by Vargas, Fred
Marc ran his eyes down the list. Brief descriptions, ages, appearance. He reread it several times.
‘I’m tired and hungry,’ Kehlweiler said. ‘Do you think you could spell me for a few hours?’
Marc nodded and gave him back the list.
‘Keep it, you’ll need it tonight. I’ve got two beers left – want one?’
They drank their beer in silence.
‘See that man coming along, a bit more to the right? No, don’t look straight at him, look over his head. See him?’
‘Yes. So what?
‘This guy is bad news, ex-torturer and more no doubt. Ultranationalist. Know where he’s been going for a week now? No, don’t for God’s sake stare at him, look down into your beer.’
Marc obeyed. He kept his eyes fixed on the mouth of the small glass bottle. He didn’t think it obvious why he should look down, and it was dark anyway. He couldn’t see anything in fact. He heard Kehlweiler whispering.
‘He’s going to the second floor of the building opposite. It’s where this politician’s nephew lives, and he’s up to something. And I’d like to know who he’s up to something with, and whether the politician knows about it.’
‘I thought we were dealing with a story about dog shit,’ muttered Marc into the beer bottle.
When you blow into a bottle it makes a fantastic sound. Almost like the wind in the sea.
‘This is something different. I’m letting Vincent chase up the politician. He’s a journalist, he’ll be good at it. Vincent is sitting on the other bench, over there, the guy who looks like he’s asleep.’
‘Yeah, got him.’
‘You can look up now, the fascist has gone inside. But try to look natural. These people look out of their windows.’
‘Here comes a dog,’ said Marc. ‘Medium-sized.’
‘Good, make a note. Coming towards us: 18.47, bench 102. Owner a woman about forty, dark complexion, straight hair, mid-length, thin, not very pretty, well dressed, must be well off, blue coat, looks newish, trousers. Coming from the rue Descartes. Stop writing, the dog’s coming.’
Marc took a swig of beer, while the dog pottered around the tree. If it had been a bit closer in the darkness, it would have pissed on his feet. No sense of propriety, Parisian dogs. The woman was waiting, with an absent-minded and patient air.
‘Make a note,’ Kehlweiler went on. ‘Return same direction. Medium-sized dog, golden cocker spaniel, old, tired, limping.’
Kehlweiler finished off his beer with a gulp.
‘There,’ he said, ‘that’s what you do. I’ll come back later. Not too cold, are you? You can go into the cafe from time to time. You can see the street from the counter. But don’t come rushing back to the bench in a hurry, do it slowly, as if you’re just wanting to digest your beer, or waiting for a woman who hasn’t turned up.’
‘I get it.’
‘In two days, we’ll have a complete list of the regulars. After that we’ll share out shadowing them, to see where they come from and who they are.’
‘OK. What’s that in your hand?’
‘My toad. I’m just damping him a bit.’
Marc clenched his teeth. Yeah, right, this guy was really nuts. And he’d walked straight into this one.
‘You don’t like toads, I’m guessing? He won’t hurt, we talk to each other, that’s all. Bufo – that’s his name, Bufo – listen carefully. The guy I’m talking to is called Marc. He’s a relation of Vandoosler. And Vandoosler’s relatives are our relatives. He’s going to watch the doggies for us, while we go and have a bite to eat. Understand?’
Kehlweiler looked up at Marc.
‘You have to explain everything to him. He’s very dumb.’
Kehlweiler smiled and put Bufo back in his pocket.
‘Don’t look like that. It’s very useful, having a toad. You have to make things extremely simple in order to be understood, and that can be quite a relief.’
Kehlweiler smiled again. He had a special kind of smile, very infectious. Marc smiled back. He wasn’t going to be thrown by the sight of a toad. What would you look like, if you were scared of a toad? A total idiot, that’s what. Marc was scared stiff of touching a toad, yes, but he was also scared stiff of looking a total idiot.
‘Can I ask a question in exchange?’ Marc said.
‘You can ask.’
‘Why does Marthe call you Ludwig?’
Kehlweiler took his toad out of his pocket again.
‘Bufo,’ he said, ‘Vandoosler’s relative is going to be more of a bloody nuisance than we thought. What do you think?’
