The Seven Turns of the Snail's Shell: A Novel Read online

  In the cab, an uneasy Diamanté sat staring out the passenger seat window. He caught a quick glimpse of the Eiffel Tower in the early morning light as the vehicle followed the Seine onto the A13 highway which would take them northwest to their final destination, the port of Le Havre, via the city of Rouen, where the next part of the plan would be carried out. He thought about the massive numbers of reporters in front of La Pitié-Salpêtrière, where he guessed a press conference was being held at this very moment.

  “Is this as fast as this vehicle can go?” Diamanté asked the youthful British driver beside him. Diamanté did not even know his name. The driver, concentrating with intensity on the road, took a deep breath and ignored him. They both listened intently for any signs of an acute emergency coming from the back.

  Once out of the Paris basin, Diamanté relaxed and allowed himself to reflect a bit. He had not been in Normandy for several years. The urban scene gave way to forest and trees. He opened the window and breathed in the fresh country air as he focused on the auto route and watched for any sign of someone earnestly following them from the rear. There was, thankfully, not much traffic on this early Sunday morning. The countryside was lush and sweet-scented, and it reminded Diamanté of the fragrant undergrowth known as the maquis in his native Corsica. There, on any hillside, a goat or two might come bounding out at any moment. A train sped alongside the auto route and crossed a bridge overpass.

  Diamanté thought about the group that called themselves Les Amis. Well, one member of the group was not a friend: Narbon, a Corsican like himself, whose nom de guerre had been l’écureuil, the squirrel. The two had been bitter enemies, caught up in a triangle of family, love, and war. The woman they mutually loved and the clandestine cause for which they were fighting overwhelmed them. He removed his beret and rubbed the scar on his head. Just then he caught sight of two motorcycles in the rearview mirror. Each of them had a rider riding pillion, and they were swiftly closing in. He quickly replaced his beret.

  “Speed up without causing attention,” he commanded in a brusque voice. “We are being followed.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Summoned by Jacques Gérard, they gathered, one by one, at the rendezvous point in the wine cellar of Le Canard à la Rouennaise. A familiar odor, the musty combination of mildew and fermenting wine, greeted them.

  Léo La Bergère was first to arrive. He had to bend his head to enter the cellar. Jacques motioned to him to have a seat. The retired stockbroker nodded and lowered his bulky frame onto a bench near a wooden worktable.

  Pierre Truette was next. The priest, hunched over with age and dressed entirely in black, quickly shook his old friends’ hands.

  André Narbon, the one they called “the squirrel,” entered, much to Jacques’ surprise. He had not invited him. Narbon glanced around the room suspiciously, twitching his mouth nervously from side to side. Jacques thought about how much he looked like a rodent. Jacques had always been leery of the graduate of Saint-Cyr École Supérieure de Guerre. Narbon was a man who could kill.

  “Haven’t seen you in quite some time, André. Several years, in fact. Where have you been?” They shook hands, eyeing each other cautiously.

  “Things to be done, mostly in Corsica,” the unsmiling Narbon said curtly as he pulled a green-slatted chair from the back corner, placed it at the end of the worktable, and sat down.

  The last to join the group was the plump, genial head chef of Jacques’ restaurant. Lucie La Forêt entered just as Jacques was beginning his speech. A white-haired woman now in her late fifties, Lucie was merely a toddler when her mother was arrested during the last days of the war in June 1944. Marie-Thérèse La Forêt, now many years deceased, escaped twice from her captors and was considered one of the great heroines of Les Amis Clandestins.

  “Écoutez, listen, mes amis,” Jacques began. “Our survival during the war was a miracle of luck and bravery. Other members of our escape line—Doctor Lemonier, the hotelier Forestier, the tailor Christophe, the Breton whose fishing boat we used many times, may they rest in peace—are no longer with us. We few, somehow, were spared to be alive today. Alas, there is yet another mission for us.” Jacques took a breath and went on. “Our old friend Diamanté will be arriving any minute.” He glanced from face to face. They stared at him as if transported back in time. Young actors, he thought, who have powdered their hair and painted lines around their eyes and mouths in order to appear old enough for the final act. He cleared his throat and continued. “At this moment, Loupré-Tigre is transporting a precious cargo from Paris to Le Havre. We are to provide the cover operation from this point to the coast. A member of the crew who is coming this far with Diamanté will be returned promptly to Paris so as not to raise any suspicion. Léo, that job will be for you. I cannot tell you any more than that. You will have to trust our old friend.” He ignored the razor-sharp gaze Narbon gave him.

