by Ted Mooney
Then she emptied out the guest-room closet, vacuumed the tiny room, took down the curtains, and washed its single window. From her studio she brought up a small maple rocking chair, setting it in one corner, and a radio for the nightstand. She was contemplating additional improvements when the phone rang, and she hurried downstairs.
“Did you get it?” Thierry asked.
“It’s with me now.”
“Odile, you have no idea what a help this is. Thank you.”
She listened for birds but heard nothing.
“I want to make it easy for you,” he said. “There’s a news kiosk next to the taxi stand at Place de la Bastille. Put the money in an envelope with my name on it and leave it with the lady behind the counter, Madame Genève. She’ll see that I get it.” He paused. “Hello?”
“Yes, I’m here.”
“Can you do that?”
“When?”
“This afternoon. I need it today.”
She said nothing.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“I’m thinking,” she said. Thinking that she didn’t have to go to the newsstand at all. That she could call the Russians, tell them where to look for Thierry, return the money to Turner, and avoid all knowledge of what happened next. Yet she wavered. Maybe she’d have to be there anyway, just to be certain.
“My dear Odile, listen to me. There’s nothing to worry about, okay? I admit I was shocked to hear what happened to my cousin, but this has nothing to do with that, I promise you.” He sighed. “The fact is, I have a small debt to pay off. Nothing alarming, but there’s interest on it and I want to avoid defaulting.”
“A gambling debt?”
He paused. “So you know.” Another pause. “How interesting you know that. Yes, a gambling debt.”
“Actually, Thierry, I’d feel much more comfortable doing this if you told me what you were really up to. That side project of yours, for instance—it worries me. Can’t you give me some idea what it involves?”
“No,” he said immediately. Then, recovering: “Not on the phone. Just trust me for the moment. Can’t you do that?”
She left another silence. “I suppose so, if it’s that important.”
“Good. When can you get there?”
“I’m leaving now,” she said, and hung up before he could respond.
She went to the kitchen, hooked up the water purifier she’d bought the day before, and drank two glasses of filtered water in succession, having been thirsty without realizing it. In this thirst simultaneously discovered and quenched, she caught a glimpse of her present self, the one that Céleste had described, rightly or not, as capable of anything. I feel like screaming, she thought. Then, taking her purse from its spot by the landing, she descended the stairs and left the apartment.
The day was bright and mild, the warmest so far of the season. Correction officers with machine pistols had blocked off both ends of rue de la Santé while a bus carrying newly arrived detainees lurched into the prison, provoking jeers of welcome from those already interned. A lone black dog trotted down the sidewalk ahead of her. Otherwise Odile encountered only elderly people and young mothers with strollers as she walked the short distance to the Glacière métro stop.
On the train, which started out aboveground but soon plunged back into darkness, she sat behind two middle-aged women who talked endlessly about a trip they were taking to Biarritz for the summer music festival, gushing over the musicians they’d see. Their self-congratulatory tone grated unreasonably on Odile, and she was relieved when she had to change trains at Place d’Italie. Once seated in the connecting train, she took the envelope from her purse and wrote Thierry Colin’s name across it in block letters. It suddenly seemed important that she fulfill as much of her promise to him as possible, even though she was going to betray him and the money would almost certainly end up in the hands of the Russians.
At Bastille she emerged from the station onto rue de la Roquette, where she paused to take in her surroundings, shading her eyes against the sun. The traffic circling the monument, the cafés packed with afternoon idlers and tourists, the steps of the Opéra Bastille on which other idlers basked, the pickpockets and scam artists circulating in pairs among the pedestrians that thronged the sidewalks: all this Odile had seen innumerable times, yet in the space of half a second it was as if a veil had been lifted to reveal a scene completely new to her, one in which every particular was strange and without precedent. She knew where she was, but each thing she saw was the first of its kind: the first bicyclist, the first wine carafe, the first woman to tie a sweater around her waist by the arms. The air shimmered. The first pigeon, the first waiter, the first menu to be snapped shut. The first book. She blinked. From where she stood she could see five news kiosks, and she went for the one by the taxi stand.
