Green, said Xavier, who followed such allegiances closely. She got involved
in that campaign against the pollution from the sawmill. Thirty jobs at stake
and those daft Ecolos want to close it down.
What I mean is that Richard wouldnt have heard any of this anti-immigrant
stuff at home. His mother is a Green and the doctor doesnt seem to have any
politics, Michel continued. So where did he pick it up?
In bed, I think, said Bruno. I think he fell for that girl from Lalinde who
got to the tennis semi-finals last year, and she was in the Front pretty deep.
Shes a pretty thing and he was besotted with her.
That cant be right, said Rollo. This fight took place three years ago, when
they were at the college here. Theyd have been thirteen or so. And young
Richard didnt meet the girl until the tournament last summer. He took his
glass as if he were about to gulp the wine, but remembered himself and took an
appreciative sniff of the St Emilion and then a sip. When he left my care, he
was a fine boy, a good pupil, a credit to the town. I thought he might go on to
Paris, the Sciences-Po or the Polytechnique.
Instead, it looks like it could be prison for your fine boy, said the Baron,
using a chunk of bread to mop up every last trace of buttery egg from his plate.
CHAPTER
11
Bruno did not normally drink in the mornings, but Saturday was the exception. It
was the day of the small market of St Denis, usually limited to the open space
beneath the Mairie where the stall holders set out their fruit and vegetables,
their homemade breads and their cheeses between the ancient stone pillars.
Stéphane, a dairy farmer from the rolling country up the river, parked his
custom-made van in the car park to sell his milk and butter and cheeses. He
always arranged a small cassecroűte, a breaking of the crust, at about nine
a.m., an hour after the market opened. For Stéphane, who rose at five to tend
his cows, it was like a mid-morning snack, but for Bruno it was always the first
bite of his Saturdays, and he took a small glass of red wine with the thick hunk
of bread stuffed with Stéphanes rabbit pâté. The wine came from young Raoul,
who had taken over his fathers business selling wines at the various local
markets. This day he had brought along a young Côtes de Duras, best known for
its whites, but he thought this red was special. It was certainly an improvement
on the Bergerac Bruno normally drank on Saturday mornings.
What does that one sell for? he asked.
Normally five euros, but I can let you have a case for fifty, and you should
keep it three or four years, said Raoul.
Bruno had to be careful with his money, since his pay was almost as modest as
his needs. When he bought a wine to store it was usually to share with friends
on some special occasion, so he preferred to stay with the classic vintages that
his chums would know. Mostly he bought a share of a barrel with the Baron from a
small winemaker they knew in Lalande de Pomerol, and they bottled the three
hundred litres themselves, a well-lubricated day to which they both looked
forward and which, inevitably, by evening became a large party for half the
village at the Barons chateau.
Have you seen the doctor? Stéphane asked.
Not yet, said Bruno. Its out of my hands. The Police Nationale are involved
and everything is being handled over in Périgueux.
Hes one of us, though, Stéphane said, avoiding Brunos eye and taking a large
bite of his bread and pâté.
Yes, and so are Karim and Momu, Bruno said firmly.
Not quite the same way, said Raoul. The doctors family has been here forever
and he delivered half the babies in town, me and Stéphane included.
I know that, but even if the boy is not involved in the murder, theres still a
serious drugs case being investigated, said Bruno. And its not just some
weed, there are pills and hard drugs the kind of things we want to keep out of
St Denis.
Bruno felt uneasy about the spreading word of mouth. Half the town seemed to
know about young Richard Gelletreaus arrest, and everybody knew the doctor and
his wife. There were not many secrets in St Denis, which was usually a good
thing for police work, but not this time. Naturally people would talk about the
arrest of a schoolboy, the son of a prominent neighbour, but there were layers
to this rumour, about Arabs and Islam, that were something new both for him and
for St Denis. Bruno read his morning newspaper and watched the TV and listened
to France-Inter when he worked in his garden. He knew there were supposed to be
six million Muslims in a France of sixty million people, that most of them came
from North Africa and too few of them had jobs, probably through no fault of
their own. He knew about the riots and the car burnings in Paris and the big
cities, about the votes that the Front National had won in the last elections,
but he had always felt that was something remote from St Denis. There were fewer
Arabs in the Dordogne than in any other department of France, and those in St
Denis were like Momu and Karim: good citizens with jobs and families and
responsibilities. The women did not wear the veil and the nearest mosque was in
Périgueux. When they married, they performed the ceremony in the Mairie like
good republicans.
Ill tell you what we also want to keep out of St Denis, said Raoul, and
thats the Arabs. There are too many here already.
What, half a dozen families, including old Momu who taught your kids to count?
Thin end of the wedge, said Raoul. Look at the size of the families they have
six kids, seven sometimes. Two or three generations of that and well be
outnumbered. Theyll turn Notre-Dame into a mosque.
Bruno put his glass down on the small table behind Stéphanes van, and wondered
how best to handle this without getting into a row in the middle of the market.
Look, Raoul. Your grandmother had six kids, or was it eight? And your mother
had four, and you have two. Thats the way it goes, and it will be the same for
the Arabs. Birth rates fall, just as soon as the women start to get an
education. Look at Momu he only has two kids.
Thats just it. Momu is one of us. He lives like us, works like us, likes his
rugby, replied Raoul. But you look at some of the rest of them, six and seven
kids, and the girls dont even go to school half the time. When I was a lad
there were no Arabs here. Not one. And now theres what, forty or fifty, and
more arriving and being born every year. And they all seem to have first call on
the public housing. With prices the way they are now I dont know how my own
youngsters will ever get a start in life and be able to afford their own house.
And for our family, this is our country, Bruno. Weve been here forever, and Im
very careful about who I want to share it with.
You want to know why the Front National gets the vote it does? chimed in
Stéphane. Just open your eyes. Its not just the immigrants, its the way the
usual parties have let us down. Its been coming for years, thats why so many
people vote for the Greens or for the Chasse party. Dont get me wrong, Bruno.
Im not against the Arabs, and Im not against immigrants; not when my own wife
is the daughter of a Portuguese who immigrated here back before the war. But
they are like us. They are white and European and Christian, and we all know the