  “We won’t have a lot of time. Narbon, you will take over as the driver. I’m hoping that I can count on you to carry this mission.”

  Narbon nodded and lowered his eyes. He inwardly congratulated himself on the fortunate move he had made by showing up in Rouen at just this precise moment.

  “Truette,” Jacques went on, “and Lucie, you two and I will make sure no one is following them and handle any complications.”

  “Beh, magnifique! This will be like old times,” La Bergère chuckled, his eyes twinkling.

  “Except that there will be no submarines in the Channel threatening to blow us up,” commented the soft-spoken Truette. They all nodded. There was no doubt about their support.

  “One last piece of information.” Jacques paused. The heavyset, brusque man with a deep, growling voice and a commanding demeanor suddenly looked uneasy. “Charlie is with them. Please do what you can to…to assure his safety.”

  Through his thick, dark, square-framed glasses, Narbon stared into a wall stacked with huge wine barrels. He rubbed the stubble of whiskers on his chin as he thought about how he was going to feel when he saw Diamanté again.

  CHAPTER 4

  The young man is behind her as she pushes her luggage cart toward the end of the loading platform. The look of admiration is in his eyes as she glances casually back at him. She smiles. At the end of a long journey, she returns. The same man is waiting on the platform for her. He takes her hand. They waltz together. Then, something happens that stops the dancing.

  Anna Ellis awoke abruptly. She stared at the unfamiliar, high-ceilinged room, unable to immediately remember where she was. The chamber, painted in a delicate turquoise with white trim, was fresh and summery. A wrought-iron fireplace in the corner was filled with ballooning violet-blue hydrangeas. A crystal vase with fresh-cut pink roses had been placed on the antique writing desk.

  Anna stretched and climbed out of bed with a sigh. She threw back the sheer white curtains, pushed open the window, and looked out on the street below. The air was balmy and the morning bright and clear. She was in Paris.

  That dream…again. What does it mean? she thought. Had I maybe handled it differently? Had I come back? Maybe things might have been…

  Monique knocked lightly and peeked in her room. “Ah, good morning, chérie. How did you sleep?” Her voice brought Anna back to the present. “Do you want a café crème? Sabastien and I have just walked down to the boulangerie to get some fresh croissants. Join us in the breakfast room.”

  Sabastien, the Durochers’ gentle Basset Fauve de Bretagne, swished his tail in greeting as Monique winked and quietly closed the door.

  Anna looked down from her window perch. She had arrived just the day before and, jetlagged, had not slept at all well. In fact, she had slept fitfully because of the screaming sirens that had started after midnight and continued for what seemed like hours.

  She dug through her luggage and quickly changed into a tank top and jogging pants. Then she opened the door and wandered down the wide, darkened hallway with mirrored French doors, peering into the salon with its crystal chande
lier, cabochon-patterned carpet, and walls covered in red and gold wall fabric. Two striped, two-tone, gold satin-upholstered antique chairs flanked a white marble period fireplace.

  Anna found Monique and Sabastien in the cheerful, mahoganypaneled breakfast room at the end of the apartment’s long, L-shaped corridor. The windows, open to let in the fresh morning air, overlooked the ivy-covered walls of the building’s inner courtyard. The table linens and dishes were in the familiar violet-blue-green-gold pattern of the textiles of Provence. A brightly colored, hand-painted majolica vase filled with blue irises sat in the center of the table.

  “You and Georges have a nice apartment,” Anna said as she sat down and helped herself to a croissant. “It’s so elegant.”

