“Tell your father, little girl. Tell him I’ve returned and I’ll return again.”
Then he strides quickly back the way he came, hands in his pockets, while a door is opened and someone screams. Women’s voices talk about calling the police, quick, does anyone have a telephone?
On the boulevard, he takes another bus, packed, overheated, the windows covered with condensation, where the passengers are crammed together, elbow to elbow, almost standing on another man’s feet, his mouth with its rotten teeth next to a snotty nose, an arm against a cheek, and sometimes eyes staring into yours, people who would kill you if they could just to free up a bit of space. The dark mass of humans rammed inside this bus sways and leans in time with the vehicle’s braking and accelerations and he feels the weight against him of bodies hanging from straps like slabs of meat and suddenly he is suffocating, and mouth open he tries to gulp down air but his panic-crushed chest remains empty and his throat is tightening, so he has to force a way through, slide between two shoulders, dig an elbow in the ribs of some jerk who’s staring at him not getting out of the way or moving at all and he gasps, “Let me past, please, let me out!” and he stretches out like a gymnast on the parallel bars or a diver, above the steps that lead down to the accordion doors marked EXIT, and as soon as they open he jumps outside and staggers over to a wall where he leans, catching his breath, coughing out a few sobs that shudder through his body. Then he walks for about twenty minutes through empty streets, walking quickly, running almost, like a fugitive desperately trying to distance himself from whoever is pursuing him, and all the demons and ghosts that hang on his coat-tails.
He lives in a little apartment on rue Lafontaine, not far from the Marché des Capucins, in a quarter where, for many, Spanish is the language of defeat and exile alike. An entrance hall, a small kitchen lit by a fanlight overlooking a narrow courtyard, and a bedroom. Minimal furniture. A table, two chairs, a sideboard left by the previous tenant, a shelf filled with books. A bed, bought new, is his only luxury. The sheets smell clean, washed every week for 200 francs by a neighbor. He sniffs them every night when he goes to bed, every night he fills his nostrils with this odor of soap and lavender. Then sleep comes quickly and he can abandon himself to it without fear. It’s the best moment of the day, that slow dive, cheek pressed against cool cloth. The nights belong to him now. He knows that the nightmares will wake him in sweat and tears; he knows that he will scream, thinking that he can feel the icy presence of a corpse next to him, and that he’ll have to turn on the bedside lamp to check that he’s alone in his scented sheets; he knows that this will probably never end, but this moment, this solitude, this exquisite pleasure as sleep takes him in its soft warm embrace . . . how he savours these things, grunting like a happy animal.
He puts a few lumps of coal in the stove, stirs things up with a poker, then goes to sit down on a chair without unbuttoning his coat. There, he gets his breath back, looking around unseeingly, his mind filled with the girl’s terrified eyes and the way he felt as he squeezed her throat between his fingers. All-powerful and cowardly. How easy it was, how weak she was, knocked backwards in her panic, utterly defenceless. In that moment all he thought about was her father going home that evening and hearing the kid tell him what happened between sobs. Of the fury that would possess him but also the fear that would start to gnaw at him secretly, questioningly. It was only just beginning.
He could have killed her. Left her dead on the doorstep. He thinks about that now. A few extra seconds, a bit more pressure on her windpipe. He’d seen a kapo do that one night. A Ukrainian insomniac who couldn’t even knock himself out with alcohol and who used to roam the latrines at night, killing any prisoners he found with his bare hands and then boasting about it the next morning, explaining that it calmed him down and that he could sleep afterwards. He had seen him throw a man to the ground, leaning over him and holding his neck between the fingers of one hand, apparently without effort, until the man’s groaning stopped. He had waited, slumped against a wall, bent double over the mess of his intestines, until the criminal walked away and then he had gone inside to empty his bowels, swallowing a wail of pain and fear. The next day . . .
