Back Up

by Paul Colize

  ‘You want me to go there, is that it?’

  Yes.

  ‘I will go, my friend, but there are a hundred tombs on that green. I need the plot number.’

  The man looked panic-stricken.

  ‘I promised you this is strictly between ourselves. Do you trust me?’

  The man blinked once, then looked away and lost himself in the television screen.

  Dominique waited.

  After a few minutes, X Midi seemed to have calmed down.

  Dominique addressed him.

  ‘Do you want to talk?’

  The man blinked once. He did.

  Dominique rose to his feet, opened the cupboard, took out the alphabet board and placed it on the bed, facing X Midi.

  He began by counting up the sequence of numbers, but X Midi showed no reaction.

  ‘You don’t know the number, is that it?’

  Yes.

  ‘In that case, give me a name.’

  The man opened his eyes wide and began to perspire.

  Dominique pretended not to notice, and began the sequence of vowels. He continued with the consonants, but X Midi didn’t stop him.

  ‘Can you think? Wait a few days? You want to be sure I am your friend?’

  The man seemed to hesitate.

  ‘Do you want me to start over?’

  Yes.

  Dominique began the sequences again. The man seemed to be racking his brains at each letter, as if he was dreading he might make a mistake, or finding it hard to remember the name he was spelling out.

  The exercise took over half an hour, and resulted in five letters:

  O-D-I-L-E.

  X Midi was sweating profusely. He was exhausted by the effort of concentration.

  Dominique sponged his forehead.

  Now he had the first name, he needed the family name. But he didn’t insist. It would be bad luck indeed if several Odiles lay buried in the same plot of grass.

  ‘I’ll go tomorrow afternoon.’

  The man stared hard at the alphabet board.

  ‘Do you want to add something?’

  X Midi was exhausted, but he indicated that he did.

  The first letter was F.

  The second, L.

  Dominique interrupted the exercise.

  ‘You want me to take her some flowers?’

  The man closed his eyes.

  66: A POOR, CRAZY GUY

  If I’d had a friend like him, my life would have been different. I needed structure, a framework. My ideas weren’t always clear and I didn’t know how to express them. I needed a guide. Someone to listen, understand and advise me.

  There was Sonny, of course.

  He helped get me out of there.

  With hindsight, I don’t know whether I should thank him or blame him.

  Sonny was just a poor, crazy guy.

  67: THE MAN FROM THE BERLIN SESSION

  Michael Stern was forced to wait until Wednesday, December the twentieth before he could get to London.

  On that day, the British Foreign Secretary, the Right Honorable George Brown, returned from a meeting of the Council of Ministers of the Six to inform the House of Commons of ‘the action to be taken by the Government’ following the refusal (by France) of the United Kingdom’s latest application to join the European Community.

  Foreign affairs were not Stern’s speciality, but since no other journalist on the Belfast Telegraph had agreed to go, he put himself forward to cover the story.

  On his return from Berlin in late November, Stern had had a lively exchange with his wife, who accused him of neglecting his family life and depleting their savings to finance an enquiry that his editor-in-chief had not approved. Eager to avoid another row, he had agreed to drop the affair.

  He let a few days pass, then returned to his enquiries with the utmost discretion.

  In early December, he re-established contact with Nick Kohn, the London music columnist, and asked him to find out about an English group who had played in Berlin at the beginning of the year. The band were called the Frames, and their singer was called Mary. He also wanted to know if Kohn knew of a Canadian drummer called Jacques Berger.

  Before cutting the call, he begged Kohn to keep his request secret. Kohn said he would.

  A week later, Kohn called him back.

  He had found the information with ease. The Frames were a five-piece English pop-rock group: four musicians and a girl singer. Apart from the latter, who was called Mary-Ann McGregor, the line-up had changed fairly frequently. The group had broken up after their return from Berlin, and a new combo had formed shortly after, known as Mary and The Governors. Mary, and one of the guitarists from the Frames, formed the core of the new group.

  A drummer – the aforementioned Jacques Berger – a bassist and an English guitarist had been hired immediately.

  The group was promising, but a personal drama had halted their ascent. In June, the drummer had left a small-time Brixton drug dealer grievously wounded in a fight. He had been on the run ever since. The singer, who had been present at the time, was traumatised. She had been treated for a form of nervous depression, but was well now, and singing again.

  She was leading a quieter existence, and had changed her repertoire and stage name, calling herself Mary Hunter. She had a residency at the Dorchester, the luxury hotel on Park Lane, where she performed seven days a week during happy hour, to the delight of wealthy tourists and businessmen. Twice a week, she sang a late-night set at a Soho bar, the Village, where she was accompanied by Bob Hawkins, a former guitarist from the Frames and The Governors.

  Stern thanked Kohn for the information.

  The newshound in him was pleased to have picked up Berger’s scent, but just as he thought he was closing in, the man had gone on the run, and no one knew where he was.

  On December the twentieth, after conducting a few interviews connected with the George Brown story, Stern made his way to the Dorchester.