‘You don’t have to answer,’ said Mark weakly.
‘You’re like your uncle, you pretend, but you really want to know everything. Whereas I was told you were quite happy looking after your Middle Ages.’
‘Not quite, not always.’
‘It did surprise me, I must say. Ludwig is my name. Louis, Ludwig, one or the other, that’s the way it is, you can choose. It’s always been like that.’
Marc looked at Kehlweiler. He was stroking Bufo’s head. How ugly toads are. Gross too.
‘What are you wondering now, Marc? How old I am? You’re doing the maths?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘No need to bother. I’m fifty years old.’ Kehlweiler stood up.
‘Got it now?’ he asked. ‘Worked it out?’
‘Yes.’
‘Born in March 1945, just before the end of the war.’
Marc twisted the little beer bottle in his hands, looking down at the ground.
‘Your mother’s . . . French?’ he asked, in a neutral voice.
At the same time, Marc was thinking, that’s enough, leave him alone, what business is it of yours?
‘Yes, I’ve always lived here.’
Marc nodded. He was twisting and turning the bottle in his hands, staring down at the pavement.
‘You’re from Alsace then? Your father’s Alsatian?’
‘Marc,’ said Kehlweiler with a sigh, ‘don’t act more stupid than you are. They call me “the German”, OK? And get on with it, another dog’s coming.’
Kehlweiler left, and Marc took up the list and the pencil. ‘Middle-sized dog, don’t know what breed, no idea about that, dogs worry me, black with white patches, mongrel. Man, about sixty, balding, big ears, worn out, looks stupid, no, not stupid, coming from the rue Blainville, no tie, drags his feet, brown coat, black scarf, dog does his business, three metres from the tree grid, I think it’s a bitch, going away the other way, no, goes into the cafe, I’ll wait and see what he drinks and I’ll have the same.’
Marc went up to the counter. The man with the medium-sized dog was drinking a pastis. He was chatting, just about this and that, but Marc noted it anyway. Since he was doing something weird, might as well do it properly. Kehlweiler would be pleased, he’d have all the little details. ‘The German’, born in 1945, French mother, German father. He’d wanted to know, well, now he knew. Not everything, but he wasn’t going to torture Louis by asking whether his father was a Nazi, whether his father had been killed, or gone back across the Rhine, or whether his mother had had her head shaved at the Libération, he would ask no more questions. The hair had grown back, the boy had grown up, he had the soldier’s surname, Marc wasn’t going to ask why the mother had married a soldier from the German Army of occupation. And since then he’d been running. Marc rubbed his hand with the pencil. It tickled. And what business had he to bother Louis with all that? Everyone must have bothered him about it, and he’d done the same as the rest, no better. Above all, not a word about this to Lucien. Lucien was only doing his research on the First World War, but still.
Now he knew, and he didn’t know what to do with what he knew. OK, fifty years, it’s the past, it’s over. For Kehlweiler, of course, nothing would ever be over. That must explain his obsessions, his shadowing, his work, his perpetual movement, his art perhaps.
Marc sat down on the bench again. Oddly, his uncle hadn’t breathed a w
ord of all this to him. His uncle was chatty about little things, but discreet over serious matters. He hadn’t said Louis was known as ‘the German’, he’d said he came from nowhere in particular.
Marc picked up his notes on the dog, and crossed out ‘mongrel’. That was better. When you didn’t pay attention, you wrote a lot of things you shouldn’t.
Kehlweiler came back at about eleven thirty. By then Marc had drunk four beers and registered four medium-sized dogs. He saw Kehlweiler first give a shake to the journalist who was dozing on the other bench. Vincent, in charge of the right-wing torturer. Of course it’s more prestigious to be keeping watch on a torturer than on dog shit. So Kehlweiler had gone over to Vincent first, and he, Marc, freezing on bench 102, could go hang. He watched them talking for a while. Marc felt put out. Not much, just a little feeling of resentment, which mutated naturally into a nagging irritation. Kehlweiler was checking his benches, registering accounts, just like a lord going round his estate and questioning his serfs. Who did he think he was? Hugues de Saint-Amand-en-Puisaye? His obscure and tragic entry to the world had made him a megalomaniac, that was it. And Marc, who reacted strongly to any kind of servitude, whatever it was and wherever it came from, did not intend to snap to attention in Kehlweiler’s grand army. Signing up as a volunteer to be told what to do wasn’t for him. Let this child of World War II sort out his own messes.