The images assail him with the brutality of a decisive attack. Pushing them back, he gets up and stamps his feet to shake off the cold that is numbing him so he can dive back into the icy darkness of the nights in that place, into their murmur of groans, coughs and screams, those nights, both endless, as he would wait until it was time to getup again to be sure he was still alive, and so short, because sleep seemed only to steal a little more of his strength and to leave him stricken, fleeing like a silent thief.
He lifts his coat collar, walks up to the stove and holds his hands over the cast iron hotplates, listening to the metal clicking as it expands. He thinks he can’t do this anymore, that he’ll never make it, that he’d be better off dying, now, once and for all. Then he goes over to the sink and spits out the vile taste that has started flowing in his throat.
6
Commissaire Albert Darlac holds her hand and the young girl sighs wearily as she repeats for the fourth time that she’s fine, that she was scared, that she was attacked by a mad old man who will not come back. She is lying on the green velvet sofa, in her socks, a big red cushion under her head.
Elise. Fifteen years old. He is not sure he loves anyone else in this world. When he looks at her, when he touches her, he knows that not everything inside him is dead, he knows he is not just a collection of organs stewing in bitter juices, moved only by the desire to dominate and corrupt.
He in turn tries to smile but it is a grimace of pain and fury that reveals his straight teeth lined up like a cartridge belt. Some rabid dogs smile that way. He turns to the doctor, who is putting the stethoscope back in his briefcase.
“She’s fine. Not even a bruise. I’m going to prescribe her something to help her sleep tonight, and tomorrow it will all be over. I’m not worried.”
Darlac gets to his feet and sighs, stroking his daughter’s chin, then moves over to where the doctor stands.
“I’m not worried either. Because I’ll get the guy who did this very soon, and as for bruises, he’ll have them for quite a while cos I’m going to give him a new face. Even his fucking mother won’t recognize him in the morgue.”
He says all this in a low rumble. The doctor bursts out laughing.
“There you go with your fancy words. You’ll never change.”
“I should bloody well hope not.”
A woman appears, quite tall, slim, blonde with dark, lively eyes, dressed in a houndstooth suit. Pretty face. Annette. The wife of Commissaire Darlac. She is carrying a silver tray. Cups, coffeepot, porcelain sugar bowl. She places this on the dining-room table. The doctor ogles her quite openly and she gives him a movie-star wink: batted eyelid, discreet pout. Then she sashays towards the entrance hall and announces that coffee is served. Two voices reply to her and almost immediately afterwards two detectives enter the living room.
“So?” Darlac asks.
The two men approach the table, rubbing their hands. They look similar: same dark hair, same grey coat. As if they came out of the same cop-making mould. One of them wears tortoiseshell glasses, which he is constantly nudging up his nose. He is the one who replies to the commissaire.
“Apart from the woman who lives across the road, no-one heard or saw anything before she started screaming. We’ve got a pretty precise description that matches the one your daughter gave us. A man of about forty-five, very short grey hair, with marks—maybe scars—on his face. Quite tall, pretty quick and agile. He went towards rue d’Ornano afterwards, and he wasn’t running. Nothing else.”
They thank Madame Darlac, who has served them coffee, and awkwardly hold the cups by their fine handles as if they might explode between their fingers at any moment. They lift their drinks, pinkies in the air, and sip noisily, burning their lips and tong
ues, and their eyes go from Darlac’s daughter to his wife, probably trying to make out a resemblance.
“Your coffee is very good, madame.”
Madame smiles, sitting next to her daughter and rubbing her feet.
Silence, for a moment. Darlac stands in front of the French window, smoking and loudly sighing, knocking the ash from his cigarette onto the floor. The others contemplate his wide back, his shoulders squared off by the cut of his jacket.
“It’s going to snow,” ventures the chief’s wife.
He shrugs.
“If that’s all you have to say, you can take the cups back to the kitchen. Your coffee is wop juice. Disgusting.”
The two detectives and the doctor eye the bottoms of their cups as if trying to discern traces of poison. Madame clears away the cups, gathers up the little spoons and lifts the tray in a sure, silent movement, not even the faintest tinkling, when they were all expecting to see her trembling under the blow of her husband’s insult, his contempt. She crosses the room, staring straight ahead, an indecipherable half-smile playing on her face, her gait as supple as a ballerina’s. A strange beauty, wounded perhaps, or frighteningly tough. The three men who watch her go past can no longer breathe in this rarefied atmosphere.
