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‘NATO conference on falsification of cargo manífests, held in Bonn, April 1956. You represented BAOR, if I remember rightly.’
‘You talk in endless riddles,’ I said. ‘I’ve never been in Bonn.’
‘You are a glib fellow,’ said Loiseau. ‘Another ten minutes and you’d convince me I’d never been there.’ He turned to the assistant who was waiting to conduct me downstairs. ‘Count the fire extinguishers after he’s left,’ said Loiseau. ‘And on no account shake hands with him; you might find yourself being thrown into the Faubourg St Honoré.’
Loiseau’s assistant took me down to the door. He was a spotty-faced boy with circular metal-framed spectacles that bit deep into his features like pennies that had grown into the trunk of a tree. ‘Goodbye,’ I said as I left him, and gave him a brief smile. He looked through me, nodding to the policeman on sentry who eased the machine gun on his shoulder. Abandoning the entente cordiale I walked towards the Faubourg St Honoré looking for a taxi. From the gratings in the road there came the sound of a Métro train, its clatter muffled by four huddled clochards anxious for the warmth of the sour subterranean air. One of them came half-awake, troubled by a bad dream. He yelled and then mumbled.
On the corner an E-type was parked. As I turned the corner the headlights flashed and it moved towards me. I stood well back as the door swung open. A woman’s voice said, ‘Jump in.’
‘Not right now,’ I said.
6
Maria Chauvet was thirty-two years old. She had kept her looks, her gentleness, her figure, her sexual optimism, her respect for men’s cleverness, her domestication. She had lost her girlhood friends, her shyness, her literary aspirations, her obsession with clothes and her husband. It was a fair swop, she decided. Time had given her a greater measure of independence. She looked around the art gallery without seeing even one person that she really desired to see again. And yet they were her people: the ones she had known since her early twenties, the people who shared her tastes in cinema, travel, sport and books. Now she no longer wished to hear their opinions about the things she enjoyed and she only slightly wished to hear their opinions about the things she hated. The paintings here were awful, they didn’t even show a childish exuberance; they were old, jaded and sad. She hated things that were too real. Ageing was real; as things grew older they became more real, and although age wasn’t something she dreaded she didn’t want to hurry in that direction.
Maria hoped that Loiseau wasn’t going to be violent with the Englishman that he had taken away. Ten years ago she would have said something to Loiseau, but now she had learned discretion, and discretion had become more and more vital in Paris. So had violence, come to that. Maria concentrated on what the artist was saying to her. ‘… the relationships between the spirit of man and the material things with which he surrounds himself …’
Maria had a slight feeling of claustrophobia; she also had a headache. She should take an aspirin, and yet she didn’t, even though she knew it would relieve the pain. As a child she had complained of pain and her mother had said that a woman’s life is accompanied by constant pain. That’s what it’s like to be a woman, her mother had said, to know an ache or a pain all day, every day. Her mother had found some sort of stoic satisfaction in that statement, but the prospect had terrified Maria. It still terrified her and she was determined to disbelieve it. She tried to disregard all pains, as though by acknowledging them she might confess her feminine frailty. She wouldn’t take an aspirin.
She thought of her ten-year-old son. He was living with her mother in Flanders. It was not good for the child to spend a lot of time with elderly people. It was just a temporary measure and yet all the time he was there she felt vaguely guilty about going out to dinner or the cinema, or even evenings like this.
‘Take that painting near the door,’ said the artist. ‘“Holocaust quo vadis?” There you have the vulture that represents the ethereal and …’
Maria had had enough of him. He was a ridiculous fool; she decided to leave. The crowd had become more static now and that always increased her claustrophobia, as did people in the Métro standing motionless. She looked at his flabby face and his eyes, greedy and scavenging for admiration among this crowd who admired only themselves. ‘I’m going now,’ she said. ‘I’m sure the show will be a big success.’
‘Wait a moment,’ he called, but she had timed her escape to coincide with a gap in the crush and she was through the emergency exit, across the cour and away. He didn’t follow her. He probably already had his eye on some other woman who could become interested in art for a couple of weeks.
Maria loved her car, not sinfully, but proudly. She looked after it and drove it well. It wasn’t far to the rue des Saussaies. She positioned the car by the side of the Ministry of the Interior. That was the exit they used at night. She hoped Loiseau wouldn’t keep him there too long. This area near the Élysée Palace was alive with patrols and huge Berliot buses, full of armed cops, the motors running all night in spite of the price of petrol. They wouldn’t do anything to her, of course, but their presence made her uncomfortable. She looked at her wristwatch. Fifteen minutes the Englishman had been there. Now, the sentry was looking back into the courtyard. This must be him. She flashed the headlights of the E-type. Exactly on time; just as Loiseau had told her.