  Monique was pouring giant breakfast bowls of coffee with cream. They had known each other since their student days at Paris University IV, the Sorbonne. Monique’s husband, Georges, was an executive in the French media industry, and they often traveled internationally. Their apartment, just around the corner from the Arc de Triomphe in an eighteenth-century building with a mansard roof, was charming and filled with objets d’art from their travels.

  “Alors, do you have something in particular that you want to do while you are here, chérie?” Monique asked.

  Anna ate a bite of her croissant while she stirred a pure cane sugar cube into her café crème. “I’ve got to do some research for my book, and…” she hesitated, staring into her cup, “there’s someone I have to find.”

  Monique lifted an eyebrow and gave Anna a sideways glance. With her short-cut brown hair, long neck, and fine-boned face, she reminded Anna of the French film star Juliette Binoche.

  Anna sat back, combed her fingers through her long, dark brown hair, and lowered her chin. Her piercing, dark brown eyes met Monique’s. “Do you remember C-C?”

  “The medical student you dated? Of course. How long ago was that? Maybe ten years? Charles-Christian, wasn’t it?” Monique leaned forward. “Is that the someone you have to find?”

  Anna nodded.

  “I always wondered what had happened between you two. You seemed so perfect for each other, so in love. Do you remember, in the late fall I think it was, when we were walking in Montmartre? He swept you up and carried you in his arms to the top of the steps. Then you two kissed for the longest time. I thought it was so romantique.”

  Anna was silent for a minute. She had used a version of that scene in her latest novel. “Yes, well, I guess I never mentioned that I didn’t hear from C-C again, did I? We spent our last night together parked in front of the Eiffel Tower, said good-bye at the airport the next day, and I flew home. I never heard from him after that.”

  “Mais…but, since you didn’t hear from him,” Monique hesitated, her eyebrows knitted, “didn’t you worry that something terrible had happened to him?”

  “Yes, of course I did. At first I wrote letters. Nothing in response. Then I tried to call his apartment. You remember. The one in the fifth arrondissement? No forwarding address.”

  “Did you ever try to contact his parents?”

  “Yes, but his father wasn’t too keen on his son’s romantic interest in an American girl, if you remember. He always just hung up on me.”

  “But wasn’t there someone who would have known his whereabouts? A friend?”

  Anna shook her head.

  “Well, did you just give up then? Fin de l’histoire? No more trying to find him?”

  “Yes, yes…I guess…I did, finally. There was no use. I was back home in California—a long way away—and I was broke.”

  “So there has been no one else?”

  “No one serious until recently. I’ve been dating an attorney. Mark. He’s sweet and pretty good looking. Keeps himself in shape. He lives in the same condo complex as I do. We have fun together. He’s…” Anna bit her lip, “in love with me. He hasn’t said it, but I can tell. The problem is that I’m not sure I’m in love with him or that I could even consider marrying him. For some inexplicable reason, I can’t let C-C go.”

  They both sipped their cafés and looked out the window. Sabastien came over with his tail swishing and put his paw in Anna’s lap. Anna thought about her dog, a golden retriever named Paris, at home in California with her grandparents while she was away. She petted Sabastien and gave him a kiss.

  “Do you think it’s possible to turn back the clock ten years, Monique?”

  Monique considered her question. “Have you ever regretted leaving when you did?”

  “Yes, but C-C was still in medical school, and his father was supporting him until he finished. There was no firm commitment. I guess I figured that C-C would remain in limbo until I waltzed back into his life…” She laughed. “Kinda like that dream I keep having.”

  “I have an idea, chérie. Why don’t you stay here until the end of September? You can take care of Sabastien while Georges and I are in Los Angeles.”

  Anna brightened. “I’d love that. We can swap apartments, if you like.”

  “Deal.” Monique smiled at her. Her eyes twinkled.

  Just then Monique’s cell phone rang to the tune of the French national anthem.