  Mary Hunter was a frail-looking young woman with a pale complexion. She wore a long black dress that didn’t look as if it belonged to her. She wore no make-up, and no jewellery.

  Stern was seduced straightaway by her voice. She exerted a powerful fascination from the opening notes of each song.

  He noticed that, unusually for a venue like the Dorchester, the clientele stopped drinking and talking to listen to her.

  Her accompanying pianist laid it on pretty thick, frowning, gesticulating, taking the applause as if it was meant for him.

  When the set was over, Stern approached Mary and asked if he could speak to her. Instinctively, she recoiled from the small, insignificant-looking man, with his forced smile. He explained that he was a journalist, investigating a story about a series of events that had taken place in Berlin while she was playing there with her former group.

  Reluctantly, she agreed to talk, and suggested they go somewhere else. Stern left the bar and waited for her outside the hotel entrance. She reappeared a few minutes later, wearing jeans and a big woollen sweater. The outfit made her look frailer still. Stern noticed she had a slight turn in her eye.

  They went to a pub near the hotel, where she supplied brief answers to his questions.

  She had been in a relationship with Jacques Berger. They had been together less than a year. While he was in Berlin with her, he had played a back-up gig, a last-minute replacement for the drummer of a rock group who were due to make a recording. The record had never been released. They had separated in June. She’d had no news since.

  This was all she had to say on the subject of Berlin and Jacques Berger.

  Stern could see he would get nothing more; once again, his investigation was stalling. He told her about the four members of Pearl Harbor and their strange deaths, just days apart. He told her everything he had found out, omitting nothing. Finally, he confided that in his opinion, the recording session was directly linked to the suspicious deaths.

  The young woman’s attitude changed completely. She s
eemed genuinely frightened by what she heard.

  She said she had thought Jacques Berger was imagining things, that he had hallucinated the whole incident. She saw now that he may not have been mistaken. She said she still loved him. She wanted to know what he was doing, and she was ready to help the journalist with his investigation.

  Stern ordered a fresh round of drinks, and Mary Hunter began her version of the story, from the beginning.

  During the recording session, one of the musicians had offered Jacques some LSD. He had never tried it before. He had taken it and had a bad trip. Next day, he was confused and told her a far-fetched story about how he had gone back to the studio and surprised a group of men tampering with the tapes. She’d thought he was still tripping, and paid no attention.

  By early June, they were back in London. Berger had read a news item in one of the daily papers. The article told of a mass brawl that had broken out in a German club, leaving several people dead.

  In a photograph taken at the time, Berger had thought he recognised one of the men present at the Berlin recording session. The picture had upset him. He suspected a conspiracy and was convinced the man had orchestrated the massacre. On the same day, he had quit London, leaving her a note that explained he had to find out the truth.

  He had come back three days later, and found her at a friend’s place. Berger had gone mad, breaking down the door. The two men had gotten into a fight. Berger had seriously injured her friend, and made a run for it. The police enquiry concluded that Berger had acted in legitimate self-defence, but he was not around to testify.

  She hadn’t heard from him since that night.

  Stern asked if she had any, even the vaguest, idea of where Berger might have gone.

  She told him Jacques Berger was an alias, but she didn’t know his true identity. He was a secretive, introverted, uncommunicative man with often muddled ideas. He had told her very little about his childhood, or his past. She knew he had grown up in Brussels, but that was about all. He had been attentive and thoughtful, and she missed him a lot.

  Stern wanted to know if anyone else might be able to tell him more.

  Berger had a friend called Sonny. She didn’t know if it was his real name, or a nickname. She hadn’t seen him since. The two had worked in a record shop. That might be one avenue worth exploring.

  Thin pickings. Stern couldn’t see much use for the information he had gathered. He decided to spend the night in London, and visit the record shop next day.

  He would find his wife an adequate excuse for postponing his return to Belfast.

  Before leaving Mary, he gave her his card and asked if she could remember the name of the newspaper in which Berger had seen the photograph of the man from the Berlin session.

  68: MY OWN STORY

  I had expected to find Montreux buzzing with excitement just a few days ahead of its jazz festival, but all was calm.

  Night had fallen. The lake seemed to be sleeping, the shop windows were dark and the streets deserted. I wandered around town, my footsteps ringing out on the paving stones. Besides the posters, nothing suggested any degree of excitement, or the slightest preparation for the event.

  I took a room in a small hotel in the centre of town, in the quarter known as Les Planches.

  The receptionist was a guy named Andrew, but everyone called him Andy. He had a beanpole figure, carrot-red hair and a relaxed, easy manner. He was four or five years older than me. He came from New York, and had left his native city to travel around the world, stopping over from time to time to work for a few weeks, so that he could finance the next stage of his trip.

  I asked him if there was any work to be had in Montreux. Defeated by the pain in my shoulder, I had given up on the idea of finding a back-up gig during the festival.

  Andy scratched his head. The taxi firm was looking for drivers, but I didn’t have a licence. The grand hotel was looking for a night concierge: theirs had left them in the lurch just days before the festival opened.

  With my decent English, fluent French and smattering of German, he reckoned I stood a chance. But not looking like I did right now.