7
The woman laughed. It was a pleasant musical laugh. She said, ‘Not in an E-type. Surely no whore solicits from an E-type. Is it a girl’s car?’ It was the woman from the art gallery.
‘Where I come from,’ I said, ‘they call them hairdressers’ cars.’
She laughed. I had a feeling that she had enjoyed my mistaking her for one of the motorized prostitutes that prowled this district. I got in alongside her and she drove past the Ministry of the Interior and out on to the Malesherbes. She said,
‘I hope Loiseau didn’t give you a bad time.’
‘My resident’s card was out of date.’
‘Poof!’ she scoffed. ‘Do you think I’m a fool? You’d be at the Prefecture if that was the case, not the Ministry of the Interior.’
‘So what do you think he wanted?’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘Who can tell? Jean-Paul said you’d been asking questions about the clinic on the Avenue Foch.’
‘Suppose I told you I wish I’d never heard of the Avenue Foch?’
She put her foot down and I watched the speedometer spin. There was a screech of tyres as she turned on to the Boulevard Haussmann. ‘I’d believe you,’ she said. ‘I wish I’d never heard of it.’
I studied her. She was no longer a girl – perhaps about thirty – dark hair and dark eyes; carefully applied make-up; her clothes were like the car, not brand-new but of good quality. Something in her relaxed manner told me that she had been married and something in her overt friendliness told me she no longer was. She came into the Étoile without losing speed and entered the whirl of traffic effortlessly. She flashed the lights at a taxi that was on a collision course and he sheered away. In the Avenue Foch she turned into a driveway. The gates opened.
‘Here we are,’ she said. ‘Let’s take a look.’
The house was large and stood back in its own piece of ground. At dusk the French shutter themselves tightly against the night. This gaunt house was no exception.
Near to, the cracks in the plaster showed like wrinkles in a face carelessly made-up. The traffic was pounding down the Avenue Foch but that was over the garden wall and far away.
‘So this is the house on the Avenue Foch,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ said the girl.
The big gates closed behind us. A man with a flashlight came out of the shadows. He had a small mongrel dog on a chain.
‘Go ahead,’ said the man. He waved an arm without exerting himself. I guessed that the man was a one-time cop. They are the only people who can stand motionless without loitering. The dog was a German Shepherd in disguise.
We drove down a concrete ramp into a large underground garage. There were about twenty cars there of various expensive foreign makes: Ford GTs, Ferraris, a Bentley convertible. A man standing near the lift called, ‘Leave the keys in.’
Maria slipped off her soft driving shoes and put on a pair of evening shoes. ‘Stay close,’ she said quietly.
I patted her gently. ‘That’s close enough,’ she said.
When we got out of the lift on the ground floor, everything seemed red plush and cut glass – un décor maison-fin-de-siècle – and all of it was tinkling: the laughter, the medals, the ice cubes, the coins, the chandeliers. The main lighting came from ornate gas lamps with pink glass shades; there were huge mirrors and Chinese vases on plinths. Girls in long evening dresses were seated decorously on the wide sweep of the staircase, and in an alcove a barman was pouring drinks as fast as he could work. It was a very fancy affair; it didn’t have the Republican Guard in polished helmets lining the staircase with drawn sabres, but you had the feeling that they’d wanted to come.
Maria leaned across and took two glasses of champagne and some biscuits heaped with caviare. One of the men said, ‘Haven’t seen you for ages.’ Maria nodded without much regret. The man said, ‘You should have been in there tonight. One of them was nearly killed. He’s hurt; badly hurt.’
Maria nodded. Behind me I heard a woman say, ‘He must have been in agony. He wouldn’t have screamed like that unless he had been in agony.’
‘They always do that, it doesn’t mean a thing.’
‘I can tell a real scream from a fake one,’ said the woman.
‘How?’
‘A real scream has no music, it slurs, it … screeches. It’s ugly.’
‘The cuisine,’ said a voice behind me, ‘can be superb; the very finely sliced smoked pork served hot, cold citrus fruits divided in half, bowls of strange hot grains with cream upon it. And those large eggs that they have here in Europe, skilfully fried crisp on the outside and yet the yolk remains almost raw. Sometimes smoked fish of various kinds.’ I turned to face them. The speaker was a middle-aged Chinese in evening dress. He had been speaking to a fellow countryman and as he caught my eye he said, ‘I am explaining to my colleague the fine Anglo-Saxon breakfast that I always enjoy so much.’
‘This is Monsieur Kuang-t’ien,’ said Maria, introducing us.
