Serpentine

by Thomas Thompson

  A chauffeured limousine bore the men to a hotel, Charles and André speaking of trivialities—the weather in Paris, the new fashions, the agonies of airplane food, the sights to see in Turkey. But the moment they were alone, in Charles’ suite, the conversation turned intimate. Obviously Charles was hungry for the embrace of his own blood. He peppered André with questions: How was Song, their mother? Was the French lieutenant still suffering from headaches? What were the other children doing? Was Leyou still angry over the 6,000 francs that Charles had “borrowed” and lost at baccarat?

  André answered as best he could, then ventured a question of his own. Why was Charles using another name? The answer was vague and rambling, something about an unresolved problem with police somewhere, long ago. As Charles was now in Istanbul on a major business venture, he did not want some old sore to erupt. It seemed more appropriate to use a fictitious name for the time being. “Everyone does it in the East,” said Charles. “I know men who change their names like they change their underwear.” André laughed; if Charles said something was true, then it must be true.

  André had one other question. What of Hélène? And the baby? Charles’ face turned dark and anguish filled his eyes. He cursed his estranged wife. She had turned out to be a cheat, a deceitful woman who played around and did not take proper care of the child, said Charles. He had banished her from his life until “she gets her values in order.” It was in Charles’ plans to someday take custody of Shubra away from her mother. André murmured sympathies and support, thinking briefly that this must be the reason why Charles had summoned him to Istanbul. But he dared not venture the question. The moments in Charles’ presence were full of an eerie power. André was in the grip of a force he did not understand. The best he could do was to sit rapt and try to meet the gaze of his half-brother’s seductive eyes, worried all the while that he appeared like a clumsy, ill-prepared student at the feet of a master.

  About the suite were scattered the latest newspapers in French and English. Abruptly, as if he were a newscaster, Charles began delivering a commentary of the world’s current events—Watergate, the Socialist surge in France, the new war winds in the Middle East, the fluctuations of gold on the Swiss exchange. He rattled off the latest valuations of a dozen hard currencies. André listened open-mouthed; he had no idea that Charles was so well informed. He noticed grammar books in Russian and Chinese on a coffee table. “I’m learning those languages,” said Charles. “By the way, can you speak anything besides French?” André shook his head. A little English, a few phrases in Italian.

  “In my business, languages are money,” said Charles. He spoke French, English, German, Spanish, Italian, Vietnamese, and enough Greek and Hindi to get by. “They’re easy for me,” he went on. “It simply takes concentration. Like everything else I do.” On the floor was a large satchel from which spilled paperback books, mostly mysteries and spy yams, with a few classics. “I read them for entertainment—and homework,” explained Charles. “Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene, and Somerset Maugham have been there before me.”

  A chess set of finely carved ivory rested on a dresser, causing André to comment that he enjoyed the game. Charles quickly set up the board, destroying his half-brother in a few moves. “Do you know karate?” then asked Charles. André nodded cautiously, wondering why his brother was rummaging in all the compartments of his life. “How good are you?” asked Charles. A shrug. André said he usually went to a karate club in Paris three times a week. Charles frowned. That was not what he meant. Could André “put somebody out”? André nodded, unenthusiastically. He supposed so. But karate was just a sport to him, not a weapon.

  “Show me how good you are,” commanded Charles. They squared off, André feeling fear—there was no other word, Charles with a look of unbrotherly menace on his face, testing, measuring, criticizing, at last complimenting. Then he stretched out on the floor and ordered André to leap on his stomach and jump up and down. André declined. Charles insisted. André did as he was told, discovering that Charles’ stomach was flat, hard, muscled, impervious to hurt. “I will be doing that to your stomach in a few weeks,” said Charles.

  André went to the bathroom and washed his face with cold water. He was confused. Since the plane had landed in Istanbul, things had been out of focus. He had not seen Charles for years; now he was discovering that the brother he idolized was obviously rich, certainly well informed, estranged bitterly from his wife, using a false name, and either eccentric or well on the way to crazy. He summoned courage and bore directly to the point. What was Charles’ business? What did Charles want with him?

