The Author would like the Reader to know that the following, excerpted from a work in progress (volume two of a projected trilogy, of which the first volume is available on Amazon) is a faithful, although fictionalized, account of an incident which really happened in Nice's Old Town some twelve or thirteen years ago. It is written in tribute to the victim, who never got justice, and also because there is no reason to think that such an 'incident' could not happen again today, or tomorrow... So, when visiting the Old Town of Nice, be aware, and take care...

 

Nice's Old Town, from its beginnings in ancient times, developed as a lowland outgrowth of the original primitive settlement in a grotto of the squat mountain on the city's eastern limit. Today called the Mont Boron, this highground is dominated by the ruins of a medieval fortress, where sentries once stood guard so as to warn the town's people of pirates approaching over the sea. For centuries, whether as an Italian, a Savoyard, or a French possession, Nice, in essence the Old Town, remained an important trading center along the Mediterranean coast, between Genoa and Marseilles.

Today, the Old Town is a tight hub of intense activity, where one can find handicraft shops featuring objets d'art and clothing in the latest fashions, as well as antique shops and traditional food shops –these last often managed from generation to generation by the same Niçoise family and boasting the local specialities (socca, panini, bruschetta...)-- as well as art galleries, souvenir shops, and cheap, ready-to-wear imports, all in a hodgepodge radiating out to the east, north and west of the cobbled marketplace of the Cour Saleya, like the points of a compass, with the southern point immersed in the blue sea. This marketplace is set just back of two low, solid lines of shore-front buildings, the first row formed by renovated fishermen's homes, with a narrow road behind, then a solid line of dinky, derelict shopbacks lining the south side of the Cour. These two rows of buildings deflect the winds off the Mediterranean, and protect the food traders and farmers who haul in their produce for the hungry city every morning but Monday, when there is an all-day flower market and antique stands instead.

The streets of the Old Town are like the rays of a wild atom, for no two were ever laid symmetrically, or logically. Instead, each winds as it will, having suited the needs at the time of expansion, but which are long-forgotten today. In these tortuous streets, too narrow for cars, between the tall, squashed-up, centuries-old ochre habitations, flower boxes and the day's wash hang overhead, blocking out what sun tries to filter in, forming tunnels resembling a warren.

Nowadays, Nice's firm place in the world-class travel industry has turned the Cour Saleya into a mob-infested concentration of wall-to-wall restaurants, where much of the broad outdoor space is filled, in good weather, with neat corrals of parasoled terrace tables. A Brigade from the local Hygiene Department regularly descends here, leaving rented freight trucks waiting in the wider fringe streets, where such vehicles can pass, ready to cart out, each time, tons of confiscated meat and fish and cheese, all at various stages of rotting, which would otherwise be dressed up and served to unwary consumers. These last are essentially tourists who are not aware of the Cour's reputation and the practices of some of its restaurants. These last well know that theirs is not a repeat clientele, so that customer satisfaction counts far less than cost margin. Some of these establishments also boast late-night jazz bands inside, intended to lure the unsuspecting to an overpriced drink, often accompanied by at least one proposition from a specimen of the many human maggots who eke sustenance from the fresh fodder that daily wanders into the Old Town.

The innocent, the naive, and the uninformed enter this Den of Iniquity, most to escape unscathed, but, for some, to learn a more or less major lesson, leaving their ingenuousness once and for all behind, violated and sullied, on the altar of common, ubiquitous experience as it unfolds there daily. Here, human cockroaches crawl the night away, and bloodsuckers crouch, waiting in dark nooks and crannies, stirring for each new potential victim, and the prospect of a meal.

Into this netherworld, one summer evening, some few years ago, tread a sweet, wholesome, young American woman-- we'll call her Diane... She was in Nice for the first time and, being of a romantic nature, she was under the spell of Fitzgerald's city (which may even have existed once, many years ago...). Diane was also alone. Naively attributing her own benevolence to all Humanity, as innocent young women will sometimes do, she wandered into the Cour Saleya looking for nothing more than a pleasant evening. Although it was late, nearly midnight, the Cour was still mobbed, on that hot summer evening, with crowds of noisy people, families even, sitting at the tables splayed outside in the Cour. She had a salad at one such place, more from lack of knowing what else to do than from hunger. The nice American family at the next table --mother, father, and their adolescent son and daughter-- suggested she might like the live jazz in one of the Cour's 'hotspots'. So, when she left them, she wandered over to the nearest place, following the sounds of live music.

