Revenge on the River [Sister Blandine 04] by Philippe Bouin

Author:Philippe Bouin [Bouin, Philippe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-09-06T00:00:00+00:00

ISOMERS

Tuesday

Émile doesn't feel good lost in the crowd on Rue Gasparin.

The shopkeepers are opening their stores, but the former teacher hardly slows down in front of their windows, not even taking the time to look at them. He walks like an automaton, without knowing where to go on the narrow sidewalk, pushed by a shopper, cursed by a mom he prevents from going by with her stroller, his head off in space, disoriented, elsewhere.

The center of Lyon is coming to life; the maelstrom of buying madness is blowing over the peninsula. Hundreds of cars and thousands of pedestrians sweep out from the quays of the Saône and the Rhône in a Wagnerian din, all of them more stressed, rushed, and noisy than geese going for birdseed. But Émile doesn't see them, doesn't hear them, enclosed in his universe, spiritless.

Bellecour. A village square with the dimensions of a city. Émile likes to stroll around there and dream.

A phone booth stands in his way. With an absentminded air, he looks at it, then wakes up, opens the door and enters, inserts a card, and dials a number.

"Hello, Somarec? Émile Boqueteau here. Could you please connect me to Gérard Balin?"

A change of extensions, ringing, and someone picks up.

"Gérard? Yes, it's Émile . . . Not good, I feel wobbly. I'm going to see the doctor . . . No, I can't work today . . . I'm not sure what's wrong with me exactly."

In Greek, Hippocrates would have called his illness "phobos."

In French, thanks to a plethora of definitions, it can go from trepidation to terror, from fear to fright, from anxiety to desperation that leaves you shitless.

It's curious that the word "courage" has fewer synonyms. No doubt because courage has no need to force its voice to be heard. Fright, on the other hand, does not come on demand. The way it's twisted him around, Émile's stiff from head to toe.

* * *

As far as demands are concerned, history has recorded some fine precedents.

Mercenaries had no lack of them for the price of their loyalty, Swiss ones above all, until they realized they'd earn more by opening banks. Princes excelled in making demands that resulted in wars.

Puche's demands are every bit as bad as theirs.

Sunk into his armchair, Réginald Bergelet reads them aloud.

"Just listen to this nonsense: 'I demand two million dollars, or I will continue. If you agree to my terms, raise the Chilean flag Wednesday at one p.m. in your main courtyard. I will contact the bearer of this missive the same evening at eight p.m., to provide the payment procedure you are to follow. If you should refuse, I will attack your factory. Puche.' " He tosses the letter onto his desk and says, "Our man's going in for literature now. He's speaking in fine language."

"Let me tell you I have a hard time finding that funny," says a pale Roland Delcroze.

"That makes two of us. My reaction is merely a remedy for worry. I have no urge to laugh.

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