“Excuse me,” she told the gray-haired woman behind the counter. “I’m looking for Madame Genève.”
“Yes, that’s me.”
Odile took the envelope from her purse. “I was told I could leave this for Monsieur Thierry Colin. Do you know him?”
“Certainly, Madame.” The woman accepted the envelope and put it in a cigar box on the shelf behind her. “I’ll be sure to give it to him,” she said, nodding once, her eyes already on the next customer.
Odile thanked her and quickly walked to a spot beside the taxi stand, outside the woman’s line of sight but with a partial view of the kiosk. There she deliberated, pacing up and down, sorting through scenarios, wanting to be certain of what she was about to do, until at last she realized that her deliberations were beside the point, and she took out her cell phone and keyed in the number Dmitrovich had given her.
He answered on the first ring—not by saying hello but by unleashing a torrent of Russian that seemed to be the continuation of another call, one that her own had inexplicably interrupted or replaced. She listened in confusion for several seconds, wondering whom he thought he was addressing, before she could summon the force to interrupt. “Enough! Do you think I’m your Natasha?”
A brief silence ensued. Then, in English: “Madame Mével. What a welcome surprise. We were beginning to grow just a tiny bit discouraged.”
“He called me,” said Odile. “The guy in question.”
“Excellent. And he is where, please?”
“That I don’t know. But I can tell you where he soon will be, provided—”
“Yes?”
“Provided you don’t try to contact me or my friends again. No more surprise visits, no threats, no calls, nothing. All that’s finished, understand?” A traffic light changed, a phalanx of pedestrians advanced.
“You may be certain of it,” said Dmitrovich.
“I should hope so.” She resumed pacing. “He was calling about his fee for the Moscow trip, as you predicted. I got the money, he called again, we made arrangements for him to pick it up. He’ll be here any minute, so you’ll have to hurry. Come to—” A patch of bright color caught her eye: a turquoise handbag, a sun-pinked shoulder. Of course, thought Odile. How could I not have known? The handbag was opened, the envelope went in, the bag’s owner stepped away from the kiosk: Gabriella, grimly efficient in a sand-colored dress and matching pumps.
“I’ll have to call you back,” Odile said, pressing the end button before he could protest.
Gabriella checked her watch and without a backward glance set out across the traffic island toward the streets radiating from the square to the south and east. After a prudent interval, keeping her distance, Odile followed.
Gabriella crossed at rue de Lyon, walked past the Opéra and the people scattered across its steps, then headed up rue de la Roquette. A series of small obstacles in Odile’s path—a flock of nuns, a boy on a bicycle, some workmen carrying a sheet of plate glass—caused her to fall farther and farther behind. When she lost sight of Gabriella altogether, she stepped into the street itself and began to run.
She arrived at the next intersection just in time to see Gabriel
la, half a block ahead of her, pass through the entrance of the Théâtre Bastille, a well-regarded two-stage venue on the east side of the street. Retreating to the sidewalk, she forced herself to slow down. Whatever awaited her inside, she would need to keep her wits about her if she really meant to complete her errand. For a moment she couldn’t even concentrate on what that might entail.
The lobby of the theater was attended by a bored young man seated behind a table on which he’d laid out a game of solitaire. He hardly glanced at her before pointing to a descending staircase. “Downstairs,” he said, dealing himself another card.
The staircase lights were out, and a familiar dread—of darkness, of basements, of bottomless descent—passed over Odile as she moved down to the lower level. The foyer there, too, was dark. Spotting a set of doors, she pushed through them into an intimate space with a stage at the bottom and perhaps fifty rows of seats rising steeply up to where Odile now found herself. A man stood in darkness at the extreme left of the stage, speaking into a microphone while a slide show of what looked like underground caverns and tunnels was projected onto a screen behind him. The audience was sparse, seated here and there singly and in small clusters, but it was too dark for Odile to see if Thierry or Gabriella was among them. She took a seat in the last row, waiting for her eyes to adjust.
