Hautepierre in bureaucrats’ jargon is a Zup. A Priority Urbanization Zone, but a French zup sounds more sympathetic than an English puz.
The road began to wind. Unhelpful noticeboards were saying ‘Maille Cathérine’, ‘Maille Karine’, and ‘Pedestrian Shopping Precinct’ without saying which was where. The mailles or links were hexagons of housing blocks, bound into a tangled chain by one-way streets. Get into all this, and unless you are a native you’ll never get out again.
Arlette parked her car. She wanted ‘Maille Eléonore’ of which there was no mention. She might have a long way to walk. She walked; she liked walking.
Arlette strode along; nothing to notice about her. She hadn’t bothered buttoning her raincoat. Her bag hung on her shoulder by a sling with her arm through it and her hands in her pockets. Not just here – you can get your bag snatched anywhere in Strasbourg. The usual technique is two boys, or it can just as well be girls, on a moped. The first steers in close alongside, the second combines a snatch with a shove while the first accelerates away and round a corner. Nothing to it. She didn’t believe the incidence of petty crime was any higher here. It probably wasn’t a place to loiter in alone after dark. Nowhere is.
The sky was fine; big and open, massive heaps of cloud in every shade of grey down to the horizon where it got bluish-black. The rain was losing no time, but would be another half-hour.
Place looked nice; cheerful, even welcoming. None of those terrible rectangular blocks scattered haphazardly on bulldozed subsoil with nothing between but draughts: each of the ‘links’ is designed to be a village in itself; distributed in an irregular pattern; loosely tacked together by approach roads. The effort has been honourable. The roadways are lined with grassed banks, and a great many trees have been planted. Quite a lot have been broken, but a good deal remain. They are still immature: trees, alas, are slower than concrete.
Arlette could put a name to the first link because of a large notice over an arcade saying ‘Shopping Centre Maille Cathérine’. The housing blocks were not bad at all, cheerfully irregular, not more than six or seven stories; plenty of the small balconies were gay with geraniums. One could do a lot worse, she thought. The interior of the hexagon was landscaped too with hillocks of soil, little paths winding about, large lumps of stone, a playground for little ones with logs to climb on and a sandpit. A cluster of rather shoddy huts was plainly kindergarten and bits of primary school.
Not many people about. Men would all be at work of course but she would have expected more women doing their shopping.
‘Whereabouts is Eléonore?’
‘No idea,’ said a man in a hurry, curt.
‘Sorry,’ said a woman. ‘This is Cathérine’s all I know.’ A more leisurely woman, with a basket on wheels.
‘Through that way. No, wait now, that’s Jacqueline, or is it? I’m a bit vague.’ Arlette walked on; she’d plenty of time.
‘Over there,’ said an elderly man with a dog. ‘Just keep on straight.’
The buildings were different in character. One judges, in France, not so much by the exteriors as the entrances. A few green plants grouped around an artistic arrangement of large smooth pebbles set in roughcast – ‘standing’. This last replaced by a small fountain in a goldfish pond – ‘grand standing’. The letterboxes are great giveaways too. Some blocks here had a surprising amount of standing, others none at all: grim traps of yellowish tiles with the foot of the fire stairs sticking out, like landings in a prison. She understood: in order not to create ghettos the municipal planners had mingled ‘HLM’, that coy acronym for Moderate-Rent-Habitation which means a council house, with private-sector blocks that can be bought and sold, and owned.
Arlette, who had lost her way already despite a usually good bump of location, came out in an angle where trees had been grouped round a sort of courtyard, half asphalted and half just ground stamped hard. Dusty in dry weather and undrained puddles after rain. She thought she understood. The municipal architect, worthy man, had done his best. The idea of little villages had been all right as far as it went. But there was no centre to them. No corner grocery or even a pub. No joyfully tatty dirty-shop selling sweets and newspapers and all the gossip. The big money had taken over. An entire ‘link’ separate from the others to allow cars to come, and park, had been built around a gigantic supermarket, with a covered gallery of speciality shops all around. Here was the warmth and the light, the animation and the colour. Here, and nowhere else. Apart from the little arcade in ‘Cathérine’ where the mums went if they had forgotten something or were in a tearing hurry, there was no activity. The huge Pedestrian Precinct thing was a cancer, sucking all life from the other links, through the fine grey threads of path and underpass and little footbridge. The insides of all the other hexagons were drained and languid, joyous only when the voices of the children at recreation times echoed shrilly between the blocks.
