The Marseille Caper by Peter Mayle Read Free Book Online

the room before adopting the investigative journalist’s standard operating position—body tilted forward in a confidential crouch, head sunk into his shoulders, the voice low and discreet. “There are two other syndicates: one British, one French. Or perhaps I should say Parisian. The head Brit is Lord Wapping, an ex-bookmaker who bribed his way into the House of Lords with some heavy financial contributions to both of the major political parties.”
    “Both of them?”
    “ Mais oui . Apparently it happens all the time in England. It’s what they call a win-win situation.” Philippe paused for a sip of wine. “The leader of the Parisian project is a woman, Caroline Dumas. Very bright, very well connected politically, used to be a junior minister until she got too friendly with a senior minister and his wife found out. Now she works for Eiffel International; it’s one of those huge conglomerates—construction, agribusiness, electronics, with a chain of hotels on the side. Personally, I don’t think she has much of a chance on this one.”
    “Why not?”
    “She’s Parisian.” Philippe shrugged. He clearly felt that, in Marseille, no further explanation was necessary.
    Their waitress, who had been hovering patiently, took advantage of the gap in the conversation and directed their attention to the list of tapas on the blackboard.
    That particular night in May there were fifteen to choose from: pata negra ham from acorn-fed pigs in Spain; tuna roe drizzled with olive oil; fried aubergines dusted with mint; tartare of salmon, with honey and dill; deep-fried zucchini flowers;clams; artichokes; monkfish; anchovies—a selection of delights that had them in agonies of indecision. They finally agreed on three tapas each, followed, at Philippe’s insistence, by the specialty of the house: inkfish with blackened pasta.
    Sitting back to take another look at her surroundings, Elena’s eye was caught by a frieze of oversized handwriting that ran along the top of the wall just below the ceiling. The same three words— buvez riez chantez —were repeated around all the walls of the upstairs room.
    “What is that?” she asked. “Some kind of weird French thing like a tapas code?”
    “It means drink, laugh, sing,” said Philippe. “To encourage us to have fun.” A sudden roar of laughter from the next table interrupted him. “Not that we need much encouragement.”
    “I find it very strange,” said Sam, “that the average Frenchman has this reputation for being … well, serious, you know? Not the kind of guy to let his hair down. Too concerned with appearances.”
    “What you call a tight-ass?” suggested Philippe.
    Sam grinned. “I never said that. But actually, most of the French I’ve met love to have a good time. I remember going to the wine auctions in Beaune once and I couldn’t keep up. Drinking, laughing, singing? That’s all they did for three days straight. And yet there’s this image of the straitlaced French. I don’t get it.”
    Philippe held up his finger, a sure sign that enlightenment was to follow. “That’s because people like to pigeonhole us, totake one aspect of our personality and judge us on that. Now, of course we are serious about important things—money and food and rugby, for instance. But we are more complex than that, and we are full of contrasts. On the one hand, we are amazingly egotistical: the two most popular words in the French language are moi and je , normally used together. And yet our treatment of others is usually polite, even considerate. We show respect. We kiss, we shake hands, we men rise to our feet for women, we leave the room when we take phone calls so as not to irritate people around us.” He paused to take a long sip of wine. “We drink, my God how we drink. But it is very unusual to see public drunkenness. We dress conservatively, and yet French women led the world in going topless on the beaches. It has been said that our national preoccupations