There was such an underlying murmur of voices and other noise that it partially covered the sounds of the instruments wafting from within, through a fog of cigarette smoke. She entered the dark establishment a bit hesitantly, threading a path around the people milling in the doorway. The ceiling inside was low and the half-light oppressive, yet the music was thrilling, vibrating in the air and luring her on. Jazz is always such happy music, even when it is sad, that it gave her the courage to forge her way on in. She slipped, hardly noticed, around figures in the thick crowd, towards the brightest light, which was not very bright, and found herself at the bar, in front of a single empty stool. She sat down and immediately a bartender materialized. She ordered a soft drink and within seconds the bottle appeared in front of her, half its contents poured out into a glass beside it on the counter.

She swivelled on her stool, in the direction of the musicians, although she could see little of them because of the wall of people standing and milling in between.

Suddenly, she felt hot breath, as someone whispered in her ear from behind. She jerked around to see two men leering at her over the counter. She didn't like their looks, either one of them. That must have shown in her face, as the nearest, quite short, stocky and muscular, with a cowlick dangling over his forehead, stopped smiling. The line of his mouth tightened and he threw a comment over his shoulder, to the fellow behind him, although his hard eyes never left hers. The second man was only medium-sized, but seemed much taller because of the contrast with the first. He had dark olive skin and dark oily hair, and he continued to leer at her, also with a hard gleam in his eye, as if he was amused at her expense. She imagined that he would leer exactly like this at the sight and the sound of someone being tortured.

Diane turned away from these two, showing them her back, as final as if she had slammed a door. But the finality she wanted was not to be.

Suddenly, she felt two arms surround her, coming from behind, then the weight of two hands on her breasts. She looked down. Yes, there were two hand there. Her eyes registered, on the right hand, an ugly white scar, between the thumb and the index finger, tapering towards the wrist.

She was so shocked by the audacity, not to mention the intimacy, of this gesture, that she was at a loss, for a single instant, as to how to react. But then, indignation and outrage set in, as she shuddered in revulsion and recoiled. The two hands reacted by squeezing her while, at the same time, her eyes settled on the glass of soft drink, still half-full, on the counter beside her. Without thinking, impulsively, she seized the glass, whirling on her stool, building up momentum. The hands on her breasts were thrown off, and the next thing she knew, the contents of her glass went hurtling at the man who had dared to put his hands on her, the unplanned aim a perfect hit. The short, stocky fellow with the cowlick took the dark liquid directly in his eyes.

The soft drink dripped down his face, onto his pants, but his eyes never left hers. They were terrible to see. Pure rage boiled in them, and wild hatred. Suddenly, Diane no longer felt indignation, but fear... Did the little fellow glance at the counter? Later, she would not be able to remember, for if he had, the movement had been lightening fast, reptilian, too quick to notice.

She saw his lips screw up with the force of a physical movement, but she noticed nothing else, mesmerized by what was in his eyes. And so, she did not see his hand swing the soft drink bottle off the counter, vertically, aiming directly at her face.

She did not see the blow coming and took it, fully exposed, on the mouth. The force behind the thick glass bottle whipped her head back. Suddenly, she felt hard objects on her tongue. Thinking they were shards of glass, she spat them out. Only then did she realize that she had spit out her two front teeth.

For a moment, stunned, she forgot about her assailant. In any case, he and his jerky friend were gone, having evaporated into the milling throng. Somewhere, it came back to her, she had heard that if you have an accident and your teeth are knocked out, you should keep them safely warm in your mouth, for they are living things, and can be reimplanted by a dental surgeon, if done quickly enough.

Despite being numb and dazed, she slipped off the barstool onto the floor, feeling around with her hands in the litter and dust. She had to find her two front teeth! But suddenly, she was jerked up by the arm.

'Hey!' It was another brawny man, but bigger this time, dressed in a dark suit, a white shirt and wearing a bow-tie. 'Hey! You can't stay here like this!'

'I'm looking for my teeth!' she answered him, realizing as she did that she was speaking gibberish without her front teeth to form the sounds into words. 'Please help me find my teeth!' she begged the man. He was looking at her with disgust and revulsion.

'You should see yourself!' he told her, and although her French was limited, she understood what he meant. 'Do you have any idea what you look like? Why, you're frightening our customers!'

'Help me! Help me!' she begged him. At least he could understand that! 'I've got to find my teeth!'

