Children of War Read Free Page B

similar.
    There was one obvious reason why a French citizen, a Muslim of Arab origin, would make his way to Afghanistan. Had Sami somehow been radicalized? Bruno doubted whether the boy he had known had much sense of politics or religion, and he had been brought up in Momu’s secular home. Momu had little time for religion and Bruno had never known him to visit a mosque, except to enrol Sami in the special school. Perhaps Sami had become a devout Muslim and then been persuaded or dragooned to go to Afghanistan. Could he have volunteered for jihad? Zigi’s account of the whipping scars made that sound unlikely. Bruno knew he was speculating with too few facts to go on. What mattered was that Sami was a son of St Denis and he wanted to come back to his family.
    The passport clerk finally replied. Sami Belloumi had never applied for a passport.
    ‘Hi Zigi,’ Bruno tapped out in reply to his old comrade. ‘If they made you adj-chef, the army is in more trouble than I thought. Good to hear from you and thanks for message. That photo is our Sami, French citizen and member of respected local family but last heard of at special school for autistic kids in mosque in Toulouse. Can we bring him home? Bruno.’
    *
    The Mayor looked old and tired when he returned from a meeting of the
Conseil-Général
, the governing body for the
Département
, with its endless arguments over budgets in times of austerity. Usually Gérard Mangin used the stairs, bounding up them with the energy of a man half his age. This time he emerged from the lift with shoulders bowed. He spotted Bruno helping himself to coffee from the communal pot and gestured for Bruno to join him in the mayoral office. Bruno took a seat on the straight-backed and uncomfortable wooden chair the Mayor offered visitors to dissuade them from staying too long.
    ‘You must be in worse shape than you look if you’re reduced to drinking that dreadful stuff,’ the Mayor said, nodding at the mug in Bruno’s hand. He buzzed his intercom twice, a signal to Claire to make some proper coffee from his private store.
    ‘I need some of that after this morning’s meeting,’ he went on. ‘They’re trying to raid the little pot of money I’ve been saving for the new sewers to pay for road repairs in those communes who were too idle to do proper maintenance. They’re coming up with all sorts of threats to make me give way but I won’t have it.’
    ‘I’d have thought they knew you well enough by now,’ Bruno said, with a slow smile. ‘You always guard the commune’s money as if it were your own.’
    ‘More carefully, Bruno. I’ve seen mayors go to prison because they were too free and easy with town funds.’
    ‘What are they threatening?’
    ‘They want me to sell off the
collège
apartments, agree a three-year hiring freeze at the
Mairie
and sell off part of our town park for development.’
    Bruno winced. He’d spent his spare time the previous winter in repainting and restoring one of those apartments, offered at a subsidized rent to attract teachers to work at rural schools.Florence the new science teacher lived there with her infant twins. And the town park was sacrosanct, Bruno thought, or it ought to be.
    ‘So what was decided?’
    ‘Nothing, which is usually the case with committees. I said we couldn’t even consider the matter of the apartments until we had a legal opinion on the status of the teachers’ tenancies and they would have to pay for that. I had no objection to a hiring freeze so long as it included all the other communes, not just ours, but I made a counter-proposal that we organize a census of all public employees in all the
mairies
. They didn’t like that.’
    ‘And on the park?’
    ‘None of their business. I simply pointed out that it belongs to the citizens of St Denis and so nothing will happen without a referendum. And I added that of course any member of the
Conseil
would be welcome to come to St Denis and campaign for a sale of the park