  Next day, I shaved and got a haircut. I went to the bank and changed my pounds for Swiss francs. Then I made a tour of the boutiques and bought trousers and jackets, shirts and a series of ties. I tried nothing on. My wound was hurting too badly.

  To finish, I swapped my boots for classic English brogues. My purchases took their toll on Brian’s windfall, leaving me with just a few notes.

  I passed unnoticed on the street. I barely recognised myself in the mirror.

  I had been nobody. Now I was Everyman.

  I took two capsules from my stock of Tuinal, from Brian’s stash, and showed up at the Palace Hotel. I met the Head of Reception, and the director.

  I had no references, and don’t remember performing brilliantly at the interview, but I was hired on the spot. The fast-approaching festival was a factor in my favour.

  The job required no particular skills beyond staying awake from 10:00p.m. to 8:00a.m., deciphering the room numbers announced in a variety of languages by the hotel guests, no matter how drunk, and presenting them with the right key.

  The Swiss officials accepted my false papers without a second look. While waiting to regularise my situation, I could begin work on the eve of the festival.

  All I remember of those three days of jazz is the image of a handful of artists crossing the lobby, some staggering dangerously. The stars of that first festival were Keith Jarrett, Jack DeJohnette and Cecil McBee, names that meant nothing to me.

  Perhaps they came to collect their keys. Perhaps they were shocked at my indifference. Insurmountable walls separated the worlds of jazz and rock.

  Throughout the festival and the days that followed, I was seconded by a member of the hotel staff, who had done my job before moving over to room service. He was a cold, distant Swiss by the name of François. He taught me the rudiments in tones loaded with condescension and scorn.

  As well as handing out keys, I made several tours of the hotel during the night, to check the fire doors were closed. I was to turn out the lights in places where they weren’t strictly necessary, and switch on the night lights instead.

  In addition, I had to be able to answer the telephone, and take accurate messages without asking the caller to repeat themselves. I would complete the check-in formalities if people arrived late, and take clients’ bags up to their rooms.

  If asked, I would book taxis, order newspapers, give directions, advise on restaurants or bars, and venues for other nocturnal entertainment. I could also arrange for such entertainment to be sampled at the hotel.

  I needed to know how to do all of this, but above all, I was never to question a client’s request, however extraordinary. I was to respect my superiors, show absolute discretion and find solutions to any and every problem.

  My pay wasn’t great, but the hotel provided me with a room in an annexe. I was allowed one meal when I arrived on duty, and a copious breakfast when I finished each morning.

  Before leaving the hotel, the cook would slip me some delicacies for the rest of the day.

  The job suited me fine. The last waiters left the hotel around midnight, leaving me in sole charge. Apart from the occasional client, there was no one to talk to, and that suited me fine, too.

  The hotel was home to two distinguished guests. The celebrated Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov and his wife had made the Palace their principal residence for several years already. They occupied a suite on the top floor.

  Like everyone, I had read Lolita and Pale Fire. I was dazzled by Nabokov’s poetic style and boundless imagination. I admired him tremendously. He devoted every morning to writing. In the afternoon, he would go walking in the hills, or play tennis.

  Journalists came at regular intervals from all over the world, to interview him. He would receive them in the Green Salon. Towards the end of the afternoon, he would settle into a chaise longue beside the pool.<
br />
  By the time I came on duty, Nabokov had retired for the night. I saw him only a few times, but his haunting presence in the hotel is doubtless what inspired me to write my own story.

  69: A FEW DAYS AFTER THE EVENTS

  Michael Stern quickly laid hands on the newspaper Mary had mentioned.

  The article recounting the tragic events in Ramstein was published in the Daily Telegraph on Monday, June the fifth, in the international news section. Other daily papers had also run the photo, in which Jacques Berger thought he recognised one of the men from the Berlin recording session.

  In the same picture, an emergency response team crowded around three stretchers covered with sheets. Ambulances were parked in the background, their rear doors gaping open. To the right, two policemen were holding back a crowd of curious onlookers. A good thirty or so people stood craning to see what was going on. The small format and poor definition made it impossible to make out their faces.

  How could Berger have identified the man from such a poor reproduction of the photograph?

  Stern persisted nonetheless. There was no way of proving that one face in the crowd belonged to a man who had been present at the Berlin studio on March the fourteenth, but the coincidence was certainly troubling.

  Before hearing Mary Hunter’s story, Stern had suspected the recording might have triggered the deaths of the members of Pearl Harbor. Now he was convinced.

  Something had happened – probably Berger’s reappearance after the other band members had left – and their deaths were the result.

  Berger had talked about individuals tampering with the tapes.

  But why? What could be the connection between this and the Ramstein massacre?

  Berger’s identification of the man in the photograph was tenuous, but worth exploring.

  Stern wanted to know every detail concerning the events in Ramstein, and the conclusions of the enquiry.

  He contacted Hans Bühler; the Bonn correspondent for the Belfast Telegraph. Bühler hadn’t been following the story personally, but he knew the main points.