corsica too long.She liked to forget the unchanging clannisme that was at odds with her Socialism.Yet, appreciating her help, he couldn’t point this out to her.Words were not his métier.When he played music his fingers found the way to express his thoughts, layering the sound with jazz, lacing in harmonic polyphony.Plucking his cetera, he could give ancient threshing songs an electronic beat.Let Félix call it world music or whatever he liked.He gave voice to the breath of rosemary-scented air hovering over sun-warmed limestone, to a chapel bell echoing off the granite mountains.He played the poetry of everyday life: a woman sweeping, the gaiety of feast days, the backbreaking toil on the hard earth, a code of honor despite years of oppression and now this new invasion by land-gutting developers.His music said that; he couldn’t.Lucien spooned up the last bite of the stew and buttoned his leather coat.“If Félix Conari calls—”“I didn’t see you,” she replied.“Non, Anna, he’s offered me a contract,” Lucien told her.“Now my music will get heard.”“A bourgeois corporate pig who will take advantage of you, more like,” she said.“Stay true to the voice inside you, Lucien.”She was wrong.Félix appreciated his music.The only other display of interest had come from the ethnic music festival at Chatelet.“Your eyes give you away, Lucien,” Anna said, shaking her head.“They’re the doors to your soul.Don’t jump at the first offer you get.”He grabbed the nub of a baguette from the day-old bread bag, stuck it in his pocket, and bid Anna au revoir [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]