'Come with me,' he said, and he forced her, weeping, away from the bar and through the crowd, down a long dark corridor behind a curtain, stopping in front of a door. This he opened, pushing her through. She heard the door slam behind her and realized that she was outside, under the starry night sky. It was suddenly dramatically quiet, by contrast, and the dark street was completely deserted. Now there was no one to help!

She tried to think. How long had her teeth been on the bar-room floor? Five minutes? Could they still be saved? And how could she have been thrown out like this, in the dark, alone, in such a condition? She put a hand to her mouth, where the raw, empty sockets of her missing teeth were beginning to throb. A thin trickle of blood was on her swelling lower lip. That must be what the gorilla meant. She must look a fright-- but that wasn't her fault! She had to find her teeth! Time was running out!

She saw no way back into the Cour. Still, she had to be in a peripheral street. There was only the shut-up backs of restaurants, the road, and the line of fishermen's homes, from behind. All was dark, except under streetlights, and deadly quiet.

She turned, still looking for an opening back into the Cour. Then, she heard a car approaching, a white sedan with POLICE written across the flank. She ran to it, waving... They had to help her get her teeth back!

The two officers looked at her, stopped the car, and quickly got out. They weren't smiling. She tried to explain, but they didn't want to listen. Only then did she realize that she wasn't speaking French. Why, they didn't understand what she was saying!

One officer opened the back door of the patrol car and the other pushed her, not very gently, inside. She was crying now, and her tears mingled with the blood on her chin, dripping down onto her dress. One officer got in beside her, turning towards her in the car, obviously keeping an eye on her. But she wasn't a criminal! The criminals, they had gotten away! And where were her teeth? Somewhere, in her head, a voice said, it's too late, now, to save them. They were gone forever. But no! --another inner voice screamed as she clenched her hands into fists and lifted her head and wailed. The two men in the car with her protested noisily...

They brought her, in a few minutes, to a police station, where there were bright lights and the looks of shock and revulsion on the faces of other uniformed officers, men and women. No one seemed to care that she might be hurt and traumatized. They put her in a small, empty room, in front of a desk behind which there was a computer. They indicated that she should wait, and then they left her alone. She lay her head down on her arms on the desk and wept. Sheer frustration and humiliation and indignation boiled inside her, but to no avail. She did not even try to wipe the blood and the tears away. What had she to be ashamed of?

After a while, her crying being after all useless, she wiped her eyes with the skirt of her dress and saw, though the frosted window in the narrow door, the shadow of a man with an officer's cap standing outside. They thought she was going to try to run away? Well, after all, she ought to, if for nothing else, then to get medical attention, which is what she needed...

While she was trying, still dazed, to figure this situation out, a short balding man in civilian clothes bustled in, followed by the uniformed officer at the door. The latter stood again in front of the door, but this time inside, watching the proceedings.

The shorter of the two, the one in civilian clothes, sat behind the desk, turned on the computer and, glancing at her several times, eyes inscrutable, finally settled himself and found what he was looking for on the screen. Then, he said, 'Passport?”

Evidently, he was talking to her. She still had her little bag, hanging from a strap around her shoulder and head. She slipped it off, into her lap, and rummaged inside, bringing out the blue booklet and handing it to the man across the desk.

'I need a doctor,' she tried to say as best she could. 'Can't you take me to a doctor?'

The man was studying her document, and didn't bother to answer.

'Vous êtes américaine?' he finally asked.

'American, yes.' she answered. 'I need a doctor. Docteur?'

The man sighed, still oblivious to her request. 'Doctor'-- surely it was the same word in French? Or at least comprehensible?

The officer opened a drawer in his desk, peered inside, then drew out a yellowed paper in a plastic cover. He studied it a moment, then picked up the phone and tapped out a number on the key pad.

'Allo? Madame Gonzales? Ici le Commissariat Foch...' He continued in rapid-fire French, too fast for Diane to follow, before passing her the receiver, across the desk. Diane lifted it to her ear.

'Hello?' she said hesitantly. Her eyes settled on a photograph of the President of the Republic, captured in a Napoleonic pose, eyes fixed gravely on the camera. One sensed that his expression had been mastered in long apprenticeship in front of a mirror The ironic, mocking turn of the lips, however, undid the general effect. A little Napoleon, indeed!

'Hello,' the woman's voice come over the wirer.. 'I'm the secretary at the American Consular Agency. You're American?'

'Yes,' said Diane. She tried, with her upper lip, to compensate for her missing incisors, as well as to hide the gap they left in her row of upper teeth. 'I've been aggressed. Two men. In a night club. One hit me in the mouth with a bottle and knocked out my front teeth...' She couldn't help herself, she began to sob. 'My teeth! My teeth! What am I going to do?'

