Murder in the Sentier

maybe that came too close to home.

“You’re off there, Georges,” Fredo said. “She did time in Fresnes.” His mouth tapered into a thin line. “We all did. Wasn’t she involved in the squats we organized in the eighties?”

“You’re asking me?” Georges didn’t wait for an answer. “We were in Fresnes together in the eighties, Fredo!”

Bickering like an old married couple, she thought.

“Sydney flitted like a butterfly … from thing to thing,” Fredo said. “Charming and elusive. One never knew her reality.”

“But I heard she was involved with Haader-Rofmein,” Aimee said.

“Didn’t you know, Marie?”

“Know what?” Had Liane lied to her?

Silence. Georges took a big drink.

Fredo looked down. “What difference does it make now?”

Her heart hammered at his ominous tone.

“Tell me … she died?”

“Rumor had it she went to find Jules. He became a mercenary en Afrique.”

“Afrique?”

“Old revolutionaries never die,” Fredo said. “They just fade away. Though some change colors.”

The room’s atmosphere, close and stale, the glare from the hanging bulb, the tang of the Pernod and the whining violin made her claustrophobic.

She got off the sagging sofa. People changed, moved on, evolved. Most of the former radicals probably had mortgages paid off and grandchildren. Not these men. They seemed stuck in a time warp.

“Look at the former Maoists and anarchists in the Green Party or even in ministry positions,” Aimee said. “Even Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Danny the Red, he’s a European Parliament minister!”

Fredo stood up. “We’ve got to get these ready for the congres in Strasbourg,” he said, piling lists of signed petitions inside boxes.

“When did you last see my mother?”

Instead of answering, Georges motioned her outside. The dark courtyard held a welcome coolness. Water plopped from a mossy tap into a grooved marble urn. Probably the original water source, Aimee thought.

“He was more than a little in love with her,” Georges said. “We all were.”

Jealousy stabbed her. What right had these old radicals, these losers, to say that … had they ever really known her? Aimee’s words caught in her throat. Pangs of bitterness hit her. Even though she was Sydney’s daughter, she didn’t know her.

“I’m sorry, Georges, I just want to learn everything I can,” Aimee said. “She left us when I was young.”

“Some women have the equipment but they’re not made to mother,” he said. He turned away.

She couldn’t see his face.

“You’re better off if you realize that.”

Aimee tried to catch his expression.

“Was she a drug mule?”

“We’re talking about the seventies. Who wasn’t into drugs, eh?” Georges said, throwing up his arms. “People were politicized in prison, their awareness heightened. Focused on the movement’s issues. Right now, two Action- Reaction members have been kept in solitary since 1987. They got married last year. Alors, the governor gave them a whole half hour!”

Georges snorted, then squinted as he moved the ice pack up his nose. “It’s a blatant violation of the most basic human rights. We’re protesting outside Strasbourg prison, presenting a petition to the World Court in The Hague.”

Maybe they weren’t the losers she’d thought. They’d stayed committed and dedicated to social change for more than twenty years.

“What about the protests against the World Trade Organization at the Palais des Congres?”

“Tell me about it, eh!” Georges pointed to his nose. “This shiner’s courtesy of the CRS^* riot squad,” he said readjusting the ice. “I’m getting too old for this.”

She remembered the newspaper headline about the nerve gas Sarin. “What about that rumor of a copycat attack on the Metro, like that Japanese cult.”

“Not Action-Reaction,” Georges said. “We’re for political change, not terrorism; that faction split off in the eighties.” Georges pointed to the buildings surrounding the courtyard. “But it’s a tradition in my family. Socialists for generations. Even an anarchist or two. During the Occupation, the Resistance had a stronghold here, courtesy of my uncle’s printing press. Funny thing is, a German headquarters was at the other end of the courtyard.”

^*Compagnies Republicaines de Securite

He stood straighter and grinned. “Before the war, the Sentier was home to newspapers and honeycombed with small presses, my uncle once told me. During power cutoffs, they’d print Combat, the clandestine Resistance newspaper, and counterfeit identification papers, by pedaling bicycles hooked up to the presses. In the eighties we squatted in the derelict buildings peppering the Sentier, agitating to rehouse the sans-papiers.”

Aimee touched the cold, worn stone and wondered why her mother had gotten involved.

“Some of the old machines were left in the basement,” Georges said. He rubbed his tired eyes. “We still use them. Same struggle against tyranny and oppression.”

He made a pfft sound, shrugged. “Alors, it’s a tradition in this blue-collar quartier. Revolution has been fomented here since the Bastille. In central Paris one works hard to stay afloat: shop owners, printing presses, the rag and shag trade, right next to couture houses and the Bourse. But now that the dot-coms have moved in, things may change.”

She’d seen the nonstop activity in the streets, felt the pulse. The people who lived here worked here, a remnant of old Paris.

All true but none of this got her closer to her mother or her ties to Jutta. Then a thought occurred to her. Romain Figeac was an old radical, he’d lived a few blocks away, and his wife was rumored to have been pregnant with a terrorist’s child.

“But you must have known Romain Figeac … wasn’t he involved in Action-Reaction?”

Georges frowned. “Figeac held a grudge against us after his wife left him. Blamed us. Never got over it,” he said. “Like me, he’s a grown-up titi from the quartier. He supported the movement at first. When it was fashionable, he housed us all.”

Now she was getting somewhere.

“Did Figeac know my mother? I heard she helped Sartre with Haader’s interview about agit888. Do you know about it?”

“An article?” He shrugged. “There were parties at Figeac’s apartment. Everyone went. But your mother and Jana, Figeac’s wife, never got along.”

“What do you mean?”

“She thought Jana was too hard-core, too irrational, and took too many drugs,” he said. “But that’s all I remember.”

“Georges, did you know Jutta Hald?”

Sadness crossed his face. “Radicals pass through here all the time. But I’m not into violence. Our group never was … like I said, we split from the terrorists.”

“Jutta just got out of prison, did you see her?”

“My grandson said she came by, but I was at the manif demonstration.”

“Did she leave you a message?”

Georges shook his head. “Why would someone kill her?”

Before she could say she’d found Jutta, he spoke.

“Why don’t you help us?” he asked. “Like your mother.”

Startled, she leaned against the dank wall for support. “What do you mean?”

“Provide places to stay for those who’ve gone underground,” he said. “In the seventies we had a goal. We still do.”