Darlac turns swiftly, stubbing out his cigarette in a plant pot.
“Alright, men, while we wait for it to snow, we’re going to get our asses in gear.”
He gestures with his chin at the kitchen door.
“If you want a souvenir, I have photos. You ought to like these. Backstage shots of the Revue Tichadel.3 Signed by the artist, no less.”
The two coppers lower their eyes and smile stupidly.
“Ask Dr. Chauvet. He gets to examine her. What do you think, doc? Nice photos?”
“Very suggestive,” says the doctor, with a bawdy wink. “Tichadel was better backstage than onstage!”
Darlac is already wearing his coat and clicks his fingers to make his men follow suit. He turns towards the doctor, who has sat down to write out a prescription, and points to his daughter dozing on the sofa.
“Get her back on her feet. Anyone who lays a finger on her is dead, so make sure you take good care of her.”
His voice is hollow, not much more than a croak. Chauvet nods, glancing at the girl.
“She doesn’t need taking care of, just protecting, but she’s got you for that. You know you’ve always been able to trust me, don’t you?”
Darlac’s face contorts as he puts on his hat.
“Of course,” he says, then goes out to join his men in the car parked on the sidewalk and the slammed door shakes on its hinges behind him.
As soon as the engine is running, he gives his orders, doing his best to lean back in his seat and relax. Go and check out the lunatic asylums in case some psycho’s escaped or been set free, go through the file of pedophiles and rapists living in or near the city. He doesn’t buy this theory of a maniac or nutter who happened to do this in front of his—Commissaire Albert Darlac’s—front door. Of course not. And neither do the two detectives, who keep their mouths shut because no-one discusses anything with Darlac, because there’s no point even trying with someone as brutal, as stubborn, as plain nasty as him. And also because they don’t give a shit. They nod in agreement, exchanging little glances that the commissaire doesn’t see, too busy writing things in his notebook or scanning the streets with a menacing look as if the attacker might suddenly appear on a street corner.
As soon as they get out of the car, the two cops lift their hats and slip quickly away, explaining that they have work to do.
“That’s right, you cocksuckers,” he mutters. “Go to work with your asses safely planted in your chairs.”
As he enters his office, the telephone starts ringing.
“Commissaire Divisionnaire Laborde. I have to see you. Straight away.”
It’s a bad line, crackling. The voice metallic. Like a dog barking in a cistern.
Darlac slams the phone down, swearing loudly and removing his coat from his back as if it was an enemy.
Commissaire Divisionnaire Laborde. The name whirls inside his head and his heart pounds with rage, anger and disgust. He lights a cigarette and opens the window to let in the cold, the damp, anything that might cool down the fevered hatred that has taken hold of him. He exhales and balls his fists as he looks out at the grey sky, the gloomy courtyard, the grimy façade on the other side of rue Abbé-de-l’Epée. The city is filthy, soiled by the sooty winter drizzle, turned cancerous by the humid summer heat. It stinks of diesel oil, saltpetre in airless stone cellars, the putrid mud of the brown river, the fish and vegetables displayed onmarket stalls. He has the impression that all these smells have come and mingled together in the police-station courtyard and are blowing into his face all the rottenness that has submerged the city and the country since the end of the war, this fetid breath carried by all these mouths that have been allowed to open.
He stubs out his cigarette in an already overflowing Cinzano ashtray and spits in the bin and bangs shut the window in a racket of loose panes.