‘And you, Maria, are exquisite this evening,’ said M. Kuang-t’ien. He spoke a few lines of soft Mandarin.
‘What’s that?’ asked Maria.
‘It is a poem by Shao Hs˘un-mei, a poet and essayist who admired very much the poets of the West. Your dress reminded me of it.’
‘Say it in French,’ said Maria.
‘It is indelicate, in parts.’ He smiled apologetically and began to recite softly.
‘Ah, lusty May is again burning,
A sin is born of a virgin’s kiss;
Sweet tears tempt me, always tempt me
To feel between her breasts with my lips.
Here life is as eternal as death,
As the trembling happiness on a wedding night;
If she is not a rose, a rose all white,
Then she must be redder than the red of blood.’
Maria laughed. ‘I thought you were going to say “she must be redder than the Chinese People’s Republic”.’
‘Ah. Is not possible,’ said M. Kuang-t’ien, and laughed gently.
Maria steered me away from the two Chinese. ‘We’ll see you later,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘He gives me the creeps,’ she whispered.
‘Why?’
‘“Sweet tears”, “if she isn’t white she’ll be red with blood”, death “between breasts”.’ She shook away the thought of it. ‘He has a sick sadistic streak in him that frightens me.’
A man came pushing through the crowd. ‘Who’s your friend?’ he asked Maria.
‘An Englishman,’ said Maria. ‘An old friend,’ she added untruthfully.
‘He looks all right,’ said the man approvingly. ‘But I wished to see you in those high patent shoes.’ He made a clicking sound and laughed, but Maria didn’t. All around us the guests were talking excitedly and drinking. ‘Excellent,’ said a voice I recognized. It was M. Datt. He smiled at Maria. Datt was dressed in a dark jacket, striped trousers and black tie. He looked remarkably calm; unlike so many of his guests, his brow was not flushed nor his collar wrinkled. ‘Are you going in?’ he asked Maria. He looked at his pocket watch. ‘They will begin in two minutes.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Maria.
‘Of course you are,’ said Datt. ‘You know you will enjoy it.’
‘Not tonight,’ said Maria.
‘Nonsense,’ said Datt gently. ‘Three more bouts. One of them is a gigantic Negro. A splendid figure of a man with gigantic hands.’
Datt lifted one of his own hands to demonstrate, but his eyes watched Maria very closely. She became agitated under his gaze and I felt her grip my hand tightly as though in fear. A buzzer sounded and people finished their drinks and moved towards the rear door.
Datt put his hands on our shoulders and moved us the way the crowd went. As we reached the large double doors I saw into the salon. A wrestling ring was set up in the centre and around it were folding chairs formed up in rows. The salon itself was a magnificent room with golden caryatids, a decorated ceiling, enormous mirrors, fine tapestry and a rich red carpet. As the spectators settled the chandeliers began to dim. The atmosphere was expectant.
‘Take a seat, Maria,’ said Datt. ‘It will be a fine fight; lots of blood.’ Maria’s palm was moist in mine.
‘Don’t be awful,’ said Maria, but she let go of my hand and moved towards the seats.
‘Sit with Jean-Paul,’ said Datt. ‘I want to speak with your friend.’
Maria’s hand trembled. I looked around and saw Jean-Paul for the first time. He was seated alone. ‘Go with Jean-Paul,’ said Datt gently.
Jean-Paul saw us, he smiled. ‘I’ll sit with Jean-Paul,’ said Maria to me.
‘Agreed,’ I said. By the time she was seated, the first two wrestlers were circling each other. One was an Algerian I would guess, the other had bright dyed yellow hair. The man with straw hair lunged forward. The Algerian slid to one side, caught him on the hip and butted him heavily with the top of his head. The crack of head meeting chin was followed by the sharp intake of breath by the audience. On the far side of the room there was a nervous titter of laughter. The mirrored walls showed the wrestlers repeated all around the room. The central light threw heavy shadows under their chins and buttocks, and their legs, painted dark with shadow, emerged into the light as they circled again looking for an opening. Hanging in each corner of the room there was a TV camera linked by landline to monitor screens some distance away. The screens were showing the recorded image.
It was evident that the monitor screens were playing recordings, for the pictures were not clear and the action on the screen took place a few seconds later than the actual fighting. Because of this time-lag between recording and playing back the audience were able to swing their eyes to the monitors each time there was an attack and see it take place again on the screen.
‘Come upstairs,’ said Datt.
‘Very well.’ There was a crash; they were on the mat and the fair man was in a leg lock. His face was contorted. Datt spoke without turning to look. ‘This fighting is rehearsed. The fair-haired man will win after being nearly throttled in the final round.’