  “We will get to that soon,” said Charles briskly. “Come, let’s walk. I will show you Istanbul.”

  They toured the Hilton public rooms where André heard all the languages that Charles could speak. The lobby swirled with color, with wealthy women and men promenading across carpets of lime and violet. Shops offered jewels and antique statuary and carved ivory pipes and brilliantly woven carpets—a bazaar, but a sterile one, with no dirt, or odor, or necessity to haggle. On a terrace off the lobby, Charles gestured at the city, to the Bosporus, to the minarets and looming domes of the great mosques that reared up like ghosts from gray mists and smoky dusk. “They think they are Europeans here,” said Charles, “but they are really Asian. Rather like me.” Charles led André through an English pub in the hotel basement, into a scarlet-walled cocktail lounge where an American girl sang listless pop, finally to a casino operated by Italians and crowded with tanned men in dark glasses and lovely women with restless eyes. “Recently I won so much money at baccarat here,” whispered Charles, “that the house got worried and sent in a beautiful girl to sit beside me and distract me. It did not work.” While they spoke, André noticed two casino officials looking at Charles and murmuring to one another. Obviously his brother caused a stir in this moneyed chamber.

  Now it was dark; a full day had spun by. But André was not weary. Just being with his brother charged him with energy. He found himself walking obediently down a cobblestone lane, heavy with darkness and forbidding shadows, toward a dimly lit building. Charles was taking him to Istanbul’s leading hamami, Turkish bath. In cavernous rooms whose marble walls and vaulted ceilings glistened with moisture like the bodies of the men who lay on slabs beneath them, Charles and André underwent the rite of cleansing. First was a massage that veered on sadism; the masseurs pummeling their bodies to the threshold of pain, twisting and bending limbs like pretzels, kneading muscles so tightly that André feared he would cry out in pain. But beside him Charles lay immobile, no expression save that of an observateur, watching for a flicker of weakness in André. The masseurs took them to another room, made them sit on the floor beside large marble basins, attacked their lean, nude, muscled bodies with stiff brushes and rough cloths and strong soaps, drenching them a dozen times until their skins glowed pink and new. A giant wandered past, one of the masseurs, with a mustache like raven wings and shoulders broad enough to prohibit entry through most doorways. Charles nudged André. Could he put that man out? “I don’t think so,” said André truthfully. Charles smiled. “Neither could I,” he said. “Not with karate. But there are other ways.”

  Later, when the night was old, Charles and André walked through a covered flower market hidden in a maze of tiny streets, merchants offering spectacular arrays of tulips more rich in color and texture than any in Holland, roses with petals more creamy than from any English garden. Down an alley was a jumble of open air cafes where thousands of men were gathered, smoking strong cigarettes, drinking liters of dark, bitter beer, dipping tiny crayfish into bowls of spiced yoghurt, summoning vendors to buy pistachio nuts and toasted almonds and potato chips just lifted from vats of grease and fried oysters on a stick. Counters bent under heavy bowls of figs and sugared dates and rich pastries drowned in honey and toasted coconut. The air was rich with men laughing. A bear danced for coins. Blackbirds perched under ancient gables and swooped down to steal food from unattenti
ve diners. Music from a score of cafes dueled to be heard.

  Charles found a table and ordered two teas. He did not drink liquor or wine, nor did he smoke. He could not afford vices, he informed André. The younger man was struck by the total absence of women. The swirling street of cafes was a club for men. Why? “Turks leave their women at home,” explained Charles. “Turkish men only trust Turkish men. It’s not a bad idea. Women are betrayers.” As they sipped their tea, Charles studied the men around him, remarking now and then on personalities, seemingly speculating on whether this man was a failure, or this man destined for success, or why this man looked so desperately unhappy. André was spellbound. What he was hearing was not idle cocktail party talk, but what he took to be a precise psychological capsule of complete strangers.