  “Oh, mon portable. Allô? Oui, chéri.” Monique cupped her lips and whispered to Anna. “It’s Georges. He’s at the office.” The conversation was typical between the couple. From Monique’s side, lots of “Oui, chéri. Non, chéri. Mais non. Mais oui.” And then a dramatic demonstration of kisses interspersed with “Je t’aime, Je t’aime, Je t’aime” before signing off with a quick “Salut.” Monique kissed the phone and put it gently back in her pocket as if, Anna mused, it were Georges.

  “Georges has to make a last-minute drive today to check out a film location on the coast. We’re leaving shortly. Why don’t you join us?”

  Within the hour, Monique, Georges, Anna, and Sabastien were on their way to the port of Le Havre. As Georges maneuvered the big, black Mercedes onto the A13 expressway, a box truck whizzed past, followed closely by two motorcyclists with riders.

  “Why do the French always drive like bats out of hell?” Anna wondered out loud from the back seat. Sabastien was curled up and asleep with his paws tucked under him on the seat beside her.

  “Because we’re dying to get to heaven,” Georges countered in English with a slight British accent. He was older than Monique, handsomely dressed, expensively shod, and his silver gray sideburns glistened in the sunlight streaming into the car.

  “By the way, do you two know what all those sirens were about last night?” Anna asked.

  Monique and Georges looked at each other and nonchalantly shrugged their shoulders.

  “We don’t concern ourselves much with the news on Sundays,” Monique explained. “It’s our day to enjoy each other, n’est-ce pas, chéri?

  Georges nodded and blew her an affectionate kiss.

  “Oui, chérie, I only have eyes for you on Sundays.”

  “Oh, you two. You must have heard the sirens. Aren’t you the least bit curious?”

  They smirked. “Actually,” Georges confessed, raising his eyebrows, “we did turn on the TV a bit this morning. There was an incident in a tunnel near the Eiffel Tower. The Alma Tunnel. The TV announced that Princess Diana was killed.”

  “Killed? You mean, murdered?”

  Georges shook his head. “They said it was an accident.”

  CHAPTER 5

  The unmarked SAMU entered the outskirts of Rouen and followed the quay until it reached rue Jeanne-d’Arc. Two motorcycles with riders followed at a distance. Diamanté watched them in the rearview mirror. Just short of the rue du Gros-Horloge, he instructed the driver to make a sharp turn into a back alley. They pulled alongside another truck and waited. Then, with a roar, the first motorcycle spun around the corner. The man on the pillion held a camera with a large lens perched on his shoulder.

  “Paparazzi,” yelled Diamanté to the driver. “Hit it.”

  Lucie La Forêt spotted the truck and the motorcycle. She shouted at her ki
tchen assistants, who were busy unpacking crates of produce. “Tout le monde! Everyone, vite! Vite! Toss your crates into the alley behind that truck. Maintenant!”

  They did as told, and just as the truck passed, the motorcyclists saw a storm of produce and crates, some still unpacked, come hurtling towards them.

  Jacques saluted Diamanté and motioned to the driver not to stop. The SAMU zoomed off just as the second motorcycle, its rider hanging precariously off to the side, turned the corner.

  Lucie amassed her army behind her. “Hé, les commis, à la sortie!”

  The small army of kitchen assistants positioned themselves behind the massive body of their head chef, standing in her white apron with her hands on her hips, legs spread apart, frizzy white hair protruding under her chef’s cap. Jacques, a rather hesitant Father Truette, and the portly La Bergère joined her.

  The first motorcycle plummeted into a sea of wooden crates, and its two riders were thrown into the mess. They lay moaning, covered with cabbages, cauliflowers, leeks, and carrots. The next two arrived, braked, and skidded to a screeching stop just inches in front of the miniature brigade. As they revved the engine and reversed their direction, Lucie motioned to her sous-chef. The man went into action instantly. As the second motorcycle attempted a speedy retreat back down the alley, the sous-chef lowered the loading dock just in front of them. With a crash it came down, and the paparazzi were trapped.

  “Où allez-vous? What do you think you are doing?” yelled Jacques angrily. He stepped forward, motioning to the army behind him to hold their position. “See what a mess you have made of my Sunday menu? The cabbages for the chou-croute are all over the cobblestones.”