by John Pearson
It was the last sad straw. That evening Bond decided to make money in the one sure way he knew – by gambling. Bond still enjoyed his wartime membership of Blades, although he hadn't been for several months. He put on his dark blue suit, arrived at nine, stayed clear of the bar (to avoid the embarrassment of having to buy drinks that he could not afford) and took his place in the great eighteenth-century gaming room. He had always played to win, but never before because he needed money. He was disturbed to find how much this spoiled the game: it even dictated his choice of an opponent. He found himself picking someone he would normally have avoided – Bunny Kendrick, a cantankerous old millionaire who was a bad but frequent loser. Bond played high. For more than half an hour he lost. Kendrick was delighted in the way that rich men are at such unnecessary strokes of fortune. When Bond was £200 down, he panicked – and it was then that he was tempted. He suddenly remembered an all but foolproof card-sharp's trick Esposito had taught him, a way of dealing himself a perfect run of cards. It would have been so very easy, and no one would have noticed – certainly not Kendrick. Bond was sweating, and this chance of cheating was so frightening that he almost left the table there and then. Instead he forced himself to finish playing and ended owing £80. It was the most wretched evening Bond has ever spent at a card table in his life. Next morning he decided he would ring the man at Harrods. But on that very day his fortune changed.
Bond was walking past the Ritz Hotel (he tended to walk everywhere these days) when he saw a small, familiar bald figure entering the large swing doors. It was a good three years since Bond had last seen Maddox. After the fall of France he had made his way to London, picked up a colonel's job with Military Intelligence and spent most of the war in the Middle East. Later he joined the Free French in Algiers and returned to Paris with the ending of the war. He was delighted to see Bond, and insisted that they had a drink together. Maddox showed all the signs of obvious prosperity – expensive highly polished shoes, a tightly cut check suit, the rosette of the Legion d'Honneur in his buttonhole.
‘Consultant work,’ he said when Bond asked what he did, ‘at, shall we say, a somewhat elevated level. I work with various big French commercial houses, chiefly with connections throughout Africa.’
‘And you enjoy yourself?’
‘Have you ever known me not to? I have a family you know – two boys. We live just outside Paris at Vincennes. You must meet my wife.’
But Maddox was a wary husband. When his wife appeared – she had been shopping and returned earlier than expected – Maddox treated her with care. Bond could see why. She was lovely – a blonde, Parisienne with that particular sheen of beautiful French women who take their menfolk and their wealth for granted. Bond was amused to see that Maddox was careful not to press her to stay. Only when she had gone did he invite Bond to lunch.
Bond loved the grill room of the Ritz. It was like old times to be eating here with Maddox. He remembered the evening long ago, in Fontainebleau when Maddox had recruited him. Soon he was telling Maddox everything – the ups-and-downs of his career, the scandal out in Washington, and M.'s behaviour. Maddox sat in silence, staring at the park.
‘James,’ he said finally, ‘I will be frank with you. I don't believe you'll ever change. When I recruited you I warned you that you'd never get away. The life you've led has made you what you are.’
‘Thanks very much,’ said Bond, ‘but what do I do now?’
Maddox relit his large cigar and wreathed himself in smoke.
‘I think,’ he said, ‘that you should come and work for me.’
*
Bond would have hated to admit how good it felt to be aboard the morning plane to Paris. He had his battered pig-skin case that had been with him on so many old assignments. Even to pack it had brought back a touch of the excitement of the old days: pyjamas, light blue shirts, and black hide washing-case. He wore the dark blue lightweight suit, the hand-stitched moccasins, the heavy knitted-silk black tie that virtually comprised his private uniform. He stretched his legs and watched the Staines reservoirs recede below the Viscount's wing-tip. Early though it was, he broke his usual rule and ordered a long cool vodka tonic. Maddox was paying for the trip. He could afford it.
He thought of Maddox. That wily little man wasn't befriending him again for fun although Bond had told him that his days of dangerous living were over. Bond wasn't giving up his dream of normal life as easily as that.