Three small boys were languidly trapping, kicking, heading a football on the dim play space. Why weren’t they at school?
‘Hoy,’ she called to the nearest, a lanky overgrown child with a mop of fair hair. He stopped and turned politely after executing a ‘corner’. A sudden grin of unexpected vivacity.
‘No speak the language, Missis,’ the child said in English. Norma’s child! Well, she’d found her way. But she hadn’t been ready to talk English yet; had to gather her wits.
‘I’m looking for your mother but where does she live?’
‘Me mum?’ in so broad an accent that she had to keep her face straight. The boy considered, studying her shrewdly. Not a bailiff! Maybe one of those social-assistant women, or likely a schoolmarm. ‘None too sure. Gone out, likely enough.’ A child accustomed already to helping fend off unwanted visitors.
‘I said I’d come this morning. She’ll be expecting me.’ The English even in an accent as strong as his own reassured him.
‘Ey, Ian,’ he bawled across the playground. ‘Our mum gone out?’ The answer was incomprehensible but not to him. He grinned again broadly.
‘Can always try, Missis. End block over there. Door at the left. Three up on the corner.’
‘Thanks very much,’ said Arlette politely. One of the HLM blocks. She studied the row of names on the bellpushes. She didn’t even know Robert’s name, and it was just ‘sociological’ curiosity. A loose net, that had gathered all sorts of fish. French names, and the heavy Teutonic names of Alsace; Spanish and Portuguese, a couple of blacks, a couple of Arabs: but all in the proportions you would expect for the whole city. Not a dumping ground for underprivileged immigrant labour.
The hallway smelt, the stairs smelt, the lift smelt worst, being a shut-in box, slightly but unmistakably. Smell not so much of poverty – these people certainly weren’t ‘poor’ – as of backwardness, neglect, a low and uneducated mentality, apathetic, with no energy for much more than bare survival. Piss, cabbage, stale sweat, general unwashedness hung faint but certain on the air. But efforts had been made to scrub off the graffiti and keep the stairs swept. There were the usual notices about fire and how to call the cops or an ambulance, an elaborate roster of people’s turns at cleaning the landings and tidying the garbage chute, and a few brave ones done in colour with fancy lettering and roneo’d, from outside, about the cinema club and the pathetic neighbourhood activities, as well as rules about dogs and not playing ball-games. Arlette was borne upwards depressed. Depression gathered when she rang the bell on the landing and the door snapped open on the other side. She did not turn but she could feel the curious, and somehow malicious stare, like a draught on the back of her neck. Norma’s door opened finally, after a loud noise of lavatory being flushed, just as Arlette was going to turn and stare back. Norma’s look was suspicious too, but her face cleared at once. ‘’S you. Great. Come on in.’ She shut the door firmly, put her tongue out at the landing beyond, winked at Arlette and gave her a friendly clap on the arm. ‘Real nice of you to come. Don’t mind the kitchen, do you love? – that ol’ sitting-room’s in a mess again. Kids! Not to worry – have it straight before Robert can start moaning. Make some tea, shall I? Not like yours I’m afraid. Lipton teabags! But in France you know it’s either that or the really classy stuff what I can’t afford.’
‘I don’t mind a bit.’ Depression had vanished instantly. What right had she to feel sorry for herself? Norma might well break down into a violent cry, as she had yesterday, but it would go over like the rain, now right above their heads and due to break any second, and be again good tough resilient Norma. And untidy it might be, but there was no smell. She probably put the children’s socks to soak in the bidet, but she was scrubbed, and so was the flat.
‘Going to pee down,’ said Norma slapping the kettle on and looking out of the window. ‘Them brats are all right but the little one’s out doing the shopping.’
‘All the way over to the supermarket?’