Then Kehlweiler left Vincent, who went off sleepily through the streets, and started towards bench 102. Marc, who had downed five beers in all, and realised he should take them into account, felt his slight anger fade to a discreet nocturnal sulk, and finally melt into indifference. Kehlweiler sat down beside him and gave him that odd lopsided and communicative smile.
‘You’ve had a lot to drink tonight,’ he remarked. ‘That’s the problem in winter, when you’re stuck on a bench.’
What business was it of his? Kehlweiler was playing with Bufo, and was obviously a million miles from thinking, in Marc’s view, that Marc now wanted out of it again, and was ready to drop these pathetic enquiries on wooden benches, art or no art.
‘Can you hold Bufo for me? I want to get my cigarettes out.’
‘No. Your toad gives me the creeps.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Kehlweiler said, addressing Bufo. ‘He’s just saying that, without thinking. Just stay nice and quiet on the bench while I get my ciggies out. Any more dogs?’
‘Total of four. It’s all down there. Four dogs, four beers.’
‘And now you want out of it?’
Kehlweiler lit a cigarette and passed the packet to Marc.
‘You feel trapped? You think you’re obeying orders and you don’t like doing that? Nor do I. But I didn’t give you any orders, did I?’
‘No.’
‘You came along of your own accord, Vandoosler the younger. And you can leave of your own accord. Show me the list.’
Marc watched as he read the notes, looking serious again. He was in profile, hooked nose, tight-lipped, black hair flopping over his forehead. It was very easy to get irritated with the Kehlweiler profile. Face to face, much less easy.
‘Don’t bother coming tomorrow,’ said Kehlweiler. ‘On Sunday, people break their habits, they take their dogs out any old time, or worse, you might see people stroll along who don’t even live round about. That would confuse our dog list. We’ll begin again Monday afternoon, if you like, and start trailing people Tuesday. Will you be in to do the filing on Monday morning?’
‘Nothing’s changed.’
‘Look out in particular for accidents and murders of all kinds, as well as the rest.’
They parted with a wave of the hand. Marc walked slowly home, a little tired by the beer and the confused zigzag of his decisions and counter-decisions.
This went on until the next Saturday. Bench, beer, dogs to follow, cutting out articles and deciphering the accounts of Saint-Amand. Marc didn’t ask himself too many questions about the basis for what he was doing. He’d been drawn into the network surrounding the grid under the tree, and couldn’t now see how to escape it. The story interested him and, dog for dog, he wanted to understand too. He tolerated Kehlweiler’s hermetic profile, and when he’d had enough of it, made sure to look at him face to face.
On the Tuesday and Thursday, he asked for some help from Mathias who could use his skills as a prehistoric hunter-gatherer to carry out excellent tracker missions. Lucien on the other hand was far too talkative for this kind of work. He always had to express his views on everything in a loud voice and, above all, Marc was worried about bringing him face to face with a Franco-German born from the tragic chaos of World War II. Lucien would immediately have launched a full-on historical enquiry into Kehlweiler’s paternal origins, no doubt going back to the Great War, and very quickly it would have become a nightmare.
Marc had asked Mathias on the Thursday night what he thought of Kehlweiler, because he was still distrustful of him, and his godfather’s recommendation had not reassured him. His uncle had special views about the sinners on the planet, and some of his best friends were totally corrupt sinners. His uncle had once helped a murderer to escape, and indeed that was why he had been sacked from the police. But Mathias had nodded three times and Marc, who greatly respected Mathias’s silent appreciations, had been relieved. It was unusual for St Matthew to be wrong about anyone, as the elder Vandoosler had commented.