He had forgotten how much he loved Paris. It was his first time back since just before the war, but nothing had really changed – the same stale smell of Gauloises at Le Bourget, the drumming of the taxi on the cobbled roads, the barges on the river. He was remembering things that seemed forgotten. From the Place d’Italie the driver took the Boulevard St Germain. Bond was earlier than he expected and paid him off at the corner of the Rue Jacob. This was where he had lived with Marthe de Brandt – the little flat beside the Place Furstenburg; it seemed so long ago that he could not believe that this was the same scarred brown front door, the same trees in the courtyard.
Bond's nostalgia deepened as he walked down the narrow street towards the river, then crossed the Pont des Arts. How sensible of Maddox to have settled here in Paris, and how typical of him to have chosen an office on the Ile de la Cité with a fine view of the river and one of Bond's own favourite restaurants, the Restaurant Jules, just round the corner. At Bond's suggestion this was where they ate, although Maddox had a table booked at the Tour d'Argent. Bond felt at home at last as he sat down at the marble-topped table in that crowded restaurant. They had quenelles and boeuf gros sel, apricot tart and camembert and splendid coffee. They had the faintly sour house wine in a heavy glass decanter, then drank their cognac afterwards in the little square beneath the mulberries. It was Bond's first day of positive enjoyment since he had left the Secret Service.
Maddox outlined the work he had in mind for him. Since the Liberation he had been working for a syndicate of big French bankers as ‘security director’, A title which appeared to cover top-level planning to protect the group's massive interests throughout the world.
Maddox was much concerned with anti-subversion and the control of sabotage. He wanted Bond to join him, ‘as an adviser, nothing more. You'll have your base right here in Paris, and the job can be what you care to make it. You can travel, and I'll promise that you won't be bored. At the same time you can settle down a bit, make some money and decide what you really want to do with life. We might even find you a good-looking rich French wife. You could do worse.’
On that bright spring day in Paris, the offer seemed irresistible and, for the next four years, James Bond became an exile. He was a sort of mercenary, a soldier of fortune. With his command of languages he was at home in France, and anywhere else he happened to be sent. He had been well trained by the British Secret Service; as a non-Frenchman working for the French, he could be quite objective over their interests. He liked to think himself completely apolitical. Neither the demands of local nationalists, nor the antics of French politicians remotely interested him. He affected to despise them all. To him all politicians were quite simply ‘clowns’, some more ridiculous or more corrupt than others. He had a job to do. As he said to Maddox, it wasn't all that different from the store detective's job with Harrods, but it did have more scope.
There were great journeys which he loved, weeks spent travelling rough across Morocco or over the Sahara. He got to know Dakar, that scorching, fascinating melting-pot of France and black Africa. In Conakry, the capital of Guinea, he found a night club where the black hostesses wore nothing but full-length ball-dress skirts and long blonde wigs. In Timbuktu he bought himself a ‘wife’ for fifteen sheep. He caught the spell of Africa – its size, its paradox, its mystery. He travelled up the Niger river, and got to know the tribes of Senegal. Here it seemed that he could live a cleaner life than he had known in Europe.
When he did come back, it was to Paris, to confer with Maddox in his elegant small office by the r
iver. He never seemed to visit London now. He had given up the flat in Lincoln Street and finally arranged to have the Bentley repainted and restored and brought over from Pett Bottom. Resplendent in its polished brass and ‘elephant's breath grey’ paint, it now lived in a lock-up garage off the Rue Jacob. Bond lived nearby. He had a tiny roof-top flat behind the Place Furstenburg, ‘more like the cabin of a ship than a gentleman's apartment’ as Maddox used to say. So far the rich wife Maddox had promised had not materialized.