'Where are you staying?' the voice in her ear remained calm and focused. Diane tried to match it by remaining calm herself. After all, this was just a problem and for every problem there is a solution....

'With friends...'

'Can one of them come to get you there?'

'No! My girlfriend is going to have a baby... Any day now. And her husband works. I can't wake them up in the middle of the night for such a horrible thing!'

'Yes,' said the woman's voice, 'but it's also horrible for you... So, how can I help?'

'I want to see a doctor... And a dentist-- I'll need a dentist! But my teeth! They're still on the floor of that nightclub!' She was on the verge of sobbing again. 'But it's probably too late now to save them...'

'Shall I ask these officers to take you to the hospital? There's a good one practically across the street from the station where you are.'

'Can I see someone for my mouth there? It's still bleeding...'

'I'm sure they'll give you the emergency help you need. But for a dentist, you may have to wait until tomorrow.'

'What time is it now?' She didn't want to hang up, to be left alone with these two men who were so indifferent to her plight.

'It's two-thirty in the morning.'

'Will these policemen take me back to my friends' place, afterwards?'

'I'll ask them if they will... Otherwise, do you have money for a taxi?'

'Yes, I do...'

So, at least the next step was decided, how to go on after this horrible intrusion into her life-- and by strangers-- thugs!-- hoodlums! Still, no one was thinking about making this up to her. No one was talking about going to look for the two who were responsible for this crime... No one had even asked for a description! And her teeth! But that was clearly hopeless now. Still, they were hers, and she wanted them back! She didn't want them trampled in the dirt and dust of a bar-room floor. But what she wanted didn't seem to count for anything here. She was living a nightmare!

The man behind the desk had taken back the receiver and was listening and barking smartly at the woman on the other end of the line. He wanted to appear efficient in this situation, where, in reality, Diane could see that he didn't know what to do... She watched him, her head feeling dull, drugged. What had she to react to now? No one was paying any attention to her! She was just a problem that needed foisting off onto someone else, and as quickly as possible.

The man banged down the receiver, then lifted it to his ear again, all in the same gesture. He tapped two numbers out on the keypad, then shouted over the line, 'Allo? Allo?' Finally, someone answered him. He barked out an order; then hung up. 'You stay!' he told her in English, then went out of the room, his uniformed colleague deferentially opening the door for him.

She looked at the man in the uniform, who stepped outside and closed the door, then resumed his post on guard, she could see through the frosted glass.

She sat waiting, and hoped it would not be for long, because all the horror of her situation came to overwhelm her again with self-pity, without distractions to keep her mind occupied. She had never been one to give in to self-pity, but it was really an almost overwhelming emotion, under the circumstances.

'I'll get out of this!' Diane promised herself. 'I won't let them hurt me any more than they already have...'

The door opened briskly and the plain-clothes man stood just inside, motioning her to come. She stood up, and was surprised to find she needed to steady herself with a hand on the desktop.

'You come!' the man said, and turning smartly he led the way down the neon-lit corridor to the station's reception. He motioned her again, to proceed down the flight of steps to the parking area in front of the station. There a police car was waiting, the engine turning over, with two uniformed officers up front inside. The plain-clothes man opened the back door of the car and motioned her inside. Diane noticed that despite the warm night, she was trembling with cold. 'It's probably still shock', she thought.

The plain-clothes man did not say goodbye to her. Once in the vehicle, he slammed shut the door, said something to his colleagues inside, then turned and bounded up the steps into the Commissariat once more. She felt sure that his concern for her was finished. How desolate that made her feel! How humiliating! But, the idea suddenly came to her, that is probably how he copes with seeing the same kind of thing, day after day, month after month, year after year. There were too many like her that he had seen. Now, such a sight left little impression at all...

They went around a corner and down two blocks, then pulled into an open yard behind an automatic barrier that was raised to let them pass, as they approached. The officers saluted the man in the guard's post as they rolled in, no questions asked, in their police cruiser. They stopped by a brightly lit arcade where a neon sign burned a bright white rectangle with big red lettering on it : URGENCES. The two officers parked, got out, and opened the back door for her. She got out. They motioned her forward and, one on each side, they went with her into the building and down a corridor where ambulance drivers were loitering beside gurneys, then through swinging doors and into a busy reception area where huddled people sat on chairs pushed up against all the walls. Behind a glass-walled box, white-coats and uniformed nurses bustled busily. There was a counter, and an opening in the glass, similar to a bank counter. The officers led her there, pushed a paper across and into the box, towards the woman inside. She asked them a question or two, then turned away, and the officers turned, too, leading Diane to an empty seat between a young mother with a crying baby and an old man on crutches. Once she sat down, the officers started to leave her. 'No!' she shouted. 'Wait!'