The commissaire divisionnaire is on the phone and signals him to sit down, but Darlac prefers to remain standing, if only to avoid obeying this son of a bitch. He stands in front of a corkboard pinned with office memoranda. Just above it is a large photograph of De Gaulle in Bordeaux, in September ’44. The big man, come to bring his Commie partners into line, is standing in front of a microphone, surrounded by Resistance leaders but also by a few collaborationists already in new jobs whom the purge will pass over, later, like a very small cloud, barely even a shadow: real shits these, fake Resistance fighters, cops, civil servants, military leaders who organized the round-ups, countersigned the arrest requests, carried out vicious tortures, anticipated and exceeded Kraut orders, but who sensed the tide turning in ’43 and invented acts of bravery for themselves, fabricated alibis, saved a few Jews and kept evidence of this heroism so that when the moment came, when the juries gathered and the firing squads lined up, the wimps and weaklings would come and testify in their favor. They were there—not all of them, of course—watching the crowds behind the Dickhead of State, wondering perhaps which of their victims would remember them, and maybe already regretting that there were still survivors of all the massacres who could tell the tale and point their fingers at the executioners.
Darlac remembers how, in that emotional, joyful crowd, there were men walking round wild-eyed, hands in pockets probably gripping the butt of a gun, F.T.P.s4 champing at the bit, others with gaunt and closed faces, survivors of clandestine networks betrayed then dismantled, dumbstruck by the sight of these scum all bragging on the podium. They had sent a few detectives out to spy on those bitter men and forestall any acts of temper or desperation, because in the streets bedecked with bunting and flags, in those days of jubilation, there roamed singular sorrows, solitary griefs that no-one took the time to see.
Behind him, Commissaire Divisionnaire Laborde speaks quietly then goes silent then taps on his desk with a pencil before starting to speak again, and Darlac becomes absorbed in his examination of the photograph and its parading bigwigs and he feels once again all the contempt in his heart for the rabble mooing the “Marseillaise,” swept up by those patriotic urges and those vague desires for vengeance when they had spent four years grovelling under the boot in pain and hunger and denunciation. You can do whatever you want with people. All it takes is for them to be hungry or scared and to have something to hate, because hating gives them the illusion of existing. Yesterday it was the Jews. Today it’s the Arabs. Algeria is remolding the French people around a common enemy defined by a murderous vocabulary all its own: the frisé, the bronzé, the bicot, the crouille, the raton. Sneaky shits, sure, but poor, weak, alone. Not like those tough, well-armed Kraut soldiers who inspired such fear and respect. Bastards, yes, but at least they were upfront about it. You could see them
coming a mile off. The French don’t like powerful adversaries: their instinct is always to make peace with them, thinking that they’re being really clever.
That is why Darlac never understood the Resistance. Perhaps because he never saw what they were supposed to be resisting. He was bored and disgusted by politics. Marquet, the mayor, a former radical, who became a Petainist and collaborator; the communists, who signed a pact with Hitler then called the people to sabotage, setting off bombs and derailing trains. He couldn’t stand people who lived their lives according to ideas. Puritan patriots. Passionate nutcases. Lunatics. Oh, they have spirit, of course. And balls. Even the women. He hesitated, for two or three months. He felt the same courage as them, without really knowing what use it was. Love of nation? Honor? Liberty? No. Maybe the adventure of it would have amused him, the secret. Like in those films with Jean Gabin. Evening, in the mist, a fugitive’s destiny, taking in his arms a woman with the most beautiful eyes in the world.
But on the other side were money, power, sex, and comfort. And anyway the Germans seemed invincible and their helmeted order covered up the chaos, like the dense canopy of giant trees, where the great birds live, stretching over the primitive jungle. Afterwards they lit up the forest, but he realized that it was down there on the ground, in the seething mire, that he felt at his ease. He collected what fell from the branches above or what was created by decomposition. He didn’t climb in the trees. He didn’t play the wise monkey or the screeching, colorful parrot. He knew his place in the vast hierarchy of the world and he knew to what profit he could put it. That knowledge was the only kind that mattered to him.
“Great moment, wasn’t it?”
A faint shudder. Darlac turns around. The chief super is sitting back in his chair, legs crossed. He watches with his very hard, very pale blue eyes as Darlac sits down. Even in the shade, beyond the halo of light emitted by the lamp, those eyes have a gleam of their own.
After the War Page 6