‘Naw – don’t go there much. A few things that’s cheaper but it’s you know, that tender trap. Karen went to the Suma over in Cathérine. That big one’s too far anyhow. Have a beer or a cup of coffee and you’ve lost all you’d won. Nev’mind. Lemme get this pot warm. Spend most of me time here, t’tell th’truth.’ Norma made efforts sometimes to speak less broad, but you could see her heart wasn’t in it. What was the use of speaking posh? Arlette spoke posh, having had it explained that it meant port-out and starboard-home, an English conception of class structure she found typically subtle. Could one speak both posh and with a French accent?
Ting-ting at the door. ‘That’s Karen.’ The little one, with a big basket pathetically freighted with fish-fingers and instant mashed potato. Small and dark like the mother, with a fringe and brilliant eyes. ‘Hallo,’ she said, friendly. ‘I’m Karen.’
‘And I’m Arlette.’
‘That’s a nice name,’ approvingly.
Arlette knew she’d been right to come. It built confidence. There was very little she could do for Norma. Technically nothing at all. But the half-hour yesterday, and again today of moral support – that was enough. It broke the isolation. Norma didn’t even want help much. Her cry of anguish was borne of being all alone; but her toughness and her startling self-respect would see her a long way. She’d always be in trouble, spend her whole life falling down stairs, but would always pick herself up.
‘Geta train ticket out of that Consulate,’ she was saying reflectively, picking a tealeaf off her lip. ‘’n even if I can’t, can always hitch-hike. Not the first time, is it duck?’
‘No,’ agreed the little girl sturdily, not knowing quite what she was talking about, but backing Mum up instinctively. Rain clattered suddenly on the windows and they all looked out. The smaller boy, carrying the football, came racing across the open space. The bigger one came walking rather slowly, nonchalant, hands in pockets. What’s a bit of rain? They both came in with that tough delinquent shamble, more or less sideways, eyes downcast. Both said the same thing.
‘C’n a have a biscuit then, Mum?’
‘No way,’ said Norma. ‘And let’s have you smartened up a bit and say howdyedo to Mrs Davidson then.’ They held their hands out in the French way they had learned to copy: these two children’s hands, unexpectedly warm, dry and small, touched Arlette oddly. The small girl had switched on a transistor radio, and was listening raptly to a German announcer giving the waterlevels on the Rhine.
‘Bingen. Zwei. Neun. Siebenundzwan –’
‘Let’s have some fucking music then.’
‘Hey,’ said Norma, not in the least pretending to be shocked; just restoring discipline. The boy grinned, winked at the fifty-year-old Arlette in so comic a way that she could hardly keep her face straight. Not exactly innocent, being indeed blatantly sexy, but the forthright childish openness was so attractive. She had never seen less self-conscious children. They moved in this hostile, suspicious French world with the ease and dignity of young wolves.
‘I’II be buzzing then,’ when the rain slackened.
‘All right love,’ said Norma. ‘I’ll remember you.’ She stood on tiptoe to give her a kiss. ‘Won’t give no trouble. Slip out quietish, while Robert’s at the pub.’
‘If you manage to send one of the children – I’ll come and drive you.’
‘Nice of you – but won’t have time. Got to choose the moment, like.’
Arlette knew she would not take money.
‘Come on,’ she said to Karen, ‘you come with me, show me the way through back to Cathérine.’ As she left she saw the door on the landing open again a crack.
Pretending to scrabble in her bag for the car keys she fished up a fifty-franc note. But even the tiny one showed strict upbringing: it pursed its mouth and shook its head.
‘Don’t be daft,’ said Arlette. ‘You have the right. Packet of crisps all round.’ The child looked, made up its mind, grinned like Norma, crumpled the note in its paw, tongue-tied. She bent to give it a kiss but it was already racing away. She drove off soberly. She had to put the fan on a minute, to get the condensation off the windscreen. That tedious Robert would stand there gibbering and waving his shotgun, but Norma would see to a tactful quiet exit. And would bring up the baby like all the others. Abortion? No way.
She would be late for lunch anyhow. She had left a word in the electronic notebook on the kitchen table, and Arthur would cope. It was a long way round to the Meinau, and the midday rush was beginning. Quicker to go through the town centre now than round by the quays. Fortune with her turned on green lights all the way to the Hospital Gate, out of the old town and across the bridge to South Strasbourg; the Colmar road out as far as Suchard Chocolate, and turn left after the football stadium.