“What you must understand,” said the man at the microphone, “is that the subterranean Paris you see here bears very little relation to the official version, the one visited by tourists and familiar to most of us from photographs of the Catacombs. The neatly stacked skulls, femurs, and tibias that one encounters on the guided tour, while justly celebrated, are far from typical.” The slide changed. “Here is a more characteristic ossuary, where the bones, as you can see, are piled randomly together—some thirty generations of Parisians originally buried in the Cimetière des Innocents, then moved into the underground quarries in 1785.”
She continued to scan the audience. The slide changed.
“But forget about bones. In the eleven years that I’ve been exploring subterranean Paris, I have charted hundreds of kilometers of passageways on several distinct levels, and I can attest without exaggeration to the existence underground of an alternative Paris, one by no means populated exclusively by the dead. This man, for example, whom I call the catacyclist.”
None of the people seated below Odile resembled Thierry or Gabriella, at least from behind, and she tried to retrace in her mind the layout of the building. Maybe the man in the lobby had misdirected her.
“However,” said the speaker, “the vast majority of underground passages are too low or too narrow to negotiate by bicycle; indeed, quite frequently one must be prepared to crawl. Here you see my friend doing just that, as he follows me into what was once a command post for the Resistance.”
Odile felt a soft rush of air as the door behind her opened and closed.
“Note the mural, a later addition.”
As discreetly as she could, she looked over her shoulder. There was no one.
“Let me take this moment to remind you,” the speaker went on, “that it is a crime to enter these tunnels, and you will be severely fined if caught. In recent years concerns that terrorists might use underground locations to mount an attack have led to the closure of many points of entry, though more remain open than is generally supposed.” The slide changed. “Here is a little-known entry in the thirteenth arrondissement, accessible only through a partly collapsed wine cellar dating to the eighteenth century.”
Odile was debating whether to check the bathrooms when she saw a female form in silhouette begin to edge into a row of seats midway down the incline to the stage. Almost at the same moment the slide changed again, replaced not by a new image but by a brilliant rectangle of white light, a vacancy in the slide tray, that illuminated Gabriella as she sidled past a pair of spectators to take a seat beside a man sitting alone. He had a shaven head and wire-rimmed glasses, but when he looked up at Gabriella, Odile saw that it was Thierry. Then the next slide came on, and the audience was swathed once more in darkness.
“There exist as many reasons for entering our city’s underground labyrinth as there are people who do so. This man, whom I have met on more than one occasion, comes to practice his fire-breather’s art in a place utterly devoid of light. As you can see, the effect is quite spectacular.”
For several minutes Odile stayed where she was, half listening to the speaker as she waited for some small understanding to come to her, some idea of Thierry’s recent activities or their purpose, some sliver of explanation that might satisfy her curiosity. But nothing came. Both Thierry and Gabriella seemed fully absorbed in the lecture. Odile waited a little longer, then got up and left the theater.
She called Dmitrovich from the street. In a bookshop opposite the theater she browsed the new releases until she saw the Russians’ black sedan pull up outside and both men get out. They entered the theater briskly, straightening their jackets as they went.
She didn’t linger for the rest. On her way home she called Turner.
CHAPTER 22
“YOU’RE SURE?” Turner stood with the telephone to his ear, watching the man from parcel post stack cardboard boxes against one wall. Gabriella, who normally would’ve overseen the delivery, had asked for the afternoon off. “I mean, did you actually hand him over yourself?”
“No,” said Odile. “But I waited until I had him cornered—in a theater in Bastille, sitting in the dark—before I called the Russians. Believe me, they got him. I just saw them go in.”
