— A vendetta? My God, who’ve you been talking to? (He sighs.) Who still talks about vendettas apart from journalists? The murders publicised in your pages have been committed by bandits, thugs, and Mafiosi, for a few banknotes, a few grammes of drugs, a few stolen cars. What would I have to do with all of that? What would an isolated pensioner living on his farm have to do with that, a man who couldn’t even recognise a piece of cannabis, a Yugoslavian prostitute or a box of Minitel terminals fallen off the back of a lorry in Ajaccio harbour? A vendetta, my God, that’s for tourists who have read Mérimée’s Colomba. (The smile returns.) Everything is much simpler than that. Don’t touch my land. Don’t touch my family. And then I will be the most peaceful, the most harmless shepherd in the world.

Corse-Matin: And otherwise? If someone does touch your land or your family?

— Otherwise? Otherwise what? Your question is badly expressed once more, Monsieur Palazzo. (He laughs.) It’s like asking an army general if, in the case of an attack, he would press the red button that sets off the nuclear bomb and destroys the planet. He won’t answer you, because it won’t happen. You must understand, I don’t think that anyone wants to touch my land, even less touch my family, and if your newspaper can be of any use at all, it’s in reminding your readers of that. Here, have some more canistrelli, my wife made them especially for you.

Corse-Matin (with mouth full): Many thanksh, Monshieur Idrishi.

The ending, the final reply, and the line before that, were added on by me. It would have been funny, would it not, if the journalist had actually dared to write that? But I think that, once he had asked his last question, the journalist was keen to get out of there as quickly as his legs would carry him, rather than enjoy one of Mamy’s cakes.

*

*     *

He closed the notebook.

A harmless pensioner …

How funny was that?

36

20 August 2016, 11 a.m.

Franck hadn’t said a word since Clotilde had returned to the bungalow. Hard to guess how long he had been there – he had already had his shower, cast aside his jogging shorts, and had a coffee.

‘I found it,’ was all Clotilde said, showing him the silver hoop.

His ironic smile was also hard to interpret.

Clotilde only did what every wife in the world does when her husband creeps into his shell, refusing to communicate, when he gets stuck like a weary vacuum cleaner that needs to be given a short rest: she furnished the silence, she talked about everything, about nothing, as if everything were normal, as if everything were fine, she talked about Valentine, she even talked about cooking.