Professionally, Bond pulled off several coups which more than justified his salary. In Bamako he stopped the blowing up of the great barrage recently built by the French across the Niger. At Algiers airport he scotched an attempt to hijack a consignment of gold to the Bank of France. In Paris itself he had the task of handling a kidnapping. The son of one of Maddox's wealthy colleagues had been taken from his house near the Bois de Boulogne. Bond was convinced he knew the kidnappers, and on his own initiative set out to find them. There was a risk of the child being killed. Bond knew that if that happened he would be blamed. Despite this he went ahead and bluffed the gang into believing that he was bringing them the ransom. They were holed up inside a block of municipal flats in Belfort. Thanks to his instant marksmanship, Bond shot two of them before they could harm the boy. The rest surrendered and Bond drove the child home in safety.
Through acts like these, Bond was becoming something of a legend. But it was a strange uneasy life he led. France was not his country. At times he felt as if life were uncannily repeating a perpetual pattern which had started with the wanderings of his family when he was a boy. He was becoming like his father, always on the move and always fighting other people's battles.
He was approaching thirty and knew quite well that he had settled nothing. He was still rootless and, despite a succession of fairly clinical affaires, still without lasting emotional attachment. He had begun to doubt if he were capable of one.
Like most compulsive bachelors, Bond was scared of women. Not physically – he was a vigorous and virile lover, and he enjoyed the routine of a seduction. It was an all-absorbing game that satisfied his vanity. His fear began when that other head was firmly on the pillow – worse still the morning after. Like all romantics, he was genuinely shocked when his women were revealed as human beings. Smeared morning make-up quite upset him and he disliked it if his women used the lavatory. Any demands, except overtly sexual ones, made him impatient.
With such an attitude to women it was not surprising that James Bond stayed resolutely single, especially as his habits were becoming more and more confirmed with age. His ‘cabin’ up among the roofs of the Rue Jacob possessed a monk-like quality, his mistresses were becoming more and more alike. They were all beautiful, all fairly young, and married or divorced. They enjoyed sex as much as he did but they all stuck by the unspoken rules of the game – pleasure but no extraneous demands, sentimentality but no sentiment, passion but no comeback from the world outside. Bond secretly preferred them to leave shortly after making love. (Since they generally had husbands, they invariably did.)
All this seemed satisfactory; had one met James Bond one might have congratulated him on having solved his problems and made the transition from war to peace better than most. He finally had money and success, work he enjoyed, a style of life most men would envy. But Bond was human and by that strange perversity that dogs all human beings, the very things that should have left him happy left him dissatisfied.
He loved settled families, especially with happy, well brought-up children – the Maddoxes, for instance. He used to visit them a lot, and ‘Uncle James’ became the children's hero. He always brought them presents, and remembered their birthdays. He used to tell them stories, show them card-tricks, carry them pick-a-back around the garden. People who saw him with them used to think what a splendid father he would make. He also admired faithful wives (indeed, deep down, they were the only women that he did admire). This was one reason why he fell in love with Maddox's wife, Regine.
Soon after his arrival he had attempted to seduce her. She had been perfectly good-natured about it, even taking care to protect his precious vanity.
‘Darling James,’ she said, kissing his hand before replacing it where it belonged, ‘you're too good-looking for me now. A few years ago it would have been different, but now …’
Bond tried to replace his hand. She firmly repelled it.
‘Besides, I'd probably just fall in love with you, and think what trouble that would cause.’
And so, instead of sex, they dined at Maxim's.
Within a day or two, Bond had convinced himself he was in love with her. The role suited him. It did not stop him chasing other women, rather the reverse. Depending on his mood he would be seeking consolation or revenge. But he had an air of sadness now which was irresistible – to everyone except Regine.
She remained resolutely what Bond used to call his ‘Princesse lointaine’. They were friends. She used to recommend him books to read and remind him when he needed a haircut. He bought her scent and told her all about his different women. It was the sort of friendship that would have gone on for ever – but for her husband.
There was something ironical about an old rake like Maddox becoming jealous of James Bond, especially when Bond was technically quite innocent. Perhaps Maddox understood this, perhaps he knew that mental infidelity was worse than any physical affaire. For several months Bond did not realize he knew. Then there was trouble.
