Murder in Belleville

Tuesday Midday

BERNARD STOOD IN FRONT of Notre-Dame de la Croix Church. Chanting protesters in bright-patterned Mali cloth tried to block his way. The men, North African Tuaregs called “blue men,” for their traditional indigo blue veils and turbans, marched with women in black chadors and stout nuns in habits.

Arms crossed, Bernard waited as the negotiator checked off concessions for the sanctuary seekers. Last night a group holding a candlelit vigil had refused him entrance. He’d been relieved when the minister told him to postpone meeting the leader. But when the car picked him up this morning, he’d felt the same dread. Only worse.

On the way he’d heard the radio alerting the city to repercussions from the ministry’s decision finally to enforce last year’s anti-immigration laws. Had France’s recent triple-digit unemployment tipped the scales?

Tension rippled, too, across the Mediterranean, from Algeria, where an undeclared civil war still simmered after the military’s cancellation of the 1992 elections. The military’s hold over the strong fundamentalist factions was tenuous at best.

Bernard wondered again why he, and not his boss, stood in the drizzle to negotiate. Bernard’s sleep, his first in days, fitful and broken, hadn’t been restful at all. His left eye had begun to twitch, a sign of extreme fatigue.

“We know Mustafa Hamid, the Alliance Federation Liberation leader, bowed to internal pressure in taking over the church,” said the sharp-nosed negotiator, studying Bernard. “He organized the sans’papiers, but he’s a pacifist leader from way back.”

Notre-Dame de la Croix stood before them, an anomaly of vaulted stone and lead-paned windows in the heavily Muslim immigrant quartier. Around them the air was redolent with spices and Arab music.

“Future residence priority—there’s your give point,” the negotiator continued. “If you get that far.”

Now Bernard understood: Dangle the carrot of future residency before the immigrants. This disgusted him. Once the zealots agreed to leave the country, he knew they’d never be allowed back in. These people might be stubborn, but not stupid.

“Where’s k Ministre Guittard?” Bernard asked.

“Staying informed,” the negotiator said. In the glare of the police-car lights his crew cut glistened with tiny rain droplets. “Monsieur le Ministre awaits the negotiations breakthrough.”

It made sense. Guittard would watch the outcome, then either step in to claim credit or remain on the sidelines if a bloody confrontation occurred. Having been a midlevel fonctionnaire for years, Bernard understood how the ministry worked.

“Le Ministre Guittard hopes for your successful negotiations,” the man said, as if an afterthought. “The Naturalization Committee needs leadership.”

Here were the wily workings of a modern-day minister, Bernard thought. Delegate the dirty jobs and offer higher rank if the job proved well done. If the dirty job backfired, so did the fonctionnaire. Last year one of his ministry counterparts had been banished to the Ivory Coast in a similar fracas.

Bernard’s mother’s words played in his head as he entered the church. “These … Africains, these Arabes … they are just people, non?.… Like us, Bernard.”