“I’m afraid it’s an occupational hazard.”
“Don’t make jokes, my dearest. The danger is very real.”
“What do you see?”
She gazed intently into the liquid, as if in a trance. After a moment she asked quietly, “Are you looking for the English girl?”
Keller nodded, then asked, “Is she alive?”
“Yes,” the old woman answered. “She’s alive.”
“Where is she?”
“It is not in my power to tell you that.”
“Will we find her?”
“When she is dead,” the old woman said. “Then you will know the truth.”
“What can you see?”
She closed her eyes. “Water . . . mountains . . . an old enemy . . .”
“Of mine?”
“No.” She opened her eyes and looked directly at Gabriel. “Of his.”
Without another word, she took hold of the Englishman’s hand and prayed. After a moment she began to weep, a sign the evil had passed from Keller’s body into hers. Then she closed her eyes and appeared to be sleeping. When she awoke she instructed Keller to repeat the trial of the oil and the water. This time the oil coalesced into a single drop.
“The evil is gone from your soul, Christopher.” Then, turning to Gabriel, she said, “Now him.”
“I’m not a believer,” said Gabriel.
“Please,” the old woman said. “If not for you, for Christopher.”
Reluctantly, Gabriel dipped his forefinger into the oil and allowed three drops to fall onto the surface of the water. When the oil shattered into a thousand pieces, the woman closed her eyes and began to tremble.
“What do you see?” asked Keller.
“Fire,” she said softly. “I see fire.”
There was a five o’clock ferry from Ajaccio. Gabriel eased his Peugeot into the car deck at half past four and then watched, ten minutes later, as Keller came aboard behind the wheel of a battered Renault hatchback. Their compartments were on the same deck, directly across the corridor. Gabriel’s was the size of a prison cell and equally inviting. He left his bag on the cot-size bed and headed upstairs to the bar. By the time he arrived, Keller was seated at a table near the window, a glass of beer raised to his lips, a cigarette smoldering in the ashtray. Gabriel shook his head slowly. Forty-eight hours earlier, he had been standing before a canvas in Jerusalem. Now he was searching for a woman he did not know, accompanied by a man who had once accepted a contract to kill him.
He ordered black coffee from the barman and stepped outside onto the aft deck. The ferry was beyond the outer reaches of the harbor and the evening air was suddenly cold. Gabriel turned up the collar of his coat and wrapped his hands around the cardboard coffee cup for warmth. The eastern stars shone brightly in the cloudless sky, and the sea, turquoise a moment earlier, was the color of India ink. Gabriel thought he could smell the macchia on the wind. Then, a moment later, he heard the voice of the signadora. When she is dead, the old woman was saying. Then you will know the truth.
10
MARSEILLES
When Gabriel and Keller arrived in Marseilles early the next morning, Moondance, forty-two feet of seagoing smuggling power, was tied up in its usual slip in the Old Port. Its owner, however, was nowhere to be seen. Keller established a static observation post on the north side, Gabriel on the east, outside a pizzeria that inexplicably bore the name of a trendy Manhattan neighborhood. They moved to new positions at the top and bottom of each hour, but by late afternoon there was still no sign of Lacroix. Finally, anxious over the prospect of a lost day, Gabriel walked around the perimeter of the harbor, past the fishmongers at their metal tables, and joined Keller in the Renault. The weather was deteriorating: heavy rain, a cold mistral howling out of the hills. Keller flipped the wipers every few seconds to keep the windshield clear. The defroster panted weakly against the fogged glass.
“Are you sure he doesn’t keep an apartment in town?” asked Gabriel.
“He lives on the boat.”
“What about a woman?”
“He has several, but none can tolerate his presence for long.” Keller wiped the windshield with the back of his hand. “Maybe we should get a hotel room.”
“It’s a bit soon for that, don’t you think? After all, we’ve only just met.”
“Do you always make stupid wisecracks during operations?”
“It’s a cultural affliction.”
“Stupid wisecracks or operations?”
“Both.”
Keller dug a paper napkin from the glove box and did his best to rectify the mess he had made of the windshield. “My grandmother was Jewish,” he said casually, as though admitting that his grandmother had enjoyed playing bridge.
“Congratulations.”
“Another wisecrack?”
“What am I supposed to say?”
“You don’t find it interesting that I have a Jewish ancestor?”
“In my experience, most Europeans have a Jewish relative hidden somewhere in the woodpile.”
“Mine was hidden in plain sight.”
“Where was she born?”