I followed him up the magnificent staircase to the first floor. There was a locked door. Clinic. Private. He unlocked the door and ushered me through. An old woman was standing in the corner. I wondered if I was interrupting one of Datt’s interminable games of Monopoly.
‘You were to come next week,’ said Datt.
‘Yes he was,’ said the old woman. She smoothed her apron over her hips like a self-conscious maidservant.
‘Next week would have been better,’ said Datt.
‘That’s true. Next week – without the party – would have been better,’ she agreed.
I said, ‘Why is everyone speaking in the past tense?’
The door opened and two young men came in. They were wearing blue jeans and matching shirts. One of them was unshaven.
‘What’s going on now?’ I asked.
‘The footmen,’ said Datt. ‘Jules on the left. Albert on the right. They are here to see fair play. Right?’ They nodded without smiling. Datt turned to me. ‘Just lie down on the couch.’
‘No.’
‘What?’
‘I said no I won’t lie down on the couch.’
Datt tutted. He was a little put out. There wasn’t any mockery or sadism in the tutting. ‘There are four of us here,’ he explained. ‘We are not asking you to do anything unreasonable, are we? Please lie down on the couch.’
I backed towards the side table. Jules came at me and Albert was edging around to my left side. I came back until the edge of the table was biting my right hip so I knew exactly how my body was placed in relation to it. I watched their feet. You can tell a lot about a man from the way he places his feet. You can tell the training he has had, whether he will lunge or punch from a stationary position, whether he will pull you or try to provoke you into a forward movement. Jules was still coming on. His hands were flat and extended. About twenty hours of gymnasium karate. Albert had the old course d’échalotte look about him. He was used to handling heavyweight, over-confident drunks. Well, he’d find out what I was; yes, I thought: a heavyweight, over-confident drunk. Heavyweight Albert was coming on like a train. A boxer; look at his feet. A crafty boxer who would give you all the fouls; the butts, kidney jabs and back of the head stuff, but he fancied himself as a jab-and-move-around artist. I’d be surprised to see him aim a kick in the groin with any skill. I brought my hands suddenly into sparring position. Yes, his chin tucked in and he danced his weight around on the balls of his feet. ‘Fancy your chances, Albert?’ I jeered. His eyes narrowed. I wanted him angry. ‘Come on soft boy,’ I said. ‘Bite on a piece of bare knuckle.’
I saw the cunning little Jules out of the corner of my eye. He was smiling. He was coming too, smooth and cool inch by inch, hands flat and trembling for the killer cut.
I made a slight movement to keep them going. If they once relaxed, stood up straight and began to think, they could eat me up.
Heavyweight Albert’s hands were moving, foot forward for balance, right hand low and ready for a body punch while Jules chopped at my neck. That was the theory. Surprise for Albert: my metal heelpiece going into his instep. You were expecting a punch in the buffet or a kick in the groin, Albert, so you were surprised when a terrifying pain hit your instep. Difficult for the balancing too. Albert leaned forward to console his poor hurt foot. Second surprise for Albert: under-swung flat hand on the nose; nasty. Jules is coming, cursing Albert for forcing his hand. Jules is forced to meet me head down. I felt the edge of the table against my hip. Jules thinks I’m going to lean into him. Surprise for Jules: I lean back just as he’s getting ready to give me a hand edge on the corner of the neck. Second surprise for Jules: I do lean in after all and give him a fine glass paperweight on the earhole at a range of about eighteen inches. The paperweight seems none the worse for it. Now’s the chance to make a big mistake. Don’t pick up the paperweight. Don’t pick up the paperweight. Don’t pick up the paperweight. I didn’t pick it up. Go for Datt, he’s standing he’s mobile and he’s the one who is mentally the driving force in the room.
Down Datt. He’s an old man but don’t underrate him. He’s large and weighty and he’s been around. What’s more he’ll use anything available; the old maidservant is careful, discriminating, basically not aggressive. Go for Datt. Albert is rolling over and may come up to one side of my range of vision. Jules is motionless. Datt is moving around the desk; so it will have to be a missile. An inkstand, too heavy. A pen-set will fly apart. A vase: unwieldy. An ashtray. I picked it up, Datt was still moving, very slowly now, watching me carefully, his mouth open and white hair disarrayed as though he had been in the scuffle. The ashtray is heavy and perfect. Careful, you don’t want to kill him. ‘Wait,’ Datt says hoarsely. I waited. I waited about ten seconds, just long enough for the woman to come behind me with a candlestick. She was basically not aggressive, the maidservant. I was only unconscious thirty minutes, they told me.