'You stay,' one of the men told her. 'The doctor, he come. Wait!'

She saw by a huge clock on the wall inside the glass reception box that it was three o'clock. Should she just leave and go back to her friends' apartment? But no, she had to see a doctor. There might be some treatment she need to have, quickly. Anti-biotics, maybe...

Diane sat down, worried, exhausted, traumatized. What was she going to do? Well, there didn't seem to be much choice. She had to wait. Just wait. And hope for the best.

It occurred to her that the Police had not taken a statement about her aggression... But with the language difficulty that was probably impossible. And her teeth were still back there, on that barroom floor. Even if they were of no more use to her, it seemed horrible to let them go like that. But what became of them was the least of her worries, at the moment.

After a long time, with the people waiting before her being received at the rate of one every forty-five minutes, while she was trying to remain numb, and doze, so as to be able to remain calm in her predicament, a middle-aged man in a tan summer suit, and wearing a straw hat with a dark band placed squarely on his head, suddenly erupted into the emergency waitingroom, bustling busily, looking left and right, his eyes suddenly settling on her.

He planted his heavy, stooped body directly in front of her where she sat, exhausted and friendless, huddled into herself, like a beaten puppy who fears to be beaten again.

'You're the American who was aggressed in the Cours Saleya?' he asked her.

Dazed, she looked up at him while the echo of his words sounded in her head. Finally, she found an answer to his question.

'Yes. I was aggressed. In the Cours Saleya... They knocked out my two front teeth with a soda bottle.' She was getting better at compensating for the loss of her teeth when she spoke, by keeping her upper lip tight against the gap. Nevertheless, there was still a distortion, and the unnatural use of her lip made her hide her mouth behind a hand when she spoke. She was so weary, she hardly cared anymore. And besides, what did she have to be ashamed of?

The big lumbering white walrus in front of her shifted his weight, then lowered his bulk to sit beside her.

'My name is Horatius Addington. I'm from Middlesex, in England. I'm a journalist with the local expatriate magazine and I often help the police with cases like yours, when there are no officers on duty who speak English...'

He took out a crumpled handkerchief and wiped his sweaty brow under the straw hat. The skin of his jowls sagged in great folds hanging on either side of his fleshy mouth.

'Do you want to tell me what happened?' he asked her.

Diane sighed. Not a very big sigh. She was down to near the bottom of her energy. And this Horatius Addington was repulsive to her. She even detected garlic on his breath. But he was the only one, so far, in this whole nightmare, who had offered her an ounce of compassion. She could hardly turn him away. Besides, he might be able to do something to help her.

'I'm here visiting a girlfriend. She's married to a Frenchman. She's going to have a baby any day now, and he works. They didn't want to go out, and I did. I had a salad in the Cours Salaya, then I went to listen to some jazz...'

'Where?'

'I never looked at the name of the place. It was near the restaurant. Across, in fact... One of those places with tables in the middle of the Cours...'

'Near the arched portal?'

'Yes, just beside it. I remember seeing that... All the people coming in and going out that way, while I was eating.'

When Horatius Addington had determined the location of the jazz bar, he asked her to recount what had happened, from the moment she entered until the aggression. She told him, every detail, right up to being pushed out into the backstreet, alone and wounded and bleeding. She explained how the Police had had so little sympathy with her plight. And how they had taken no heed of her desire to get her teeth back. 'But it's too late for them, now...' she finished.

'Yes,' Horatius agreed. 'It's too late to save them. But what happened to you is horrible!' His voice took on a note of compassion which immediately lifted Diane's spirits. 'What are you going to do now?' he asked her. As if she knew!

'Well, I guess I should see a doctor. And a dentist...' She paused. 'Then, I think I'd better go home. Back to the States. I'm going to need help with my teeth... I hope a dentist here can make something temporary, to cover the gap...'

'I'll wait with you,' Horatius told her. 'We'll see what can be done.'

But when her turn came, the doctor and nurse wouldn't let Horatius go in with Diane, not even to act as a translator. Still he promised to wait for her, and to take her back to the police station afterwards, so as to help her make her statement, in French.

