A crumpled and shrunken old man sinks into a seat with two loaded shopping bags spilling at his feet. Baguettes for himself and for Marcel on the first floor; foreign newspapers for M.Rosenburg on the third; fruit and yoghurt for Mlle Baumettes next door; butter and jam for Mme Cheney in the apartment opposite.
He is at his usual table - outside, by the door, near the heater, under the awning. The early morning café in the square between the Palais de Justice and the Maison de l’Avocats is a colourful mix of folk living on and off both sides of the law.
Waitresses sing song “Bonjour Domenique. Avez-vous fait vos achats?” Sweet old man, they like him, no bad odour, just the smell of fresh bread and biscuits. They pet him with their words. He hums to himself and smiles as he indulges in passive smoking and enjoys overhearing the shop girls gossiping. Big drooping ear lobes, gushing white hair, brown age spots on lean tradesman’s hands and a face of deep folded wrinkles enlightened still by the sparkle in his eyes.
He places no order. An espresso and a glass of water materialise in front of him. When he has finished he runs his long middle finger round the inside of the cup, wiping up the crema. He sucks his finger, rubbing his gums. The favourite part.
Domenique is a carrier, a willing carrier, a runner.
“Run and fetch me....“ his mother called almost as soon as he had learned to walk. By the age of five he was running to the shop on the corner of the block collecting things for his mother and for their neighbours in the apartments. M.Devito, the proprietor, taught him how to add a small charge. “Anyone would be happy to pay not to have to come down in this heat” he said, mopping his forehead to emphasise the point. “Indeed I’ll pay you myself.” From then on he was in M.Devito’s employ. By the time he was 10 he was trusted with packages and bottles that never appeared on the shelves. He collected them from M.Devito’s Italian and African friends in the docks. By the time he was 12 Domenique had found out that goods could be obtained cheaper elsewhere. He developed a network of contacts in his district, around the town and on the docks. He worked out that he could add a percentage in addition to his delivery charge if he went into business on his own account, though he was always careful not to poach his mentor’s customers.
For Domenique it was not just about the money, much of which he spent on his mother and his friends, the rest he saved. It was the pleasure of meeting someone’s needs, of being needed, of being able to supply and to surprise and to please.
Domenique had another talent. He spoke English fluently. His mother was English, married to a French serviceman stationed in England during the war. They returned to his home in Marseilles when peace broke out and within a year, shortly after Domenique’s fifth birthday, his father was dead. His mother had embraced her new home and family and had no desire to return to England. But she was determined her son would speak English. Knowing full well he would learn to speak French from his friends and at school and speak it like a native, she spoke nothing but English at home believing it would give Domenique an advantage and open up worlds to him.
She was a formidable woman. A seamstress by trade she worked by day for a Jewish tailor in their district and supplemented her income by doing alterations and repairs for neighbours and friends in her own time. She believed Domenique should learn a trade, acquire a skill, a craft. So at the age of 15 she apprenticed him to a boat builder in the Sud Marine boatyards. The company he joined fitted and refitted yachts. They also bought and sold craft on their own and on their clients’ behalf. Having completed his training and gaining experience of all aspects of the business, Domenique, with his business savvy and command of English, became the first choice for meeting and negotiating with customers and suppliers along the coast. He got on well with the Americans who regularly financed their summers in the Med by shipping yachts across from the States, cruising all summer then leaving them with Domenique’s firm to sell in the fall. South London gangsters retained them to berth, stock and service their boats; to meet them at locations along the French or Spanish coast where they would fly out with their guests for long indulgences; and employed them to sail the boats when they became incapable of doing so themselves.
So it was that Domenique spent his time sweeping the coast from Portofino to Porquerolles and always he would be acquiring and carrying, always ready to meet someone’s need. For the English it was essential supplies from home – PG Tips, Heinz tomato ketchup and Marmite; for the Americans, the big green/brown blocks of resin wrapped in hessian from Algeria and Morocco; the books and papers and contraceptives that were outlawed in Franco’s Spain. The American navy anchored at Villefranche-Sur-Mer was a luxurious mélange of supply and demand. Navy stores were plundered and marketed. There was a particularly brisk exchange in small arms and narcotics as well as less exotic but nonetheless marketable things like cleaning products, hand tools, electrical goods and components.
When asked to sail a ketch to a small port on the English south coast for a client it did not occur to Domenique that he doing anything other than delivering a boat. For most of his life now he had been a carrier. He had always been shown what he was being asked to deliver. He never asked any questions. He never looked inside packages. But he always knew the size, the shape and the risk. He always saw them. And he took no chance of a run in with the authorities if he carried anything that he thought might be of interest to them. It was what the customers paid him for, they had faith in him. They relied on his skill and experience. He had always been trusted.
He was impressed by the lads off the Customs cutter as they boarded with their portable toolkits and systematically deconstructed the yacht. They exposed cavities and crevices that he, the boat builder, would never have thought of using to stow contraband. As they worked away with relentless determination his amusement gradually receded giving way to a creeping cold dawning that they knew something he did not.
He quickly adapted to life in an open prison. He built up his clientele; got a grasp of the currencies and exchange rates; established his chains of supply and distribution networks.
It seemed to him fitting in one way that having spent his life carrying things for others – he was now simply carrying for them a new commodity – punishment. But it rankled with him – the injustice of it. Why had he not been told? Why had he not been trusted? He could easily have slipped past Customs if he had known. Who had informed them? Did someone not want him to succeed? Was he just some sort of decoy?
In the past he had never considered the morality of what he had done. But this powerful sense of justice/injustice overwhelmed him and got him reckoning things up. What had been done with the things he carried? Who had used them? What were the consequences? Whose lives were affected? Who suffered and who was going to pay? Like a slow migraine the thoughts grew heavier and he became sick with them.
He returned to the little book again and again. The book the visitor had given him. It allowed him some respite from his thinking. He was attracted to the man at the centre of the story – a man like him who carried things; who took up infirmities and carried sorrows; the man who said “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.” And that’s just what he did. One day, Domenique rolled his load over onto this man and let him carry it away.
Now Domenique carries a new load. But this one is easy and light. Is it a debt or a trust? It is something to be passed on. Something to be shared at every opportunity with the people he meets, with people he carries for, with the people he delivers to.
Domenique slides the sugar and speculoos into his pocket for Amandine, his little friend, the concierge’s niece. She comes to visit after school. Seven years old and he marvels at the way she manages the conversation, extracting his secrets, painlessly teasing him. She wants to practice her English and loves to drink Domenique’s English tea and imagine she is visiting the Queen in Buckingham Palace.
He shakes the coins from his purse into his hand, counts out a euro and drops it into the plate.
“Merci Domenique. Bon journée. À demain.”
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