Malavita by Tonino Benacquista Read Free Book Online

small town on the Côte d’Azur. Fred, realizing that it had been a close shave, had finally calmed down.
    Three years later, the Blakes had at last managed to blend into the background. In Cagnes, the children had reached their previous scholastic level; Maggie was doing a correspondence course, and Fred was spending his afternoons on the beach, swimming in summer and walking in winter, alone apart from the distant presence of one of Quintiliani’s agents. During those long hours of solitude, he had mulled over all the stages that had brought him to this point, those twists and turns of fate which would, he thought, have made a good story. In the evenings he sometimes went down to a bar for a game of cards and a pastis with the locals.
    Until the fateful day of the pinochle game.
    That evening his card partners began talking about their lives, their small worries, but also their small professional successes: a raise, a free cruise, a promotion. They had had a bit to drink, and began to laugh at Fred the American architect’s silence; they started to gently tease him about his apparent idleness – the only things they had seen him build were sandcastles and card houses. Fred had taken all this without flinching, but his silence only encouraged the sarcastic remarks. Late in the evening, pushed to the limits, he had finally cracked. He, Fred, had never had to wait for good marks or raps on the knuckles from his bosses! He had built his own kingdom with his bare hands, and he was the absolute master! He had raised armies! He had made the mighty tremble! And he had loved his life, a life no one could understand, least of all these assholes in this dump of a bar!
    After his hurried departure for Normandy, a rumour went round the little quarter of Cagnes-sur-Mer that the American had gone home to get treatment for his nervous troubles.
    â€œHere, Maggie, they’ll leave me in peace. They leave writers in peace.”
    At that she left the room, slamming the door, with the firm intention of leaving him in peace until death.
    *
    Mme Lacarrière, the music teacher, regarded Miss Blake’s late arrival in her class as a miracle. Belle, unlike those who regarded her class as an opportunity to finish a maths exercise or read through an essay, took the lesson very seriously and joined in on everyone else’s behalf. She was the only one who knew major from minor, or that Bach came before Beethoven, or who could even sing in tune. The tragedy of Mme Lacarrière’s twelve-year teaching career had hitherto been that she had never found
the pupil
 – the one who would have discovered music through her, who would have continued with the subject, who would have played and composed, and who would have made her role as a teacher, so often put into question, entirely worthwhile.
    â€œI say, Miss Blake . . .”
    All the teachers, disconcerted by the name Belle, preferred to address her as “Miss Blake.”
    â€œThe
lycée
is organizing an end-of-term concert, with parents and graduates invited. I’m in charge of the choir, which is going to sing Haydn’s
Stabat Mater
. I would very much like it if you could join us.”
    â€œOut of the question.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou can count me out!”
    She had given the same answer to the French teacher, who was putting on a sketch written by the pupils. Ditto to Mme Barbet, who was choreographing a modern dance tableau.
    â€œBut . . . Think about it . . . Your parents will be there, I should think . . . And the mayor, and the local press . . .”
    â€œI’ve thought about it.”
    Belle got up and walked out of the class, without permission, before the amazed stares of her classmates; she decided to go and work off her rage in the playground. The local press . . . Just thinking of Quintiliani’s reaction made her give an uncharacteristic groan. The