Everything went wrong that summer. Bond had been going through one of his periodic hates against the French – their rudeness, narrowness and general meanness. There was a running battle with his concierge. Several assignments had been unsatisfactory, and suddenly Paris seemed impossible – crowded and hot and full of tourists. Maddox had been increasingly irascible. Bond began counting the days off to his holiday. Maddox was very much concerned with trouble in Algiers. The local nationalists were already starting their campaign against the French: the French were getting worried. There had been small-scale riots, bomb attacks and killings. Maddox, and many like him, saw them as portents of disaster round the corner. Much of the trouble was that already it was clear that the local gendarmes in Algiers could not contain the unrest. There had been raids on banks owned by the Syndicate. Several employees had been killed, but there had been no arrests. Then, in July, the manager of the main branch in Oran was gunned down and several million francs were stolen.
It was a disturbing case, seeming to create a pattern for the future. If it went unchecked there would be more killings, more armed robberies to finance the violence and subversion. Maddox was much concerned and visited Oran in person. When he returned he discussed it with James Bond.
‘The gendarmerie are useless. None of them realize that this is war. The only answer is attack.’
Bond was surprised at Maddox's vehemence – it was unlike him. Bond asked what he meant.
‘I mean that we must teach the Nationalists a lesson. In Oran I found out who was behind the raid – a man called El Bezir – a Communist and head of the local F.L.N. commando.’
‘You told the police?’
Maddox began laughing. Bond felt suddenly uneasy.
‘The police? James, you're getting softer than I thought. Since when have the police in Algeria done anything? I want you in Oran. I've a man there called Descaux. He has his orders and you'll work with him. I want this El Bezir man dealt with.’
For once Bond tried to duck the mission, but Maddox was insistent. When Bond reminded him that he was due to go on holiday, Maddox exploded. Finally, reluctantly, Bond said that he would go.
In fact he liked Oran. At this time it was relatively peaceful, and the city with its port, its great bay and the mixture of the French and Arab worlds was still part of the old North Africa. It had great atmosphere and charm. French legionaries from the Sahara lounged in the outdoor cafés of the Rue Maréchal Lyautey, sipping their Pernods and smoking their issue Bastos cigarettes. The Arab city of
the kasbah seemed to Bond part of the oriental world that he remembered from his boyhood. The only drawback to the mission was Descaux.
Bond met him the first evening he arrived, and disliked him instantly. He was a strutting, loud-mouthed little man with thick eyebrows meeting above the nose. He talked a lot about ‘teaching the blacks a lesson’ and soon made it clear to Bond that this meant assassinating El Bezir. He had it all worked out. There was an empty shop beneath the flat where El Bezir was living. They would drive in at night, plant half a hundredweight of gelignite beneath the flat, set a short time fuse, then drive off.
‘You'll kill a lot of innocent Algerians,’ said Bond.
‘Innocent Algerians – are there any?’ said Descaux.
Bond's first reaction to Descaux was to fly back to Paris and resign. He was sickened at the idea of such squalid murder. Then he realized this was impossible. However he behaved now, he was implicated. Descaux would go ahead without him; when the gelignite exploded Bond would still be responsible for the deaths that followed. Suddenly he realized that Maddox must have known the situation when he sent him to Oran: then, for the first time, Bond felt angry.
He had one hope, a man called Fauchet. Bond had known him briefly in the war when he was with the French Resistance. Now he was in Oran as head of the intelligence branch of the French Sûreté. He was a barrel of a man with small, shrewd eyes – a Corsican and very tough. Bond called him that night and asked certain questions. Fauchet promised the answers by next morning.
Bond realized the need for caution. Descaux was armed, and obviously suspicious. Next morning, when he called on Fauchet, he discovered why.
‘I've been onto Paris for you,’ said the Corsican. ‘They rang me back an hour ago. Quite a character, this friend of yours.’
‘They know him then?’ said Bond.