  “Psychology is very important to me,” said Charles. “It is the principal weapon in my business. I use psychology like stupid people use guns.”

  Throughout the longest night of his life, André listened while his brother spoke of psychology. Charles said his education had not really begun until he entered Poissy Prison. Had André heard of his incarceration? The younger man nodded discreetly. He had been present the night Félix first came to the house in Marseilles and a detective had taken the place of his father in bed. At that, Charles smiled.

  He had come to believe, said Charles, that into each life is placed a series of tests. They are shocks, they are crises, they are turning points. And if a man is weak, and succumbs to these tests, then he is crippled for life, imprisoned by stupidity and lack of understanding. “I have had many shocks,” said Charles, “and from each of them I have learned.” Destiny had teased him unmercifully, said Charles, but he was no longer afraid of it.

  His study of many psychologists, particularly Jung and Nietzsche, had taught him to discern easily, usually at first meeting, the kind of personality a person possessed. He had spent all of this day and night studying his half-brother, said Charles, and he was pleased. He found André to be “Non-Emotive, Active Secondary.” André’s face showed blankness. That meant, instructed Charles, that his little brother was reasonably independent, open to challenge, probably a bit of an egotist. Correct? André nodded dumbly.

  “As for me,” said Charles, “I am Emotive and Active Secondary. That type of personality usually obtains ‘the highest place’ in society—bank directors, presidents, world leaders. This is not conceit,” said Charles, and André would always remember the words. “I know who I am. I know my limits, my talents. I never fool myself. I may cheat others, but I never cheat myself.”

  He delivered a parenthetical sermon on how André must never be submissive. He must never be a “follower” in life. There are inferior beings and superior beings, instructed Charles, and it does not necessarily come with birth and conditioning. For a long time he blamed his troubles on parents and early life. Then he realized that these experiences could strengthen, not weaken, that he could use everything that ever happened to him.

  Charles instructed his half-brother to read a good biography of Adolf Hitler, “not for approval of the man, but to understand how one person achieved such power. He was a little man, ugly, but he almost captured the world …”

  Some people are unlucky from the moment of conception, reasoned Charles. They are condemned from the moment they come into the world. They are told this, and they begin to believe it, then they accept it, then they die. And no one cares. No one remembers. “The inferior being cannot overcome the feeling that life has cheated him. This does not have to be true. You can change your destiny. You can wrestle with fate. Trust me. I will prove it to you.”

  At that, André felt a chill. He knew that the moment of revelation was near. Now he was feeling the clamp of fatigue, but Charles rattled on, as fresh as the approaching morn. Walking to the window and looking out at the mauve glow that would soon push away the night, a new sun coming out of Asia with its gift of light and warmth for Europe, Charles waited until the sky was red, until his face glowed scarlet. “You probably think I am egocentric,” he said softly. “Of course I am. It is not an attractive quality perhaps, but I accept it and live with it … I am also an adventurer. How many people lie down in their graves without having felt one drop of excitement in their blood?”

  Charles turned and beckoned André to join him at the window. Together they looked out at the crossroads of two continents. “I need you, little brother,” whispered Charles. “I need my own blood beside me. Will you join me?”

  There was not a moment’s hesitation. André would look back and remember that he did not wait a microsecond before nodding his assent.

  “Good,” said Charles. “Tomorrow we begin.”

  “Begin what?” asked André.

  “My business is quite simple,” answered Charles. “I am a thief.”