The Meinau. Rue du Général Offenstein. Large quiet bourgeois villas with trees in the walled gardens, sombre with closed shutters and locked gates. Nothing distinguished Siegel-the-Dentist’s house from the others, but she had looked up the number in the phone book. Unostentatious, wellbred … Arlette parked down and across the road, where she could observe. The Lancia was not a conspicuous car, and certainly not around here.
Not that there was anything to observe. Just ‘the lie of the land’. Get a glimpse, if possible, of the protagonists. Everybody came home to lunch in this part of the world. Twelve-fifteen.
A small, shiny, dark blue Fiat with pale beige leather. Nice little car. Much like her own. Not as nice! But cleaner – very highly polished indeed, as though the cops that stood loitering all day by the side gate of the Préfecture had been rubbing it up. For this surely was step-ma Cathy. Small, neat blonde woman of that lean, hard, rather standard prettiness, in boots and a leopard-skin that might be nylon but wasn’t. As highly polished as the car. She left it on the pavement, locked it, not looking anywhere, disdainfully, unlocked the gate, locked it again after her. Whisked into the house. Not about to snatch up the kitchen apron and go to work – be servants there, and lunch on the table at twelve-thirty on the dot. Career woman, Cathy Pelletier: the Prefect couldn’t get on without her. But we work to a tight timetable here: twelve sharp he has an official ‘apéritif’ known as a wine-of-honour with some chamber of commerce or other, and Cathy’s off, to be in the bosom of her family for two hours precisely. Twelve twenty-two.
A six-cylinder Jaguar stole silently down the street; lean, hard, elegant in a standard way like Cathy. Siegel’s good taste. Dark burgundy colour like a ripe plum, very nice. Turned haughtily, stopped across the pavement in line with the gates; he wasn’t leaving his car on the street, not even for lunch hour. His office building, on the river by the Pont Royal, has an interior courtyard.
Siegel got out to unlock the gates – they were very careful with their gates. There wasn’t much to be seen of him; a dumpy man with a full padded profile and a slightly tip-tilted insolent nose – it was this that gave him away as Marie-Line’s father: not much resemblance otherwise that she could see. Dark tight-fitting overcoat and Anthony Eden hat. He arranged the gates meticulously, got back into the Jaguar, which quivered slightly, like Cathy when he got on top of her in bed. Drove in, parked exactly in front of the door on the circle of gravel, came back to lock the gates. She got him full face then. Shrewd discreet eyes, full small mouth in the full face. Not, certainly, a man to take lightly. Held himself upright: no sign of the characteristic dentist’s deformation.
Arlette went on waiting, for Marie-Line, anxiously at first, till she remembered that lycée classes finish at a quarter past the hour. And the Gymnase Jean Sturm, where the scions of Protestant good families are still sent, is right in the centre of the old town.
Twelve thirty-four. A Peugeot moped, Marie-Line’s face closed and indifferent between the wind-tossed corn blonde hair and a navy-blue double-breasted pilot jacket. Hopped athletically off the bike, felt in her pocket for keys, wheeled the bike just inside the gate and left it leaning against the wall. Strolled slowly across the gravel. Not bothered at being a little late for lunch. Would they have waited for her? Cathy might have taken a drink. Siegel didn’t look like a drinking man, and a dentist doesn’t allow his stomach to rumble. Unfold the napkin and head down at once, eating slowly and chewing thoroughly: proper digestion is more important than waiting five minutes for an eighteen-year-old daughter. A slight nod – mrh. Back to the leading article in Monde – no! A Figaro reader more like it. Solidly right-wing!
Nothing left to see; she drove home at leisure, grinning, remembering one of her son’s disreputable but engaging girls. Flat-hunting in Paris; one has to buy Figaro for its classic ‘To Let’ page. Tear the page out indignantly: give the rest to the clochard at Saint André des Arts – keep his feet warm maybe; that was all the beastly thing was good for. The girl had made a comic anecdote, miming her ashamed look sneaked quickly round, even though all Paris knows why a left-wing student is buying a Figaro … Yoh – schrecklich, as they say in Alsace.