‘I don’t speak Corsican, little brother, what does that mean?’ She passed him one of the sheets of paper and picked up a pen from the desk. ‘Can you write it down for me?’

Slowly, and with hesitant, childish handwriting, Orsu wrote, taking care not to disturb the ant that was now running about on his forearm.

Campa sempre.

Clotilde ran from the room and held the sheet of paper up beneath the noses of the two policemen from Ajaccio.

‘What does that mean?’

The two men looked at the words, studied them, then shook their heads as if it were written in Sumerian. Clotilde cursed, she didn’t want to hear their excuses, hear them say that they were only civil servants who had been transferred there from the mainland and didn’t speak a word of Corsican … English, yes, Italian, at a stretch, but the bloody language of the island itself … She strode past the rugby player from Béziers without even stopping. He wasn’t going to be any use either.

Campa sempre.

Damn it, this was all she needed, to find herself in a police station in Calvi without anyone who could translate two words of Corsican for her. She thought of running out into the street, standing in the middle of it and stopping the first person who came past.

Campa sempre.

A sound from the next room made her start.

The toilet door opened. The cleaning woman came out. She wore a headscarf and a blue tunic edged in gold: Moroccan, like a tenth of the local inhabitants. With her bucket and mop she inevitably reminded Clotilde of Orsu. Clotilde stepped forward and held the scribbled piece of paper level with the woman’s eyes.

‘Campa sempre,’ the Moroccan woman read with an impeccable Corsican accent.

Clotilde’s hopes soared.

‘Please. What does it mean?’

The woman looked at her as if it were obvious.

‘Alive. Still alive.’

53

Wednesday, 23 August 1989
Bruise-blue sky

‘Clo?’

I sulkily take off my headphones. I prefer Manu’s voice to my brother’s.

‘Yeah.’

‘We’re off.’

Off where?

I sigh. I wake up. I’m still a bit zonked. The stones of the wall cut into my back and the splinters from the bench scratch my thighs. There’s silence at Arcanu Farm, you’d almost think everyone else had gone.

But gone where?

I close my eyes, I see the faces of the Idrissi clan around the table, the yellow roses, the Clos Columbu wine, their noisy conversation. I open my eyes. Nico is standing there in front of me, looking like a union representative, or a negotiator with the special forces, the kind of person who bargains with robbers holed up in a bank to get the hostages out one by one.

That’s not going to work with me!