  André plunged into a quick but thorough training program. First there was the basic matter of appearance. Charles took him to a tailor and ordered suits cut elegantly, in dark blue or anonymous gray, comforming to his dictum that for this line of work André should be well dressed but not conspicuous. Next he dictated a list of newspapers, magazines, and travel books to devour, so as to enrich his conversational capacity. Within two days, André could pass a test on the splendors of Istanbul, from the emeralds in the Topkapi Museum to the hours open to a non-Muslim for visiting the Blue Mosque. And, over and over again, Charles defined the demands of the work: Andrés job was to meet prospective victims. It was absurdly easy. These people are usually on holiday. They are keyed up, far away from home, grateful for any kindness, thrilled when they meet someone who speaks their language. French people are especially happy to find someone who speaks French, as they consider non-French speaking people to be barbarians. You meet people by asking for a light for your cigarette, or striking up a casual conversation in a bar, or making some idle comment about the weather or something interesting you have seen or someplace you plan to go. Once the connection is made, then you find out the person’s interest in life. First the line of work, then his or her weakness. And this must be accomplished in the first few minutes of conversation. The trick is to hook the person into spending an evening with you. If it’s a man and he wants girls, okay. You know where to find girls. The best girls. If it’s a woman and she wants to pat you on the leg, surrender slowly before purring like a lapdog. If it’s jewelry, fine. You know the most attractive bargains in Istanbul, at least 50 per cent cheaper than anywhere else. Hashish? Certainly. You know where to buy the best—discreetly. Queers? Sure, you play the game—up to a certain point. It all comes down, taught Charles, to discovering the vice—the French word is défaut—as quickly as possible, and in normal conversation without going out of bounds. One never just comes out and asks, “Do you want girls?” Or “Do you want to buy hashish?” That is the territory of a cheap hustler. André was to appear as a respectable, responsible tourist, as a businessman with sophistication and connections. Once confidence was established, then an evening of dinner and entertainment could be undertaken.

  And with the forbidden fruit dangling in temptation before the victim, the night traditionally concluded with the administering of enough sedatives—usually Valium or Mogadon, a colorless and tasteless potion to induce sleep—so the money, valuables, and travel documents could be appropriated in return for all this splendid care and attention. In the vernacular of Interpol, Charles was a “drug and rob” man, whose ancestors went back to antiquity.

  Charles had one hard and fast rule, inviolate: he would not use anything that could later be used in evidence. That meant no weapons. No guns. No knives. And, paramount, no drugs. “Do not use them or deal in them,” insisted Charles. Promise them, but never fulfill the promise. Horror stories rained on André’s ears concerning Western youths who were rotting in jails from Istanbul to Singapore for stupid traffic in drugs.

  Each morning the brothers arose early and took an hour’s karate practice before breakfast, concluding by jumping on one another’s stomac
hs and kicking hard into crotches shielded by pillows. Within a few days, André felt equal to Charles in both prowess and strength and looked forward to proving to his older brother that his muscles were well toned.

  Next, a light meal of fresh juice and fruit, a lean sliver of meat, a handful of vitamins. Then a drill on current events. Who was H. R. Haldeman? What was Richard Nixon’s defense posture on Watergate? What was the Swiss franc worth? What was Saigon now called? Who was Atatürk? How does one fly from Cyprus to Athens? What is the dispute over Cyprus, anyway? What is the standard price of a four-by-six Moroccan carpet? How does one deal with a traveler’s stomach? What are top American television shows? Who is Al Pacino? Where does the Shah of Iran ski each winter? André read deep into each night—Time and Newsweek and the Times of London and the Paris Herald Tribune, laboriously consulting his French-English dictionary, dreading the quiz that Charles would put him through. They spoke now only in English, total immersion, and within two weeks André was reasonably conversant.

  André also learned that in addition to the Dutch bodyguard and Pierre le Premier, who were in another hotel and lounging around waiting to be called, Charles had others on his payroll. They included sumptuous young women who were willing to drape themselves over the arms of prospective victims and withdraw discreetly at the moment that Charles laced a cocktail with five Valiums. Usually the girls were French or American, and André found them to be attractive, chic, and intelligent. Years later, André would recall how easily Charles recruited the bait:

  “He had extraordinary power over women. Give Charles a few hours around a girl and even if she were convent educated and the daughter of a police inspector, she would usually do what Charles asked her to do. He represented mystery, intrigue, romance. He was a woman’s fantasy of one moment of adventure—and danger.”