“Good, so it’s settled.” Without putting down the phone, Turner took the clipboard handed him by the delivery man and signed for the boxes. “And what about you—are you okay?” She had never called him at the office before.
“You mean do I feel guilty? Why? Do you?”
He spoke carefully. “It wasn’t our business, Odile. You did the right thing.”
“But they’ll kill him.”
“You don’t know that.” Taking a mat knife from his desk, Turner slit open one of the boxes and removed two copies of a glossy paperbound volume. One he gave to Ronald Balakian, who had been hovering nearby in an attitude of polite abeyance; the other he set on his desk. “Anyway, we had no choice, given the situation.”
“Tell me,” said Odile, “is your assistant there?”
“Gabriella? No, I gave her the afternoon off. Why?”
To this she didn’t respond.
“Look,” he said. “I can’t really talk right now, so why don’t we save it till we see each other. We are on for tonight, aren’t we?”
“I don’t know yet. It’s complicated. I’ll have to call you.”
Turner hesitated. “Everything’s going to be all right,” he heard himself say.
“I’ll call,” she repeated, and hung up.
Balakian had taken a seat on the Shaker bench and was paging slowly through the auction catalog. He’d flown in from New York to attend the opening that evening of an exhibition at the Centre Pompidou, a mid-career survey devoted to one of his artists. “Trouble?” he said, without looking up.
“No, no. Just a friend who’s feeling a little emotional right now.” Turner sat down at his desk and picked up his own copy of the catalog. “So what do you think, Ron? Am I going to sell some flags?”
“It’s a very professional job,” Balakian said, still looking. “Of course I’d expect no less from you.”
In fact Turner was well pleased with the catalog, and these copies were from the second printing. Each of the flags was reproduced in lavish color across a right-hand page, with the facing page of text giving the corresponding particulars. Very often, in Turner’s experience, two or three well-chosen sentences of description could make the difference between an adequate sale and an extraordinary one. People wanted to be romanced, and he tried to oblige.
Balakian closed the catalog and said, “I see you’re low-balling the estimates pretty aggressively.”
“And why not,
since it works.” Turner leaned back in his chair. “Certain price expectations get set up—I decided on a hundred and twenty to two hundred thousand for the least-interesting flag—and once those numbers are exceeded there’s no way of judging what a reasonable price might be. People get excited, they bid high. Considering the groundwork I’ve done here—with your help, needless to say—I expect a hammer price closer to three hundred thousand each.”
“And you’ll probably get it.” Balakian cocked a steely eyebrow. “Myself, though, I prefer a retail environment. Fewer variables.”
“More control.”
“That too,” Balakian agreed.
They had a laugh together.
Later, after Balakian had left, Turner reviewed the list of people to whom the catalog had already been sent, cross-checking it against the larger database maintained by the auction house. Publicity remained a concern, but once the rest of the catalogs went out he’d call in a few last favors from his media contacts. Then only the pre-sale exhibition and the auction itself would be left to attend to. Money would be made, the thing would be complete.
Yet satisfaction eluded him. Whatever pleasure he might have taken in the success of this venture—hearing of the flags, recognizing their worth, and, by force of will and imagination alone, turning that worth to profit—now seemed fleeting and insubstantial, an artifact of a self already half shed. Recalling the night Odile had walked in on him, he winced. It had been years since he’d allowed his personal well-being to come so frankly under the influence of someone else. He doubted very much whether any good could come of it. Still, he would have to try.
When his thoughts grew calm again, he called Céleste.
MAX ARRIVED half an hour late at the quai de la Tournelle to find that Jacques, whom he’d sent ahead with the equipment, had been pressed into service as a proxy mechanic, helping Rachel dismantle the second of the engines. The other had already been cannibalized and taken down to the engine room.
“That’s quite a cologne you’re wearing,” Rachel said as she and Max embraced. “What is it, hibiscus?”