X
ON THE SATURDAY morning, Marc was at work in Kehlweiler’s bunker. He had clipped and filed as usual, and had noticed nothing remarkable among the titbits of news, just the usual accidents, and no mention anywhere of a foot. He had archived his findings, he was paid to do that anyway, but frankly, it was time that this trail from bench 102 came to an end, even if it led nowhere. He had grown used to the presence of old Marthe behind him. Sometimes she went out, sometimes she stayed in, reading quietly or racking her brain over crosswords. At about eleven, they made themselves some coffee. And Marthe took advantage of that to break the silence and chat. She too, it seemed, had been a stringer for Ludwig. But she said that nowadays she got benches mixed up, 102 and 107 for instance, she wasn’t as efficient as in the past, and that depressed her at times.
‘Here comes Ludwig,’ said Marthe.
‘How do you know?’
‘I recognise his step in the courtyard, because of his limp. Ten past eleven, that’s not his usual time. It’s this business with the dog, he’s getting worked up about it. We can’t see any rhyme or reason to it, everyone’s fed up.’
‘We’ve done complete reports. Twenty-three dog walkers out there, all nice peaceful people, nothing to be said about them. Has he always worked like this? Following up something impossible. Any old bit of dirt?’
‘Yes, always,’ said Marthe, ‘when he’s on a case. But I’m telling you, he’s got second sight. That’s how he made his name, up there in the Ministry. Sniffing out shit, that’s Ludwig’s vocation, his destiny, the trail he has to follow.’
‘Is there anything that stops him pestering people?’
‘Yes, of course. Sleep, women, wars. That adds up if you think about it. Say he wants to sleep, or to cook spaghetti, you won’t get a peep out of him, he’s completely switched off. Same with women. When his love life’s not happy, he goes round in circles, he can’t be bothered with anything. And I’m surprised he’s so hard at work, since things aren’t too good in that department just now.’
‘Ah,’ said Marc with satisfaction. ‘And wars?’
‘Oh, wars are something else again. That’s special. When he starts thinking about wars, it stops him sleeping, eating, loving or working. Not good at all for him, wars.’
Marthe shook her head as she stirred his coffee. Marc was fond of her by now. She was always pulling him up for something, as if he were her little boy – when after all, he was thirty-six years old – or as if she had brought him up. She would say, ‘An old hooker like me, you can’t pull the wool over my eyes. I know all about men.’ She said this all the
time. Marc had introduced Mathias to her, and she’d said, nice boy, a bit wild but OK, and she knew about men.
‘You’re wrong,’ said Marc, sitting back down at the desk. ‘It wasn’t Louis.’
‘Shut up, what do you know about it? He’s downstairs, talking to the painter, that’s all.’
‘I know now why you call him Ludwig. I asked him.’
‘So, are you any further forward?’ Marthe blew out some smoke disapprovingly. ‘But don’t worry, he’ll track them down, you can bank on that,’ she added grumpily, shuffling the pages of her newspaper.
Marc didn’t insist and it wasn’t a subject to tease Marthe about. He had just wanted to tell her he knew, that was all.
Kehlweiler came in, and signalled to Marc to stop filing. He pulled out a stool and sat down opposite him.
‘Lanquetot, the local police inspector, gave me an update this morning, on the local district as well as the nineteen other arrondissements. Nothing in Paris. Nor in the suburbs either, he checked. No abandoned corpses, no dead bodies discovered, no missing persons or runaways reported. Ten days since that dog left us that crap on the grid. So . . .’
Louis broke off, felt the lukewarm coffee pot, and poured himself a cupful.
‘So, the dog must have brought it in from outside Paris, further away. It’s got to be that. There’s a body out there somewhere that corresponds to our bone, and I want to know where, whatever the state of that body is, dead or alive, accident or murder.’
Yes, maybe, thought Marc, but with the whole of the provinces to deal with, and why not the rest of the planet while we’re at it, the accounts of the lord of Puisaye are not going to get much further forward. Kehlweiler would pursue this to the bitter end. Marc had a better idea now why Louis took on these kinds of mission, but he had to get out of this one.
‘Marc,’ Kehlweiler went on, ‘among our twenty-three dogs, at least one must have travelled and gone outside Paris. Look at your notes. Who travels about on a weekday, Wednesdays or Thursdays? Have you noticed anyone, man or woman, who moves around?’