Again, she was traumatized by the doctor and by the nurse that assisted him. He took her by the chin, turned her head one way, then the other, looking for marks or bruises. He roughly lifted her lip, pinching it smartly, surveying the damage. Then he wrote a prescription, handed it to the nurse, and without further ado, and not a word to her, he left the tiny examination room.

'Never mind,' Horatius said when she told him. She realized that this big lumbering walrus had taken her under his wing. It was the only source of comfort she had, and she clung to it, as she clung to the arm he offered her. 'We'll walk back to the station, it's not far...'

On the way, he told her about the night rides he sometimes took with the police, and writing up stories about what they encountered, which made good articles for his magazine. 'They only have five officers on patrol at night, for the whole city...' he confided. He had lived in Nice for more than fifty years, and, according to himself, he knew everyone and everything there was to know. 'Already, France isn't what the tourists think', he told her. 'And Nice even less. Maybe it's not worse here, but it is more flagrant...' She didn't know what he meant, but she wasn't interested enough to ask for explanations. It was just comforting to hear his voice, talking to her, as they walked through what was left of the night, under a starry sky that was beginning to brighten on the eastern horizon, beyond the ridge of nearby mountains that were just visible over the rooftops.

This time, they were received at the station almost immediately by a uniformed officer, who took them to another little room with a desk and a computer.

'The advantage here,' Horatius told her, 'is that they take complaints all night long. At this hour, it's usually pretty quiet here. Not always, but usually...'

With Horatius's help, Diane was able to make herself understood and to recount the details of what had happened to her in the jazz bar.

'I know the place,' Horatius told the officer. 'It's called 'The Storm'. It's got a reputation for being wild. Sometimes the girls going in get doused, so that their clothes will adhere to their bodies... and reveal their curves...'

The officer --tall, young, bored-- looked at him without comment. He just kept up his two-finger typing on the computer keyboard. Even Horatius seemed to be getting irritated with this air of official indifference.

'I'll write about this,' he promised Diane, as if to compensate. 'And I have a radio show on a local ex-pat station. I'll mention it there, too... We'll put pressure on them to clean up their act.'

Finally, it was over. The officer printed out five pages onto each of which Diane was asked to put her signature. One copy was for her. She folded it and put it in the little purse on the strap around her shoulder.

'In fact,' Horatius continued as they walked down the steps outside, 'I'll have you interviewed for the radio. That will put the pressure on right away. I know how things work around here. I know a lot of important people. We won't let this rest! I'll make sure something is done!'

He walked her back to her friend's apartment, for she would never have been able to find her way alone, although it was not far.

'Give me a phone number where I can reach you,' Horatius said by way of farewell. 'I'll be in touch tomorrow. Maybe not bright and early, but I'll organize something for you, then I'll be in touch.'

Once alone inside the apartment building, Diane climbed the stairs slowly, turned the latch slowly, and found her way into the guest room without making too much noise. She couldn't tell if anyone had heard her come in or not. Time enough to advise her friends of what had happened, in the morning. In the meantime, she undressed, washed her face, studying the gap in her mouth, trying to accept it. Then, finally, she went to bed, her tongue tracing the gap in her row of upper teeth. She was disfigured, at least for a while. Yes, the best idea was to get on a plane and go home, as quickly as possible. Continuing with her trip was now unthinkable. She fell asleep imagining the reactions of family and friends to what had happened to her. If this were California, there would be trouble. The police here weren't doing much, but the police there would do something. Besides which, she had friends. Her friends would go and make a fuss at that jazz club. They'd find the two men responsible and make them sorry! Here, it didn't look like anything was going to be done. She was left alone, except for Horatius Addington.

Would it do any good to be interviewed on the radio? But bad publicity has an effect, and American tourists, or rather the dollars they spent, ought to be important enough to make a dent in the indifference with which she had been treated.

Yes. She would accept to be interviewed. Then, she would go home. And take care of her mouth...

What a nightmare her happy summer vacation had become!

 

Author's Epilogue : The real Horatius Addington, sad to say, lacked the courage of his convictions and, threatened with a lawsuit by the establishment in which this incident took place, he shamelessly did a 180° about-face and ended up promoting it on his radio show... This recital is my tribute to 'Diane', wherever she is today, for what she had to go through. It is, as well, a fist in the air for a certain ideal of Justice, even if it can only exist in public opinion, and even if it can never undo the harm that was done... Life without an ideal of Justice would be, in my opinion, Kafkaesque.

 

* Title borrowed for the purposes of this publication only.